#my persona and some brand things i made

[pixelpathogen]

[kiwi-bitchez]

The Girlfriend Experience

Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around. Fake Dating AU, classic corny fic for a fav corny troupe, Stranger Things canon divergent ofc, 18+ smut (see warnings below), big dick energy but also slightly emotionally unavailable!Eddie, yada yada yada, you know the drill. 

Content warnings: AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol, smoking the devil’s lettuce, mention of panty stealing, food consumption, semi-public sex, fingering, PIV, Dom-ish!Eddie, oral (m and f receiving), pierced dick Eddie because I said so!, unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, mild angst but nothing too angsty just like one heated conversation and Eddie feeling a little worthless but happy ending I promise

Word Count: 20k ahhhhhh!!!

A/N: Thanks to all those who comment and reblog! Your feedback and engagement makes my heart soar and keeps me motivated to write this filth! Sorry for the gargantuan length, in very-me fashion I always ending up writing one behemoth fic every so often rather than just separating it out into chapters. Also, realizing after the fact that I use the brand name ‘Goodwill’ a lot in this fic, which maybe not everyone might know is a thrift store, not sure if that’s just an American thing or not but figured it was worth noting. 

“I guess I’m just not boyfriend material, ya know?” Eddie shrugs.

“Don’t say that, Eds,” your eyebrows pinched together, “different qualities are important to different people. Not everyone is looking to date a Steve, or a Brian, or a whoever. I’m sure someone is out there looking for an Eddie.”

“It’s not that,” he shot a look towards Steve, who, despite your analogy, was unfortunately everyone’s type and the textbook definition of boyfriend material.

“I just don’t think I’d be very good at gooey romance stuff, or even like, passable boyfriend behavior. I mean, look at me, I hardly take care of myself, I’m loud, I have no money, I’m basically every dad’s worst nightmare, do I need to keep going?”

“The nightmare thing can actually be a bonus,” Steve chimes in, “the whole bad boy persona can be a huge draw for most girls.”

“Sure Steve,” Eddie’s voice grows exasperated, “I’m the mysterious bad boy until they realize I’m a huge loser who runs not one but two dungeons and dragons groups. Real fuckin’ attractive I’m sure that is.”

“Shows you’re committed to something…” you trail off when his eyes tell you to stop coming up with a positive spin for every excuse he gives. 

This whole discussion had started because of something that happened at the bar last night. A small group of you decided to meet up for drinks, your usual group of pals. It was a Thursday, so the bar wasn’t too busy. Your friends all squished into a booth in the corner, chatting and catching up over a plate of shared nachos, when Robin started making frantic gesture at you and Steve.

“Please just say what you’re trying to say instead of this elaborate charade,” Steve makes a few mocking hand signals back at her.

“Okay, one at a time, and keep it subtle,” her voice lowered to a whisper, for some reason, “over at the bar, some girl is totally flirting with Eddie.”

You and Steve both turn around. “I said not at the same time!” She whisper yells. 

There was, in fact, a pretty girl with shiny hair and glossy lips doing a half fake laugh and pressing her manicured hand to Eddie’s bicep. You whip back around to find Robin with her mouth hanging open in a “can you believe this is happening” way. 

“Good for him,” Steve swivels back around too, “She’s pretty hot.”

You return to your nachos, pretending there wasn’t a ping of jealousy in you. Eddie was your friend, that had been made abundantly clear.

When Robin introduced you to all her friends from high school, you had easily gotten along with all of them. You especially got along with Eddie. He was funny, authentic, abrasive at times, but a truly good person at his core, creative, protective, you could go on.

After getting to know him a bit, and developing a budding crush, you had made a few passes at him. Nothing too forward, just small compliments here and there, open ended offers to hang out that never lead anywhere.

It’s not like he flat out rejected you, but any feelers you were putting out to see if there was potential there were met with him looking past your flirtatious intent and just being his goofy, friendly self. He treated you exactly the same way he treated everyone else, which was awesome, except for when it wasn’t. 

“Oh no,” Robin’s gaze was not subtly fixed on the unfolding scene at the bar, you and Steve watched her face drastically shift from confused, to a cringe, to an eye roll.

Still half whispering, as if Eddie could even hear your corner of the bar, “He’s totally blowing it. DON’T both turn around at the same time again.” 

“Okay, so,” she starts before either of you can even confirm that you want to know, “she was totally laying it on thick, like you could see it from all the way back here. And he must have said something off putting, cuz all of a sudden she like went cold on him and pranced away. Shhhhh, okay okay, he’s coming back.”

She was acting as if she wasn’t the only one gossiping. You and Steve were innocent bystanders in all this. 

“WHAT was that?” She immediately blurts out when Eddie returns to his seat, fresh drink in hand. 

You and Steve share a side glance to sigh at Robin’s inability to be subtle, god bless her. Eddie shifts around awkwardly and lets out a forced dry laugh, taking a long sip from his drink before facing the wrath of a curious Robin. 

“Oh, that,” he gestures to the bar as if she could be asking about anything else, “some girl. Not sure.”

“Not sure? Eddie she was FLIRTING with you,” Robin all but yelled, causing Steve to scan the bar to see if the girl in question had landed somewhere within earshot. 

“I know that,” he hisses, “She just… wasn’t my type…”

“Okay sure, hot girl in a tube top and no bra isn’t your type, riiiiight,” Steve rolls his eyes.

“It’s just,” Eddie was so over this inquisition, “she asked if I wanted to get coffee.”

You, Steve, and Robin all give him a blank stare, trying to decipher what he could possibly have against getting coffee with a hot girl. 

“That’s like,” he gets defensive, detecting the wall of confusion facing him, “something people do on a date. Coffee is serious, and I’m not a very serious guy.”

“What do you mean ‘coffee is serious,’ coffee is like, as casual as you can possibly be?” Steve’s tone now emulated Robin’s from earlier, half whispering, half yelling, all scolding towards his friend. 

“That’s just not really my speed. Coffee dates and flowers and hand holding and all that,” he was avoiding eye contact with all three of you, “Yeah, she was hot, sure, and maybe if she had been like ‘hey lets go fool around in the bathroom’ then I wouldn’t be here having this lame ass conversation with you three. But I don’t do coffee dates, so I’m not gonna waste her time and pretend like I’m that sort of guy when I’m just not.” 

“Well good on you for not leading her on, cuz I’m sure you could have agreed to the coffee date and still gotten lucky in the bathroom,” Steve mumbles, and you smack the back of his head lightly to scold him. 

“So you only date girls who’ll fuck you in a bar bathroom the first time you meet?” You redirect your now equally scolding energy to Eddie.

“No!” He runs his hands through his hair, “I don’t date. Anyone, really. At all. Ever.”

“Oh,” you think for a minute, realizing in your few years of friendship you never had seen him with anyone, or heard him mention a romantic interest of any sort. 

Leading you to your present conversation, you and Steve continuing to question Eddie on his decision to reject the hot tube-top girl at the bar and why he felt like coffee was such a scary commitment. 

“You guys know me,” he continued to defend his stance, “If I took that girl out for coffee she probably would have picked some fancy hoity toity place and I wouldn’t know what anything on the menu meant, I’d probably spill something or like, get crumbs everywhere, and the bill would be way more than two coffees should be. It would have been a waste of both our time.”

He was staunchly refusing eye contact with the two of you, knowing he’d be met with something along the lines of pity. 

“Fine, we’ll drop the subject,” you shoot a look to Steve, “but I just need to make sure you understand that not every girl likes expensive coffee, or flowers and handholding, or whatever your expectation of girls and dating is. There’s plenty of girls who have similar interests to you, who feel the same way about PDA and mushy romance stuff that you do. You do know that, right?”

“Of course I do, y/n,” you could practically feel his eyes rolling at you, “but girls like that sure as fuck aren’t here in Nowhere, Indiana. Even if she was, I’m sure I’d still find a way to fuck it up given that I’ve had exactly zero serious girlfriends and the closest thing to a date I’ve ever been on is when you me and Steve pooled our ski ball tickets to win that ugly stuffed turtle.”

The memory of what you had all agreed to be the world’s ugliest stuffed animal caused all of you to crack a smile. Steve had silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting to dig Eddie any deeper into his pit of self despair. 

Steve’s mouth was half open, about to suggest that the three of you have a smoke and watch one of the rental movies he brought over, the words just about to escape him when you harshly cut off any chance at ending the pity-party.

“Date me!” You exclaim, without much thought. The shocked look from both boys caused you to rapidly back pedal , “You can date me, as practice!” You said it as if it was the simplest concept in the world. 

When met with gaping mouths and confused stares you continue on, “You and I can be fake boyfriend-girlfriend for like, a month, and I’ll tell you everything you do wrong, and like generic do’s and don’t’s, so that way the next time some hot girl hits on you, you can be all like ‘Coffee isn’t really my thing pretty lady, but I’d be down to get drinks sometime’,” you did a silly impression of Eddie’s voice, and then switched to a high pitched one to impersonate what you assumed the girl at the bar sounded like, “and then she’d be all like, ‘Oh yeah that sounds greaaaaat, getting coffee is just like, a generic catch-all thing that most people say when they want to get to know someone better, but you can buy me a drink’ and then the two of you will ride off into the sunset and it’ll be great.”

Still no reply.

“It won’t be all romantic and gooey, I promise I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. It’d be a way for you to get some honest feedback and catch up with the stuff most people have to learn the hard way.” 

“I suppose you are the most brutally honest person I know,” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. 

Steve just looked between the two of you with eyebrows raised, not knowing if giving his opinion on the matter would be appreciated or not. “I guess I would’ve appreciated someone telling me that most girls don’t want to be asked out with a pickup line from a John Hughes movie, would have saved me a few dozen rejections.”

“I’m pretty sure Robin did tell you that…”

“I don’t know y/n,” Eddie scratches his head. 

“It’ll be easy. Ask me out.”

“Huh?”

“Ask me out, for practice, ask me out on a date like I’m a pretty girl you met at some metal show or a DnD convention or something like that,” you stand in front of him with your hands out as if to prompt him to say something. 

“Will you go out with me?” He sounds more like he’s asking himself if he even wants to be asking the question.

“No.”

“What the hell!” He throws his hands up.

“I said no because that wasn’t a very good effort. Go out where? To do what? You’re asking me, a pretend stranger, out on a date Eddie, not if I want to go have a smoke with you.”

“Ughhhh,” he spun around and tried to get some sympathy for Steve, who unfortunately was on your side with this one. 

“A compliment or two doesn’t hurt as well,” Steve added, deepening Eddie’s groan. 

“Hey pretty stranger lady,” his voice was laced with sarcasm, but at least it wasn’t disdain, “you seem really…” he hesitated to find his words, “cool? Would you like to come see my band play this weekend at The Hideout? We-“

“No,” you cut him off.

“WHA-“

“Eddie, you can’t ask a girl to watch Corroded Coffin play for your first date with her, that’s like date four or five material, no girl wants to go sit by herself at a bar to watch some guy she just met play an hour of heavy metal. She would have to know you a little bit more for that to feel organic. Pick something more generic, like coffee.”

“I think you seem cool, would you like to get coffee with me?” it all came out as one monotone mumble from him. 

“Sure,” you wait for him to lift his head up to make eye contact with you, “But coffee isn’t really my thing, maybe we can go out for drinks?”

“Oh fuck off,” he flopped back onto the couch next to Steve. 

“See, now we have our first fake date, and then you can ask me to be your fake girlfriend, and then you’ll be so comfortable with emotional vulnerability that you can find a real girlfriend to take on real dates.”

“Yeah, I suppose it could be beneficial,” Eddie was slowly coming around to the idea. He knew that he was oddly charismatic at times, but he was just always too self conscious to follow through with the whole romance thing.

This maybe wasn’t a bad idea, because he knew you weren’t the kind of person who would make fun of his hobbies, or put him down if he slipped up, the sorts of things he was always afraid of girls doing. Sure, he’ll agree to the girlfriend experience. 

After a night of movies and pizza with Steve fake-third-wheeling, you made sure Eddie knew that the fake-date was actually happening, that the two of you would go out for drinks this weekend as your first official practice date. 

After giving it a bit of thought, you realized that you and Eddie had never hung out alone. In your feeble attempts at flirting with him all those months ago you had invited him to have movie nights or grab a bite to eat, but he always showed up with Steve and or Robin in tow.

As the night of the fake-date rolled around, you’d be embarrassed to admit it to him, or Steve, who didn’t care to hide how skeptical he was about this whole idea, that you went through your normal pre-date routine. You took some extra time on your hair and makeup, exfoliated in the shower, chose an outfit you felt confident in, added a few spritz of perfume for good measure too. 

Eddie rolled up in his van, only a few minutes late, but a few minutes was very impressive compared to his typical chronic tardiness. The two of you agreed to just grab some food and drinks at your usual spot, considering you and Steve openly agreed that it would be a good first date spot in theory. 

“Hey,” he reaches across the center console to pop the door open for you, “you look nice.”

It took you a second to register as you settled into the passenger seat, and then whip around with your arm outstretched to give him a high five. He scrunches his face at you.

“High five me Eddie, that was really good! I know you usually open the door for me anyways, but the compliment right away, A+,” you flop your hand down to gently slap his, still gripping the steering wheel. 

“Don’t patronize me, y/n,” deep down he knew you weren’t trying to talk down to him, and deep down he hadn’t even given complimenting you a second thought, he really did think you looked great in your date get-up. 

On the ride over to the bar, the two of you discuss some logistics. Considering all of this is just practice dating, you don’t expect Eddie to pay for you, but you explain that in theory if he had been the one to ask you out then he should be the one to pay for the first date. 

“To me it’s less of a gender thing and more of a who asked out who thing, but I know some people would abide to the stereotypical ‘the man always pays’ standard, which is why you’d just have to be honest on date like two or three about what you enjoy doing and what sorts of things are in your budget. You can still have fun and be thoughtful without spending a lot of money.”

He asked a few questions, like if he should have gotten you flowers for a first date, or what he should do if someone asks to go to a fancy restaurant that he surely couldn’t afford. You tried your best to give solid advice, but always reminded him that every person is different and every relationship is different, so all he can do is be honest. 

You take up a spot at the bar and both order for yourselves, splitting some fries and slipping into some easy conversation. 

“Am I supposed to, like, beat someone up if a guy tries hitting on you in front of me or something like that?” you nearly choke on your drink at his question. 

“Eddie, no,” you answer, also questioning, “why the hell would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “My buddy Jeff was with his girlfriend at this punk show before they were even together, and some guy made a creepy comment to Amanda and Jeff just decked the guy in the face. He say’s that’s what made her want to date him, cuz he defended her honor or whatever.”

“I guess that’s sort of circumstantial, but I prefer my dates to not engage in any sort of violence,” you sip your drink, “even if it’s for my honor. I’d like your face a lot less if you were all bruised up.”

“Well I never said I would get hit,” the two of you were laughing a bit now.

Over a few cocktails you went over some first date etiquette with him. PDA and being touchy, how to follow her lead and gauge if she’s the type who wants everyone at the bar to know you’re together, or keep it strictly platonic to start. How far of a grip on the leg is too far up, that sort of thing.  

“So if she does something like this,” you fake laugh a bit too loud and, lean into his personal space, and then run your hand from his slender down his arm, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to fuck you, but it’s pretty close. You’ve at least got a green flag to get a little closer to her, tell her she looks nice, maybe offer to buy her a drink.”

“I know how to tell if someone finds me attractive, y/n, I’m not stupid,” he said casually, “obviously that girl the other night was hitting on me, I’m not blind. I wasn’t going to ask to buy her a drink or try and get lucky in the bathroom because I was out with my friends. I can find a quick fuck in a bar on my own time. I was having fun with you guys, I wasn’t going to abandon all of you to talk to some stranger, even if she was hot.”  

“Oh,” you processed his comment, “Steve would be happy to know he ranks above tube-top girl.”

“Steve would be happy to be above tube-top girl in any context,” he jokes. 

“You really just find random girls in bars to fuck?” You question, not in any sort of judgmental way, just curious. 

“Not specifically, I guess I did make myself sound like some serial bar-bathroom type of guy. I never really had girls interested in me when I was in high school, at least the first four years of it. Then when we started playing regular gigs at The Hideout it was a little easier to find girls who were interested, but it was always that they were more into fucking some guy who could play guitar and was in a band, so it usually just always happened on-site, probably cuz they had an actual boyfriend or husband to go home to. Girls think I’m fun. Which isn’t untrue, I do enjoy a romp in the Hideout bathroom, or the back of my van, or wherever we end up.”

“So that’s what all those blankets are back there for,” you say with a fake scowl, referring to his van set-up. 

“Not exclusively! They make a cozy nest for smoking blunts and listening to tapes too!” 

You return to your drink, trying not to think too hard about the girls that Eddie brings to bar bathrooms or his van or wherever. 

“I just find the energy of those situations very different from like, talking and getting to know someone. Fucking is easy. I’m not interested in ruining that by adding emotions and the looming feeling like sex is contingent on me acting a certain way or checking a certain number of boxes for someone.” 

He shrugged, and you could understand where he was coming from, sometimes a quick fuck or hookup could be cathartic and easy. But it also saddened you to think that Eddie believed he had to get in and out before the person on the other end got the chance to know him. 

Moving away from the subject of his inability to be emotionally vulnerable, the two of you practice some cheesy ‘first date’ questions as you had called them. As your drinks started to settle into your system you were having more fun being silly with him, pretending to be a stranger on a first date. 

“When’s your birthday?” You ask, twirling your drink straw with your finger and making some fake flirty eyes at him to accentuate the facade of asking him a bunch of questions you mostly knew the answers to. 

“August 9th,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, joining in on your fake ostentatious flirting. 

“Oh my gosh, a Leo! This will never work out, cuz I’m an asparagus…”

The two of you nearly fall out of your bar stools laughing, realizing you meant to say Sagittarius. 

“Okay, let’s get you home Asparagus,” he helped you up, having kept his drinking to a minimum so he could drive you home. 

“Wait, wait,” you grabbed his arm as the two of you exited the bar, “can we go back to your trailer?”

He raised an eyebrow at you, “that’s a little presumptuous for a first date missy.”

“No, no, this isn’t girlfriend y/n asking, just regular friend y/n, who thinks it would be a lot of fun to smoke and watch a movie without Steve there spewing all his annoying fun facts, like, we get it, you read the little insert inside the tape while you were bored at work!”

Eddie did agree that the idea of packing a bowl and watching a few movies with you didn’t sound too different from what his plans would have been otherwise, so he agreed, as long as you promised not to give him any dating advice while hanging out as friend y/n and not girlfriend y/n. 

Although you promised to try your best, you immediately started lecturing him on t-shirt borrowing and the potential weight that could hold in a relationship when he offered to give you some more comfy clothes to change into. 

“It’s important to know!” You emerged from the bathroom in one of his oversized shirts and a pair of boxers, “Some girls are very touchy about it. Any shirt you lend her to sleep in, you have to be willing to sacrifice for life.”

“For life?!” Eddie finishes making a bowl of popcorn for the two of you, swallowing his words when he sees you in his clothes, an unidentifiable emotion rising in him at the sight of you so cozy and integrated into his space. 

“Well maybe not life,” you plop down onto the couch, “but do NOT ask for it back. Most girls will give it back once it stops smelling like you.”

“If she gets my shirt, can I have her underwear?” He asked without thinking, the weed he had just smoked with you hitting him a bit too hard in that moment. 

“Oh my god,” you squeal and bury your face into a pillow, “la la la la, pretending like I didn’t hear that!”

“I’m just saying!” He laughs at you, now curled up into a ball, “fair is fair, right?”

“I guess it depends on the girl,” you mumble. 

“So I’m guessing not you, by your reaction.”

“Eddie!” You smack him with a pillow, “I don’t know, no one’s ever asked!”

“If my girlfriend isn’t going to ask before stealing my shirt for an indefinite amount of time, I think that gives me panty privilege.”

“Wow Eddie, if I had known you were such a perv I would’ve reconsidered being your fake girlfriend,” you say sarcastically, with no real judgement behind it. The idea of him wanting to steal your underwear dampens them ever so slightly. 

“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything pervy to you unless you ask nicely,” he shoots a wink at you, which you meet with an eye roll and a turn away to hopefully hide the heat rising in your cheeks. 

The two of you carry out your platonic movie night as planned. You suppressed any urge to note on his actions from a romantic lens, and he ignored the itching desire to sling his arm around your shoulder or pull your legs into his lap to get more comfy on the couch. 

“Can I sleep here Eddie,” you ask after movie two, “too sleepy to move.”

“Sure, I can take the couch and you can have my bed. It’s been a minute since I washed the sheets but it shouldn’t be too bad…”

“Nonono,” you mumble, “Your legs will totally hang right off the end of this thing. I’m conked out anyways, I can crash right here I promise.”

“Ignoring that you’re my fake girlfriend, I’m not letting you sleep out here on this lumpy thing. You’re taking the bed, no arguments.”

He helps you up from the couch, letting you keep the blanket that’s wrapped around you, snaking his arm underneath it and pulling you from the couch by your lower back. You were slightly taken aback by his assistance, body still limp from your relaxed state, your torso easily arching into his. Your arms fly up to grab his shoulders, steadying yourself with an awkward giggle. 

“In the real world, a time like this would be good for a first kiss,” you make note of your closeness, the way he swept you up off the couch and held you steadily as you made your way to your feet. 

“I know that, y/n,” his face was closer to yours than it had ever been, making your words hitch in your throat. 

“Well, I’m just saying,” you turn your head to avoid the tension, “I’m sure the way you kiss your bar-hookups isn’t the way most girls who’re looking to date you long term want to be kissed for the first time.”

‘Oh yeah? And how do you presume that goes?” He kept his hand planted on your lower back.

You pretend to act wildly drunk, throwing yourself at him and letting your limbs go a bit heavier than they already were. “Ohmygod guitar man, I’ve had like, six dirty Shirleys, please finger bang me in the bathroom,” you slur your words and let your tongue loll out the side of your mouth as if to lean in for the world’s sloppiest and most uncoordinated kiss.

“First of all,” his voice was very serious, “I don’t hook up with girls who are too inebriated to stand, let’s get that straight. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have our first fake kiss like this on account of the drinking and smoking, gotta make sure you’re in the right headspace. Secondly,” 

He spins you around and quickly backs you up against the wall that stood a few feet behind the couch. His hand sliding up in between your shoulder blades, blanket now slumped around your waist, his other hand suavely cupping the side of your cheek, His hips angled into yours, pinning you back against the vinyl, almost collapsing back into it. 

He pressed against you, not aggressively, but enough to let you know that if you were to try and squirm away he had the capacity to keep you right where he wanted you. He accomplished this all in one elegant motion, leaving you a bit dazed.

As you started to snap into reality, he moves his hand from your cheek down to grab your chin in between his thumb and the knuckle of his pointer, angling your face directly up at him. 

“If you were some girl in a bar, it would be like this.”

The moment before your brain turned to absolute mush, you silently cringed at the thought of what you must look like, mouth hanging open, eyes glassed over, body instinctively sinking into his touch. Pathetic, you were sure of it. 

Sure, Eddie did think you looked a little helpless, but he also thought you looked perfect. Exactly as he had imagined you to in this situation. Of course he had thought about you before, like that.

Of course he had felt an immediate spark with you when you had first met. But he never flirted back, or lead you on, because as much as he was attracted to you and enjoyed your company, he knew that it wouldn’t work out. He wasn’t relationship material, and you were the picture perfect girlfriend that he didn’t deserve. 

He spoke directly into your parted lips, mouth hovering just far enough away to toe the line of ‘holy shit, is he going to?’ But no, as he made very clear, he wouldn’t kiss you under these conditions. He had made his point, and slowly backed off and let you find your footing. 

As soon as he was sure that you were steady, he backed away and started down the hallway. 

“I might have an extra toothbrush stashed away somewhere, let me look…” he ducked into the bathroom, leaving you stunned in the kitchen, head swimming and your stomach traveled up into your throat. 

He was teasing you, he must be. That was his little way of getting back at you for thinking you could give him dating advice. If he was unsure about his capacity for romance, he was going to make sure you knew he was more than capable in other ways. Understood. 

You shook your head, weeding through your inner monologue of how he could possibly look at you like that and then just walk away. Your shock gave him just long enough for you to to not notice him splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom while he “looked for a toothbrush.” 

The two of you decided to ignore the lingering tension from the events in the kitchen, not a peep of fake-girlfriend talk from you for the rest of the night. He did find you that toothbrush, and the two of you moved through a too-easy domestic routine of getting ready for bed. 

You told him that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you knew he was cramped on that couch, and that you were fine with sharing a bed. You mumbled something about  getting around to bed sharing etiquette at some point anyways, and sleepily pulled him into being your little spoon. 

Eddie lay there, trying not to twitch or fidget, relaxed as best he could into your cuddled form thinking about how horrible of an idea all of this was. He was convinced all it would take is roughly ten more minutes of you burying your face into his hair and making cute little sleepy noises for him to fall irreversibly in love with you. 

But what was he supposed to do? Move and wake you up? Never. 

You rolled around enough in the night to wake up in a less intimate position than when you had fallen asleep. You knew Eddie was a deep sleeper, and took it upon yourself to creep out of bed and back into your day clothes, make a pot of coffee, and watc a bit of TV before he roused and joined you in the living room. 

“Why didn’t you wake me?” He rubbed the crust from his eyes and was pleasantly surprised to see you had brewed a whole pot of coffee to share. 

“You looked so peaceful and cozy,” he shook his head at you, as if that was no excuse for letting him sleep an extra forty minutes.  

After a slow morning, he agrees to drive you home. 

“So this is the part where I say ‘Eddie, I had such a wonderful time on our date. I’d love to do it again sometime.’ And then you agree and tell me when you’re free. It’s best to be super direct and make plans to get together again soon, cuz then it’s not an awkward who’s-gonna-call-who-first sort of thing.”

“Uh-huh…” he stares at you blankly. 

“But for our sake, let’s just agree that I’m in charge of planning our next date. Okay? I’ll do it from the perspective of what I think most girls would enjoy, so you can steal it for the future. I’ll call you later.” 

You hop out of his van before he can agree, and leave him with a “Thanks for letting me stay over!” As you bound away from his view. 

He squeezed his eyes shut the moment he caught himself checking your ass out as you walked away, and let his head rest down on the steering wheel. He was fucked. How the hell was he supposed to tell you that you needed to stop being his fake girlfriend without disrupting the homeostasis of your friendship?

On one hand he could lie and say he doesn’t want your advice, making you think he didn’t enjoy your company, which was entirely untrue. On the other hand he could tell you the truth, and you would never be friends the same way again. 

He drove home with the music too loud, and patiently awaited your call later that evening to iron out the details of your second fake-date. 

Per your instructions, he let you pick him up this time with the argument that you were the one taking him out this time. He didn’t know what you had planned, but let himself fall to the mercy of whatever you had decided was an exemplary date fore him to ‘steal in the future’. 

You picked up two coffees and rolled up to the trailer park, popping a mix-tape he had made you ages ago. 

“Hey, I thought we said no paying for each other with fake-dating,” he objects to the coffee sat in the passenger cupholder, some abomination of mostly cream and sugar, the way you know he likes it. 

“Yes, that’s true, but you smoked me up the other night, and this coffee was like a dollar fifty, so don’t worry about it,” you give him a look that tells him to drink the damn coffee and not sass back, to which he complies, even though he smokes you up expecting nothing in return about every other weekend. 

The two of you sip away and listen to Eddies ‘must-know-to-be-my-friend’ mixtape and arrive shortly at the strip mall across town. This was a regular weekly stop for both of you, the strip of connected stores containing the Goodwill, a pet store, the pharmacy, and grocery. A pretty mundane collection. 

“Okay, what are we doing at Greg’s?” Eddie gestures to the grocery store, the back of his mind running through the grocery list he’s been making for this week anyways.

“What’s the perfect date?” You ask, and answer for him, “a romantic picnic. But gathering supplies is half the fun. Picnic food supplies at Greg’s, some pills to get fucked up at the pharm, some turtles or something to let loose into the wild from the pet store, and then hats, cups, blanket, etcetera from the Goodwill.”

He turns to you with the most bewildered stare, which sends you into a fit of giggles.

“Okay, I’m joking about the pills and the turtles,” you nudge his arm, “but won’t it be sweet to get together some picnic supplies and then drive out to lookout point? We can still swing by the pet store to check out the ferrets though.”

To Eddie, the idea of a date involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, some awkward small talk, and spending money on shit he truly thought was useless. This didn’t sound half bad. You would “work backwards so the food purchases come last” according  to your reasoning, and he followed you in tow without any arguments into the Goodwill.

“So I’m thinking…” you start to wander into the aisles of used clothes and knick knacks, “maybe a blanket? A basket would be sort of corny, but if we find one for cheap I don’t see why not. Surely two glasses for drinking, and maybe some sun hats?”

Swiveling back around to see a half stunned Eddie, who was still processing how in the hell this was your idea of a romantic date, you grab his hand and pull him to the bric-a-brac section. 

After it got through his thick skull that the same place he had uncomfortably tried on new pants throughout his growth spurt, and picked up his daily-worn leather jacket, had the same potential to provide some silly, cheap, used items to add some flair to this picnic. 

Silly and cheap was right up Eddie’s alley. The two of you picked out mismatched champagne glasses, one with the engraved name of a couple who got married in 1943 and the other a flashy rose color with baby angel carvings dancing around the sides. 

You luckily find an on sale beach blanket, and the two of you pick out some very goofy sun hats. A floppy farmers hat for you, and a bedazzled trucker hat spelling ‘hot mama’ for Eddie.

Through the midst of your giggles and debate on whether you should buy a wooden bench to bring out to your picnic destination, Eddie found himself having a really good time with you. 

As promised, you visited the pet store and checked out the ferrets and fish and geckos. 

“If you could have any pet, what would you want?” You asked him, noses pressed against the chinchilla enclosure. 

“Jaguar,” he said, a little too quickly.

“For real, dummy,” you knock your hip into his.

“I don’t know, we never had enough space or extra money for pets growing up, so maybe someday if I had enough room for it to run around I’d like a dog or something,” he tells. Eyes still transfixed on the chinchilla behind the glass. 

“I can see that,” you imagine Eddie with some mutt from the shelter, wrestling around and giving it lots of scratches behind the ears. 

Skipping the pharmacy, you pop into the grocery store and assemble what may be the world’s most eclectic picnic. 

“That’s the definition of a picnic, I’m pretty sure,” you explain after Eddie insinuated that the gingersnap cookies you grabbed, along with grapes and a block of cheese, wasn’t exactly a meal, “you know, just a smorgasbord of whatever we want!”

Admittedly, Eddie had considered a handful of pretzels and a beer to be dinner on more than one occasion, so he couldn’t argue with you. Quickly catching your drift, the two of you picked out an assortment of snacks and some ingredients for pb&j sandwiches. 

“I thought picnics were supposed to be classy?” Eddie holds up the Wonder bread and bag of potato chips with a look that suggested his question was rhetorical.

Your response was simply to raise the, admittedly cheap, bottle of champagne you grabbed to accompany with your meal, more for the irony of drinking the bubbly liquid out of your new used glasses with your sticky sandwiches than anything else. 

You pack your supplies into a tote bag, not having found a suitable basket at the thrift store, and drive across town to a dirt paved road that leads to a nice lookout point with a view of the lake. 

“Let’s walk down the path a little bit, but not too far,” you grab the blanket and tote bag from your trunk, motioning for Eddie to put on his ‘hot mama’ hat and carry your other auxiliary supplies, “I do not fuck with bugs.”

“I’ll protect you,” Eddie puffs out his chest, making you both giggle.

“From bugs?”

“Yeah, I’ll punch a mosquito right in the face, to defend your honor and all that.”

“I know I told you not to do that, but a mosquito might be the exception to the rule.”

You found a nice little clearing not far from the car, a spot that still had a nice view but was a bit more secluded. Eddie sat pressed right up next to you, making your sandwich ‘to be a proper gentleman’ but simultaneously spilling a glob of jelly onto your leg.

“Shit,” he doesn’t think twice before leaning down and slurping the grape flavored blob off of your bare knee, tongue poking out and licking the spilt jelly from your skin.

“Eddie!” You squirm away, barking out a surprised laugh. 

“What! Your knee is clean, wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good preserves, or a napkin.”

You feel your skin tingle where his lips had touched you, for only a moment, but you still felt it. He was so confident and casual in his movements, not having any hesitation to grab your hand or brush your hair out of your face. It wasn’t under the guise of fake romance, he had always been like that. Not touchy, per se, just sure of himself. You’d never seen Eddie do anything half assed, that’s for certain.

After the conversation you shared the other night, you were unable to stop your mind from wandering to thoughts of what Eddie does with those girls in bars, if he touched him with the same confidence and sureness he put into everything else he did. 

It was wrong to let your mind go to such dirty places about someone you considered a friend, but you couldn’t manage to feel any guilt. He had offered that information freely, so who were you to punish yourself for staring a little longer at his fingers, conjuring up the context in which he’d bury them inside you against some grimy bar bathroom. 

The date was all peanut butter smiles and bubbly laughter that floated up into the trees. Silly, yes, but neither of you could deny there was something sweet, maybe even romantic about it. A cheap meal in the woods shared between two friends in ill-fitting fifty cent hats, but an undeniable touch of romance lingered nonetheless. 

Eddie started to realize that maybe the whole dating thing wasn’t as uptight and scary as he had initially thought. It could be easy and fun, with the right person. And fuck, if he could even imagine doing this with anyone but you. 

Like most things Eddie did, he did not consider any potential consequences before acting. You looked so pretty sitting there in the sunshine, sipping from your cheap ‘Martha & Dave ’43’ glass, a few sandwich crumbs dotting the corner of your mouth.

What else was he supposed to do other than lean over and wipe them away with his thumb, stroking your soft cheek and feel the warmth of your skin beneath his palm. 

“You had some,” he uses his other hand to motion at his own mouth, “and I suppose this is the sort of moment where I’d ask if I can kiss you.” 

You find yourself a bit dumbfounded, his big stupid hand on your cheek and those big stupid puppy dog eyes unrelenting in making everything he says seem so genuine.

“Are you?” You find your voice, only half embarrassed at how shy it comes out.

“Am I what?”

“Are you asking me?”

“Yeah,” his answer comes out in a way that insinuates that he never meant anything other than that, that he was always asking to kiss you, he wasn’t asking in theory, in another universe, in the context of advice. 

“Okay,” you found yourself behaving like Eddie, not really thinking of consequences before your words and actions spoke on behalf of your instincts.

Everything so far had been so easy. Your fake first date at the bar, curling up next to him in a haze, making up stories about what sort of people donated the fake palm tree or the Garfield mug at the Goodwill, imagining Eddie running around a yard with a puppy, lounging in the grass and eating your assorted picnic snacks. It was all effortless.

Suddenly, being kissed by Eddie sucked the ease from your lungs and sent your mind spiraling into a cacophony of bells and whistles and giant swirling red flags. If this is how he kissed you, casually across some half eaten peanut butter sandwiches, you’d spend the rest of your days yearning to know how he kissed someone with true intention. 

Of course, his intentions were all there, but the lingering knowledge that all of this was happening under the umbrella of “you giving him advice” or “helping practice for the next girl” poisoned any true feeling he poured into it. He cupped your cheek, soft, let his lips press into yours delicately for a moment before he felt your breath hitch, opening his mouth just enough to deepen the kiss and capture your lower lip fully. 

He was more careful, gentle, methodic with his movements and so receptive to every little signal your body gave him, it was unlike any first-kiss, heat-of-the-moment-kiss, in-the-throws-of-passion-kiss, any of it. Like hell you’d ever tell him that, inflate that big ego that fuels his snippy comebacks at you, but Jesus, was it remarkable. 

While at war with yourself internally, your heart was on the precipice of exploding in your chest from the way he snaked his hand into your hair and pressed his forehead against yours to catch a breath. You suck in a sharp breath and feel that stupid cocky smirk creep up onto that pretty mouth of his.

“’S that sufficient for a first kiss?”

“Fuck offfff,” you were still a little out of breath, smacking his chest and flopping back down onto the picnic blanket, throwing your arms up and rolling your eyes at him, “if you’re so damn confident, maybe we just should fake break up, cuz you don’t seem like you need my advice.”

“Nooooo,”he slumps down next to you, burrowing his head under your arm so he can pop up right next to your face, “I’m learning a lot, I promise! This date was so fun, and cheap! I would have never thought any of this could be remotely romantic. I’m hopeless, y/n, look at me.”

He wriggles around and gives you a big fake pout, “If left to my own devices I would probably do something horribly embarrassing or off-putting, like…” he digs his head into the crook of your neck and blew a fat, wet raspberry right into your skin, making you yelp and squeal, but his position half on top of you pins you down. 

“See!” He pulls up for air, you were in a fit of screaming giggles, “I’d go right in for a kiss and just,” and he does it again, leaving you gasping for air, trying your best to tickle his ribs to get him off of you, but not minding the close contact by any means. 

“Now I’m not so sure,” he pulls back to give you a minute to catch your breath, “it seems like you enjoyed that, so maybe survey says I should pull that move on the ladies.”

Your airy laughter subsided, but he stays half pinning you down to the blanket and the lumpy grass underneath.

“I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not grateful for your help,” he says earnestly, catching your gaze, “it’s just… this isn’t what I need help with.”

As his statement is processing, you find his lips back on yours, his torso pressed flushed with yours and his wild mane of hair coming down to curtain around your head. He doesn’t take it too far, but kisses you as earnestly as he had before, giving your lip a slight drag with his teeth and running his hand up from your hip up the side of your ribcage, leaving you arching slightly into him by pure instinct.

Before your head got too dizzy again, before you could really throw yourself into it and say fuck it and kiss him back the way you secretly wanted to, he pulled back.

“That.” his voice was even, you hated how needy you felt and how even keeled he could be milliseconds after stealing the air from your lungs, “It’s the rest of it,” he threw his hands up and gestured to all the food and knock knacks around you, “it’s this stuff that you make seem so easy, so forgive me if I lay it on a little thick when we get to the parts I’m actually good at.”

“Just,” you sat up a bit, grounding yourself and formulating a response despite your brain looping the past twenty seconds back infinitely, “don’t do that again.”

“Okay,” he sat back and popped a grape into his mouth, “sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” you knocked his knee with yours, struggling to articulate how you felt without showing too much of your hand, deciding to just be candid, “I just- I liked that a little too much if you know what I mean. And this is strictly business, or education, maybe?”

“You liked it when I pinned you against the wall the other night,” he said matter of factly, “I think you liked that a little too much too, and you still took me on this fake educational business date.”

“Yeah, well, you caught me,” you threw your hands up in defense.

“Which one is it though?” He asks and you don’t quite understand, “are you a sweet kiss on the picnic kind of girl, or an up against the wall kind of girl?”

“That’s none of your business, as far as fake-dating is concerned,” you say a little too quickly, “and no you can’t have my panties.”

You say it with a smirk, but he doesn’t press any further. He turns and does that Eddie-thing he’s so good at, just changing the subject and shifting the vibe completely away from what might have been a stale moment or awkward pause. He starts asking if you like green or purple grapes better, going off about how he used to put them in the freezer as a kid. 

The remainder of your date went without a hitch, of course. You picked away at your picnic until the sun started to set, and once the sky started turning purple you made your way back to the car. The drive home consisted only of easy conversation and no further mention of the kiss, well, kisses that had transpired. He hopped out of the passenger seat with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘see ya later alligator.’ 

A scalding hot shower, a restless night of sleep, and too many cups of herbal tea the next morning did nothing to quell the noise in your head that blasted those moments over and over. You couldn’t stop picking apart whether he had thought about it for even a millisecond, and felt embarrassed that you could think of nothing else. 

It was simply an amplified version of what your whole friendship had been up until this point. You silently admiring him and wishing he would look at you the way you looked at him, and settling for friendship over heartbreak. 

Pushing it aside to the best of your ability allowed you to get through your week, but you had the lingering feeling that the next time you saw him would strike you with warm cheeks and a scrambled mental state.

Guilt had started to seep in at the corners of your mind, but you reminded yourself that you shouldn’t punish yourself for having romantic or sexual thoughts about someone you simply found attractive and compelling, it was your actions that would determine the validity of your guilt. 

“Long time no see, loser,” Robin hollered from the pool table across the bar, where she was likely kicking Steve’s ass. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you shrug off your coat and plop down at their regular booth, knowing her jabs were entirely empty. You notice Eddie’s leather jacket hung up by the wall, and scan the bar to find him ordering a drink. 

There was a silent mutual understanding that you’d keep the fake dating thing to a bare minimum when out with your friends like this. Even though Steve was well aware, and therefore Robin was too, you figured tainting your social time with the performance of romance is the exact reason Eddie turned down the girl at the bar in the first place. 

“For the lady,” Eddie waltzes over and hands you a drink.

“Oh, thanks,” you take it with a confused smile, “you didn’t have to do that.”

“You bought me coffee last weekend,” he sat across the booth from you, “plus I’m trying to get better at buying drinks for pretty girls, right?”

You remind him that he doesn’t have to keep tabs on things like coffee, but you appreciate the gesture regardless. As per the past few times you’d been out with your friends, you expected him to put a pause on the flirting, but it seems to be bubbling over tonight. You weren’t complaining, but admittedly the arm around your shoulder or the noticeable way he checked you out when you got up to refill your drink took you by slight surprise. 

Sneaking in to claim the always occupied dart board for a challenge against Eddie while he uses the restroom, you keep your eyes on the corner of the bar to signal him over once he returns.

“You need a partner?” A man suddenly appears behind you, a little closer than you’d like but the bar was crowded, so you’ll let it slide. 

“Oh, I was just waiting for-“

“Let me fill in until your friend gets here, we can get you warmed up, yeah?” His tone wasn’t too pushy, but you didn’t love the look he gave you when making that comment.

Awkwardly staggering for a second, unsure weather to just agree or tell him to fuck off, “He really should be just a minute-“

“Or maybe less,” Eddie comes up right behind you and pulls you possessively into his side.

Your head whips up to see him with a devilish smile, his hand on your waist and the fire behind his eyes telling his guy to get lost.

“Oh, sorry man,” the guy starts backing away with an apologetic look.

“Yeah, better luck next time, pal,” Eddie snakes around to take the guy’s spot in front of the dart board.

He had his darts in hand and took his stance to start the match, gesturing for you to do the same. 

“What was that,” you ask with a slight joking tone, but seriously curious.

“What?” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead throws the first dart, “I’m not allowed to get fake jealous?”

“You’re allowed to feel any fake emotion you want, I guess,” your tone is somewhere in between a joke and a question. 

“You’d feel fake jealous if I was getting blown in the bathroom by some chick rather than playing darts with you, I bet.”

“Okay,” your tone shifts to defensive, “getting blown is very different than some guy asking to play darts with me.”

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” Eddie turns to face you, having thrown all his darts, “for real.”

A moment lapsed where you didn’t register that your mouth was hanging open in disbelief, the look in your eyes Eddie immediately clocked as lust and bottled up to store away for a later time. 

“I knew the scary dog thing would work,” his ‘i-told-you-so’ tone rubbed you the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong, “you said girls weren’t into that, but you totally looooove that I defended your honor.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit, I said girls wouldn’t be into it if you punched him,” you rolled your eyes.

“I don’t know, babe, I think you liked the whole ‘back off of my woman’ act.”

You mumble out a ‘whatever’ and let him have this win, which he was clearly reveling in, trying to focus instead at beating him at darts. 

“Just don’t pull shit like that on a first date, acting too possessive off the bat is a huge red flag for a lot of women.”

“I thought we weren’t doing dating advice tonight?” You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s got that stupid sarcastic smile.

“Yeah I thought so too,” you fail at your attempt to beat him in darts, as well as your attempt to not flirt back with him. 

He insists on collecting all the darts, picking up the ones haphazardly strews across the floor from failed attempts to hit the board. 

“I’m no pro or anything, but I think you’d hit the board a lot more if you fixed your stance.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you flip him the bird and take back your red tipped darts. 

As you steady your arm to aim your first shot he comes up behind you and grabs your hips, causing you to let out an unexpected squeak. He adjusts your stance, not aggressively, but with some force, twisting your hips and using his big combat boot to sweep your foot around so you stood more sideways. 

“You’re standing straight on,” he backs up, allowing you to secretly catch your breath, “and all your shots are veering to the right. If you plant your feet more angled you’ll hit the board.”

You wanted to roll your eyes at him, miss on purpose to show him he’s full of shit. You flippantly toss the dart, not trying particularly hard, and it hits. Not a bulls-eye or anything like that, but a lot closer than your previous attempts had been. 

“Good girl,” he comments, leaning in to breech your personal space just enough to make your blood boil.

You drop the remainder of the darts in your opposite hand onto the floor and whip around to face him, half jokingly smacking him on the shoulder. 

“Oh my god, fuck off!”

You’re met with his trademark shit-eating grin.

Truthfully, Eddie hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you all night. He’d spent the night after your picnic date with his hand in bis boxers, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the little gasp you had made when he grabbed your waist, the hum in your throat that bubbled up when he kissed you pinned against the blanket, that night and every night since. 

“Oh, you don’t like that?” that joking tone he uses to cover up what he actually wants to say. 

“Shut up, you know I do,” you didn’t even try to stifle your reaction, knowing it was his intent to get under your skin.

“How would I possibly know that,” he playfully looks up at the ceiling and around the bar, hands clasped behind his back now, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“You better cut that shit out, unless you plan on doing something about it,” you manage the most assertive tone your wobbly insides could muster, a little shocked at yourself for actually saying what you were thinking. 

“I’m not much of a planner,” he gracefully takes a stance next to you and rips all three darts, not great shots, but all hitting the board, “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, you know that.”

“Well your pants better make up their mind if you’re playing boyfriend tonight or not,” your insinuation was heavy but you had fumbled your hand, and he had already seen all your cards at this point, so there was no reason to bluff.

“The real question is,” he leans in, his imposing figure crowding your space in a way that made your head spin, “do you want me to play boyfriend? Or do you want me to play guy who fucks your brains out in the bar bathroom?”

Your eyebrows pinched together for a millisecond, and before he could decipher your expression you grabbed his hand and started storming through the crowds hoarded by the bar. Why the hell a seedy downtown bar has a single stall family bathroom with a changing table is beyond you, but you drag him inside and slam the lock down behind you. 

“You’re not allowed to treat me any differently after this,” you start to fall into the sinkhole of oh my god what the hell is about to happen, but are cut off by him pressing you against the closed door the exact way he had handled you against his kitchen wall that night weeks ago. 

“Not unless you want me to,” he doesn’t hesitate to get his mouth on yours, immediately pulling your mind from wondering what the vague sticky substance on the door pressing into your back could be. 

“I mean, you’re not allowed to fuck me and then never talk to me again,” you say in between moving lips and tongues, giving him a moment to bury his face in your neck, "Promise me."

“Oh don’t worry about that,” he pulls back, “we can go get coffee tomorrow and you can give me a full performance review. Promise.”

Your annoyed eye roll quickly turns into them fluttering shut as he licks a stripe up to the junction behind your ear that has you melted into a boneless puddle between his pressing hips and the door. He drags his teeth across your lobe while leaning into you with a black denim clad thigh.

“Why don’t we make a deal,” you let out, voice breathy and unfocused. Before he can even pull back to reply you continue, “if you’re half as good at this as you claim to be, and can make me cum in this dingy bathroom, I’ll let you take me back to your trailer and you can do whatever the fuck you want to me.”

He was leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss before he could even process your request, because yes of course, a million times yes he’s taking this deal. Despite the rouse of you playing bar hookup for the night, and despite the idea of bringing you back to his place and finally doing what he’s wanted since the day he met you absolutely terrifying him, he nods and kisses you. 

It’s electrifying. His confidence only spurs you on to kiss him harder, grip his hair a little tighter, say the things you would only imagine in the deepest parts of your mind. The feeling of his grin against your lower lip and his fingers quickly unbuttoning your jeans fuels your fire. 

“You sure you know what you’re getting into,” he mumbles playfully, pulling you away from the wall with a gasp and leading you over to the tiny built in counter against a mirror by the sink. 

“Well I’m certainly not letting you fuck me against any of these sticky surfaces,” you note as you’re lifted onto the counter covered in mystery substance, “and I think you need to earn it.”

Of course it was no surprise to you that Eddie was good with his fingers. You probably could have told anyone that long before this impromptu bathroom hookup. Egging him on and challenging him in a way you were sure he wasn’t used to was well worth abandoning your assumptions. 

“Oh yeah? I think, if you’re lucky, I’ll earn it more times than you can count before the night’s over,” he positioned himself in between your legs, pressing your torso into the mirror behind you as he leaned in for another heated kiss. 

He pulled your ass to the edge of the counter, and looped his thumbs into the waistband of your unbuttoned pants. You were quick to assume that he’d yank the fabric right off your legs, preparing to lift your ass from the counter to assist.

Eddie paused, pulled back and gave you a look that asked ‘you’re sure about this?’ and when a dreamy smile spread across your cheeks he melted into you with a kiss that turned your stomach inside out and made your pussy flutter.

He snakes a hand from its grip on your torso down into your unbuttoned pants. You arched up into his touch, wanting to urge him to get on with it and get your pants and underwear out of the way, but appreciating how much he seemed to be reveling in feeling you for the first time. 

“So fuckin wet,” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers only feeling up your cunt from outside your underwear. He pressed the fabric into your slick center, following the path up to your clit and then teasingly back down to where your panties were soaked through.

“You weren’t lying when you said you liked this a little too much,” he’s rolling his hips ever so slightly against your spread thigh as he rubs your clothed pussy, his teeth sinking into your lower lip as he moves the material aside and sinks two fingers right into your wet cunt with ease.

You were sure that you’d retrospectively have a million quippy compacks that come to mind, but in this moment it was impossible to come up with words when his fingers were buried inside you, still, just letting you squeeze around them, and his hard cock straining against his jeans nestled against the inside of your thigh.

He slowly drags his finger’s up from your hole to your clit, and you let out a whine of desperation as he fully removes his hand from your damp underwear. 

Before you can manage the breath to tell him to please, for the love of god, get on with it, he brings his fingers up to his lips and gives them a long suck, never breaking eye contact with you. 

“Yeah,” he sighs out and presses his forehead against yours, “I might like that a little too much too.”

Protests and urging words catch in your throat as he yanks down your pants and underwear with one quick pull, not even needing you to lift your ass off the counter more than it already was. He was methodical and moved with intention, folding up your pants neatly and shoving your soaked panties into his back pocket, shooting you a wink. 

“Eddie, please,” your overdue complaints are finally bubbling over. You hardly finish your plea before his face is buried in your neck, and his fingers are sliding right back into your needy hole. 

The top of your head rests against the mirror behind you, exposing your neck and arching your back into his touch. He sucks and nips at the soft skin between your collar bone and ear, all while letting his two middle fingers pump slowly into you.

“Mmmm,” he mumbles into the crook of your jaw, “such a good girl for me, perfect pussy squeezing my fingers so tight, can’t fuckin wait to feel you soak my cock.”

Nearly orgasming at his words alone, your eyes flutter shut and you let out a moan of his name as he lets his thumb drag circles across your clit. “Eddie, please, just like that, I-”

“Oh, suddenly she’s not questioning my abilities?” he says with a biting smirk, “What was that about me not being half as good as I think I am?”

“Fuck,” you want to raise an eyebrow and shoot something back, hold out and make him work for it, but after hardly two minutes of his fingers rolling inside you, hooked up to drag along that perfect fucking spot, you had no choice but to feed his ego and let him win. 

“You wanted to make your little deal,” he pumps a little faster, making your head loll to the side and mouth hang half open, “I’ll sweeten it for you, babe. I say we can get this pretty pussy to come twice all over my fingers before anyone even knocks on this door.”

“Yes,” is all you can squeak out, “yes, please.”

If Eddie was being honest, he was a few half-thrusts into your thigh short of coming in his own pants from how hot you looked. Your eyes glassed over, pretty lips parted and gasping his name, perfect cunt sucking his fingers in. 

The hand not occupied by your gushing cunt slid up to cup the side of your cheek, forcing you to look into his fiery eyes. “Feel’s good?” he questions, knowing the answer and not expecting a verbal response.

He drags the pad of his thumb up to your parted lips, running it along your plush bottom lip and dragging it down a bit, relishing in how under his spell you were. His thumb slips into your mouth and you immediately wrap your lips around it and suck. 

“Good girl,” his thumb on your clit is rubbing more focused circles, “suck on that and keep your voice down, don’t want the whole bar knowing what a good little slut you are for me.”

Jackpot. 

A muffled moan around his thumb and the spasming of your inner walls signaled that you were hitting your peak. He drags the spit slicked digit from your lips and quickly replaces it with his lips and tongue, kissing you with fervor as he feels you ride out your orgasm on his hand. 

“Mmmmmmm” you moan, somewhere between a pleading whine and a sigh of satisfaction into his lips as his fingers don’t let up. 

Under different circumstances you would tell him to slow down, give you a minute to catch your breath. Eddie was stubborn, this you knew, and he had already made it abundantly clear that one orgasm wasn’t going to be enough. 

He pulls back from your lips, loving the sharp intake of breath you swallow as your cheeks continue to flush and eyelids keep fluttering. 

“So fucking good, came all over my fingers,” his gaze locks in on where his hand was buried into your cunt. “Gonna give me one more?”

Of course you would, whether it was up to you or not. He did slow up for a second, just enough for you to regain your grip on reality before he started curling them up again. 

“Eddie,” you whine out, eyes nearly crossed and unable to focus your attention on his face, hands, anything other than his boner poking into your inner thigh, “wanna feel you.”

The hand formerly gripped tight onto the edge of the counter snakes forward and pulls his hip into you, a permanent indentation of his stiff cock molding against your skin. 

“Not yet baby,” he rolls his hips forward, giving you a delicious feel of how it would be if he was inside you, but instead pushing his fingers a touch deeper and then pulling his hips away, “one more and then I’ll take you home. You’re gonna let me ruin that perfect little cunt, right? That was the deal?”

“Yes,” you gasp out, his other hand moving from your hair down to rub fast tight circles on your clit, the other hand still pumping steadily inside you.

“That’s right, I know this pussy is gonna take me so well. You’re already drooling for my cock, so fucking perfect.”

You feel it building up again, that sacred double orgasm that only ever came during your alone time in the shower or when you were so desperate for release that your hand didn’t stop after the first, but never with another person, never like this. 

His smile nearly touched his ears at this point, pulling back to take in all of you as your eyes screwed shut and thighs threatened to break his wrist at how fast they snapped together. 

Hitting you like a punch to the gut, your abdomen tightened and released rapidly, air sucked from your lungs and his hand working you through it between your clenched thighs. 

Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. 

If you were in a cartoon, stars and chirping birds would be swirling around your head as you slowly came back to reality. He gave you some space, and begrudgingly gave you pack your panties after you hand out your hand and gave him a stern look.

“I’m gonna go tell the others that you aren’t feeling great and I’m taking you home,” he makes sure you’ve pulled your pants back up before unlocking the door, “Take your time, and I’ll meet you at the van, okay? I’ll grab your stuff.”

“Yeah,” you still feel a little flustered, looking back into the mirror and smoothing down your hair, “thanks.”

He shoots you a wink before slipping out, giving you a moment to collect yourself and splash some cold water on your face. Okay, so you’re doing this. 

Any nagging feelings that this might ruin things or that he’s only teasing you because of your arrangement are quickly squished down into a deeper compartment of your brain, overtaken by the post orgasm bliss and wandering thoughts of what might happen next. 

You peek your head out of the bathroom door, and slink your way to the back door without passing your group table or a stray Steve or Robin. The fresh air equalizes your buzzing thoughts, and you spot Eddie, already in the driver’s seat of his van. 

“You good?” He asks as you hop into the passenger seat. You won’t let him have the upper hand, just because he made you come twice in under ten minutes. 

“Yeah,” you gather as much assertion as your voice will project, “You good?”

“F’course,” he starts backing up, you internally roll your eyes at the way his outstretched arm muscles and curved neck make your stomach flutter, “Just wanted to make sure I passed the test.”

You sit in silence, not wanting to give into the cocky game he clearly wants to play, yet know that he’s entirely correct in his assumption that he’s driven you completely crazy. Once he’s on the main stretch of road, finally rolling to a stop at a red light you let your hand migrate across the center console, dancing its way into his lap. 

As you hoped, his cock was still half hard and apparent underneath his jeans. You let your hand draw circles next to it, loving the little twitch you get when you run your nails against his thigh. 

“Easy there, tiger,” he lets out a huffed laugh, with just an edge to his tone that suggested you were getting yourself into something you’d soon regret. 

“C’mon Eds,” you let your head fall on the corner of the headrest, gaze angled over at his tight grip on the steering wheel while your hand dancing around the bulge in his pants, “you’ve been pushing this thing against my thigh for the past twenty minutes, forgive me for wanting a better feel.”

You put on a pretend pouty face and flash him your best puppy dog eyes to ward off any incoming snippy comments from him. He rolls his pretty eyes at you and silently bites the inside of his cheek as you feel up and down his lap, grazing his growing cock with each pass. 

“Forgiven,” through gritted teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut as your fingers circle around his head, now taking visible form beneath his black jeans. He internally reprimands himself for losing focus on the road, and zeroes his concentration on getting back to his trailer as fast as this van can take him. 

You have your fun watching him wiggle in his seat, feeling his thigh muscles clench under your palm every so often. You weren’t full on jerking him off over his pants, but you were certainly relishing in the feeling of his dick getting harder and harder with each occasional pass of your hand.

He parks diagonally across the lawn in front of his trailer, not giving a shit where the van ends up as long as it’s stopped. He wanted to dash around the vehicle and scoop you out of your seat, throw you over his shoulder and take you inside to continue with whatever this evening had in store for you.

The second his hand stalled on the clutch, shifting the van into park and taking a moment to let his mind wander to what would happen once he got you inside, you were already halfway out the van and skipping up the steps to his front door. 

Entering his trailer, you start taking off your coat and shoes, trying to act as normal as possible. Your facade of keeping it cool entirely shatters when he enters behind you, calmly clicking the door shut and patiently waiting for you to finish unlacing your boots.

You remain crouched down, darting your eyes up at him, deciding against being a brat and undoing your laces as slowly as possible to keep him waiting. Any caution you had was long swept away by the wind, and he’d taken control in your little bathroom tryst, so it was your turn to say fuck it and just do what felt right. 

And in this moment, there was only a few quick movements and about six inches of space between you and Eddie’s semi-hard dick. One shoe was only half off, haphazardly kicked behind you as you pivoted onto your knees and had your hands moving eagerly up his tensing thighs.

“Can I?” Your question was half formed and he was already nodding. 

You’d teased him enough on the ride over, you wanted him, now. Pants quickly unbuttoned and blue checkered boxers pushed down to his knees, and you were about to go feral and just go for it when a silver glimmer adorning his thick cock caught your eye.

Your mouth was already half open, but your jaw nearly unhinged and hit the floor when the pierced head of his dick falls out of his boxers and lands at your eye level. 

Unmoving, mouth agape, you look up to make eye contact, ripping your eyes away from the shock of two silver balls on his cockhead. He knew it was nice, he wouldn’t have bedazzled it if it wasn’t, but the look you were giving him sucked all the unwavering confidence from his body for a split second, suddenly feeling weak in the knees at the sight of you slowly sicking your tongue out, not making any contact but waiting. 

He took the base of his dick in his hand and gave it a few precautionary strokes before angling it down and slapping your wet tongue with the tip a few times. 

You were two and a half seconds away from being entirely fucked out. If he pulled away and asked you to crawl on all fours to him, you’d do it without a second thought.

You let him slide his cock gently against your outstretched tongue a few times before coming to your senses and wrapping your lips around him, moving your hand to replace his and move against the length that your mouth couldn’t yet reach. 

All it took was a few steady bobs of your head, hand twisting and eyes still focused upwards on his face, to have him biting his knuckle and looking up at the ceiling to ground himself to try and not bust on the spot. You love this, of course, seeing him visibly spiral paired with the salty taste of precum already leaking from him. 

The hand not jerking him off comes up to the back of his hip, gently pushing against him in tandem with the movements of your head, encouraging him to shallowly thrust into your mouth.

“Jesus fu-“ he grunts out, not wanting to overestimate your encouragement, but unable to keep his hips from rolling forward slightly with the push of your hands and the bob of your lips. 

After an unexpected snap of his hips that sent his cock sliding into the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, a pang of guilt struck through him for pushing too hard. That was, until you let your head pull back a touch to catch your breath, but a long string of spit connected your lips to his cock, and a wild smile broke across your face that nearly sent him to the moon. 

You dove back in and pushed his cock all the way into the back of your throat, going so far that your nose pressed into the patch of dark curls that sat above his perfect dick. Focusing your breathing through your nose, you make a point to constrict your throat a few times until you feel him twitch inside you.

Pulling off with a gasp for air, you notice his eyebrows pinched together and gaze locked on you. 

“I like how these feel,” you comment, letting your pointed tongue dance around the metal balls on his tip.

He shudders and you clench your thighs at the sight of his stomach muscles tensing up when your tongue makes contact with the underside of his head, right where it meets the shaft. 

“If I let you fuck my mouth until you come, are you still going to be able to give it to me in a bit, or are you a one and done kind of guy?” You ask with a playfully teasing tone, but genuinely want to know if you suck him off to completion if the night will be over or not. 

“Fuck,” he spits out, more blood rushing to his cock at the idea of coming down your throat, “I’d fuck you all night if you’d let me babe.”

Half a second doesn’t pass before his cock is back in your mouth, hips shakily moving forward with your movements, gaining confidence as you flicker your eyes up at him through your lashes, the glimmer in them telling him he can take what he wants. 

“Fuckin’ look at you,” he comments to himself, “takin’ it all.” 

“Mhmmm,” you hum around him letting your tongue roll around his tip each time before he pushes his cock back down your throat. 

“You think you can get away with teasing me like that? That shit you pulled in the van back there, you think it’s cute to try and get me all riled up?”

You nod, tongue out and saliva coating your lips and chin. You could tell he was close by the way his words came out staggered, and his hips started snapping towards you in a new tempo, like his body was chasing it. 

Grunts and moans pulled from his chest fill the space mixed with the hums of satisfaction you let out while you take him deeper and faster. Moving in for the kill, you carefully slip your hand up in between his legs, cupping his balls, trying your best not to startle him. 

“Oh fuck,” it was a pitch of his voice you’d never heard before, a new tone especially reserved for the moments before orgasm, “you’re gonna make me fuckin come, y/n, y/n, I’m…”

The feeling of his balls constricting in your hands cues the warm wash of come sputtering down into your throat.

Getting the feeling he’d appreciate a bit of a show, you continue to jerk him off and pull off his cock slightly, letting the tip balance onto the tip of your tongue and the rest of his load spills out into your open mouth, some landing around the corners and onto your lips. 

“Christ, y/n,” his chest is heaving, his eyes finally pulling from you to squeeze shut for a moment. 

Once you’re sure he’s looking at you again you swallow down the salty white substance and lick the excess off your lips. You take his head back into your mouth, sucking just enough to clean off the tip and lap up any stray drops. He’s sensitive, you can tell, so you stop torturing him and place a final kiss right in between the two metal balls. 

You thought of asking him if the piercing hurt, or maybe make a comment about the two matching tattoos on his hipbones, ink of his you’d never seen until now. Before your brain can jump from swallowing his come to making post-nut chit chat, he’s yanking you up off your feet and wrapping you in a searingly passionate kiss. 

In your past experience most guys wanted you to drink some water or brush your teeth after they came in your mouth, at least before kissing you. Not Eddie. The way his tongue immediately slipped into your mouth, you almost believed he was trying to get a taste for himself. 

“C’mon,” he whispers in between slotting his lips with your, “Bedroom. Now.” 

He takes your hips in his hands and spins you around, causing a surprised yelp to bubble up from you, making him chuckle behind you as he walks you down the hall, keeping his hands on your sides. 

You knew where you were going, there were only so many doors in his tiny trailer, and you’d been here plenty of times before, but you liked the feeling of his hands pushing you forward, guiding your movements and steering you down the hallway into his room. 

Before your knees can hit the bed he spins you back around and captures your lips in another heated kiss. His hands trail up your sides, letting his fingertips slide beneath the hem of your shirt and push it upwards until your ribs were exposed. He pulls away from your face, leaving you leaning back into him, not wanting the kiss to end. 

“Up,” he pinches the sides of your shirt in his hands, and signals with his chin that he wants you to lift your arms, which you comply. 

It slides up and off of you, his hands quickly darting back to unclasp your bra, seemingly without even trying. This makes you roll your eyes, but the realization that you’re bare before him eclipses the thought of making a snippy remark about what a man whore he is. 

Flat palms caress your sides and move up to cup your breasts, his tongue pressing into the side of your neck. 

“These too,” his thumbs dip into your pants, managing to wiggle under the waistband of your panties as well. You’re going to do it yourself, but he gently pushes you back onto the bed, letting you flip back into the unmade blankets. 

“I wanna see you,” he pops your pants button and waits for a nod before sliding your pants and underwear down your legs. 

In between the blowjob and now, he’d tucked himself back into his pants, pulling his boxers and jeans back up, still unbuttoned, but covering him back up as his cock returned to a half hard state, unlikely to stay that way for very long considering how things were going. 

The scene of you now sprawled out onto his bed, naked and needy for him, and him standing above you, basically fully clothed, had a flood of lust traveling south between your thighs.

“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” you burned under his intense gaze, raking down your body and soaking in the image of your skin laid out against his flannel plaid sheets. 

He crawls over you, letting his body melt into yours, the center seam of his jeans pressing against your soaking core, just as it had when he had you pressed up against the door of the bar bathroom.

Rocking gently against you, you feel his cock already starting to harden again. His tongue moves against your neck, hands roaming freely against your skin, arching into his touch. 

His breath was heavy against your lips, he was already starting to lose himself, and he knew he wanted to make you come with his tongue at least once before his dick came back out, but it was already pulsing between his legs, growing rock solid with every little whimper that came past your lips. 

Your fingers intertwined themselves into the tresses of his long, messy hair. You use your new grip to pull his face as close into yours as your bodies will allow, smushing his nose up against your cheek and foreheads plastered together. The weight of his body on yours, and the lovely rocking motion of his hips against yours stopped as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees. 

He slides off the side of the bed, feet returning to the carpeted ground and yanking your body to the edge of the mattress. You let out an unexpected giggle, body limp like a rag doll, moving wherever he wanted you. 

He leans back over to give you another deep kiss, teeth dragging against your lower lip and tongue sliding gracefully against yours, before he slides his mouth down, stopping to lap up at your nipples for a moment, not letting any part of your skin go untouched as he takes his time moving down to where you want him most. 

Wiggling around on his mattress, your body is begging him to get on with it, but he loves to make you squirm. He takes his time licking up your hip bones, kissing from the innermost part of your thigh all the way down to your knee, and then back up the other side. He even takes a long moment to suck a dark purple bruise into the meat of your thigh, biting down on the flesh and licking over the skin to soothe it, noticing how your back arched a little when he bit down harder. 

“Please Eddie,” your voice is hardly above a whisper, whimpering and whiny.

“All you had to do was ask nicely,” he has that too-cocky tone again, but it’s long forgotten once his tongue is buried in between your thighs, lapping up the excess of wetness already pooled there.

“Ohhh,” you let out a moan, sucking in a sharp breath and allowing your body to relax under his focused touch. 

His hands push up from your ass to the crooks of your knees, moving your legs back to either side of you, strong palms finding their resting place on the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread wide open for him while he buries his face deep in your cunt. 

“You-“ the start of a compliment, or maybe a request, escapes your lips but the sudden harsh suck of your clit into his mouth has you speechless and moaning, “Mhmmmmm, uhhhhhhh.”

The sloppy wet sounds of him making out with your pussy are enough to drive you wild, your hands originally balling his sheets in your fists quickly move to the top of his head, resting atop his mop of messy curls. 

“Y’can give it a tug,” the first half of his statement spoken directly into your pussy, “I don’t mind a little pain.” He shoots you a wink and keeps his eyes locked on you as he lets his tongue lap a fat long lick up your slit, and then leaning back down to encourage you to tangle your hands into his hair. 

Coming to either side of his head you grab two points of purchase, locking your fingers in at the roots and feeling him hum into your cunt when you grabbed it a little tighter. 

Your hips start to quiver, so he brings one hand from your thigh up to your lower stomach, pinning you against the bed, and still keeping you spread open with the other. 

Working a steady rhythm against your slick center with his lips and tongue, he can tell he’s found the spot you like most by your open mouth and tight eyebrows.

“Ohmygod,” your chest starts moving with heavy breaths, you can’t bear to keep yourself up any longer and flop back down flat onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. He lets go of his anchor on your tummy and returns his hands to your thighs, allowing your hips to wiggle and wriggle against his face to chase after your own pleasure. 

“Pleasepleaseplease,” one glimpse of his big brown eyes looking up at you and his nose pressing deliciously into the spot above your clit has your head reeling, “please don’t stop, fuck.”

Rather than reply, he just continues to devour you at that steady pace, your thighs almost snapping shut around his head . 

“Uh huh, right there, oh fuck Eddie I’m gonna-“ 

A strangled moan rips from your throat and your back arches off the mattress, his hands quickly come to wrap around your thighs and keep your center held closely against his face. He’s pulling your hips flush with his face, despite your spasming torso and gushing core. 

As your orgasm peaks, your hips angle themselves to push up deeper into his face, and he uses his leverage against the backs of your thighs to lift your ass, the entire lower half of your body now off the mattress and sliding backwards as he keeps his moving tongue glued to your clit. 

He climbs up onto the mattress as you slide back, the grip he had on your legs was sure to leave a sore memory of him unwilling to let your coming pussy away from his face. 

When he finally pulls away, your hand pushing at his forehead to prevent overstimulation, both of you gasping for air, his knees are propped under your thighs, and your hips are propped up right at perfect level with the bulge in his pants. 

“Fuck me,” you say through catching your breath, not as an expletive but rather a demand, “Eddie, I need you to fuck me,” your voice was whiny and desperate. 

“This okay?” he starts pulling his dick from its constraints in his unbuttoned jeans, not even shoving them halfway down his thighs before he had that pretty pierced dip dragging through your open and ready folds. 

“Yes, inside, please,” you were chasing after his length, while he tossed his shirt off. He teasingly ran it up and down your slit before sinking into you, collapsing down to press your lips into a kiss to swallow your moans as he slid the whole thing in slowly, making sure to take his time and fuck you right. 

He grabbed the back of your neck and pressed his forehead to yours, finally sheathed all the way inside you and stilling for a moment to relish in the feeling. Pulling back so he can watch your face as he pumps his first few thrusts, he knows he’s beyond fucked. 

“So fucking good,” you slur out, eyes almost crossing from how deep his cock was hitting your insides.

“Yeah? This pussy’s god damn perfect, fucking made for me,” he articulates each thought with a snap of his hips, “suckin’ me right in.” 

“Wait, can we,” your voice had a little more weight behind it unlike the airy moans he’d grown obsessed with in the past forty minutes.

He pulls back, and rather than finish your thought you slip him out of you and roll over, shuffling up the bed and positioning yourself face down ass up, knees spread and back arched. 

“You think you can handle it?” he asks jokingly, swatting your ass playfully and then landing a second, harder smack on the flesh when he notices you pussy clench around nothing at the sensation of him spanking you. 

“Want you to fuck me hard,” you mumble into his pillow, wiggling your hips a little bit to jiggle the fat of your ass, “I know your cock is gonna feel so fucking good in me this way, wanna feel that fucking piercing back in my throat from the other direction.”

“Jesus Christ, y/n,” he was genuinely a little shocked at your words, slowly learning that your freak side might match his. 

You expected to feel his cock slam into you once his hands came to spread your ass apart, but instead the mattress dipped and he was licking another fat stripe from your clit all the way up past your second hole, running this back a few times until you were moaning into the pillow and thighs were tensed up from the attention he was giving you.

“Sorry babe, just needed another taste,” he pushed the head of his dick into you, and moved the first few inches agonizingly slow into your soaked hole. 

“Eddie please, need it, need you,” he loved that his sheets were balled up in your fists, using the tension of the material to bounce yourself back onto him. You only manage to slide back down about three quarters before he’s tightly gripping your hip and pulling out half way again. 

“Tsk tsk tsk, you need to learn to be patient, pretty girl,” he’d thrust it an inch of so, and then slowly pull back, making you whine and start to feel tears bubble up in the corners of your eyes. 

“Want it so bad,” your cheek laid flat against his pillow, and you could catch a glimpse of him behind you out of the corner of your eye if you craned your neck a bit. You sounded so desperate, but you knew he liked it, liked hearing how badly you craved him. 

He starts moving in and out of you, firm grip on your ass never wavering. Restrained grunts left his mouth as he fucked into you, causing your eyes to practically roll into the back of your head. He leans down to place a soft kiss on your shoulder blade, despite how viciously he's pounding into you. His head cranes down to your shoulder, his hand coming up to brush your hair out of your face. 

As his long fingers move your hair away from your eyes, you push your head back into his hand, not wanting to lose contact. He tentatively runs his hands up into your hair, taking a soft grip on your roots.

“Is this what you want?” he whispers, “you like it rough?”

“Yes,” you manage to squeak out, “fuck, pull my hair, spank me, do whatever the fuck you want to me, please.”

His vision practically goes black with this new unrestricted passion, allowing himself to thrust into you as hard and as deep as his hips would propel him, twisting your hair in his grip and pulling you up from your laid position, quickly letting your hands jump to his headboard to support you as your head was pulled back. 

You tried to bounce back onto his cock, wanting to feel him as deeply and wholly as your bodies would allow, but you could hardly keep up with the pace he had set. 

Your ass bouncing against him and the occasional glance he caught at your fucked out expression spurred him on to fuck you even harder. He had your hair pulled back so tight that your back was pressing flush up with his chest every so often, and he took the opportunity to snake an arm around you and hold your chest up flat, his other hand moving down to rub frantic circles on your clit.

“You’re gonna make me come like this,” you manage to croak out, voice hoarse from the harsh bend in your neck. 

“Nuh uhh, no,” his voice was gruff and commanding, right into your ear and sent a shiver down your spine. 

He pulled out of you fully, and had you flipped around flat on your back again before you could even open your mouth to complain. 

“Need to see that pretty face when you come on my cock,” he lines himself up with you again, pushing into you and making a mental note of how the bulge of his cock looked pressing up from the inner part of your lower stomach. 

And of course, your face screwed up in pleasure, puffy lips and sweaty brow, slack jawed and panting his name would be something Eddie wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried.

His thumb found its way to your clit to pick up where he had last left you, steadily building to an earth shattering orgasm. Talking you through it, knowing you were close by the vice grip your walls had on his dick, in between grunts he spilled out some “good girl”’s and “right fuckin there, that’s it.” 

When he felt your thighs tense up, and the muscles in your neck strain against the soft skin he’d previously had his lips all over, he knew you were nearing the finish line. 

“So fucking perfect, feel so good wrapped around me,” he managed to sweet talk you without altering the pace of his hips, “That’s it, come on my cock, give it to me.”

With that, your body can’t help but throw itself over the edge of pleasure. A deep grunt rattles in your chest, and you lose all sensation other than the wild pulsing in between your legs. You can’t be bothered to worry about what your face looks like, or if your thighs are squeezing him too hard, you only feel the riptide of an orgasm shattering through you. 

The animalistic noise that Eddie grunts out, his wild gaze locked on your face only makes your body shake with pleasure even harder. He had that instinct that most men lacked, to keep the exact pace and motion when your orgasm hit rather than speed up or slow down, it was a gift, a talent. 

Of course he wasn’t going to change a thing about what he was doing, look at you. You were so fucking perfect, shaking and coming all over him, those sweet noises and the beautiful squelching between your thighs. He’d rather die than change a single thing about this moment. 

He stilled only when you paused to catch your breath, and within seconds was flipped over by the power of your thighs onto his back.

Unexpectedly, you began to ride him, trying to match the pace he had earlier set. The aftershocks of your orgasm still washed through you, but you seized the moment to get him right where you wanted him. This angle was different, deeper and more connected. You roll your hips and bring your hands up to his hair, foreheads pressing together once again. 

“You’re making me feel so fucking good,” you manage to breathe out into his lips, he quickly comes to the realization of what’s happened and shifts the angle of his hips to hit you even deeper. 

“I’d give you everything, if you’d let me,” he doesn’t let a single thought pass in his mind before the words slip out, “always.”

Your lips capture his in a kiss that has far more emotion behind it than two friends play-dating and fucking for fun. His hands come up to grasp your cheeks, your hips continue to roll down into his with purpose. 

“I’m- Where-“ his words are hardly intelligible in between breathless kisses, but you know what he means. 

“Inside, please, need all of you inside me,” you try to keep your voice steady so he hears you loud and clear, wanting to give him the exact attention he had paid to you, “Please Eddie, come inside me.”

His hands travel down and guide your hips to fuck down onto him one, two, three times before he’s groaning in your ear and letting out the prettiest and most vulnerable sounds you’ve ever heard form him. 

The swell of his cock inside you makes you drape your head into his neck, focusing on riding out his orgasm and making sure he was twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm before you let up. 

When you felt his grip on your hips tighten, signaling that he’d had too much, you sink all the way down one final time and let your body lay limp on his, pulsing cock still filling you up. 

His chest rose and fell harshly with his recovering breaths. You could feel his heartbeat pulsing up through the spot on his neck where your ear laid on his sweaty skin.

Silently awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the slow pull out and post-sex cleanup process, you try to savor every passing moment. But it doesn’t come. Eddie wraps his arms around your midsection and holds your limp body close to his, letting his cock start to soften inside you. 

You nearly fall asleep like that, all wrapped up in him, until you recognize that you should pee and clean up to avoid a UTI. You slip off of him, and hear a disappointed groan from him. He makes cute grabby hands at you as you cross the room, making you roll your eyes, but something deep inside you flip flops with how sweet he’s being, so caring, so unlike the picture of himself that he had painted for you. 

You give him a wet hand towel to clean up the remnants of your activities, and slip back into bed with him per his insistence. You doze off for a while, until the rising sun peeking through his blinds catches your eye, striking you with the sudden decision to stay and face the music or leave and let it settle. 

You’d already regretted it, but weren’t ready to have the “hey, so I know we had fake boyfriend-girlfriend sex, but I actually really like you so what should we do about that?” conversion with him, so instead you take the cowardly path and tiptoe out of his room in the early morning hours, leaving behind your underwear on his nightside table with a scribbled note saying to call you. Hopefully that was enough of a signal. 

Apparently not,

Days pass, and no call. 

It was all starting to get to your head. While you had gone through the stages of being nervous that you had done something wrong, that he was avoiding you to spare you the rejection, thinking he regretted what had happened and didn’t want to face you, who was so obviously into him it was painful, you’d just now turned a new leaf. Fuck that. If he was too much of a coward to call you, you'd hope he'd at least give you the decency as a friend to tell you the truth, you deserved to be angry, and you deserved a response. 

After stewing in your feelings for longer than felt healthy, you just get in your car and start driving to his trailer. If this all blew up in your face at least you wouldn’t have to keep biting your nails and waiting for the phone to ring. 

Three deep breaths, and a quick moment to gather your thoughts, and suddenly your body acted on instinct, putting the car in park and walking up to pound three concise knocks on his trailer door. 

“Just a second,” he hollered from inside, giving you a few seconds to be stricken with regret for showing up unannounced without a plan on what exactly to say. 

“What do you- oh, y/n,” he was in a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless and hair still damp from a recent shower, “uh, hey?”

“Oh, hey,” your tone was laced with annoyance, “I left something here last week and I’m here to get it back. If you don’t mind.”

“What- oh,” he’s a second too slow to realize you mean the underwear you had purposefully left behind with that note. The note telling him to call you. Which he never did. 

You were left standing on his porch steps, arms crossed and shooting daggers out of your eyes while he stood there in the doorway, an apparent guilty expression plastered on his face while he rocked back on his heels to buy some time to figure out what to say. 

“You don’t have to invite me inside, if you can just grab them and give them to me, and I’ll be out of your hair,” you say flatly, recognizing if he does as asked then this might be the last time you speak to Eddie Munson. 

“No, no, uh, you should come in,” he steps aside to let you in, “we probably shouldn’t have this conversation on my front steps.”

Avoiding eye contact, feeling an overwhelming mix of anger, confusion, and betrayal, you step inside and don’t make any effort to move into the space. You just stand by the door and give him an expectant look. Either he could go get the underwear, or he could grow a pair and say something to you. 

“I, uh-“ he looked so defeated you started to feel bad for using such a pointed tone, but then you remembered the days and days that passed without hearing from him, “I’m sorry, that I, y’know…”

“Yeah, well I don’t really care if you’re not looking for any post sex recap conversations, because you’re obviously pretty sure of yourself in that department,” the words flew out before your mind could even conjure them up, “but you fucking promised me that you wouldn’t do this, so can I please just have my underwear back and I won’t bother you again.”

He runs a hand through his hair letting out a deep exhale and searching the ceiling for words, “I know, I-“

You cut him off, your thoughts were ripping through you now and you were going to say your piece whether he asked for it or not, “You said you wouldn’t pull this shit with me, but I guess our friendship isn’t substantial enough for you to see me any differently than you do every other girl you throw away after you’ve gotten what you want. You clearly don’t want any more advice and you clearly don’t want to be my friend, so please, just give me my shit so I can go.”

“That’s the fucking thing y/n, of course I don’t want to be your friend,” his gaze still fixed on the ceiling.

At this point you were seconds away from just storming out, letting him keep your underwear as some twisted little trophy for breaking your heart. 

“Yeah, crystal clear Eddie.”

“Being your friend is already hard enough, and I knew this shit was a bad idea, the whole trial-girlfriend thing. But how the fuck was I supposed to say no to that? The girl of my dreams offers to do all this no-strings-attached romantic shit, I’d be the dumbest man alive to turn that down.”

You just give him a blank stare, your scalding anger twisting into a more confused frenzy of bees swarming in the pit of your stomach. Eyebrows pinched together, you just stare at him until he finally makes eye contact with you. 

“And yeah,” he goes on, letting all his words out like a big exhale in the same cadence that you had just hurled all your angry words at his, but his tone was filled with guilt as opposed to rage, “maybe we let it go a little too far, but I would never say no to you, I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know what the fuck to say to you after, but that’s exactly the reason I’m not good enough for you. The more we kept that fake dating shit up the worse it was gonna get, so I’m sorry, but I can’t keep spending time with you like that, because it’s starting to fucking hurt.”

“Hurt,” you say with a dry laugh, which almost scares him, “YOU’RE hurt? Give me a fucking break Eddie. I know you don’t see me that way. So what, you’re too scared to hurt my feelings? You’re doing a wonderful job, keep it up.”

“What the fuck do you mean, not see you like what?”

“Don’t pretend to be dumb Eddie. When we first met I tried so hard to get your attention, asking you to hang out, and you always blew me off. It’s fine that you don’t want to date me or whatever, but at least just tell me that, don’t fuck me like I’m special or something and then toss me aside. I deserve better than that.”

“Yeah, y/n, you do,” his voice was no longer guilt stricken, and was on the same straightforward plane as your last responses, “you deserve so much fucking better than me, that’s why I could never let anything between us happen. I don’t call girls back. I’m rude. I don’t take care of myself, let alone others. I like to smoke, and drink, and get head from girls in bar bathrooms and never learn their names, and that’s not the kind of person that a girl like you dates. I’m a fun quick fuck. You’re the kind of girl that after three dates he’ll already have a ring picked out. You’re everything, and I’m nothing, so forgive me for sparing you of that.”

Your bones are frozen and the beat of silence gives him the opportunity to spin on his heel and start down the hallway, presumably to get your panties. 

Snapping back into it, you let out a louder than expected, “Hey,” and you start following him, not taking long to catch up to him in his bedroom. 

“You,” you point a finger at him, and start to feel the rage bubble up again, “don’t get to decide that you’re unloveable. And you don’t get to tell me what kind of girl I am. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you’re so lonely and miserable is because you choose to be? You don’t get to decide what I deserve, I do. And I really fucking like you Eddie, so forgive me for acting like it.” 

You snatch your underwear off his bedside table, and give him a look, not fueled by anger or resentment, but empathy. 

“I’m going to leave. And if you don’t want to see me again, that’s fine, but if you do, you can call me. Goodbye Eddie.”

You feel out of your own body, floating above it all and rewinding the conversation over and over, body on autopilot taking you home while your soul stayed behind and relived his words over and over, unsure if you feel better or worse than when you showed up. 

Days pass by again, and you take his silence as more of a response than anything he had said to you during that conversation. You try not to wallow, but you feel scattered and distraught, at both the prospect of losing Eddie and having to deal with your shared friends, would they allow you to dance around each other, or would they flat out choose him and shut you out? Would group nights out bowling suddenly just turn into the occasional one-on-one coffee with Robin? 

Until suddenly, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you've gotten home from work and are relaxing on the couch in your pajamas, three knocks are at your door.

At this point you figured it was over. He hadn't called and he'd made no effort to continue the dialogue. So a thought of Eddie doesn't even cross your mind in between the couch and opening the door.

And there he is.

In a suit, slightly descheveld in Eddie fashion, and holding a slightly wilting bouquet of flowers. Posture straight and brave face, but expecting your brutal edge upon answering the door nonetheless.

"Hey?" you're somewhat at a loss for words answering.

"Hi," he seems like he's running lines of a play in his mind, "I was hoping we could talk."

You reluctantly let him in, and he hands the flowers to you, as if it was a normal occurrence for him to bring you such a gift.

"First off," he starts, hardly breaching your living room entrance before starting his apology, "I regret the way we last left things, and I'm sorry for leaving you waiting for a response."

He flicks those big brown eyes at you and you can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt, he always was so sincere with his words.

"You're amazing. And although I'll remain adamant that I don't deserve someone like you in my life, I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I'm sorry that tried to tell you how to feel."

You remain stoic at your seat on the couch, watching him shift his weight and bare his soul to you.

"You're perfect. Nice, funny, sexy, brave, all of it. And if you're willing to give me a chance, I don't know why the fuck you would, but if you are, I want to put aside all my bullshit and try this out, if you'll have me."

He stood there for a moment, letting you take in his request, bouquet in hand and suit adorned.

"And I owe you a few dates, for real."

As hard as you want your exterior to be, a smile cracks through.

"Okay, but know I don't fuck until the third date, at best," you jab, breaking his nervous exterior and visibly relieving the tension from his shoulders.

"I'm somewhat of a refined gentleman myself, so that won't be an issue," he bows and extends a hand to you.

You pull him down by the hand onto the couch with you, wrapping him up in a deep kiss. He was worth it, and you both knew it was worth the shot to try.

[honeytonedhottie]

fostering and living out confidence⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🧁🍬

CONFIDENCE ANALOGY ;

think of unshakable confidence as a fragrance, there are three layers to fragrance, the base note, mid note and the top note. thats what makes the fragrance stick and creates the scent we love so so much. confidence is similar in that way, its not just a mask or a front, at least not authentic confidence.

SOOO after thinking of this analogy im going to structure todays post like that, just to keep things simple and easy to apply. anyways, lets talk about confidence…💬🎀

BASE NOTE ;

the base of self confidence is self love. period. you can think of a billion other ways to say this but the base will never change. the base of ur self confidence is how much you love yourself. so how do we get a strong base? a strong foundation of self love thats gonna make sure that our self confidence remains intact?

start treating yourself like someone that u care about. treat urself like you would a friend, would you criticize them harshly for every mistake? would you tear them down when they’re struggling? no, you’d encourage them, remind them of their worth, and help them grow. now it’s time to do that for yourself. cuz why are u treating others better than u treat urself?

a really important aspect of self love is FORGIVENESS. forgiving yourself and having compassion for yourself cuz we hold ourselves to such a higher standard then we do others, especially if you're a perfectionist. and that can become really toxic, really quickly.

MID NOTE ;

the mid note of self confidence is trust in yourself. it’s the belief that you can handle whatever life throws your way. it’s knowing that even if you stumble, you’ll figure out how to get back up. its knowing that YOU'LL HAVE UR BACK even if others dont. we can build up our self trust by...

♡ doing what we say we'll do

♡ following thru on promises made to ourselves

♡ practicing self discipline

♡ trust ur gut feeling

♡ say no when u dont want to do something

some words that u can add to ur vocabulary to be more confident and advocate for urself properly is "absolutely not" or simply NO. theres so much power in the word NO so make sure to use it more…💬🎀

♡ honor your feelings and honor your wants + needs

self confidence is the mid note of confidence because without self trust, ur confidence wavers because you’re constantly second guessing your abilities and choices and thats not sustainable at all. you have to know and TRUST that ur that girl. bcuz u are.

TOP NOTE ;

the top note of confidence is how u express yourself. its the top note because thats what radiates outward and its how the world notices u first. self expression is how you own ur individuality, how you voice ur own opinions. how u express urself AUTHENTICALLY. in essence, self-expression is about living boldly and unapologetically as you. because isnt it so freeing to just be who you are? now what are some ways we can cultivate our self expression?

♡ having creative outlets

♡ exploring ur interests

♡ having ur own personal style, signature, brand etc

♡ journalling

GET COMFY IN UR OWN SKIN ; 

i feel like the most confident people are dancers. i feel this way cuz of the way my own confidence SKYROCKETED after i started dancing. i feel like dancing gives u a sense of control over ur own body and its just amazing.

whenever i feel like i need a little boost of confidence or i wanna feel sexy and good in my own skin i DANCE. and i promise that it helps so so much. i dance around in my room in my panties all the time and it’s like therapy. 

embarrassment does NOT exist, stop making urself feel awkward or embarrassed for making mistakes sometimes, learn to laugh and not take everything so seriously.

ALTER EGO CONCEPT ;

an alter ego is a persona you create—someone you embody when you need to channel certain traits, strengths, or energies that you might not fully feel in your everyday self…💬🎀 

using an alter ego is super helpful when it comes to confidence because it helps u to detach from ur insecurities. you temporarily set aside your fears and limitations and adopt the mindset and behaviors of your alter ego.

using alter egos can even help u to access different strengths that u never knew u had because ur removing the limitations that u place on urself. lets talk about how to create an alter ego.

HOW TO CREATE AN ALTER EGO ;

first start off by identifying the traits that u want to have, then give ur alter ego a name and an identity. u can even go as far as to visualize ur alter ego, anchor them with symbols, and practicing embodying them. some examples of people who used the alter ego concept include beyonce with sasha fierce, and kobe bryants black mamba.

[depresssant]

'it's an american wedding. they don't mean too much. we were so in love.'

yandere!gojo x reader

synopsis : a simple senior year predicament landed you in a cage you were sure was bound to drive you insane.

it was always survival over luxury for you

amongst the rich kids, you were like a penny in a pile of a hundred dollar bills. seeing people with expensive cars and brand clothes that probably cost thousands of dollars never really mattered to you. you came from a very poor background and it never really mattered to you because there was nothing wrong with being poor. you really couldn't care less since some people were just unlucky. like you.

however, you didn't know what you were doing in a place like this.

everybody deserved the chance to climb out of poverty to live a good life. that was a belief you held onto firmly because it was the only thing that you kept you going, but you did not belong in an estate like this.

but now here you were, and you couldn't regret it more than you did right now.

"what the hell, satoru?"

the bane of your existence tilted his head and furrowed his brows in that manner that captured the hearts of everyone. if only they saw. if only they knew. if only they realized who this wolf in sheep's clothing truly was⏤that this persona of a kind, cheerful, and loving guy everybody knew and loved wasn't who he truly was. he was the devil walking amongst humans, and he was fooling them all.

"what?" he asked all innocently with his teasing grin and flirty eyes that finally weren't hidden behind those sunglasses that he wore everywhere.

"dinner with my mom? what the hell is wrong with you?"

"she invited me over, babe. what was i supposed to do? reject her offer?"

gosh, he was insufferable. he knew exactly what he was doing, but didn't want to admit it. the idea of his new, profound actions had made that pit of unease which settled in your stomach grow with each little skin-crawling thing he did.

this wolf sauntered around helpless sheep, picking them out one by one until he reached his prey. you. the thing was, you didn't know why he was so fixated on you.

that was the worse part.

he was out to get you, and you couldn't do anything but wait.

and satoru had now picked out your mother.

"leave her alone! she's got nothing to do with this!" you hissed out like a feral cat, but you were good at controlling your emotions. this rolling stone just managed to bring out the worst in you⏤the ugly you didn't know existed.

satoru laughed and wrapped his arms around you in a suffocating hug as he smothered himself into the crook of your neck. "relax." his arms tightened the second you tried to move around. it was a warning. "is it wrong for me to meet my wife's mom? besides, your mom is an amazing cook. i can see where you got your skills from."

your mom.

the three days since you hadn't seen her felt like an eternity. was she worried? was she lonely? was she concerned about this “friend” you were having a sleepover with? considering your history, you wouldn't be surprised if she tore up the entire neighborhood looking for you before you were finally allowed to message her.

satoru's attention on you was like working a full time job in which you only clocked out when you fell asleep. even then, he found ways to ruin it for you, either with his helicopter behavior or die hard need to be touching you every second of the day.

your silence was something he didn't like, so he squeezed your body under his hold. that was enough of a threat. holding back a sigh, you reluctantly returned to running your fingers through his silky, pure snow-colored hair that surrounded his beautiful face like a halo. how could a person this beautiful be so vile?

if only you could save your mother from his poisonous claws.

"you know, your mother told me a few things about you."

"... what did she say?"

his sapphire blue eyes flicked up to stare into your eyes, and time came to a standstill when he smiled. he smiled like an angel but loved like the devil. if the devil could even love. you didn't want to admit that every time you looked into his eyes, your breath halted like the world around you. it went against your deep-rooted hate for him, but you'd be damned if you didn't crumble like ash when he set you on fire with his mere gaze.

satoru explained how your mother gushed and ranted on about how hard-working you were, how you were kind and caring, and how you needed a partner who would support you when times got difficult. he teased you about baby pictures of you, and you questioned whether this really was the same scrawny guy you saved from a bunch of bullies.

back then, he looked completely different from how he did right now. he wasn't some hot jock with a body that girls fan-girled over, no. he was a tall and scrawny kid with broken glasses, a busted lip, and bruises that told you he was clearly being bullied by his peers.

that fateful summer day, you were just taking a stroll through the neighborhood when he came tumbling towards you with four kids you knew all too well. ordering satoru to get behind you, you had beaten the crap out of everyone of those guys and patched him up at your home before walking him all the way back to his house.

he had vowed to meet you again, and well, he had done it.

that kid was so much more different than the guy you knew now, and you would be lying if you said you didn't feel a little solemn about it. he had changed for the worse. you should've know that when he made another appearance in your life. those four guys had disappeared.

satoru just followed you around like a bubbly guy trying to rope a grumpy and moody girl into a friendship, but you could do nothing but regret it now. he tailed you around to get evidence of you and your illegal “activities”. to threaten you.

you wished you never even saved him from those bullies that day. the thing was that you got into tussle with the police quite a lot. you got into fights a lot and had landed up in jail for the fifth time before getting released on probation. the deal was three strikes and you would land up in the slammer permanently. you were two strikes in when satoru got a video of you in a fight...

he used it to threaten you.

that was three months into school, and he had wound up with you in an abandoned warehouse near the place holding a party where the two of you were. he proposed his deal leading to you nearly going ballistic, but those three digits dialing the police were enough to make you settle down. 

satoru's deal was simple. if you became his girlfriend, then he wouldn't show the video to the police.

typical rich kid shit.

of course, he would use any means to get what he wanted. you were no exception.

reluctantly so, you accepted, and the seven month of agony begun. the smothering touches, the constant need to be near you, the controlling and obsessive behavior, the tracker in your phone? he was batshit insane!

you were a very patient person, though. rumors and history stated that most of his girlfriends lasted a maximum of a month before he got bored, so you waited. you waited, waited, waited, and waited! that was your fatal mistake.

how stupid of you.

one evening before prom changed it all.

the cool autumn breeze of the california evening blew at your loose strands of hair, the large palm trees casted shadows that fell down the lukewarm sand of the beach as clear and sparkly waves running along the orange and pink horizon crashed upon the shores, singing a faint tale of time.

"marry me."

staring at that blue diamond encased in a gold ring decorated with silver, you couldn't have helped but feel like chains had begun to wrap around you like boa snakes... slowly beginning to squeeze the life out of you.

satoru's eyes were bright and glowing like the colors of the diamond, and they looked up at you sinisterly with that grin that seemed to make the entire world fall apart around you. 

"we'll go to the courthouse tomorrow. who gives a damn about the elders?" his voice was pleading, but there it was. that tone. he spoke like he was stating. not pleading. "we'll have an american wedding."

and an american funeral.

for when he put the ring on your finger, you died.

...

the sun set, and you looked at the snake wrapped around your ring finger. it glimmered under the dim light of the bedroom like the glowing eyes of a predator staring from the shadows. 'you two were so in love with each other that it had driven the both of you insane!' satoru had claimed, but maybe...

maybe it was just you who had gone insane.

[lh44girl]

A love story off track

Tabloid headlines: Sir Lewis Hamilton finds love off track . The woman who changed everything

London, A Quiet Afternoon:

The world was left stunned when Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time F1 world champion, was spotted with a woman completely unknown to the public eye. She wasn’t a model, actress, or influencer. She was Dr. Monica F., a 32-year-old dentist balancing her master’s degree in England with work commitments in the Middle East.

Their story wasn’t just unexpected—it was refreshingly real.

The First Meeting:

It was an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in London, and Lewis had slipped out for a quiet moment at a cozy café tucked away in Chelsea. The world of racing often left him overwhelmed by cameras, questions, and expectations. But here, in this small café with worn wooden tables and the comforting hum of conversations, he could just be himself.

Monica was at the corner table, her laptop open, surrounded by books and notes. She’d just flown back from a work trip to the Middle East and was trying to finalize a research paper for her master’s degree. Her dark curls were tied back loosely, and her focus was unshakeable—until Lewis, looking for a seat, asked, “Is this chair taken?”

She glanced up, gave him a polite smile, and gestured for him to sit. She had no idea who he was.

As Lewis sipped his coffee, he noticed her sigh and mutter under her breath about her research struggles. Against his usual reserved nature, he found himself speaking up.

Lewis: “Tough day?”

Monica: “You could say that. Trying to make sense of this data feels like racing against time.”

Lewis: [Chuckling] “I know a thing or two about racing against time.”

Monica: [Raises an eyebrow] “Oh? What do you do?”

For the first time in years, Lewis felt a flicker of relief at not being recognized.

Lewis: “I’m in motorsport. But let’s just say, today, I’m off-duty.”

She nodded, clearly uninterested in prying further, and went back to her work. But Lewis wasn’t done. There was something about her—her focus, her calm demeanor—that drew him in. He asked about her studies, and soon they were talking about everything: her work, her family, and her frequent travels between England and the Middle East.

How It All Began:

For Monica, it wasn’t until later that evening, after a quick Google search of “Lewis motorsport,” that she realized the man she’d spent an hour chatting with was one of the most famous athletes in the world. But to her, he wasn’t the star—he was just a kind, down-to-earth man who genuinely listened.

For Lewis, that café conversation was the first time in years he’d felt truly seen. Monica didn’t care about his fame or his accomplishments. She was impressed by the person, not the persona.

The Media’s Reaction:

When the relationship went public months later, the headlines were relentless:

• “Who Is Monica F. ? The Dentist Who Stole Lewis Hamilton’s Heart”

• “Lewis Hamilton Chooses Ordinary Over Glamorous”

• “Why Her? Ferrari PR Questions Hamilton’s Surprising Romance”

Some doubted Monica’s ability to fit into Lewis’s high-profile lifestyle. Others criticized her for being “too ordinary” for someone like him. Even Lewis’s PR team was perplexed.

“Lewis, this isn’t the kind of relationship that enhances your brand,” one advisor had said.

To which Lewis responded with quiet conviction: “I don’t need her to fit into my world. She’s my world now.”

Why Monica?

Lewis’s answer was simple: Monica made him feel like a man, not a star.

She didn’t fawn over his achievements-even though never denied she was impressed but never consumed by the fame- , nor did she shy away from challenging him. When he spoke about the pressures of fame, she listened with empathy but reminded him of the importance of staying true to himself. She gave him space to lead their relationship, allowing him to feel in control while gently guiding him with her quiet wisdom.She as the old tale would say a wise intelligent woman,that knows that a man is the man in the relationship & what the woman role is, To her she liked & never minded to follow Lewis, bcz deep down she knew that they complete one & other not compete against each other.

When he struggled, she was his anchor. And when he doubted himself, she believed in him enough for both of them.

Monica’s life remained unchanged despite the media frenzy. She continued her studies, traveled for work, and supported Lewis without ever seeking the spotlight. Same time , she was juggling a lot between studies,exams & work, she had her down falls as being an anxious person by nature, Lewis would step in & comfort her, calm the storm within, he loved that,knowing that he is able to provide her the slightest comfort in a simple way& yet it makes a huge change. Other times,there schedule would smash against there will, but providing each other with friends they trust to give the support needed, while never being off the phone -thank the Lord for advance telecommunications-. There relationship even though it all happened within a minute, had there ups & down but never doubting each other, she once told Lewis, like the waves of the ocean,sometimes we ride it other we duck down to avoid,it doesn’t matter as long as we’re swimming together & surfing though life along each other side by side never losing connection, being honest & true to one another other. Lewis was always mesmerized by her metaphor as she likes to make it relatable to his liking. They were each other’s yin&yang.

Lewis on Monica:

In an exclusive interview, Lewis opened up about their relationship:

“The world might not understand my choice, and that’s okay. Monica sees me in a way no one else ever has. With her, I’m not Lewis Hamilton the racer. I’m just Lewis. She lets me lead, but her strength guides me every step of the way. She’s extraordinary, even if the world doesn’t see it. And honestly? That’s part of why I love her.”

Monica’s Perspective:

Monica rarely spoke to the media, preferring her quiet life. But in a candid moment with a close friend (leaked to a tabloid, of course), she summed it up perfectly:

“I don’t love Lewis because he’s famous. I love him because of who he is when no one’s watching. Fame isn’t real life—it’s the moments we spend together, just being ourselves, that matter most. That’s enough for me.”

A Love That Defied Expectations:

In a world obsessed with appearances, Lewis and Monica’s love story stood out for its simplicity and depth. Their bond wasn’t about glamour or public approval—it was about two people finding in each other what they hadn’t known they were missing.

As the tabloids moved on to the next big story, Lewis and Monica quietly built a life together, proving that sometimes, the greatest love stories are the ones that happen far from the spotlight.

[cryptidghostgirl]

Lets say that Alastor and cat-demon! Reader are friends, both of them are staying at the hotel. Alastor gives them catnip just to mess with them.

A/N I love this mischief. Also, I am 100% basing the character off of Catra from Nate Stevenson's She-Ra remake.

Prepare for Battle (Platonic!Alastor x Platonic!Cat Demon!Reader)

Pairing: Platonic Alastor x Platonic Reader

Warnings: None but please correct me if I am wrong.

Word Count: 1,276 (Sorry it is on the shorter side, most of my fics recently have been super super long and I needed to do something different.)

Master Lists:

Master Lists 

Hazbin Hotel Master List

Y/n had showed up around the same time as Alastor did to the hotel. She was a cat demon, like Husk, only much more humanoid. The only real traits she had to show for it were the claws, tail, ears, and, of course, the wild mess of her hair.

Much to everyone's surprise, Alastor had greeted her upon her arrival with a genuine smile, even a hug. A warm welcome by anyone's standards, not just the frigid Radio Demon's. According to Husk, the two had been friends for longer than he'd known either party, possibly even when they were alive although neither spoke much of their pasts. She was never involved in his work as an overlord, but she was always there, according to him. Y/n lurked, waiting, watching for the opportune moment. A mischief maker were the exact words Husk had used.

Y/n and Alastor balanced one another out. Where she was practically feral, he was calm and composed. When he lost his cool, she kept an even temper. When the pranks had started, they had taken everyone by surprise, even with Husk's vague warning. She had just seemed so together in an odd way, so imposing. Not in the way Alastor was but she still held her own. No one expected this sort of juvenile behavior from either of them but once it started, there was no stopping it.

The first one had occurred just a few days after the cat demon's arrival. It had been small, nothing too crazy. Alastor's microphone had simply been replaced with a bright red and white striped candy cane when he had left it leaning against the fireplace to go handle something for Charlie. It wasn't often he left the device unguarded but, he was only a few steps away from it and had figured there was no reason to worry when all the hotel's inhabitants were people trying to be redeemed.

Y/n had watched giddily from the couch, her legs crossed and sporting a failed attempt at a poker face, as Alastor had picked it up again. It had taken him a second to realize the switch had occurred and when he did, his eyes went wide. Y/n had burst out into laughter.

"Here we go again." Husk had sighed, shaking his head slightly.

Thats when the inhabitants of the Hazbin Hotel learned two things. One was that Y/n was not in fact a guest in the sense that she was trying to check out of Hell and into Heaven but rather a guest in that she was there to visit Alastor. The second was that the two had been engaged in a war of practical jokes for the past several decades at least.

From that point forward, the game was on. Each prank became more and more destructive, more and more insane. They took turns with it too, a highly civilized format for an extraordinarily childish pursuit.

Y/n brought out a different side of Alastor, one they had never seen before. It was a youthful side, a side of non-threatening laughter and genuine smiles. While unnerving in some ways, it made them all a bit more at ease with the notorious Radio Demon, to know he had friends and a bit of a soft side beneath his persona.

After the microphone switch, Alastor had tricked Y/n into sitting on a stool beneath a bucket of water. When he had dumped it on her, he had not only made a mess for Nifty to clean up but caused the cat demon to shoot up into the air, hissing loudly. Y/n had gotten him back by changing the locks on the door to his recording studio and used some of her own special brand of magic to block him from teleporting within. The result of this was a very irritated Alastor who broke a fresh hole through the wall. Y/n had been forced by Charlie and Vaggie to be the one to fix it, it was her fault after all, but she insisted it was worth it.

Next had been the vacuum cleaner. The fucking vacuum cleaner. Charlie had had to repaper a whole wall to get the claw-marks to go away after Alastor had used the machine to chase Y/n up it. For her revenge, Y/n had been crafty. She had rounded up a group of several demons she knew had it out for her dear friend and set them on the hotel.

Vaggie had tried her best to kick the cat demoness out after that one but, Alastor had, surprisingly, stepped in. He had fixed the wall with a snap of his fingers and they had both promised to tone down their competition, but never to stop it entirely.

It was Alastor's turn now and as he approached Y/n with a cup of tea, everyone knew something was bound to happen. It was out of character for the man after all, the random act of kindness. She was cuddled up in a sunspot on the couch, reading. So engrossed in her book, she barley looked up at him as she took the cup from his hand with a muttered word of thanks.

Alastor had retreated to the bar beside Angel and Husk with a satisfied expression on his face.

"What did you do now?" Angel asked as he watched Y/n take a sip from the cup.

"Just you wait." Alastor hummed in response.

Five minutes was all it took for the cup to be empty and suddenly, Y/n was on the floor. She reveled in the sunlight, her book now forgotten on the couch as she rolled around.

"What the fuck?" Angel laughed, turning to Alastor, "What the fuck did you give her?"

"Cat nip?" Husk asked, his eyebrows raised, "Really? I mean, that's low. Even for you."

Alastor shrugged.

"Charlie and Vaggie made us promise to tone it down."

Angel shifted his gaze back to Y/n who was wide eyed, staring up at the ceiling intently. The sun reflecting off Angel's glass as he raised it to his lips shot across the ceiling over her head and she immediately rolled over onto all fours, her tail flicking back and forth.

"She's certainly 'toned down.'" Angel noted, laughing once again at Y/n's antics as she tried to grasp the spot of light.

"She's gonna kill you." Husk scoffed, shaking his head slightly.

Angel moved his glass again and Y/n shot forward, clasping her hands around the spot of light once more. It was ten more minutes of the guys laughing and Angel fucking with Y/n using the glass to reflect light before she finally came back her senses.

She sat up from where she had lain on the floor moment's ago, a hand to her head.

"Jesus." she grumbled, "Why... how'd I get down here?"

"Three." Husk said, crossing his arms.

Y/n took her hand from her forehead, looking around the floor of the lobby curiously. Her gaze shifted to the sofa. Her book, the empty cup.

"Two."

Y/n turned to face Alastor, her eyes narrowed.

"One."

"You fucking drugged me you dickwad!" Y/n exclaimed as she pulled herself to her feet, "Catnip? Really? That's low even for you."

"Your turn." Alastor hummed placidly in return, seemingly undisturbed by her anger at the situation.

"I..." Y/n trailed off.

With another look thrown over her shoulder at the empty mug, she marched up to him. Determination glinted in her eyes, Y/n smiled, her teeth bared.

"You are so fucking in for it now."

[catbountry]

I think the most upsetting thing about the Neil Gaiman accusations is because I'm so used to creators whose work I love giving off some very obvious signs that something is deeply fucked with them being called out for fuckshit. If you'll indulge me, I'd like to compare and contrast my feelings on this to when accusations against another, very different artist from whom I took a lot of influence from was were made public; an artist whose influence on my own work goes back even further than Neil's.

I'm gonna compare my feelings to finding out the truth about Neil to my feelings finding out the shit Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi had been up to since the 90's.

I was not at all surprised finding out John Kricfalusi was grooming and raping minors. Shocked? Yeah, a little bit, but not surprised. I already knew that dude was and still is a dirty old man and an asshole for YEARS. He broadcasted the fact that he is an asshole so blatantly that I remember finding his blog when I was 18 and I briefly thought about reaching out to him because he was such a huge artistic influence of mine, but I was intimidated by him. I was afraid he would tear my still quite anime influenced art to shreds and crush my fragile spirit. Turns out that is probably not what I should have been afraid of.

Neil had Tori Amos fooled. Tori Amos. He was the godfather to one of her children. She was tearing up when interviewed about those accusations. People who knew Neil just didn't see this part of him. Instead, he appeared to have kept that behavior to women who he thought he could most easily get away with treating in the most vile and degrading ways possible. The calculation in that is terrifying. I wanted to meet Neil. I briefly saw him walk past me at a small local con where he was invited as the guest of honor alongside Peter S. Beagle, who I did get to talk to and would see at cons in the years following quite regularly. He recognized me. I doubt Peter knew. I doubt Terry Pratchett knew.

With John K., I was able to get some catharsis with fellow Ren and Stimpy fans by talking about the contributions of other artists who worked on the show. We were able to laugh at his strange behavior that included punching a lamp and screaming, or hiding under the desk of one of the girls he's groomed while he cried. He was so obvious. There were so many angles to attack him from, it was like beating the candy of of a pinata. It probably helped that the cartoon he created was purposely crass and juvenile, that his issues with his father were so nakedly on display and even mocked by the staff who stuck around for the Games Animation era (honestly, I feel like this is an underrated era of the show; it's not quite the same with John's particular brand of batshit, but they did the best they could and the best episodes were ones that were making fun of him and how seriously he took himself). Stories about him hitting on young fans at conventions and acting unhinged were numerous. People knew about him being racist, and he was obviously a chauvinist. He was notoriously difficult to work with and was known for verbally and psychologically abusing his subordinates. Very quickly, the people who worked for him were whittled down to yes men, 20-something year-old fanboys, and suspiciously young girls. If he wasn't as talented and passionate about animation as he is, nobody would have put up with this dude. He surrounded himself with people who lacked the emotional maturity to see through his persona as a misunderstood genius.

But Neil? I knew about the groupies. I'd only ever heard of consensual hook-ups. The man was charming and witty and, I'm not gonna lie, I found him attractive. I certainly did the one time I saw him in person, over 20 years ago. It beggared belief that he would stoop to this level. I didn't want to believe it at first because of the original podcast having an ulterior motive of being TERFs. Like obviously, this is not about ease of access to strange ass. It's about power. One only needs to read the Vulture article to find out how much of this was getting off on abusing vulnerable women; women who wouldn't be believed because he was such a Good Feminist. He was beloved on this website. Hell, I sent him a few rambling asks to his blog telling him how much Sandman meant to me, how much it influenced me as a comic artist. I sent one while zonked mere days before the allegations dropped, and confided in him about how I was using my comics as a way to process my trauma from an abusive relationship, coincidentally from a comic book fanboy who enlisted me to help track down Neil at a room party to meet him (we did not find him). I even included a panel from one of the comics that had an exchange that felt like I was directly tapping into the influence from him specifically. And then the allegations dropped. And then the Vulture article came out. And it kept getting worse and worse.

I don't know how to mock him like I could so easily with John. I don't know if I want to mock him. I'm angry, hurt, saddened and deeply disturbed. Turns out Neil's about as fucked up as John, but Neil kept it hidden. He didn't radiate the same pathetic, insecure , fragile masculinity combined with an insistence on mirroring the appearance and artistic sensibilities of one of his idols the way John does with Bob Clampett. His work doesn't scream at the absolute tops of its lungs what lurks deep inside of him, and how he's perpetually stuck in an adolescent mindset. Instead, Neil gave us glimpses that were framed in such a way that no reasonable person could look at them and assume these were confessions... and it's only after being exposed that it ever even crossed my mind to examine them in such a way.

There was never any reason to believe that the writer in Sandman who raped a muse he kept imprisoned for ideas was a reflection of Neil, especially after he'd received the karmic justice dealt to him by Morpheus. Good people can and do write some very disturbing shit. Clearly, he knew that this was wrong, vile, and foul. And yet, he inflicted that anguish onto over a dozen women that we know of. Like... what the fuck, man? Why? I got very used to my own abuser having a layer of plausible deniability, some kind of excuse, just enough restraint to keep me around and keep pushing my boundaries, resorting to pouting and pleading when presented with a "no" so that he could lie to himself and convince himself that he never did anything I didn't agree to. But the acts described by Neil's victims are so sickening that there was no way in hell he didn't know exactly what he was doing. He knew it was wrong. He got people to trust him because he so openly acknowledged just how wrong this type of behavior is... and yet he did it anyway.

That's what makes this feel like such an act of betrayal, and all the more sinister. He wrote such heartbreaking and beautiful human moments. Things that felt real and true. Things that brought tears to my eyes and have stuck with me for years and years. Was it just a mask, perhaps reflecting back what I wanted to see onto it like some kind of, I don't know, MirrorMask, perhaps? Are there two sides? Or is it all a carefully designed trap?

I don't know if I'll be flipping through my paperbacks of Sandman anytime soon. I'm grieving the author that I'd pictured in my head, the man of whom I based an ancient OC. The man who was on stage at Balticon 40 with Peter S. Beagle, as they went back and forth with one another on writing in front of an audience that included me.

I guess now I know what he really meant when he said that writers are liars and thieves.

[lcandothisallday]

Okay jack concept here: the reader & him dated in the past but even though they broke up his family still talks to her & invite her to a gathering in hopes to get her & jack back together because they know how much they both miss each other & whatever they do works because in the end they’re back together

Promises - Jack Harlow x f!reader

note: damn this is looongg😅 sorry but uh i hope y’all enjoy. haven’t written anything in a MINUTE

When you moved to Louisville in your senior year of highschool, you never expected to fall in love. In fact, that was the last thing on your mind, hoping to stay focused on your studies in preparation for university—but Jack Harlow was one persistent motherfucker.

“Come on Y/N!” Jack exclaimed as he chased you down the long school hallway, his hand reaching for your arm to stop you from walking away. The last bell finally rung and you were desperate to go home. “Why won’t you give me a chance?” he pouted, looking down at you adorably with his big bulky glasses and his curly hair pushed out of his eyes.

You let out a sigh as you stared up at him. You couldn’t deny that you thought he was cute…but he was the popular guy in school. This had to be some sick joke.“Jack…just drop it—”

“No! Tell me why first!” he insisted. “If you don’t like me or if you think I’m ugly then just say that! I can handle rejection.”

Upon hearing that, your eyes widened. “What? No! Of course I don’t think you’re ugly…I just…why me?” you ask with furrowed brows. “Guys don’t usually like me,” you sigh. “Plus I know guys like you. You’re a player. Only intrigued now because I’m new but when I give in you’ll use me then throw me to the curb for the next girl…that’s why I don’t wanna give you a chance.”

Jack licked his lips, his hands rubbing down his smooth face. “Well the guys where you’re from clearly didn���t have good taste…and I promise it’s not just cause you’re new. Just one date? I won’t hurt you…I promise.”

“One date Jack Harlow. We’ll see how it goes.”

And for the most part, Jack kept his promise. The years went on perfectly. You two managed to fall in love and he was all of your major firsts. You supported him all throughout his career but you always chose to stay private, not wanting to be in the spotlight or public eye which he supported.

And since then too, your relationship with his family grew exponentially. At first his Mom was a bit hesitant, fearing that you’d break his heart but the more she got to know you and spend time with you, you easily became the daughter she never had. She loved you like her own and it wasn’t quite a Harlow family gathering without you being there by Jack’s side.

However, it seemed as though everything changed when he did his Chicken Shop date interview. It was no secret that Jack had a major glowup and that interview in particular sparked the internet’s interest in the upcoming rapper, even being deemed as the new ‘white boy of the month’ and the internet’s boyfriend. That’s when the problems started.

Jack bit his lip in contemplation as he watched you get prepared for bed. You were standing in front of the mirror, finishing up your skincare routine by applying your moisturizer. Once done, you made your way into the bed and raised your brow at your boyfriend.

“Why do I feel like you have something you wanna tell me?” you laughed.

Jack took in a breath and ran a loose hand through his curls. “Look ma—the team thinks you should take down all of our photos together on insta.” You furrow your brows as you turn to look at him.

“Why?”

He lets out a sigh. “They think it’ll be better if we stay private for my brand—” You can’t help but scoff at his response. “Is that what you think too?” you ask him.

Jack groans, “baby it’s what’s best for my career at the moment…it’s better if people think I’m single to keep up that persona they’re going for. Plus you don’t even like being in the spotlight—”

“Yeah but I still like posting my boyfriend,” you interrupt with a frown. “Plus I’m already private on Instagram.”

“Ma, fans always find a way to get that shit even if you're super private,” Jack sighed. “Please baby? They really think it’s better this way. And it won’t change anything about us…I love you and it just means we get to be more private about our relationship without fans getting in the way especially with the sudden interest,” he persuaded sweetly—but it was more like manipulation unbeknownst to you.

You sigh before nodding reluctantly. “Okay…I’ll archive all of the photos of us,” you reassure.

Jack grinned as he swiftly cupped your cheeks and placed a soft kiss to your lips. “You’re the best ma.”

While it did partly not sit right with you that he wanted to hide your relationship from the public, you also heard many celebrity stories of relationships ending because of overbearing fans so you decided for the time being, it was the right choice.

As Jack gained more attention within the industry, he also gained much more attention from women which truth be told, was starting to become a difficulty.

Jack sat on the couch with his head in his hands as he rubbed his temples. “Ma you gotta calm down—”

“No I’m not gonna calm down! You were flirting with her on camera! I keep trying to be understanding of how all of this can help your career but you’re constantly direspecting me either by flirting with other girls or having them up all over you!” you exclaim. “It’s not fair to me.”

Jack let out an annoyed groan. “I told you it meant nothing but gaining a connection! Her team literally contacted me to do a song together so it’s obviously for work!” he yelled.

You take in a breath as your eyes collect with tears. “It still hurts to see Jack! You do it too much now--it's like you enjoy that extra attention,” you say with a shaky voice. “I don’t…I don’t wanna be private anymore. I want people to know you have a girl,” you sniffle.

Jack clenched his jaw and his hands balled up into fists. “I’m not doing this right now Y/N!"

“If you keep acting like you’re single then you’re gonna end up single Jack…”

“Yeah well maybe that’s what the both of us need right now.”

And just like that, a relationship that lasted nearly five years went down the drain and it hurt more than anything you’d ever experienced before. His family took it quite hard, having to get adjusted to you not being around anymore.

Whenever his mom would see you around Louisville, she always made the effort to stop you and spend however long just chatting it up with you. You thought it was adorable and it truly warmed your heart that his family still loved you despite the relationship ending but the reminder still hurt.

This time, you bumped into his mom at the grocery store and she wasn’t going to let you go easily.

“Y/N!” she exclaimed. “Haven’t seen you around in a while!” she continued with a hum. You let out a polite chuckle, hoping the conversation would end quickly.

“It’s nice to see you Maggie,” you say genuinely. “And yeah, I’ve been in and out of the city trying to find a job somewhere more exciting,” you chuckle. Since you didn’t really have Jack anymore to tie you to Louisville, you thought it was best to venture out more for work, either in New York or California.

Maggie frowned playfully, “then we’d be missing you,” she rebutted. You let out a laugh before shrugging. “Nothing keeping me here anymore,” you say, hoping she’d catch the tiny hint. “Even my parents moved back to where we’re from.”

Maggie nodded in understanding and the both of you enter a sort of silence before she spoke up again. “He misses you you know?”

You can’t help but scoff, shaking your head at her comment. “No he does not…he’s happy living the single life he’s wanted since he got signed to his label,” you mumble.

“Sweetheart—that isn’t true—”

“Then why hasn’t he reached out since then?” you ask, eyes beginning to tear up. “It’s been months and if he missed me then he would’ve done…something,” you sigh.

Maggie licked her lips and nodded. “Well we miss you,” she said nonchalantly. “I’ve gotten used to you being around so how about you come over this weekend for dinner?” she suggested.

You instantly shake your head. “I don’t think that’s quite a good idea—”

“You’d be coming for me. Please.”

“But—” as you go to reject once more, you knew that you couldn’t turn Maggie down. “Okay fine.”

Maggie beamed and reached to give you a hug. “I’ll see you Saturday at six then!”

Saturday rolls around and you approach the Harlow house with a heavy and anxious heart. You really didn’t want to be there but you hated to disappoint Maggie. You ring the doorbell and as always, she greets you with the warmest smile and hug.

You cautiously enter and slightly inspect the house for any signs that Jack was home. When you were pretty certain that he wasn’t, you let out a heavy breath of relief and aim to enjoy your time with Maggie.

Meanwhile, Jack, Urban, Druski, and Clay were all sat in the backyard of his home, chatting it up. It was dark out so it wasn’t easy to look out into the backyard from inside the house, but it was much easier to look into the house from the backyard.

“Bro…” Druski began, smacking Jack’s arm to get his attention. “Isn’t that your ex girl?” he asked, pointing towards the window that showed into the kitchen. Jack glanced over and his eyes went wide as he saw you laughing with his mom. “What the fuck?” Jack mumbled under his breath, getting up and storming into the house in frustration.

Upon seeing her son storm in, Maggie smiled knowingly. “Nice of you to join us Jackman,” she hummed.

“What the fuck is she doing here?!” he practically yelled, causing you to wince. Maggie stood her ground and looked at her son sternly. “I invited her to have dinner with us—”

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” you mumble quietly. Jack scoffed. “It’s my parents house—why wouldn’t I be here?” he spat back in question.

You take in a steady breath, your hands slightly shaking from the anxiety you were experiencing. As you go to respond, Maggie steps in. "Mind your manners Jackman. She came out of respect for me because I kept incessantly asking," she stated matter of factly.

Jack could only groan in annoyance, before he waved off his mom. "Whatever man--enjoy your dinner," he mumbled, causing his mother to raise her brows in questions. "Are you not joining us for dinner?"

The curly haired man let out a snarky puff of air before shrugging nonchalantly. "Nah--I've got guests in the backyard," he replied as he walked straight out.

As Jack walked back out through the sliding glass doors to the backyard once again, Urban shot up from his chair with wide eyes. "Dude! What are you doing back out here?" he exclaimed in question and shock. "All you've been doing the past fucking 6 months was sulk around and complain about missing her and now that you've got a chance right in front of you you're psyching yourself out?"

"It's not that easy," Jack mumbled while shaking his head with stubbornness.

“I don’t know what happened in there but this is quite literally your one and only chance to win her back otherwise—”

“Otherwise you’re gonna have to let her go completely,” Druski jumped in matter of factly. “Cos a girl like that sure as hell ain’t gonna wait up on a dude like you forever.” Urban agreed which caused Jack to sigh. He knew they were right—he was just to scared to admit it.

“What if she doesn’t want me? What if she’s been done with me?” he asked.

Urban smirked, “then she wouldn’t be at your house having dinner with your mom dumbass. Now go!” he exclaimed, pushing Jack back towards the back entrance of the house.

Jack slipped in and raised his brow when he saw his mom sitting at the table alone. “Where’s y/n?”

Maggie sighed and pointed towards the front door. “She’s about to leave—said she didn’t feel comfortable staying after upsetting you.”

“Shit,” Jack muttered under his breath, rushing to the front of the house and swinging open the front door. Luckily you hadn’t gotten far, just about to unlock your car and get in. “Y/n can we talk?” he asked exasperatedly, running a hand through his curls that had gotten much longer since the last time you’d seen him.

You let out a sigh and turn to face Jack. “You’ve already said all you needed to. I should’ve respected you and not come and I’m sorry—”

“But I’m glad you came,” Jack interrupted quickly. “I know I didn’t show it in there but I am…y/n I miss you,” he confessed quietly.

You can’t help but scoff. “Yeah well you have a pretty funny way of showing that—”

Jack furrowed his brows, “how did you expect me to react? You showed up unannounced and caught me off guard,” he defended.

You rolled your eyes and the both of you stood silent for a moment before Jack cleared his throat. "Do you miss me too?” he asked, his voice timid.

You let out a sigh. “Even if I did Jack we clearly don’t work.”

“My mindset on all of this has changed. Ever since I dropped the second album and finished up the tour, I realized this life ain’t sustainable and that I needed to be more lowkey…I think part of me needed to experience it first to know,” he explained with a sigh. “I’m sorry it took hurting you to realize that but I know now and I wanna pick up where we left off,” he breathed out, nervous that you’d reject him.

Your brows furrowed at his words. “You’re assuming I haven’t already moved on—”

“You wouldn’t be here if you did,” Jack stated confidently, standing tall as he reiterated what Urban had said earlier.

He had caught you slightly off guard with that statement, causing your face to heat up and for you to be at a loss for words. "T-That doesn't mean I'm ready to jump back into thin--"

"Do you love me?"

"Jack--"

"Y/N, do you love me?" Jack asked again, inching his way closer to you. "You're gaslighting me," you mumbled, narrowing your eyes as you peered up at him.

The curly haired man couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "It really is a simple question," he shrugged. You couldn't deny the heat that came from Jack's body as he moved closer to you, his piercing blue eyes fixated on yours. You could feel his breath on your neck as he whispered, "I want to hear you say it...I need to hear you say it," he sighed softly, damn near begging you at that point from fear of losing you.

Your heart was racing, your mind in a whirlwind of emotions. You wanted to say it, to scream it from the rooftops. But something held you back--the thought of him hurting you again or going back to his ways even after he claimed he worked on himself terrified you.

"Of course I love you," you finally confessed, looking away from him as your cheeks flared up with heat.

Jack's hand cupped your chin, turning your face back towards his. "Look at me," he demanded softly. "I want to see it in your eyes."

You met his gaze, and as the intensity of his stare bore into you, you felt a wave of desire wash over you. He leaned in, his lips dangerously close to yours. "Say it again," he breathed.

"I love you," you whispered, and before you could say another word, Jack's mouth was on yours, his hands roaming freely over your body. In that moment, nothing else mattered except the two of you, lost in a passion that couldn't be extinguished.

Eventually when the two of you pulled away, Jack kept close, resting his forehead against yours. "I'll be better to you, I promise," he spoke against your lips. "I ain't losing you again."

[crushedsweets]

What about some lulu headcannons since you seem to like her? :)

oh anon u are spoiling me.... heres a little sketch of her college life. let me begin . . tw for general creepypasta things, abuse, bullying, death, etc

ok. so a lot lulus og stuff is gross obviously (although a majority of the og creepypastas have gross origins/creators). as a kid, i was pretty attached to her, but looking back , its just. ugghhghgh. which is why i want to try giving her her own horror type story while still following some of the core things that made her her. BEGONE WITH MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL KILLERS...

lulu is 24 but described as 'physically 14' which bugs me esp bc theres so much emphasis on her body being like an adult. and frankly i am not crazy about yet another 'little kid bullied/abused then goes crazy/demonic' story so i scrapped the bullshit ‘is 24 but looks 14 but is drawn like she’s 24!’. So I decided to just to make make her whole zalgo poisoning occur later in life. since its now set in university, a handful of things changed. mayhaps she knows jack ?

she grew up as a rich girl being put through several private schools growing up. she wasnt the smartest, she wasnt the most social, and while i think that the og story did this really fucking poorly, she did deal with harassment cuz she developed early. ranged from people calling her a slut for the same clothes as a thinner girl, to getting dress coded for no good reason, to rumors, etc. so, she's being bullied by her peers, though its moreso a ton of gossip rather than stuff in her og. overall school sucked for her

finally she goes to university. shes away from all those people, away from her helicopter parents, away from dress codes and loneliness. she tries SO hard to keep up the perfect daughter persona in public bc she knows shes walking on thin ice(having been punished for things out of her control all her life), with a wardrobe full of pencil skirts and button ups, but then she finally meets this guy named josh. but that shit gets seriously exhausting. and as many kids in her position do, she wants to Rebel .. she starts going to parties and whatnot w her edgy ass roommate. random garage shows, raves, generally reckless behavior etc. its not her fully her thing but she's there and having fun.

idk his name in the og story but there was that guy that led her on just to further abuse her. i changed him up and made him some guy in a frat that she met at a rando party. he was so sweet to her the first time they met, they talked for a long time at the party, he was cool overall and she never ever craved attention like this before - she never even GOT attention like this before, coming from an all girls school, so she clung. but he wasnt actually gonna date her, so he said some bullshit excuse about 'you know how greek life is, my frat wont let me date u unless u join this specific sorority!! soz' and he chose the worst, most clique-y sorority that has the most insane hazing ritual for girls that arent sought after. he thought there was no way she'd give it a shot and he could get her off his back. a dick move, but he didnt think she'd do it.

but, she does - and the hazing is fucking shit. the girls in the sorority are worse than the girls in highschool (and maybe in cliché fashion, one of her highschool bullies ended up in the sorority before her?). it starts off as things like 'oh you gotta buy your sorority sisters coffee for a week' to 'oh you have to be drunk/high throughout all your classes for a week' to completely deranged shit like branding yourself or slashing a professors tires. things nobody in their right mind would do, typically.

i havent decided exactly how exactly lulu hits the point where they think she's dead, but a group of sorority girls think she is. they panic, and in their panic cannot feel her pulse or hear breathing. she's completely unconscious, cold, and frankly on the way to death - so they take her to slenders forest and get to work

they bury her in a shallow grave, unaware of all the different demons residing in the forest watching one of the most gruesome displays of humanity. if youve watched girl from nowhere, theres a scene where nano gets buried alive by a group of her classmates then she wakes up . . imagine that.

im thinking, similar to the operator, zalgo can infect people as well . . maybe people on their death beds ? anyway, lulu's infected. long after the girls run off, lulu manages to dig herself out of the grave. shes wheezing, coughing, sobbing, its dark and cold and foggy, and she now has to come face to face with zalgo making some weird 'i saved you, i want something in return.' and there goes her eyes !!! rip lulu. maybe zalgo did it cuz hes a dick, maybe he actually needs human parts to seal the deal.

theres some more interaction but overall lulu doesnt have a ton of demon powers or anything. new wounds heal quickly, but her past ones will never will. she can be eerily quiet, popping in and out with fog, doesn't need food/water/sleep. . she does have kinda crazy strength(no agility or speed), but she's so mentally weak it does nothing for her

for a while she does just wander the forest in complete and utter mourning, until one of the proxies finds her and is like Oh Fuck that's not human. toby describes her as a zombie. so she's another job for them to handle

eventually they settle her in the hospital with ann.. the hospital is likely an area that experiences more fog, being closer to the lake perhaps, so it just makes sense to put her in an area she can see. it took a while for lulu to calm down bc she now has a pretty big fear around women , and the proxies have to CONSTANTLY come around and check in for a while, cuz she feels safer with them. maybe they tried putting her with jack but jack said absolutely the fuck not. bc lulus legitmately scary. she's constantly croaking, crying, wheezing, dripping blood everywhere she goes, etc.

she eventually gets along with ann, who thinks lulus cute and fun to chat with. i made a joke about them doing tiktok dances together but like. i could see it. maybe ann reminds lulu of her roommate, the only girl whos been completely nice to her ? dunno. (despite the roomie being the reason lulu got into the partying and stuff)

mmmmmm yeah. that is basically the entire rewrite .

i likely wont include her too much in the story just because the rewrite is so drastic+shes not all too popular but i used to feel very fondly towards her when i was 10 and i do think her character cconcept is super cool (the fog, the eye stuff, zalgo poisoning etc). theres just hella weird stuff but its a creepypasta from 2013 idk what we expect

[verloonati]

The thing with a lot of dropout criticism is that like. Y'all had placed them on a pedestal of moral virtue. And it's comprehensible, their business model demands that they cater to their audience's parasocial relationships with their cast and products and that they manufacture it. It also made them develop a "progressive brand" whilst they remain a company. In a capitalist society. In Wich we live. The "epics anti-capitalist Brennan moments" have no worth as they became a meme that is part of an improv comedian's persona rather than an actual political agenda. Everybody can say "capitalism sucks" it is something else entirely to do something about it. And doing something about it that goes beyond the vapid "join an union and stop there, the more union you join the more militantism you're doing" American liberals love saying. They joked in one of their promotional videos about selling a "capitalism is the bad guy" shirt. But like. I've seen people asking if it was actually for sale. Once again they are a for profit company. No company is your friend, no matter how progressive their brand is.

A lot of people are disappointed when they do shit that can be criticized, wether it's some jokes that are in poor taste, the very small numbers of trans women on their content (especially paired with their enthusiasm about drag Wich makes a very icky combo) and the platforming of some Zionists and people that at the very least do not condemn zionism. And the Harry Potter d20 season Wich, my hot take is that the first season was cringy, the second was divorced enough from that vibe and universe that you know what. It's a fine enough deconstruction of that shit. Still feels hella weird when they self congratulate on saying fuck terfs with like. One trans woman ever appearing on that show. And her story was about transness. And I mean yeah that shit is disappointing but also. Because they have set up expectations by claiming to be more progressive that they can possibly be they created backlash from people that believed them. And I mean yeah. Look at what happened when they addressed the platforming of Zionists and promised to be more wary of it, they got threatened of being sued and violent threats got delivered to their staff and they had to retract that statement. What I mean is that I don't believe they are misguided or have bad intentions, the industry simply does not allow the standards they are aiming for.

And you know what, it's okay. I know for a fact all of you consume regularly media that don't claim to be progressive or claim it way less and fucks up way more and way bigger. And you still consume it and it's okay because there is no ethical consumption, you can't find something 100% ethical, that is produced in total accordance with your values and politics both onscreen and behind the scenes. It may be more frustrating because the parasocial relationships pushes this notion that they are reachable and that you almost know them but they aren't and you don't. People proposing a boycott for the Zionists platforming was bonkers, on Palestine alone there are way more urgent shit to take care of that the comedy website platforming two people (and there are way more urgent shit that trying to help by consuming "better" but that's it's own can of worms).

At the end of the day this criticism comes a lot from a feeling of being betrayed by a company y'all placed trust into. But you deserve better than to trust a company who puts its CEO into funnyman clown no matter how funny the little man clown is. And you can still enjoy their content. It's fine. It's whatever. They're not what they pretend to be but hey there's shows and platforms with terrible goals and themes that are still fun to watch or read. It's still okay to enjoy things with all their problems and shortcomings

[darcytaylor]

I get people who are saying he appears to be outgrowing his friend group, however it honestly seems like he is firmly committed to them regardless of his growth. The one constant thing we’ve seen has been the presence of at least A through all the promo and she seemed to be very involved with everything and everyone else in his life apart from Bridgerton. I believe she was even seen with his cast mates from TSOT recently.

I hate to say it, but I am starting to see Bridgerton as the outlier that doesn’t seem to be built into his life, but instead kept separate. The issue for Luke is that Bridgerton and the persona he is/was around it is what he’s known for now, and by seeming to do all he can NOT to be identified with it as his defining role, I think it’s causing problems. Again, not saying any of this is fair or even right, but it isn’t unexpected and I do hate to see this sort of thing playing out so publicly for someone who we know historically struggled with anxiety (although I know some people who have been around awhile and seen him in person have said he is noticeably different as a person now and more confident/not the dorky guy he was… that’s part of why I feel like Bridgerton Luke is not really him anymore).

You have made some very good points in regard to Luke’s commitment to his friend group (and also good points in general). But just because someone is committed to a particular path doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best choice for their life or that they’re fully aware of its impact. The choices we make affect our lives, and sometimes these impacts are not always positive for ourselves or those around us. 

In Luke’s case, while it's true that his friends are posting about his private/personal life, he is still responsible for setting boundaries and making choices that align with his personal and professional goals. His current approach suggests that he may not fully be aware of the progress he has made or the level of growth he has achieved. It appears he is not surrounded by people who match his professional aspirations, which could be hindering his career. (This is all speculation on my part).

I think Luke can still maintain his friendships while also focusing on networking and advancing his career with people who share similar goals. What’s being shown publicly should ideally reflect his professional image rather than his personal/private life. His recent choices to spend time with his current group, especially when aiming to build on his success with Bridgerton, seem counterintuitive. But I will say this again, until we know his specific career goals, it’s hard to say whether his choices align with them.

Maintaining a separation between work and personal life is healthy. I think everybody should strive to do this. The issue isn’t that we keep seeing Luke’s private life, but that his private life keeps intruding into his personal brand (I brought this up in a comment to an ask). Every celebrity has a personal brand, which they use to market themselves. For Nicola, it’s her relatability, humour, and advocacy, which she effectively leverages (she's damn good at her job). In Luke’s case, the overlap of his private and professional life seems to be damaging his personal brand and creating a conflict.

But people do evolve and grow, and I don’t think it is uncommon for actors (or anyone) to undergo significant personal and professional changes, which sometimes can lead to a disconnect between public image and personal life. I also don’t think it would be easy to manage these perceptions either, but I do think it is crucial for Luke to find a balance that could allow him to embrace his growth and maintain a coherent public image (that works and isn't holding him back) at the same time. 

(also sorry this was so longwinded, but you know me, long drawn out paragraphs are my specialty!)

[ribbononline]

Oh yeah! Since I have no clue if/when I'm ever finishing these and I've had them laying around for forever by now- here's the adult IT metaverse outfits I've made! They're all based on their ultimate personas and the concept of heros! Since these were made for an aged up p4 cast, these aren't quite what I'd put their during p4 time selves in- some changing more then others- but if you wanna follow me into design details, that'll all be under the cut!

First off to get em out of the way- Teddie is very largely the same as his p4 time metaverse outfit I made for him back here . The design is still meant to be inspired by magical girls, but the biggest change is that while the old one was meant to look like a magical girl protagonists outfit, this one I tried to lean a bit more into the older/more experienced cast member of the magical girl group type design. Overall a pretty minor change (and I will admit, largely because I'm still incredibly happy with that old design) but it felt fitting!

Chie and Yukiko were, as always when I work on them, designed to match. Their masks specifically mirror eachother with the opposites sides sticking out, and they both have a golden dragon pattern on their clothes as a reference to the twin dragons move! Chie was... honestly one where I had to sacrifice my goals a bit. Like mentioned before, these were meant specifically for an aged up cast. And while p4 era Chie I would absolutely imagine in a kung fu Chung-Li type outfit, we know what a more mature version of her action hero dreams look like; the police! And I.... really did not want to put her in a cop outfit, Ill be real. Instead I just tried focusing on making the outfit look more mature. Also tried to combine a practical and strong look with a more feminine aesthetic, since she struggles pretty badly with her femininity in p4 and I like to think she'd grow more comfortable with her own brand of it over time!

Yukiko is perhaps one of the most drastic one for changes compared to her younger self- if you asked me to design a p4 era outfit for her, it would look nothing like this, hah. Anyways, she's definitely inspired by onna-musha! Compared to Tomoe who was a full on commander of an army going out there, for Yukiko the idea was more the women taking up arms to protect their home when the battle comes their way. Fully having embraced the role she has as the next owner of the Amagi Inn and the responsibility and want to protect it, it's meant to be somewhat of an outing of that!

Fun fact: She has two color schemes! Because uhh I did not know what to go for at all. Her ultimate persona is like a single solid color and I kind of panicked and just ended up winging the colorscheme. One is more red since, y'know, thats her color! The other is more white gold to match her actual persona better. Included at the end of this post for the curious

Rise was based on a greek goddess- though not any particular one, moreso how they're commonly depicteed in art and old statues. Pretty, holy, someone you'd go to for advice and help (someone just out of reach from the general public) It just felt like a good combination of something she'd like to be seen as and percieved as as well. She gets two outfits- for scan and fight mode! Kouzeon has no canon fight mode, thats just for Himiko, but man it exists in my heart. The transistion between the two is literally just her throwing off the long overskirt, hah.

How does her mask work? Excellent question. The p5 idea of having it there when vibing but gone when the persona is out feels a little awkward when her persona's whole thing is putting a visor over her face. Quite frankly I have no idea. Sorry folks. Have all concept sketches for the outfits I've done as compensation with a bonus Noot in there that I never continued on and finished.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Hi :) Hope you’re doing well considering the current political state of the country (and world, by extension.) Trying my best to chill out about it but it’s rough. Anyway, I’m not really that well versed in the complex dynamics between louis, zayn and harry so I don’t quite understand the outrage from Harry’s fans. Why do they care? I’m so confused. I know they don’t want Harry associating with 1d but what does it matter to them if other ex members get along. Is there something I’m missing? They’re acting like psychos on twitter.

I’ve blocked a lot of words associated with Harry Styles on all social media, so I have to be honest, what I see is just what other Louies pay attention to. Otherwise, I’m in the dark.

Sometimes I see a few super nasty fans’ tweets, and it’s always those specific accounts making a fuss. I don’t really see any Louies making grim jokes about Harry’s dead family members, but that’s the level of stuff coming from Harries (and sometimes Niall and Zayn fans, but less so). I see a lot of attacks on Louies in particular, cyberbullying behavior.

You might ask, what’s their damage?

At the heart of all these fandom projections (including “Larry spending time together” etc.) is anxiety and parasocial psychopathy.

It’s typical of cyberbullies, involves a lot of self-hatred and shame. They derive a sense of importance from being aligned with Harry, who is very successful and famous but whose brand has, from the beginning, involved negative portrayals of his bandmates. His team has individually said cruel things about his bandmates, and Harry himself made more than one joke about Zayn. His fans are following the leader.

It lends an air of insecurity around Harry’s mega-successful and dominating pop culture persona. Most of the general public won’t pick it up. They love a himbo and they love womanizer Harry. But the people who feel it most, ironically, are Harry’s own fans. They know Harry never interacts with the rest of One Direction. As much as Harries brag about it, they see the numbers with Zouis reunion. Any threat of competition makes them anxious, and Harries, like their idol Harry, don’t like a level playing field.

Harry Styles has also taught his fans that friendships are never without some business purpose— that every friendship serves to increase wealth. This is such a value to Harries (what they love about Harry, above all else, are his chart numbers) that it’s almost a point of pride for them. This principle is the basis of the Narry friendship. Harry didn’t support Niall until Niall played a venue he co-owned, the Manchester Co-op, from which he could personally profit. Something like Zouis, a friendship based mostly on sentimentality and absolution, feels alien and threatening.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 827: Shellac 1000 Hurts

This is a long and tough one, so I'll spare your timeline and force you to make the jump.

On February 21, 2001, one of my husband's closest friends was murdered by a man named Michael Gargiulo. She was stabbed 47 times.

Not surprisingly, my husband does not share my appreciation for slasher movies. I still feel like an asshole for dragging him to a midnight screening of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on my birthday years ago. I was an idiot for not realizing that someone who lost a loved one in a brutal act of violence wouldn't find a film recreating that kind of violence entertaining.

"I don't enjoy the sound of people begging for their lives," he told me after the movie. I can't blame him. Even music with "tortured" vocals tends to get an immediate "can we listen to something else?" from him.

Transgressive art is a weird thing. People will always be drawn towards art that's shocking, forbidden, or taboo, but I also assume most people have a line they don't want crossed. I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I hate Cannibal Holocaust. As far as music goes, I have a much easier time ignoring the cartoonish violence of death metal than I have sitting though music laden with brazen sexism or homophobia in the lyrical department.

Content aside, art gets even trickier when the artist's life comes under scrutiny. Again, I assume most people have a line they won't cross. You might not have an issue listening to Michael Jackson, but you would probably have a major issue listening to an artist who assaulted a member of your family. Or maybe you do have an issue listening to Michael Jackson. Maybe you also have an issue listening to an artist because of their political alignments. And maybe you have an issue with an artist simply because of something they've said in the past. There's no shortage of music out there, so why give your attention and money to assholes? On the other hand, artists are human beings, which means they've inevitably hurt someone in the course of their lifetime, so if we blacklist every artist who's ever done something hurtful, we're eliminating art from our lives. Everyone has a line, but I think any rational individual understands that the line will vary from person to person.

I've been thinking about transgressive art a lot since the passing of Steve Albini. The public overwhelming seems to mourn his loss, but I've seen a few people weigh in online with some valid criticisms: he was in a band called Rapeman; he said some sketchy things about child pornography in a zine back in the '80s; some of his lyrics reflected racist elements of society without taking a clear stance against them. Albini addressed these incidents later in life, acknowledging that though he was not advocating for the kind of behavior he was portraying in his art, the ambiguity that made his songs feel dangerous could also be construed as promoting or celebrating the subject matter.

By the time Albini got around to forming Shellac, he seemed to have shed the dodgiest parts of his confrontational persona. That said, I know a few people who take issue with Shellac's most popular song: 1000 Hurts album opener "Prayer to God." True to the title, the song is a literal prayer to God asking for the Almighty to kill the singer's cheating lover and her partner. It's essentially a murder ballad without the actual murder. Or maybe it's more in line with The Beatles and Elvis singing "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man," except in Albini's case the majority of his ire is aimed at the male lover. It's a visceral song, and while it might feel cathartic for someone who's been betrayed by their romantic partner, it might feel too harrowing for someone who's actually dealt with a potentially dangerous jilted ex.

I played "Prayer to God" for my husband once. He wasn't a fan. To be fair, I don't think Albini's brand of minimalist tone-scrutinizing math rock was ever gonna be his cup of tea, but the lyrics certainly weren't going to help. Consequently, I reserve 1000 Hurts for times when I have the house to myself.

And ultimately, I would hope that his reaction to Shellac would be the kind of response we'd see in people who take issue with Albini. Simply put, it wasn't my husband's cup of tea, but he didn't try to convince me that I shouldn't enjoy it. Yes, Albini dealt with some ugly and uncomfortable themes, and by his own admission he took some of it too far. But his music was both a reflection and a reaction to the things he saw around him. Just as the slasher films of the '80s were a reaction to the era's conservative bent and puritanical attempts at censorship, so were Albini's songs (particularly with Big Black) a rebuttal of that decade's benign soft-rock FM radio staples, PMRC campaigns, and right-wing fundamentalist attempts to whitewash the media.

Much like those slasher films, Big Black has aged with an unexpected patina. Yes, there is something still "dangerous" about it, but that danger seems less rooted in pushing back at "the establishment" and more like it's picking at the wounds of the most vulnerable and injured parts of our society. Given even a minimal amount of context, I'd think the average person could appreciate its attempts to say "no, this world isn't perfect and we're not going to pretend that it is," even if those attempts are admittedly a little ambiguous and sloppy at times. But that kind of context doesn't arrive as a disclaimer on the album packaging, so its reasonable to understand how someone could find Big Black's unflinching first-person villain profiles to be a little problematic.

Consequently, I completely understand why someone would take issue with Big Black's "Jordan Minnesota" or Shellac's "Prayer to God." On the other hand, I want art to be uncomfortable sometimes, even if that unease is unintentional. There's no shortage of art out there that aimed to be progressive but aged to show the inherent biases of its time. Just consider the contingent of people wanting to change the racist language in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'd argue that sometimes the shortcomings, biases, and outdated perspectives in an artist's work are as much a statement on the times as the actual subject matter.

Everyone has a line. And for a lot of folks, Albini probably crossed it a few times in the course of his career. For me, listening to Big Black or Rapeman or Shellac is like watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre---I don't need Steve Albini to explain his lyrics anymore than I need Tobe Hopper to explain that we shouldn't cut people up with chainsaws and turn them into human barbecue. But Albini also dealt with minor horrors that impacted a far greater percentage of the population, and that's something he had to reconcile and acknowledge later in life. For me, his charity work, fierce advocacy for marginalized people, and willingness to stand up to bullies in public forums offset any of his early artistic missteps, but I also understand that making art about human suffering is always going to elicit pain from people who have endured those particular trials.

Everyone has a line.

[freelancewritesturner]

On It's Way Back In To Scoop You Up

Alex finds you the morning after. TBHC! Alex x Fem Reader TW; heavily implied drug use, implied age gap, mental illness. This is just the words taking me where they want to go cause I'm tired and I miss this era of AM. Unedited, uncensored, I just went with the flow today. -Freelance

There's only so much of it I can take. And you're making it so much harder. So please ignore me, if my hands shake...

Your lips tasted like sugar, and like death. The same early morning fuzz against your teeth stained with the remnants of too many drinks, whiskey fogging up each little thought. It was warm too. You were glad that, in the stupor of last night, you had remembered to wash off the makeup caked to your face under too bright pub lights that made the shadows between them appear too long, too dark. Places he could hide, the way he always did. Hiding from himself, hiding from reality. "I really wish you wouldn't do this to y'self, love," he murmurs, his voice raw with the early morning cigarette curled in the hotel branded ashtray on the bedside table. He shouldn't have had it, especially before coming here, but he had done it anyway to steady the nerves in any other mood or memory, he might have convinced himself weren't there at all. Eyes blink, torn apart like curtains split in sunny rays. Only the light in this small back room with a half deflated mattress feels much staler by comparison. And you feel much staler in comparison to Alex. The irony. He's wearing the white suit today, his hair slicked back against the curve of his skull like a helmet, and the sharp angle his roman nose holds up a pair of glasses. He doesn't have a prescription, but the lenses are too pale to be sunglasses. "Alex-" you half manage to mutter, hand reaching, stretching. Something clatters violently to the floor and spills in tiny click clacks against the old wooden boards. You swear you hear Alex sigh, before he crouches down beside you and offers the same lopsided smile he always did. He wouldn't show himself to the others, not the same way. This was Alex. This was the man behind the facade. For once it wasn't that bullshit 'Mark' persona he put on up in that....place. You still refused to call it by its name, even though every inch of it was because of, and for, you. "Come on, love, lets get ye up an' ready," he says gently, his arms encircling the too thin waist that almost makes him pause. The way he says it makes you feel like he's getting you ready for a funeral. Your funeral. "I already told you-" "And ye know I'm stubborn," he replies before you can finish, and try to convince him that you're not at all interested in the hotel. In being caught up in his delusions. Because you were sure they were delusions. He had given you up once already, everyone did, it had happened once, twice, and then everyone else had followed suit like grains of sand slipping through the hourglass of sanity. It wasn't like he really cared, was it? He was just here so he could prove he was right, show you that you really had fucked it up this time. His feet kick a loose pill away, and then his eyes clear up in your vision, the sunglasses flicked over his collar now. They look so pretty in the amber light its almost a total distraction. Almost. "Ye doin' it again." "What?" "Spirallin', love." "Oh." He's good at that. At noticing. Not that you want to admit it, or get the sweat and alcohol onto the crisp white fabric of his suit. He looks too good to be sullied again. But his hands remain firm as he brings you to his feet with a honey touch that's almost sticky against the fever. Honey that bubbles, thick and uncomfortably addictive in the pit of your stomach. It clogs your arteries, the way his breath clogs each pore of your memory. "Ye need an actual bed, an' some rest. An' probably somethin' in ye stomach that isn't....all this..." Alex trails off awkwardly the way he always did as a teenager. Back when things were simpler. You don't mean to stare, but he's gone hazy again. A light chuckle escapes his lips when he makes the same connection as you do, and he leans in to briefly sweep his lips across the top of your tangled hair. "I won't ask, but come with me, aye?" he murmurs, to cover the beat of awkward bubbling still roiling on through your stomach, up to your chest, where it heats up and burns. "To the hotel. So I can look after ye." Another pause, before he adds a quieter plea to his words. "Please?"

This time your brain whirs, the cogs clicking together almost uncomfortably, before your heels crunch the scattered pills. You don't remember how they tasted, just that they exist, in the cocktail within your stomach. Just like they had the night before, and the night before that. The argument had been stupid, but you had promised to try and get through it. Jamie had even paid you to travel all this way to find Alex. To convince him. Force him. Threaten him.

To come home.

But Alex hadn't left Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino in six years. Six years that didn't exist to the outside world, to the real world. The world you had left behind because of the same pills scattering the makeshift room. Well, sometimes. You'd left because of the tabloids the pressure, the same been there done that storybook fame trip Alex had escaped, and closed himself up under the alias of Mark, the hotel owner. You'd been too blunt, too drunk, and he had been too stuck in his ways to be convinced that fast. He had gotten defensive, you emotional, and then you'd spilled everything. He had gotten drunk, tortured, and you had run back to the same vices again, and again. The way you had done when as teenagers, you and Alex had been together.

Funny how time made you miss someone. That was probably why Alex was here, because he felt obliged, out of some nostalgic fantasy playing out in the same brain space that Tranquillity Base held. It did sound nice. A bed.

Fuck.

There's a sliver of victory on Alex's face, as you mindlessly nod to the tune of a bath and clean clothes. The same vintage flair he carried on his shoulder like a chip he couldn't cast off just yet. His hand is leading yours and his strides are small so you can keep pace. There's a little bit of sadness in your face, but you don't pull away.

After all, you'll be here tomorrow, and so will Alex. You'll try again tomorrow to, after a phone call to Jamie, Matt, Nick…whoever picks up, whoever has advice. Until then, Mark leads you back along the star splattered streetside under midnight mornings somewhere up in the sky.

Yeah. You'll try again tomorrow. You always do.

[unhinged-summer-fun]

common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 7

Pairing: Osha Aniseya x Qimir "The Stranger"

A/N: Dividers by @firefly-graphics

A/N 2: PISSED. but still striding. #renewtheacolyte bc i need them to be so horny @ one another i am put in the hospital

series masterlist

chapter 7: when it rains...

“You know, when you got hurt in Bestine, everyone asked me if I could feel it.”

The sound of her sister’s voice made her pause, but the mention of Bestine made Osha freeze.

“They only asked because of the twin thing. They thought that when you got hurt, I’d get hurt—or I’d feel it. When you were angry, I’d be angry. And for a while I just messed with them, told them it’s too painful to talk about, or something like that. Most of the time, that shut them up quickly. But after a while, I couldn’t bear lying to them, and I told them it was all silly superstitions. No, of course not, I didn’t feel my ankle getting—”

When her voice cracked, Osha turned to look at her. Mae was sitting on the couch so still, Osha had only noticed her when she spoke up. She had only seen Mae this sad a few times before—typically, whenever Osha got hurt. Her voice trembled as she continued to speak.

“I’m sorry I lied to you, Oshie. It was a total mistake, and the deeper I got, the more afraid I was to tell you. I wanted to tell you a hundred different times, but I always chickened out, and I don’t—I’m sorry.”

Not for the first time, Osha wondered why Mae even wanted to train with the stranger. Mae was a good girl. She got good grades in school. Growing up, she couldn’t lie to Sol even if Osha begged her to. She’d been the ‘good child’ Sol didn’t have to reprimand as harshly—compared to her twin. Mae was a dedicated fighter, and committed herself to the traditional methods Sol taught her.

Because of all that, it truly baffled Osha that Mae could train three days a week for two years with someone branded persona non grata at the Temple.

What was her angle? And how had she only been caught now?

She didn’t have the time or energy to ask those questions right now, but she had time to at least comfort Mae. Osha sighed and dropped her keys back on the table. She sat down with Mae and put her bag on the floor. “I would have helped you hide a body, Mae.”

Her sister blanched at the pointed past tense and fiddled with her fingers in her lap. “I want to make things right between us. I know it’s naive to think you can trust me as much as you used to just like that; I know that, I just… I hope things can be at least good with us again. You’re my best friend.”

Flaring indignation simmered in Osha’s belly. If this is how she treats her best friend, how does she treat everyone else? snarled a nasty little voice in her ear. Osha stifled that voice, that feeling—just like she always did.

“You’re right. I don’t… my trust is broken, Mae. But you’re not the only one who did it. You and Sol are both in the wrong here. Finding all that out hurt. It still hurts. It’s only been a few days, Mae, you have to give me time to even process it.”

Mae had tears in her eyes when she said, “Please tell me how to make this right.”

“I don’t know, Mae. I’ve never felt this betrayed before. I won’t let it get swept under the rug, though.” Osha looked around, sighing at the time on the wall clock. “I can’t talk right now, I need to get to class, but when I do ask you about this, you’ll have to be honest and truthful.” Her eyes grew misty, and she had to blink up at the ceiling light in order to compose herself. “I’m going to—I need to set some boundaries with you, because I had none with you until now, and that’s why all this shit hurts so much.”

Mae sniffled, her face crumpling. Eventually, she nodded in understanding, head hanging a little lower than it had been before. “Okay,” she whispered roughly.

“Sol won’t like to hear it either, but he needs to know how shitty he was, too. If things don’t change, I… I don’t know, I’ll have to do something—”

“You wouldn’t leave the Temple, would you?” she asked, suddenly frantic.

“I don’t know, Mae. I don’t have those answers for you yet. My relationship with the Temple, with boxing… I don’t think you know how fucking difficult it’s been to watch everyone leave me behind in the dust, Mae. To watch my family do that to me.”

Osha dashed away her tears, frustrated that she was trying to keep it together so Mae didn’t feel too bad. She stood from the couch and shouldered her backpack. Mae suddenly got up to pull her sister into a hug; one Osha reciprocated mostly on reflex.

“I love you, Oshie. I’m so sorry I messed this up.”

“I know you are,” Osha said when they broke apart. “I love you, too.”

As Mae wept on her shoulder, she tried to decipher the inscrutable blank stare looking back at her in the hall mirror.

It looked something like fear.

If the off-kilter vibe from the conversation with Mae wasn’t enough, Sol seemed hell-bent on making things worse. He ignored Osha as she dashed in during warm-up stretches and Sol’s class introduction. “…Today is a sparring day. In round two, you will partner by height—Osha, you are with me. Let’s start on the skip-rope combinations.” Osha’s headache was already brutal from crying the entire walk to the Temple, but it was only going to get worse from here.

She survived the first round of class, but after fifteen minutes of jump rope, her ankle and knee were flaring up. Everything felt like it was bubbling in a pool of acid.

Something that suspiciously felt like dread settled in her bones. Today was going to fucking suck. After the injury, there were days when everything below her left thigh would lock up, frozen in pain. It made work and class excruciatingly hard, on top of trying to pretend nothing was wrong for the benefit of everyone around. The last time a flare-up like this happened, it took Osha more than forty minutes to get home, half of it spent just getting into her car.

And she doesn’t have her car today.

Her only thought was on the knee brace in her bag once round one started shifting into round two. At the interval break, Sol stopped her. “Why were you late?” he asked in a low voice, almost a whisper.

“I need to get my—” He stepped in front of her path as she tried walking around him.

“Answer me, please.”

Osha’s hackles raised. Why should she answer to him? He didn’t ride anyone else this hard when they were late, and he didn’t even let her modify the cardio that directly risked her physical health. She swallowed down the fire she was about to start breathing. It settled tightly between her lungs.

“I was talking with Mae,” she gritted out.

His face ran through a series of emotions that ultimately landed on a sanguine smile that grated on her nerves. “I am glad you’ve forgiven her.”

Something twitched just beneath her eye. Her voice dropped to an icy temperature as she explained, “Sol, this is not something I want to talk about in class, and not right now, and especially not with you.”

Sol’s overexaggerated look of surprise would have once had her backpedaling with apologies. A voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like her stranger whispered you’re a lion, not a housecat. With that, she felt like wrath incarnate. She had a backbone that could stop a fucking bullet.

“I see,” Sol said, a little dazed by her vehemence.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to put on my knee brace before we spar.”

He left her to it.

“What was all that?” Fillik asked under his breath, just a minute before round two started.

“Family shit,” Osha said, instantly on the defensive. The compression around her knee alleviated some of the pain but not all of it.

Fillik raised his gloved hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. If you wanna catch a drink sometime just to talk, though… let me know.”

He wasn’t offering just to offer; he really meant it. Fillik was born ninth in a family of twelve and had to fight for his place in everything growing up. Sol’s parenting style of raising Mae and Osha felt more like a playful panopticon by comparison. It was a mystery how the two of them even got along.

“Thanks, Fillik,” she said, her anger deflating somewhat in the face of his genuine concern. “I might take you up on that.”

Sol clapped his hands for their attention. “Let us start round two. We will go in groups; please group with someone of a similar height. I have brought in some other trainers to monitor your form and posture. Osha, with me. We will go for fifteen minutes.”

She was surprised at the invitation; Sol was one of the best fighters at the Temple, known for his calculating strategy in shredding through an opponent’s weaknesses. She remembered the spars they used to have when he was mentoring her, the ones leading up to Bestine, where he didn’t pull punches. Perhaps he wanted to make up for how he’d been babying her in class. Osha finished wrapping her hands and wrists on the way over to Sol, so she didn’t see him putting on the punching mitts until she looked up.

Oh.

She’d been ready to spar, ready to let out the stifling, choking frustration that had been crawling up her spine the last few days. But Sol didn’t say anything to her. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was watching the other pairs already fighting, still observing his students regardless of the other trainers there with him.

How long was it going to take for him to remember she was there?

Apparently, a minute and a half, give or take six years.

Osha waited, silently glaring at him with her hands at her sides. When he did notice her, she could see a brief moment of panic in his eyes, but he did not apologize. Sol was a proud man, for as humble as he wanted to seem.

He was never going to apologize for anything.

Her stranger’s voice—I am sorry. For upsetting you earlier.

Damnit, now was not the time.

“Alright. Some combinations…” He rattled off a series of numbers that were temporarily imprinted in her mind. She slipped into a stance, raising her fists and blading her torso—just as he had taught her sixteen years ago. Just as she hadn’t forgotten.

But he had.

Osha blazed through the first set, then another, and another. The unstimulating repetition only made her anxiety wind tighter in her chest. She couldn’t help hitting the final jab as hard as she fucking could. Sol grunted, looking down at his hand like he’d just noticed she was there. He clapped the pads together. “Again.”

Her stamina stayed high. She knew this round was only fifteen minutes, so she didn’t have to conserve her energy much. After about five straight minutes of combinations, he had her incorporate ducks and slips from swipes she could have seen coming from a mile away. He wasn’t toying with her in a playful way; Sol wasn’t that kind of fighter, coach, or man.

He just thought she needed delicate handling.

“Why don’t you let me actually spar with the others?” she asked abruptly, pulling back in the middle of a set with a minute left on the clock.

“What?” He lowered the pads. He had that kicked-dog look on his face again. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t let me spar with other students in almost a year. It was snowing the last time you let me, I remember. You've just had me on pads with no feedback for months. Why?”

Sol gaped like a fish. He looked around at the other trios of sparring partners and coaches, noting their distance from the conversation before he looked like he was even considering answering her. She blazed on.

“I’m in this class, too. I expected better from you. I deserve to be treated like a student, not a burden.” She decided then that she wasn’t going to entertain any kind of answer from him today. Not after entertaining Mae went so wrong. “Nevermind, let’s just go.” She resumed her stance and beat the ever-loving fuck out of those pads while Sol stood silent, taking every blow.

“Osha.”

She was getting really tired of this shit. Her day had been entirely made up of uncomfortable situations that other people wanted her to be in. The earlier flip-around on Sol felt like a winning round on her scorecard, though she was definitely losing the match if she wanted to talk to her.

Vernestra stood in the doorway of her office and, without another word, walked inside. Summoned to the headmaster’s office once again, Osha cast a longing glance at the showers before climbing the rickety stairs up.

“Did you ask for me?” Osha said. Vernestra loved to play petty little power games like this, and it was getting old.

The coach scowled. “I did. Close the door.”

Osha did but remained standing, idly unwrapping her hands and wrists while she waited for Vernestra to speak.

“You train here four days a week,” she said.

“Yeah…?”

“And do you feel you need to be in class four days a week? You’re not in competition spheres, nor are you in a mentorship.”

Osha felt the air leave the room. The image that came to mind was a cage, an opponent, and a single knife between them. The silence between them was tense, like waiting for a bell to ring before things got bloody. “What are you asking me?” she said slowly.

“I’m asking if you need to be in four competition-level classes a week.”

“I’d like to know why you’re asking.” Osha was impressed by her own composure, especially against such a formidable woman.

Vernestra looked shocked that she’d been talked back to. Should take a picture. “I have allowed you to take classes four days a week because you are an employee, and by your employee agreement, you are allowed to take as many classes as shifts in a given week. However, as competition circuits are coming, priority in those classes needs to be given to the members who actually have a hope of stepping in the ring.”

Fucking wow.

“And if I said I wanted to compete again?” Osha already had the stranger waiting to train her—as soon as I can get out of some commitments at the Temple; she had no intention of double-dipping like her sister. Even though she had been angling for this out for a while, it fucking hurt to have it so suddenly shoved on her, practically without warning and not at all on her own terms. Part of her has been waiting for Vernestra to do this for the last six years.

She shifted uncomfortably in her desk chair, clearly fighting to hold the intense eye contact Osha levied on her. “The Temple doesn’t want to exacerbate your injuries—”

“My ankle and knee have been fully healed for five years.”

“You’re in a knee brace today.”

“And Torbin has one eye.”

Silence fell. Vernestra straightened her shoulders, and an imperious expression slotted into place on her features. Though Osha was the one standing, she was definitely being talked down to.

“Given the public nature of your injury, inviting extra scrutiny on you, your family, and the Temple should something go wrong would be difficult to bear.”

Rage, hot and dark and sticky as tar, replaced the blood in her veins. She pictured herself reaching for that knife between her and Vernestra, drawing blood while her opponent had only sought to bruise and break.

“You did a pretty good job erasing me from the website after Bestine. I think you could handle some bad press.”

Vernestra’s eyes narrowed. “That’s enough.” Deadly venom dripped into her voice. Osha had never heard her speak like that. “You’ve been graciously given access to elite, highly sought-after classes solely because your adoptive father teaches them. Those classes are normally invite-only for promising competitive members. Seeing as you won’t be sponsored by the Temple in any titled championships and your recent indiscretions with disreputable non-Temple trainers, you are back to two classes a week and only for the publicly available classes. Your shifts at the cafe will remain four a week.”

Disreputable. He’d get a kick out of that.

“Can I get that in writing?” Osha said, clipped.

Vernestra stood from behind her desk. “The only thing I’d be willing to write down at this juncture is a write-up for insubordination and a termination of your employment. So you either take this verbal warning, or you are no longer welcome.”

Osha’s hands shook as she held them in fists at her sides. Venom sizzled on her tongue and seeped into her words. “You can cut my classes back to zero, for all I care.”

She whirled around and tore open the office door, stomping down the stairs. “Where are you going!” Vernestra shouted out the door.

“To the one place you still want me anymore—my shift. And I’m done fixing goddamn Huyang for free!”

Two hours into her shift, her leg started stiffening up. She had spent her whole shower wondering if she was going to even have a job when she got out. Before she left the locker room, Indara said her name.

Osha hung her head, overwhelmed. “I can’t talk right now; I have to clock in.”

“…alright, Osha. We should talk soon, though.”

It seemed ominous. She threw herself into work to avoid it.

Everybody had heard what happened. It was kind of impossible not to. Yord gave her wary looks for the first half-hour, but by the time he looked like he was about to ask, or god forbid, reprimand her, Jecki shot a glare in his direction so lethal, he didn’t talk for an hour.

Rubbing her knee during one of the afternoon lulls, Jecki brought out a low stool for her to sit on. “Here. You look like you need it.”

“Thanks,” Osha said, sighing at the relief. Her ankle felt… sickly. Radioactive. It sucked so bad she didn’t even feel embarrassed that Jecki had noticed her actively suffering.

“Would you mind teaching me how Huyang works?” she asked once Osha settled on the stool. “Doesn’t have to be today, but when you get a chance or something.”

Osha winced. Right, she had declared she wasn’t fixing it anymore.

She spent the next hour teaching her in fits and starts. She didn’t realize exactly how much she knew about the machine’s pissy nuances until she looked up and found herself a little under three hours away from the end of her shift. She asked for her fifteen and spitefully limp-stomped down the snowy sidewalk to the Starbucks.

Was it a betrayal to the cafe at the Temple? Sure. Did this little act of rebellion thrill her? Endlessly.

While waiting for her gingerbread latte, she checked her phone. She swiped past the usual snowstorm weather updates and social media notifications until she saw a text that made her bite her lip. 

?: Have you trained today?

She was giddy as she opened the message from her stranger but also a little mortified by the split-second reflection of the dumb fucking face she was making. She was remembering the silly name she’d put in his phone after the fights:

:) OSHA :)

He hadn’t said anything about it, but she got the feeling he’d been amused by it.

?: Have you trained today?

O: Yeah I had class w Sol

O: It sucked

O: Wait send me a photo so I know it’s you

?: [IMG_0032.JPG]

He sent her possibly the world’s blurriest picture of the Smiley mask, which she couldn’t help but pout at. It wasn’t the photo she was expecting. Not that she wanted his photo in her phone or anything. No way.

O: Very well I believe you

O: Did you take that picture on a potato

O: I didn’t even know your phone had a camera

O: Why are you at the gym????

“I have a gran-de gingerbread la-tte with two shots for Oh-sha?” the barista sang at the counter.

“Thanks,” she said as she claimed it, sliding a festive cardboard sleeve over the festive cardboard cup. They made her smile despite everything that’d happened earlier. It was the little things, really. She found a seat and set her timer for the ten minutes remaining on her break. Her phone buzzed again.

?: It’s practically an antique.

?: What’s your ankle at today?

O: It’s been a 7 for the last hour or so

O: In at work

O: *I’m

O: Lol I’m actually on break

?: Where do you go on break?

O: Starbucks

O: Only when I’m pissed

?: That’s quite rebellious.

?: Why are you pissed?

O: You take wins where you can find them

O: I don’t wanna talk about it rn thx

?: Noted. And how is your knee?

O: Normally it’s at a 1 or 2 but now it’s a 5

?: How many more hours are in your shift?

O: I’m off at 6 so <3

?: Heart?

Oh god.

Oh no.

Oh fuck.

O: Less than three hours

?: I see.

She sat there, mortified, for nearly all of the rest of her break. Only when she was walking out the door with her almost-empty latte did her phone buzz again.

?: If you’d like, you could come over to my place after. I’m 819.

?: You shouldn’t be in pain, Osha. I’d like to help.

She didn’t know why her face was full of goddamn fire as she read those two messages. She was so preoccupied that she nearly walked into a post on the street corner. The thought of him helping her, potentially touching her, in his apartment, sent a frisson through every inch of her skin, lighting her up like a fucking chandelier.

Fuck, they hadn’t even actually started training together yet. She needed to get it together.

O: I’ll see you around 6:15 then :)

?: <3 hours, right?

Once more, she nearly ran into something—this time, the glass storefront of the cafe. “Fuck,” she muttered, fumbling for the door handle.

Jecki and Yord had seen the entire thing. “Are you alright?” Yord asked, his face so serious she could have laughed. “Why do you have—”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Osha said quickly.

“Are you sure?” Jecki added.

“Of course! Just—we should probably shovel and salt the sidewalks again.” She drained the rest of her betrayal latte, holding Yord’s horrified gaze the whole time.

It was the little things.

By 6 p.m., her entire leg felt like it was on fire. Just an hour ago, she had to retrieve her knee brace (again) from her bag. It helped, but it didn’t change the fact that her ankle was screaming at her so loudly that she could hardly understand half the things being said to her.

Right on the hour, she fumbled her way through the clocking out program on the register. Osha staggered out the door, her jacket half-on. She set out at a measured and steady walking speed, but once she was out of view of the Temple, she slowed to a more comfortable gait—though comfortable was a distant dream. At the end of the first block, she had to lean on the streetlight for support. She checked the time on her phone, hoping she would make it to his place by the time she promised.

6:10.

She wasn’t even a third of the way there. Flare-ups hadn’t been this bad in a long, long time. Tears of frustration pricked at her eyes as she tapped out a message to the stranger.

O: Running late.

?: What’s wrong?

She wanted to die. How the fuck did he know something was wrong from a two-word text? At this point, what wasn’t wrong? She didn’t know how to answer without sounding like a complete fool, so she didn’t reply, choosing to be silently mortified where he couldn’t see—

He was calling her.

It took three rings for Osha to muster the courage to answer.

“Hey, I’m just—”

“Do you need me to come get you?” 

His voice sounded so goddamn nice.

“What?” Osha said, watching the light turn green but remaining rooted in place.

“What’s your pain at right now, Osha? Can you walk?”

Her breathing picked up, anxiety tightening into a little ball in her chest. “I can walk…”

“Do you want to walk?” In the background of his call, she heard an engine turning over.

“My car’s in the shop—”

“Osha.” She stopped her protests at the steel in his voice. Whenever he said her name, she wanted to sit up straighter and pay attention. “Where are you?”

“…I’m on Third and Hansen.”

“Is there a bench or a wall you can lean on?”

“I—yeah, I think so. There’s a planter.”

“Go sit on that. I’ll be there soon. Put your leg up on whatever you’re sitting on. The higher, the better.”

She muttered an affirmative, too strung out by the sudden pain in her leg. It felt like it was everywhere, no spare thoughts left to argue with his orders. 

“Attagirl. You’re doing so good; I’m almost there with you.”

His praise slipped right past the part of her that would have bitten his head off for calling her a girl. Instead, it bloomed like a goddamn supernova in her chest, giving her something to hold onto other than the pain. She’d done something fucking right today, even if it was only sitting down.

“What do you dri—”

“I’m here.”

CHAPTER 8