#my mind went to the original photo when I saw the scene

[eddiernunson]

Really Drives Me Mad | EX-bfs dad!Eddie Munson x Reader | 18+

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Word Count: 12.8k

Big big thank you to @forget-you-morelike-fuck-you for editing for me I appreciate it, bestie

Another big thank you to @bebe07011 for spitting ideas and giving feedback.

Warnings: Degradation/praise, eating out, public sex, daddy kink, and several scenes where smut is mentioned but not described. There is about 1k of words just from Dylan's perspective but its worth it trust me.

Eddie is a bit of a sugar daddy in this part, but its ok cause we all want him to spoil us anyway.

Author's note: Some of y'all are gonna make me cry with how kind you are with your words for this fic. I cannot believe how much this story has truly taken over my life. People have expressed sharing it with friends and I just cannot get over that. Thank you.

-

Your hands held a home-made cocktail on ice while The Princess Diaries played on the tv, a soft blanket covered your crossed legs as you sat with both Sky and Bethany in your living room, scattered along your couch.

Bethany often snuck a joint or two while she visited, the window staying open to minimize a smell with a 20-dollar fan in front of it to promote air circulation. It was nice to have a girls’ night, to order bags of chips and candy over SkiptheDishes, wear face masks, do your makeup for the hell of it, and just let loose.

Bethany made her way over about a movie and a half ago, and she was now explaining a stupid mishap from her office administrative position that quite literally pulled the company to a halt for 45 minutes. “I swear, you could not pay me enough to put up with those drivers.” She claims, taking an inhale from the joint in her two painted fingers.

Sky makes a sudden movement in her seat, reaching to the remote next to her to pause the movie. “Holy shit. Did I tell you I saw Eddie?” Her question is directed across you to Bethany, and you’re left wondering why the hell your boyfriend is the new topic of discussion.

“Wait, what?” Bethany asks, wide green eyes moving back and forth between you and Sky. “When and where?”

“Our date?” You interject her, a little weirded out by the turn this conversation has taken. “When Eddie picked me up, she was here.”

“Oh, I see.” She hums to herself. “Well, since she won’t show us a photo, please tell me what the man who’s old enough to be her father looks like.”

You roll your eyes at this, a cheeky thought occurring to you. “Well Dylan might be great; but he is a sequel. Ain’t nothing compared to the original.”

Sky nods, agreeing. “Eddie is… very good looking.” You shoot her a warning look, for some reason, her just alluding to his good looks makes you feel territorial. “Show her a picture if you don’t want to hear it, damn! Just telling the truth…”

“It’s not that I won’t show you guys,” you explain, unlocking your phone. “It’s that he doesn’t use social media, so he has no good photos of himself.” On the internet, at least.

“What, no throw back photos from Dylan’s insta?” Sky asks, mostly joking.

You go to Dylan’s insta, and you can’t view it. Fuck, you forgot. He blocked you. Even though he seems to be on better terms with you, simple reminders like being blocked from his social media or him refusing to tell any details about his life remind you he’s still nursing a healing wound. “Still blocked.” You look up, and their faces tell you they’re not letting up on it. “Fine. I’ll go to Eddie’s Facebook.”

Eddie added you as a friend the day after your date, adorably waiting as you went on your phone to accept it. The moment you did he went onto your profile and dove into your photos. His eyes were comically wide as he scrolled through them, and after the first few swipes he lifted his head to you. “You just put these on here? Fuck.” The photos weren’t even particularly bad, just you in a bikini on the beach or in a summer dress, he’s just that obsessed with you. You asked him if he minded and he shook his head comically, his dimples so prominent from his wide smile, he looked manic. “Oh, I never said to stop, sweetheart.”

Your thumb slides into Eddie’s profile, and while you were afraid of the calls from a judgemental relative about the relationship with him the word single on his relationship status still hits you hard in the chest. You move to his photos, past the useless profile picture that was his company logo of Munson’s Garage and swipe through the regular posts, past Dylan’s graduation from college, from high school, a picture of a nice car, an old one of his ex with Dylan, (barf), until you finally got through to a throwback, one posted in 2011.

It was taken in the 90s, so a picture of a picture of him sitting at an old kitchen table arm in arm with another dude. One of his feet was up on the table, and he was clutching a beer, lifting it to the camera. His friend was talking to someone off camera, distracted for the moment, his slightly freckled face in a scowl. His friend had brown hair down to his neck styled specifically in a swoop, and they seemed about the same age.

His friend was quite attractive, but younger Eddie made you fucking drool. God, he was so gorgeous. He wore a leather jacket under a denim vest, ripped blue jeans over his big black boots. Fuck. You almost didn’t want to share this photo.

You go to the next photo, and a giggle leaves your mouth as you see him posing with a friend, tongues out and devil horns on their heads as smiles peek through. The background is a stage at an Iron Maiden concert, and they both look ecstatic. It’s a different friend in this one with curly hair, but it looked like he had posted from the Iron Maiden concert. A few more scrolls told you that the throwback photo would be the best option.

“Ok.” You finally say, and both girls have been waiting so long at this point they’ve started scrolling on their own phones. “Guys. You wanna see it or not?”

You hand your phone to Bethany, indicating he was the one on the right. The possessiveness that hits you when you see her reaction, her wide eyes and jaw literally dropping, stunted you. “Holy shit. This is him from how long ago?”

“In the late 90s, I guess.” You tell her.

She hands the phone to Sky, who was asking for it repeatedly as soon as Bethany let out her reaction. “Oh, yeah. He was a cutie. Honestly, he’s hotter now.” Your teeth grit, and you take a deep breath in to calm yourself.

“How?” Bethany asks, gesturing to your phone.

“Ok. Enough. He’s very good looking. But he’s fucking taken.” You bark out, holding your hand out for the phone.

They both stop talking, your sudden anger very uncharacteristic of you. Usually when you find someone particularly good looking, you’d show them off, agreeing with your two friends when they would praise their good looks. This wasn’t anything like those times. Hearing their praises just makes you want to sink your teeth into Eddie’s neck and mark your territory the next time you see him.

“Woah, girl.” Sky says, laughing lightly to diffuse the tension. “Never seen that side of you before.”

“Well, I didn’t even know she existed until a waitress looked at Eddie on our date and I wanted to throttle her,” You admit, grabbing the nearly empty cocktail and taking a sip. “I just…I don’t know why I’m so territorial over him, but God, the thought of him with someone else makes me sick to my stomach.”

Bethany holds her hands up in surrender, “Alright, we won’t compliment him anymore. But you did good, girl. You did mighty good.”

-

As per usual, the girls'-day-in resulted in the three of you falling asleep in the living room, blankets and pillows scattered across the three of you. The sun cascading through a window by the couch wakes you up, disgruntled, as you pat around for your phone. The screen greets you harshly, your notifications indicating you have three messages from Eddie, two from a manager at work, and the several random ones, which you clear out, not caring about Instagram stories for the moment. Eddie texted to say he was going into work for a few hours. The next two messages indicated if you were there when he got home, he wouldn’t be against it.

Basically, he just told you to please be there when he got home. Fuck, the feeling of him reaching out first was enough to send a wide smile to your face, staring stupidly at your phone. You message him back, letting him know you’ll be there.

The messages from your manager were one from two hours ago, asking if you’d be able to come in for 10 o’clock– Which was thirty-five minutes ago– and the second asked if you were able to come in at all. You quirk your eyebrow, glad your read receipts are off for her, because you’re planning now to text at 3 o'clock to let her know that, oops, you just saw this. No, you’re not going in on your day off, you’ll be spending it with your ridiculously hot boyfriend.

You leap from your couch, running into your room to pack another overnight bag. You’re out the door before the others even stir.

As you pull into Eddie’s driveway, you notice Dylan’s truck there, but Eddie’s is still gone. You wonder when he’ll be back, because although Dylan is civil towards you, interactions with him are still stunted. You open the front door, grateful Dylan tended to leave it unlocked. You drop your overnight bag and pillow off at the staircase, its usual spot, before you trot off to the living room where Dylan sits watching tv.

As you plop down next to him on the other side of the couch, Dylan looks to you, startled by the movement, but his eyes roll in exasperation when he realizes that it’s you. “Hi.” You sing-song to him, knowing you’re annoying him, but having fun with it anyways.

“Hey.” He deadpans, watching the tv instead of looking over to you.

“Oh, wow you’re almost caught up.” You say, indicating to a show that you had recommended he watched a while back.

“Turned out to be a good show.” He comments, sounding annoyed.

“Well, how about that?” You retort, and Dylan rolls his eyes before a small smile lands on his face.

Progress.

Less than an hour later, the front door closes, indicating Eddie’s homecoming. He walks in, and as you pay attention to a particularly good episode in this series, you hear a big stretch come from him. “Hi, Ed!” You call out, finally turning towards him.

Fuck. Holy shit.

A few grease stains paint Eddie’s hands and chin, and he’s wearing a pair of blue coveralls from work with a patch on his chest of his name. The grease monkey suit shows off his muscles beautifully, both sleeves rolled up to his forearms. His hair is tied back into a messy bun, and you’re sure he forgot about the reading glasses on his head. Oh god, he is mouth watering.

A throw pillow hits your face, completely startling you. You whip your head around, glaring at  the culprit. “Little drool.” Dylan mouths, pointing to his chin.

“Oh, little drool?” You mock, getting up to hit him with the pillow hard. He chuckles, fighting you off.

You push his shoulder off, shuffling into the kitchen. You turn to see Eddie moving around the kitchen, making himself a quick sandwich. “Hi baby!” You greet him, reaching out for him.

“Oh, hi baby.” He says, following up with an air kiss. He breaks into laughter at your scowl. “Sorry, you don’t want this grease on you. It smells terrible and it’s not fun to wash off.”

“But there’s no grease on your lips.” You point out, staring at those pretty pink lips of his.

“Baby, I cannot kiss you without touching you and there is grease all over my hands.” He chuckles, holding them out.

You want to point out that he’s getting things dirty with grease in the kitchen, including his sandwich, by his own logic, but you have a feeling you won’t get away with it very easily. “Fine. Come see me when you’ve had a shower then.” You tell him, attempting to waddle back to the living room.

“Ah, ah.” Eddie tuts, grabbing your hand. “Come with me, after I shower, I need time with you in my bed.”

“In your bed? Or, in your bed?” You ask, your eyebrows furrowing suggestively at the second option.

“If you didn’t know the answer by now, clearly I haven’t done my job right.” He says in a lowly, his eyes darkening in an instant.

Eddie turns around to the sandwich he made as if he hadn’t said a word, grabbing it quickly before tugging on your hand to take you up the stairs.

He hops into the shower, you scroll through your phone on his bed as you wait, somewhat impatiently, your panties already uncomfortable from his stroll into the house in his work uniform.

Fuck, he was hot. You thought about him. His muscles, the slight glisten of sweat, and your phone was tossed aside before you even realized your hands were roaming over your body. You close your eyes, the image of him busy at work on his back on one of those…rolly things in your head. His forearms flexing, the look of concentration on his face.

Your hands itch for your center and you can barely hold back anymore, thankful you opted for a pair of stretchy shorts. Your fingers graze your center easily, rolling around in small circles as you picture the easy access his coveralls would give you, showing up with a dress and no panties and just riding him in his office. Fuck, maybe you wouldn’t even make it there. Goddamn, the images were too hot, your panties finding their way around your ankles as you grind up against your own fingers.

“Fuck.”

Your eyes fling open to see your boyfriend in his towel. You were so wrapped up you didn’t even notice the water from his shower turn off. He’s staring, open mouthed and eyes dark, and Jesus… This was a fantasy of yours from the beginning. You continue, staring half lidded back at him, hand grabbing up at his bed frame when it started to feel so fucking good.

Eddie’s towel drops when his brain catches up, jumping into his bed to lay next to you. “Couldn’t even wait, huh?” He asks, and you let out a whimper as he lightly kisses your neck. “Just couldn’t fucking wait.”

“You were so hot—” you gasp out, moving faster on yourself now. “—in that goddamn uniform. Wanna…wanna ride you in it.”

The very indication that you were playing with yourself because you found him that hot in his uniform is too much for Eddie to process. He nearly moans, leaning for another kiss on your neck. His hands are itching to help you, itching to take off the rest of those clothes that hide your gorgeous body, but he holds back, needing to know more about it. “What—what were you thinkin’ ‘bout, baby?”

“You, in the uniform…” you tell him, your hips starting to move when your want grows. Why isn’t he helping?

“C’mon, baby. I wanna touch you but I just gotta know.” Eddie tells you, his voice gruff.

A gulp moves through your throat before opening your mouth to tell him. “Your dick out of the uniform, and me with no panties and a dress at your shop, riding you anywhere…your office, the rolly thing, god, just you in that uniform…Ed…”

Goddammit, was that an idea Eddie certainly had before. He has wanted to show you around his workplace, but also christen it with you, and he had had the exact idea with his uniform and you in a dress, to boot. “Fuck, my horny, eager little slut, hey?” Eddie asks, watching your closed eyes as you continue to work yourself.

“Please…please touch me?” You ask him, the torture of his voice there but not actually helping you is too much. “Want…want you.”

“Hmm. Horny little slut didn’t wait for me…I dunno if she even deserves my help.” He bluffs, wanting nothing more than to reach out and feel the slick of your wet pussy.

You nearly cry out in protest, not calling him on his bluff. “I’m sorry, couldn’t help myself…you’re just so…fuck…you’re so fucking hot, Ed.”

He leans in to kiss you and you accept it gratefully, a smile against his lips. As his lips move against yours, deepening the kiss to easily work his tongue against yours, his hands land on yours against your pussy delicately, gently pulling your fingers to the side. He slides a digit in and you whimper into his mouth, your hips thrusting up. “Oh, so fucking desperate.” You nod your head, agreeing with him. You’re desperate for more. Even with Eddie on your mind, your fingers never even compared to his.

He leans into your neck, the scent of his aftershave and body wash strong but oh-so-goddamn good. He slides your shirt up your torso smoothly with his free hand and pulls it from your neck fiercely. You feel his hand somewhat desperately go around your back to unhook your bra, and as it falls casually over the edge onto the floor, he moans at the sight of your exposed tit, your nipple just begging to be touched.

He leans in to mouth the bud, and you whimper at the sensation. He pauses, breathing heavily and open mouthed onto it. You gasp, his hot breath sending waves down your body. “Fuck, so pretty.” Eddie mutters to himself, dark eyes watching your face as you get closer.

A desperate hand of yours tugs him up to your face, desperate for more of his wet and hypnotizing kisses. “Fuck me.” You gasp, suddenly feeling that his fingers weren’t enough. “Need…need your cock. Please.”

Eddie’s mouth opens at the prospect of you simply begging for him, and you can feel a shift in his energy as he starts to kiss you deeper and hungrier. “When you beg so sweetly, how could I possibly say no?” He hums, his hand framing your face.

He finishes yanking the last of your pants off your ankles. As he settles himself in between your legs, he can’t help himself. He leans down, taking one long lick along your folds, for just a taste. You whimper in response, knees springing up to your chest. Eddie chuckles, crawling up slowly until his chest lines up with yours, the tingle of him against you too much to handle. Slowly, he moves into you, and as he stretches you open, your eyes roll back and your toes curl. Eddie watches the utter bliss that takes over your face.

“Oh that beautiful face you make, sweetheart.” He grunts, smoothing his hands over your forehead. His words make you pulse around him. “This fucking tight little pussy wrapped around—” he stops, grunting as you continue to pulse around him. One hand moves down to your hip, caressing it softly he uses the leverage to buck into you.

A hushed swear comes out of you, the simple pleasure from his cock alone sending you into euphoria. Eddie continues slowly, enjoying every inch of your heat around him. “Your pussy…god how did I live without it?”

You clutch onto him, staring up into his darkened brown eyes. You open your mouth to respond in kind, but the particularly harsh rut into you leaves your mouth gasping open and your eyes fluttering shut in pure heaven. “Oh, that’s it.” He mutters, hips moving faster. “That’s my cock-drunk little whore.”

Your nails scratch down his back, and he moans in response. “Eddie, your cock. There’s…I…please.”

“I-I know, baby. I know.”

He collapses onto your chest, and you feel his cock twitch into you as your orgasm takes over your body. His hand carefully sweeps your sweaty forehead as he watches you recover, your eyes losing their haze as you return to earth. “Hi.” He mutters, leaning in to kiss you softly.

“Hi.” You smile. For once, he does take his dick out of you right away, despite your protests. However, you can’t protest any further when he comes back and wraps his arms around you with his chest pressed against your back, his still steadying breaths lulling you into a quiet nap.

Somehow, you know that his arms are always going to be the best place in the world.

-

About an hour later, you’re snuggled against his side, legs intertwined as Eddie watches his show and you work on a crossword puzzle. “What’s a six-letter word for angry?” You ask him, stumped for a good minute.

“Uh…grumpy? Heated? Hmm…raging?”

“Raging! Fuck, I couldn’t get that one. Thanks, baby.” You tell him, receiving a kiss on the head as a response. “Why’d you go in for work, Ed?”

“Other than making my baby horny?” He jokes, muttering it into your hair. “Well, one of my best-known clients called and my men know that when he calls, they need to call me in, because his car is just—” he cuts himself off, holding out the OK sign. He continues talking about the mechanics/politics of handling a car like this in his job. The caliber, the horsepower, the specialized engine, and everything else.

It’s not like you know a whole lot about cars. Most of what he is saying comes out as gibberish. But you listen to him, watching as he gets more and more animated, his hands gesturing wildly as he excitedly explains his morning. You watch him, a soft smile creeping up your face as he describes…what, you weren’t even sure, to you.

He stops as he notices the peculiar look on your face, your eyes glazed over. “What?” he asks, wondering if you caught even a word of his story.

“I love you.” It comes out before you even realize. But it’s true.

With your whole chest, you love him.

Eddie inhales sharply, and he looks at you like you had placed each star in the sky just for him. Because you did. “I-I’ve been wanting to say that to you since I first saw you.”

His words feel both impossible and like they make the most sense in the entire world. Because since day one, you have been captivated by him in every sense imaginable. Taking the time to get to know, see and love every inch of him before recognizing that yes, this is love.

This all occurs to you within a second, because Eddie’s hand is framing your face and you feel his lips on yours, deep and caring to a point that takes your goddamn breath away. Your tongue collides with his, and his fingers are so gentle as they cradle your face it barely feels like he’s holding it. He tastes so good, like the air you breathe is suddenly useless, and all you need to do is breathe him. His fingers intertwine in your hair, he gasps as his forehead collides with your own, clinging onto you for dear life.

“Will you say it?” You ask, realizing he still hasn’t.

“I fucking love you.” He says in a low, soft voice. He uses a hand to force you back and you open your eyes to look into his beautiful brown ones. “I love you.”

Your chest inflates rapidly, like all the emotion just bursts into it. A giggle escapes your lips, the smile on your face seeming to be permanently etched there. He tugs you into the tightest hug, and you feel his heart beat rapidly against your own as your arms fling themselves around his torso, burying your head in his neck.

God, it’s like you fit perfectly there.

He slouches down, ignoring the book you dropped and the forgotten tv show, and lays you down, chest to chest, his arms wrapped around you as you curl into his chest. He nestles his nose into your hair, breathing you in, feeling the breath, the life in you as you breathe in sync with him.

Any sense of time, responsibilities, or the outside world become muted and pale in comparison.

It’s just you and him.  

-

The sizzling sounds of bacon for dinner mixed with Eddie’s humming to some oldies fill the kitchen. Every time he turns around from the stove to grab something, he shoots you a smile that captivates his face, something that you wholeheartedly return each time. The acknowledgement that this is love somehow didn’t feel like it had tied you to anything or that any new expectations were put on either one of you. You simply want his company and he, yours.

You scroll through your phone absentmindedly, though the sight of his hips in his low sitting sweatpants are much more enticing than anything your phone’s algorithms have to show you. Playfully, Eddie keeps dancing a little too hard to the music, head banging and swinging his hips to even the softest of Dad Rock.

God, it’s Heaven. As Eddie serves up a few plates, Dylan comes down dressed in one of his better date night outfits.

“Ooh, hot date?” You ask him, leaning forward onto the kitchen island.

Dylan’s brows furrow, stopping mid stride. “Yeah. Not talking to you about that. You’re still my ex. And you’re still seeing my dad. Weirdo.”

Eddie sends a glare his way, eyes darkening in a split second. Dylan rolls his eyes, sneaking around him to grab a bite of bacon. Ignoring it, Eddie places a plate in front of you with eggs, bacon and toast, and you thank him as he leans in for a kiss.

“Love you.” Eddie mutters, and you smile into his lips and feel him do the same.

“L-love?” Dylan spits out, his voice exasperated. He shakes his head, still chewing on the bacon. “Fuck right off.”

“Dyl.” Eddie starts, leaning forward as he takes a bite from his toast. He has a devious smile on his face, chewing on his idea. “Quiet. The adults are talking.”

If you had expected something out of pocket, it certainly wasn’t that.

The brown eyes Dylan shares with his father widen in pure exasperation. “What?? Dad, I’m six months older than her!”

You barely keep in the laughter that bubbles out of your chest. Eddie grins at you and lets out his own chuckle. “That’ll teach you to be an ass, huh?”

Dylan doesn’t respond, just grits his teeth and yanks one more piece of bacon before leaving through the front door.

-

Dylan Munson got dealt a dirty fucking hand from whoever the fuck is in charge of this shit.

It was only a mere nine weeks ago when you made your way across the mixer to say hi to him that he thought things were going his way. The more he saw you, the more he thought that this had to be leading to something. It made sense to him, but as he had started mentioning long term plans or anything of the like, he could feel you clam up. Every time he mentioned something requiring commitment, your shoulders tensed up, your face winced by only a smidge, but when it became a regular occurrence, Dylan realized you might not have been ready as you thought you were.

He was willing to accept it. So, he took matters into his own hands. Honestly, he would’ve been fine paying the daily fee for parking, but he knew his dad was there, and he was excited to introduce you to him. Boy, what a shit show that turned out to be.

As he woke up to an empty bed, he had expected you to be downstairs. Instead, he was faced with a bowl of cereal without the milk, and he couldn’t tell how long it had been there. He searched the whole house. Your bag, clothes, and shoes were still there, so he knew you couldn’t have gone far. Turns out, he was right. You didn’t. You went two doors down from his own.

The sight of you and his fucking dad in the white sheets was already too much to bear, and then the stab of betrayal from his own father hurt more the initial shock of yours, tugging angry tears from his eyes as he ran to his room. The torture of hearing your whimpers, a sound he knew well, while downstairs trying to cheer himself up was fucking brutal.

When you finally left, his dad came home with a terribly apologetic look on his face as he walked through the front door. Dylan refused to hear a damn word out of his mouth, dismissing all his claims of ‘holding back as long as he could’ and ‘I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone before.’ Shit just hurt.

A day later, Dylan couldn’t hold it in anymore. He screamed at the top of his lungs, the anger finally kicking in. His dad did yell back, but mostly at the choice words aimed at you. It hurt for a moment, as it felt like he cared more about someone he had met last week, his (now ex) girlfriend.

When you and his dad showed no signs of slowing or stopping any time soon, he realized this would become a new normal. Didn’t mean he liked it.

He came home after a relatively long day at work to you and his dad sitting and watching a movie comfortably. His knee jerk reaction was to swear angrily, but the look on your face stuck with him. You had never relaxed with him. You were always looking around corners or there was some part in your body unable to lean into him completely.

As you apologized awkwardly on his bed, his hurt finally felt acknowledged by you, and fuck, he needed to hear that he didn’t do anything wrong. He genuinely started to wonder if he did.

Most of his nights he spent going out, his friends asking where the hot new girlfriend he was bragging about now was. He just said you cheated on him and it was over and they called you a bitch and moved on.

Yes, even Ethan. (The one friend you actually liked)

He drowned his sorrows in alcohol, always making his way back to the house where his ex was expected to be at any given time. God, it was so shit.

After your apology, though, he had to admit, you looked good together. It seemed like his dad’s smile just hadn’t left his face for days, and goddamn, was it annoying to admit that you were good for him. That remaining anger seemed to itch at him, unable to forgive or forget, a buried hatchet with an X to mark the spot.

Ethan eventually brought his girlfriend to boys’ night out, which was met with disgruntled groans from the collective group. Ethan’s girlfriend invited a friend who would be joining, and Dylan fought hard not to roll his eyes.

An hour into the night, a drink, and a few good dances in, Ethan’s girlfriend brought her in, and Dylan stopped dead in his tracks. Okay, no one said she would be fucking gorgeous.

If Dylan thought you were out of his league, then Maya wasn’t even playing the same game. His heart pounded out of his chest, and he knew he had to grab this girl a drink and get her number, now. As he pulled into an easy conversation with her, the hairs stood on his arms as it felt electric just being near her.

Maya met his enthusiasm, agreeing to a date within the first hour of conversation with him. One of his buddies mentioned Dylan had been cheated on by his most recent girlfriend, and Maya was floored. If any girl was lucky enough to have him, how could they even think of cheating?

As Dylan rode home in the backseat of his friend’s truck, drunk on her undivided attention and, well, plain ol’ drunk, something his dad had said came to mind. “I can’t explain it, I just had to know her. In every sense of the word.”

He felt the same way about Maya. Everything about her drew him in. Her smell, the way her jeans hugged her hips, the shine of her red hair. God, she was fucking beautiful.

As he smelled bacon on the way down the stairs, he decided to grab a piece on his way out to his first date with Maya, jitters galore. You asking him about the date was kind, but still too weird for him to gush about the gorgeous girl from the bar he met when that ‘gorgeous girl’ was once you.

Love you, his dad said. The word struck him, it occurred to him he doesn’t truly understand how much you and his father cared for one another. The L word didn’t come easily to Munson men, after all. Dylan walked to his car, disgruntled as the interaction rolled over in his mind.

What a mess he would be bringing her home to, if he ever got lucky enough.

-

Since you worked the next day, you had to go home for the night. The lingering kisses at Eddie’s door were too much to bear.

Too much for Eddie, too. You get a text about twenty minutes after you get home, Need you.

You grit your teeth, you need him, too. Working four days in a row sounds manageable, at least it usually does. Without Eddie to come home to or to wake up with, it’s nearly torture. You ignore Skylar’s comment of codependency. Fuck co-dependency, it isn’t that you depend on him too much, you just need him too much. You need to come home to him, to sit and watch tv with him… It’s the domestic bliss you miss.

Somehow, just reading a book at the end of the night without his even breaths has you on edge. You shoot him a text letting him know you’d be there soon.

As you walk through the doorway of Eddie’s house, he welcomes you and you hop into his arms, inhaling his shampoo as soon as you get close enough to, his familiar scent bringing you an indescribable feeling of safety.  “Need you to stop leaving for so long.” He mutters, feeling nearly crazy for missing you so much while you were gone.

You hum in response, staring into his pretty eyes as they stare down at you lovingly, resting your chin on his chest.

“Move in with me.” It’s impulsive.

You blink, unable to register what he just said. “Uh, what?”

He chuckles, hoping the stunned look on your face is a good thing. “It’s stupid for you to keep moving back and forth between here and your apartment all the time. Move in with me.”

It’s a tempting offer. Could you do it? Realistically, could you bring your things in, set up your skin care routine in his bathroom, have a horde of snacks at your disposal, bring Bethany over for sleepovers…is it possible? He watches as you think it through, and his heart skips a beat as he watches it falter. “I-I can’t. Not yet, at least.”

His head tilts curiously, eyebrows furrowed. “Hmm?”

“I’m still tied to my lease for another three months.” You can’t abandon Sky, not after all this time. “Skylar would be pissed if I just up and left her to either scramble for a new roommate or for a new apartment.”

Was that it? “Oh,” Eddie says, relieved. “I can pay that.”

His answer momentarily stuns you, and a gorgeous laugh escapes his lips as he takes in your slack jaw and wide eyes. “W-what?”

He leans in, kissing your lips sweetly. “Sweetheart. I’m not gonna wait another ninety days when I can just pay it now and get you here tomorrow.”

“You’ll pay my half?” You ask, eyebrows raised, a light smile on your face.

“What’s your rent?”

“1800 for the apartment, we both pay 900 plus utilities.”

He does the quick math. “Oh, so 54 (hundred) to buy the lease out? Yeah, I’ll pay it. Might relieve Sky from being pissed at me for stealing her roommate.”

The casualty of his words drench your underwear, his urge to take care of you sending a heat to your center you can’t explain. You lean in, swiping your tongue on his bottom lip, showing your appreciation. “Can-can we go upstairs?” You ask him, out of breath.

Eddie smiles, taking in your lust-blown eyes and slack expression. “You know that’s not why I offered, right?”

The overwhelming happiness bubbles up from the inside and you shoot a wide smile up at him, chin resting on his chest again. “I know. Still, baby. Want you. Please,”

Eddie smirks, framing your face with his thumbs lightly. “When you say it so nicely, how could I ever refuse?”

You tug him by the hand and start running up the stairs. A yelp echoes through the house as Eddie grabs at your ass near the top, and when he lies down on the bed, you can’t get his cock down your throat fast enough.

-

To say the least, Sky couldn’t find it in her to be angry. She was going to miss you, more than she could describe as her roommate. She also had a three month warning to find a new roommate or a new apartment and had ample time to put at least some money aside while she didn’t have to pay for rent. She really had nothing to complain about. Still, she was gonna miss you.

As soon as the lust of him offering to take care of you died down, you went into overdrive, remembering how stressed you were when you had to move in your current apartment, a lease you’ve renewed twice now. You started making a list of things you needed, working between your phone and a random spiral notebook you found in a junk drawer. How many boxes did you need to get? If you used both Eddie and Dylan’s trucks how many hours would it take to move down the stairs-only building you had?

“What’re you working on?” You hear his voice over your shoulder.

“Oh, just working out the kinks of moving. My car won’t be enough, I’ll need your guys’ trucks to help. I also have my own furniture to worry about. The entertainment center is hers, but the couch is mine. My dresser, my bed, my bathroom shelf, all my bathroom junk—”

“Baby.” He interrupts you, a hand sliding up to your neck. “Relax. I can hire someone to take care of all of this for you. Just focus on packing your things and directing the men around on where to put them.” He places his hands delicately beneath your chin. “Ok?”

Fuck, you might just blow him again.

“Ok.”

And you did just that. You shared your list to Eddie’s phone, who called a smaller moving truck with three men to assist, hired an organizer to assist in organizing what you do or don’t need and who will handle selling your furniture, and finally, paying the rest of your rent to your front office without blinking an eye to get you out of the lease.

Soon, you were on the driveway on a hot day, watching as all the boxes containing your clothes, shoes, makeup, and other junk went up the stairs to Eddie’s (and now your) bedroom, a few staying downstairs.

He stands next to you in a white muscle shirt with a band you don’t know pictured on the front and some sweats, hands on his hips as he watches the movers go back and forth between the house and the truck. He radiates authority, each mover couldn’t be much older or younger than you, but they all look to him with respect, all of their words followed by the word ‘sir’.

“Sir, huh?” You ask, teasing him.

Eddie slightly grimaces, rejecting it. “Yeah, they insisted.”

“Dunno, kinda suits you.” You tease, and you walk back to the house, missing the audible gulp that comes from his throat, imagining it. You, on your knees, begging for him, calling him sir…

“Sir?” One of the movers asks, getting his attention. He flicks back, seeing the clipboard held in front of him. “Need you to sign.”

“Oh, shit, sorry.” He mumbles, picking up the pen to sign.

As he signs his name, Dylan pulls up, taking in the men, the truck, the boxes on the floor visible past the open front door. “She’s moving in?”

Eddie looks at him, apologetic. He had asked you yesterday, and since then, he hasn’t had time to sit down and tell Dylan in person. “Sorry, bud. Kind of just happened all at once.”

Dylan thinks of his new girlfriend’s apartment, the night he had just spent wrapped up in her sheets. “I-I get that.”

Eddie blinks, expecting more of a push-back. “So, dad. I met this girl.” Oh, that explains it. “She’s…” the smile that lands on Dylan’s face is peaceful, and Eddie feels both curious and reassured. “Anyway. I wanted to bring her over for dinner to introduce her. Is that okay?”

A firm hand lands on Dylan’s shoulder, bringing him for a hug. “Of course, bud. When did you want to bring her over?”

“Friday at 6?”

It’s Wednesday, so that gives you both ample time to unpack and get the house ready for a dinner guest. “Friday works. Bring her over.”

“Hey, do you guys need any more help with the boxes?” He asks, running into the house.

Eddie doesn’t answer as he stands, stunned at the change in his son over the last, what, week?

The next two days make Dylan realize although he was in a much forgiving mood, he’s going to need to move out and fast. Just when he thought the two of you were bad, he didn’t realize how much worse you’d be when you moved in. In hindsight, he wasn’t sure how he didn’t see it coming.

Soon, he texted a friend he knew who was looking for another apartment about maybe moving in together after realizing your moans were not coming from your bedroom as he grabbed his keys and booked it for the front door.

You were on Eddie’s laundry room floor, wrapped in his arms, with only your shirt around your torso and his hair halfway out of its ponytail. You were still in the middle of recovering; Eddie edged you twice before finally letting you finish. “Did you hear the front door close?” Eddie asks, still breathing heavily as he does.

“N-no.” You gasp, moving your head up to face him, his chest hair tickling your chin. “Were we that loud?”

Eddie laughs, letting a thumb pet your face lightly. “Have you ever tried to be quiet, sweetheart?”

You shut him up with a kiss, slippery, but filled to the brim with everything you had. “Shut up.”

“I love you.” He mutters as you wrap yourself in his arms, and you whisper it back into his chest. “We do have company coming over, so we should probably finish unpacking.”

You groan lightly, but Eddie takes your hands and forces the two of you onto your feet, your knees lightly buckling. “I have so much stuff! There’s so much left to unpack.”

“Oh, I’m sure unpacking yourself into the second half of the walk-in is so hard, baby. C’mon, I’ll help you out.”

Again, Eddie’s house looks humble from the outside, but it was nothing to snark at. As he made more money, he slowly upgraded and renovated instead of just moving into a bigger house. The one upgrade that wasn’t really for him, but a constant reminder of what he lost, was the his-and-hers closet he had made for his ex, something she only enjoyed for six months before leaving him. He was excited to see your dresses, skirts, pants, and underwear in his closet, and especially your smell. Basically, he was excited for your invasion of the house.

You walk over to his–your–room where there are still boxes sitting, waiting to be unpacked. You start unpacking the one labeled dresses/skirts. As you start laying out a pile, separating the skirts you knew you weren’t gonna wear from the ones you would, Eddie sidled up beside you, pulling one you knew looked good on you up from the pile you weren’t gonna wear. “Hey, hey. Why haven’t I seen you in this one?”

You hesitate in your answer, pulling two more dresses out before answering. “Dylan fucked me while I wore that.” You admit, and he drops it immediately. He pulls another one up, hands moving over the silky blue fabric. Damn that one looked great on you. “That one, too.”

He drops it unceremoniously, hands moving to his hips. “Which ones hasn’t he touched you in?”

You put your hands on the much smaller, less appealing pile. “These.”

Eddie sighs, scratching his head. “Alright. We’re going shopping.” He announces, placing the pile of your old ‘rejects’ onto the floor.

“Huh?” You ask him, not sure you heard him correctly.

“Yep. Just leave all the clothes in a pile right there, and on Saturday I’m taking you shopping.”

“Baby, I work Saturday.”

“So call in.”

After Eddie helps you settle in for the next day and a half, you spend a good portion of your Friday in the kitchen, working in tandem to make supper together. You place plates at the dining room table Eddie and Dylan barely used, straighten up the napkins and the utensils when Eddie comes from behind you, and you feel his cock press right up against your ass. You grind back into it, closing your eyes and whimpering.

“Ed, they’ll be here in like,” you let out a sigh, “half an hour.”

He turns you, giving you a dirty kiss and gripping your hips harshly. “Then we better get moving.” He slips your dress up your hips and your underwear down.

“Hmm…take off your pants.”

He slips his cock in, bending you over the table, making you gasp. “Already off, baby.”

-

Dylan pulls up in his truck, now having to park in the same spot you did in the street since you took over his spot on the driveway. “So, this is my house.”

“For three more weeks?” Maya asks, teasing him.

He lets their hands intertwine, leading her to the door. “I did grow up here.”

“Yet your dad is kicking you out.” She says, eyes narrowed.

“No, not kicking me out…” He drifts off, when Maya’s green eyes silently ask him, he dismisses it. “I’ll tell you later. C’mon.” He unlocks the front door, and as soon as it’s open, a very peculiar, very annoying sound is heard echoing in the house.

“Fuck, Ed, oh shit.”

Maya’s eyes go wide, it takes her a second longer to understand what they were listening to than it did for Dylan. Dylan shuts the front door, shoving his hand into his pocket for his phone. He dials his dad right away. “…Hello?” Eddie asks after three rings.

Dylan puts him on speaker. “Dad, wrap it up, we’re here.”

“Shit, sorry. Give us five—” the sound of your giggles interrupts him, “sorry, ten minutes. W-we’ll call you.”

He hangs up.

Maya’s face is the picture-perfect expression of what the fuck. “Dyl, when you said your family dynamic is odd…”

“I meant it. C’mon, let’s go for a walk to the corner store.”

Maya is taken aback, but she easily falls in line as Dylan holds his hand out for her. “Can’t believe the first thing I heard from your dad was that.”

“Darling, I have never meant it more than I have right now.” Dylan assures her, and she can see how much he means it in his brown eyes. “My dad has met my girlfriends in worse situations. Just be glad we didn’t see anything…’cause that was not coming from their bedroom.”

-

Eventually, you had to go upstairs to find a new dress to wear, Eddie having completely soiled it during your tryst as he phoned Dylan to let them know they were in the clear. Turns out, the two of you had time blindness when it came to one another, because neither of you were even close to done when Dylan had called.

As you climb down the stairs, there’s a knock on the door, and Eddie meets you there in time to open it to face Dylan and his new girlfriend. It was an intriguing feeling, opening the door to Dylan while Eddie’s arm was behind your back. Like a couple welcoming their son home. It was…bizarre to say the least. “Hey, sorry about—”

“It’s fine, dad. Rather not talk about it.” Dylan insists, his arm around a pretty redhead.

“Sure. Come on in.”

They step in, Maya taking a look around at the place as she does. “Maya, this is my dad and his girlfriend, Y/N. Guys, this is Maya.”

You weren’t used to Dylan being suddenly so cool with you and Eddie being together. He’s never out loud said that you were his dad’s girlfriend before without rolling his eyes or gagging. Whatever he had with Maya seemed to bring him some peace.

Thank god, you didn’t know if you could handle more eye rolls from Eddie’s 25-year-old teenage son. “Maya! Nice to meet you.” You hold your hand out to her, which she accepts graciously.

You remember meeting Eddie as a father to Dylan, and while your thoughts were occupied, whatever you were expecting for Dylan’s dad, it certainly wasn’t Eddie. You could see it clear in her face she wasn’t expecting this metalhead, either.

“Hi, Mr. Munson, nice to meet you.” She extends her hand to Eddie, and Eddie just about loses his mind.

“Ew. Don’t. Call me Eddie. Please.” Eddie gags, the same reaction he had when you addressed him that way when you first met.

“Oh. Sorry. Nice to meet you, Eddie.”

Eddie smiles back, purposefully dressing himself down as a parental figure. You could tell he was poising himself differently for them. Whether it was self consciousness over the last time he met a girlfriend, or making it clear to Dylan he had no plans for a second contender, it did the job.

“Alright, the dining room is this way.” You extend your hand out down the hall, leading the way out of a somewhat awkward situation.

The four of you sit at the table, both men at the heads of the table while you and Maya sit across from one another. Eddie picks up the salad bowl, plating himself quickly and handing it over to you. “So, Dylan. Tell us how you and Maya met.”

They both start the story, eager to share. “Oh, can I tell, Dyl? You always get to.”

“Fine by me.”

Maya giggles softly before facing you and Eddie. “Well, my best friend sort of ditched me to tag along to guys’ night, and I refused to be ditched, so I got myself ready and ended up being fashionably late. When she invited me, I was already done for the night, pajamas and all but I got dressed up out of pure spite.” You chuckle, that’s something Bethany would do. “I got to the club, and suddenly I saw Dylan, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone else for the rest of the night.” She looks over to him, her eyes soft and her pink lips in a sweet smile. “He just drew me right in. We talked for so long we didn’t even realize it was time for last call.”

“Wow.” You comment, taking the last bowl in rotation from Eddie’s hands, the stir-fry vegetables. “Sounds like you guys have a great connection.” You look at Dylan at the last word, hoping he receives your message.

“Oh, we truly do.” Maya grins, Dylan shooting a wink at her in response.

Eddie grabs your hand under the table, and you hold it, petting at the tough skin and colliding with his rings.

“Our first date was incredible.” Maya mentions off-hand but doesn’t elaborate. If it was anything like your first date with Eddie, you knew better than to pry further. “So Dylan told me how you guys met, tell me about that.”

You and Eddie share a look of surprise at how casually she mentions it. You weren’t expecting her to know yet, in fact you were wondering if Dylan was going to tell her at all. Eddie lets out a chuckle. “A shitshow, let’s just say. When Dylan found us, it just became real messy in here.”

Unfortunately, Eddie missed the continuous waving Dylan was doing across the table to stop, please!

“How would meeting online make things messy?” Maya asks, the story Eddie had just told her and the story Dylan explained not exactly lining up.

“What?” Eddie asks, now unsure himself.

Your hand meets your mouth in understanding, facing Dylan with his head in his own hands. “Baby, I don’t think he told her, yet.”

“Nope.” Dylan musters out, annoyed.

“Oh.”

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Maya asks, watching everyone’s facial expressions one by one.

Dylan sighs, not ready to explain this part. “They didn’t meet online. Remember, my ex? The one who cheated on me?”

Maya rolls her eyes. “Of course I remember that bitch.” She says, giving you a look that says, ‘am I right’.

Dylan sighs, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Uh, Maya?”

“Hmm?”

“That’s her.” He says, pointing to you. “She cheated with my dad.”

Maya looks at you, dumbfounded, as you wave with a tight smile on your face. Being called that cheating bitch behind your back was certainly a new development from him. Not the…greatest feeling in the world. She looks to Eddie, who isn’t smiling, somewhat insulted on your behalf, but gives a friendly wave nonetheless.

“O-oh.”

“I said my family dynamic is different, didn’t I?”

“I thought you meant with how young she is…”

“There’s that…and there’s this. It used to hurt me a lot more, but honestly, since I met you, I don’t really feel that pain anymore.” He says to her. “I wish we could’ve had this conversation in private, but I guess I didn’t warn them.” A new hardness reaches Maya’s eyes as she looks at you, and you’re slightly taken aback by it. “Don’t be mad at them, because I’m not anymore. Well, mostly anyway. My dad said when he met her that he had to know everything about her or he was going to lose his mind.” You look to Eddie, and he winks at you slyly as you mouth the words I love you to him. “I used to think that was bullshit… But when I met you, Maya, I felt the same way, and I realized I couldn’t blame them for pursuing it if it was half as strong as what I felt when I saw you.”

The ice in Maya’s stare all melts the gloss in her eyes. “That’s still super messed up.”

“One hundred percent.” Dylan looks over to you and Eddie, and you’re wondering if the two of you were supposed to leave the table and give them privacy. “But now…they look good together. They’re good for one another. She puts this smile on his face that I never get to see anymore, and she seems more happy with him than she ever was with me.”

Your phone buzzes in your chair under your thigh. A text from Eddie. For the record, no one feels as strongly for anyone as I do for you. No one ever will.

You look at him and he nods once, his lips in a firm line. Your hands reach for his, interlocking with his. “Maya, I know you didn’t mean to but I would appreciate you not calling her a bitch.” Eddie tells her, parent voice on. “Now that we have all that out of the way, Maya, tell us what you do for work.”

-

Maya was a peach, and she seemed great for Dylan. As she helped clear the table she asked Dylan a question and it led to him announcing he was moving out. Out loud, Eddie gave him a proud hug, telling him it was a great idea.

To you, Eddie pumped his fist in celebration. As you washed the dishes that night, insisting Dylan and Maya go enjoy a movie on the couch, Eddie comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around you. “When Dylan finally moves out, I’m fucking you on every surface in this house. I might just tell you to stay naked for easier access.” He leaves a wet kiss on your neck, and you’re left to imagine the possibilities as he adjusts himself while clearing the rest of the table.

True to his word, as Saturday dawns, Eddie wakes you up two hours before you start work and tosses your phone to call in sick for it. You text your manager at his request, and as soon as you hit send, Eddie sends you to his bathroom to get ready for a shopping day. In your first outfit, a pair of shorts and an oversized sweater, Eddie looks up and down at you exasperated and tells you to go get all dressed up and put some makeup on.

When your hands land on your hips at this he backtracks hard. “Of course you can wear what you want, baby! I just know that you love to get all dressed up, and I thought it would be fun for you. That’s all. We’re going to be trying on lots of clothes and I want my girl feeling her best.”

Okay, he has a point. An hour passes by, Eddie moving around you as he gets dressed up himself, less dramatic than his date night outfit, but dressed up all the same. As you finish, a wing on your eye, he comes behind you, looking over your shoulder for something. “You know I used to wear eyeliner all the time?”

“I…no?” You stutter, turning to face him.

“Might put some on today.” He mutters, slightly teasing you.

“If you don’t want to scare the general public, maybe we’ll save it for a date night, Ed.” You yank the pencil away from him, terrified that if you look away for one second, he’ll go overboard.

“Not even a little on my water line?” He asks, and you suddenly realize that yes, he does want some makeup for the day.

“I don’t see why not.” You shrug.

Now you walk hand in hand in the largest mall in town, starting the journey down the large aisle, leading Eddie. But eventually, Eddie ends up leading you, knowing exactly which stores he wants to go to. In the first store he takes you to, you look around the racks timidly, putting away anything you see over 20 bucks. In less than five minutes, Eddie comes by with a pile of clothes in his arms. “I’m gonna get a dressing room started, ok?” He pauses, noticing the 45 dollar dress you just put back. “Ooh, can you hand me that?”

“No, it’s too much.” You insist, looking at the large pile of clothes he has. You thought he meant like, three or four items at the most.

“I didn’t ask how much it was, sweetheart. Hand it over.” He tells you, to which you do. Only five minutes later, as you have only picked out two or three more dresses yourself, does he swing by and tug you to the biggest dressing room, the walls decorated with clothing.

“I-I’m not trying all of this on, am I?” You look around, it would take you at least an hour, and that’s if you hurried.

“Yep. And you’re showing me every piece.” He says, before closing the door on your stunned face.

“Eddie, this is way too much.”

“No complaining, just show me the first one!” he yells to you, no real bark behind his command.

The first dress you wear was a bit revealing, an open back, up to your thighs with a cowl neckline that shows cleavage. He smiles at you, leaning his elbows onto his knees in the seat offered in the dressing room. “Nice… Do a spin.” You roll your eyes, spinning for him slowly and timidly. He whistles lowly. “Man, I’m good. Next!”

He asked for a spin in everything you modeled for him until he didn’t need to, you did it for him. With each new piece, you were learning to not care if you were in a store with him, posing for him as he assessed each piece. Some you thought looked decent on you, he put in the no pile, while others you thought were a sure no, he put in the yes. He told you ultimately, it was your decision and if you felt uncomfortable, you could put one in the no pile, but he knew your body better than anyone. If he insisted it looked good, it must’ve looked good.

At the last piece you put on, he can’t seem to decide, asking an attendant for her opinion. She says she thinks the shirt looks amazing on you but isn’t sure about the style of pants. “Yeah, I chose them just to see if you’d wear it.” You shook your head no, feeling uncomfortable in the business type pants. “Cool. Get dressed in your clothes, we have more stores to hit up.” You toss the shirt to him after yanking it off, and by the time you make your way to the register, the attendant is already handing over two oversized bags to him.

“Eddie, this is enough clothes, I really don’t need anymore!” You insist as he directs you to a store only three spaces over.

As soon as you walk in, they see the big bags Eddie’s carrying and immediately offer their assistance. Eddie rolls his eyes, knowing he only ever gets the star treatment if he’s walking around with the occasional designer bag. (He likes their underwear). “Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but the women’s side of our closet is huge, and you didn’t have nearly enough clothes to fill it anyway.”

Our closet. You’re so fixated on the use of the word our that you don’t realize he’s waiting for you to talk. “Doesn’t mean I need more.”

“Oh, that’s exactly what it means!” He turns to the employee who’s been following him around and hands her the bags. “Be a dear and hold on to these, will ya?” He turns back to you, resting one hand on the rack beside him and staring down at you intensely. “Baby. I want to spoil you. Let me. Please! Pick out some clothes you want, I’ll pick some out, too, and you can try them on.”

“You’ve spoiled me so much already!” You insist, gulping at the sincerity in his eyes. “You’re all I could ever ask for.”

“That’s exactly why I have to spoil you.” He retorts, placing a gentle kiss on your lips. “I love you. Let me show you how much. I have a stupid amount in savings. I kind of want to chuck some out just to keep me humble.”

You giggle at this, finally, fully giving in to his madness.

Madness, it is. As you go from store to store, he gets about two more bags full from each one, and you’re sure some of these outfits will never see the light of day after you see how he looks at you in them. About ten percent will just be something you put on for about two seconds before he takes it off you. He’s buying dresses he knows he’ll be the only person to ever take them off or see you in them.

At one point, he runs back to his truck to put the eight bags he got tired of carrying around away, coming back to meet you in the store he left you in. It wasn’t much of a clothing store, but you had a basket of things you were planning to buy for yourself. Earrings, a knick knack for your desk, a cute notebook and the like. (There was a shirt you found for Eddie that you got just for the hell of it.) You're waiting in line, and you’re digging through your purse for your wallet when Eddie comes behind you, wallet out, card in the machine. “I—”

“Baby. Your money is useless today. Let me.”

You roll your eyes, and the cashier’s wide eyes at his pet-name for you catches your eye, a laugh escaping you. “Yeah, sorry. Guess I forgot to mention my boyfriend is also in his 40s.” You giggle, having just gushed about how Eddie was spoiling you to him.

“What? 40s? I’m clearly in my 20s.” Eddie asks, acting offended.

The poor cashier looks genuinely frightened, holding up his hands in surrender. “He’s joking. He is. Likes to make people squirm.”

“Oh I love to make you squirm—”

“Eddie!” You berate him, yanking him out of the store as he lets out a bout of laughter. He catches his breath, still laughing as you cross your arms, waiting impatiently for him to stop.

“Sorry, sweetheart, you made it too easy! C’mon, two more stores, then we can grab food.”

“Can I pay for food?” You ask, holding his hand.

Eddie smiles, petting your hand with his thumb. “Of course.”

The second to last store he brings you to is an underwear store. Eddie lets you do all the picking, following closely behind and offering any commentary when you ask for it. For once, he doesn’t insist that you model for him, claiming that just seeing you go through the lacier drawers of panties was torture enough. You walk out with a wardrobe’s worth of new underwear, bras, and a little bit of lingerie. It was the first time you were there to see the total, your eyes widening as Eddie takes out his card.

He smirks at your stunned expression. “Oh, this isn’t even the highest bill, sweetheart.” The transaction goes through and the kind lady behind the desks offers the bags to him. “This isn’t even half of it.”

The bill was at about 700 dollars, so the very idea drove you insane that he had already collected every receipt and refused to let you see them.

He brings you to one last store, wall to wall, covered in clothes. He goes a little ham this time, and you notice he focuses on basics. Sweatpants, sweaters, shorts, and under shirts. There’s one thing he chooses that has you struggling to get the zipper up, and eventually you call out for him for help after a good five minutes of fumbling .

He opens the curtain delicately so as to not reveal anything, and you look at him helplessly as your hand can’t reach the zipper sitting low on your ass. His fingers are light to the touch, as one hand rests on your shoulder, one on the zipper as it goes up to your neck, your hair held by your hands. You can’t help the shiver that runs through you as your hair curtains down around your neck, and you turn to face him, holding your hands out to silently ask him what he thought.

What does he think? He thinks that this fucking dress looks so good on you that it would be a crime to get you to start trying on those shorts and sweaters. Hell, you knew your size, you were probably good to go. It was much less revealing than any dress you tried on, a number he’ll probably get you to wear on your next date. He couldn’t help himself, surrounded by the privacy of the small room, he leans in to kiss you sweetly, one hand going up to frame your neck. “Baby.” He mutters, his voice sounding desperate. “You look…fucking gorgeous.”

You smile into it, your hand tracing the seam of his shirt along his torso. “Thanks. Help me out of it? I still need to try on all these clothes.”

His tongue swipes across your bottom lip, surprising you. A slight whimper escapes you as he backs you into the wall against a few clothing articles hanging there. “I will absolutely help you out of this dress.” He says, his voice husky and a touch of arousal lands in your underwear as you realize why. “But then I’m going to get my cock in you.”

“In-in here?” You ask, highly aware you’re in a public space.

“Mmhmm. Be quiet and no one will suspect a thing.” he says, hand slipping under the skirt of the dress to start palming at your folds over your panties. You whimper at the touch into his mouth, focusing all your energy on not alerting the kind sales lady that you were hooking up in her dressing room. “Oh, good girl, keeping herself quiet.”

“It’s…it’s hard.” You whimper, the light touches over your panties not enough, but still causing more arousal.

“So am I.” Eddie chuckles, watching your face as he teases you. He slips the hand into your panties, letting them drop on the floor. “Oh, so wet, huh?” He asks you, eyebrows furrowed as he plays with the slick on your folds.

“Mmhmm.”

“Does daddy buying all the pretty clothes make you all hot, baby?” He asks, voice in your ear and fingers rubbing at your clit gentle, but enough to start you to your destination. You nod your head, because on some level, this was a big turn on for you. “Oh, you horny little slut.”

“Good girl…” You whimper, and Eddie leans back from your shoulder. “Good girl. Please?” You ask him, the slut shaming wasn’t doing it for you.

“Oh, you wanna be called a good girl, huh? Daddy’s good girl?” You nod, your eyes closing as he starts to rub at your clit faster.

“Feels…feels good, Daddy…”

“Daddy’s gonna make you cum, and since you’re a good girl you’re not gonna make a fucking sound. Okay?” You nod, holding a whimper in your throat from the finger he slides into your heat. “Oh she’s close.” He mutters to himself, placing gentle kisses on your neck. “Fall apart on my fingers so I can fuck you, my good girl.”

Your mouth is open in a silent scream, an orgasm shaking through you as you wither against the dressing room wall.  

“Oh, that’s my good girl, such a good listener. Now, turn around and hold on to those hooks.” You do as he says, and as you brace yourself with your hands awkwardly against the hooks decorated with hangers, he zips the dress off you, lifting it over your head and nearly forgetting to muffle his own moan when he sees you aren’t wearing a bra. He lets his pants fall around his calves, and as his cock pushes you, you let your jaw open and eyes close, doing everything you could not to moan out loud.

He slowly bucks into you, and you close your eyes and lean against the wall headfirst while the scent of store clothes invades your senses. Soon, Eddie leans forward, forcing your torso up against his back as he places his ringed hand around you like a necklace. He kisses at the skin he can reach sweetly, eyes open as he watches your reaction to everything he does to you.

While the prospect of being caught by someone was hot, Eddie found himself watching for your visual reactions than listening for your audible ones. Hmm. He didn’t realize he had begun to rely on them. “How’s Daddy’s cock?”

“G-good.” You whisper, leaning into his chest with your head back against his shoulder.

“Gonna cum in you.” He mutters. He starts fucking into you a little harder, and it has to be perfectly timed because if he went all the way in, the sound of his balls against your pussy would be a dead giveaway.

“How’s everything in there?”

“Speak.” Eddie commands you, and you have to tear yourself from outer space for a moment.

“Great, thank you!”

“Just a reminder we try not to encourage two people in one dressing room.”

“She was just needing help with a zipper. Almost done.” Eddie pipes out, sounding relatively normal for someone seconds away from cumming.

“If you need any help or sizes, let us know.”

 “Thanks…” Shit, that sounded out of breath.

“Cum in me.” You whisper, and Eddie does just that, slowly fucking his way through his orgasm, his cheeks flushed, shirt clinging onto the sweat.

You nearly protest as he takes himself out and tucks himself back into his pants. At this point, you were so turned on you kind of wanted to blow him while you had him in the room. You hold his face in your hands and connect your foreheads. “Is it bad I still want more?” You mutter under your breath.

Eddie swears softly, his boner fighting harshly against his slacks. “Fuck. No, I do, too.” He tugs your naked self into his arms, kissing your hair softly. “But…she was suspicious. Unless we want to get kicked out, we should quit while we’re ahead.”

“Can I blow you when we get home?” You ask him, turning to grab your own clothes off the floor.

Eddie chuckles, shaking his head as he grabs the clothes scattered around the dressing room. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

It took multiple trips from Eddie’s truck to bring in all the bags. You truly didn’t realize how many pieces of clothing he had bought you until you saw it all scattered on the closet floor, all ready to be reorganized. Eddie starts hanging them, and you notice the outline of his cock in his slacks. He was still throbbing.

“Can I?” You ask, sitting pretty on your knees and looking up at him.

“Fuck, I’m never gonna say no to that.” Eddie answers, placing a hand under your chin.

You undo his pants, giving him a hungry look as his cock springs free. “You’re still hard?” You ask, knowing you’ve gotten food at the food court and walked around the mall a bit more before coming home.

“Mmhm.” You smile, jerking him lazily as you eye the length hungrily. You have the idea to tease him more, but the need to feel the weight of his cock on your tongue is too much. Eddie swears loudly as you take him in your mouth, gripping onto the center console for accessories and underwear. “Fuck”

You slowly bob your head up and down, staring up at him through your eyelashes as you relax your throat and allow your nose to meet his stomach. His hands skim through your hair, moving your head lightly, and again, you find it ridiculously easy to submit to him.

Eddie is uncharacteristically quiet, head thrown back in bliss as he feels the spit gather at his base. His stomach starts to tighten up a little bit and under your hands, his thighs are tense. Somehow it spells out to you he’s close.

You prepare yourself, moving your head faster on your own accord, opening your eyes at him again to watch for his reaction as you double down. A goddamn whimper escapes his throat as you continue, and suddenly it’s your goddamn mission to make him make that sound again. “Fuck, baby. Fuck…” Without any warning, the warm salty taste of his cum hits your tongue and you moan around him as he rides through his orgasm.

For once, as you wipe your mouth, you can tell he’s the one that needs recovery. You move to your feet, waiting for him to catch his breath. “Need some water?” You ask him, somewhat joking.

“The fuck was that?” He asks, his face in awe as he looks at you.

You give a cheeky and quick little kiss to the hand on your cheek. “Wanted to make you feel good.”

“Jesus Christ—” he tugs you into a hug, habitually kissing your hair. “How did I get so lucky?”

“Uh Ed.” You push lightly on his chest to get out of the hug, giving him a look of disbelief. You look gesture around the closet to the half of the clothes still not put away. “How are you the lucky one?”

Eddie’s face breaks into a wide smile, his dimples prominent, his smile lines deep. “You keep thinking that, darling.” He laughs, tugging you back into his arms.

As you stand there against his chest, relaxing into him with your eyes closed, the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it. You put away my clothes since you know where everything goes.”

“I did design this closet.” He retorts, pointing a finger at you.

You walk down the stairs to the front door, seeing a tall figure facing away through the smart glass. You open the door to a gorgeous set of brown locks, perfectly coiffed. The figure turns around, and clearly doesn’t expect to see you standing there. “Hey, Ed- whoa.” You recognize his face, but you aren’t sure where from. You subtly fix your hair; suddenly aware you had just given head to your boyfriend. “Uh, sorry, little lady. Is Eddie here?”

“He’s upstairs in the closet. Can I help you?”

The stranger smiles kindly, and you notice the freckles on his face are like constellations. “Oh sorry! I told him I’d be coming through town, but I forgot to say when. I’m Steve, Steve Harrington.”

-

Thank you so much for reading! I love to read your comments, replies, and reblogs. As always, reblogging is the best way to support your fic writers on tumblr.

Taglist: @pinkcowracing @yourthebrokengirl @skrzydlak @thirddeadlysin @sammararaven @bebe07011 @prettylovley @josephquinncore @forget-you-morelike-fuck-you

Taglist for Really Drives Me Mad: @yunnie-f1 @hollster88 @corrodedcoffincumslut @daisyridleyyyy @daniellabrandt @lail1010 @alicentswife @names-were-taken @bl4ckt00thgr1n

[tanpopomugishu]

EDIT: I'm not feeling Aziraphale's tattoo & backstory anymore, so I'm removing it from the story. But I still love this art, so I'll leave it here 😁

C : Angel, I've been wondering. What's the story behind your tattoo? You always look so prim and proper, never would have guessed you have those massive tattoos hidden behind all those layers. Not that they don't suit you, mind you!!

A : Oh, I know, these tattoos are very cliché, right? Not much thoughts went into these, except that they look cool. I had these made when I was very young and stupid, not even 20 years old if I remembered right.

My parents and brother have hated me since they learned that I am gay, so staying at home for a long time was not a choice. I was constantly angry, hung out with the wrong crowd, and frequently got into big fights. The next thing I know, a youth gang has taken me in. As a form of initiation, they paid to have these tattoos done.

C : You were in a WOT!!

A : In a gang Crowley, do catch up with the story, my dear... They said I was one of the best fighters they had ever met, so I got special treatment.

They even gave me a moniker! A very embarrassing one too, now that I think about it..

C : What moniker ?

A : Uhhhh... promise you won't laugh?

C : Fingers crossed

A : It was "The Fallen Angel of Whickber Street."  Back then, I was lithe and feminine-looking, and combined with the angel wings tattoo, they said I looked like a crazed angel while fighting.

C : WAIT, THAT WAS YOU??? I saw the article that was written about you in the local paper!! The photo there kicked ass!! Even now, you are still pretty by the way..

A : Oh, you silver-tongued, wiley tempter!!

I think I still have the original photo used in that article, they sent it to me as a keepsake.

C : Oooooh!! Show me!!!

......

I promised @midnights-dragon that I would draw Crowley's tattoo with more details, and somehow ended up expanding this first responders AU even further!!

It's hilarious to imagine young Aziraphale as a gang member, fighting the opposition while looking like Miles Maitland. I'll definitely try to draw that scene 😂😂😂.

[spinnenpfote6]

OMGGG Guuuys I had a great birthday yesterday!

I went to MagicCon with my 2 besties❤ & I'm SO happy to have gotten that nice photo with Elijah Wood! I actually got an autograph ticket last minute because I thought "Huh, why not? I have the money!" (which was good because the photo session was VERY quick).

We were in this huge room which almost looked like one for an orchestra and Elijah's place was down the stairs in the corner lol. When we arrived the employees told us that he's having a break rn and will be back in 5 minutes. Oddly enough there were only about 3 or 4 other people so it was pretty empty at his table. Then I heard voices, turned around and there was Elijah sauntering down the line of chairs behind us, chatting with Dominic Monaghan. I was like "Oh, there he is!" and it was so surreal! Also felt hilarious because I was BOTH "Wow, he's actually just a guy!" AND super star-struck.

And guys I can tell you that: I'm still SO mad at myself that talking to Wood made my stupid lizard brain flush my english-speaking-skills down the drain (the Terrible Terror from HTTYD comes to mind, staring into the void while licking its own eyeballs). Safe to say I was giggling the whole time and just started with something along the lines of "WOAH Holy shit, hi Elijah! Haha! Here!", handed him my drawing and told him that it's actually my birthday. He of course wished me a happy birthday, looked at my drawing for a while and went "Wow, that is SO pretty! Very pretty!" while signing it. As I was about to walk away I sent him into a laughing fit because I stared at him like a maniac saying "YOUR EYES ARE SO PRETTY!". So yeah. I REALLY hope to meet him on another convention to tell him why I love Frodo so much and maybe get a hug without my brain shutting off.

After that I did see him again at the photosessions (which had a long line this time but I didn't mind because I was chatting with my friends). I literally arrived jumping towards him, responding to his happy "Hi!" with a "Hi, it's me again!" lol. I wanted to put my arm around him but seeing the like 3(!) fat signs they put up informing us of the rules - consisting of "Please don't touch the actors" and "Don't do poses" (???) - made me re-think it because I'm a scaredy cat (despite living in Germany - the land of strict unnecessary rules) so I decided to hold my One Ring up. Obviously nobody cared about the no-touching-policy (when I left Elijah was just jumping onto someone's back lol) and if you look closely you can see that I actually DID put my arm around him but not as much as I would've liked haha.

Originally I wanted him to sign one of the photos of one of my favorite LOTR scenes (Frodo falling down in slow-mo at the "Prancing Pony" Inn, trying to catch the ring) but I failed to realize that you had to get the autograph photos at the entrance and having him sign my drawing turned out to feel much more sweet and personal - and I got a Happy Birthday from him anyway! And Frodo himself SAW and APPROVED of my first Frodo drawing!! (I kinda hope that it helped me to stay in his memory for a while - that or the fact that I was dressed entirely in bright red and probably looked like a walking strawberry to everyone.)

Fun Fact: I'm actually a bit taller than Elijah but because of my pose & his thick shoes we appear to be the same height. He doesn't seem too short in person though. Also, his eyes are very blue & nice, but not that unnaturally almost neon blue. I think the lighting & color correction of his movies make it look like that sometimes.

Despite me turning red and answering them - very audibly - with a "Nooo!" my parents REALLY wanna frame that photo now lol

OKAY it felt super good venting here a bit because I'm SO INCREDIBLY MAD AT MYSELF for not telling him how much I love Frodo and why and for for not asking for a hug on my birthday AND for having missed his panel because I was too distracted and stupid to find the right room but I'm still happy to have been able to show him my drawing, gotten the photo and to have met him overall. He seemed open and happy and when he comes to a convention in Germany or the Netherlands again I'll try to meet him again!

[tip-top-cloud-surfer]

The Origin of Hangman

Summary: Hangman contemplates his own personal meaning behind his callsign.

Word Count: 1.3k

This work, all my works, and my entire blog are 18+ Only

Warnings: Mentions of Past Iceman / Mitchell!Sister!OC; Mentions of Death; References to Car Accidents; Guilt; Mourning; Loss of a Parent; References to Therapy; References to Mental Health Issues; Mentions of Blood; Crippling Self-Loathing; ANGST

A.N. Set during TGM (after Beach Scene)

This is probably the darkest piece that I’ve published on here FYI. If death and dark thoughts are triggering to you, DON’T READ THIS! You have been warned!

Last day of October, so I thought I would sneak this in for Whumptober vibes even though it doesn’t fit a specific prompt.

Master List

It always seemed fitting to Jake how his callsign was synonymous with ‘killer.’

After his first air-to-air, all anyone could talk about was how great of a pilot he was. How he had perfect aim and not a lick of fear in his system. But all Jake saw in the mirror was a man desperate to rub the blood off his hands, as if the blood of innocent people hadn’t stained his skin since he was a child. As if he could even remember a time when there wasn’t blood on his hands.

The second that his callsign was announced, he was suddenly brought back to all those therapy sessions that his dad set up for him when he was a kid. And then for the first few weeks of his life as ‘Hangman,’ every time that he heard his callsign, it was like the ghost of his mom popped up and slapped him across the face over and over again.

And Jake didn’t talk about his mom.

Not with his dad. Not with his uncle. Not with Javy. Definitely not with Bradley. Not with anyone.

The subject was simply too sensitive, too personal, and too overwhelming to talk about without some kind of illicit substance in his system. The last time that he really sat down and talked in depth about his mom was in therapy when he was probably fourteen or so. Every time someone tried to bring up the subject, he shut it down. He always just shut down.

He’d been over it a thousand times with Dr. John and his dad sat him down a number of times over his childhood, but it never fully clicked in Jake’s head. Or maybe he simply didn’t want it to stick. For whatever reason, he always looped around to the idea that it was his fault. It was all his fault.

His mom was dead because of him. He had her blood on his hands.

And he knew that it was ridiculous. How was he supposed to know that the night would go like that? It was supposed to be day of celebration, not a day of tragedy. And it wasn’t like he could have changed what happened in the moment. He was asleep in the backseat when it happened.

But those thoughts were still there, tucked in the back of his mind, and popping up at the most inopportune times in his life. The ones where he heard his dad and his uncle and his Aunt Carole and even his mom herself yell those three words at him.

It’s your fault.

And he believed them. Every time.

Maybe it was one of the Mitchell traits he inherited from his mom—the need to turn oneself into Atlas. The one to bear everyone else’s burdens. Ice mourned Jake’s mom, Jake knew. There’s a photo of his father standing at the funeral that would haunt Jake for years. It was the expression of a man who had broken into a thousand pieces the night before and barely glued them back together in time.

But Ice moved on. He found happiness again. He lived his life.

But Maverick coped in a way similar to Jake. There were photos of Jake’s mom all around Maverick’s hangar and throughout his personal belongings. Maverick gave Jake plenty of mementos of his mom, little pieces of her to keep with him for when he needed them.

But the clearest difference was on Jake’s birthday.

On Jake’s birthdays after the accident, when Ice was home, it was like a normal child’s birthday. There was cake with candles, there was singing, there were presents. Jake didn’t want them, but he went along with it to keep his dad happy. After all, if he was successfully lying to his therapists, he could successfully lie to his dad too.

But the birthdays where Ice was gone and it was just Maverick, there wasn’t much of anything. Maverick would take him for a long drive or a long flight, most of which was silent. They would have dinner at a restaurant and then there was a simple cupcake with a singular candle. And that was it. No singing, no presents, no excess. It happened and then they moved on. End of story.

Because no matter how many times he sat down with his therapist or his dad and talked it over, it never left his mind that his birthday and the anniversary of his mom’s death were the same day. And they would continue to be. Forever.

“You have a tattoo?” Phoenix asked, breaking Hangman out of his deep thoughts.

He turned to spot Phoenix behind him, casually sipping on a beer like the rest of the Dagger Squad—save for Bob, anyways—were on the sand. They had just wrapped up a long day of beach football and were all content to simple sit and watch the waves. And it was that serenity that seemed to pull Jake into that part of his mind that he tried to keep under lock and key at all times.

“Yeah,” Jake replied, subconsciously reaching for it.

Between his shoulder blades and below the traditional shirt neckline were two simple wings that somewhat resembled the Top Gun symbol over his mother’s name, which was written in her own handwriting that he salvaged from some letters that she wrote to his dad.

He got it done when he was eighteen. On his birthday, actually. That was one of the years when Ice wasn’t home. Maverick took him and didn’t ask questions. Not before. Not during. And not after. Ice didn’t find out about the tattoo until about eight months later and when he saw it for the first time, he simply pulled Jake in for a tight hug before excusing himself for a moment.

“And that’s the only question that I’m answering about it.”

Getting up from his seat, Jake muttered something as an excuse before leaving the beach on his own. Rooster and Javy were the only two people in the group who knew the meaning behind the tattoo and it was going to stay that way.

Because Jake didn’t talk about his mom.

Phoenix looked confused at how a single harmless question had gotten Jake into such a state, but the look on Javy’s face told her that she wasn’t going to get any answers. So, the rest of the Daggers simply bid goodbye to Jake, who carried on as if he didn’t hear them. Reaching his truck, Jake pulled his shirt back over his head and started to prepare to drive out when Maverick came walking over.

“You going home?” Maverick asked Jake, who did not respond verbally. After a moment, Maverick nodded and added, “Give her my love.”

“I will,” Jake stated softly before starting the truck.

Picking up the brightest flowers available from the grocery store on the way, Jake gripped the steering wheel tightly. When he came to a stop light, Jake glanced down at the bright yellow flowers he bought. His dad told him that his mom always insisted that he had to buy bright and fun flowers. Nothing serious like roses or too dark, lest someone think they were for a funeral.

Parking along the cemetery road, Jake walked down the aisle of green grass before pausing at a simple gray stone that had ‘Kazansky’ carved into it. His mother’s first name laid below it with the phrase ‘Loving Mother, Wife, and Sister.’ And then her date of birth and date of death, which was also Jake’s fourth birthday.

Jake tidied up around his mother’s grave before placing the bright yellow flowers down beside the longstanding photo of the family of three—Ice, her, and Jake. It was taken three months before his mother’s death. There was also a toy F-18 that Maverick left there a long time ago that seemed to be integral to the set up now.

He sat down, but did not say a word.

Because Jake did not discuss his mom. Not even with her.

[vivianleighwishesshewasme]

John’s Enchantress. 

Sabrina is from my 3 witches trilogy series but I just love their playfulness when I write them together in a scene. I think with both of them being fun loving,cheeky and young spirited it would make for a great couple. In this series Sabrina is original to the world, not a time traveler and I made her an only child. Enjoy. 

                                                                     1902

Seven year old John was out enjoying the fair with his brothers and  sister Ada. They had made it to the river where the Lee, DeGhant and Gold family were bathing horses and camping. 

John was on a mission. He was hiding and trying to get away from his stalker. His brothers were amused and teased him that they should have a wedding by the river. John didn’t think it was funny. They had been camping and selling horses in the fair for two days. One more day to go and he would be free of the annoying five year old blonde gypsy girl. He leaned forward around a Lee caravan. She wasn’t in sight. Good. He stepped out with the confidence of a rooster, to approach his mother who was in a lively discussion with Mrs. Gold about hedgehog stew. He was almost to the safety of his caravan when a shrill little girl voice rang out.

“John Shelby! I found you! Now chase me!” The girl giggled and ran toward the river as fast as she could. She stopped and turned. A pout adorning her face as she stomped. “John Shelby! You're a rat’s bottom.” She stomped off to the laughter of John’s Uncle Charlie and his father. 

“John Shelby!” His mothers usually sweet voice was firm with a warning. John sighed. He could cry. Why wouldn’t this annoying flea leave him alone? They were playing yesterday and he tossed a frog on her lap while she sat on a stump eating stew. The soup went all over her lap and she cried. He’d gotten a cuff against the ear and had to apologize to her and her family. The brat stuck her tongue out at him! He looked at my mother who was waiting for him to obey. He was weighing whether or not a punishment would be better. Once she glared at him he took off running.

“If I catch you, you little river rat, I'm throwing you in and watching you drown.” He yelled as he chased her. She yelped with excitement and took off like a bullet enjoying the fact that she won. 

“John Shelby, mind your manners!” His mother called. It was too late. John was far enough he couldn’t hear.

1919

Kimber had slammed a file down on the table in front of the Shelbys. Tommy didn’t even look at it. He wanted the Peaky Blinders to assassinate, eradicate was a more appropriate word, a whole band of Gypsys. The Peaky Blinders weren’t assassins. Gangsters, yes, illegal betting shop owners yes,  but murdering women and children wasn’t going to sit well with the gang. Arthur shifted uncomfortably. 

“Since you're all, you know, the same kind of people I figured they wouldn’t see it coming. You can take them out since you know who they are, yeah?” Mr. Kimbers kept his eyes trained on the leader, Thomas. 

Thomas slid the file to his brothers to peruse through while he addressed the other crime leader. 

“Mr Kimber, the DeGhants are not our kin. Gypsy royalty, but not kin.” He said calmly keeping his tone even. The muscle in his jaw twitched and John caught it.  He looked at the folder that Arthur was going through. Half of the DeGhants were already dead due to a miscommunication with the Golds many years ago. A war had taken many of the DeGhant lives already while they were in France. “We are also not assassins.” He said plainly.

John huffed when he saw a picture of a girl he gratefully hadn’t seen in years. Well, she wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a 22 year old woman and John could tell from the photos that she had gotten her grandmother's looks. Willimena DeGhant had been quite a looker back in her day. She also had been a gypsy witch, spy and assassin for her clan. Not someone to cross. Sabrina was the flaxen haired version. John still wondered if she would follow him around anymore, he was sure he wouldn’t be upset with the idea if she did.  

Kimber had looked down to the photo John was holding. He slid it away from John and tilted it so others could see. John's jaw twitched. He hated meeting with the slime ball but why did the letcher have to choose that one of a girl John knew. 

“Oh yeah, that one's quite a beauty isn’t she. Bit of a bitch though.” Kimber said offhandedly and smiled like a greased eel. “I got into an altercation with her grandmother, that little gypsy witch put a curse on my horse. The next day I got a call to come to the stable. I got out of the car and a perfectly normal and healthy horse dropped dead wild eyes at my feet. Fucking waste.” He sneered. His accountant smirked.  John side eye’s his brother Tommy who was looking at him as well. A quick exchange of no words that held what they were both thinking. “ You don’t fuck with the DeGhants”. The DeGhants were an extremely powerful matriarchal line for gypsy witches. Polly always said to avoid them because the spirits were as clear as normal people when around a DeGhant woman. John knew Tommy wouldn’t want a curse on their horses. He wondered what would happen next. 

“Look, the races are in two days. You bring your barmaid, yes.” He said pointing to Grace unknowing that she’d already been invited by Thomas. “You come, fuck with the DeGhants and take out Wilimeana DeGhant, yeah. Good, see you then.” He stood indicating the meeting was over. Once they left all three men drained their whisky. Now it was on to a much harder part of the day that John always dreaded. A Shelby  family meeting.

________________________________________________________________________

“You don’t mess with the DeGhant women Thomas, you know this! No, I vote against this! Absolutely not!” Polly was shouting and glaring at Tommy who looked indifferent. Her curls were bouncing around her fury filled face. The energy from their aunt was heavy and magnetic. John knew Polly and Thomas would go at it after the official family meeting. He knew those two were in charge and would always butt heads to see whos resolve was stronger. John knew Tommy would win. Lately that was the consistent pattern in the family. Tommy won, had a plan and you

carried out the plan like a good soldier. 

“I didn’t say we’d kill her Polly, I didn’t commit to anything really. We could hide Wilimena somewhere until we take Kimber out. That’s my plan. We make it look like we killed her, deliver her family crest, which is a ring from her middle finger to Kimber. He’ll believe us and she’ll hide out in Arrow house until this business with Kimber is done.” He looked at his brothers hoping they would agree. Arthur and John nodded. 

“They kill us in our sleep Thomas! They’ll send spirits in our dreams and we'll wake up in Hell!” Polly's hand slammed the table causing Ada to yelp. It was hot in here and tension was high and hummed in the air. 

“We already wake up in Hell everyday Pol, at least this would be interesting.” John's sarcastic voice turned all eyes upon him. He looked down and fiddled with his toothpick. He meant it. He also hoped that maybe a certain blonde would come to the arrow house too. He’d be happy to share his bed with her. 

“John's right, if we save the DeGhants they’ll be in our debt.” Tommy stopped and glared at Polly who openly scoffed at him. “They’ll be allies, and you and I both know, that an ancient gypsy bloodline is an advantage to our family Polly.”

“Always an angle with you! What happens if they say no Thomas? What then?! A gypsy curse from a powerful line of witches? This family is cursed enough, yes?” Polly's eyes were dark with anger and flashed at Tommy, who was busy kicking at the table cloth. He’d tuned her out already deep in his own plan. 

 I thought about the young woman in the photo and wondered what her role was in her camp. Did she do readings? Was she a horse breeder? Did she like kids and want her own? 

  I was wondering how soft her skin felt and if she’d be a good mother. She wasn’t a scrawny thing at least not from that photo, she might have good child bearing hips. John imagined his callous fingers digging into those hips as she rode him and moaned his name.

“So we're agreed, yeah, The DeGhants need to be contacted quietly at the races and whisked away before Kimber can see them. They stay with us.” Tommys words pulled John out of his dirty thoughts. He probably shouldn’t think of her that way, most gypsy women were fairly chaste

until their wedding, but on the other hand, she was a DeGhant. 

“God, we're going to pay for this. I just know it!” Polly's voice dissipated as she left the dining table and slammed the door. John waited for his family to clear out before sliding the photo of the blonde out and tucking it in his vest. No one would know it was missing.

[tonydaddingham]

lmao guess whos activated ✨blathering oaf mode✨ again (clue: its me)

(cut because length and spoilers, read at your own peril)

so this post got me spiralling into detective mode again and yes i know douglas suggesting it might have been war/pollution but i have certified trust issues™ and i dont believe that for one darn second

BUT

i also don't think it's a kiss. lemme explain horrifically

so i took another look at the two frames we have of The Leaked Smooch™ and the background has a lot to be desired (if you take into account that the boys are taking up most of the frame (duh), plus already fairly average quality video PLUS compression from when i captured it)

but i think we can safely rule out that The Leaked Smooch™ doesn't happen in the theatre here, mainly because even though the quality is bad, the glasses in the Smooch™ are crowley's modern ones, not the ones we saw him wear in the 1941 flashback in s1, plus his hair is differently styled... so yes can pretty confidently say this is not the kiss we are looking for

so i wanted to pinpoint what era the theatre bit is actually set in, and therefore i set about identifying the theatre in question. turns out kids that im not a good researcher (despite it literally being my job) so it took FUCKING AGES but i eventually found set photos of the boys entering a theatre, specifically the hippodrome in bo'ness:

now this was a turn-up for the books, because that's crowley's 1941 costume right??? id recognise that iconic fit anywhere. az's costume is trickier to pinpoint bc he wears the same damn thing but pretty sure this is a match to the church scene:

so we know from s1 that we have the church scene yada yada, and crowley offers aziraphale a lift home... which we know he accepts given that the s2 trailer gives us the ✨Dinner of '41✨ scene:

the other bit however to this puzzle is that there ALSO a set pic of aziraphale at the hippodrome in his magician's outfit. given the frame from the trailer where he looks like he's about to brick it going on stage, surrounded by lovely burlesque girlies and dame siân phillips in period dress, AND there were extras on the set dressed in ww2-type army uniforms, so i think it can be fairly surmised that this bit also occurs in the 40s

so my thought process is that we're getting two separate scenes (kinda) from the 40s, we have the church bit from s1 plus the Dinner of '41 scene as its own entity, but then, like

aziraphale is doing his magic act as a side hustle to this burlesque show? and crowley turns up to watch him, hiding out up in the box?

if we follow this completely made up narrative ive just come up with, aziraphale, im assuming, finishes up and gets changed into his normal clothes, and then goes up to this box to meet crowley?

to this end, i captured and slowed down the bit in the opening sequence where aziraphale and crowley (sorry douglas, not buying it) are in the box... and-

now to my eye, the motion of them in the clip looks like they are dancing? i don't have the source to hand but we've had it confirmed that a choreographer was brought into s2, not impossible az would go up to meet crowley after his magic act, whilst there's still something going on on the stage, and the two end up dancing or something? and az bless his heart gets spooked from that?

im reasonably convinced that this might be the origin of the 'you go too fast for me' line - something happens and ultimately aziraphale gets spooked given that he's only just realised he has Feelings for crowley, and so my boy fucking legs it (a lil post i made a while ago about this exact scenario if you'd care to peruse)

other thing to note:

there is a figure that is lurking behind aziraphale and crowley in the box, which looks like it moves specifically in sync with crowley, so it could be a shadow, or someone/thing is in the box that they aren't aware of 👀 so maybe this thing (?) witnesses it all? whatever went down in the box?

so in my addled feral mind, ive come up with a speculation that even as im breathing life into it sounds unhinged and so implausible it's hilarious -

i put to you, members of the jury, that something was meant to happen in that box, and it didn't... that something being that crowley makes a move of some kind - kiss, dance, hug, declaration, WHATEVER - and aziraphale was meant to accept it/reciprocate/idk, but didn't.

and that fucks with the plan, and for lack of better terminology creates a nexus event (lmao thanks loki) which in turns starts screwing with other events, somewhat like i theorised in this post here tehe

are aziraphale and crowley, essentially, the earth's endgame? idk about u but ive read enough angst fics to know that it's not inconceivable that crowley and aziraphale's mere existence may have been part of god's plan to represent free will on earth, defend humankind, and give balance and meaning to it

so what would happen if aziraphale essentially rejected that? did the most human thing possible and resisted the plan? idk i feel at this point i am just writing a fic and this will all be ludicrously incorrect bUT half the fun is torturing yourself over your own theories right 🙃

[deathmetalunicorn1]

I don't know if I got this on time, but happy easter, and happy upcoming holidays.

(*￣3￣)╭ <3 ( ´･･)ﾉ(._.`) My application is based on keeping the theme of Poisonous Love (Hercules is my favorite living teddy bear) Where the archaeologist and Hercules have been a couple for a while, and miraculously Zeus does not try anything with his son's girlfriend, since in his eyes that human is Hercules' greatest treasure and the last thing he wants is to hurt his son (all We know it hurt him to see him die in the original tournament) Even Poseidon looks her in the eye when she asks him for a recommendation to finish an essay on some mythical character or something related to mythical sea creatures. Hades is Hades, he's just happy to start a new family photo album. Adamas, at least he doesn't do any of her scenes and treats her like a daughter. Hermes describes her as a scary cat around her and Ares is envious of him as he understands some things he doesn't. Aphrodite finds her acceptable and adorable when Hercules drowns her in affection. And she's most adorable when he's embarrassed to be seen wearing thick-rimmed glasses. Göll at first was somewhat jealous that her brother Hercules has her girlfriend, but then over time she became attached to her and calls her big sister. And the best of the day is when it ends and Hercules decides that his girlfriend is the most huggable stuffed animal in creation.

-It had been several months since you came to Valhalla after dying a hero’s death, destroying the vase of poisonous blood so it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.

-It had been several months since you met Hercules and started a relationship with him, although slow, as you were hesitant being in a relationship, which Hercules saw as you just being shy, but he didn’t mind being patient.

-There was something different about you, comparing you to his first three wives, there was a pull to you, he wanted to stay by your side at all times, he felt so much joy, just sitting with you, answering your questions about his past, the history of Ancient Greece, he could easily spend the rest of eternity with you like this.

-He never made you feel like you were bothering him with all of your questions, answering as many as he could, and he made you feel so welcome in Valhalla, showing you all around the Greek pantheon that he called home, and where you now called home too.

-You were intimidated to meet the other Greek gods, anyone with eyes could see your nervousness around them, as you were a human and they were literal gods!!

-But Hercules never went anywhere without you and was the one to introduce you to them, being by your side to reassure you that you would be safe.

-Zeus- He greeted you warmly, “Ahh so you’re that human who poisoned herself to save the world! Nice to meet someone so impulsive!” Zeus was nice to you, not at all like what legends  had dictated him to be like. The reason for this was because he saw how his son looked at you, he saw how happy you made Hercules, it was a way to repay his sacrifice when he died in Ragnarok; even though he had been returned to life, he felt guilt and wanted to make amends. Zeus found you enjoyable, your curiosity and questions made him look forward to your visits. He was happy to answer anything you asked, as it made him happy to reminisce about his youth.

-Poseidon- Hercules had been nervous about you meeting his uncle, as Poseidon was notorious for disliking humans, but Zeus was the one to introduce the two of you and you shocked Poseidon by asking him tons of questions about his temples. Your sparkling eyes as he met your own, shocking both his nephew and brother, seemed to soothe him, you were so curious, like a young child. He answered your questions patiently, impressed by your knowledge of history, learning that you were an archeologist before you died. He asked his own questions in turn, about what the world was like today and Zeus was the only one who noticed his brother’s eyes soften when he learned that humans were working hard to save the oceans, righting our wrongs.

-Hades- Hades adored you when you first met him, welcoming you to Valhalla warmly, as he had heard from his younger brothers about what a curious and inquisitive maiden you were. Hades couldn’t help but beam as you asked him tons of questions about the myths you knew about him, asking him about the underworld, and you had nearly cried in joy when you got to actually meet Cerberus, who was like a giant puppy with you, enjoying your pets. Hades took several photos of you, Hercules, and Cerberus, with plans on putting them in the family photo album he had stashed away.

-Aphrodite- She adored you, while you were a bit intimidated at first, she was so beautiful, actually glowing with radiance, you felt a little self-conscious, comparing yourself to her, but she smiled warmly, welcoming you to the family, as you were with Hercules. She was surprised by your knowledge of history as you asked her lots of questions, and in turn she offered you advice when you asked her for woman-to-woman advice about dating Hercules, as you had never been in a relationship before. Her eyes were stars, learning that you had been single and that you came to her for advice, but she knew that she couldn’t use her specific tactics when it came to me, giving you basic information, to start you slow and steady. Hercules sent her a thank you note when you took his hand on the way back to his home, holding his hand but you couldn’t look at him, your face bright red.

-Hermes- Hermes and you were instant friends, which made Hercules laugh as you both began to rapid fire questions at each other, leaving Hercules on the side-lines, watching your interaction, but he thought it was amusing to see the two of you getting along. You loved it when Hermes would play his music for you, it was so soothing and your praise meant more to him, as you were new, your opinions were honest as you hadn’t heard his playing before. Hercules had to stuff his fist in his mouth when he came back, finding you both slumped over the table, sleeping after you had been comparing notes with mythology, finding out what was true and what wasn’t, you both looked like two kittens passed out in random places.

-Ares- You hadn’t noticed, but he tried to intimidate you, as Hercules was his closest friend, except for maybe Hermes, but when you smiled up at him, a sparkle in your eyes, greeting him, he felt himself melt, actually being a bit shy with you, which Hercules teased him for. You asked him so many questions about legendary battles in history in Ancient Greece, asking him about the tactics used by the various armies. Ares actually had to push you away, his whole hand covering your face as he felt embarrassed that he didn’t know all the finite details you were asking about. You weren’t bothered, however, by taking any information he was able to give, thanking him so sincerely, which made him actually approach Hercules to threaten him to not hurt you, or else.

-Adamas- He was a god that wasn’t mentioned often in history, but you learned that was because when humans began to record history, Adamas had been dealt with by Poseidon, basically rendering him incapacitated for centuries, so there was no record of him. You weren’t bothered however, asking him to tell you about his history, which made him grin as you sat beside him, looking at photo albums together. He was quick to adopt you as his daughter, finding you enjoyable to be around as you wanted to learn about him. He would never admit that he would wait by the front door of his home when he knew you were coming to visit, he wasn’t excited, not one bit.

-Goll- When you met the youngest valkyrie, you smiled so warmly at her that her face flushed, thinking you were so cute and nice. When she learned that you were the human that Hercules rescued himself, being a one-time valkyrie himself for that one incident, she was stunned, and became even more so when she learned that you and Hercules were in a relationship, even if you were very shy about it. You learned that Hercules and the valkyries were all close, as they were all demigods, and Goll in particular was quite close to her big brother Hercules. Goll watched you closely for a while, as she was upset that her big brother was in a relationship, but she was quick to see that you were a good person and you were quickly dubbed as her big sister, which you loved.

-Hercules- He adored you, everything about you, from your cute rambles, or when you’re wearing your thick reading glasses, everything you do is so adorable to him! Your shyness with him was endearing, but he never forced you to do anything you didn’t want to do, relationship wise, as he would make you take breaks to eat, bathe, and sleep, when you would be going hard  on your study sessions. Hercules makes you feel so special, always cuddling you, almost like you’re his personal teddy bear, nuzzling his nose against your cheek in soft affection and the first time you were bold, peppering his face with soft kisses, he melted under you, a smile so big on his face that you couldn’t help but smile back.

[fourseasonsfigs]

Building Block Figs - Two Devils

Following up on the last few days of building block fig posts, this is the last kit that I have to post about. I have three more incoming, but they won't arrive for at least a month, if that.

I actually started on these figs a while ago - they were the second set I started to make, after my first kit of Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake. That one was so involved that I figured I'd relax a little on an easy set before tackling the next scene.

Ahahaha. Little did I know.

First, I had such a big problem with this set that I originally wasn't sure I was going to buy it. The full, long name of this set is: Ghost Valley Valley Master and Tianchuang Leader. Great, love it, right? Always a fan. Except, this was the picture:

Right, you see the problem. Valley Master Wen is all dressed in his Episode 1 red finery, but our Tianchuang Leader definitely is not dressed in his midnight-hued civil servant assassin best. Why on earth would Zhou Zishu be in white? This is not "Rescue from Tianchuang Jail" A-Xu (although I kinda wish it was, that would be great).

Also, less egregious but still not great is the fact that Zhou Zishu's hair is Jianghu-styled half down, and that Baiyi has a cross-guard. This whole fig is just not working for me!

But, as you can tell (and as you would already have suspected anyway), I bought it, and just planned somehow to figure out a solution to change up the entire fig.

Somehow. I had no actual idea how to do it, but I felt confident I would somehow figure it out. So confident, that I even went ahead and put together Valley Master Wen first.

He, at least, was not going to require changing. The only thing I'd change up with him is to give him a gold guan instead of his hairpin, but I used up all my extra yellow bricks on the Catching Light fig, so I was out of luck. That's alright, I don't mind this one so much. The Valley Master would wear his hairpin at times, that makes sense.

Oh, I should say, in comparison to the other building block sets, these two together totaled 856 bricks - 424 for Wen Kexing and 432 for Zhou Zishu. The figs stand 4.4 x 5.2 x 10.2 cm and 5.2 x 5.6 x 10.2 cm respectively, and each one is rated 2 hours to complete. Like all of these kits, the time to complete is pretty right on, if you follow the directions.

The two figures came together in a set. I wouldn't have minded if they split up the two figures in two different bags, but nope, they're all mingled in there together!

Here's a sample progress pic:

This one wasn't too bad - it's always a little harder for the ones that are mostly one color, since it makes it easy to miscount as the colors all blend together. But, I didn't make any mistakes and it went pretty smoothly.

I finished the body and moved on to the face. They have you do the fig in pieces, and then put it all together at the end. You can tell the passage of time from the quality of the light in these photos, but I pretty much finished this one over the course of a day and an evening.

I had to laugh as I saw his red cheeks/eyeliner. Very cute!

And here he is! Photographed at a rakish angle, as well. He looks great!

While I was at it, I decided to click through the directions for Zhou Zishu, and see if I could figure out any ideas in advance of working on the fig. By this time, even one (and a half) sets in, I could see that they had provided lots of extra bricks, so the idea that was starting to half-bake in my head was that I would have enough bricks at the very end of all my kits to do something instead of the white.

While clicking though, I realized that I could skip the body part and do the head, which would help use up some of the necessary bricks. So the head it was! That way, I would really only have leftover bricks at the end.

That I got done very quickly. It wasn't bad at all! And, the best thing was that this head didn't have any long hair attached to it. So, I could just ignore the long hair when building the body, and use the head as is. Things were looking up!

I mean, Valley Master Wen looks horrified, but don't worry Lao Wen, he'll get better.

I set aside these two, and went on to the rest of the sets.

That brings us to this morning. I woke up, pulled out my SHL reference book, sat down with all the brick remainders, and figured out, I think, a pretty good plan of attack.

Technically, all his clothes are midnight shades of blue and wine, but those are not colors I had available, sadly.

I had a lot of black bricks left over since I wasn't doing the half-long hairstyle, and plus extras from the other sets. That being said, there wasn't a ton of the smaller sized bricks in black. Also, I didn't really want a fig that was black on black on black, and technically his robes are that deep midnight blue anyway. The biggest problem with that was that I didn't have enough of the darkest blue bricks. Or really any of the blue bricks, and of course going lighter would get us right back to a non-canon compliant fig. So, I decided to try and do his cloak and body with as much of the black bricks as possible, and try to use the blue ones as judiciously as I could, in the hopes of stretching them far enough.

I'm a little annoyed at myself I didn't take a pic of all the remaining bricks left so you could see what I was working with, but at least here you can see the start of the fig and the remaining black bricks left. You can also see where I started off making the interior white, to try and use as few black or blue bricks as possible. My plan was to make the cloak as enveloping as possible in order to use the least number of blue pieces.

You can see here how very few blue pieces there are left, and how far I have to go. You can also see here how I started changing up Baiyi, to make the hilt dark grey vs. the neon orange.

I will note at this point I was about two hours in on the body, which sounds ridiculous, but let me assure you, it gets worse. I stopped here for lunch, and then came back ready to finish this up.

Unfortunately for me, though, this is where I started to get into real trouble. I was changing up the sword, the top hand position (inadvertently, since I got rid of the cross-guard), I was trying to make the cape wrap around the front robes, ignore the directions for the long hair in the back and therefore revise the back (which is half hair). And I had no idea what I was doing with any of it, other than to desperately stretch out my remaining dark blue pieces. For each blue piece I did use, I was trying to figure out if I'd be better off using a bigger piece, or multiple smaller pieces, or if I might need those exact configurations later.

Basically, I was doing way too much off script, and didn't have the skills to back it up. The directions at this point were almost useless.

You can see how the step I was theoretically on looked nothing like the fig I was trying to make!

I must have reworked this piece here three different times. It doesn't help that the arms are asymmetrical, which only complicated something that I really didn't need to be any more complicated.

The biggest problem, of course, was that I was just way out of my depth, and kept making mistakes that I would have to go back and fix. And unfortunately, I have extremely poor visual short term memory, so when I disconnected a piece to fix a mistake or replace a brick, I couldn't remember how to reconnect it. And since I was so far off book with the instructions, I couldn't use that to help. I just had to figure it out new each time.

It was pretty rough going, I'm not going to lie.

Somewhere in this I ditched the two-brick configuration for Baiyi and made it into the slimmest, whippiest, greyest version I could.

At this point, those were all the blue bricks remaining, and I was critically short just a few pieces. So, I went to the lake raft set from Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake, which I'm going to re-work next to make the raft brown vs. blue and green. I pillaged a few dark blue bricks from the raft in advance of.

Finally, after three (more) hours, I was done! I couldn't almost believe it. Very happily, I started to take some pics.

And that's when I noticed that Zhou Zishu was actually taller than Wen Kexing. I was like, wait a minute. How is this possible?

It was possible.

At this point, I was really, really tempted to just say, you know what, it's good enough. Clean up the bricks and move on with life. But the bricks were still out, and I just couldn't let it go. After all this time, working so hard? No way.

I figured here the easy way out was to extend Wen Kexing's legs. Gong Jun is all legs anyway, so it would work.

I didn't take any pictures of this, because at this point I was losing the will to live, but basically not only did I extend his legs, I ended up extending the train of his robes just a little bit. Just to make it a little more like the show! I had plenty of red bricks, so this was actually fairly straightforward.

So NOW it was done. Unlike this extremely long blog post. Picture time it was!

You can see he's quite a bit taller now.

Don't judge my fig-designing skills too harshly, please! I was struggling. Desperately.

This is actually the first time I am really looking at them since I finished, so I'm curious about this too.

Oops, I see in my fugue state I knocked a little tendril of the Valley Master's hair off kilter. I'll have to fix that.

Ah ha, I did fix it! I have to say I really love how we have Wen Kexing's hand behind his back here - love this modelling. This is a good angle to see the train here - I just added that last two rows, nothing special.

Hmm, I guess I should have done a straight box down at the back for Zhou Zishu's cape, vs. trying to shape the shoulders and arms from where he's holding the sword. There isn't a ton of black bricks left, but I might go back and see if I can streamline it some.

Ok, this doesn't look too bad from this angle. I could have curved his bottom back part of his hair a bit more, but I suppose it can be the braid in back.

Well, Baiyi looks good!

Finally, I remembered to take a good bottoms-up pic for these building brick figs!

And the top here. Oh, I forgot to mention I had changed up Zhou Zishu's hair tie too - it was originally light grey and light blue, but I made it light and dark grey.

Alright, I'm at 30 pics, so there we have it. Clearly not the best, and there's still clean up work to be done, but I'm pretty happy how he turned out, considering everything. At least he's not wearing white robes.

In conclusion, I will not be giving up my day job for a brick designer job, that's for sure.

Well! Thanks for tagging along with me through brick festivities! I am looking forward to the next sets coming - they look wonderful. And best of all, I don't think I'll have to change a single thing on them!

Material: Plastic bricks

Fig Count: 508

Scene Count: 35

Rating: 8 hours of build time

[link to the Master Post Index]

[autisticwriterblog]

Fandom 50 Post 15

My thirteenth piece of Alan Wake 2 meta. This one is about Initiation 6.

Initiation 6: Return

What happened in this chapter?

Once again, Alan enters Parliament Tower and takes the elevator up to his and Alice’s apartment. He tries to enter his study to find the manuscript, but the door is locked. The apartment appears to be partway through the set-up for Alice’s Dark Place exhibition, her photos scattered around and televisions standing in various parts of the apartment. When Alan approaches each TV, it turns on automatically and Alice begins to speak.

In the first video, she talks about her depression in the months after she lost Alan. She didn’t leave the apartment and was ridden with guilt about his death. Alice was basically bedbound, but Barry Wheeler began visiting and cooking food for her. She says that she didn’t like Barry originally, but he’s actually a good friend—and that he still keeps in contact after moving away.

In the second video, she talks about seeing a deer balloon fly past her bedroom window. She looked out the window and saw a little girl crying like losing the balloon was the end of the world. Alice describes the scene as “the perfect image of the horror of caring”. And after that, she decided to get out of bed and grab her camera.

In the third video, Alice talks about there being something in the dark that she needs to see and show others. She took photos of shadows and went out at night, searching even though she didn’t know what she was looking for.

In the fourth video, she talks about another world, a dark place with faces in the shadows. Alice mentions that fearing the dark is really just fearing the unknown. But photography can take a snapshot of reality.  Alice says that she needs to prove those faces are really there.

Afterwards, we see Alan enter the Writer’s Room. On the desk, he finds a full manuscript of a novel: Return by Alan Wake. It is a horror story about the Dark Presence taking over Bright Falls. Alan can’t remember writing it; he wouldn’t write something like this. It must have been Scratch. Destroying the manuscript won’t solve anything, so Alan decides to edit the story. Although he is still stuck with the horror genre and has to work within the constraints it causes. He decides to add Saga Anderson into the plot as the story’s hero because Alan has seen her in visions, and she isn’t in the original manuscript for Return.

But before Alan can finish his editing, someone who looks just like him storms into the room, and shoots Alan through the head.

My Thoughts

This is a short chapter, but it gives us lots of details about what Alice’s life was like after she lost Alan. And as someone who really likes Alice, I appreciate the insight into her mind and actions in the 13 years between games.

On the computer, you can find a series of emails from Barry Wheeler, who moved to California but clearly still kept in contact. Combined with the detail that Barry brought Alice food when she was struggling, it’s cute to get hints of their relationship and how it has changed without Alan around. They never got on, but it seems they became genuine friends once they lost someone so important to them. I just think this is really sweet (and sad, obviously).

In one video, Alice talks about being fascinated by the dark, going out at night and taking photos of shadows. Now, the first game established her severe nyctophobia, so all these actions show an incredible amount of bravery for a woman who used to panic if the power went out. Alice Wake is a badass, is what I’m trying to say.

(Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve called most of the women in this game a badass at some point while writing this meta. But it’s true. Alan Wake 2 has an amazing cast of female characters who are all incredibly cool.)

[thatlittledandere]

On my way back from an anime con (cosplayed Marie) (pics coming after I get them from the photographers) here's some highlights

Three people asked for a photo in my first ten minutes at the venue I'm literally a celebrity Atlus should hire me as a representative

One of them was Yosuke!!!!!!! This is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I bought a used copy of Kingdom Hearts for the PS2 at a very low price for such a classic because it's missing the manual. God bless sloppy owners, the only defense against the evils of used game sellers.

An Estonian cosplayer/con goer/organizer gave a lecture (for the lack of a better word) on the differences between Finnish and Estonian con scenes. It was fascinating!!

The neverending battle of unstoppable force (my hunt for second hand Vita games which are hard to come by) vs immovable object (my stupidly limited taste making me entirely uninterested in 90% of what I do find) resulted in a rare victory: I bought a mystery visual novel I've never heard of from the flea market. We'll see how it goes.

Standing in line for the flea market I was spotted by an old acquaintance I originally met in Osomatsu-san cosplay circles years ago and haven't talked to in aaaaaages. I've seen her around along the years but haven't had the guts to go talk because she's always super pretty which.. I still see as something "above me" like I'm not allowed to go talk to someone like that like we're still living in middle school social hierarchy lmaoo but luckily it sounds like she was similarly awkward about starting a conversation with someone she's not close to so. Both of us were happy to meet again!! Neither of us is a loser unworthy of such attention. Whew and lmao

Heaven's nectar Calpis Water ♡

A can of good cafe au lait mentally transported me back to spring 2016 in Japan and buying coffee from the vending machine in the language school lobby after the 15-minute walk in heavy rain to get there and feeling like I saw God after the first sip.

My green contact lenses tried to kill me every time I put them on I think it's because they dryed out once. I'll have to buy new ones

Second day I barely stepped out of the accommodation when I came face to face with people cosplaying Yu, Yosuke and Yukiko and for a solid 20 seconds we all just did the Spiderman pointing meme and went "oh my god!!!" Got photos <3 The best thing that has ever happened to me has been topped.

It has been topped yet again: BATTLE LOVER SCARLET COSPLAY!! AT A FINNISH CONVENTION!!! IN 2024!!!! I was soooooo awkward and awestruck throughout that interaction. My god. My word. My fuck. Mind blown

Love is not over

We battle on

We persist

Boueibu is forever

If you don't know what I'm talking about get the hell out of here (joking) (only on this last bullet point though) (Boueibu is the most important anime that exists)

[ryanhamiltonwalsh]

BILLY RUANE

The long awaited premiere of The Road to Ruane documentary is this weekend in Boston. Who was Billy Ruane? He was Boston's modern-rock-scene lunatic godfather, a trust-fund kid who decided to blow it all on his friends and artists, a ceaseless promoter of bands he loved, and a pure injection of uncut chaos in anyone's life that happened to cross paths with his.

We were one of the last bands Billy championed. He tracked us down, on tour, to a bar patio in Knoxville, TN. The club we were playing that night brought the cordless phone out to me and I was certain someone back home must be dead. Instead I heard this on the other end: "This is Billy Ruane. I need Hallelujah The Hills to play my birthday party at the Middle East." When I asked why he had tracked us down to a club in TN to ask *tonight* he said, "It couldn't wait. I love you guys. Just say yes."

I felt like I had just met Hunter S. Thompson's New England cousin. We did say yes and the lead up to the show featured all manner of wild, rambling emails sent to the entire lineup, alternating between excitement and admonishing us for not promoting it harder. The following day, an apology email: "i guess that night i went loopy."

Billy's whole rock-scene origin story began with a birthday party he threw himself at the Middle East, and this one would be his last. It was a wild, fun, emotionally charged night. The video here is from our performance, complete with one of several mid-set announcements from Billy. I enjoyed his unpredictable presence and was so honored he added us to the list of bands he thought were worth a damn in Boston.

After that night, he used to call me at work sometimes (no idea how he got the number) and talk for, like, an hour at a time. The calls were very different than the dancing, kissing, shouting Billy you saw at a show. The thoughts were still wild, but it was delivered in a calm, understated manner, like an AM talk show host or something. I would never initiate the end of the call. If he wanted to tell me more, I always let him keep going. If he couldn't attend one of our shows—sometimes it was for really weird reasons, like he heard rumors that someone he had a beef with would be in attendance—he would send a videographer so he could enjoy the show later at home.

Looking back at my inbox, I see we were emailing weeks before his death about doing another show he was putting together. He had a theme in mind: bands with strings in them.

The last time I saw him in person, he picked up a round of drinks at a Drug Rug show at the Museum of Fine Arts. His Billy-isms seemed especially so willfully in defiance of the accepted rules of society when placed in the context of a fancy art museum. I remember marveling that he knew my name, loved our band.

Hills performed at his memorial concert where, to everyone's absolute shock, his sister tossed some of his ashes onto the audience from the stage. Some people were visibly covered with Billy. One more sloppy kiss. I remember asking people next to me if that had actually just happened. I don't even remember performing that night, but I'll always remember Chris Brokaw's astounding electric guitar feedback tribute to his friend. I can still remember how centered I felt witnessing it.

For many, many years after, his ashes resided at the Middle East Upstairs. A few years ago, I realized that the photo to the left of his urn was him on stage with Hallelujah The Hills; that's me visible right behind him in plaid. All because I got a phone call in Knoxville one night. What a world.

The documentary, I have no doubt, will solidify his legend for music fans far outside of Boston. It can't lose. Just capture 1/10th of the stories, ya know? For instance, Billy once booked the Del Fuegos at Walpole Prison. Apparently, during the set, Billy started dancing in the aisle between the prisoners. Soon they all chanted, “David Bowie! David Bowie!” at him.

These are the kinds of beautiful, surreal tableaux we just don't get if everyone one of us colors within the lines. I'm so grateful Billy didn't even know there was a coloring book in front of him.

[ocrosemagazine]

Artist: RaptorKizzie ⋆｡°✩ ˚ ★ ੈ˳·˖✶ ✭・.・✫·˖✶ ✭・.・✫・゜・。..・✦⋆｡°✩ It's nice to formally meet you! I'm Anne Pichard, but most know me as Rose, curator and host of Rose Magazine. Thank you for agreeing to interview with me today!

Let's start with the introductions. Can you give me your name and pronouns? Kumali (Tiger): I'm Kumali, a pleasure. And this is my partner, Luka <3

Tell me a little about yourself. What's your typical job like? Are you a model elsewhere? Kumali: -chuckle- Yes, I'm a model and actor for the Instincts Agency. I've been working there for the last decade or so. It's been a journey. Luka: O-oh, I'm nothing that glamorous -hehe-, but I do hair styling! I'm a big fan of creative styling and colors :D I'm so glad you answered the call, what made you want to work with the Rose Modeling Agency? Kumali: I've always enjoyed when the agency would assign collaborative projects, since designers like to push styling limits. It makes for far more creative and grand results! Luka: I just like to fill in since Kumali doesn't like to do more "romantic" photo narratives without me <3 So sentimental!

Is this the most difficult photoshoot you've done? What was your experience like during production? Kumali: Thankfully, no. This project spoke to me, for sure. I tend to lean towards more artful projects, but food ones… Have you ever had to sit in a tub of chocolate? -shudder- The places melted chocolate can just CLING to. Luka: -resisting the urge to laugh-…

Okay, now let's get to the looks! Tell me, who are you wearing? Was this top quality couture or did you design it yourself? Kumali: Chie is the mind behind today's designs. She always does very flowing designs, and I enjoyed that she went with a Sun and Moon romance, since that's the appeal of my favorite childhood fairy tale &lt;;3 Luka: Oh yeah, for sure! I'm no model, but the outfits made me feel pretty ethereal and otherworldly.

Of course, Stelliferous is the theme this year, but what inspired your look, your design? Kumali: The Moon Messenger and Sun Deity. An romance story of how the Sun Deity chose to wed the little Moon Messenger that was supposed to inform him of a broken marriage contract. The Moon Messenger wished to spare him some heartbreak, so they instead fabricated responses from the person to whom he was originally engaged to. The gist of it is, they saw each other's hearts and fell in love. Luka: It's such a pretty story from Eikono, more so because the Moon Messenger was always depicted as androgynous, which I relate to :)

Do you have any other upcoming projects after this? Now that you're an international model, I'm sure you'll be booked and busy soon! Kumali: Oh goodness, the list of projects are never ending. Filming, shoots, and meet and greets. But at the very least, a break is in order. Luka: -giggle- Oh jeez, I'm more of a behind the scenes creature. I get so flustered in between takes, because he keeps flirting.

Any advice you'd like to give your fans out there? Life advice, work advice, modeling advice? Kumali: Hmmm, I don't know about advice. Maybe that every look has an audience, so one closed door with one agency isn't the end of the line. Luka: I don't think I can really offer any modeling advice, but I can say that self-love is important. Be good to yourself whether you're a super star or just getting on your feet! <3 Thank you for joining us today! ⋆｡°✩ ˚ ★ ੈ˳·˖✶ ✭・.・✫·˖✶ ✭・.・✫・゜・。..・✦⋆｡°✩

[fatherramiro]

Time After Time - give me a scene from the morning after the end of No grave can hold my body down

thank you!! here is the link to the original fic if anyone is curious!

"Wake up, my love."

Ramiro's eyes fluttered open at the words. For a moment, he was back in Spain, in the suite of rooms that Ángel had claimed as his own. Soon, he'd have to sneak back to the servants' quarters, before anyone saw him and reported it back to Ángel's mother.

Someone pressed their lips to his shoulder and Ramiro let his eyes drift closed again. He was warm, and comfortable. Moving seemed impossible.

The lips against his shoulder quirked upwards into a smile. "I know you're trying to go back to sleep."

Ramiro just hummed a sound in agreement.

There was a soft laugh, and then Ángel's lips drifted up to softly kiss his neck. "If you wake up now, there's still enough time for far more enjoyable activities before we should make an appearance in the mess."

Ramiro opened his eyes again. This time, the world came back into focus. He was not in Spain, nor was it the year 1899. He was on the Prometheus, in the cabin he shared with Ángel. It was 2099 now, which meant...

He focused on a photo on the nearby nightstand. His own smiling face beamed back as, in the photo, Ángel kissed his cheek. They didn't have to hide here. They could be open about their affections without fear of being harmed. Still half-tangled in the feeling of being trapped in the simulation, the very thought made Ramiro's heart ache.

Ángel was still wrapped around him, holding him close. Ramiro could feel the beat of his heart from where his chest was pressed against his back, and the sensation grounded him. Another unwanted memory rose of Ángel pinned beneath debris in the Kerberos' boiler room, unable to breathe and gasping out a final frightened "I'm scared." His eyes had locked onto Ramiro's as he died, as if he wanted him to be the last thing he saw. Even now, knowing it hadn't been real, the agony he felt lingered.

Trying to fight the rush of emotions, Ramiro gently rolled over so he could look at Ángel's face. His love was ever handsome still, his hair falling loose around his forehead. Ramiro couldn't help but trace the curve of his cheek, trying to ground himself in the fact that the simulation had literally been nothing but a bad dream. It was over now, and Ángel was still here. They were together again, and safe.

"How long have you been up?"

"About half an hour," Ángel replied.

Ramiro raised an eyebrow. "That's new. Don't I usually wake up first, or are my memories getting mixed up again?"

Ángel huffed out a laugh. "Just had a bad dream. And when I woke up and saw you, I couldn't resist just watching you for a while."

"Please, save the sappy commentary for after my coffee," Ramiro said with a mock groan. After a pause, he added "what did you dream about?"

Ángel's face fell slightly. He couldn't meet Ramiro's eyes any longer, instead focusing on their entwined hands. The silence grew longer, and just before Ramiro could apologize for asking, he spoke.

"One of the simulation loops. I'd gotten us into trouble thanks to my... my fling with Krester. His mother almost shot me, but you got in the way." He paused, and when he spoke again his voice shook. "You died in my arms."

"Oh."

"You'll get dreams like that," Ángel continued. "The mind remembers all we went through. It usually comes up as nightmares for me."

Ramiro nodded. The idea of reliving Ángel's death - or any of the times he'd lost him - filled him with dread. That pain had been too much to bear.

"I'm here now," he said finally, pressing a kiss to Ángel's hand. "I'm not going anywhere."

The sorrow in Ángel's eyes didn't quite fade, but he smiled at that. "I'm still not used to the beard"

Ramiro chuckled. "I can shave."

There was more they needed to talk about - about Ángel cheating in the simulation, about the arguments they'd had before they had gone under, and about what the future held for them. But for now, Ramiro just wanted to enjoy this moment of them together again. Together, when they had the time they so desperately wanted in the simulation.

Instead, Ramiro leaned forward to kiss Ángel. "You mentioned more enjoyable activities, so if the beard doesn't bother you that much..."

He could feel Ángel's smirk against his lips as he pulled him closer.

Yes, talking could come later.

[peppertaemint]

How is Kai new album for you? I think he really established himself as an artist, he created his own style. Even tho I think the MV was quite random with cowboy (?) outfits, the ballet theme could be pushed more but I think the scene where he is wearing babushka scarf, glasses and doing body rolles half-naked while gazing straight at babushka cashier is top notch!!😅 i heard there will be more films/mvs for this album, can’t wait. SM overall are really good with visual production. Tho I saw already some controversies on Reddit that people seems to not like that title track wasnt original written for Kai but for some European artist…I don’t know how to feel about that, I think he still sang better than original but I find it a little strange that he named whole album about himself over the song that was written for someone else with different idea in mind about Mr.Rover. Maybe I wouldn’t be so skeptical if it was just b-side and not the main track and the name of whole album idk 😅 Kai still did great job with Say you love me and Slidding, my favs on album

Hello Kai Anon...! Ah, look at this photo. How can we not like Rover when the concept is bringing us glitter baby angel raver Kai?

It's true that the title track was originally a Bulgarian pop song. It seems SM bought it and repurposed it. One of the criticisms of Kpop lies exactly in this — a lack of authenticity in artistry. But, I think if we reframe things there's more at play than the merit of original songwriting, and there is ample authenticity shining through.

Is it slightly weird that they went for a song that was so easily found and so unchanged in its final form (in a way)? Yes. But can we say that the original concept and performance are similar Kai's? I'm not too sure about that.

The MV is a little messy in its narrative, but we have Kai exchanging identities to enter an undercover world of dance. I take this to be his desired world / true self world. The dance he does above the underground is showy and wild and causes a big fuss, but underground, it's the realm of ballerinas and masked dancers. Serious, sexy, and a little threatening. A place not every man could dare to go. That's how I interpret it. The risk Kai took/takes in being an accomplished ballet dancer.

His voice suits the song better than the original singers, and the performance of the choreography adds so much to the song. I'd be lying to say it wasn't stuck in my head all week! I see how the decision was taken to choose this song because it is a banger. And he killed it. And the dance cover of SF9's Yoo Taeyang showcases how well the song and choreography fit. The dance is sick, and the song is fun.

The bottom line for me is that Kai is an accomplished dancer and Kpop artist, and this release is dance-centered. That's explicit from the MV itself, but should be from the power of the choreography. It fits him well, so how the song was acquired is less important. What he and the team have done with it is where my focus is.

I'm already looking forward to a full Bomba performance, btw. Give me half-naked cowboy tease Kai.

[lilcathsmith]

Season 7 review!

I'm not going to lie, wasn't overly keen on this season. I wasn't a fan of Booth and Brennan's dynamic, I understand that it probably would change because of the little-bitty not too serious situation of Bones being pregnant (even though Angela and Hodgins didn't change) but all of their chemistry just seemed to disappear?

I also understand that they wrote the pregnancy storyline bc Emily Deschanel was pregnant but I really didn't want them to get together this way, it really felt like they just got together because they had to. AND I had huge issues with Brennan's attitude the entire season in terms of involving Booth in ANYTHING to do with their child? Not telling him about the scans? Not telling him they were having a girl? And originally not planning on going to her christening?? It all just felt really heartless and inconsiderate (even for Bones).

All that being said... CHRISTINE ANGELA 🥺🥺 (I nearly cried when they said that) Officially the cutest Jeffersonian Baby Girl.

And another season gone waiting for the thing to happen 🥲

Episode discussions:

- The Crack in the Code: wasn't really that intrigued by Pelant, he just didn't seem that sinister. The code on the bones was cool/weird though! (My main question of this episode though was how did they manage to renovate the whole house between this and the next episode?)

- The Prisoner in the Pipe: Of course Bones would go into labour in a prison, how else did we expect it to happen? And of course they gave birth in a barn because there was no room at the inn 🙄 Idk it just felt a bit on the nose. But obviously Baby Christine was the star of the show and I love that the sign said "Welcome stapes" bc it's the smallest bone in the body 🥹

- The Bump in the Road: one thing I did like about this season was that they made Bones "struggle" with the post-partum side of things. It definitely felt like something Angela would more likely struggle with so I'm glad they gave the separation anxiety and body consciousness to Brennan. Oh and I LOVE Finn!

- The Warrior in the Wuss: I hate that Booth never thinks to talk to Parker about things, maybe it's a man/dad thing but there have been multiple occasions now where Booth's mind has gone to the worst case scenario and it's literally not even a bad thing. This episode was the same, as soon as I saw the photos cut out and the batteries taken out of the car I knew Parker was making something nice for Christine and it pained me the whole episode that Brennan and Booth thought that something dodgy was going on :(

- The Past in the Present: this episode frustrated me SO MUCH. How was Bones still allowed in the Jeffersonian even before she was an "official" suspect I was just sat there watching it like "they wouldn't be allowed to do that on CSI". Also couldn't Pelant have just changed the time stamp from the day Brennan went to visit her friend to the day before he died? AND WHY DID SHE LEAVE

Anyway, hopefully Bones and Booth get their flirty chemistry back in Season 8 (and maybe they'll get married soon?) (Can confirm they get their chemistry back, them making out in the laundry room in 8x01 👀)

(putting Sweets in here bc I love him and he was so cute in this scene 🥹)

New crime show obsession?

I've finally decided to dive into the world of Bones and I'm going to take you on the journey with me! So here goes!

☆☆☆

I've watched the pilot and am immediately into it. I'm intrigued by the focus of the show as when I'm watching CSI I find the scenes where they recontruct a victims face from the skull really cool and the people who do irl and soooo talented!

Also, the opening scene? The skull in the bag? Obsessed!

Already in love with Brennan and Booth's dynamic, feels very Finn/Russell - there's been some angst in the past that we haven't let go of - I'm excited for their back-and-forth-banter.

Straight away, I like Brennan and Riva, they're funny and cool and I hope they have as good of a relationship as this first episode has shown.

I probably won't write my thoughts on EVERY episode, maybe do mid-season and season finale summaries idk we'll see!

[daily911]

Flag Raising on Iwo Jima, Joe Rosenthal (1945) // Marine Corps War Memorial, created by Felix de Weldon (1954), photographed by @michaeldphotos (2016) // 9-1-1 Season Four, Episode Five: Buck Begins, dir. Jann Turner (2021) for @angelcamael