#my sister and i have never smoked in our entire fucking life

[darby-rowe]

oh im pissed

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

All, der real

Me: they sure are perfect...damn

****HugeP***Hugo*****Hugo now ok**

This message has been brought to you by NASA.

"Take your girth from the Seventh Seal"

[powderblueblood]

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

CHAPTER FIVE — CHEERLEADERS MAKE BAD NEIGHBORS

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summary: after you get kicked off the cheerleading squad by an enraged tina, you're stranded in a rainstorm of biblical proprtions- and the only safe haven is eddie munson's trailer. fuck. content warnings: MINORS DNI I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU HERE- male masturbation, sexualized language, some mild objectification, cursing, smoking, drinking, drug mention, reader backstory (i do it for the plot the plot the plot), steve harrington cameo, reader is a pretentious bitch word count: 10.1k

Dear reader, Joan Didion said something because Joan Didion is always saying something. Particularly to me. She comes at me hard, smacking me in the back of the head with perfect clarity and I have not gotten around to not resenting her for it yet. 

‘I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.’

Joan Didion probably did not have to stay on nodding terms with a girl she used to be in order to score a cheerleading scholarship because her family blitzed her college fund on ill-chosen legal advice. 

But she’s got a point.  

You remember that day with perfect clarity. 

Middle school had been a lesson in elocution, thanks to your then-best friend Phoebe’s older sister Casey. Phoebe was a relic of your former life– a bookish indoor kid with Coke bottle glasses, a slight stammer and a distinct lack of style. Despite this, you loved Phoebe and she loved you. But more than that, more than anything, you loved that Phoebe had an older sister. 

A cool older sister. 

Casey was popular in the best way, which is to say that she wasn’t showy about it but she wasn’t humble either. By recognizing the power of being hot and likeable, she knew nothing could ever touch her. 

You wanted to be just like that. 

You remember the first time Casey told you you’ve got potential. Her hand-me-downs were a little too big for Phoebe, because Casey had boobs and Phoebe’s hadn’t come in yet. Even as a pre-teen, you knew an opportunity when you saw it. Can I try that top? And you did, flipping your hair and adjusting yourself in the mirror just like you’d watched Casey do a hundred times, sitting on her bedroom floor and soaking up her knowledge while Phoebe moaned and sulked about being bored. 

Check you out, hot stuff, Casey had smirked, but not in a way where you felt stupid. You’ve got potential.

The shirt didn’t feel entirely right on you, but the way Casey regarded you did. 

Fast forward– your first day of freshman year. You were in the parking lot, stepping out of the passenger side of Casey’s car. Phoebe slid out of the back seat, shoulders slumped forward. You were dressed in an outfit that you and Casey spent hours agonizing over the night before–first impressions are everything, girl–while, again, Phoebe looked on glaring. 

Come meet some of the crew, Casey said, pointedly to you and not to Phoebe. 

Hey– I thought were were going to find our homerooms together, Phoebe protested, grabbing you by the elbow. She knew she wasn’t invited. And she didn’t care– she’d never cared for Casey and her ‘airhead ways’, as she so derisively called them. 

Yeah, girl! you affirmed, a note-perfect impression of her older sister. Phoebe’s big eyes flared with disbelief. You’d spent junior high carefully studying Casey’s every movement, absorbing and adopting her behaviors as your own. Stella Adler would have loved your ass. Don’t worry about it. I’ll catch up with you later, ‘kay?

Make a move, freshman! Casey yelled, and you came trotting after her. There would be no catching up later, and you knew that. You bit back the sinking in your stomach with a Bonne Bell-glossed smile. 

Look, I love my sister, Casey murmured, but I’m glad that you’re my little freshman experiment, ‘kay? You are way more fun that Phoebs and her goddamn library card. 

You nodded, wordlessly grateful. Way more fun. The older girl confiding in you like this made you feel warm, included, grown-up. But not quite so grown-up that you remembered to watch where you were going– the laces of your left Chuck Taylor All-Stars came undone, sending you tripping– tripping–

Oof! Right into the muscular arms of Steve Harrington. Steve Harrington and his autumn colored eyes, his swathe of hair that seemed to grow more voluminous the more girls he flirted with, his shock of grown-up cologne and his perfect, perfect, perfect smile.

But it wasn’t just Steve Harrington. It was also all the surrounding popular kids that had already made a name for themselves coming up alongside you in middle school–Tina, Carol and her boyfriend Tommy Hagan���mingling with the older kids. 

You okay? Steve asked, his voice all breathy and cute the way boys voices are when they’re halfway making fun of you. 

Uh-huh, you nodded, lashes fluttering like crazy as you wracked your brain for something smart to say. 

Let me help you out here.

Then Steve did something you never thought possible, something right out of your daydreams. He got down on one knee and started to re-tie your shoe. 

Better watch yourself, Lacy, he said, tightening the bunny ears, gazing right up at you, Wiping out on the first day is not a good look.

Lacy. Lacy. Your heartbeat quickened at the nickname, hammering like hummingbird wings. It was the greatest thing you’d ever heard– it makes you feel fresh. New. Seen for the first time. Seen by Steve Harrington for the first time. 

Can you blame me? you said before you knew you were saying it; a common occurrence with you, You’re just too easy to fall for, Harrington. 

You drawled out too easy like you’re making fun of him, which of course you weren’t, because he’s Steve Harrington and you would never– but it earned some warm guffaws from the surrounding kids and a little ugh, please, from Tommy Hagan. 

Hagan’s something else. Hagan’s hated you since day dot, and you him. You remember his merciless teasing of some kid during Nancy Wheeler’s thirteenth birthday party, the last boy-girl party of your middle school careers, goading that they were too chicken to go into the closet with you for Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Steve grinned at you, eyebrows quirking upward. A fizzing feeling ran through your sternum and you felt like you might faint. Casey threw an arm around your shoulder, a magnet for attention. Well, it looks like some of you already know my little Lacy! You guys better be fuckin’ cool to her, okay, or else you’ve got me to answer to. 

You smiled up at her, the older sister you’d always prayed for, and she looked impressed with you. That’s all you wanted. That’s all you craved. That, and for Steve Harrington and everybody else to never quit calling you Lacy. 

And they didn’t.

Everything you’d gleaned from Casey equipped you to cruise through freshman year with no speedbumps, no checkpoints– you knew exactly how to wear your hair, how to flirt, how not to flirt, what not to eat, who not to be seen with… and even better than that, these people really took a shine to you. The girls especially.

Hawkins isn’t kind to teenage girls. It’s heavy with passive-aggressive Midwestern sensibility, with all the backwards, misogynistic attitude that comes along with that. It’s not overt, it’s insidious. It makes sense that these girls were scared. Few women make it out of here, and look at the ones that don’t. Their mothers. Your mother.

But what was even scarier was to want something more. To strive for better and be met with the begrudgery of your attempt. To think about life outside the snowglobe of this wicked little town. 

That's the thing with wanting. It doesn’t leave you alone. It gnaws at you while you zone out in the cafeteria, churning around with the half fat yogurt in your stomach. It finds you in the middle of the night, awake on the floor of your friend Carol’s room after an evening of pounding secret wine coolers and picking apart the rest of the Hawkins student body for their flaws and faults, looking around at your friends and thinking, 

God, I fucking hate these people. God, I’ve got to get out.

And you were working on it. Like a motherfucker, you were working on it– perfect grades, perfect attendance, the perfect extracurriculars in an excruciating balancing act with your demanding social life. Keep your record spotless and you could fly the coop to any college you wanted.

One such extracurricular was–is cheerleading. And god, you were great. You’re a flyer, one of the shining, pretty faces responsible for revving up the Hawkins Tigers and their adoring fans. Given your propensity for perfectionism, it’s an obvious position for you. Tina, the reigning captain of the cheer squad, had even taken you under her wing and spit shined up your back handsprings when you tried out as a freshman. Tina had a prior career as a child gymnast, making her a shoo-in for the title come senior year. And here she is now, hollering you all into formation. 

It’s Thursday, and it’s still the week from hell. You had almost forgot about cheer practice, but here you are, in your green and white and gold, ponytail too tight and bruise fading out. The tension between you and Tina casts a thick haze over the gym, the other, less-clued-in members of the squad not exactly knowing where to look. 

It probably wasn’t fair, outing Tina and her indiscretion with Hagan like that. But you felt like a cornered animal. It was all you could do, after all of them subtly chipping away at you for weeks when you’d done nothing but be there for them. Wiped their tears. 

Bought their crabs lotion, in Tina’s case. 

“Sloppy, Lacy! Again!” She’s drilling you like you’ve never been drilled before. Each twist and flip you perform, she finds something wrong with it– and you can’t even tell her she’s wrong. You have gotten sloppy, because your head’s not in the game. While cheerleading was a social and athletic high at one time, it wasn’t high on your list of priorities right now. Dismounting your bases and tugging your ponytail ever tighter over your skull, you stalk towards her. 

“Alright, Tina!” you yell, bubbling over with frustration. “How about you just drop the Russian gym coach bit and tell me what I’m doing wrong? Or is yelling at me all you got?” 

She does her best attempt at a withering glare. You can’t help but think it looks like something she learned from you. “How about I show you instead?”

Tina shoulder checks you, hard, and calls to one of the underclassmen. A mousy sophomore with sandy bangs and blazing Bambi eyes. This kid looks terrified, and knowing Tina’s reputation, she should be. “Cunningham! You’re up!”

Chrissy Cunningham. Right. Heir to the throne of Hawkins High. You don’t think you’ve heard her speak more than a couple of words and most of those have been in response to her Aryan meathead boyfriend, Jason Carver. 

But for what Cunningham lacks in vocal force, she makes up for in aerodynamics. This girl makes a basket toss look like ballet, ponytail pirouetting as she lands in the bases’ arms. Every move, faultless. She’s locked in. 

“That is what I want. What I don’t want, Lacy, is a flyer that looks like she’s losing control of her rectum mid-toss,” Tina hollers. “We all know how crucial this weekend is. Not just for us, but for the Tigers, too. Right? So that means the last thing we need is dead weight dragging us down.” She locks her laserlike stare on you. “Right?”

The squad mumbles in the affirmative. Chrissy Cunningham visibly gulps.

And you? A knife slices right through you, cold and exacting. You almost gag, trying to swallow through your thickening throat. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” 

“You tell me, Lace. You’re the one that knows everything.”

You don’t waste a second of time trying to counter-argue, because you can’t be sure it won’t end in your limbs flailing, trying to smash Tina’s head against the waxed floorboards of the gym. Instead, you grab your bag. You give the squad a grimacing nod and head to heave the double doors open. 

The sound of your sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floor makes you want to tear your shoes off and throw them through a window, just to watch the glass shatter.

You really never thought of yourself as a violent person, not until– everything happened. 

But now, god, now you just want to punch and tear and rip everything apart. This slow burn of your social status, your friends, your tether to reality as you know it slipping away is torturous. You’d rather burn it all up than let it swallow you whole. 

Standing on the front steps of the school, your eyes automatically dart to the parking lot. 

It’s not there. He’s not there.

And why would he be? you think, starting in the direction of the trailer park. You hadn’t spoken to him since that day in the record store, leaving him hanging with his hands behind his back and his mouth in that grin.

There was a reason for that. Call it post-high clarity or something else, but you knew right then you needed to focus the fuck up. Quit acting out because of your daddy’s mistakes and prove all of these shitheels wrong once and for all. 

Blend in. Stop causing trouble. Fall in line and study hard and cheer harder and get the hell out of dodge once you get your hands on that high school diploma. By whatever means necessary. Those means really did not include hanging out with Eddie Munson for even a second longer than you already had. 

–which is a nice thought and all, but Tina really shit all over that one with this shedding the dead weight move. 

The clouds above you carry the most pathetic of pathetic fallacies, gray and pregnant with rain that starts to hit you square on the crown of your head in fat, heavy drops. You’re still fifteen minutes from the trailer park, at least, and you don’t have a raincoat. You don’t have an umbrella. And you don’t fucking care.

You stomp up the dirt drive leading into Forest Hills, the pleats of your green skirt heavy with water, your cheerleader’s cardigan weighing down your shoulders. Your white knee-high socks are flecked with mud and getting dirtier with every sloppy step. And the rain, the relentless relentless rain, is streaming into your eyes, streaming mascara with it. 

You gasp against the cold of the downpour as you approach your trailer– and a glowing yellow light catches in your peripheral vision. His bedroom, the one you can see into from your bedroom. Though you try not to look. And sometimes you fail. 

You don’t see much, when you do look. It’s mostly his hunching figure, bent over his guitar or some binder or book or map or figurine. But he always seems calmer, the frenetic energy he wears around like chainmail finally falling to the floor. Watching him like that makes you want to breathe a sigh of relief right along with him, just to see if you’d feel similarly. Calmer. 

Calm is not how you feel right now, wiping the rain from your face as you dig in your bag for your keys. Once, twice, thrice they slip out of your hands, and on the fourth try, you finally get them in the door. And then– the key strains in the lock. Come on. This door has always been unnecessarily sticky, but this wasn’t really the time– you push and you push the silver key to the left with no give. 

Was your mom in there? Had she left her key in the door by accident before she went on another overnighter with Prince Valium? “Mom! Mom!” you yell, hammering on the door. No dice. You pull at the key again, and pull and pull and– 

Snap.

You shudder, a full body shake that’s only partially down to the rainwater that’s soaked you right to the bone marrow. The key has snapped off in the lock, leaving you standing there with a useless silver nub. 

“Fuck!” you holler, “Fuckfuckfuckfuck fuck! Fucking–shit!” 

Your fists go straight to the side of the trailer, banging one after the other against the metallic veneer. You don’t care that it hurts your knuckles, you want it to dent or crack or something, you want to not feel so impotent and fucking useless, but here you are! 

“Hey! Asshole!”

Your head whips around, heavy, sodden ponytail smacking you in the face. 

Eddie Munson is leaning out his bedroom window, barely visible through the downpour. 

“Keep it down! You’re in a residential goddamn area!” He’s not smiling that shiteating smile. He’s not even grinning. He’s just glowering at you, which is the look you’re most accustomed to seeing him wear. Even so, it feels– it feels– it makes you feel worse. 

“Fuck you!” you scream across to him, “Who died and made you the fucking neighborhood watch?!”

“Go inside, you lunatic!”

“My fucking– my key broke off, dickhead!” 

That makes his brow loosen a little bit. You just stand there, gasping in the rain. And then he disappears from the window–

–only to fling open the front door of his trailer. 

“Come on,” he grumbles, massaging the space between his eyebrows like he can’t believe what he’s fucking doing. 

“No.” 

“What? Cut the shit, Lacy, come inside.” 

“No! I don’t want to!” 

Munson’s face opens up in an expression of sheer incredulity– and you partially can’t believe yourself either. What is it about him that just makes you shove and shove and shove, unable to let him win– or in this case, unable to let him help? 

“Fine! Fucking drown out there for all I care!” The trailer door slams.

Your teeth have started to chatter, and your options from here on out are… walk or hitch your way back to town and drag your sodden ass somewhere there’s a phone where you then call your mom and pray she’ll pick up (she won’t) and tell her about the lock and try to tell her about the cheerleading squad and pray she’ll understand how upset you are (she won’t) and how much of an awful spiral this whole year has become and it’s not even Christmas yet and–

The trailer door swings back open. 

Eddie Munson comes stalking out into the rain, white Reeboks splattering mud everywhere. He’s wearing that shirt from his Dungeons and Dragons club, the one with the big fucking smug Satan splayed across it and you wonder, did he model that after himself? 

“What’s your fucking problem?” he asks, point blank. It feels like he’s aiming something at you. 

“I’m having a shitty fucking day!” you scream in response, making that dog belonging to that red headed kid sister of Billy Hargrove’s yap somewhere in the distance. “And I keep telling you, I don’t need your fucking–”

“Help? Right!” he scoffs, loud and indignant, crossing his arms across his chest. The fabric of the ringer tee is changing color before your eyes, clinging to him. “You don’t need my help yet you always take it, you don’t wanna be seen with me yet you end up at my lunch table, in my van, smoking my weed– you know, it may shock you but I’m not exactly thrilled to be seen with you either, Lacy! I mean, playing chauffeur to a grade A certified bitch that wouldn’t give me the time of day unless she was desperate? Who stood by and let her shitty friends, who aren’t even her friends anymore, make mine and my friends’ life a living hell for how many years? What kind of an asshole does that make me? How pathetic is that?” 

The way he spits the word bitch– it was different from the way he said it in the record store. There, it felt like a come-on. A compliment. Here, it feels like a curse. But oh, he doesn’t stop there! You are rooted to the spot, an unmoving target for his justified rage. 

“You can’t even play ignorant, y’know, because I’ve seen you. You’re smarter than them. You know how godawful those people are–Harrington, Carver, Carol, fucking Hagan worst of all–and you just let ‘em run. Because you needed that status, you needed to be the most evil fucking twat at the twat table, and for what? They left you, Lacy! They all left you!” 

You’re not sure at what point in his speech you started sobbing but at its crescendo, you yelp. It’s a high, pathetic sound you wish you could stuff back inside your throat and hopefully choke yourself with. See, you know all these things. You’ve told them to yourself in your most honest moments, of which there are not many, but having Eddie Munson lay them out for you in the pouring rain– it’s horrible. You’re horrible. 

Eddie’s arms move from where they were bound on his chest. Okay, that was an outburst, sure, but he didn’t mean to make you cry. And you’re like, really crying. He can’t stand it when girls cry, and you, in particular–you, having never displayed much emotion beyond bemusement and annoyance and mild disgust toward him–is especially frightening. 

And then you let out this scream. It comes right from the center of your chest, rumbling and primal and visceral and real. It’s a real noise, not one you put careful, curative thought into, tuning it just right before you let it out. Because in this instance, he’s right! You’ve worked so hard, and for what! For fucking nothing! For it to blow up in your face! So you let out another howl– and it feels so, so good. A feeling of satisfaction, more than a feeling of relief–

–so Eddie screams too. God, that feels fantastic.

His is heavier than yours, obviously, because he’s a guy and he probably screams as a hobby in whatever metal band he supposedly plays in. But you like that sound. You like the way it seems to ring off the exteriors of the trailer, ricocheting around like a pinball in its machine. 

A couple more painful sobs escape you, and Eddie’s taking tentative steps toward you, like you’re a snarling animal he’s trying to coax. 

In ways, you are, but that’s because you feel hunted. You have to blink, through tears and through rain, but you see that his shirt is so soaked that it’s see-through. You can see a vague suggestion of a tattoo on his chest. You see that he’s fighting a smile. 

This is so stupid. This is so ridiculous, that you could make a noise like that and completely short circuit the white hot anger he was spewing at you. 

“Come inside,” he breathes, a little less than a foot of space between you, “You lunatic.”

Your head, so heavy on your neck, so heavy from crying, so heavy from carrying your spiteful brain around, falls against his chest. 

“Uhh…” Eddie mumbles, hands hovering behind your back, not sure if he’s supposed to embrace you or if you’re about to rip his heart out of his chest. Either could be true. 

You know what you’d prefer. 

You’re positive he doesn’t here you exhale into his chest, into the mouth of the cartoon Satan, into the thrum of his jumping heartbeat. Sorry. I’m really… I’m so sorry.

“Hey,” he murmurs, “hey. Shit.” His hand finally rests in between your shoulder blades. You let him guide you inside, and he even picks up the book bag you had thrown in the mud. You reach, try to grab it from him, but he yanks it out of your grasp. Half teasing, half assuring you that it’s okay.

A squeaky, squelching silence settles between you two as you stand in his doorway. You’re creating a puddle near some old work boots. You wonder if they’re his– you’ve never seen him not wear those Reeboks. 

“So… welcome,” he cringes, emitting a pitchy, awkward laugh. You follow him through to the kitchenette, which is identical to your kitchenette, except every surface is not covered in legal correspondence or empty wine bottles or too-expensive tchotchkes. The light in here seems dimmer, warmer. There’s a distinct aroma of stale cigarette smoke and old coffee, which you breathe in deep. “Sorry for the mess–”

“It’s fine. It’s good mess,” you say, a little distant. You peer around the place like you’re in a gallery. 

“Good mess?” he queries, crossing to the kitchen sink where he attempts to wring his shirt out by hand– still wearing it. 

“Lived-in mess,” you say. What you mean is, it doesn’t look like a mausoleum of a life someone left behind. A storage locker. A haphazard sarcophagus. Before you moved to the trailer, your house was so clean– that was a whole other problem. The same tchotchkes that are scattered on your counter were kept behind glass, only touched when your mother polished them, the only housework she ever did. You stare at a collection of trucker hats nailed along the living room wall, the shelf of novelty mugs that accompanies them. 

“Living in mess? What is that, like living in filth? You better start showing this fine abode some respect before–”

“Lived. In. Munson, I said, lived in if you would just listen– it’s good, it’s fine. It’s n-nice.” 

It’s warm in the trailer, you can tell, but you’re shivering. You bear down in your body, jaw all set so your teeth don’t start chattering again, but he hears it in your voice. 

“Uh-oh,” he says, somehow not at all betraying any signs of being out in the freezing rain except for being entirely soaked. You bet his skin is still running hot, like you felt through his shirt, like you felt grabbing his wrist. “Star cheerleader’s coming down with a case of hypothermia. Right before the big game!” 

He slaps his hands to his cheeks in mock horror. 

“I’m–” you’re about to tell him a couple things; one, that you’re fine which would be stupid, because you are so clearly not fine; two, you’re not the star cheerleader anymore; and a third, forgotten thing. “--cold,” is what you settle on. It sounds small, vulnerable.

Eddie holds his breath for a second. You sound so delicate. Hard, terrible you.

“No, sure, of course you are,” he fumbles. The way his wet hair has flattened to his skull makes him look younger– exposing a nervous boy behind the metalhead posturing. “You can– take a shower. If you want. To warm up.” 

Take a shower. In Eddie Munson’s trailer. Your eyelids flutter closed, taking on their own vibrations from the wracking of your body. This is a hell of my own making. “Yes. Sure. Thank you.”

“I can also,” he starts, crossing the kitchen again and knocking something over on his way– it just clatters to the floor, whatever it was, and he lets it, like he’s used to leaving crashing sounds in his wake. “I can take your clothes if you want. Put ‘em in the washer.” 

You hesitate a beat, then follow him down a hallway. 

“I probably have something you can wear,” he says. There’s a note in his tone that’s high and nervous. “You’re for sure gonna hate it, but hey– beats freezing to death.” 

“Just barely,” you murmur. 

“Huh?”

“This, uh– this is dry-clean only,” you correct yourself, gesturing to the uniform. 

He rolls his eyes. “Of course. Only the best for the pom-pom shakers.” 

He ducks into a room that must be his bedroom, but you don’t follow him. Instead, you linger in the hallway, near the dingy bathroom, staring at the corn themed wall calendar. Going into his bedroom feels too personal– too intimate, as if preparing to take a shower in Eddie Munson’s trailer only to change into his clothes isn’t intimate. 

“I figured,” he says, emerging from the bedroom with clothes and a towel in hand, “since you like all that rinky-dinky-tinkly garbage, you wouldn’t hate wearing a Stooges shirt.” 

“I–” the shirt is soft under your wrinkled fingers, as are the boxers he passes off to you. Boxers. You hold them up between your forefinger and thumb, stepping into the bathroom. “These are clean, right?”

Eddie stares at you for a second– then leans his head into the bathroom and shakes his sopping locks at you, just like a dog. You let out a shriek that he thinks almost sounds like an involuntary giggle. I’ll take it.

“No comment!” And he slams the door on you. 

Then you’re standing. In Eddie Munson’s trailer. In Eddie Munson’s bathroom. Holding his old Stooges shirt and his boxers, with mascara running down your face. 

You pinch yourself, hard, just in case. 

The shower heats up quick–quicker than yours, you notice–and you rest your head against the tile as the steam swirls up around you. This is so weird. This is so fucking weird, and you can’t scrub away the weirdness fast enough. There’s not enough Irish Spring in the world. You reach into the shower caddy to replace the bottle and notice something familiar– wait, that’s–

Wait. 

Do you and Eddie Munson use the same brand of shampoo? 

You had to switch from your favorite to the best that the Big Buy had to offer, given the change in your personal means, and this was the top score in terms of quality. Eddie Munson apparently agrees– but better yet, you realize as a grin spreads across your face, Munson uses women’s shampoo. 

It’s nice to have a fresh piece of arsenal to aim at him once you get out of the shower. 

Toweling off and changing, you do give the boxers a wary sniff before you put them on– but luckily, they smell like generic detergent and aren’t stiff in any way. So you slide them on.

They fit snugly– naturally, given he’s all sinewy and you have hips. He is really sinewy, now that you think about it. 

His wrist wasn’t bony, but it was active. Tendons flexing under the thin, soaked layer of his shirt. You wonder, absently, was that a tattoo you saw. What is it. What does it look like. Is it shitty. It’s his, so it’s probably shitty, but I want to see it. Does he have any more. 

You shiver, slipping the Stooges t-shirt on, and blame your hardening nipples on the cold.

The cheer outfit is another problem. You emerge from the bathroom, clutching the still-sodden uniform with Eddie’s– Munson’s towel thrown over your shoulder. 

“Do you have, like, a garbage bag or something?” you ask, eyes rising to look at him where he stands in the doorframe of his room. He’s still in his soaked clothes. 

He takes a second to answer you, and when he does, his voice is all thick. Avoiding eye contact. 

“Suuure,” and he disappears and reappears with a plastic bag, quick as a blink. 

“Thanks.” You dump the uniform, sneakers and all, into the bag and make for the door. 

“Hey, it’s still raining–” his voice follows you, as if you hadn’t heard the raindrop gunshots hitting the trailer roof. 

“Yup,” you say, popping the ‘p’. You yank Munson’s door open and fling the garbage bag outside. It lands squarely between your trailer and his. 

Munson appears over your shoulder, looking out at the garbage bag. His face is twisted in confusion, concern, curiosity. 

“I got kicked off,” you explain, plain as biscuits. 

“Off the pom pom squad?” he whispers, eyes flaring in surprise that you think might actually be real. You’re looking at his lashes again, fanning around the almost-perfect circles of his eye sockets. 

“The very same.”

“Escándalo. What happened?”

“How about you go and shower first,” you suggest, poking a finger into his chest. He makes a little breathy noise, a little ‘unh’, that you don’t… hate. “Can’t have the star dork of the make believe board game club catch his death, can we?” 

“Anything happens to me and you’re the prime suspect, babe,” he grins and snaps the towel off your shoulder. 

“Hey!”

“This is the last clean one. What am I, a fuckin’ Rockefeller?”

-

Christ, he wants to jerk off into this towel but he knows that’s weird. That’s perverted. That’s fucked up. That’s everything everyone says about him and that’s everything you make him feel. 

So he strips, turns the hot water to scalding and furiously rubs one out down the drain. One, because he feels bizarre about leaving you alone among all of his things for too long and two, because hot water is in short supply. 

And three, because he’s achingly rock hard at the sight of you in his boxers, tossing your cheerleading outfit into the mud and the wet. 

The metaphors. The implications. The feeling of your forehead against his chest. The stab of your finger in his sternum. 

He cums jaggedly, almost silently, with his mouth rammed against his forearm. 

If you heard him– God, you’d be so nasty about it. God, he’d never live it down. God, he’d love to know what you’d say.

He makes damn quick work of sudsing up and rinsing down, wrapping a towel around his waist– only to run into you as he’s coming out of the bathroom. 

You stare. You stare at him, and Eddie’s mouth goes dry, and all the blood drains away from his brain. Again.

“Stare much?” he sneers, but only just about. Because his first instinct is to drop the towel and give you an eyeful. See what you’d do– hopefully something with your mouth. God, he hopes it’d be something with your mouth. 

“Where are your smokes?” you snap back. “I know you have some.”

“Kitchen. There’s probably–,” he needs you to stop looking at him like that; like you’re going to snap his neck, “--kitchen.”

Eddie slams his bedroom door and smacks his face with three quick strikes. “Come on, man! Get it together!” 

Because it’s go time. 

He has to formulate some kind of plan. 

He hadn’t exactly thought ahead when he invited you inside–or, demanded you come inside–and since you now had no place to go and Wayne had specifically told him not to go near you and your boobs were stretching out his dad’s old Stooges t-shirt…

Christ. 

He’s entirely, massively, completely at a loss. Eddie paces around the room like an animal in panic, grabbing a Scorpion shirt and some worn flannel pants as he goes. 

“Like, I’m supposed to go out there and do what? Ask her to hang out? Fucking paint her nails, read Cosmo? Study?! Jesus!” he angrily mumbles to his reflection, tearing the towel away and tugging his t-shirt over his sopping hair. “Hey, Lacy, you wanna beer? Who am I, Steve fucking Harrington? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ, dude!”

“Munson. Are you talking to me in there?” He hears your voice from a minute distance away– see, that’s the thing about trailers. Small space, thin walls, and Eddie Munson’s voice travels at super speed. 

He stops, seizing, cringing, shoulders hitching up to his ears. 

That was not enough time to formulate a plan. 

Eddie, jankily tugging his pants on, sweeps out to the kitchenette area like something is chasing him and stops dead when he sees you. You haven’t trashed the place. You haven’t even tried to stick your head in the oven, two things he was kind of concerned about given the way you were wailing outside. 

You’re standing in the middle of the room with your hip cocked out, smoking a stolen cigarette and studying his uncle’s trucker hat collection. 

All the air in the room seems to orbit around you like a tornado in slow motion. 

How is it that you make an old shirt and boxers look like a skirt set? How is it that you can be sobbing your lungs out one minute, then the picture of poise and sophistication the next? 

All that air and none left for Eddie to take a breath.

“Hey, Lacy,” he strains, “you wanna beer?” 

“What,” you purr– like, he’s so sure that you actually purr, “You mean you’re all out of Sancerre?”

He does not know what the hell that is, but he can only assume it’s some rich people bullshit– and he’s relieved. You’re mocking him. At least that’s some tether to normalcy. She’s baa-aack. 

Eddie rolls his eyes, not entirely meaning it, but if he beams right at you he’s going to give the game away. 

“Think fast!” He tosses a can of the cheapest beer available at the Big Buy your way and you just about catch it, hands above your head and the cigarette dangling out of your mouth like Keith Richards. 

“God, Munson,” you mumble around the filter, “What kept you off the basketball team?” 

“Half a brain and a big dick,” he smirks, cracking the pull top and snatching the soft pack of cigarettes you’d left on the countertop. You cross from the living room, propping yourself up on the counter stool in a fluid movement that can only be described as feline. 

“Well, we sure can account for one of those things,” you say, ashing with your right hand and tapping at your temple with your left. 

“And the other?” Eddie asks, voice dropping a mocking octave. 

“I’d sooner drink arsenic than find out.”

He raises his beer can to you. “In that case, cheers!”

Your mouth twists around a smile and Eddie can see you’re fighting hard to keep it at bay. And that you’re losing. You tip your beer to your lips and he braces his elbows on the counter, looking around for a lighter. He spots a Bic, but the trigger won’t light it– just sparks, no flame. 

“That thing’s dead,” you say, “I lit this off the toaster.” 

“Oh! Right,” Eddie goes to turn, but something chilly snaps to his forearm. Your fingers. Damn. What is it with you? Circulation thing or what?

“Don’t do that,” you shake your head. “I don’t trust you not to burn the whole trailer down.”

“This is my trailer, y’know.”

“Yeah, and I’m in it. So burn it down on your own time.”

You motion for him to light his cigarette off the half-burned length of yours and Eddie tentatively places the filter between his lips. You prop yourself up on the stool, ass raised from the seat, leaning toward him. He leans in too and you cup that little hand with the perfectly painted fingers around the cigarettes. Like you’re whispering a secret. You look down, focusing on making fire, but Eddie’s eyes follow the tiny crease of your brow, the slope of your nose. The little wipe of mascara still underneath your eye. 

Tips touch and Eddie inhales just as you do. The cherried ends of the smokes glow orange and you pull back and Eddie just stays there a moment, frozen with the now-lit ember hanging out of his mouth. 

You pull back and inhale that smoke like one of those chicks from those black and white movies Wayne is always watching. You exhale all daintily, in one perfect clouding stream. You’re all– you’re so–... 

“Fucked,” you groan, shoving the heels of your palms into your eyes. “I am so fucked.” 

Eddie finally tugs the cigarette from his mouth, filter gone a little soft with the low-level salivating he’d been doing. “Oh. The cheerleader shit?”

“Yes, Munson. The cheerleader shit.” 

“What happened, anyway?” He resumes the position of being elbow-up on the countertop, which incidentally brings him a little bit closer to you. Incidentally. “You crack some skulls this time?”

“Huh,” you chuckle emptily, “Almost. Um, Tina more or less took me out at the knees. Which, I understand of course. If I were her, I would have obliterated me, but–” 

“You’re not her, and it doesn’t feel awesome to be on the other end of obliterated,” Eddie nods, giving you a squint-eyed pout of mock-sympathy. “Poor Lacy. Getting shitkicked by the consequences of her own actions.”

Thunk! You punch him in the shoulder, which hurts and he gasps, but it’s so funny and categorically unladylike coming from you. These little peals of violence that keep coming off you are a seemingly bottomless source of amusement for him. 

She’s so funny-looking when she’s mad. 

“Fuck off!” you bark, as if reading him like a goddamn horoscope, but there’s a glimmer to your narrowed stare. “I got replaced by a sophomore, as if I needed an insult topping on that injury shitshake.” 

“Oh, she Old Yeller’d your ass!” Eddie gasps again, chuckling heartily, “Took you out back and–” He mimes blowing your brains right out, nailing you right through the forehead. You stare at him square, unimpressed. “Who usurped ya?”

“Chrissy Cunningham.”

Oh. Well, isn’t that interesting. Eddie’s lips flatten into a straight line and he makes a little mmh sound. And you pick up on that immediately, being that you’re annoyingly perceptive. 

“Munson! Come on!” 

“What? Whaaat? I didn’t say anything!”

“That’s a child.”

“That is a sophomore and you said so yourself. Besides…” he trails off, pointedly crushing the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray until it’s oversquished. “...we have history.”

If his cigarette extinguishing was pointed, yours is needle sharp with the way you crush it into the ashtray right next to the remnants of his. 

“Go on,” you hum, just like you did in the van that last night. I really wanna know. It’s conspiratorial and intoxicating and makes it feel like you’re on his side, which you know he’s not but it’s so, so tasty to think that for a second you might be. 

Is this how you make everyone feel? Lull ‘em into a false sense of security? Hoard your ammo and go apeshit later? 

Eddie draws back, nearly congratulating himself for doing so. “That’s for me to know, and you to die ignorant.” 

The way your lips pop open is almost too good, your little doll face turning to a mask of betrayal too quick for you to hide it. Too quick for you to be all like fine! Keep it to yourself! You’re both totally irrelevant anyway! or whatever other bitchy retort you’re bound to come up with. 

“Wow. Well, if that holds any water, Carver’ll shit,” you start, sipping on your beer, “His little virgin Mary deflowered by the devil’s first alternate.” 

“Hey, I never said–!” Fuck. Fuck! How do you do that! Eddie pinches his lips together as you smirk over the rim of the beer can, all stuck under your gaze. Fly in the spider’s web. 

“A-ha,” you say, irritatingly smoothly. “So nothing happened. She’s just spank bank material.” 

“Didn’t– say that either,” Eddie mumbles, mind going annoyingly blank under your rapid fire tearing and the inebriating way you’re delivering it. He hates this and he has no intention of telling you to stop. The duality of man. 

“Didn’t not say that, though.” 

“You oughta be a lawyer,” he tells you, swigging deep, “the way you find a loophole in everything.”

“The way you want me to get you off, you mean.” 

You come out with that, something so incendiary, oh-so-casually and slip off your seat. She can’t just do that. You’re padding around the living room again, bare footed and small-looking, but Eddie’s staring at you like you’re a hand grenade with the pin missing that also has the secret to everlasting life inside. Terrified. Fascinated. 

A little stiff.

“What?” he breathes, but doesn’t really want you to answer the question. 

And you don’t, you just keep looking around the living room with your arms crossed over your chest. “You need money to be a lawyer, Munson. To go to law school. To go to any school. And I don’t have that. And I foolishly figured getting a cheerleading scholarship would be a cinch of a backup plan, and now I can’t do that either.”

“What are you looking for?” he asks, finally willing his dick down and his legs to work, rounding into the living room with you. 

“Your, like… stereo, or record player, or something,” you murmur, smoothing down his boxers over your hips. “It’s too quiet in here.”

Eddie blinks. What should really happen is he should say, no, stay out here in the silence, you insolent wench. Think on your crimes. Reflect. Repent. Stop being such a bossy little ballbreaker and give my balls a break.

“Room. Uh– it’s in my room,” is what he says instead. 

“‘kay,” is all you say with a little shrug of your shoulder, grabbing your can from the counter and padding down the hallway toward that same bedroom. His bedroom. Eddie Munson’s bedroom with his bed and his shit in it. “Let’s go.”

How irregular does your heartbeat have to get before you classify it as a cardiac event?

-

There’s only so many times you can flagellate yourself with the ol’ what the fuck are you doing thing before it becomes redundant.

Songs get overplayed, nail polish color gets overused, trends die. Things become redundant all the time, and you discard them. 

The notion of what the fuck are you doing in Eddie Munson’s trailer in Eddie Munson’s boxers walking towards Eddie Munson’s bedroom has become redundant because you simply are doing all those things. Not much point in questioning them. The chips have fallen. 

An eerie calm had come over you when he was in the shower and you were staring at all of these trucker hats on the wall– if the insanity is temporary, you might as well lean into it. You can’t go anywhere else. You’re trapped. Might as well get comfortable.

“God, this place is filthy, Munson.” You, with your arms still bound across your chest, toe a discarded t-shirt out of your path as you move into the bedroom with that same reserved interest of a gallery-goer. The place is cluttered, posters and flyers and doodles torn out of notebooks tacked up on the wall in total disarray. Every surface area is covered in what could be organized chaos, but knowing Munson the little that you do, you doubt it. 

To test the theory, you ask, “Where are your records? Tapes, anything?”

But he’s just lingering in the doorway, chewing on the end of a lock of hair. Watching you stand in the middle of the room with astronaut eyes, unblinking. It’s kind of– sweet, in a deeply unnerving way. He looks like a kid. 

Your brow furrows, grimace turning your lips into a point.

“Fine. Ogle me like a goddamn lobotomy patient, then.”

You resume your perusing of his things, when you spot the most precious piece of hardware hanging by the mirror. A marbled black and red body fashioned into nasty spikes. You reach out to give the strings an aimless thrum but your wrist is rapidly snatched away. 

“Nuh-uh. That’s where I draw the line,” Munson says, shuffling you away from the guitar like a security guard. A flash of something as your calves hit his mattress– him shepherding you toward your own bed, you drunk out of your gourd. “Siddown.”

And you sit, bouncing against the sinking mattress on impact. Rubbing at the spot on your wrist that his fingers had been squeezing. Staring up at him glowering down at you. “Ow.”

And Munson, it turns out, knows where everything is in his nuclear fallout of a room. He shoves a shoebox of tapes into your hands and nudges a bigger milk crate full of records nearer to you with his foot. 

“Knock yourself out,” he huffs, flinging himself face-down on the mattress next to you. You jerk; always the court jester, this guy. “Not that you’re gonna find anything you want to listen to.” 

A scoff flies out of your mouth before you’ve got a chance to suppress it– he’s gotta know, right? He’s gotta know he can’t just say shit like that to you without you fully activating that I can do anything you can do better–backwards–bleeding–in heels chip in your brain. You’ll show him. There’s nothing that matters to you more in the world right now than showing him. 

Though, rattling through his box of tapes, each one bearing a different variation of hot chick and the Devil artwork, you’ve got your work cut out for you. W.A.S.P. Mercyful Fate. Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. Witchfinder General. Some band that’s literally just called Loudness, for Chrissake. As you flick and flick, hope wavering, one catches your eye. There’s a jump in your throat. Scrawled letterhead against a draped satin background. A photo of something you always figured was a headless marble statue, though you could never be sure. 

“Why do you have this?”

No response from the corpse of Munson, presumably smothered by his own comforter.

“Hey!” you tap the back of his skull with the plastic casing. One eye appears, glaring up at you from the mattress. Rattle rattle goes the Cocteau Twins tape as you shake it in its case. “Thought this was haunted doll music.” 

“Ow.” Munson slowly raises himself onto his elbows, looking like he’s about to start kicking his legs in the air behind him. Twirling his hair around his finger. A grin is edging onto his lips, lips he’s pulling strands of hair away from. 

“Sometimes the five finger discount chooses you.” 

A feeling akin to heat spreads rights across your breastbone. You want to pry, secretly. You want an explanation. Why would you take that? Do you like me, or something? But asking speaks it into existence, and the insanity is temporary, and you’re so waiting for dawn to break on it so you can resume some hobbled together semblance of a normal existence. 

One that doesn’t include Eddie Munson stealing tapes that make you feel ticklish in order to, I don’t know, listen to them on his own so he can feel ticklish too. 

He hadn’t listened to it, for the record. Not all the way through, at least. 

He’d gotten as far as track two and had to switch it off, ejecting it out of the tape deck of his van with such speed that he was sure it’d shoot clean through the doors in the back. Too close, too real. That had veered a little out of the lane of objectifying you as someone whose crotch he maybe wanted to bury his face in and a little into the lane of you being like, a person. With feelings. 

The events of tonight aren’t helping that case. He hoped that lying face down for as long as he possibly could might let them just unfold around him, like he’d roll over and you’d just be gone, no evidence left behind except for your hair in the drain. 

But you demand attention. Eddie might be obvious, but you demand attention. His attention, at least. 

He grabs the tape from you. “We’re not listenin’ to that bullshit. Try again.”

“Fine!” you snap, but there’s this irritating bemusement dancing around your face. 

You lean forward from your spot on the mattress and tug the milk crate between your calves. Now, this is more your lane– in here, Munson’s got the classics. Or as close to the classics as he will deign to recognise. Zeppelin, Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Blue Öyster Cult– the combination of which you have something borderline mean to say about, but you’ll leave that ‘til later. You dig around, and then.

And then. Hello there, handsome.

In your hands are twelve inches of beauty, belonging to a grisly-voiced Tom Waits. Blue Valentine. Straight to the record player with this old bastard.

“People give this record too much shit,” you remark, and Eddie watches you as you tentatively lift a sock off the turntable. Yeah, he’ll cop to it, he doesn’t take such good care of some of his gear, but sometimes his brain behaves like a police scanner. Lotta channels operating at once. Anyway. Doesn’t matter. He’s watching you lift the needle onto the vinyl right now. “People say that this is a mediocre addition to the oeuvre, but what is mediocre about this–!”

Rousing strings seep from the stereo speakers– it’s Waits’ cover of Somewhere from West Side Story. Eddie knows it within the first half a second because, and now he’ll never admit it since he knows you like it so much, he has played this album to death. 

Somewhere around the halfway mark of Christmas Card For a Hooker in Minneapolis, the record will skip because it's scratched. Or well-loved, if you ask Eddie. 

“Fucking Robert Christgau thinks he’s being funny, doing this, y’know,” you sneer, examining the record sleeve as if you hadn’t seen it thirty thousand times before. Your copy had been lost in the move, among a number of your little sonic secrets. The records you’d keep to listen to by yourself, lying on your bedroom floor. “As if the whole core of Tom Waits’ whole thing isn’t heartache, the sentimentality of what-if. What if we could, what if life wasn’t garbage. That’s sentimentality, right there. It’s West Side Story, I mean, c'mon. Tom Waits is singing to us with his heart on his sleeve, but Christgau wants to suddenly be pedantic, turn around and be like, it’s a vaudeville act! because Waits sometimes also wears his dick on his sleeve.”

It’s a tirade you’ve often repeated to yourself, in your diary or alone in your room, pretending like you’re on a panel, pretending like you’re Susan Sontag and people actually give a shit what you actually have to say. You can’t exactly figure why you’ve said it again now. Maybe because you always found the strings on this song too much to bear without emoting, and you’re already vulnerable and tired. 

Munson, for his part, has flipped over onto his back on the mattress. “Who?” he drones.

“Robert Christgau,” you say, momentarily distracted by the way his shirt has rucked up around his belly. No six pack. Some meat there. Tendons, like you’d noticed before. “Just one of the most seminal rock writers of our time.”

You have a well-thumbed copy of his Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies somewhere in a still-unpacked box.

Munson has a happy trail that curls like brushstrokes.

“You fucking trifler,” you grumble.

His face takes on that terrible look that he’d given you in the record store, all enraptured and cloudy at the corners of his eyes. Looking at you from where he leans on his elbows, one knee propped up, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. You want to shove it back down. 

And see what he’ll do about that. 

“How do you know all this shit?” he asks. Eddie can’t help this. He can’t help that he keeps changing his channel about you (again, police scanner) because one second you’ll be such a massive pain in the ass, then the next, you’ll say something so clever that it’ll make him want to vomit. 

“I like music,” you say, flatly. You give it to him straight, because you suddenly feel searched. You clutch Waitsy’s printed face to your chest in an effort of self-defense. “And I like… words. Kind of makes sense that I would enjoy music journalism, if you’re not totally stupid.” 

“I’m only a little stupid.” 

“Debatable.” 

“Wait, but I mean–” and he’s gearing up, because Eddie is about to ask you a real question. Something that’s been on his mind, the more ice shavings he can tear off of you. Considering you, all three dimensions of you– four, if you add in how much you like to punch him and stuff. “You’re like, incredibly smart, right.”

“Yes.”

“Like, perfect grades.”

“Almost. Save Kaminsky, because he can’t teach for shit and he can’t grade for piss.”

“And you’re a cheerleader… like, an important one?”

“Artist formerly known as, but yes.”

“And you’re on the newspaper.” 

“Very perceptive, aren't we.”

“You’re also popular– or, yeah, were. You party and stuff. You’re always hanging out with those assholes who don’t do half the shit that you do.”

 “Are you closing in on a point here, Munson?”

“How?” he nearly whispers, tone close to dreamy. “You’ve gotta have like, body doubles running around or something because no human person could possibly have that much time in the day. How the fuck did you do all that and also be running around ready to cite, like, an issue of the New Yorker from 1975, and not go completely insane?”

How do you know I’m not completely insane. Because, if he had ever witnessed how Jekyll and Hyde you could get, smacking the shit out of yourself with your hairbrush before you could turn on and be Lacy the cheerleader, Lacy the hot chick, Lacy the playground bitch, he would think you are totally insane. 

You answer him half-straight this time. 

“Diet pills.”

This makes him sit up, and makes you take a couple of steps back towards the bed. You flop down, tossing the Blue Valentine sleeve to the side. 

“Diet pills,” he repeats. 

“Oohhh, yes,” you nod, drawing the shape of the cylindrical pills on his comforter with your finger. You don’t really want to look up at him. “Rainbow diet pills. Soon as I hit my menses, I started lifting them from my mom.” 

“Isn’t that stuff illegal?” Eddie murmurs out of the corner of his mouth, mimicking your criss-cross applesauce seating position. “It’s basically speed, right?”

“Said the drug dealer,” a snort bursts from you. You’ve moved your fidgeting, starting to braid your half-damp hair. “And it is. It’s fully speed. I was doing baby Valley of the Dolls at age thirteen.”

“That is fucked up, Lacy.” 

“Yeah. Well. I'm a little fucked up, or haven't you heard?” 

“There’s been rumblings.” Eddie watches your fingers work, weaving locks of hair, one over the other. He’s never braided his hair. He wonders what it might look like. You come to the end and twist it around your finger, at a loss for a hair tie. He sticks a finger under his leather and silver bracelet, digging out an elastic he keeps handy, just in case. There are a lot of times that Eddie needs to yank his hair out of his face just to focus. “Here.” 

You mouth a silent thanks and wind the elastic around the tuft of hair. Tom Waits whines away about rain washing memories from the sidewalks and you feel weirdly… at ease. You’ve shared a couple of rainbow diet pills with Nicole and Carol (Tina doesn’t mess with amphetamines, a consummate athlete), but you’ve never had anyone ask you how you’ve managed to be the person you’re pretending to be. 

To put the clues together about your impossible do-it-all identity.

And not react in disgust when he finds out you’re fallible. 

“Hey,” Eddie says. Something about hearing you rattle off, not sniping for once, saying something real… it eased the heartburn. It has loosened his tension around you, a little. He figures it’s his turn to say something real. “I’m sorry I called you evil.” 

Most evil twat at the twat table, you nearly correct. “You had grounds.”

“No, no, I didn’t. You–” this is actually harder for him to get out than he thought, “You’re trying. You’re trying really hard to make the best of a messed up situation, and maybe I should’ve seen that– but I didn’t, because it’s high school, and it’s dumb, and I’m trying too, and we’re all trying, just to survive this messed up microcosm of the world– and– and–" He huffs. It's you gazing at him this time. Eyes sparkling in the half-light cast by his bedside lamp. You're... really pretty. "Jesus, can you just forgive me so I can stop talking?”

“That’s a first,” you say. “Microcosm is a five dollar vocab word, Eddie.”

The way you say his name. “I’m a changed man.”

“Can you use adulation in a sentence next?” Your big grin is devastating.

He leans right into you, dastardly looking suddenly. “Is this provocation getting you hot, you psycho?”

Fingertips braced over your knees, your torso keening just the right amount of degrees to favor him, your stare making an unsubtle job of darting from Eddie’s lashes to his lips to his lashes to his lips… 

“Maybe.” A beat. A heavy beat. “What are you gonna do about it?” 

In any other world, with any other person, the wanting would completely make sense. Wanting him to say nothing more and just do, to plant a big, ringed hand either side of your hips and pull you into his lap. To crush his lips against yours. To dig his hands into your thighs, to wind your fingers into his hair. To feel the chill of silver traveling up, under the back of your borrowed shirt, to press down onto him and–

Hey Charlie, I almost went crazy-ayzy-ayzy-ayzy-ay–

Eddie doesn’t mean to, he really doesn’t mean to, but his head snaps away from you just as the record starts to skip. 

Then the door slams.

Fuck.

“Ed?”

Wayne.

He totally forgot to formulate that plan.

author's notes: ZOOWEE MAMA HOW WE FEELING ARE YOU STILL WITH ME longest chapter in the fic so far. thanks for keepin up. i love you, let's not waste any time, i don't think i've got a lot of notes for you this go around but i love you - there is nothing more secretly pretentious teenage girl than loving joan didion and susan sontag (i know this because i was her, i am her to this day in fragments) but particularly joan didion on keeping a notebook really sticks to one's ribs. this is not the last joan didion ref in this fic, sorry for being unbearable - stella adler, the mother of method acting - steve harrington being the originator of the nickname lacy is a tribute to him showing signs of being a goofy motherfucker from day dot. please see this post. it was always there, we just couldn't see it in freshman year because of all the hairspray - what's going on with tommy hagan? does anyone really care but me, probably not. but for those that are keeping tick on the timeline (don't)- he got held back senior year, hence why he did not graduate with steve and is in the same grade as eddie, lacy, carol, et al. - WICKED LITTLE TOWN!!!! - the stooges t-shirt is yet another flight of icarus pick; al wears a stooges shirt and i creamed because i love the stooges. let's listen to one of my favorites - loudness are a metal band from osaka, japan! they got signed to an american label in 1985, but how did eddie munson get that tape in hawkins, indiana in 1984? well, my theory is that eddie loves music and jerry from main street vinyl loves benzos. a trade's a trade's a trade. - reader, you are an 18y/o girl who thinks you're better than everyone. of course you're stealing lester bangs' opinions on blue oyster cult and making them your own - and shitting on robert christgau bc you've got a wetty for tom waits - also, here is tom waits' cover of somewhere! my theory on eddie being a tom waits fan-- of course he is, that man looks and sounds like billy goat gruff and is a storytella just like eddie is. he would especially be into his later stuff, like the megalithic orphans album. y'all remember this song from shrek 2 - rainbow diet pills were a real insane thing! this seems more accessible than adderall for the time period, which modern!lacy would certainly have been abusing - for the time that's in it, let me present tom waits' anti-christmas song, christmas card from a hooker in minneapolis my loves, if you've still stuck with me this far, i thank you greatly. i know i'm nutso but i'm having fun writing this fic. i would've been writing it if nobody was reading, but it's a billion times better now that you are. reblogs are always appreciated, and the inbox is always open to chat shit ♡

[misguidedasgardian]

I need to... (7)

... Solve this

A Targaryen special

MASTERLIST

Summary: A few weeks with the Targaryens

Pairings: Cregan Stark x Fem!Reader

Warnings: There are mentions of them being Minors! at some point in their relationship, cursing, cheating, angst, depression, inappropriate relationship student/professor, might miss some warnings. I smoked something, and the holiday in the seven Kingdoms is celebrating the coming of Azhor Ahai, aka the princess that was promised, aka our Dany, who saved the au from eternal winter HAHA take away my computer

Wordcount: 3.8 k

Notes: This was hard, and I can safely say this will be the only chapter like this haha I did not check this, like I said, my brain melted jeje

I never wanted anyone else but my gorgeous girlfriend, ever, with her I had it all. The looks, the brains, the sex, the image. She wanted to go to that frosted wasteland, that was not even ranking in the first three universities, so I convinced her to go in the right direction, it was good of me, not bad, it was what she had to do, to become the best version of herself, the one who was perfect to become the wife of a politician. She was perfect for the imagine of a wholesome family, the one I was going to give to her.

I was Jahaerys, she was my Alyssane 

I had her, she was here with me, in Dragonstone, we were set for forever, I put a ring around her finger, a promise ring, I had my mother’s blessing, my father’s too, her godmother was a powerful friend of the family who gave money for my father and his career 

So what if I enjoyed a bit of female’s attention? So what if now I realize, that, under the right setting, under the proper social circle, I was the most interesting and sought after man in the entire school? 

What if I wanted to test how far I could take it?

Fucking a professor was like a badge of honor amongst guys, at least, that is what Criston Cole told me around campus, that if I managed to pull it off I could be some sort of God, I was just, reaffirming what I already knew

That I belonged at the top of the food chain, in Dragonstone University 

And my girlfriend didn’t have to know, she was already here by my side, with my friends, my school, dependent on me…

If you think about it, all men go through it, the younger version, the older one, this is just like that, a rite of passage 

Sadly, you did not see things as I did, you didn’t see the bigger picture, the future of us together, having a successful career, after letting out steam in our younger years, I thought you were going to be the Cyresse to me Maegor, there through everything, but no… 

Your shortsightedness was very illuminating for me

You did not see things so far into the future, and that was probably my fault for not train you properly for that, for what was expected of me, and now you for being my girlfriend, the picture my parents and even grandfather had painted for me and I was so eager to fulfill. The perfect roll.

My oldest sister was a disappointment, my brother Aegon was a disappointment, Helaena was… barely there

It fell on me

To be the perfect son

And I was gladly going to take that roll 

Because I could…

I was going to finish my degree in politics and diplomacy, I was going to marry my powerfull girlfriend, and I was going to give myself to public service and life, following a political career, it was all laid out for me… 

But this was just fucking great

As I watch her walking away from me in the dorm’s hallway, I knew something was going to be different

This wasn’t like other times, when we fought… no, it has to be, she needed time to cool off, the anger needed to dissipate, and when she weighs in the pros and cons, like she always did, she was going to achieve the conclusion that suited me, that she had to forgive me, there was too much to loose for her. Nothing had to change, not a single part of my plans

What is a politician's life without a bit of scandal?

Now I have other things to take care off

My steps are sharp and decisive, no matter how fucked up things look like, I have to keep my composure 

I know that at this time of day, she must be cleaning her art supplies after her sophomore’s class… And there is exactly where she was, with her back turned to me

“I want a paternity test”, is the first thing I say once I check quickly for undesired ears. She turned around and she looks shocked

“She told you? really? I was hoping to tell you tonight, I… had something planned, I gave her class an entire research about…”

“Before we do anything, I want a paternity test”, I repeat, no, this cannot happen to me, 

“I’m only like eight weeks”, she said, her hand on her lower belly

“I will wait”, she frowned, which by now, I have never seen her do, frown lines were not something that she had on her face 

“What happened?”, she asked, suddenly angry

“She knows”

“I know that”, she said

“And it never crossed your mind giving me a heads up? she had known for a week!”, I growled

“She pulled her threatricks today in my class, and I found out she knew”, she whined back, “but why does it matter?”, she kept asking, “you are finally free”

“For what?”, I ask, “to be with you?”, she looked like I slapped her, my sharp and disgusted tone gave that effect

“I thought that’s what we were doing”, she said, fixing her hair, trying to keep her composure, “being… together…”

“How do I know I was the only one you were fucking?”, I asked point blank, and she moved her hand quickly, I turn my face as her finger collided with my cheek, the sting came after

“I thought what we had was special”, she whined, tears in her eyes

“That I was going to drop everything for this?”, I asked bitterly

“I can be what you need”, she purred, I chuckled darkly

“like I said, I want a paternity test”

“Is yours!”, she fought

“I need it in writing”, I say back

“Why don’t you believe me!?”, she was losing it 

“Because I barely know you, and you said, you were taking care of yourself, and clearly you aren’t”

“No birth control is 100% effective”, she bit

“If the child is mine, the money won’t be a problem”, I said formally

“The money?”, she said back, “what about you?”

“I’m a Targaryen, I cannot be involved in this”, I only muttered, and I left the room

I had finals, I couldn’t be bothered, I had a plan and…

Fuck fuck fuck

The words in front of me, in my book, about the Valyrian republic started playing in my mind, dancing across the page, and suddenly I Was re-reading for the third time the same page because i couldn’t process the words

This is ridiculous

The plain page mocking me, the huge amount of information right then in front of me…

Fuck

Where are those stupid study cards?

Flashcards, I searched for them in my suitcase and once I found them, with your lettering, and colors for me to learn by chapter, one color a different chapter…

But these were old, for the midterms, not for the finals… 

FUCK

How hard could it be?, I started rereading, and summarizing, and after four hours and the librarian kicking me out of the library, I had nothing

A day wasted

How the fuck did I became so codependant in a studybody? even if that studybody was you?

The final was tomorrow, and I barely scraped two chapters of the four

This was going to be a long night

Not even Cole could pull me off of this 

The next day, after I barely slept I barely kept myself awake to give the damn test

I was obviously going to pass, but… I was not so sure about the excellency grade on this one

I’m so fucking pissed.

How could you abandon me at a time like this?

So selfish and short sighted

I slip one time, once! and this is how you are supposed to support me? be by my side? 

Two days had passed and no news from her, anything, she had left her ring on my nightstand front he last time we fucked, and she won’t even text me to get it back, and that was worrying… 

So, deciding I should be the bigger person and apologize so we can leave all of this nightmare behind us, I went to look for her…

Alys’ baby wasn’t mine, I knew so, I heard about this sort of thing all the time, I was not going to fall on this, she was trying to babytrap me, and I was not going to let that happen.

And you? you were punishing me, it's alright, I can take it, soon you will be back in my arms, and our lives together were going to be back on track

This was just a slump on the road, and you both should be thankful that happened so early on, so you could control it, and make it disappear in the rearview mirror 

And that is why, when I knocked on your dorm room, I found it strange that your name had been erased from the small white board on the door, and then Maris opened, and when she saw me, her eyes lit up, and her mouth shaped to a sick grin

“Aemond”, she greeted

“Maris”, I said shortly, “is (y/n) here?”, and her smile only got wider

“She told you the other day! she left”

“What?”, I asked

“Yes, she left!”, she opened the door and took a step away for me to look into the room, and her entire side was empty, completely gone, she, was gone, even her bed, Maris had already invaded your side

“Where is she?”, i ask, feeling all blood leaving my face 

“A nice, older lady came one day and helped her put everything in boxes, and in a couple of hours…”

“Fuck!”, I slammed the door no my way out and I cursed the day that nosey Cerenna decided to finally meddle in your life 

She was a poor influence on you, she has always had been

I grab my phone and dialed your number, number five on speed dial

It didn’t even ring.. did you?

No

I looked up the texting app and…

No photo

I send a text…

And… no double tick

No… no, no, no, no

Instagram?

Couldn’t find you

No

No, you were just punishing me, you were going to come back, you always did

Maybe you got scared, and Cerenna came and picked you up, but you were not leaving, not permanently, you were coming back

You were

So I wrote the first email

But it rebounded

Even email, uh?

So I created a new email address, and I wrote the first one

No big deal

I had other finals to get to

And giving you time to cool down was the best idea.

So I did my best

The amnio test I had to make Alys take was in about one more month, according to her… so nothing I could do until then, until after Winter Break 

I just had to keep it together, nothing had a turning point, I still didn’t hit the point of no return, I knew it 

Fuck Fuck

The semester was over, and I didn’t even want to join the celebrations of my classmates, or with Cole, who knew the dirty details of the lowest parts of Dragonstone, the whole city

But I didn’t have it in me

In fact, every desire I still held to celebrate the successful first semester of university was killed when I received word from my father, that we were all supposed to spend holidays together in King’s Landing… and all of us ment

Fucking Rhaenyra and all her family

The liberals, the underdogs, the pariahs 

It was going to be interesting

As soon as I arrived, the questioned was asked

“Where is she?”

As always you were expected to spend the holidays with us, and now, not even I had an answer for your whereabouts

“She is spending it with Cerenna”

“But they live in King’s Landing dear, didn’t you invite them? I’ll have to call them”, muttered my mother.

I looked at her intensely as she dialed the number, but it rang and rang, and nothing

No one answered

“That is strange”

“Cerenna mentioned she wanted to take her to a small vacation, you know they both aren’t as festive”

“But dear, is the week before the elections!”, she said urgently

“I know”

It was expected of me to take you back into the fold

So I did as the men before had done, before cell phones existed 

I went to your house

But it was empty, and no, I’m running errands empty

Empty empty as we will not be coming back anytime soon

We all lived in the same neighborhood, at the top of Rhaenys’ hill, a very exclusive palace

And then when I first started to think, you were not going to be so forgiving

At least, not as easy 

If you had been with another man, I would have been difficult to forgive you, I would have make you work hard for my forgiveness, it was alright, I was going to put up the work

When I came back to my father’s house, I came face to face with Jacaerys

“Jace”, I greet shortly

“Uncle”

“How is that frozen wasteland?”, I asked

“How is that sticking up your ass they put you in Dragonstone?”

“Feels great”, i mutter

“So as freezing my ass off”, he answered 

That little shit, that because he had other beliefs and wants to fight for survival in his university he believes he is better than me

Tonight the festival in the commemorations of Azor Ahai, the princess that was promised was commencing and it was going to be a whole week long, it was indeed going to be a long weekend, celebrating the coming of our savior, who saved us from eternal winter.

As my mother was performing her prayers, a phone dinged you opened your eyes to look at Jace, who took only one look at his screen and his face lit up, and then looked straight at me, with a mocking grin on his face

He had asked about you

I told him you were taking the holidays to be with your godmother

But something in his smiled and his mocking eyes

That little shit knew something 

“Where is (y/n)?”, he asked out loud, I growled

“I told you, she is in vacations with Cerenna”

“I don’t think she is”

“This is hardly appropriate”, mocked Alicent

“But concerning”, said Daemon, who presence here I still don’t understand, “elections are next week, and the Lannisters are not in town”

“How do you know?”, I ask

“Oh I know”, he mocked, Laena, hsi wife, smiled shyly, mockingly

Where they all in on it

“What does it mean?”, asked Viserys, recently catching up

“It means that neither Aemond’s girlfriend, nor her billionaire sympathizer godmother, nor her family of billionaires and politics financiers are here for election week, and i’m guessing, the reason for their absence has something to do with the fact that your son, has no fucking idea of where her girlfriend is”

“Meaning?”, he asked again

“Iluminate us Aemondd, where is your girlfriend?”

“On travels”, I said

“On holidays? on election week?”, asked Daemon

“Yes” 

“Aemond..”, whispered Alicent, “what did you do?”

“Nothing”, I growled

“You did something”, muttered Jace

“You know where she is”, i say angrily

“I know where she is going to be”, he mocked

“What does that mean?”, asked Alicent. I couldn’t take it anymore

You left Dragonstone, you canceled your enrollment, you finished your tuition. You told me you were going North and I didn’t want to believe it

“She left Dragonstone”, i say, “she met a guy from Winterfell University, and she left me, and Dragonstone”

“What?”

Rhaenyra had been oddly quiet, only looking at everyone, but now, she couldn’t hide her triumphant smirk in her cup of whine

“She left you?”, asked Alicent, horrified, “how could she do that?”

“The better question would be, what did you do baby brother?”, teased Aegon

“She left me”, i defended

“She wouldn’t do that without reason”, muttered Helaena, that, didn’t even seemed she was paying attention to the conversation

“What did you do Grandson?”, asked Otto HIghtower

“I told you, she left me”

“And she managed to convince the Lannisters to go with her? I don’t believe that!”, he said, raising his voice, Daemon laughed, drinking wine

What a great fucking dinner

“I’m sure there is an explanation for this!”, said Alicent

“She left with a guy named Ben”, I defended

“You know what? it doesn’t surprise me, she always looked like a problematic, wanton little tart”, the sound of a cup breaking in millions of tiny pieces made everyone fell quiet as Rhaenyra had crushed the damn thing with her bare hand

“Don’t you dare speak about her like that”, she growled. My mother only chuckled darkly, “she is the daughter of one of my best friends, and my son’s youth companion”

“Takes one to know one”, and that is when Jacaerys stood up

“If she left Dragonstone to follow her dreams clearly Aemond pushed her to do it, I know for sure the Lannisters wouldn’t get involved in all of this if the matter wasn’t serious”

“Jace”, called Viserys

“Call Tyland and ask him why he is not here”, hee demanded, “call him grandfather”

Viserys picked up the phone, and called his political ally, it ranged twice, and then it sounded like Tyland had hang up on him

“What did you do to my friend?:, asked Jace

“You haven’t spoken in years!”, I defended, “what do you know?”

“Enough!”, called Alicent, “we are in holidays”

The appetites were pretty much sated after that

I tried to speak to Jacaerys in the days that followed, but he wouldn’t tell me anything

Than the primaries came, and the Lannisters were a no show

And my father lost the primaries

Fuck

FUCK

And when I thought things couldn’t be any better

I was summoned into my father’s office, and when I entered, my parents, and my grandfather Otto were there

“What’s the matter?”, I ask

“Aemond, why did I receive an email about a Professor called Alys Rivers, saying she is expecting your child?” 

FUCK FUCK FUCK 

My phone ranged in my pocket, a text from Alys, a picture, a picture of us, fucking, a Terminantion letter..

All, in one day

“So now we know why we lost all the founding and costs us the elections!”, growled my Grandfather

It was the most humiliating afternoon of my life 

Alys fired

A picture circulating Dragonstone University

Alys taking me down with her

an email from the Dean asking me to meet her as soon as the vacations are over

And you? never to be seen

Alys claims you took and send the picture around

You had received all my angry emails, at least they didn’t bounce, but still, no answer

Daemon, and now Jace knew where you were and yet, they wouldn’t tell me

My mother lost a chunk of her hair in the reunion where they were berating me. Viserys stood awfully quiet, looking at the table in front of him, clearly calculating how much this was going to cost him.

And Otto was calling lawyers to prepare for the meeting with the Dean

The freedom I had, the reliance I enjoyed from my family, the trust they had in me, the respect, everything was destroyed.

Now, I was no better than my brother who tried to study multiple careers and couldn’t finish one, the one who had multiple ladies and scandals with sex workers, I was no better than him, my mistake had been more permanent, more public, and that, in the world of politics, was unforgivable

And yet

And yet

I needed to find you

It wasn’t even later, after I had my grandfather threaten the Dean with letting me continue my studies or else, even after the time was up and I told Alys to take the test

She tried to tell me she had already taken it, that she had found a lock of my hair…

But I made her repeat it, so I went to the doctor with her.

And while I waited for the results, I started to think, to meditate

Maybe I could turn this around

Maybe, if the kid was mine, I could get married. Alys was exquisite, in looks at least, she was enticing, had something about her, I could train her, to dance to the politics’ song.

You could do it, make all of this worth it. The Lannisters were back, clearly just wanted to give us a scare, they will never support the Liberals, they were just taking a warning shot, perhaps… 

Perhaps this could work

My father had a team, a PR team dedicated to this sort of thing, to spin things to make them look great, to gain advantage from the worst of points 

Yes, if the baby was mine, I could spin this around.

And then the results came

NEGATIVE

What a surprise… a gold digger tried to baby trapped me and she didn’t even do it right

She accused me to my mother of fathering a lie…

And now…

FUCK! 

If you had never found out, if Alys haven't told my mother

But you did, she did, you blew up everything, she also, and now… I had nothing…

As I stared at the results on that paper

“I never want to see you again”, I say to the woman in front of me 

“The test was wrong!!”, she cried

“You tried to baby trapped me, you accused me to my mother”, I growled

“You have to understand”

“If I see you again I’m going to make sure you never get another job teaching”, I threatened, and in tears, she left the apartment I had rented 

My respect from my family was gone

My flawless record in my elite university was gone

My reputation was tainted

You were gone

Since the second I lost you, I continued to lose everything else…

No…

If I win you back, if I take you back, I bring you back to me, all the problems were going to be solved 

So I put all my contacts to work, but I didn't have to look too far…

Jacaerys was happy to share pictures in a pagan party, and you were on them

Winterfell Fucking University 

And who was that fucking guy looking at you in all the pictures that look like a wolf pup?

lIke I say, my brain melted... I dind't even corrected this, is just rambling, but an insight of what happened when Aemond's life imploded!

taglist!

@mxtokko @princesssterek @thefandomimagines @iamavailablesstuff @misspascalpunk @sweethoneyblossom1 @ipostwhtifeel @lunamoonbby @ahristata @watercolorskyy @yazzzmints @n4tforlife @littleshadow17 @alexa4040 @speedyballoonpainter @hc-geralt-23 @rayrayredpanda @eralen @yentroucnagol @valeskafics @iloveallmyboys

[male-hedonism-and-acting-cool]

so i saw you have headcanons on ur page, so i prompt you for more, unload all ur cattonquick headcanons can be nsft go wild mate

sorry it took me so long but here are almost 2k words of my cattonquick headcanons

Felix

dyslexia/adhd combo. has no idea until like late 20s/early 30s. gets medicated, and it changes his entire life (he even gets some kind of rich boy job)

but during oxford he's just struggling and insufferable. Oliver has to do some of his assignments for him (not often. usually when Felix forgets about them entirely and doesn't find someone to pay for doing them)

had chlamydia. do I really need to explain this one? boy fucks around a lot

wants to get his nipples pierced

likes horror stories and spooky urban legends and stuff but also gets scared shitless by them

he was around 10 when his dog died. was literally heartbroken, didn't eat for like a weak. swore to never have a pet again

once during boarding school procrastinated all of his works for the last moment drank five redbulls was awake for 43 hours to finish everything and went to two finals. slept for two days straight woke up with no memory of doing any of this and didn't have a caffeinated drink again for a couple of years (he still barely passed if you care)

has super boring stories about drunk nights out (because he's rich and popular, so there's always something looking after him). but he thinks they are crazy

turns into crazy people pleaser if you as much as hint that you don't like him

​Oliver

autistic

thinks he's great at masking (he does know it's masking because he's also not diagnosed but he's highly aware that he performs different versions of himself for people and believes it's him being an evil genius or something)

is actually shit at masking. he can put his shit together and act a certain way for some time (like he did with other Cattons). but most of the time he's a little freak type of guy, and everyone notices

he also won’t talk to anyone unless he absolutely needs to (he almost failed a class because he needed to do a group project but didn’t like the group he was assigned to, so he tried to email “sorry to miss our group meeting but here’s my part of the work” his way out of talking to any them)

since they spend almost all the time together, Felix knows him in his closest to not masking state

I think his dad does have drinking problems, but he's more like a functional alcoholic so no one cares

likes reading long books. like 600+ pages long. they provide him with a sense of stability

I know he doesn't look like it, but he did have friends at school. mostly children of his parent's friends or people from his classes. he doesn't keep in touch with any of them, and it's his decision (he misses them sometimes, but it's more like he misses the idea of having friends than actual people)

started using contact lenses because Felix would always mention how he likes the color of his eyes

really picky about food and would rather starve than eat something he doesn't like. skips meals at oxford all the time if eggs at the dining hall are cooked in the wrong way or something like this

tries to quit smoking at some point later in life but decides it's not worth it with all the passive smoking from living with Felix

talks in his sleep. not much and not often, but still

becomes a writer and write really fucked up stories with dark academia vibes (partially because he turned into a fucking gremlin when he discovered academic validation and never let it go + partially as a love letter to Felix, his uni sweetheart who, let's be honest, kinda peaked at uni)

gets close with his second sister when she grows older (she and the youngest one have a similar age difference to Oliver and the oldest sisters, and their parents treated them similarly. so they bond over being ignored and forced into taking care of their younger siblings) parents treated them similarly. so they bond over being ignored and forced into taking care of their younger siblings)

cattonquick

Felix is one year older than most people in his class. because he took a gap year after school to "experience life" (get drunk in nine different European countries) and "get to know himself" (receive a couple of mediocre hand-jobs from other rich boys and make some conclusions about his sexuality). he would've been one year Oliver's senior but when Oliver was five he had severe pneumonia and was too weak to start school (like a fucking victorian child). so he started a year later and they are the same age

they do awful couple Halloween costumes (there are also people dressing as them for Halloween as couple costumes, that’s how annoying they are)

they are "facebook official" if you care (it was a big deal for possessive mentally unstable people back then, trust me, my favorite movie is the social network)

Felix has insane separation anxiety (like those dogs on tiktok that grew up during covid with their owners always around)

he would sit in Oliver's laps at parties, play with Oliver's clothes or hair while he's doing his work, ask Oliver to join him in the shower because I need to wash my hair so it's gonna be a long shower and I'll miss you and then you'll go to the shower and I'll miss you even more

but once in a while he gets angry because he feels "too needy" so he ignores Oliver for the whole day or asks him to leave if they are together

then (you guessed it) he starts missing Oliver

at first, Oliver was freaking out every time this happened, but over time he figured out to just give Felix some time and come back later. it still hurts him though that Felix believes he can just send him away whenever he's tired of him

after days like this Felix does everything to show that he loves Oliver and wants him around. he cuddles him more, takes him to a bar or to one of their special places, buys him something (he keeps track of everything Oliver mentions he likes by texting Farleigh. Farleigh fucking hates it)

but still the best way to show Oliver that he won't suddenly get bored of him once and for all one day is to stop doing shit like this. and Felix fails to do it. so they pretend it never happened until it happens again

Oliver always pulls Felix for a kiss by the collar or by his hair. he never st­ands on his toes

they did acid toge­ther once. Felix was sure Oliver would love it but Oliver had an awful trip full of maze imagery and never tried psyched­elics again

for their first va­cation together, they go to France (mostly because Felix does­n't really care for traveling, and he kno­ws that Paris is the city of love or wha­tever). there're huge protests the second day they arrived. so they only go to Louvre and spend the whole two weeks in their hotel room

after Oliver and Felix date for a while and it's clear that Oliver isn't going anywhere Oliver and Farleigh start to develop some love/hate friendship. they mostly hang out toget­her, talk shit about everyone (including each other), and di­scuss poetry

Felix is insanely jealous. Farleigh is offended Felix thou­ght he would be into Oliver. Oliver finds it hilarious (he doesn't think it's hot because he already knows how possessive Felix is, which is hot, but this makes Felix nervous so Oliv­er isn't into it)

Oliver bites. not only during sex but in general. they can sit holding hands and talk and he will just bite Felix's ha­nd and continue talk­ing like nothing hap­pened. because Felix is a little spoon, he will often wake up from Oliver biting into the back of his neck and have a mark for the entire day. Felix gets used to it surprisingly eas­ily (and by gets used to it I mean he finds it unearthly hot, to­uches marks that Oli­ver leaves on him all the time and serio­usly thinks about ge­tting a tattoo of Ol­iver’s bite marks)

and yes he does call Oliver a vampire

Oliver has a couple of slightly worn t-shirts three sizes bigger for Felix to borrow (when they st­art living together a couple slowly turns into a whole drawe­r)

they never really lived in saltburn to­gether. but they went here for summer

when they start li­ving together (right after oxford they move into a two-story apartment) Oliver insists they both sho­uld have an office as some personal spac­e, mostly because he needs to get his wo­rk done. Oliver’s of­fice is very old-fas­hioned, with dark wo­oden furniture and tall bookshelves. he also gets a reproduc­tion of the Saltburn maze game. Felix do­esn’t know what to put in his office bec­ause he doesn’t need a fucking office. his only idea is to commission a portrait of Oliver, so for a couple of years (until he gets medicated and finds a rich boy job) his office has blank wall­s, a portrait of his boyfriend with a de­sk and a single chair across from it and nothing else. he en­ds up spending most of the time Oliver works on the couch at Oliver’s office any­way

Oliver has a lock of Felix's hair in a locket. very 18th century gothic poet style (Felix knows ab­out it btw. it was an anniversary gift)

Felix introduces Oliver as boyfriend, then fiancé, and then husband. Oliver al­ways introduces Felix as his life partner

they get married after six years toget­her

Felix is the one to propose (he waited for Oliver to do it, but Farleigh once told Oliver that he would look like a des­perate social climber if he proposes and Oliver internalized it immediately)

Oliver writes Felix love letters even after they’ve been together for years. full of admiration for small daily things Felix does, about how godly is even the way Felix brush his teeth; about small nice things that hap­pened to him because there’s no one in the world he would ra­ther share it with (much like Nabokov’s Letters to Vera)

Oliver doesn't bel­ieve in soulmates, and Felix claims to be personally victimiz­ed by it. but Oliver just loves to see it as a result of hard work they put into it. he doesn't think they were simply destined to be togeth­er, he believes it's years and years of them choosing to be together, choosing each other when there were so many easier options

as for nsfw

I don't think they have sex with penet­ration often

like Felix has oral fixation, and Oliver just prefers doing things with his han­ds or mouth

Felix is really vo­yeuristic and huge part of their sex life is just Felix putt­ing up a show for Ol­iver and Oliver watc­hing

Felix likes to do cookwarming (oral fi­xation + it grounds him and his adhd bra­in)

Oliver is really a service dom whatever Felix wants Oliver will find a way to do it

but his personal favorite is rimming Felix until he's all wet and finish him by sucking him off and fingerings him at the same time

[sw33t-oubliette]

bi people cant flirt normally its always some shit like "why did i come back here?" "to uh. drink?" "back to hatchetfield. i spent the first 18 years if my life trying to get out of this place, shouldve just stayed in guatemala. i mean yeah theyve got volcanoes and coatimundis everywhere but uh-" "whats a coatimundi?" "oh, its like a little raccoon thing. they get into shit, people hate em, but at least they dont sing and dance" "so is that was drove you back to hatchetfield? coatimundis, up in your shit?" "no, no, it was uh my sister, jane. she was the good one. she had this um, lisa frank binder when she was little where she mapped out her entire life and i swear to god she stuck to it. bullet point by bullet point, it was like job, husband, house, kids, and you know when one sisters so on top of her game it kinda demands that the other one be a total fuck up, right?" "what is yin without yang?" "thats what im saying! yeah man, she was off doing life and i was doing, something else. backpacking mostly, and she would call me and you know, invite me home for big events, you know, weddings, baby showers, id always say oh, sorry ill catch the next one! but um, then when i got the invitation to her funeral i was like oh, there wont be a next one." "oh- im sorry." "hey, you didnt crash into her car. anyway, uh, its weird growing up in someone elses shadow because when theyre gone the light shines on you for the first time, and it does not look good. so, there i was, 30, with no roots anywhere except hatchetfield, so i thought uh, well im gonna make something of myself, you know do something my sister would be proud of, enroll in a community college, study botany, im gonna start a pot farm." "oh. did your sister smoke a lot of pot?" "no, but weed's the future, its gonna be legal nationwide soon, bet you any money! not that it matters anymore. man, my whole life my one goal was to avoid dying in hatchetfield and, here we are." "hey, it could be worse. you could be dying in clivesdale." "fuck clivesdale!" "fuck em!" "you know uh, all things considered, i like hatchetfield. yeah, been here my whole life, born and bred. never wanted to leave, still dont." "hey, we're the same age, how come i never knew you in highschool?" "you probably went to hatchetfield high, i went to sycamore." "fuckin timberwolves! we hated you guys!" "we hated ourselves! so uh, back at beanies you said you were in your highschool production of brigadoon?" "hey, i was bonnie jean!" "that was 2003 right? i actually saw you in brigadoon." "no shit!" "yes shit! yeah! uh, we didnt have a theatre program in our school, so i guess to make us feel like crap they bused us over to watch your show. it was the first musical i ever saw. i hated it. thats probably the start of my whole thing, youre the reason i dont like musicals!" "woah, thats like your origin story." "yeah!" "so i guess im the supervillain?" "i dont think of you like that at all emma."

[louisupdates]

Louis’ quotes from The Times article: Louis Tomlinson: ‘When One Direction split I was mortified and bitter. It felt like another loss’

The singer on life after the boy band, grieving his mother and sister, and why he would ‘be up for’ a reunion, as he releases a film (24.2.23)

I’ve always had a problem with ‘ego’, and I’ve always been worried about being one of those people in the public eye who just loses all sense of reality, and becomes an arsehole. I’m from Doncaster.

If someone does come up after an hour to ask for a selfie, I won’t say no and I won’t run away, especially if I’m three pints deep!

With this job, there’s so much room for overthinking, you know? Someone from the record label will tell you they like your stuff, but you find yourself thinking: yeah, but do they? It’s the fans that help you really believe in yourself.

I do miss the boys, and I do definitely miss being one of the five, but I like doing my own thing too. It was time.

This is a confidence game for anyone, and there’s been plenty of moments of vulnerability throughout the entire process.

Only Harry knows what he means there. It’s hard to speculate. But we all came from relatively humble beginnings, and now we are where we are.

Some of the things that have happened recently have been quite drastic, yeah, but then so much in my life seems to have been pretty extreme, one way or the other. There’ve been challenging times, definitely. It’s funny, but I couldn’t even tell you how many years ago my mum passed, I just blank it out. But for the first 18 months, I’d take any form of bad luck personally. I’d feel every tiny thing. But now I genuinely feel I’ve come out the other side. I feel more empathy for everything and everyone these days.

It was mostly amicable. Simon always had my best interests at heart, and I liked him. He had his faults of course, like all of us, but it was always inevitable I’d have to go off and do my own thing.

[Being able to write with artists rather than songwriters] was a big difference, huge. These are people who live and breathe music. It’s the first time I felt really comfortable doing my own stuff, you know?

When I was in the band, working with professional songwriters whose entire aim was to write the hit single, they’d tell me that singing in my natural accent wasn’t commercial. Sorry, but what a shit idea. Who wants to sound like everybody else? I dumbed down a little bit in the band, because you do, but I’ve learnt who I am now.

Well, being a role model for one. I never wanted that. I always had to worry whether it was OK if, say, I was seen here or if I could get away with smoking a joint there, before concluding: hmm, probably not. But I never wanted to be the perfect pop star, especially in the climate of Instagram. I don’t want to put an artificial world out there. I think it’s important that people see your scars, your flaws.

When One Direction split up, I was mortified, I was absolutely gutted. I was a bit bitter, I suppose, because it just felt like another loss to me. But I’ve a better understanding of things now, and there’s not as much anger. It is what it is. Getting back together at some point is hard to imagine right now, but I’d be surprised if we lived out our lives and didn’t have a moment where we had a reunion, or whatever you want to call it. I’d be up for that.

Well, it’s not a surprise is it? We were always aware that Harry fit that mould, and it’s been an amazing thing to watch. Envy? At the start maybe, when I was trying to find my feet, but it’s never healthy to cross-reference your own success with others, is it? These days I’m learning to elevate myself in those moments when I have to. I didn’t know how to do that before, but now? Now I know I fucking can.

[whiskawaybelf]

Little bit of the next chapter of Ink and Water, easing into some backstory and some silly childhood chats.

Ao3 link

“So you’re a wine connoisseur out of spite?”

Éomer dried his hands and came back to sit, Éowyn beat him to the couch and sent him to the armchair. 

“Out of necessity. Rohirrim would have gone under if we didn’t retain our staff.”

“I didn’t realise you helped too. I thought it was just Théodred manning the fort.”

“It was both of them,” Éowyn sighed, she reached for the joint and came to standing, not happy to talk about her family without a little assistance, “They were gone all the time, never talked about anything else. It was the worst three years of my life.”

Lottie saw Éomer’s face. He was very still and his lips pressed together. He looked like someone bracing himself for a crash. 

“Boys and their cars. I can’t believe you sell cars for six figures. You’re basically the bourgeoisie.”

“I’m not the fucking bourgousie,” Wynn snapped, resisting the distraction for only a fraction of a second.

“You are the nouveau riche, coming to topple my aristocracy of old money.”

“It doesn’t help that you’re a duchess. You’re just asking for the guillotine.”

Éomer frowned as he watched them speak a language he didn’t know. Something to ease the transition from dangerous to here. She redirected naturally, she gave Éowyn a path to follow that didn’t lead to those three years. He was incredibly grateful. 

Lottie came back to him. Or rather she invited him back in, “My dad always wanted a Rohirrim car, the one with the... leather? Do they all have leather interiors?" brother and sister nodded like she might be an alien, learning the very basics of luxury cars on earth, she huffed, "They are shockingly expensive. Entirely impractical.” 

“How much practicality do you need? Your dad makes instruments. That's inherently impractical,” Éomer tried to start and she was protesting before he even finished.

“No. My dad manufactures the best instruments. And music is practical. It’s one of the very first things humans did together.”

“Don’t argue with her. You’re already in danger of getting kicked out,” Éowyn wore a fondly pained expression, this was a conversation they’d had a lot and she couldn’t seem to tell Lottie enough times how boring she found it. Each time Lottie would begin and Éowyn would refuse to listen, she wouldn’t believe her roommate roped another person into talking about her father’s instruments and the essential humanity of music. 

“We will continue this later,” Éomer said with his hands up, “When I’m in less danger.”

Wynn sat on their front step and lit up the joint, “I hope you love learning about the history of music. I sure did.”

Lottie ignored them both, she was right and they all knew it. Music was a heartbeat, everyone also knew that, “You know, if we could fit a piano, we would have a piano.”

“A six figure piano?”

“To make up for the zeros I lost on my paycheck. It seems fair,” she took the smoke and tried to make a ring. She didn’t know why she tried, she’d never made one before, but it would have been very cool if this was her first time, “I have us sorted for munchies.”

“A famous croissant?”

“Not practical but delicious.”

Éowyn cheers-ed to that and they began their second pass, the neighbours must be fuming. 

“Tell me about Wynn,” she turned to Éomer, “I want to hear all the childhood stories. The embarrassing ones first.”

“There’s nothing embarrassing to say,” he said and Wynn began to laugh at the smoothly bullshit tone he used, “She was pretty perfect. The perfect sister.”

“I can tell you all sorts of embarrassing things, if Éomer can’t think of anything,” Éowyn drank out of her nice wine. Lottie could see Éomer watching her, wishing she wouldn’t ruin the nice wine with weed smoke. Now it was just alcohol juice. 

“Actually, I’ve remembered some now. Do you know why she doesn’t drive?”

“Because she’s shit at it.”

“Yes, but no. She took one of the cars out for a joyride when she got her licence-”

“Fuck off, Éomer!”

“-and crashed it. A hundred k, gone. And all she got was a few stitches and whiplash.”

[fuck-you-official]

Fuck you mom. Fuck you for being a 'friend' instead of a parent. Fuck you for verbally and mentally abusing me. Fuck you for putting your hands on me. Fuck you for using the animals I love as bait to fucking hurt me. Fuck you for breaking my phone, Which I was borrowing from my brother. Fuck you for using me as a tool to cheat by taking me to 'friends' houses when I was 5 through 10. Fuck you for telling me about your afair. Fuck you for being insane. Fuck you for not getting help. Fuck you for making me believe your sanity. Fuck you for convincing me Donald Trump was coming to 'save' us. Fuck you for convincing me my dad was a horrible person. Fuck you for trying to convince me of it again. Fuck you for making me nauseous about anything politic relation. Fuck you for forcing your politics on me my entire life, And fuck you for making me raise my little sister. Fuck you for telling me you'd kill yourself if I went to bed at 5 AM on a school night after you forced me to stay up that late. Fuck you for making all your problems mine. Fuck you for letting me smoke then hurting me and screaming at me bloody murder when a bud went missing because your stupid fucking pothead ass forgot how much you fucking smoked. Fuck you for putting me in constant fear. Fuck you for telling me the government is gonna sex traffic me. Fuck you for making my life a constant fucking movie. Do you know how fucking agonizing it is to wake up and have a normal, Slow boring fucking day after 16.8 years of non-stop insanity and action?! Fuck you for kidnapping me and my siblings and taking us to a different state from our dad. Fuck you for lying about him. Fuck you for putting your hands on my siblings. Fuck you for always treating me like a maid more than family. Fuck you for not killing yourself. Fuck you for doing the opposite of everything we've told you to fucking do. Fuck you for reading emails sent by bots and 'decoding secret messages'. Fuck you for 'finding the truth about google translate'. Fuck you for making me think the earth was flat and that lizard people were gonna fucking eat me. Fuck you for telling me that only now that you've been kicked out of OUR house that you accept me for being gay. Fuck you for only 'loving' me conditionally. Fuck you for telling me you were gonna get arrested and deported for 'hackers' committing 'cyber crimes.' Fuck you for telling me people are gonna burn down our house. Fuck you for telling me I'm gonna get kidnapped. Fuck you for telling me 'I cant even remember it anymore' when I was raped at 5. I fucking remember every detail you piece of fucking shit. Fuck you for acting like my life is below yours. Fuck you for standing over me with your fucking eyes bulging out of your head as you spat on me with your screaming. Fuck you for making me feel fearful for my life around you. Fuck you for giving me your shitty genetics and fuck you for pretending the abuse was never fucking real.

-🍋

.

[aromanticgarbage]

Hi!!! What do you honestly like about our boy Joji? What got you into him? Favorite song? Favorite quote from him?? Cool blog BTW. ❤️

Hiiiii <33333

Putting this under a read more because it got long af.

God i think part of the reason why im so obsessed with him is the duality of his character and artistic expression. He used to describe himself as conflicted a lot, especially in his earlier interviews and that pretty much hits the nail in the head i think. I love both his music and filthy frank a lot but I wouldn't be so fascinated with the person behind either of these things if they weren't made by the same guy. I just think he is a fascinating character.

What got me into him? I'm honestly pretty late to the party, i stumbled upon slow dancing in the dark on some random playlist at some point mid 2023. Slow dancing in the dark got famous for a reason: its so fucking good, i was playing it on a loop for weeks. Later i stumbled upon pretty boy, once again by pure chance. I was playing it on loop for a looong time as well. I hadn't even noticed that both of these songs were by the same artist at the time.

Fast forward a few months later, someone i follow here on tumblr dot com rebloged a post that expressed ops utter bafflement that filthy frank had turned his career around so dramatically and that he was a "sadboy musician now". The term slursona was thrown around. The ballads 1 album cover was included in the post and i recognised it imediatelly but i also recognised the name filthy frank.

You see, back in the day my older sister was a huge fan. She was really into this era of youtube bless her heart but ff was one of her faves. She had showed me human ramen AND hair cake back then but i was pretty young and I didn't really speak english well enough to fully understand what was going on. Nonetheless, i was morbidly fascinated but i never got into ff myself. Still i knew who he was.

Finding out that i was listening to his music a DECADE later from a random tumblr post gave me the whiplash of my fucking life. I genuinely got so scared i went and removed sditd from my character playlists and spotify liked songs lol. I let that revelation shimmer within me for a few months until one day i finally decided that i should do some research on the matter. I think i watched the slow dancing in the dark mv first and it completely blew me away. Then i watched the weeaboos video and it made me cry from laughter.

Somehow i ended up listening to his entire discography and watching Every Single filthy frank video ever made. At some point i discovered the notorious filthy frank exposes himself video and that once again blew my mind. I realised that he was the one who accidentally started the harlem shake trend back in 2013. Blew my mind. I listened to pink season ans i realised that the help song ive been seeing around since forever was a pink guy song. Blew my mind. I went home for the holidays and i talked to my other sister about my newfound obsession. Turns out she knew him from glimpses of us. Blew her mind too. Talked to my brother, he knew him from glimpses of us as well. We were all screaming about it for a few days.

This whole phase of mine started at some point in March and its only been getting worse. I don't know how we got here but im not complaining.

If i had to choose a favourite song.... sanctuary is my most listened to song of the year so far, so i probably have to go with that but also sditd, you suck Charlie, like you do, pretty boy, yukon, Mr Hollywood, no fun, demons, see you in 40, nightrider, modus (just to name a few)..... they all hold a very special place in my heart... I just love pretty much most of his songs a whole lot.

As for favourite quote im afraid I don't have a super serious answer to this question fjdksdks. "I just wanna make people sad and horny" is a strong one but also "sorry for being An Fag" and "fucking everyone smokes weed in central park...." fascinate me to no end.

Thank you so much for your questions !! <33 its always nice to have an excuse to ramble tehe.

[fluffydavey]

“davey is, i would say, an evermore girlie. he so is. specifically champagne problems.” sorry, i don’t make the rules, ryan does, so please blame him. also shoutout to @anotherdaveyjacobs for reading!! as always you’re the best 🫶

your heart was glass, i dropped it. 

he stands frozen, trying to process the scene in front of him - jack, on one knee, staring up at him with hopeful eyes. if this was a movie, he’d say yes and jack would sweep him off his feet as they began to celebrate the rest of their life together.

but this isn’t a movie. “i - ” he feels his chest tighten, the word yes stuck to his lips, refusing to come out. he shakes his head, as tears fall from his eyes. he feels sick, watching jack’s world shatter around him. davey never thought he would be the one to hurt him like this. “i am so sorry.”

he doesn’t stay -  he can’t stay, so he makes his way towards the door, clenching his fists as his nails dig into his sweaty palms. he’s tempted to take one final look at jack, but this isn’t how he wants to remember the first person who had broken down his walls, and let him feel loved like this. 

it’s the right thing, he tells himself, as the cool air hits his skin. it's then, that he realises how entwined their lives are, and how he has no friends to turn to. he takes his phone out of his pocket, debates calling katherine, before he switches it off, and places it back in his pocket. he doesn’t have it in him to disappoint anyone else. 

**

how evergreen, our group of friends. don't think we'll say that word again.

davey’s always hated smoking, a bad habit that he picked up in college when he was stressed over deadlines and living off of too little money. he’s been smoking more these past few weeks, ignoring the sad look in his sister’s eye as he steps outside for a cigarette. if she wants to say something, she doesn’t. he feels like there’s eggshells surrounding him, and everyone’s tiptoeing around him. 

he’s taking a drag of his last cigarette outside of sarah’s apartment complex, when he sees a familiar face. his heart fills with dread, as he makes eye contact with none other than racetrack higgins. davey tries to brace himself for what comes next - to be shouted at in the middle of the street for breaking his - their - best friend’s heart? he deserves that. a punch maybe? he’d deserve that as well.

instead, race stands across from him, looking at him with a pitiful stare. it somehow hurts more. 

“it’s better this way,” he says, filling the silence. he knows what they’re all thinking, how he’s fucked everything up. and he has, davey knows he has, just like he always does. but someone like him was never going to be good enough for jack, and the sooner jack realised, the better. 

“or is it just easier for you?” race asks. “look, i’m not here for excuses so you can make yourself feel better about what you did.”

davey flicks the cigarette, biting the inside of his cheek. how their friends must despise him. he hates himself too. 

“can i ask you something?” race asks, and davey shakes his head. “did you ever even love him?”

“you know i did,” he answers, blinking the unshed tears away. “i loved him more than i loved anything in my life.” 

he remembers his mother once telling him “it’s better to have loved and lost, than not to have loved at all.” it hadn’t made sense to him at the time, and it makes even less sense to him now. davey loves and has loved, with his entire heart, and has lost in the worst way possible. 

“it’s not too late to change things davey,” race says, surprising him. race gives him a final nod, and shoves his hands in his pockets, leaving davey alone with his thoughts.

“davey?” he hears from above, and when he looks up, he can see sarah looking down at him from her living room window. “davey, you’ll catch a cold out there. come inside.”

davey stubs the remainder of his cigarette, and looks off into the direction that race had walked in, lost in the busy street. 

it’s not too late. race’s words hang in the air, but davey knows he’s wrong. he’s left nothing but the shards of a future behind for the boy he would never stop loving. there’s no fixing that.

[fellthemarvelous]

I hate the holidays so much. My depression is already bad, but the holiday season just amplifies it.

Thanksgiving 2020, my mom and I prepared a meal for me and her and my dad. We were still in the middle of COVID, she had been receiving chemo treatments since summer of that year, but she had stage 4 cancer so there was no cure. We laughed our way through preparations though because neither of us had actually ever cooked a turkey before.

I remember giving her a hug. We were talking about what we would do differently for Thanksgiving 2021 (like getting a Honey Baked Ham instead of a turkey), and then she told me she didn't think she would be around anymore by the time Thanksgiving rolled around again. I told her not to think like that. It was impossible for me to imagine a world without my mom in it.

A month later I had to take her to the ER because she was having trouble walking. She went into the hospital the day before Christmas Eve, and a month later I had to say goodbye to her. She never came home again.

My brother and sister flew out when she was admitted into the hospital, but it was still in the midst of COVID and we couldn't spend time with her. She was in triage for three days before they finally found a room for her in the ICU.

The cancer was in her lungs (she never smoked a day in her life), in her spine, and it was spreading like wildfire throughout her brain. There were two weeks where she was in the hospital and we didn't get to see her once because of how rampant COVID was (and the people who fucking refused to take the pandemic seriously).

They had to intubate her because she stopped breathing on her own, and then finally we learned that there was nothing else they could do for her, so she ended up in hospice.

Christmas and New Years was spent worrying about my mom and being upset because we couldn't sit with her in the hospital. My mom spent about two weeks in hospice after that, and I stayed with her as much as I possibly could.

She passed away on a night I was unable to stay, in the final days of January 2021. Exactly one month before my sister's birthday and just a little over a month before my 40th birthday. It never occurred to me that she wouldn't get to live long enough to see me reach 40.

My sister's kids didn't get to fly out to visit my mom because my sister, a single mom, wasn't able to afford plane tickets for all three of them. She couldn't even get the time off work to stay out here with us for a full 24 hours.

And now my sister's former mother-in-law has stage 4 cancer, so the kids are about to lose their only other grandmother to an aggressive form of cancer as well. It hasn't even been a week since we learned this information.

It was 19 degrees outside the day we had my mom's funeral, but this same woman stood next to me while we watched them lower my mom's casket into the ground, with her arms wrapped around me, to give me some small amount of comfort on one of the worst days of my life.

And she's been cursed with a fate just as cruel as my mom's.

I feel so small. I'm broke and jobless and feel like an entirely worthless human being because my depression and anxiety are so bad right now that I can't even function like a person is supposed to.

I'm months away from turning 43 and all I can think about is how much I really want my mom right now.

[chl3borzoi]

SOOOOO i blocked my sister

Youre entitled to not like family after theyve done shit things.

Yes, my sister was a great resource when i was i my preteens letting me live with her during the summer, and for getting on my brothers for their behavior when i was in my early early teens but by that point it was kinda far too late

The thing that did it was on Thanksgiving last year she came with a woman weve never met before thats shes only known for 4 months saying theyre getting married in 2 weeks and moving to texas immediately after.

Our brother and his partner brought them out to lunch and tried to say hey we think youre going kinda fast you should take more time to get to know each other etc. They flat out told him theyre not invited to the wedding. Then when she gets home after that, she comes downstairs to find me and tells me theyre getting married, and she leans in and whispers "you're inviiiiteeeed~"

Shes in her early 30's

The thing is our MOM couldnt even attend because it was such short notice. And the marriage place couldnt get the shitty zoom stream to work. Our mom had to watch a recording of the service.

I looked out the deck window and saw her lying on her back on the porch watching the video and I knew her heart was broken.

Like. Christ im gonna put it all out there

I could tell stories of how my sister used to make me cry as a child, too. And where our parents failed to parent and the eldest should have taken the place of responsibility and etc she didnt give a fuck and YES a child should never have to act a parent role thats shitty but she was 15+ yrs old she shoulda fucking known better. (I have literally my entire family to blame for almost all of my issues, But still. During my crucial years i really do feel she did not care, and it didn't help that between me and her we have 3 THREE brothers who (one of which legitimately hated me ) too)) I DIGRESS

She let our childhood home turn into a jungle because she was too busy sitting in sweatpants smoking pot and drinking starbucks and begging our mom for more money to be put on her account,

(its all torn down, now too.)

We havent spoken very much,

Mostly just snapchats here and there

And a few days ago she sent me a chat on here saying shes revamping her account and wants to be active on here, so i blocked her.

Not only because i want tumblr to be an escape from personal real life shit but because i don't really wanna communicate or be reminded of her selfish dumb behavior.

Shes extremely hard to communicate with in person, too. Literally! I feel like im crazy trying to explain it. Shes so slow... it feels like trying to have a convo with her sometimes it feels like shes unintentionally gaslighting you. I know that sounds dumb but im fuckin serious.

She was so helpless when we helped her move, too. Pacing back and forth and fretting over all her shit (we're a packrat family yeah but holy fuck shes gonna end up being a fuckin hoarder) and me and our mom were just lifting stuff and carrying it out like :/

Sheesh

I don't hate her or wish her or her wife any ill will, its just. Fuck man. Walk in, break our moms heart (as if it isnt already broken after all the shit weve been thru as a family...) and act like everythings fine and perfect.

Also I literally witnessed my sister do/say this to her wife

"Hey, -blank-, come fight this pokemon go tournament for me."

Like

?!?!?!??!?

She was like "okay :D" but still thats so fucking bizarre

[subingression]

Feb. 28, 2023

its 2:53AM on a miserably cold February weekday. broken skin under three hydrocolloid bandaids plastered over my face itches terribly. i picked one spot on my cheek so badly i’m afraid to see what it looks like.

nevertheless, i smoke white mo and listen to tarot asmr and feel the heaviness of my body. i am water while my jaw is tar. it aches tonight.

while the last year of my life has been filled with autistic epiphanies, i’ve recently reached a plateau of progress. the weather gets colder, i isolate (is it the fatigue? the fear of intimacy?) for just about any reason, i regress and i cope.

when i reached out to you, i had one of those epiphanies. but softer. when i was younger and i imagined my life as an adult, i always pictured myself having an entire cabinet filled with tea. just about every kind you can think of. think Ramona. i usually go with green.

and i realized that i made that a reality. i do have an entire cabinet filled with different teas. i have a bamboo organizer and an electric teapot that lets you specify temperature and steep time. if this is what they mean when they say manifest, i think i get it.

slowly over time i delve deeper into the things i love and before i even know it, i’m onto the next one. always wanting. never content. no, its, “once i get my act together i’m gonna have it so good.” living my life passively. i’m a fucking NPC. things happen to me, i don’t seek them out. and then i proceed to waste years and dollars on opportunities i was too scared to take. at the same time, i feel like nobody can even compete with me. i’m different. i feel like i’ve earned it. earned something other than this endless silver lining.

this is turning out a bit more depressing than i would have liked but, hey, you don’t stop the flow of creativity when it hits, right?

a few months after our talk i had another soft epiphany. i’ve been trying so hard to be present and honest with myself. i cut off contact with my dad. i broke up with a toxic best friend. i sang at my sisters wedding. i felt the sting of the ocean again. i reached out to you.

i think being chronically ill has changed the way i interact with people and the world. once you’re aware of every arbitrary artillery built to indirectly damage your quality of life, it changes the way you talk about things. there has to be this constant recognition of the circumstance. a lot of people aren’t ready to have a conversation, and every time i hear an elderly relative say something transphobic i get this sting in my heart and a rush of adrenaline because i’m not going to be the person that doesn’t say anything. i have always been that person and hated myself for it. i don’t want to live passively anymore.

the only thing about that is that i have no idea how to start. if you were here, what would i do? who would we be? i debate between letting us sit in silence forever, or sending a very heavy handed message where i tell you that i think about you every day. i’ve thought about you so much you’ve become a figment. i feel your presence in my room, in a bed you’ve never slept in, when i’m walking down the produce aisle, when i brew my coffee in the morning. all i’ve got now is a shitty love song i wrote after you pulled me back in and made me feel. like magic or electricity or love. i have so much to tell you. if you want me, i’m yours.

and then i think that’s fucking insane and i would never do that. and then i think, its so easy to say it to a crowd, but its so hard, my love, to say it to you alone.

and i’ll put the song on the album because its a damn good shitty love song and our history is art, it’s beautiful to me, but for now its February and all i can do is wait for you. what are you thinking when you don’t respond? are you nervous about saying the wrong thing like i am? or do you just not care?

i know you. i wish i knew you.

[beforeiforgetyou]

You loved me but you sat and explained to my face you WERE IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE ELSE

You sat in my face and said OH THATS MY MAN

You never let me kiss you! You never let me get that close!

YOU LOVED ME??

I EMBARRASSED you! You were ASHAMED to love me! ASHAMED! A secret. A whisper. A shadow in the dark! I would have DISGRACED YOU! To choose me would have meant giving up everything else! Your parents would have been disgusted. You sisters. Your friends. I am an EMBARRASSMENT to you. You wouldn’t even walk next to me in a store! You wouldn’t even sit next to me in a restaurant!

How! How was that love!

I LOVED YOU! And I wanted you. And I would have done ANYTHING for you. To you.

We had love. We had passion. We had chemistry. We had EVERYTHING!

But you wanted your perfect little boyfriend.

You HUMILIATED me!

I sat home ALONE every night comparing myself to a KID! How low do you think that made me feel?? HOW LOW! Wondering if maybe I was taller. Or younger. Or worked in a damn kitchen! I spent hours one night on the jehova website wondering maybe if I start knocking on doors if that would make me WORTHY of you! Just feeling so low and WORTHLESS all the time! No confidence. No value. Nothing.

But I sucked it up! I accepted that I was second place. Runner up. I TRIED to. And when that hurt turned to anger you BLAMED me! When I yelled! When I cried! It was MY FAULT for being angry! MY fault for being crazy! DIDNT YOU SEE WHAT YOU WERE DOING TO ME??? Even then. I ACCEPTED it! That I was the bad guy. That I was doing something wrong. That I should be better at HURTING for you. To keep YOU happy! To give you BOTH!

You want me back??? I WAS HERE! I was six inches from your FACE and you REDUCED me! You made me nothing! You did that!

You put me on his time. You took away our time. You deleted my number. TO HIDE ME. While you protected HIM! While you made me play along to keep HIS FEELINGS SAFE!

YOU MADE YOUR CHOICE. You put me through HELL so you could keep HIM safe! So you could KEEP HIM! So you could build your perfect little life with HIM! A life sometimes I wonder if you even want. Cuz who are you. I know who you are when you’re with me. When you’re with me you’re free. I gave you a taste of that freedom you want so badly. And you LOVED it!

Maybe the reason you’re so unhappy, maybe the reason you’re so “stuck,” is because you’re trying to build a life you aren’t even sure you want! School, work, church, marriage, kids. THEN WHAT??! who are YOU in all of that! The other night before I left I said you were afraid. I said you were suppressed. And it’s true. There’s a whole WORLD out there and I know you want to see more of it! I know you want more than just CHADS HOUSE 10 minutes away from the house you spent your entire LIFE in!

ALL THOSE TIMES! ALL THOSE ARGUMENTS! When you didn’t want to smoke. Didn’t want to drink. Didn’t want to FUCK anymore. I wasn’t upset because you were changing. I was upset because WHY??! Whose RULES are you following! You talk about happiness?? When you were with me you were happy. I saw it. I felt it. The “good times” were good for a reason. Cuz we did ANYTHING WE WANTED. YOU did anything you wanted. I never made you. Never forced you. No. I showed you your wings and I held you up while you learned how to use them!

Did you really love me? Or did you love what I gave you? Not the shopping. Not the money. Not even the love. You loved the world I unfolded for you. The freedom. The sex. The drinking. The late nights. That was all you. I followed YOU. I came when YOU called. You call me a dangerous man??? No. It was always you. A beautiful, fiery, dangerous woman. A woman full of light. Full of LIFE. A woman full of LONGING for MORE! That is what I fell in love with! It wasn’t the late nights. It wasn’t the sex. It was watching you SHINE! It was being a part of watching you come into yourself! And I LOVED that girl. ALL of her. I loved the wild, crazy, nasty girl. And I loved the sweet, sensitive, Christian girl. ALL OF YOU! Those two different pieces of you. Those MILLION different pieces of you! I saw you Mel! I saw ALL of you! And there wasnt a single piece that I didn’t want.

You want to box yourself in? Limit yourself? Fine. Do it. It’s your life. But I saw more in you. I saw fire in you. It wasn’t that I had mapped out this imaginary life for you. It wasn’t that I was upset you weren’t living up to MY standards. No. It was never that. It’s that I saw MORE than some tight lipped conservative follow-the-rules life for you. I saw FIRE. But you know what? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was holding you to something that I only wanted to see. I don’t even know anymore. I see you. But I don’t know who are. Because you don’t know who you are.

Now you want me back?? For what?! To leave me when he proposes? To leave when you get pregnant??? Or am I supposed to just hang around for all that too? You want me back so that YOU can be the one to leave. You want me back so that YOU can leave when YOU’RE ready. But what about me? What about MY feelings? You protect his. You protect yours. But WHAT ABOUT ME!

You always say no one puts you first. No one care. No support. But that’s not true. You’re SURROUNDED by support. It’s just not the kind you want because you don’t know what you want! All I DID was put you first. To the point where I was in AGONY every day! AND YOU TREATED ME LIKE I WAS A VILLAIN!

I’m a joke. A fucking joke. Reduced. Humiliated. Disgraced. Are you gonna dump him and run away to Arizona with me? Cuz that’s the only way. That’s the only way that our love wins. And you won’t do that. You have too much to lose. And I’m not worth it. I’m not worth the risk. I’m not worth the uncertainty. IM NOT WHAT YOU WANT. No. You’ll chose the safe life. Most people would. And I can’t be mad at you for that.

I can’t be mad at you at all. Your own person. Your own experiences. Your. Own. Life. Go live it. I love you. I wish you the best. I wish you happiness and love. I wish you beauty and prosperity.

But I want that too. I want to be someone’s first choice. I want to love in the daylight. I want someone to protect ME. I want someone to see all the good things that you saw in me and fall so deeply, madly in love with me that just the thought of losing me makes them sick. And I want them to act on that. To come get me. To love me without fear. Without “but” without “if only.” I want that love in THIS lifetime.

My sweet, sweet girl. I love you so much. Eternally. Endlessly.

But I’m sorry…

I’m nobody’s side nigga.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #137

Have you ever fallen in public? Ummmm maybe, I don't remember. I know I almost fainted once in public (not all that long after I fainted and got my concussion), but I'm certain me slowly getting down to sit on the floor is what kept me conscious. I'm sure people were confused (I was literally in GameStop with my dad lol), but better than fainting. To this day I still don't know why it happened, but after fainting once, I knew what being on the brink felt like.

What were some toys you enjoyed in your childhood? Haha I actually had this ongoing plot for I think MOST of my childhood with two toy crocodiles (one was a baby), two deer (again, one baby), three dinosaurs that were the bad guys lol, and then there were some little Pokemon figurines. It's funny, unless I was playing dolls with my sister, I really don't remember playing make-believe with other sorts of toys. I was ENTIRELY obsessed with Webkinz, like I know I had at least over 40 (I think I still have each and every one in storage bags lol), but you "played" with those online, not with the actual plushies so I don't think that counts.

Take this space to appreciate someone or something in your life. I could never thank Girt enough for the kind of partner he is. His patience and tenderness with me means more than my dumb ass could ever explain. I just wish we could live our own adult lives together. I'm dealing with a lot of frustration (not towards him, just circumstances) about feeling like I'm stuck in the life of a child.

Do you have any plans in the upcoming weeks? Nothing major. Just doctor appointments, as always. I get my tattoo finished towards the end of May, but that's still a full month away.

Do you have any allergies? Seasonal and silver.

Do you know anyone named after each season? No, I only know a Summer. She's probably my closest real-life friend, excluding obviously Girt.

What's the last thing you had to write down? I signed a piece of paperwork at the endocrinologist.

What was the last thing you cleaned? uh my vomit off the floor

Have you ever had a concussion? Yes, it was an absolutely miserable experience.

What do you think of TikTok? No opinion at all, I've never used it/don't know anything about it really as a company.

Do you prefer long or short sleeve tops? Short sleeves, very easily. I experience the same thing I do with socks (although to a lesser severity) with long sleeves: it's like this sensory stress, like I feel like my arms are trapped or something and I don't like it.

Have you ever held a wild animal? Yeah. I used to love being the one to let a fish I caught go when I used to go fishing, and I know I've picked up turtles, too. The strongest example I remember though is holding a bunny; basically, a rabbit made its nest under some burning pile of something at Nicole's friend's place, and she and Hailee (said friend) ended up discovering two kits left behind, both with very mild burns. Naively (I'm not saying "stupidly" because they just didn't know, they thought they were rescuing two abandoned bunnies), Nicole kept one and Hailee kept the other. I fell in LOVE with the one Nicole brought home, like I was purely obsessed and the kit appeared very calm and as if it enjoyed being cuddled against you, but it (and Hailee's) died in MAYBE two days, possibly even less. Moral of the story: DON'T "RESCUE" SEEMINGLY ABANDONED BABY ANIMALS. CONTACT A PROFESSIONAL. The bunnies might have been sick, or we - what seems more likely imo - fed them dangerous food. It's a kind gesture to want to save an animal, always, but ignorance can kill SO easily and quickly when it comes to stuff like this.

Do you enjoy playing Uno? Not really, no. The time Chelsea dyed my hair red (the one and only time my hair took color like a fucking champ btw), we played it for HOURS while the dye sat and I'm still totally drained of that damn game, lol.

Do you tend to speed when you drive? I don't drive.

Do you smoke cigarettes? No, I'm not interested in smoking any substance.

Do you get obnoxious when you’re drunk? I wouldn't know.

Name one thing you do that people always tell you about. Jump to conclusions and severely catastrophize.

Are you superstitious? No.

Do you get bored with relationships quickly? Obviously not.

Can you sleep without blankets covering you? Unless I am burning the absolute hell up, no. And in the case I do have the covers mostly off me, I struggle harder than usual to fall asleep.

Who do you wish you could hang out with right now? Girt. I've seen him more than usual the past handful of days but I'm being clingy as shit regardless and it's annoying me.

Name one thing you absolutely can not stand. Me lately lol, but to give you a non-angsty answer, injustice of all sorts, but I think especially needless prejudices, like towards the LGBTQ+ community or specific races.

Pick one: Papa John’s, Domino's, or Pizza Hut. I feel like I'm the only human being that loves Domino's.

Who was the first person to ever give you flowers? Besides family at dance competitions, Jason.

What is something you do for other people that shows you care for them? I try to ask the people I'm closest to how they are often enough. And I don't have to think for even a second if I'm okay with someone I barely even know venting to me, I'm totally welcoming to listening to anyone who needs someone to just listen.

What was the last animal/pet that you met? Uhhhhh I am honestly not sure, I can't remember the last time I went to someone's house when they'd gotten a new pet... I think it might be Charlie (Girt's dog) and Onyx (his sister's), and I met them nearly a year ago, I wanna say.

Is there anyone in your life with whom your opinion changes on frequently? No, not really.

Do you ever look up set lists for concerts? I've only been to one concert in my entire life, and I didn't then. It's possible I would in the future.

Is there a certain song or band who reminds you of specific people? Yeah; Motionless In White and Black Veil Brides are extremely tied to Jason to me, because those were his two favorites. MiW is high on my own favorites list now, coincidentally. I think Evanescence will always remind me of Sara, especially since I pointed out to her how similar to Amy Lee she actually sings, lol. Deadly Circus Fire is Girt's favorite and I'd never even heard of them prior to him, so they're connected in my head too. He also likes Ninja Sex Party a lot and so do I, so they're another, haha.

Would you prefer to take a picture of yourself, or have someone else take it for you? I'd prefer to do it if I really have to have a picture taken, unless you're like, a seriously professional photographer that knows how to make me Not look ugly lmfao

How often do you style your hair differently from how you normally style it? Never.

What was the last thing to really surprise you? Throwing up two days ago.

Is there something in particular you always seem to forget? Anything and everything.

Have you ever tried making something from one of those short cooking videos? How did it turn out? No.

Have you ever written a review for a product you bought online? No; I wanted to for the Vitamin Me gift I got Girt for our last anniversary, but because it was bought under my mom's Etsy account, I wasn't eligible to do so on my own. Yeah, I coulda just used her account, but I never did.

Do you ever interact with any brands/companies online? No, besides like, liking stuff.

Is there anything you seem especially sensitive to, such as sounds, smells, etc? The sound of vomiting. I immediately freak out and aggressively plug my ears. I'm also extremely sensitive to the heat, like even 70*F is gross and uncomfortable for me. Light also bothers my eyes more than what's normal, something I think is a mix of having blue eyes (apparently we're more sensitive to it naturally) and also just barely ever going outside.

What was the last board game you played? I have no idea, something with the kids though, I'm sure.

Is anyone you work with currently on maternity leave or vacation? I don't fucking work right now.

Favorite boy’s name? Severin, Luther, or maybe Nikolai.

Baked macaroni and cheese or regular? I really dislike baked mac n cheese.

Name one of your friends’ children: Jaspen. She has two kids and I love both of their names.

What’s the middle name of your best friend? He doesn't have one, I've always guessed because he's already a junior.

How far away do you live from the closest aquarium? I had to google this, but apparently the closest one is at Pine Knoll Shores, which is located at Atlantic Beach. Google's saying it's a two and a half hour drive.

Favorite girl's name? Alessandra.

Are you in a relationship? If so, how long? Yeah, it's been a year and almost eight months now.

What food do you see the most of at baby showers? uh idk, I don't pay attention to this...

What’s the last show you really got into that you have to wait for the next season of? Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

Have you ever worked in a grocery store? I worked at a dollar store for like, three days, and a deli inside a grocery store for not even two fuckin hours.

What’s the temperature range in your area? There are obviously outlier days/streaks, but the average range of temperatures in eastern NC is apparently around 40-90*F.

Have you been around anyone that creeped you out? I'm quite positive everyone has, and the strongest example to come to my mind (excluding the probably literal rapist that I dealt with during my last psych hospital stay) would be Colleen's father-in-law; he was so fucking weird and uncomfortable. Turns out there were gross sexual things about him anyway.

Do you own a pair of Crocs? No, they have always been hideous to me and also very uncomfortable (there have been instances where I would briefly slip my mom's on to go outside for something).

Does anyone in your family have a birthday in February? Yes, myself as well as my youngest niece.

Have you ever lived in a trailer/doublewide? No.

Did you ever participate in any pageants when you were younger? Hell fucking no.

Which would you rather have, twins or triplets? I'd rather die, actually.

Snakes or spiders? I like both, but I definitely like snakes more.

Who/what makes you feel safe? My mom and Girt.

What’s something you want, but feel like you will never have? A healthy body.

Have you ever gone through a bad breakup? lol do I even need to answer this?

Do you believe in Jesus? Idk if I think he historically existed (a quick Google search tells me most scholars do agree that he was real, however there is no legit, documented evidence of his identity), but I absolutely don't believe in the "miracles" he supposedly did.

Are you hard of hearing? Volume-wise, I hear fine, but I do absolutely have an auditory processing issue that regularly makes sounds just mix together and don't make "words" to my ears, like I'll have no idea whatsoever what you said to me. This can happen in completely quiet environments, regardless of how close you are to me, anything.

How many bones have you broken in your life? One, my wrist. Pretty sure my left one.

Have you ever had vertigo? Yes, it's a horrific feeling. I had a span where it was somewhat common and was medicated for it, but I haven't been on that med nor have I experienced vertigo in years.

Has your house ever been robbed? No, this question is so fucking upsetting to imagine, it's not like we can afford to replace like, anything a general robber would steal.

If you have a partner, do you have a song? Not really, no.

Have you or would you ever hold a snake? I've held probably dozens of snakes in my life and I plan for that number to get way bigger. I adore snakes, a lot.