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chvoswxtch · 5 months ago

Text

secrets

pairing: frank castle x fem!reader

summary: in the aftermath of your fight with frank, you get more than one unexpected visitor.

warnings: swearing, lots & lots & lots of angst

word count: 4.4k

a/n: it's getting juicyyyy. friendly reminder y'all voted for a double drop this week, so chapter twenty one is coming this friday. enjoy. ;) as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!

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“You keep frownin’ like that, you’re gonna get wrinkles.”

Lifting your focused gaze from your computer screen to the source of a familiar voice, the creases etched along your forehead deepened at the sight of Billy standing in your office doorway, leaning against the frame with his hands tucked into the pockets of his perfectly tailored suit pants and that signature vain smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“What are you doing here?”

“Good to see you too, darlin’.”

Billy let out a dry chuckle, crossing the threshold over towards your desk in just a few quick strides. Leaning over your desk, Billy stretched his hand out to brush his thumb along the space between your eyebrows, effectively smoothing out the crinkles of concentration coupled with confusion. The gesture caught you off guard, and you blinked a few times in surprise as Billy unbuttoned the middle button on his dark gray suit jacket before sitting down in the chair in front of your desk.

“There, that’s better. Now, how ‘bout you at least pretend to be happy to see me.”

Billy arched one of his dark brows, that same smirk still gracing the edge of his lips in a silent tease. Looking over at him, it occurred to you that there always seemed to be some hint of mischief lingering in his deep espresso tinted eyes. Leaning back in your chair and folding your arms over your chest, you gave him a pointed look.

“What can I do for you, Billy?”

“Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine today.”

“I could be worse, if you’d like.”

Billy’s lips split into a full blown grin, and he let out an amused chuckle at the sass dripping from your dry reply.

“Nah, I’ve seen you pissed. I’d prefer to stay on your good side, sweetheart. You wanna tell me what’s got you in such a pleasant mood this mornin’?”

Being around Billy just made you think about Frank, and thinking about Frank only reminded you of the fact that the two of you weren’t in a good place right now. He swore to you the night you confronted him that he was going to wrap this job up as quickly as he could, but that meant he had to devote all of his time to it, which resulted in him being around even less than he had been last month.

Two weeks had passed since you’d last seen Frank in person. When you woke up in his bed the morning after you’d shown up at his apartment to confront him, he was already gone. He’d left a note on his pillow saying that he would call you soon, but that call didn’t come for four days, and neither one of you had much to say. You thought hearing his voice after being apart for a while would make you feel better about the whole situation, grant you some sense of relief or jumpstart a spark of acceptance you couldn’t find beforehand, but it only made you even more pissed off about what was happening.

And then the call you had with him two days ago really set you off.

Frank had been trying to keep the conversation light, and there was an apologetic tone to his gruff voice, but you couldn’t bite your tongue. The more you sat alone with the vague explanation he had given you, the more his promise of reassurance felt like fraud. You drew blood first, like you always did, but after a round of back and forth passive aggressive exchanges, Frank lost his own temper and went on the defense.

“For Christ’s sake, what else you want me to say, huh? How many other ways I gotta apologize?”

“We shouldn’t even be in this situation right now, Frank-”

“Yeah, well we are, and you’re gonna have to find a way to deal with it cause it ain’t changin’ any goddamn time soon.”

Frank’s aggressive retort only incensed you further. The stress of the current job combined with the growing rift between the two of you eroded his patience into raw frustration, and you were matching his verbal lashes blow for blow.

“Just deal with it? Just deal with you being away and hiding things from me?”

“That’s the job sometimes, alright? You know first hand the kinda shit I gotta do. You know what my world’s like. I told you I was gonna do what I could to get this handled as soon as possible-”

“But this isn’t your normal job, Frank! Stop using that as a fucking excuse. You’ve never had to disappear to God only knows where before, and you’ve never kept secrets from me-”

“Oh for fucks sake. You think that’s what I’m doin’? Makin’ excuses? That’s bullshit and you know it. I told you what I could-”

“And that’s supposed to be enough?“

“It was enough for Maria.”

Those five simple words stunned you silent. They struck a nerve you didn’t even know existed, and Frank, blinded by his aggravation, just kept hacking away at it with his verbal arsenal.

“Ya’know, she never gave me this much fuckin’ shit, and she had to deal with way worse than you. I was away from her and the kids for months at a time, couldn’t tell her a goddamn thing ‘bout what I was really doin’, and she was never on my ass the way you are right now-”

“I’m not her, Frank!”

The only sounds on the line were yours and Frank’s labored breathing, shallow and heavy from yelling and exhausting your vexed emotions on one another. For several moments, neither of you spoke a word, until finally you broke the silence by gritting your teeth and delivering one last blow.

“You know what, don’t fucking call me again until this shit is over.”

Frank, being the stubborn ass that he was, hadn’t attempted to contact you to smooth things over or to apologize. It infuriated you, but in the same breath, you didn’t want to speak to him right now.

Still, it wasn’t fair of you to take your sour mood out on Billy. He hadn’t done anything wrong. You were upset with Frank, not him. Letting out a deep exhale through your nose, you slowly dragged your palm down your face before leaning back in your chair. You hadn’t noticed how stiffly you’d been sitting until you felt a dull ache in your lower back.

“I…sorry. There’s just…a lot going on right now. I’m spread kinda thin so, I’m…a bit on edge.”

“A bit?”

When you shot him an unamused look, Billy let out a light chuckle and held up his hands in a show of faux surrender.

“Alright, alright. I didn’t come to here to fuck with ya. I actually came to ask a favor.”

An expression of surprise swiftly coveted your features. What could you possibly have to offer Billy Russo?

“A favor?”

Billy leaned back in the chair, adjusting the lapels of his suit before crossing his left leg over his right knee, placing his elbows on the arm rests. Maybe it was because your office was familiar to him, or maybe it was because he was so rich he felt like he owned everything, but Billy had a way of being able to make himself comfortable no matter what setting he was in. Fixing his deep brown eyes on you, that signature smirk of his graced his lips once again when he caught your look of intrigue and confusion.

“As you know, Anvil has a government contract with Homeland Security. It was a big deal for the company, and it’s proven to be a damn good business investment. As a matter of fact, it’s been so successful, that I’ve been meetin’ with a few other branches negotiatin’ another expansion, and recently closed a deal with the CIA.”

“Don’t government contracts kinda defeat the whole private military operation thing?”

“I didn’t hear you complainin’ when that Homeland contract brought you to me.”

Rolling your eyes at the smugness in his voice, you reached for the nearly empty iced coffee sitting on your desk.

“It wasn’t a complaint.”

“Anvil is more than personal protection, darlin’. It’s also convoy security, tactical operations, tailored training, and more. Most of our military contracts are outside of the U.S, so havin’ two on American soil is a huge deal.”

“If you’re trying to sell me on investing, I hate to break it to you, but I think the number currently reflecting in my bank account would make you cry.”

Billy let out a deep chuckle at that, his lips stretching open into a tooth bearing grin. Giving a faint shake of his head, he ran his right hand along the top of his head, smoothing his perfectly styled raven hair back into place.

“That’s not what I’m askin’.”

“Then how do I come into this, exactly?”

“The news hasn’t hit the media yet. Anvil’s hosting a Veteran’s Charity Ball this Saturday night, and I’m gonna make the announcement then. That, pretty girl, is where you come into play. I’d like you to personally cover the story.”

Looking across your desk at Billy, you could see by the look on his face that he was serious about wanting you to cover the piece. A slight furrow nestled between your brows at the idea.

“Why me?”

Billy cocked his head to the side, a sparkle of mirth in his eyes and a sly smile tugging at the edge of his mouth.

“Why would I ask anyone else? You know me, you know the company-”

“Which is kind of conflict of interest-”

“I already cleared it with your editor. You bein’ under the protection of Anvil is classified through Homeland, and since we’re a private company like you mentioned, our records ain’t public. Besides, your editor seemed pretty confident you could write without bias. Look, I want you on this. I’ve read the work of some of the other journalists here, and I gotta tell ya, even if I didn’t know ya, I still woulda picked you.”

Hearing that Billy had already talked to Ellison about this was a surprise to you because Ellison hadn’t mentioned it at all to you. When had Billy talked to him about this? Why hadn’t Ellison told you? Perplexity shrouded your features as you looked over at Billy.

“Ellison didn’t say anything-”

“I asked him not to. I wanted to ask you first, in person. He gave it the green light, but ultimately, it’s up to you if you wanna do it.”

Being kept in the dark seemed to be a recurring theme in your life lately that you weren’t happy with, and it stirred up dull embers of irritation from your fight with Frank. A part of you didn’t want to do it purely out of immature spite, since Billy indirectly had a hand in creating the chasm currently deepening between you and Frank. But that wasn’t fair to Billy. You owed him your life as much as you did Frank and Dinah. Billy played a vital part in keeping you safe and protected from the Defenders of Freedom, and recording Steven’s confession ended up being the smoking gun in proving his involvement.

After a moment of silent contemplation, you let out a light exhale through your lips.

“Alright, I’ll do it.”

“Don’t get too excited, now. It’s only a fancy party with an extensive open bar and catering from all of the best restaurants in the city.”

Trying to fight the smile that threatened to escape across your lips, you looked over at Billy and arched one of your brows.

“Are you trying to bribe me to write you a good article, Mr. Russo?”

“Is it workin’?”

Billy’s mouth was stretched in a wide, wolfish grin, showcasing the top row of his dazzling pearly white teeth. His dark brows were raised slightly up his forehead, and he had that familiar devilish twinkle in his eyes. Giving a soft shake of your head with a dry laugh, you crossed your arms over your chest and relaxed back in your chair.

“What time?”

“Starts at seven, I’ll send a car for ya ‘round six-thirty.”

“You don’t have to do that, I can take a cab-”

“C’mon, you’re doin’ me a favor.”

“Hey, I never agreed to write a good article. I might make you look terrible, just for the fun of it.”

Returning your teasing smile with an amused grin, Billy chuckled with a shake of his head. As he stood up and fixed his maroon tie, he motioned towards your office door with his head.

“Alright, c’mon.”

Staring up at him with a puzzled expression, you let out a soft laugh while he buttoned the middle button of his suit jacket.

“What?”

“I’m takin’ your bratty ass to lunch. Maybe after some food you’ll be a bit nicer.”

Making a show of rolling your eyes in faux exasperation, you stood from your chair and locked your computer before closing your notebook.

“No promises.”

“Well in my experience, you’re more tolerable when you’re fed.”

“Keep talking. Your article is getting worse and worse.”

“I’m sure a few glasses of expensive champagne will fix that.”

Billy turned to take a step towards the door and then abruptly paused, turning back to look at you with another teasing grin.

“Oh, and do me another favor, would ya? See if you can get Frankie to drag his ass out and make an appearance. I think he’s forgotten how to use his phone.”

The mention of Frank’s name instantly tarnished the light hearted mood Billy’s banter had put you in. Letting out a dry scoff, you slipped your phone into your purse and pulled the straps over your shoulder.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath. That job you and Madani have him working has not only turned him into a ghost, but also a complete dick. I’ll let you deal with him.”

Tucking a loose strand of your hair behind your ear, you started to round your desk when you looked up and caught the expression on Billy’s face, and it made you stop in your tracks. His sharp features were suddenly void of their usual playful warmth, and there was no charming smirk etched onto his mouth. His lips were set in a firm line, outlining his chiseled jaw that was covered in a perfectly trimmed dark beard, and his dark brown eyes looked nearly obsidian.

“The job with Madani?”

There was a faint serrated edge to his tone when he spoke, but you didn’t miss it. Billy’s stare was intense, and you realized he probably thought that you knew something you shouldn’t. Crossing your arms over your chest, you let an irritated exhale escape through your nose as your gaze drifted towards the window of your office.

“Don’t worry, he didn’t tell me anything. Not where he was going, not what he was doing, nothing. So whatever top secret thing you two have him doing, it’s still top secret, alright?”

There was a long pause of silence, and your annoyance started to fade into a feeling of perplexity when you looked back at him and saw a look in Billy’s eyes that you didn’t know how to read. There was a sudden coldness to him, and an emotion you couldn’t decode hidden in his steely gaze. The tense quietness in your office sent an uneasy shiver down your spine, but then it was like a switch was suddenly flipped, and Billy reverted back to the version of him you’re familiar with.

He plastered that charming smirk on his lips again, but you noticed this time, it wasn’t accompanied by the usual mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Trouble in paradise?”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you dropped your gaze down to the floor for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t like being lied to, or kept in the dark. I know your line of work is…complicated, I just…I thought Frank and I didn’t have any secrets between us.”

“Sometimes lyin’ and keepin’ somethin’ hidden is the only way to protect someone from the pain of the truth.”

Lifting your head, you met Billy’s intense gaze with an incredulous and inquisitive look.

“You really believe that?”

“Trust me, some secrets are better left buried, darlin’.”

»»———　　———««

The following evening when you came home from work, all you wanted was a long soak in a hot bath and an entire bottle of wine. The stress of the last two weeks wasn’t just taking a toll on you emotionally, it was also physically manifesting in your body. Closing the front door behind you, the lock sounded with a click when you twisted the oval knob, and you lazily tossed your keys onto the side table in the entryway before carelessly tossing your purse onto it as well.

Coming around the corner into your living room, you nearly had a heart attack when you were suddenly met with the sight of a large figure sitting at your dining table, waiting in the dark. Clutching at your chest in panic and jumping nearly two feet in the air, your voice came out in a shrill shriek.

“Jesus Christ, Frank!”

Frank didn’t physically react to your outburst. He sat as still as a statue in one of the chairs, slightly hunched over with his thighs spread wide, his forearms resting just a few inches above his knees. A bit of dark stubble coated his cheeks and sharp jawline, and his grown out hair was a tousled mess of ebony waves resting against his forehead instead of being pushed back in their usual style.

The swift scare of Frank’s intrusion, his silent treatment, and the lingering resentment you’d been harboring for the past two weeks had you glaring at him.

“How the hell did you get in here?”

His deep brown eyes were fixated on you and his plump lips were set in a stubborn line. Frank’s rugged features were even more pronounced in his resting semi-permanent broody expression. Wordlessly, he lifted one of his large hands, showcasing a set of keys on a ring pinched between his thumb and index finger. One of which, belonged to your front door.

After everything that had happened at your last place, you couldn’t stay there anymore. You’d quickly moved into a new place that happened to be closer to the Bulletin, and as far as you knew no one had died in it, and there weren’t lingering bullet holes under the paint. Frank had helped you move and set up your security system for you again. You’d forgotten that you’d given him a spare key so he could get in while you were at work.

When you crossed your arms over your chest in a defensive stance, Frank caught the pissed off look on your face, and when you opened your mouth to lash out at him, he quickly cut you off with his rough voice before you could get a word out.

“Said not to call. Didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout comin’ to see ya.”

The snippiness of his comment made you narrow your eyes in his direction. Clenching your jaw, you pursed your lips tightly as your face contorted into a portrait of annoyance. You were about to snap back at him when you noticed out of the corner of your eye that there was a packed bag sitting on the dining table next to him.

It was yours.

Eyes flickering between your bag and Frank, you stared at him in a mixture of irritation and confusion.

“What the hell is that for?”

“I gotta leave town for a bit. I told ya I’d make sure you were taken care of while I was gone, so you’re gonna stay with a friend of mine.”

“And you didn’t think to ask me if that was something I even wanted to do?”

“It ain’t up for discussion.”

Frank hadn’t been this cold towards you since the early days of when he was your bodyguard. For a moment your exasperation evaporated, wondering if things between the two of you were worse than you thought. Picking up on the slight change in your body language and facial expression, Frank let out a deep exhale through his large nose and slowly stood up from the chair.

“I can’t do what I need to do if I’m worryin’ ‘bout you bein’ alone here, alright? It’s just for a few days.”

“Frank, I’m not in any danger anymore. No one is actively trying to kill me. If you’re that worried about me being alone, Billy can stop by-”

“No.”

The aggressive tone of Frank’s voice and the roughness of his tone caught you off guard. Frank glanced away from you, his eyes darting around your living room for a few seconds before they finally returned to you. His left hand was tightly grasped in a fist, but on his right, his index and middle finger twitched. A sharp exhale escaped his large nose, and his tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip quickly before he spoke again.

“Look you wanna be pissed at me, be pissed at me, but don’t put yourself at risk cause of it. Maybe you’re right, yeah? Maybe you ain’t a target no more. But I’d rather know you were safe than have to deal with the fact later on that I shoulda done more. I ain’t takin’ that risk again.”

It was like a light bulb went off in your head when he spoke that last sentence. In the midst of your own tangled mess of selfish feelings, you hadn’t once stopped to think about how Frank felt about all of this. A sinking feeling of remorse settled in your stomach hearing the frustration but also the lingering pain in his voice when he spoke.

I ain’t takin’ that risk again.

He’d had his entire family ripped away from him in one single moment, right in front of his eyes, of course he was fucking paranoid. From your perspective, Steven was facing life in prison, and all the remaining members of the Defenders of Freedom were gonna rot with him, so you didn’t think you had anything to be worried about.

But Frank saw danger everywhere. He anticipated it. He planned for it. And that’s what he was doing right now.

Frank was doing the exact same thing he’d been doing every single day since he met you: keeping you safe.

Letting out a deep sigh, you looked down at the floor for a moment to gather your irrational thoughts and rein in your impulsive emotions. When you raised your head, your eyes flickered from the packed bag sitting on your dining table back to Frank’s unrelenting stare. Running one of your hands stressfully through the roots of your hair, you made a faint gesture of throwing your hands up in concession.

“Alright, well if you’re not leaving me with Billy, I’m assuming you’re not taking me to Madani either. So, does Matt know I’m coming?”

Frank’s steely expression crumbled at the mention of Matt’s name. He pulled a face like you’d just asked a ridiculous question, a furrow of annoyance and confusion settling between his thick brows.

“You think I’d leave you with him?”

Letting out a dry scoff void of humor, you rolled your eyes with a shake of your head and folded your arms across your chest.

“Just because he’s blind-”

“It ain’t got shit to do with him bein’ blind.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is I don’t trust him to keep his fuckin’ hands to himself, and I ain’t lettin’ him pull that ‘poor blind orphan’ shit on you.”

A look of surprise crossed your face as your brows lifted slightly up your forehead, and it took every ounce of self control not to laugh or show any indication of amusement. Frank wouldn’t leave you in Matt’s care because he was worried he would…hit on you?

Letting out a grunt, Frank grabbed the handles of your bag in his left hand and swiped it off the table.

“He’s too preoccupied at night anyway.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Bein’ the goddamn Devil. C’mon.”

When Frank walked past you towards your front door, you turned around to watch him, narrowing your eyes in irritation.

“Can you at least tell me who you’ve employed to babysit me then?”

Frank paused at your front door, which he took up the entire frame of, and his head dropped between his shoulders for a moment. You could hear him audibly voice his frustration with your attitude when he let out another sharp exhale before turning to look at you over his shoulder.

“A friend of mine.”

“Yeah, you said that. A friend of yours, that you’ve never mentioned before. Do I have to have some kind of top secret security clearance for you to tell me their name?”

There was a scowl on Frank’s face as he glowered at you, turning around to face you fully. He dropped your bag on the floor with a light thud, scrunching up his face for a moment as he inhaled sharply through his large nose, cocking his head to the side.

“Christ. This what you wanna do right now, huh?”

Returning his glare with just as much vehemence, you let out a dry and humorless laugh as you gestured around loosely.

“No, Frank. This isn’t what I want-”

“Look you wanna keep bustin’ my goddamn balls, fine. But do it from the truck, yeah? You can antagonize me with your bullshit all you want while I drive, but we got somewhere to be.”

Clenching your jaw, your hands balled into frustrated fists at your sides. For a moment the two of you were locked in some kind of silent staring contest. You were so sick of every conversation with Frank lately turning into an argument that ended with the two of you at each other’s throats. You didn’t have the patience to combat his stubborn dedication to being a self righteous asshole. Gritting your teeth, you stormed forward and grabbed your own bag as you brushed past him out your front door, swearing under your breath.

“Dick.”

Frank pursed his full lips and nodded his head, turning around to follow you after forcefully shutting your front door behind himself.

“Yeah yeah, get in the goddamn truck.”

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deadghosy · 9 months ago

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How they react to you throwing up:

(Wrote this cause I also thrown up 🥲)

LUCIFER

Panicking.

Straight up panicking as he holds your hair back or just pats your back.

If you are crying after throwing up and are weak. He literally rushes to make you soup and maybe even a customize duck blanket he made for you for Christmas.

If you tried to get out of bed, he’s pushing you back in bed gently with a stern look.

He’s not letting you lift a finger at all

He stays while you sleep having a trash can by you just in case you thrown up.

CHARLIE

She’s freaking worried and kinda scared you have something serious until you tell her it might just be a sickness or bug.6

She pulls your hair back patting your back.

If you are too tired to get up she lifts you up with ease as you sniffle after throwing up. She lays you down getting razzle and dazzle to keep you company as she fixes you noodle soup to be better. She even gets you a water bottle.

She doesn’t like seeing you sick so she hope you get better.

She stays to make sure you need anything else before she leaves. She would check your temperature every 30 minutes just to make sure.

VAGGIE

She’s concerned but not worried sick as this is normal. She knows what to do for you.

Stays beside you as you throw up as she goes your hair back. She has a water bottle ready in hand just incase you need it.

She thinks it’s a bug since you haven’t been feeling yourself which worried her.

She has Charlie give you crackers and soup so you can eat something if you feel better at least.

She knows what to do as she have been sick herself at times. Of course she is staying by your side while you sleep or eat your soup weakly. She can’t just leave your side without knowing you aren’t getting better.

ANGEL DUST

“Are you pregnant?”

That’s what the fucker would asked to lighten the mood, but you glared at him with a sick expression not liking the joke.

He thinks maybe it’s because you drank too much, but really he doubts it since you drank hard before and never thrown up like this.

He then stopped joking as he helps clean you up while making you a bath to relax in as your body was obviously weak with shaking legs like a scared doe.

He has Charlie to help him learn how to make a soup to settle your stomach.

HUSK

“Fuck is wrong with you?”

This grumpy kitty is calm as he drinks while watching you throw up. He grumbles leaving the bathroom as you finish throwing up.

Shit you thought he left you like a bitch but nah he came back with a water bottle grumbling at how could you even get yourself this sick.

He might as well throw a towel for you to clean up your face as he’s not getting too close at first.

He lets you only this time cuddle him for comfort as he purrs with a blank face. He stares at your red face from your fever as he scoffs holding you close grabbing the thermometer for you.

ALASTOR

“Ah darling. This won’t do at all. Not at all.”

He smiles taking you to bed as he grabs the thermometer as his shadow try to fix you up and get you comfortable in bed.

You accidentally thrown up on him and you were so embarrassed by that as you covered your face expecting him to be mad as he only chuckled

“DONT worry darling! It’s only a stain.” He says taking off his jacket.

He understands you can’t control it so he helps you get better. He can’t leave a ‘dear’ friend in needing of help.

SIR PENTIOUS

“Holy fucking shit! Are you okay [Name]??”

Pentious is worried and is extremely scared at what is happening to you.

Charlie has to calm him down saying it’s probably a stomach bug. So he calms down and listens to Charlie for how to take care of you.

He gets his egg boiz to check up on you as they surround you with a worried expression

“Boss are they dying?…please don’t die boss’s friend!” Frank yells hugging your leg as you groan by the toilet.

The sweet egg boi really wanted you to feel better as Pentious grabs the soup for you and water with a side of crackers.

He definitely gets the alphabet soup as he smiles at you happily

#hazbin husk #hazbin angel dust #hazbin charlie #hazbin alastor #hazbin x you #hazbin hotel lucifer x reader #hazbin hotel headcanons #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel imagine #hazbin lucifer #x gn reader #gender neutral reader #hazbin vaggie #sir pentious #hazbin sir pentious #sick rn #sick reader

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absolutebl · 4 months ago

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This Week in BL - In Which None of You Should be Surprised by a MAJOR Upset in the Standings

Sorry this is so late. I had a pretty epic series of delays landing me at NRT for like 18 hours or something ridiculous. To be fair there are much worse airports to be stranded at.

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

June 2024 Week 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Rebound (Weds Gaga) ep 1 of 12 - Fuck all ya'all if you thought I had taste. MeenPing are topping this damn list because... have you any idea how LONG I have been waiting for a real sports centered BL starring at least one boy who actually played the flipping sport? My whole damn life. You ready for me to go into euphoric splooges all over your screens? I don't think you are. SUFFER! And now some splooging:

It’s off to a great start. Thank you, Rebound, for being exactly what I wanted. By which I mean Meen has his shirt off literally in the first two minutes of the show. Also it’s a bit of a childhood sweethearts reunion romance. There’s nothing wrong with this beginning. Fantastic. For a change, I even enjoy the intro music. Golf is directing MeenPing this time, so maybe something magical will happen. Frank is aging so pretty!!! How nice for all of us. Even the bb play is good. It’s a proper sports BL. I’m so damn happy right now.

Wandee Goodday (Sat YT) ep 9 of 12 - I’m so tired of Ter, but everything else was lovely. Also they are SUCH boyfriends.

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 3 of 12 - They are so cute in these roles. I don’t know why, I just like their vibe better here than in the previous show. (And I really enjoyed Big Dragon at the start.) This show is a lot more classic romance and kind of pat because of that. I do hope the ingénue character gets some kind of additional development and talent. But even if it stays mundane, these two have the chemistry to carry it. So I suspect I’ll keep enjoying it regardless. I am mildly intrigued by the spice of the PNR element, so I hope they run with that a bit more. I suspect they will have to, to extend the plot for 12 eps.

My Stand-In (Fri iQIYI) ep 10 of 12 - Ah Ming... famous last words. This one just makes me sigh a lot and whimper sadly. I don’t know where they’re going with this plot or how they’re gonna resolve it. Joe finally being the asshole Ming deserves is a lot of fun though (double entendre intended). I’m scared but it did make me cry... a lot. (That's fine, I'm a sap.)

Imma say this because no one else has. Wardrobe is unilaterally terrible in this show. I mean Thailand is notoriously bad in general but this show, nash.

We Are Cute (Weds iQIYI) ep 13 of 16 - They are so fucking adorable. And so flirty! Also a crying kiss? My favorite! Chain’s little moment of "Cupid shoot thyself" was epic. ("Physician heal thyself" but for the BL world?) Honestly, I could watch a whole show about these two...

The Trainee (Sun YouTube) ep 1 of 12 - How does Gun still look like he’s just out of high school? Madness. Does the set for the print shop that he’s working in at the beginning remind anybody else of Mork’s dad’s place in ‘Cause He’s My Boy? I swear GMMTV has about 3 sets they rotate through.

To be brutally honest, I was not looking forward to the show at all. No idea why. OffGun aren’t my most favorite OG pair, but I respect them for their longevity, optics, acting shops, and enduring brand. Maybe I just needed more of a gap from Cooking Crush?

Whatever, I was absolutely riveted by this first episode. I’m enjoying The Trainee a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 4 of 12 - This version did the "clear up of the inciting miscommunication" in such a sweet achey way. Frankly that "ache of first love" really plays to G4's strengths as a pair. This was a good ep and I’m now starting to enjoy this one for its own sake and get some distance from the JBL version. It's just there is A LOT of good stuff coming out of Thailand right now.

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 3 of 10 - I was inspired to write a Shakespearean style sonnet in this week's trash watch. Mame seems to believe that no character can have depth without suffering. And I found this episode both boring and rushed at the same time. Trash watch here. (This week's trash watch also VERY delayed.)

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 6 of 12 - It’s eminently missable... so I missed it this week in order to get this weekly update out. Next week will be a two in one.

Only Boo! (Sun YT) ep 12fin - Okay, that’s it, I guess?

Summary:

An idol romance about a sunshine boy who dances good and wants to be a star and a reserved food stand vendor. Other side of the tracks, grumpy/sunshine pair who fall in love but, of course, to be an idol baby boy can't date. It wasn’t particularly bad, it wasn’t particularly good either. 7/10

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) Ep 1 of 10 - A new series adaptation of beloved yaoi I Hear the Sunspot (first adaptation was feature film Silhouette of Your Voice 2017).

I expected the soundscapes in this one to be fantastic, but I didn’t expect the filming to be something special too. But it really is. I’m not gonna lie, I'm nervous about this show because I love the manga and was disappointed by the film, but we were off to a really good start. First names already? So cute. I love them.

Takara's Treasure AKA Takara No Vidro (Japan Mon Gaga) ep 1 of 10 - Shy awkward Taishin goes to a Tokyo university in order to reunite with Takara, a stranger who consoled him over the loss of a parrot the year prior. He finally gets a chance to express his gratitude but is given the cold shoulder. (My thoughts this weekend's round up)

I can't believe Japan is holding it down for the non Thai BL. I mean to say.... JAPAN!!! What alt reality are we living in? It being Japan, I'm scared of the ending.

It's airing but...

Blue Boys is still going on and I'm still enjoying it (despite the cheating) but I don't know when it drops or where it's going, so I will report in at the end. When they tell me it's ended.

The Last Time (Thai Fri YT?) - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something. Can't find it.

OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ???) 10 eps - I've put the search on hold for and y'all can let me know if it's worth tracking down once it ends?

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer released to Korean theaters 5/25. HoTae & DongHee, side couple from Unintentional Love Story are back! Same actors, same character names. I love them. Devastated this hasn't had international distribution. I demand you tell me the moment you find it!

Next Week Looks Like This:

NO IMG - we half way through this week already - sorry.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

July Releases to Come

7/5 This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (Thai iQIYI) - trailer here, The PittBabe team behind a new restaurant set BL full of hidden agendas and starring my new favorites SailubPon. Delightful!

7/10 Century of Love (Thai Gaga) 10 eps - trailer here, DaouOffroad are back, this time as fated mates in a quasi historical paranormal moment. San has spent many lifetimes waiting for his lost beloved, to reincarnate from her death a century ago. But if he fails to find her within this century's time window, he will succumb to a tragic death. And this time she's a boy. Very much Director Who Buys Me Dinner meets First Love Again, hopefully better than both. I love this pair and think they can handle the premise, it's whether the storytelling is up to the challenge. I'm curious to see but I have reservations.

7/26 4 Minutes (Thai Netflix or iQIYI?) - Great is a university student from Faculty of Business and the son of a wealthy business owner. Out of the blue, he gains the supernatural power to see four minutes into the future.

7/29 Battle of the Writers (Thai ????) - trailer here, TutorYim return and while I adore them, I really hope this is better than Middleman's Love. Won't be hard. However: that premise! Ugh. Something something authors fighting - save me. Why don't writers understand that nothing is more boring than writers?

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Defining @heretherebedork 's favorite endearment of "tiny idiot."

I love him. I also love what a class act they both were about this turn down. Thailand shows Korea how to handle a love triangle by NOT HAVING ONE.

Both We Are.

We stand a lap sit on this blog, but I think this is my first lap spin! I adored it! (Sunset X Vibes)

It's fun to watch them follow the original narrative but with these cute little Thai twists. Sometimes these are shifted for language reasons, sometimes for cultural, and sometimes I think just to draw a clear distinction from the JBL. I'm not mad about any of it. (My Love Mix Up)

Not just for you, honey. Truer words were never spoken. Yak is the biggest green flag ever to walk BL's verdant earth.

Linguistic corner!

I love this way of putting the translation. Usually, in Thai, the phrase used means "he's my happiness" (sounds like: kwamsook). To use sabai is different. Sabai more ubiquitous (sabai is one of the most commonly used phrases in Thailand) but also so different from the usual phrase we hear in ThBL at this moment. Thus, this execution is special, particularly from a doctor. I'm not quite sure how to put it but sabai can also be translated as feeling well, as in, not ill. So there is a way of looking at Wandee saying Yak is both his peace of mind and good for his health and well being.

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

There's these tricks, remember.

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pedrospatch · 2 years ago

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joel miller masterlist

♡ fic notifs l ao3 ♡

🔥= indicates smut

oneshots & drabbles

not a thing l part ii summary: You and Joel had a private moment while Ellie was asleep. Or so you’d thought she was asleep.

weakness l part ii 🔥 summary: An afternoon at Bill and Frank’s takes an unexpected turn for you and Joel when some feelings start coming to the surface.

we need you summary: Afraid of failing the two of the people he cares about more than anything, Joel decides you and Ellie are better off without him.

jealous summary: You aren’t together, but Joel doesn't want to see you with anyone else.

stay summary: You’re in Jackson with Joel and Ellie after Salt Lake City and the loss of somebody you failed to protect haunts you and leaves you wondering if the wound will ever heal—and how you’ll ever go on if it never does.

what he didn’t do summary: You’re very recently divorced, but that doesn’t stop a certain brown-eyed neighbor from taking you out on a date.

strawberry 🔥 summary: You feel ashamed for using your safe word with Joel during a session—he assures you you’re his good girl no matter what. AU, NO OUTBREAK (TW) DDLG

punishment 🔥 summary: You drag your boyfriend to your best friend’s annual Halloween party and get brave after a couple of drinks—it’s not like Joel’s really going to punish you while all of your friends are under the same roof, right? AU, NO OUTBREAK (TW) DDLG. POSSIBLE DUBCON.

captive 🔥 summary: You find yourself missing your captor while he’s out on an early morning hunt with the rest of the group. TW DARK!JOE. DUBCON.

frosting 🔥 summary: Joel agrees to help you decorate Christmas cookies and things get a little messy. AU, NO OUTBREAK (TW) DDLG

someone to be thankful for 🔥 summary: It’s Thanksgiving—when dinner with your nightmare of a family goes south, you find comfort in the person you least expect it from: your father’s best friend, Joel Miller. AU, NO OUTBREAK, DBF! Joel Miller

series

a safe haven l ongoing l 🔥 summary: When Joel Miller and Ellie Williams return to Jackson, Wyoming to begin their new lives, the last thing Joel expects is to catch the eye of the thriving community’s equine veterinarian. Young, beautiful, and married, Joel knows that he should stay away from a woman like you, but he can’t help but to be drawn to you like a moth to a flame. As you start growing closer to both Joel and Ellie, you find out all about the secrets they both carry—and they find out you’ve been hiding a secret or two of your own.

fall into temptation l completed l 🔥 summary: Of all the women to catch Joel Miller’s attention—it just had to be one of the goddamn preacher’s daughters.

miscellaneous

snapshots l ongoing summary: Moments of Joel Miller’s life in Jackson, Wyoming with his girls.

divider credit @/saradika 🤍

#joel miller masterlist #joel miller x reader

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witchhazelevesque · 4 months ago

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We actually have no confirmation whether the characters are living their first lives. Like. Percy saw the Isles of the Blessed in the very first book and thought “that’s where I want to end up”. But what if when he dies eventually expecting to go through judgement and hopefully get Elysium (he obviously will but he’s prob not gonna let his guard down about it til he’s there and maybe even after) only then he’s ushered past it and onto the Isles.

Can you imagine how he’d react?

But that also opens up some sad possibilities because honestly what are the odds that every single one of them are on the same stage in this possible cycle? And this goes back to some theories I had about how the three different lives thing works. And in the Last Olympian Percy insists that all the demigods and hunters that died in the war get granted Elysium and Hades agrees. He might have said something about paperwork or something for the on going joke about the Underworld as a business, but there was something to that? Either way, Percy wouldn’t know for sure when he made that requirement.

And it’s an interesting element that the books never really get into. Maybe because the characters are so young they just automatically assume it’s their first life. Also tragically they probably haven’t thought they would live long this life so they can’t imagine having done it successfully before. At least for the Greeks, the Romans are a whole other thing in that regard.

And since their souls are literally preordained to do certain things in the prophecies, I wonder if how new a soul is might relate. Not like dictating it but just if there’s any patterns or correlation. I think Leo and Hazel I’m most curious about. I guess the narrative has sort of implicitly set the reader up to operate with the mindset that this is the first lives for them, like again, Percy’s comment about the Isles. Silena’s last words were about seeing Charles, and the logical conclusion is that yeah they’re going to be in the same place, but there’s a layer to that that wasn’t addressed. And there’s the fact that both PJO and HoO start with the main characters (except Jason) being fully introduced to the mythical world, essentially casting them as beginners.

But by the nature of the world we’re being introduced to, it’s ancient, and looking at it that way it could totally seem like it’s plausible or probable that some of the characters have lived lives before.

Circling back to how that affects them in the afterlife though, it wouldn’t be clear to them automatically after their first and second lives. Are they told during judgment? Are they told in Elysium? Do they just innately know if they have the opportunity to be reborn?

For example, maybe this was Jason’s third life and he finds himself on the Isles and has to wait to see if his friends come there immediately when they die. Can those on the Isles go to Elysium? Are they confined there or is just that the residents of Elysium can’t go in? Time probably works weird in the Underworld, I think that might have been established. It might not be super painful if it turns out that Piper and Leo and Frank and Percy and Nico and everyone else aren’t bound for the Isles yet. He’d be at peace and have eternity to wait for them.

But on their end? Probably it depends on if the people on the Isles could visit. And again with those possibilities about their three identities and lifetimes worth of memories, it depends on who they are now. Are Piper and Leo going to find a Jason that is their Jason but also someone(s) else? That winner of the poll linked above and the possibility I agree with myself is that they get all their memories and decide what to do and who they are now. What would it be like if it was their first life and eventually they get reborn and then come back to Elysium as someone new, without those memories of their old friends? But again they have eternity so while it’s painful, it’s not permanently tragic.

Someone suggested they split into three different people and that is a really cool concept. It also adds an element of what the gods can do, splitting their essence and being multiple places at once. Not exactly like it since they’d be different people with different memories even if the core of them is the same technically. But just like demigods can’t understand what that’s like for the gods, those who haven’t lived three times can’t understand what it is to have three lives in your consciousness. And all of their minds are probably more elastic and more ‘godlike’ for lack of a better term after death since they aren’t confined to a mortal body. But it still not the same for those on the Isles and those in the outer sections of Elysium. I doubt it would stop people from being close, but it is a marked difference they’ll need to learn to navigate. It’s also really sweet because this means they get to have more of their loved ones to learn about.

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onceonafullmoon · 6 months ago

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Meet Cute

Micheal Kaiser x GN! Reader

No warnings, just pure fluff! Reader is in college and from America. Reader is an anxious mess and a football fan. Apologies if the german is shit, I did my best. This fic is kinda scuffed but I wanted it to be done lol

“S–Sind Sie Michael Kaiser?” You blurt out, before mentally face palming at the stupidity of your own question. He laughs again, a slightly smug look on his face at being recognized before responding. “Ja, ich bin Michael Kaiser.”

A shiver runs down your spine as you peruse the selection of the ice cream tucked away in the freezer section, but you can’t help but smile to yourself at the welcome sight.

Yes, it was that time again, that familiar time in every college student’s life, the time to eat away your feelings after struggling your way through midterms.

Fuck midterms.

And fuck proper societal conventions as well.

Because here you are, in your pajamas, doing a late night grocery run and regretting it with every strange look served your way.

Sometimes you forget that you aren’t in America anymore, and your people-of-Walmart activities will inevitably lead to your downfall, but at least that day isn’t today.

Well, it was a small mercy that no matter where you were in the world, whether in Germany or America, that at least ice cream was a true constant that remained in your life.

You analyze the see-through fridges with slight disappointment as you realize the selection you have to work with is slightly smaller than what you’re used to, although maybe upon further inspection you’d find it refreshing not being swung at visually by 15 brands in one shelf, all desperately vying for your attention.

Either way, you find yourself drawn to the same flavor you always pick, a true creature of habit, and you pull open the fridge door to grasp at the item of your choosing.

At least you are until you find your hand colliding with another, a silent gasp parting your lips before you pull your hand back in surprise.

“Sorry!” You blurt out before realizing your mistake. “...err, I mean– entschuldigung!”

(Your German is hardly passable to be frank, but you figure you should at least try speaking the language of the country hosting you for the semester.)

Anyway, the sound of your stilted dialect is enough to bring out a light chuckle from the person, the man judging by the timbre of the voice, next to you and you finally look over to see…

Holy shit.

Is that Micheal fucking Kaiser?

You stare shell shocked at the blond superstar soccer (football, you correct in your head) player next to you, as he begins to speak.

“Kein Problem.” He says smoothly, and you have to make a conscious effort to shut your slightly parted mouth as you continue to stare at him with widened eyes.

At this point, the best thing you could do for yourself would be to grab your ice cream, pay and leave before you embarrassed yourself, but unfortunately for you, your mouth didn’t catch the memo.

“S–Sind Sie Michael Kaiser?” You blurt out, before mentally face palming at the stupidity of your own question.

He laughs again, a slightly smug look on his face at being recognized before responding. “Ja, ich bin Michael Kaiser.”

You feel your cheeks start to burn in embarrassment as the realization dawns on you that you’re standing in front of a world class athlete in the middle of a grocery store in a wrinkly, old, oversized t-shirt and shorts.

“Sie möchte ein Autogramm?” He asks amusedly, giving you a subtle once over that you normally would have missed had you not been so self conscious.

“Ja, bitte.” You say, fishing for a pen and paper in your bag.

“...I don’t normally look like this, I swear.” You can’t help but add as you find your paper and pen, switching over to English out of a combination of embarrassment and lack of language knowledge.

“You don’t?” He asks lightly, humoring you and switching over to English before taking the pen and paper out of your hands. “I would have thought you looked like this everyday.”

“What, messy?” You ask in a light tone despite being slightly offended as he scribbles his name on the paper.

“No.” He says with a smirk as he finishes, handing you the paper. “Gorgeous.”

You blink at him for a moment before you feel your cheeks warm up again, averting your eyes to the side to avoid his gaze as you try to process the fact that a celebrity, more importantly, an attractive celebrity is flirting with you.

“Ah– um, well I– uh, thank you.” You eventually get out before willing yourself to look back at him, your stomach doing a flip as you see the same smirk on his lips that you’re used to seeing on TV.

“Kein Problem.” He repeats again, that same amused lilt in his voice.

“I mean–” You start again and you feel yourself regretting the fact that you decided to speak again. “For both uhm, the autograph and the compliment.”

You pause for a bit, unbelievably flustered, before you blurt out. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’m so awkward, I’m just gonna leave now.”

He laughs at this, his eyes seeming to soften a bit before he speaks in a quieter tone, almost as if he’s afraid to scare you off. “No you’re fine… it’s cute.”

Your heart thumps in your chest rapidly, like you’ve just gotten done running a marathon, and you feel the heat rush to your face along with a fluttering feeling in your stomach. All these sensations combine to force a rather undignified sound from deep within yourself, sounding equivalent to a mouse caught in a glue trap.

You feel your face heat up further from the strangled sound that emitted from your very being and scrunch your eyes shut for just a moment away from Kaiser’s prying gaze.

When he laughs, you feel the embarrassment return tenfold, although the fluttering feeling in your heart might just be also because of the rich timbre of his chuckle.

“Hey, look at me.” He says after a few seconds, and despite your longing to keep your eyes closed you can’t help but obey his command.

So, slowly you open your eyes, taking in the sight of his handsome visage, his lips quirked up in a smile and it almost feels painful how your heart thuds.

“...what?” You question weakly.

“Just needed your eyes on me for a second while I do this.” He says before leaning over ever so slightly to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear, his hand lingering at the apex of where your ear meets your cheek before finally pulling away.

“...” You can’t help the way you gape at him, momentarily speechless as he takes in your facial expression with his signature smirk.

“Sorry Liebling, your hair was bothering me.” He offers up as an explanation, but you can tell from the delighted gleam in his eye that he’s lying.

“Y–yeah, right.” You stutter out despite your best efforts to remain unphased and straighten up. “Anyways, it was nice meeting you, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“No, it was a pleasure.” He says smoothly, and you can’t help the twinge of jealousy that runs through you at his composed demeanor. “Take care, would you?”

“Of course, y-you too.” You manage to get out, and he smirks at you one last time before confidently striding away from you, leaving you slightly shell shocked in the ice cream aisle.

It would be a while before you fully collected your thoughts after you paid and exited the store, and that’s why perhaps you didn’t notice three things in particular.

One, that you forgot to pick up the goddamn ice cream that you were so looking forward to getting.

Two, that your beloved celebrity had also forgotten to get his ice cream that he was reaching for because he was also that flustered despite his confident demeanor.

And three, the little number written next to your autograph with the small written letters next to it “Ruf mich an <3”.

---

Taglist: @gigiiiiislife

#bllk x reader #blue lock x reader #blue lock #blue lock fluff #michael kaiser #michael kaiser x reader #michael kaiser x you #hopefully this is culturally accurate as well #I did my best I swear

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bangaveragewhitewine · 1 year ago

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I'm yours, all yours

Eddie Munson x Reader (bouncer x bartender, established relationship)

October 1991

It’s been over two months since you kissed Eddie Munson in the back alley of the dive bar you both work in. You had barely stopped kissing him ever since.

An autumn afternoon together shows you a little bit more of the man you’re falling in love with.

Word Count: 6.2K

Content / Warnings: Contains the main food groups - fluff, smut & hurt+comfort. Reader has some self doubt / anxious thoughts. This is 18+ - if you are not 18+ hit the back button and read something else. Oral (m receiving, minor f receiving), p-in-v sex. Feeeeelings. Eddie & Reader are mid twenties. Reader written as AFAB using fem pronouns.

This is best enjoyed after reading their origin story crazy-mad for you (part of the Happy Hours series)

Author’s note: I’m planning to follow CMFY with some one-shots from throughout Eddie & Bartender’s relationship. I have some loose ideas but this one came from a deleted scene I couldn’t squeeze into the main fic so reworked it! Beta’ed by @specialagentmonkey (theee best) Thank you for the love on CMFY! Reading your replies and reblogs and tags made my shitty wee brighter. Hope you enjoy this cosy peek and have a gorgeous day 🖤

It’s been over two months since you kissed Eddie Munson in the back alley of the dive bar you both work in. You had barely stopped kissing him ever since. Every moment your lips aren’t on each other is like a thousand paper-cuts to Eddie’s heart (so soft inside the facade of Mean Metalhead he has curated for himself). He makes you want to write his name next to yours in pink gel pen, framed with sparkly little hearts.

Two months and counting with Eddie and you learn something new about him every day; he loves tattoos but needles make his stomach twist, he meets his friend Steve once a month for a dude-date breakfast (but sees as much as he can of him and his other friends when their schedules line up), he sings with his band but needs at least five drinks before karaoke.

When you ask questions, when you're curious, he tells his long and meandering stories with wandering tangents which tell you so much about the man you’re falling in love with. He opens up to you, tells you things very few people know - about his mom, how he ended up with his Uncle Wayne. It hasn’t been long, but you already can’t wait to meet him.

Two whole months (closer to three really) and you’re sure you don’t want to ever have a single day without Eddie in your life, and your bed. And yet you still haven’t asked the question that has been on your mind since before you two ever got together.

It’s October now; Autumn is here and the city has turned chilly. Sweltering summer nights are no longer and you and Eddie have been spending afternoons and late nights when you’re not working watching your favourite horror films. When he had told you how much he loved Halloween - just as much as you, if not a wee bit more - you knew Eddie Munson was the one.

It’s Friday, late afternoon and you had reluctantly spent the night in your own apartment. The shame radiating from the mountain of laundry in the corner of your room had become too powerful to ignore and so you had forgone a night of being held and loved-on to tackle it and the other life-admin you had been ignoring. Eddie had suggested staying at your place, but you knew he would distract you too much with his kisses and touches (which he doled out generously whenever you were near).

You had missed your boyfriend terribly, almost like a missing limb or a gorgeous big parasite (affectionate) that you had grown more than fond of. Eddie had the night off work but still drove you to and from the bar, even stayed for a drink until Frank shooed him away for trying to distract you. You had missed him so much that you had kept him on the phone to talk a little longer when he got home before saying goodnight and promising you would see him before your shift together tomorrow. You had spent nights apart before, days and nights when you or Eddie had clashing schedules but you felt his absence more than ever today.

Your laundry and errands had never been completed with such efficiency as when you had the motivation of seeing Eddie as soon as they were ticked off your to-do list.

You arrived at his door and buzzed the intercom for his apartment, laden down with an overnight bag (over-weekend really) and Tupperware containers full of homemade soup and lasagna for before your shift at Jackie’s. Your cheeks are warm and you can feel heat prickling under your arms alongside the swelling of anticipation in your chest. Eddie buzzes you in and comes to meet you, a big grin on his face for his girl.

His hair is up in a messy bun, held in place by a black velvet scrunchie you insisted was his now. He looks cosy in sweats, a tank top and his red and black flannel which you know to be softer than soft. Eddie hadn’t even bothered with shoes, braving the stairs in his socks so that he could see you sooner. You match his smile when you catch sight of him; cosy Eddie is far from the leather-jacketed bouncer you had got to know.

When he sees how many bags you’re carrying, he rushes to lighten your load (doesn’t even skid on the tiles).

“You walked here with all that?! I could’a picked you up!” he said, shouldering your overnight bag before blessing you with a kiss.

“It’s like two blocks, not a marathon.” You roll your eyes at him but pout for another kiss anyway as he rings for the elevator.

Eddie will never refuse you a kiss. He pecks little smooches to your smile as it grows wider. “I missed you last night.”

“I missed you too.” You nudge his cheek with your nose, pecking at it like a little bird as the lift arrives; you step in ahead of him, pressing the button for the third floor with your now free hand.

He asks if you slept okay (not as well without him, but you don’t say that) and tells you about the bag of free bagels he scored as a thank you from the man who ran the deli a few doors down. The guy’s hand-truck had lost a wheel while he was taking in a delivery that morning and Eddie helped him out, fixed the wheel too. He knew how much you loved the bagels from there and it felt fateful that his reward was a bag of your favourite everything bagels.

“Neighbourhood hero,” you sing, following him into his one-bedroom flat. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Trigonometry. French. Um… skateboarding!” he lists, as he drops your bag inside his bedroom door. “I fucking suck at skateboarding.”

The thought of Eddie on a skateboard makes you smile - definitely a little meanly, what a dork - but you store that one for later.

The bag of Tupperware barely makes it to the kitchen counter before Eddie’s arms are around you, pulling you back against his chest. His nose presses into the base of your neck, huffing hot breaths against your sweet-smelling skin before kissing up his well-worn path.

“I really missed you,” he murmurs, hips nudging forward against your jean-clad behind for emphasis.

“Missed me or missed getting your dick sucked?” you ask, turning your head to look at him.

“Both. Mainly you.” His grin is impish as you turn to loop your arms around his neck, backed right up to the wiped-clean Formica. You let him lift you onto the counter so that he can stand between your spread knees.

“I missed you and your dick, so we’re even. And we have the whole weekend together to get reacquainted, huh?” You twist a loose curl around your finger, tugging to watch it spring and coil.

Eddie feels like a swooning maiden when he’s the centre of your attention like this, being flirted with. He loves it and he knows he’s in love with you. He had fallen first, long before you had even realised your banter at work was more than just that.

His fingers creep up your thighs, the silver glinting at you as you place your focus on making up for a night apart as you make out in his little kitchen.

Eddie smells shower-fresh, clean with a hint of spice, and the curls at the base of his neck are still a little damp. He shivers, giggling against your mouth when you run your finger down his spine. “Your nails are tickly,” he says with a pretend scowl.

You know he loves your nails on his back; when they’re digging in like claws to leave him littered with red scratches, and when they’re tickling up and down in soothing strokes as he’s falling asleep.

He takes your hand and brings it around to see the fresh coat of deep red on your nails. “You painted them!” he says, his nose scrunches cutely when you poke it.

“I did. The black was getting chipped and gross.” You brought the black polish anyway in case he wanted to try it out again, thrown somewhere in your make-up bag.

Eddie rests his chin on your chest; your breasts have become his favourite place to lay his head, closely followed by the squishy pillow of your thigh (there’s a third-place tie between your tummy and your butt). You dot kisses to his forehead beneath the shaggy bangs, trailing up into his hair when he presses his face against your soft sweater.

“Eddie?” “Hmm.” His voice is muffled. “You hungry?”

His head turns so you can hear him more clearly, “Hungry for you.”

Hopeful mischief twinkles in his hot-chocolate eyes when he peers up at you.

“Horndog.” “Yes?” “Gross boy.” “Unh, yes. Say more dirty things to me, baby.”

He has a look of hammed-up ecstasy on his face, scrunched brow and bitten lip. Even though you know he’s pretending, it makes the horny cavewoman part of your brain think about his face when he is actually deep inside you or desperate for your touch - it makes your tummy feel like lava. One night apart makes you realise just how bad you’ve got it for him. You shove at his head and Eddie leans back with a throaty giggle before squeezing your hips again.

To balance out your playful push and satiate the need building in your gut, you pull him in for a kiss - open-mouthed with the dirty slide of tongue that sounds loud in your ears. Your legs wrap around him, arms tighten.

“Carry me?” “Bed?” “Sofa, bed. Wherever.” “Potato, tomato.” “Eddie.”

He sweeps you off the counter - you’re still surprised and impressed at his strength until you remember him lifting the barrels and kegs at work. You reward him with distracting kisses as he carries you to the soft brown couch and smile up at him when he lays you down gently. He forgets about gentle as he removes his shirt and pounces on you, resuming your dirty kisses from the kitchen.

Merlot-red nails push the hem of Eddie’s tank top up his pale back, slipping beneath to pull him tighter to you between your thighs. You can already feel him growing hard; you nip at his lower lip and kiss away the sting.

“Sit up for a sec.” You tap his side but Eddie needs to kiss you just a little bit more before he can pull himself away.

“Where you goin’?” he asks, a little breathless. Blown-black pupils eat up the brown warmth with his voracious want; he watches as you sit up on your knees and pull your cosy sweater off, then the white vest beneath, leaving you in your creamy silk bra and blue jeans.

“Pretty,” Eddie whispers, his fingers brushing the little bow between your breasts. He was in awe of your little collection of bras, the matching underwear too. He even loved you in the cotton comfy pants that hugged just right when your cramps ached.

“Sit back against that end. And take your pants off, handsome.” You smile when he stares at you, “Do you need help?”

Eddie barely shakes his head as he wriggles out of his sweatpants and sits where you told him to. You balance each other out, taking turns to take the lead. You’re still learning, and despite Eddie’s non-academic tendencies, he’s studious and dedicated to learning what you like, where and how to touch you. You’re his favourite subject and he’s yours too.

You smile and knee-walk across the chasm between you, situating yourself between his legs to take his face in your hands and kiss him. He makes a small joyful noise when you begin to kiss down to his jaw and nuzzle at the dusting of stubble.

“Smell good,” you murmur, teasing delicate skin with your teeth before bestowing him sucking a wet kiss, enough to leave just a hint of a bruise there. It makes Eddie groan quietly, a desperate little noise at the back of his throat. He’s louder when you slip your fingers down his chest and into the waistband of his black boxers - they have little skulls on them.

“Cute,” you run your thumb over the elastic at the top as your knuckles brush his cock. Almost an echo of Eddie’s assessment of your bra moments ago.

Hips push up, almost like an electric shock. There’s a tiny noise that you just about hear, deep back in his throat, a quiet grunt as Eddie covers your hand and shows you what he needs. His pretty lashes flutter as you look at each other, sparking fire in your gut again. You smile and move your hand away, halting his protest by pulling the black cotton down his thighs to drop them on the floor.

You can feel saliva pooling under your tongue when you see him - you really did miss him, all of him, while you were apart. He’s thick and a few centimetres over average length; a nice dick (rare and wonderful) and he knows what to do with it to leave you brainless and whimpering. Eddie gets one more kiss before you make yourself comfy, lying on your tummy between his legs. Little kisses are peppered on his hairy thighs, over the black and shadow of ink, before you take him in your hand, then your mouth.

Eddie is in awe of how pretty you look like this, how your lashes kiss your cheekbones and the stretch of your lips (he goes a little crazy if you’re wearing lipstick too, really gets him going). His breath comes hard through his nose as you tongue the head of him, press against the thick vein before taking as much as you can into your mouth.

“Shit,” he growls, feeling your nails on his thigh as you begin to bob your head steadily. His hips and thighs tense and spread a little wider, needy, as he keeps himself in check. Your other hand holds the base of him, what you haven’t yet tried to fit into that pretty mouth.

“Look at my girl, so gorgeous,” he murmurs, smiling when your lashes flutter. His girl. “So pretty.”

You hum affirmative, taking more in when his head tips back to show off his pale throat and the little mark you left behind. His jaw tenses, twitches and you begin the slow bob of your head again. You look up past your lashes, watching his brow crease when you take him all the way.

“Shit shit shit,” his voice is a breathy growl that bleeds into a louder moan when he sees you looking up at him - his devil woman. “You’re going to kill me someday with that mouth, huh?” he says. The shake in his voice betrays him as he tries to act a little smooth, a little more together as you’re taking him apart.

You bob your head, imitating a nod, and bring your hand down to squeeze and roll his neglected balls for good measure. That makes him howl and he covers his face with his arm while you let that playful hand take over so you can catch your breath.

“Y’okay?” you ask, resting your cheek against his thigh as you move your hand a little faster.

“Mhmm, peachy,” he replies, eyes a little wild. You love the pink blush on his usually pale cheeks, love knowing that he’s like this because of you.

Eddie strokes your cheek as you take the head of him back between your lips, a tender little caress of his thumb that makes you close your eyes and lean in. You feel hot and slick between your legs, push your hips to the sofa cushion just a little to temper the ache.

He catches the little motion and his jaw drops a little - it clears his head just a little, zeroing in on you through his haze of arousal. “Oh my girl feelin’ needy too?” he asks, thumb pushing gently against your cheek.

You move your mouth off of him and nod, turning your head to kiss his palm. “Told’ju I missed you.”

Eddie’s grin can’t be contained. “C’mere then.” His hands run over your back, coaxing you into his lap.

Once you have rid yourself of your jeans and underwear you take up your throne on Eddie’s thighs. Your appetite for each other meant that he had started storing condoms in practically every room - there's a fresh box on the coffee table, bought that morning after he saw how low the reserves were.

Your arms wind around his neck, pressing yourself against Eddie as he kisses you again. Fingers drift between your legs, feeling just how slick you are for him - a combination of missing him and seeing the effect of your mouth on his face. You feel his smile against your mouth as you seek a deeper dirtier kiss, sucking that plump lower lip between your own.

One guitar-string scarred finger is joined by a second, rubbing slow firm circles that make you moan into his mouth. They press inside and his thumb takes up that slow wet rub, pulling more little needy noises from your lips as you take him back into your hand.

Hands and wrists cramp easily at this angle and you take a moment to pull back, biting your kiss-bruised lip before turning around on your hands and knees to present yourself to Eddie. Peeking over your shoulder with a cheeky smile, you see how his eyes blaze before grabbing for the box of Durex. You hide your grin against your arm when you hear him swearing at the plastic wrapping, calling the box ‘a fuckin’ shitbag’ when his nails struggled for purchase against it. There’s a tiny ‘yes!’ when he finally breaks in and you laugh quietly at you listen to the familiar tear-open of foil.

On his knees, he bends to kiss the rounds of your ass, then dips lower to taste you just once. “Fuckin’ so sweet,” he murmurs, wishing he had the willpower to not follow his dick that afternoon and dive into you instead - but there’s always later.

You gasp-giggle at the feeling of his tongue and rock back when you see him line himself up. “Please?” Your lips push into a playful pout, “Show me how much you missed me?” You love winding him up like this.

One side of his mouth curves up as he holds your hip, rubs the head against you to play you at your own game before pushing all the way in. Your jaw drops open, feeling full as Eddie rocks his hips minutely. You can feel him pushed right up against you inside and out, his thighs against the back of yours before he begins a deep dragging thrust.

“Shit, you feel good,” he murmurs, stroking your hip lovingly. “That’s it, baby. Let me take care of you.”

You nod, hating that you can’t see him despite how good this angle is for you both. “Eddie,” you whimper, feeling yourself flutter around him.

“Yeah, that’s who’s making you feel good, sweet thing. I’ve got you.” He squeezes your hip, the silver of his rings biting into the doughy softness as he watches his length disappear inside you over and over as he begins to get quicker and harder with his thrusts.

Your eyes nearly roll back as he pounds into you, fingers gripping the arm of the couch - it’s about the only thing keeping you up as Eddie fucks you and runs his mouth. It feels so good you can barely speak.

“That’s my girl. Going all cock-dumb on me?” he asks, squeezing the meat of your ass a little harder, watching it jiggle and bounce with his thrusts. “I’ll make you feel good like this every day if you let me. S’what you deserve, getting fucked like you need, huh?”

Your answering moan is spurred on not only by his words but the graze of his length on your g-spot. “Eddie, god! Yes, right there,” your voice is a babble, the words running into each other ‘yesrigh’there’ as it becomes the only thing you can say.

The pulsing gush around him, hot wet heat, makes Eddie moan with you. “I know, baby. I know.” His back teeth press together as he holds on, the cord of pleasure pulled tight in his pelvis. The slapping pounding sound fills the room but he can only hear you, almost crying with pleasure.

“Close,” you murmur, slumped forward a little more. The angle arches your back, pulls Eddie deeper. Your groan is shaky, broken with want.

“Me too, baby. Got me so wound up,” he murmurs. “Can you touch yourself for me?” He watches your hand move back between your legs, feels the graze of your fingers as you bring yourself closer, small tight circles that sync up with his punishingly good pace.

“Fuck! Eddie,” you whimper, feeling the inferno in your belly burn bright and hot as you see stars, tears springing as you come hard.

“Shit shit, that’s my girl. Oh yeah, fuck,” he grinds out, continuing his thrusts as your body shakes with pleasure. Eddie folds over you, wrapping his arms around you to bring you back into his lap like a rag doll. He can’t bear to not be as close to you as humanly possible as he nears his own orgasm, mouth pressed to your neck to kiss and pant against it as he hammers into you.

His fingers trail down, finding a quick rhythm that brings you to a shock of a second climax, shorter but no less intense than the first. You feel boneless, yet manage to pull his hand away when it becomes too much, holding his arm around your middle as the other curls up and loops around his neck. Your lips find their way to Eddie’s jaw, pressing wet kisses there. Your eyes are heavy, and yet you see the moment he falls apart.

His eyes close, face creasing in beautiful blissful agony as he comes holding you in his lap, your name on his tongue.

Your chest feels heavy, breath synced up as your fingers stroke up against his scalp, past the flyaways. He kisses you messily, so slow and without the same hurry he had mere moments ago.

Your noses brush against each other’s warm cheeks, lazy smiles pressing kisses as hands smooth and caress wherever is in reach. You feel fuzzy around the edges, warm all over with Eddie plastered to your back. You would both gladly overheat to stay like this a bit longer. Eddie’s lean arms are the only thing holding you together right now, grounded syrupy-sweet kisses that bond the broken bits back into place.

“Wanna see my girl,” he murmurs after a few moments mouthing at your shoulder, “Easy, babe.” Eddie’s hands on your waist help you to move from his lap, unsheathing him from your body. He wraps the condom in a tissue before lying back, inviting you into his arms with grabby hands.

You bring the blanket from the back of the sofa with you when you lie against his chest, sharing love-drunk kisses as you bask in the glow of each other.

It’s bright-cold outside the steamed-up windows; the afternoon sun lights the room. His neighbours will surely hate you, but when Eddie strokes his tongue against yours you forget to care.

You brush his sweaty bangs away and press a kiss to the centre of his forehead before resting your head against his chest, tucked under his chin as his hand finds yours. He kisses your knuckles and smiles down at you.

“Y’okay?” he checks, rosy-cheeked bright-eyed and deliriously happy. Sometimes he feels the need to pinch himself when he realises the woman he had been pining for is now his girlfriend. One time you had been lying together smoking and watching a rerun of Twin Peaks and he had actually asked you to pinch him - his nipple had ached for the rest of the night but at least he knew it was all real. And you had kissed it better.

Now you smile lazily up at him, real and cosy in his arms. “Never better,” you promise. Your nose scrunches when he kisses it and calls you his little bunny to make you laugh.

Eddie lights a cigarette and holds it to your lips when you’re too comfy to move. It brings you both back to the real world, back from the plain of absolute bliss. It’s quiet, neither feeling the need to fill the comfortable silence until your curiosity gets the better of you.

“Where’d you get them?” you ask, lifting your joined hands to finally speak the question you have been meaning to ask. Your fingers slot between Eddie’s, palm to palm, as you admire the silver.

“Been kinda building a little collection since school. Thrift shops mainly.” Eddie shrugs one shoulder; he’s careful not to jostle you too much as you lie against his chest. He pauses to catch a fallen eyelash on your cheek, holding it out to you to blow away. You smile a little and lift your head to wish for a thousand more afternoons like this.

“I have two nice ones; my friends pooled together for a graduation present for me, and the other one, this one,” Eddie shows you his right middle finger, a harmless flip-off to show you the black enamel heart with wings that he always wears. It’s smaller, less outrightly demonic than the others. The rest of his rings are swapped out, usually a lucky dip into a little dish on his bedside table, but this one stays on. “Bought this one for myself when the band went on tour. Something to remember, y’know?”

You had heard about Corroded Coffin’s big opportunity last year, playing a few dates as an opening act for a bigger metal band. Your thumb runs over the warm metal as he begins to speak again.

“It was the last day of tour and I was so fuckin’ tired. We were kinda convinced that we were going to be discovered or something, and the crowds really liked us but… it didn’t happen how we had planned.”

You expect to hear sadness in his voice but there is none. Maybe a hint of resignation that their dream hadn’t become reality.

“Me and Gareth had a fight on the last morning, both of us were hungover as fuck and antsy because it was all going to be over in a few hours. So I stormed off to get breakfast and clear my head, or get more fucked up.” Eddie’s little smile doesn’t meet his eyes; they look a little bit more glossy than usual. “It was my Mom’s birthday and I felt like shit. I would say I found this little jeweller-silversmith place but I think it found me.”

You squeeze Eddie tighter, feeling like he’s letting you see a whole new part of him. A beautiful little sentimental part that houses and holds dear the other woman he loved and the little boy he was when he lost her.

“It was way more money than I should have spent on something so small, but it felt right I couldn’t leave it behind y’know? I went in and it was right there.” His eyes sparkle as he remembers that feeling of all-over calm he felt that day in the little shop. “Went back and apologised to Gare and we played the last show, definitely our best one.”

You lean up and press a soft kiss to his mouth, “That’s a sweet story, Ed. Thank you for telling me.” Your voice is a whisper against his pillowy lips; you kiss those lips again and feel the silver against your cheek as Eddie kisses you back. Your chest feels like it could burst and there’s an annoying pressure at the back of your eyes.

“You’re gonna laugh at me but..” Eddie rolls his eyes and leans his head back against the arm of the sofa. He figures out his words before speaking again. “It’s like, everything happened for a reason - we didn’t get a big break but we’re all happy. Gareth got into art school, Jeff moved out of his Mom’s place and… I met you.”

Silence.

His honesty winds you, it hits you so hard in the chest that you can barely fathom the flurry of feelings like wings battering your chest from the inside. Your lower lip wobbles. Eddie is dead serious too; you know he’s not saying it to be playful. He has so much love in his battered heart and it oozes from him.

Eddie was expecting you to scoff or roll your eyes, call him ‘soft boy’ or something. Maybe a very small part of him thought you might brush him off (he didn’t let himself dwell on that bit). He certainly wasn’t expecting the teary look in your eyes.

“Shit, baby.” He thumbs your cheek and pouts back at you, pressing the sweetest kiss to your lips; so sweet and slow like the maple syrup you have been adding to your coffees now that it’s Fall. “I mean it. If things went differently, if I didn’t come back, I wouldn’t have met the sexy new bartender, huh?”

You smile, laugh a little wetly and try to blame the post-sex rush for being weepy. “I guess I’m a little bit glad you came back to be annoying. Super selfish of me.”

You can’t help but think that there might be some parallel universe where you’re still shaking cocktails in Jackie’s but Eddie’s on stage opening for Metallica, Corroded Coffin at the top of the charts. With that thought comes a deep-sinking feeling that maybe someday you might not be enough and he will want that rockstar life; groupies, supermodels, a pretty blonde actress on his arm.... Not you.

Eddie kisses you again and pulls you close, cocooning the pair of you in the blanket. You find his hand to kiss the black enamel heart before resting your head, cheek to chest.

You have never felt so in love, nor have you felt so scared. Eddie feels lighter now that he has said out loud the thought about fate that has been rattling around his skull for too long. He feels your arms wrapping tighter around him, like he might disappear.

He presses his smiling lips fiercely to the crown of your head. “What’s goin’ on in here, huh? I can hear that big brain thinkin’ up a storm.” He thinks over everything he said; was he coming on too strong?

“I just really really like you, Ed,” you whisper, squeezing your eyes shut. Telling him that felt so easy; maybe if you weren’t being sucked into an internal doom spiral you could play it up and roll your eyes, pretend it was icky to like him.

“Yeah? I really really like you too.” Your admission makes his heart sing; Eddie tries to temper his smile but can’t. He won’t pretend he’s not head over heels for you, he’d give you a vital organ if you needed it - hell, his heart was already yours.

He cups your cheek again, coaxing you to look at him. “What else? You’re like… a scared little bunny right now.” He concentrates all his love into how he’s holding you as if it could be transferred like magic from his fingertips.

“I just...”

He doesn’t force you to go on when you hide your face in his chest, feeling so stupid for being emotional. Your eyes burn, and he wishes he could be whatever you need right now. He’s not used to seeing his bossy flirty girl so unsure of herself; it makes him love you a little more. He looks up at the ceiling and squeezes your body gently.

“Hey. You don’t have to say anything, just listen okay? I’m serious about you, about... Everything I feel for you.” His voice shakes minutely but he takes a moment, stroking your back to centre himself. “I’m not going to up and leave someday to be a rockstar without you. I need you. Okay? You’re my girl. Best thing that’s happened to me in so so long.” Eddie presses a fiercely loving kiss to your head. “I’m yours, all yours.”

A tiny shaky sob escapes your throat, leaving you embarrassed. “I’m your girl,” you nod, looking up to see Eddie’s sentimental smile, his wet brown eyes. Your voice is thin and wobbly, like a broken pencil. “I’m so fuckin’ happy with you, Eddie.”

Neither of you says it, but ‘I love you’ is woven into your confessions, binding you together as you share that moment on Eddie’s squishy, comfy sofa.

You tilt your head to exchange teary-wet kisses, wobbly smiles on your lips as you begin to feel calmer.

“My baby,” he murmurs. “Don’t bottle shit up, okay? Doesn’t help.” He cups your face, wiping the last stray tears from your cheeks and presses kisses there as a balm.

“I know. I feel stupid for getting upset, it’s like so early for us..” You look down at his chest, trace the black ink you can reach before looking at his pretty face. You know it’s so early, so why get ahead of yourself when Eddie’s already made you a promise? You take a breath, close your eyes and focus on what you really want, “When can I come to see Corroded Coffin play?”

Eddie grins, laughs a little throaty. They had taken a little break after tour, played a few bars in the Spring to make sure they didn’t rust up. With Gareth settled back in college, they were ready to get back into it.

“We’re trying to get a gig for the end of the month. Andy knows a guy putting on a night close to Halloween. Jeff’s the organised one though, I’ll check with him tonight.” He kisses your head and smiles. “I gotta get you a shirt, huh?”

“Mhm, yes please. I heard the lead singer is so hot,” you say, smiling a little when he makes a happy noise deep in his throat. “Might throw my bra on stage if he’s as good as they say…” The thought of seeing your man on stage - your man - makes your tummy flutter.

“Yeah? Shit, lucky guy.”

You look up at Eddie and move yourself to rest your forehead against his. “The luckiest. I’m the luckiest girl though.” You mean it too, sealing it with a kiss.

Eddie cups the back of your head, pressing the loveliest kisses to your mouth. “Lucky fuckers,” he murmurs. You trade kisses back and forth, chasing lazy happy smiles for ‘just one more?’ until you need to move.

“Can I shower? Feel sweaty.” Your time together before work is already ticking away, though you’ve made excellent use of it so far.

“Can I come watch? I mean wash your back?” he asks, walking his fingers down your spine with a coy little smile.

“You just want to see soapy boobs,” you tut, looping your arms around his neck as he sits up, taking you with him.

“What guy doesn’t want to see soapy boobs?” he asks, incredulous at the thought.

You kiss the corner of his mouth, humming in agreement, “You still got that disposable camera?”

Eddie’s eyes go wide - you half expect his heart to beat out of his chest, eyes on stalks like a babbling cartoon. “Yes ma’am.”

He dumps you off his lap onto the sofa to root for the camera in his room. The sound of his sweary search carry down the hall as you laugh up at the ceiling.

You love him. You absolutely love Eddie Munson. He’s very easy to love.

Later, when you’re showered clean (a process which required getting just a little bit dirty again with Eddie worshipping you on his knees in the shower) and full-bellied after the dinner you had brought, you and Eddie get ready for work side-by-side in his room.

You’re putting mascara on in his mirror, humming to Queen despite Eddie’s protests, when you hear him call your name.

“Mhm?”

Eddie’s dressed in a black Henley and some jeans - his leather boots and jacket to go on next. You see the glint of silver around his neck as he nods for you to join him on the bed.

“Help me pick what rings to wear?” he asks, voice soft and tentative.

Your heart skips and you nod, crossing the gap to perch on his lap as you pick three more for him to wear - an upside-down cross, a very mean-looking skull, a silver signet ring with ‘EM’ engraved (the gift from his friends for graduation).

He lets you choose where they go and watches as you slip them onto his long fingers. “Perfect,” he murmurs, linking your hands together.

“Pretty damn perfect,” you agree, kissing the back of his hand so he will show you that bright and beaming grin.

You love him, you love him, you love him. And Eddie? He already can’t wait to put a ring on your finger.

Thank you for reading! Likes, reblogs and comments are absolutely adored and cherished ❤️

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thelastofhyde · 1 month ago

Text

the likeability complex.

chapter 3. the butterfly theory.

pairing. joel miller x fem!reader

synopsis. two seasons pass before joel’s very eyes and, without the presence of his sol, neither the spring nor the summer seem to heat his aching bones. what’s meant to be a simple drop off at bill and frank’s becomes a whirlwind of events that send you barrelling right back into joel’s arms, and all it takes is one horrified shriek: otis is missing!

warnings. no use of y/n ( reader has the nickname of sol ), grumpy x sunshine dynamic, unspecified age-gap ( but i personally picture the reader to be mid-20s at this point in the story ), pining, love as obsession, mention of previous s.a. & miscarriage, death, reader is implied to have had a good relationship with her mom, smut ( handjobs, male masturbation, dry humping, joel is desperate and begging, fantasies of piv, oral sex, and anal sex, mentions of virginity loss/younger joel having been a milf lover )

word count. 14.3k

hyde’s input. instead of addressing the reasons it took so long for this part to come out, let me address this instead: joel miller is a man who loves himself some prone bone! nothing gets that old man off quite like fucking his lover down into the mattress, the carpet, the dirt-floor, full body weight pressed against them, head buried in the crook of their necks as he literally smothers them with his love. in this essay i will...

read on ao3. series masterlist. previous chapter. following chapter

Time, as a matter of fact, does not fly.

At some point, Joel may have claimed it ticked, from one minute to another, until the hours passed by and another day’s work was done. He can no longer agree with this sentiment, for a multitude of reasons. For starters — and perhaps the most obvious — a broken clock may be right twice a day, but it is eternally silent. The dials on his wrist stopped ticking long ago and, with it, so did time.

So maybe time crawls. Slow as a newborn finds its feet, over carpeted floors and through cramped spaces. It seems to do so in spring, the tease of the impending heat of a summer’s sun on his back while the fading chill of winter in the breeze messes his overgrown hair. Joel can almost feel himself bending to match it’s slow crawl, his knees aching, a few of his fingers breaking — the consequence of a sloppy punch, thumb trapped beneath his four curled fingers, thrown without a second thought at the sight of one of Robert’s lowlifes placing a filthy hand on Tess. At the very least, the asshole’s nose burst with a bloody red, a reminder of the roses in Frank’s garden.

The trading is kept to the boundaries of their gates this season and, no matter how hard he twists his neck, nor how far lets his eyes run off ahead of him, there is no glimpse of a skirt billowing in the wind, nor the sound of smile-woven words. Just Bill, face as scrunched up as a constipated hole, gruffing out the bare-minimum of words to let Tess know one of his generators is starting to fail, before handing over a list of things they’ll need to bring with their next visit.

Joel cranes his neck one last time before departing and, still, there’s no sight of you.

Summer brings a whole new meaning to things and, thus, time begins to flow, like a river swimming towards the sanction of the ocean. The days wash away, sleepless nights slip into hellish mornings. The couch is being used so much that Joel’s indent has become stained into its very fabric.

This time, they are let in. Bill needs the help, in over his head with how easily he’d be able to fix the failing generator, and so they wind up being pulled through the gates and presented with the dying power source. Bill still wears a frown, even as he thanks Joel for fixing the damned thing. The four sit and break bread at a table, that seat which sits directly across from his empty in a way that he can’t avoid or ignore. The nerves to ask why you aren’t around never quite work themselves up.

What, or better said who, he does see is Otis. And what a relief it is to be sent near stumbling to his feet, the fully grown beast’s size a laughable contrast to its excited whines and wagging tail. He lets himself be tricked into taking the dog for a walk, in which every kick of Otis’ legs reminds Joel that his sol is still here, hiding in plain sight, not a single hope in hell that you’d leave your fur-friend behind.

In Autumn, the leaves begin to fall.

Joel’s dwindling hope seems to follow.

Time has become a threat. A jagged rock clasped in the hands of a volatile assailant. It is the impending feeling of bracing for impact, only for it to never hit. Because a threat can no longer be a threat once it is enacted, and time is no longer quite time once it passes by.

In between the pause of the present and the future, that is where time sits.

And, on either side of it, Joel and Bill occupy a seat.

“‘S quiet,” Joel’s not talking about the tense silence that has blanketed the past ten or so minutes, however long it’s been since the two were left in no company but one another’s.

Bill, aware of his implications or not, shrugs. “Is that a problem?”

Joel shakes his head, and swallows down that lump he gets in his throat every time he lies. He’s been doing that more often than he’d like recently, lying.

To Tess, whenever she’d ask him where he disappears to, slipping out of their shared bed in the middle of the night. She’d not enjoy the truth of him pacing the living room and lamenting upon the cracked leather of their couch.

To FEDRA, when a group of so-called soldiers ambushed him in demands to know why he’d been spotted attempting to smuggle a dress. They’d not believed the tale he spun of it belonging to Tess.

And, to himself, when he’s searching for answers of what’s been keeping him awake at night. Between the cries of whom he lost, and the moans of who he desires, he’s a sleepless wreck.

Laughter comes from another room. The distant duo of Tess and Frank bring more life to this deadly atmosphere than either of the two tense men. Theirs is a complicated relationship. No smiles exchanged, no warmth shared. Respect seems to be the glue that holds them together, a mutual understanding between natural protectors. Just as Joel snaps his bones without hesitation on behalf of Tess, Bill double-locks the doors and secures the perimeter each night as Frank and you lay sound asleep.

With this in mind, Joel treads with care as he descends further into the topic at hand. He decides to treat his own self the same way he’d once taught a stubborn curly haired girl to swim: throwing himself into the deep end.

“Ain’t seen much of your...” He pauses, considers what word best suits Bill’s affections for you. He finds himself at a loss. “The girl. She doin’ alright?”

That’s it, he’ll keep it casual.

Passive, hardly-caring.

Totally not headache-inducing each time a new tally is added to how many days it’s been since he’d last seen you — two hundred and four, but who’s keeping count?

“She’s fine,” the answer is curt. A coughed out sort of thing, heaved out of Bill like it aches to even speak. He’s not entertaining Joel’s longing.

“That’s... good, yeah,” he’s not sure he believes his answer. Good has never sounded so distasteful. “I’ll let Tess know, give ‘er some peace of mind. She’s been wonderin’-”

“Cut the shit,” Bill barks over at him. “You aren’t asking for Tess.”

He could try lie, again. Play the innocent, shrug his shoulders or furrow his brows, an image to mock what could be confusion. But the other man would see right through him, each and every time. Joel has no choice but to surrender. “Where’s she been? Can’t remember the last time I saw her.”

“Didn’t realise you were keeping count.” Is it that obvious? Perhaps he needs to adopt a new method of going about the ways in which he approaches the subject of you. Does Bill know he’d gone back to your room that night, instead of the toilet? The man has a fondness for cameras, perhaps he set one up in your room, or all over the house. Joel’s heart-rate spikes as he wonders if there’s one in the kitchen. “She’s out.”

Out.

A simple enough word, yet it crashes down on Joel like a ten-ton bag of dynamite, imploding his thoughts and reality. Because out to Bill means something far different than merely being out of this house. Out means beyond the electrified gates. Out means danger, someplace Joel can’t stomach the thought of you being, much less if it’s without him.

“You sure that’s the right thing to do?”

“I don’t need your opinion on how I raise-” Bill cuts himself off with a deep breath. He clears his throat. “I don’t need your opinion on how I take care of my people. She’s a smart girl, and it’s not her first time. She’s been going on solo runs since the end of winter.”

An act you’d never have been able to achieve, had he not taught you how to hold your own behind the wheel. That fact alone is enough to send bile burning to the back of his throat. He’s scorned you with the ability to put yourself in harm’s way.

A question of why seems to slip past his lips as his own thoughts abuse his heart, the word sounding far too pathetic and pleading for a man of Joel’s stature, reputation and morals.

“We’re old, she isn’t. There’s gonna come a day where she’s alone and needs to choose if she wants to stay here or move on.” The other man’s risen from his seat, paying no mind to the way the legs of it screech against the hardwood floor. He speaks passively, as though he’s merely reciting the weather as opposed to speaking of the approaching closing of the curtains on his life, and where that would leave the most valuable possession Joel could only ever dream to smuggle: alone, defenceless, in need of a new home. He too could use a new home these days. “And if she doesn’t get a choice and has to run, she needs to be able to adapt. She needs to know how to survive out in that shit-hole of a world.”

Ask me, the words crack like thunder in his head and shake his very core. Ask it of me, and I’ll make sure she’s never alone.

Bill never asks.

The floorboards creak behind Bill as he makes his way to retrieve his partner, leaving Joel to his solitude without the sparing of another word.

Scanning the room, Joel lets himself indulge in the freedom to be curious, to let his eyes wander for more than a few threatened seconds in which he runs the risk of a frowning Bill ringing his neck for snooping.

The place is homey, that has never been in doubt.

The first time he ventured inside nearly left him retching on their bathroom floor, skin chilled and eyes burning as that uncanny-valley feeling overtook his guts. Playin’ house, that’s what he’d proclaimed to Tess on that first journey back to the QZ. Rest ‘f us are out here fightin’ for the right to exist, and these two assholes are playin’ house.

The misplaced anger was truly Joel’s green eyed envy.

And his own self-hatred.

Maybe if he’d been prepared like Bill, he’d have less blood on his hands. Maybe if he’d foreseen the day that shit would hit the fan, he’d never have felt how thick her blood ran, through his fingers and down his arms. Maybe if he thought smarter, worked harder, all his losses would have been nothing but a whisper in passing winds, brushing past him and taking the impending storm they promised over to the next unfortunate bastard.

A polaroid picture captures his attention, pulling him away from the edge of his mountain of self-loathing thoughts.

It lures him out from the safety of the dining table and over towards a cabinet. Meaningless memorabilia and porcelain trinkets decorate the ageing furniture, a blob of motionless browns, tans and beiges that seem to match the colourless feeling in his chest. Among it, a burst of red. Joel has it in his grasp in a matter of seconds, calloused hands likely tainting the image with his fingerprints, and blinks in an attempt to focus his ageing eyes.

When the haze settles, you greet him.

You look young, younger than you are now. Your hair seems just that tad lighter with the sun’s rays shining a spotlight somewhere off-camera to the right. There’s a cheek-splitting grin across your lips, while bags puff out from beneath your closed eyes, lines to match his own crow’s feet forming under the pressure of your radiant joy. The image cuts off just below your shoulders and captures how your two hands sit parallel at either side of your chin, the source of the red gripped in each of them: strawberries. One for each hand. The left has a chunk bitten out of it, a perfect match to the shape of your mouth and the red tint at the corner of your lips. But it’s the right hand that holds his attention, it’s grip on him as powerful as your hand on the strawberry. He imagines you were excited, buzzing with too much energy and with no place to put it, your nimble fingers resorting to burying it in the layers of the fruit, the tips of your nails stabbing into the surface of the berry.

As his gaze traces the grainy image of berry-blood pouring down your fingers and over the back of your hand, he pictures his heart in the place of the red fruit. He’d want you to squeeze tighter, dig your nails in until you’re knuckles deep and his blood paints you, dripping off your elbow.

The thought of whether you washed your hand after the image was taken, or merely shrugged and licked the juice off yourself sparks his curiosity.

He snuffs the flame out before it can make itself too comfortable.

Getting the polaroid back into place feels an impossible task, with Joel’s shaky hands and prone-to-overthinking brain not willing to work together to get it back to where it originally sat, to where Bill won’t immediately notice it’s been tampered with the next time he so much as walks past it.

His eyes catch onto the faded black marker at the bottom of the picture. Baby’s first harvest, ‘13.

It sparks a memory in him, one of hearing your overexcited whispers over the radio-com at an hour far too late to justify being awake, Tess’ figure scooted down to the bottom of the mattress in an attempt to not waken him. Strawberries, Tess, you’d gushed in excitement, voice so pure he could feel it cleansing away all the sins stained within his fingerprints. We grew strawberries! You need to come visit soon! Do you think Joel likes strawberry jam?

He does like strawberry jam.

And he’d been afraid you’d never give him another batch after his dismissive acceptance of it the first time. The growing collection of empty jars he keeps are evidence of the truth, the yearly harvest of the berries bringing him the promise of something to feed his sweet-tooth.

With a baritone growl from his stomach, Joel’s attention carries him off into the kitchen, eyes struggling to look past the spot of the counter he’d had you pressed up against. Only now, standing within the room, does he realise he’d not been in it since that night.

His mouth runs dry at the memory.

This time, it is not through messy scoops of water that he chooses to quench this thirst. Instead, he zeroes in on the large bowl of ripened strawberries that sit atop the counter and digs, till his fingers wrap around the largest, reddest, juiciest looking one of the bunch.

Heaven makes a home on his taste buds with just one bite.

Tangy, fruity, fresh. Wet on his tongue, delicious in his mouth. It paints him memories of you, hand grasping the hem of your own skirt, hips tilting ever-so-slightly back and thighs shaking under the stress of his teasing tongue.

A second bite, a whole new wave of sensations.

His body, with a mind of its own, awakens the pumping of blood down to his crotch. Replaying the sound of your knife falling from your grasp, his cock hardens within the confines of worn-out jeans.

If he were to disappear off into the bathroom to rub one out, would the others even notice?

Perhaps he could take a detour, get lost on his way to that familiar toilet. The third door. It would creak upon opening, but maybe he could cover it with a cough, or simply pray the other three remain too far away to notice. From what he can remember, he’d be able to reach your bed with four steps. Sit on your sheets, bask in their warmth, their softness, their smell of you. Wind his hand down beneath his belt, grip his aching cock as he bathes in your unpresent presence. Stain your sheets in the thick, creamy white poison that shoots out his tip. How long would it take you to notice it painted on the back of your pillowcase? Would it happen instantly, or would it be late into the night, nothing but a lamp to light up the room, as you sleepily flip it over in search of the cold side, only to lay your face back down and be met with the sticky substance against your cheek? Would you lick it clean, drag the tip of your nail through it before caressing that very same finger over your pretty clit and-

“Ok, so I didn’t manage to get, like, anything you guys asked for! But, guess what I did find?”

Joel nearly chokes on the stem of the strawberry.

That voice.

Too kind to be Bill, too lively to be Tess, too feminine to be Frank.

It’s all you, rambling over excited breaths and stumbling around your words. He can’t see you yet, and it nearly kills him to not run off in search of the sound. He needs to sit and wait, and pray the tent being pitched in his trousers deflates by the time you reach him.

You’re getting closer by the second and life grants him no relief. If anything, the pulsating ache that sits between his thighs grows stronger as your footsteps get louder. This is it, he’s really about to see you. Finally, after so long.

What will you say? Will you say anything? Will you smile at the sight of him? Have you noted the lack of him in your days, just as he’d lamented it through his nights? Have you missed him?

Mind a frenzy of questions, it steals away the joy of watching you step into the room.

Instead, you seem to almost manifest before his eyes, two steps through the door and two hands behind your back. Scanning you from head to toe — and confirming a lack of bumps, cuts or bruises — his shoulders fall slack as he reaches your face at last.

You are smiling.

At him.

“Howdy, stranger!” Normally, he’d find your attempt to mimic some poor stereotype of his accent irritating at best, infuriating at worst. Right now, however, still riddled in withdrawals of you, Joel allows a corner of his mouth to quirk up. “Long time no see!”

There’s a million things Joel thinks to say to you.

Like how your absence has been painfully noted. Or tips on the proper ways to throw a punch, lest you wind up like him, bruised fingers and all. Or like the way he’s missed tasting your cooking, and the way you standing there, lit up in the doorway, radiant smile and electric eyes, seems to be healing a little piece of his fragmented heart, yet shaking his nerve-stricken hands. None of these thoughts manage to reach the surface.

Instead, Joel inhales.

And chokes on the stem of the strawberry.

“Oh my god, Joel!” You’re quick to react, shrugging off the bag from your shoulder and rushing over to him. You clap your hand over his back several times, and perhaps it’s the heat of feeling you touch some part of him at last, that final piece of confirmation that you’re real, and breathing, and standing so close to him in this kitchen, but he continues to feign choking even moments after he rids himself of the blockage. “You okay there, big guy? Don’t go dying in this kitchen or else Bill’s gonna lose his shit!”

Big guy. That’s new. Joel’s indecisive as to how he feels about such a name.

He means to say he’s fine, but then your hand is soothing over his back in comforting rubs. And when he works up the nerve to tell you he’s okay, you’re holding a glass up to his lips and feeding him water down his burning throat.

It’s nice to be comforted.

It’s even nicer to be comforted by you.

Catching himself moments away from leaning into your touch, Joel stumbles a single step back, colliding with the very same counter edge he’d tasted you against, and looks past you. Because he can’t look at you, not when the unfocused version of you that takes up space in his peripheral seems so tangible, bright, touchable. If Joel wanted to, he’s mere inches away from being able to sink his teeth in and eat you alive.

It’s dangerous, how much he wants to.

He spies your backpack, discarded on the ground, contents from it spilling out across the tiled flooring. Most of its junk — some nuts and bolts he’s sure Bill will find a place for, scraps of papers and faded movie posters that reminisce on what the world once was, a miscellaneous cloth stained in the red ink of death that has Joel questioning just who exactly had been bleeding — but there’s something else capturing his attention.

It’s not fully out of the bag, merely a corner of it peeking out the pulled-back zipper and gifting him the view of a worn-down box he’s sure was once a colour more akin to yellow than its current rotting brown.

“‘S that ya got?” He slips past you, hands reaching out and heading straight for the obscure item. The cardboard welts under the pressure of his grip, the top of the box popping open with an uncomfortable ease.

“Oh, that’s what I wanted to show Frank-” The moment Joel’s eyes read over the faded slogan, he has no time to wait on a real answer, flipping the lid to a trash can open and dangling the box over the top. “Hey, what are you doing?!”

“Throwin’ this shit out-” You’re near him. No, next to him, body heat mingling with his own as you shoot forward and try your luck at prying your treasure out of his grip. But Joel is stronger, larger, quicker, arm stretching up above his head and holding the box out of your reach.

He doesn’t comment on the fact the little jump you give as you try to reach only invites him to ogle the bounce of your tits under your shirt.

“Why? It’s harmless,” you plead against him, with your tone of voice and your eyes of sorrow, pitiful in the way they twist up his insides and leave him craving your blinding smile. Still, he’s an immovable force, grip tightened on the box as his other hand clamps down around your wrists, prying your hands away from him. “It’s literally just cake mix!”

You fight back, wriggling and squirming, trying your best to slip through his fingers. Joel squeezes tighter, ignoring the bile that burns the back of his throat as he pictures you come sunrise, bruises of his fingerprints burnt into your flesh. A new wave of nausea follows as the familiar heat returns to his loins, a feral part of him preening at the fact you’ll own some part of him, even as he’s miles away and crawling back through the gutters of the QZ.

“Ain’t no way in hell I'm lettin’ you eat that.” He says it for your own good, your own safety.

All the same, the eerie calm that comes over you makes him feel dirty and immoral for letting such words slip out.

“Letting me?” You parrot his words. With frozen features, you seize all fighting, all resistance, hands going slack in his hold. An unsettling smile overcomes you, something malevolent lurking beneath the surface of your typical kindness. “Joel, you’re no one to let me do anything. You have no say, no control, whatsoever. Understand?”

It’s a kick in the guts.

And not because he wants to control you. Or, maybe, if he’s honest with himself, a part of him does want to. Wants to keep you wrapped under his arm where no threat can approach you, longs to spend his working days awaiting the return to safety in the shape of a bed warmed by you, him and all the delicate sins you could share. But, more-so, because it makes him feel powerless, unable to put distance between you and harm’s way.

He’d felt true powerlessness years back, blood on his hands and a lifeless daughter in his arms. A shot missed and a whole lot of sobbing later, he’d vowed to never put himself in a position to feel that again. He kept Tommy close, to an obsessive degree. And when Tess came along and he eventually let himself give into the feeling of accepting another pair of lungs into his family, he kept her closer, living a life of keeping a watchful eye and a ready hand for any moment of violence. He’d do the same with you, if you’d just let him pull you into his circle, a space freed up ever since Tommy left him with nothing but a string of curses and an I don’t ever wanna see your face again to remember him by.

Of course, Joel doesn’t tell you that.

Instead, he gives in to the irrational anger your fighting back awakens in him.

“The flour, you stupid girl, ‘s what started all this shit.” He spits the words out, mind barely registering the way you flinch back when his face inches closer to yours. “But if you wanna turn yourself into some mushroomed freak, then go ‘head and be my guest.”

It’s like a fog clears and, suddenly, your calmness feels less threatening and that tinge of whatever it was — violence, disobedience, assertiveness? — in your eyes slips away and makes space for amusement. Only, the amusement will not sit still, seeping out of you in bright eyes and poorly held-back giggles.

He’s so caught up in it, caught up in you, that he fails to register you stepping closer. It’s only when he feels the brush of your breath against his cheek, and the bump of his nose against your own as he leans down into you, that the lack of space between you sinks in.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Joel.” The biggest lie of the century. He’s well aware of your prone-to-accident self, losing count of the amount of times he’s spotted bruises all over you and listened to Frank recount tale after tale of how you’d walked into a door, and stumbled down some stairs, and tripped over your laces. If anything, you’re the only thing Joel has to worry about. Especially with how much closer you’re getting, your own breath starting where his ends, chest pulling in to inhale and make space for his exhale. Perfect sync, a flowing motion, just begging to be ruined by locked lips and urgent kisses, feaverish passion that’ll leave him at a loss of both words and breath. “Besides, this batch is harmless...”

God, you’re so close. All he can smell is you — sweat, and wilted flowers, and vanilla, and a trickle of gunpowder. He can feel you, breasts pressing against his chest, hand pressing down on his aching shoulders, mouth taunting him a hair’s breadth away from his own. What he sees of you is far more torturous, bathing him in the impurity of coy looks, and teasing smiles, and soft skin yet to be marked by time and the torture of living. If Joel could just taste you, for just a second, then all those two hundred and four brutal days and sleepless nights would suddenly feel worth it.

Your eyes level with his own as the hand on his shoulder pushes him further down. It’s going to happen, he knows this, he’s accepted this. You’re going to kiss him, and he’s going to let you, and then he’s going to spend the rest of however long it takes for you to kiss him again thinking of how your lips feel.

Just a little closer...

That’s it. Kiss him.

Kiss him.

God, please. Kiss me.

“Check the production date for yourself!” Like whiplash, you pull back and send him reeling, muscles stiffening in a rapid attempt to keep him from keening over at the loss of your supportive hold. The disappointment that follows robs him of the horror of realising he’s now empty-handed, the withered box of artificial flavours and powdery evils secured tightly in your own grip.

You’re holding it out to him, finger pointing at a faded black ink. He squints his eyes and, sure enough, there it is: Mfg. 2001.

“Still don’t mean you should eat it,” Joel’s stubborn, despite all, and can’t seem to tamper down the burning in his loins that warns him against you eating such a thing. “‘S gonna be long past its sell-by.”

“Please,” you scoff, a snark-filled smile upon your face. You seem to be enjoying this act of defiance, or perhaps it’s the helplessness upon Joel’s face you find amusement in, torturing the older man with his inability to take care of you. “Sell-bys are just recommendations for the weak-stomached.”

A disturbance comes in the sound of thundering steps. The door behind you slams open, handle leaving its indent in the wall with a brutal force.

There stands Tess, a shine of sweat on her forehead and nervous twitching in her fingers.

Something is wrong.

Joel feels sick.

Merely a moment passes before the two owners of the home join the scene, Frank’s hand nervously tugging back on Bill’s arm the moment the man notices you, Joel and the nonexistent space that lives between you both.

“Tess!” Bless, you seem unaware of the heavy atmosphere settling within the kitchen, throwing your arms out and darting forward to wrap them around the older woman. She halts you, holds you just that bit out of reach, and Joel nearly scolds her for leaving you looking like a lost puppy, deflated as your hands come to rest at your sides once more, cake-mix forgotten in your newfound disillusion and hitting the floor with a muted thud as it slips out your sweaty palms. “What’s wrong? Why are you breathing so heavily?”

“Me and Frank... we were walking...” She keeps pausing to heave in breaths. The grip she’s got on you loosens and her hands slowly come to rest on her knees as she haunches over. Joel steps a little closer to you, hackles rising at the thought of danger. “A hole... Under the fence...”

Red alert. Loud, angry, threatening thoughts invade his mind, blaring at him like a siren refusing to go ignored. He’s got his fingers wrapped around the holster that houses his revolver in a matter of seconds. The safety’s on, he’ll need to remember that before he dares use it.

“How many?” He mumbles out, in true Joel fashion, and watches Tess meet his face at last. Confusion flashes through her features. “Raiders, infected, or whatever. How many of ‘em got in?”

He can’t help the anger that rises in him, teeth grinding down to hold back the curses aimed towards Bill. He warned him, that first time they’d met, to upgrade those damn fences.

“No,” Tess struggles in another breath. Frank seems worried, but that’s not what makes Joel sick to his stomach. It’s Bill, who’s pale as a ghost and uncomfortably quiet, eyes locked on the ground, that scares him half to death. “Nothing’s got in. It’s out, something got-”

“I swear I turned my back for one second, kid,” as if everything else wasn’t enough, Bill makes himself gentle and cautious, approaching you like you’re a wounded fawn and Joel’s some menacing stag behind you, ready to stab his horns into the heart of any who mean you harm.

“What-” you start.

“The hell are you lot talkin’ about?” Joel finishes.

They exchange looks among the three of them, each one more pressing in the way they plead the other to speak up, explain the situation.

Frank takes the fall.

“It’s Otis,” he’s exasperated, exclaiming it like it’s the heaviest of burdens. Joel can’t quite see your face but he imagines whatever expression you’re wearing must be heart-wrenching, so much so that Bill can not bring himself to meet your eyes. “Otis is missing!”

There’s a sharp silence that takes over the room, scratching at everyone’s eyes and burrowing itself down your throats, making a nest that gets in the way of what’s spoken aloud.

Joel watches your head sluggishly nod. You stumble a few steps back, catching his boots beneath the heel of your own. His hands make haste with supporting you, physically and emotionally.

“He was with me this morning,” Bill picks up again, tension thick in the air as his words slice through it. He’s explaining himself, voice layered with guilt and other emotions Joel’s never imagined the man capable of. “Out in the chicken coop. Started barking at something past the fence and... none of us have seen him since.”

The revelation has Joel retracing his own steps and, indeed, no four-legged creature had launched itself at him earlier, as he and Tess entered the gates. Nor had any paw-prints followed his footsteps through the mud, and no ball had been dropped before him, followed by a demanding bark that was guaranteed to get him to give in and throw the damned thing, if only to shut the dog up. Otis has not crossed his path once, a realisation he never imagined would bring him desperation.

A deep gasp cuts through the tension.

A few deep breaths. Four, to be exact. As you attempt a fifth, you waver and your exhale grows shaky. You pull air in deeper and it doesn’t seem to be enough, forcing your mouth open. The descent into hyperventilating is quick, a path Joel’s all-too familiar with, and the panic swells through your heart before anyone can try to stop it.

Joel acts fast, instinct leading his actions. He turns you to face him, grip firm on your shoulders as he holds your attention on him, big hands on your soft cheeks and tilting your head back to find your eyes. Glassy, wide, panicked. It's the hopelessness behind them that gets the best of him though.

“He’s fine, alright? Probably just saw some rabbit he wanted to chase.'' It's hard for a man like him to sound optimistic. Were you anyone else, he’d be telling you how dumb you were to keep a pet in the first place, nothing more than another mouth to feed and another life to watch out for in an age where safety is a luxury. But you aren’t anyone else, and Joel Miller will always be partial to his Sol. “Hey, hey, listen t’me. He’s gonna be okay. Bet he’s out there right now tryna find his way back, we just gotta meet him halfway.”

You nod along to his words, as though you’re listening, but your thousand-yard-stare says otherwise, eyes gazing past his wide shoulders. Unblinking, unmoving, you seem lost in a daze of emotions Joel's never prepared himself to see on your features. It twists at his guts to watch your figure attempt to follow him in the first steps he takes away from you, halted only by his own hands clasping down on your frame, coaxing you backwards until you find grip upon the kitchen counter.

After a cautious step back, eyeing you like you’re a wounded bunny two seconds from bolting, he turns to Bill. “Give me a few hours. I’ll track the dog and bring him home, alright?”

A half hour, a packed bag, and a rifle slung over his shoulder later, Joel finds himself at the scene of the crime, chicken shit on his shoes and his usual scowl on his face. Not having even stepped a foot out of the gated paradise and he’s already encountered his first obstacle: Otis has not clawed his way out of the fence but, instead, dug his way under it.

Fresh mud lays ahead, faint yet visible paw-prints lead off into the array of woods. He grabs a hold of the fence’s newly exposed bottom and justifies the way he further destroys it, bending the metal to his will and proning his way under it, with his faith in Bill's ability to fix the hole up in the time it takes him to find the creature.

Moving to a crouch, and ignoring the crunch of his bent knees, he eyes up the prints in the mud. The sight of only one set of tracks gives him a fleeting moment of comfort, until the thought of Otis having chased after something already so far in the distance pops into his head.

Your voice calls out his name from behind.

Sweat slicked skin, your fingers grab at the wiry fence, ripping the thing up with far less care Joel had given it. Bill will still find a way to blame him for the extended damage.

“I'm coming with you,” you speak with such determination behind your voice, Joel nearly forgets to actually pay attention to what you’re saying.

His reaction is instinctual, shooting back to hold the fence down, struggling to keep you within its confines, gritting out a firm no. “You sure as hell ain’t.”

“Yes, I am.” You tug uselessly at the fence. The wires stretch a third time, until a few snap.

“No.”

He holds his ground.

“Yes.”

You wriggle a hand under the fence, an action that forces him to loosen his grip. He can’t risk harming you, not even for your own good.

“No, you are-”

“Joel, please,” there’s exhaustion in your plea. A hint of desperation, too. He catches how you glimpse over your shoulder and observes the only item you carry — a distressed looking stuffed bunny with an ear missing. You glance over your shoulder again and it hits Joel. You’re nervous, in a rush. You’re here without anyone’s knowledge, that same look of panic in your eye as a teenager sneaking out of their window. “Just- I don’t want to sit around doing nothing. I want to find Otis.”

Talking is limited.

Instead, what fills its place is the sound of crunching leaves beneath heavy boots, and birds cawing and cooing in the trees above, and your incessant need to hum along to some melody playing in your head, distracting Joel to a dangerous degree.

This distraction leads to a close encounter, one where it’s only your swallowed scream as you stumble closer to him in fear, body seeking out some form of protection — he can’t tell if you view him as a mere shield or a sworn knight prepared to draw his weapons and, frankly, he winds up too caught up in your hands grabbing at his sides and your shaken figure melting against his own to care — that clears the haze in his eyes and sets his sights straight, gun drawn and aimed directly at the infected creature running towards you both.

He misses his first shot — shaky hands, one he partially blames on your proximity and the adrenaline it brings — but makes up for it in his second one, shooting point blank range and sending the creature crumbling to the ground, a bullet-hole in its forehead.

You both wait a few minutes, listening out for anymore rustling, before Joel deems things safe enough to continue and motions you with his head to follow.

From then on, you stick closer, alternating between walking a step or two ahead or behind him. He keeps a grip on the gun, unwilling to reholster it, and wordlessly hands you a shiv he has, ignoring the way you seem to perfectly curl your fingers around the weapon and practise a swinging motion, stabbing at the air with a deadly confidence Joel's never imagined to associate you with.

It forces him to rethink everything he’s come to believe about you over the years, and requestion just how exactly you’d wound up under Bill’s roof.

You interrupt his thoughts, the first to speak as always.

“If you don’t mind me asking-”

“I do.”

Undeterred, you smile and push through with your probing. “Who taught you to shoot?”

“My old man,” it takes him a few minutes to gruff it out. Or maybe it’s a bit longer than a few minutes, the sun’s shine seeming a lot less dim from when you’d asked. You say nothing, however, don’t even gasp in surprise at his eventual answering. “Dragged me out back to where he’d tied up our dog, poor thing had been sick for a while. Told me we weren’t goin’ back in till I shot it. Must’a stood there for hours.”

And that was that.

As much as Joel had felt you wanting to say more, you’d dropped the subject — maybe you’d noticed the dullness in his voice or the way his grip on his gun had tightened — and he’d never been more grateful for your ability to read him, without him even needing to open his pages for you.

You make camp by nightfall.

A clearing amongst the wooden areas, small enough to keep you hidden yet big enough to stretch out your legs. you ask for a campfire, and Joel denies you of it. ‘S too risky, he’d explained the instant he caught you deflating his objection. Don’t need no smoke signals bringing us any unwanted visitors.

He’d given you the coat off his back instead, a token to heat yourself up with as the pair of you quietly ate away at the tin-can meal Joel had been saving for the journey back to the QZ.

Chef Boyardee has never tasted better, however, after watching you place the can up to your lips and tilt your head back, swallowing down the artificial flavouring.

You don’t seem to agree, grimacing at the taste. “I don’t know how you can eat that.”

“If you think that’s bad, you don’t wanna know what they’re feedin’ us in the QZ.” It’s a privilege you’ll never understand, this sheltered life you lead among Bill’s traps and fences. You eat fresh eggs, and cook red meat, and nurture food out of the ground, while Joel fights tooth and nail to scrape up some measly ration cards. Oddly enough, he's not angry at your lack of understanding. He’s glad, happy you have a quality of life far better than his own.

“I'm surprised they feed you at all,” for all your grimacing, you’ve yet to stop taking mouthful after mouthful of the canned food. You must not have eaten much out on your run, Joel concludes. “Considering you eat Bill out of his whole stock each time you visit.”

He wants to defend himself, tell you it’s not true. Tell you it’s only the food prepared by your gentle hands and caring soul that he devours, in chase of satisfying another hunger he should not dare place upon you. That it is nothing more than Joel settling for a piece of your love, hoping that if he takes enough bites and chews enough times, it’ll seep into his skin, his bones, his bloodstream. It’s the only way he figures he can hold a piece of your heart next to his, until it stops beating.

But that is a burden a man like him does not place on a woman like you, so he bites his tongue and swallows down the rest of his dinner.

“The hell are we, middle-schoolers?”

A squawk of birds fly from their perch in the trees above, spooked by the unexpected boom of Joel’s voice. It’s an accident, flying out of him before he can really stop it and consider the dangers of loudly proclaiming your whereabouts to anything — living or dead — within a ten mile radius to hear. But you’re being ridiculous.

Your suggestion is ridiculous.

And you’re shushing him, a giggle behind the index finger you press to your lips, eyes shooting up to where the birds have fled, catching the reflection of the stars in your pupils and knocking the wind out of his chest, momentarily, with how bright they seem to shine.

“No, we’re two adults about to engage in a serious game of 21 Questions,” you speak like you live: much softer than Joel. No creature seems to hurry away at the sound of it and, in the fading memories he possesses, he can almost picture your voice drawing in all the critters of the forest, like that Disney princess she’d loved so much. “And that counts as one of your questions, by the way."

He has no plans on entertaining your childish play. He’ll sit there, he’ll watch out for any suspicious shadow lurking about in the dark, he’ll listen to whatever ridiculous questions you throw at him, and he’ll let you talk yourself silly, going in circles as he remains mute, and observant, and completely unwilling to answer to any of your-

“Which means,” you drag out the word, a sing-songy melody to your voice. “It’s my turn to ask you something, mister.” Mister. A warmth blooms in the pits of his stomach, one that threatens to creep lower, beneath the waistband of his blood-stained jeans. “What’s your favourite colour?”

If looks could kill, you’d likely still be alive.

Perhaps a little bruised, but it’s the worst stare Joel can will himself to pin you with. No doubt, it feels more threatening to you that it truly is, splashed across his stoic face.

“What?” You question, and somehow have the nerve to laugh. “It’s like… The most common question people ask in this game. That, or who took your virginity, and I really don’t think you want to tell me-”

“I’d just gotten my first job as a pool-boy. Pay was shit, but it covered my gas and left me enough to buy a six pack and a tub of wings,” the words fly out of him with an ease they never have before. Somehow, this feels easier, less intimate than matters like his favourite colour. When he thinks that answer is enough, he finds your face, expectations written across it. You’re waiting to know more. “I ended up with a few shifts working for one of our neighbours. She was a friend of my mom’s, recently divorced, and with a whole new body she’d bought with the divorce settlements.”

A spark of amusement flares in your eyes, that pretty smile stretching over your lips. He purses his own, trying not to think of pressing them against your mouth. You’d still taste of the canned food you — reluctantly — devoured and, somehow, the thought messes his head up even more, the potential taste of the food, of the care he had been the one to provide you with.

“That sounds like the beginning to a really bad porno,” you muse. Joel watches how you sit up a little straighter, legs tucking themselves up against your chest, chin resting atop your knees, arms engulfing yourself in their warmth, nose turning to take a quick inhale of his coat. He hopes he’ll smell you on it, too, next time he does the same.

“Surprised you even know what that word means,” he regrets it the moment he says it, that sickening reminder of your youth against his own ageing disgrace. He doesn’t know the exact years, but he know the difference would surely be enough to disgust a younger version of himself, the young father who once scowled at the sight of grey-haired men trailing their eyes down the bodies of wide-eyed girls, giggling by the bar as they flashed their fake-ids and sipped their first taste of — horrifically overpriced — alcohol.

“Porno?” You cut through his train of thoughts, unknowingly saving him from the downward spiral into memories best left behind, before the world went to shit. “You’d be surprised what a little bit of courage and a whole load of ration cards gets you past FEDRA.”

That word, that name, that organisation, it sets off an alarm in Joel’s brain, red-alert and siren sounding. And it pulls forth a question, echoing in the woods before he even realises he’s speaking his thoughts aloud.

“You were in a QZ? You weren’t always with Bill?”

“Pittsburg QZ, if you want to get technical. And then Hartford. No, I wasn’t always with Bill.” He tries to picture it: you, confined to the horrors of city living, bargaining things for survival, facing the harshness of the power-tripping FEDRA officers. The thought proves too disconcerting, so out of line with the you who exists only within the confines of safety and comfort in his mind, that Joel has to stop himself from imagining more, imagining worse. You and pain do not, should not ever exist in the same space, not if Joel can do anything about it. “And those count as two separate questions, so now I get to do the same.”

He hadn’t even meant to play into it, entertain your silly game. He’d just needed reassurance, answers, to know no scars litter your skin and no wound has fractured your psyche. But you’ve given him none of that. No comfort for his ailing soul, more questions for his troubled mind.

“Was it a one time thing,” unaware, or simply desensitised to his ways, you continue on with your questions, despite the frown he feels wrinkling at his forehead. “With your neighbour?” He’s glad to see you bring the conversation back to his own debauchery.

“No.”

“Ooh, scandalous! Joel Miller, local pool-boy turned toy-boy.” If he wasn’t so busy fighting off images of you, young and scared, standing before armed FEDRA soldiers, Joel might have found it in him to crack a half smile at the amusement the sexual endeavours of his youth seem to gift you. “Did you fuck any other of your clientele, or were you and Miss Recent-Divorcee exclusive?”

“No,” he says once more, then quickly clarifies. “I didn’t sleep with other clients. But also no, we weren’t exclusive.”

“Did your mom-”

“‘S my turn, darlin’,” Joel surprises even himself, cutting in before you can sneak a third question his way. It’s like it finally hits him, the way this game has handed him the opportunity of a lifetime to learn the answer to any question he’s ever pondered over you. But all other questions, topics, seem to slip out his conscience’s grasp, like sand slipping through fingers, as he feels himself dragged further into the fear you’ve awoke within him, a fresh layer of worry he now holds for a version of you he’d never known, a version of you he can barely stomach the idea of. “How did you meet Bill? Were you with Frank before?”

“God, you’re bad at this game! Two questions, again!” And, yet, you say it with more humour than chastisement. You turn your face, again, nose bumping against the collar of his jacket. “But no, I wasn’t with Frank. I met them both at the same time, after I spotted them through their fences. I passed out, dehydrated, and I probably wouldn’t have been brought in if it weren’t for Frank insisting they couldn’t just leave me out there to die.”

“You were alo-”

“Ah, my turn!” Your hand shoots out, index finger pointing across the space between you both. “Did your mum ever find out about you and her friend?”

“No, it ended before that could happen. She got herself a man her own age, and I…” Got someone pregnant. The words stick to his throat, refusing to come out.

Reading his closed off pages, like you always do, your voice cuts through the air before he can let himself slip too deep into the sorrow.

“I was alone, when I met Bill and Frank. But I wasn’t always.” Those four words are enough to make him ache. But I wasn’t always. Who had you lost? How long did they survive? Did you feel their blood on your skin? The questions fly by so quickly, he’s struggling to pin-point which one he wants to ask first, which ones he’s allowed to ask. “Have you ever been in love?”

That quiets his mind. For a moment, it’s a welcomed incident. Then his heartbeat fills his ears, and it’s pounding, skipping over beats of its own rhythm, threatening to spread too much of that fear, too quickly to every vessel under his skin, that Joel has no choice, he has to give you an answer he doesn’t want to, just to save himself from the impending tightness in his chest.

“Green,” the words are a struggle to get out but he manages it, watching the confusions bleed into your soft eyes. “I never answered. Before. When you asked my favourite colour. It’s green.” If you find his answer to be too late, or you’re disappointed at his clear avoidance towards your latest question, you don’t give it away. You just nod, smile softly, and wait for him to take his turn. “Why were you alone?”

“Everyone changed, got bit, or died. I didn’t want to be next.” Perhaps he’s a fool. Perhaps he underestimated the resilience you keep under warm sweaters and easy-going smiles. Because you sit there, not a tear welling in sight, and talk about the things you’ve lost like they don’t haunt you. Like you haven’t spent every waking moment since trying to find them, evidence that they were real, and that they’d mattered, and that they’d loved you. Like you haven’t drowned in grief, the way he has. You’ve swam, instead, against the current, crawled to the safety of shore. “Who’s your butterfly?”

The question catches him so off guard, so out of left field, so completely and utterly nonsensical, that he just can’t help himself. “My what now?”

"You know, the whole ‘if a butterfly flaps its wings’,” you trail off, hands curling tighter around yourself after performing air quotes. “Who's one person that changed the trajectory of your life?"

He cannot run.

He cannot repeat his earlier trick, deflecting with the answer to a previously spoken — and visibly ignored — question. Because, no matter which of your two questions he chooses to focus on, the answer remains the same. That little girl, with a smile like sunshine, sitting at the breakfast table, egg yolk on her cheek, ketchup all over her tiny, chubby, little fingers, an incoherent babble of excited squeals as he, once again, drives the choo-choo train — in truth, a fork-ful of food — towards her lips.

You’ve got him backed into a corner, no out, no escape. His mind, a cruel torturer that takes advantage of his own panic, thrusts yet another memory into the VHS of his mind, broadcasting it against the back of his eyelids, forcing him to see the granny pictures every time he blinks. Her first step. Her first day at school. Her first time trying a sip of his beer and absolutely hating it. Her. Her.

Suddenly, he’s angry. The only response he ever seems to conjure at the memory of her.

“‘S this what this whole things all about, huh?” It’s snarky, it’s cruel, and it's punctuated by a scoff. The fact you don’t even react, face unchanging beneath the shine of the moon, only seems to make him angrier, outrage for the fact you’re letting him speak to you like this, fury for allowing himself. “You want me to tell you somethin’ traumatic, somethin’ for you to pity me over? And then what, you gonna give me your own little sob story so we can have ourselves a lil’ pity party? Newshflash, princess, you ain’t special just cause your mama died and your daddy never wanted you.”

“Are you done?” You speak only after a silence has permeated the space between you for a few minutes, nothing but Joel’s laboured breaths filling the night air.

He’s not even sure when he started breathing so heavily. His heart is still working itself into a frenzy, his mind still off the rails. The eire calm that remains over your face seems to bring him momentary respite from the pain, if only to feel himself bracing for a new wave, a worse wave. One born from you. From your pain. And one that Joel’s entirely unprepared, and undeserving, to have wash over him.

"I didn't really notice it at first, you know?” You speak so softly, he almost doesn’t hear you. But he does, and it hurts. “Hell, it wasn't even really me that realised. Bill did. I’d only been staying with them three nights, just until I got back on my feet. Back then, he used to barricade my door at night, and he wouldn’t let me eat at the same table as them both, not even when Frank insisted. But, suddenly, Bill flipped the switch on me. He became apologetic, careful, asking me if I was feeling okay and actually sounding… interested in the answer.”

Much like the thought of you in a quarantine zone, the thought of Bill being anything but utterly protective and completely trusting of you does not seem plausible in Joel’s mind, no matter how much he believes you. The image, simply, will not conjure in his mind, too out of shape with the current reality he’s witnessed.

You continue talking after a pause for composure, those eyes that trap him so easily now frozen to the ground, staring at some smudge of mud on your boots.

“Frank was the first one to actually say it out loud, to ask me if I... Anyway, it was hard to tell but we all agreed, eventually, that I had to be around three or four months along. It made sense, timewise. There were some raiders, they found my camp a few weeks before I collapsed outside Bill’s gate. I… I don't even really know which one of them sealed the deal. All I know is all of them were on me, and none of them cared about how hard I could kick.”

He almost calls you by your name, then by the name he’s given you. Sol. But it’s too pretty a word, too undeserving of being tainted by the anger he feels coursing through his veins, a bloodlust like no other making home for itself in his loins.

“I didn't really care that much about it, as horrible as that makes me sound.” It doesn’t make you sound horrible, at all. Joel could show you horrible, if you just gave him a few faces and the permission to do with them, punish them as he pleased. “It was just a means to an end. A deal to keep myself safe. They'd let me live under their roof, and I'd give them the baby. We never… discussed what would happen to me, once I held up my end of the bargain. Never got the chance to, really.”

And suddenly, Joel Miller is the greatest asshole to ever walk the planet.

Not only the greatest asshole, but a hypocrite, too. You ain’t special. Well, neither is he, moping around life with a chip on his shoulder and baggage the weight of a dead daughter. He isn’t the first parent to outlive a child, to lose a child, and he won’t be the last. He’ll just be another name on the list, another poor soul.

The hoot of an owl. It’s somehow a reminder that you’re both out, huddled in the privacy of a few trees, waiting for night to pass and the search to continue.

Those tears in your eyes still haven’t fallen. My brave girl. But it feels condescending, and wrong. Not because you’re not brave. Because you’re not his girl. You’re the sun, and he’s just another planet that’s been sucked into your orbit. Dense, unfeeling, and miles away, forever circling you.

“One minute, it's just a burden weighing down on my whole body,” your voice is so soft, it’s almost a whisper. Perhaps he’ll be the one who cries. It sure feels like it, if he has to continue watching you fidget with your fingers and look anywhere but him. “And the next minute, it's screaming torture and the heartbreak of holding her barely-there body in my arms. That guilt... of not even knowing how much I wanted her until I got the chance ripped away, that’s something that never really goes away. It lingers, it changes you, forever."

God, does it linger.

He’s tried to lose track. He’s tried to make himself forget the years that have gone by, all in the hopes of getting through that September day, completely unaware of it. But he can’t.

Just like how he can’t think of what to say right now.

He knows he should comfort you.

He thinks he should tell you his own story, his own loss. Let you know that the grief you feel is not a lonesome one. But then he’d be worse than a hypocrite. He would be a liar, and that’s one thing he’s getting tired of being, especially when it comes to you.

“What,” he pulls in a deep breath, eyes flickering off you for a moment to watch figures that move in the distance. Tree branches, swaying in the wind. The temperatures are dropping even more, and he’s got no other layers to keep you warm with. “What were you gonna name her?”

You’re gracious enough to utter a name, softly, and finally your eyes flicker up from the ground and meet his own. The tiniest of smiles tugging at the corners of your mouth, the moon casting shadows down your face. You pull in a breath and stutter on its exhale, clearing your throat as if that’s enough to regain your composure.

“That’s her name. We buried her out back, under one of Frank’s flowerbeds,” there’s a sickening kind of envy that coils itself around his chest. Even if it visibly hurts, you’re talking about her, you’re honouring her enough to share something about her existence. Joel can’t do the same for his girl, a pain too harrowing, and, once more, he reminds himself that he’s the greatest asshole alive. “It’s silly but… I like to think it’s her whenever the snowdrops bloom.”

“'S a nice name," he’s a pathetic excuse of a man, no courage to pull you close and tell you it’s okay. Tell you he’s sorry, for your loss and for his earlier harsh words. Tell you about his own daughter. Would you think he’s trying to outshine you in the pity party, if he told you he doesn’t get to see what life blooms from atop his daughter’s grave?

"It was my mom's,” you snort over an unexpected laugh, as if you can’t believe you’re admitting this to him. Or maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s a sense of relief, a lightness coming over a heart previously weighed down by grief. If he could do that for you, even if just slightly, he’d feel as though the tears shining in your eyes are worth it. “She'd have hated to see me use it, she was never a fan of it, but I couldn't think of a better name for someone I love so much."

Something awful hits him, square in the jaw and deep in the gut.

He can’t remember why he called her Sarah.

You’re sleeping next to him.

He’s spent the better half of what feels like an hour trying to ignore this fact. Stared at the sky, just to count each freckled star that shines through in the dark. Closed his eyes and tried counting sheep. Rolled over, back facing you, and tried to just fall asleep, once and for all.

But it’s sisyphus. Each time he feels himself about to slip into the discomfort of sleep, you twitch a leg or mumble something incoherent, and he’s back to being far too aware of you, squeezed in beside him in what must be the world’s least spacious sleeping bag. The worst thing is, it had all been his idea.

You’d been yawning, eyes slipping shut just to be opened in defiance by your own stubborn self, unwilling to give into the sleep you so visibly needed. He’d told you to go to sleep, the words coming out soft for once yet, somehow, still a demand. When you nodded in agreement instead of standing your ground, Joel knew you must have been exhausted.

You told him that you hadn’t imagined the search would last overnight, that you hadn’t grabbed a single thing to sleep with. Not even a blanket. Which was fine, really, because Joel had no intention of closing his eyes. He’d rolled out his sleeping bag and told you to take it, he didn’t mind. It would be one more thing of his that smells like you.

But you wouldn’t stop tossing and turning. Restless, cold, and completely distracting to Joel as he tried to will himself to focus on what was important, any approaching threat, and not the shape of you wrapped in his belongings. A fruitless endeavour, that earns him nothing but a string of words rolling off his tongue: “Move over.”

And now he’s here, regretting ever thinking he could possibly lay next to you, exchange body heat, and somehow just will himself to fall asleep.

You squirm, hand fisting at the well-used material of his sleep roll. Laying on his back, he glances over at you. The itch to snake his arm beneath your head, offer a makeshift pillow to spare you from the hard floor, grows harder to ignore the more he looks at you.

It’s not the only thing that grows harder, however.

Maybe it’s because he can smell you, all over and around him, staining your memory into the fabric of the sleeping bag so he can lament how empty it feels the next time he sleeps it in. Maybe it's because he can feel you, scattered points where the heel of your foot rests against the slope of his ankle, and the swell of your ass presses into his upper thigh, and your back brushes against his arm with every slow breath you take. Maybe it's all more simple than that, like the mere knowledge that you’re actually here, in his presence, after so many months, and Joel Miller is just a man, susceptible to the pleasures of flesh and starved of you.

Whatever the reason is ultimately doesn’t matter. Lamenting over it won’t change the stiffness of his cock as it fights beneath denim confines, an uncomfortable throb that demands his attention. And he’s trying so hard to resist, trying so hard to pretend he’s not aware of his own body and the erection it’s bestowed upon him.

But you won’t stop moving, you won’t lay still. Deep in sleep, you taunt him, unawares to the way each soft sigh sends his mind barreling down into the depths of sinful thoughts, and each wriggle, squirm, repositioning of your hips serves no purpose other than to push you closer to him, deeper against the straining fabric.

He flirts with the idea of unbuckling his belt. It would be easy, his hand already resting stiff by his side, itching to shove down layers and feel the weight of his own cock. It barely even makes a sound, a soft clink muffled beneath the blanket, followed by the pop of a button, and the zing of a zipper sliding down. He glances at you, heart rate picking up, and confirms you’re just the same as moments ago: fast asleep.

As much as he wants to peel off his layers completely, he settles for the safer option of pulling down his jeans and briefs enough to free himself, full fist wrapping itself around his base. A swift tug, a tight-jawed hiss. The thrill of it runs right up his spine, a torture that he wants another taste of.

He wants to snake his hand up to his mouth and wet the palm with his spit, but he can’t, won’t, the risk of too much movement waking you. So he settles into his fate, a series of uncomfortably dry and unfluid strokes of his cock, nothing but the drops of his own precum to lubricate his movements.

Slow, steady, he runs his palm over his length in sync with your breathing. Your lungs expands, his fingers brush the tip, they deflate and he’s down at the base, trying hard not to brush against his heavy balls. Images of you, the same ones he plays on repeat when he’s working himself to an orgasm in the safety of his and Tess’ apartment, or balls-deep in some faceless stranger, hidden in the darkness of some back alley. Breathless in the kitchen, gripping a knife like your mind grips at its sanity as he bruises his knees from drinking between your thighs. Perched atop his lap, the metal of the truck’s hood creaking with each bounce you give, fuckin yourself further down his length, forcing him deeper and deeper.

His eyes slip shut as he lets the memories take over, replaying for his own viewing pleasure. He tries to match the tightness of his hand to the tightness of your cunt, but his own touch is cold, unfeeling, dry, nothing like the sweetness of you. The version of you that lives in his mind throws her head back lips parted in a cry of pleasure. Joel, she — you — moans, gripping him tighter, pert nipples straining through the thin fabric of a shirt. His shirt. God, you looked so good, so safe in his coat, he should’ve stripped you down to nothing but it, and taken you there against the dirty woodland floor, on all fours, ass in the air, face in the dirt, Joel all over you.

Joel, he can hear it, the way you’d sink down fully to the floor, forcing him to follow you, smother you in his whole weight, hips tilted up enough for him to keep drilling himself deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

“Joel,” he hears you. Real you, turning towards him in the tight squeeze of the sleeping bag. Sleepy eyes meet his own and he sees it, the recognition. You know what he’s doing beneath the surface of the sleeping bag. Before he can fully register this, the touch of another hand — far more delicate — envelopes his own, tightening his grip before he can dare to retreat. “You should be asleep.”

“Can’t,” he grits out, powerless to the sudden movement of your hand, the slow drag in which you guide him to jerk at his cock.

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“I do,” you admit with a soft shrug, eyes glued to his own. “Still, I wanna hear you say it.”

One glance down and he sees the way you touch him beneath the blanket, wishing he could rip it all away and watch your fingers, intertwining with his own, smother over his leaking tip, staining your skin in his pleasure.

It’s embarrassing how much of a mess he’s becoming, all at the mercy of little old you, and your sparkly eyes, and your sleepy smile, and your guiding hands. It’s embarrassing how softly the confession parts from his lips.

“Because of you.”

“Me?” You question immediately, feigned innocence striked across those tired, doe-like eyes he likes so much. “All I’ve done is try to sleep. You’re the one who can’t keep his hands from wandering. Are you really that weak Joel?”

“Yes.”

“Do I make you weak?”

“Yes, fuck!” He feels like he’s gone back in time and you’re playing with him, twenty-something questions or whatever the fuck you’d called it. Feeling his balls tighten, an urgency to touch you, feel you, make you feel good takes hold of him. “I’m gonna- Ahh, baby, let me- Let me feel you.”

But you won’t let him. Tightening your hand around his cock, continuing those up and down motions, inching him closer and closer to the orgasm he’s trying so hard to stave off.

“No, I’m too tired,” even your little whine is enough to drive him mad, a sigh out your nose as he watches you snuggle into the width of his chest, a throbbing pain taking over his heart. How can you seem so sweet with your fingers sitting tight around his cock? “Let's just lay like this, feel me like this. Let me make you feel good.”

“Tell me you’re wet,” it becomes a need, a desperation, born in his heart and spreading all throughout the rest of him, to know you’re enjoying this torture as much as he is. To know you’re not simply touching him as a means to get him off, over and done with, mind silenced to sleep by the haziness of spilling his cum.

“I am,” you soothe his minor fear, and he feels the gentle roll of your hips into his thigh, leg tangled between both of his as you grind your clothed cunt against him. “So wet. Love touching you, Joel.”

“Yeah?” He croons back, voice teetering off into literal begging, his free hand perched on the tip of your chin and tilting your eyes up to meet his. “Then let me fuck you, please.”

“No, just…” You say, shaking your head, rolling your hips, teasing at the slit in his tip with the tip of your finger. He can’t help but hiss, a grunt catching in his throat. “Just wanna focus on you. Wanna see you cum for me, Joel.”

Never have seven words been enough to make his resolve snap.

With a pathetic cry of your name, Joel feels the first rope of cum spray against his knuckles. Sticky, hot, thick, it dribbles down the cracks of his fingers onto your own, making a mess out of both of you. You’re there, closed palm, sweet lips, soothing him with words of kindness as you carry him through the motions of his orgasm, no doubt working your wrist into a dull ache as you squeeze every last drop of cum out of his weeping tip. He doesn’t want to think of the mess that awaits him beneath the sleeping bag, sticky cum staining soft skin, and rough jeans, and nylon material.

What he wants is for you to keep going, stroke him until his cock regains its full stiffness, standing to attention and ready to feel you in the ways he’d pleaded moments earlier, like he felt you months earlier.

Maybe this time he’d try your other hole. He’s wondered, on lonely nights where nothing but his hand has kept him company, how much convincing it would take until you’d bend over and present him with the pretty little creases of your puckered hole. You’d protest, he knows. call him disgusting, degenerate, dirty. Shame him for even wishing to touch you in such a vile manner. Joel could handle it. He’d always had a preference for the chase, the thrill of wearing a pretty thing down off its high horse of holier-than-thou syndrome and onto their knees before him.

He’d not be kind. No, not when the time comes. He’d ease himself in, sure, but the true battle would begin once he’s sheathed inside and the tightness of your hole hugs his cock in the warmest of embraces. He’d push, and pull, and break you down into whatever surface he takes you against. His hands would join in, bringing an electrified pleasure to your neglected cunt while his hips piston into the plumpness of your cheeks. They’d move in sync, working to ensure no second passes where you’re not full of some part of him - be it his cock in your ass or his fingers in your cunt.

Exhausted and defiled, your poor body would have nowhere else to run than to the comfort of his embrace and the sweet serenity of peaceful sleep, once he’s through with you. And, should you wake to cry of a newfound pain in your rear, Joel would waste no time in snaking his way down between your legs to mouth at your cum-stained hole, laving his tongue over you and painting your thighs in apologetic kisses until you can no longer speak of pain, his name the only word you’ll ever need to know.

But, alas, time is catching up on him and the blood refuses to return to his cock.

Exhaustion wraps you both in its blanketing warmth, melting your head down against his chest with ease, hands still missing somewhere between his thighs. Every soft breath that leaves you hits the skin of his neck, a physical, timely reminder that you’re there, in his arms, closer than you’ve ever been.

The thought is frightening, enough to get his heart racing in his chest. He can only assume you hear it, feel it beating against your ear.

“I’m sorry, Joel,” you whisper, just when he feels himself teetering towards the edge of sleep.

“Hmm?” He hums back in lieu of a verbal response, eyes he’d not even notice close peering open to look down at you.

“I didn’t mean- I wasn’t trying to make you angrier with the questions.” Angrier. That word leaves a sour taste in Joel’s mouth. “It’s just… You’re a good man. You care about others. About Tess, and Bill, Frank too. About me. But you have this chip on your shoulder… I just wanted to try to understand you better, I wanted to make you feel better.”

With your soft voice echoing in his head, he feels himself sinking into a dreamless sleep, a reply caught on the tip of his tongue.

Something wet wakes Joel.

It’s a slow return from the land of sleep, the longest that it’s taken him in years to go from peacefully resting to wide-eyed and alert to every surrounding. The first thing he registers is how warm everything feels, how cosy. How much he enjoys the weight of something in his arms, breathing softly into his chest.

Then, that something wet itches at his skin, drags across his cheek. He tries to open his eyes, only to hiss and squeeze them shut, the bright burn of the morning sun nearly blinding him. A few birds sing from the trees above, exchanging their good-mornings with the rest of nature’s critters.

A groan comes from his left, muffled against the flannel of his wrinkled shirt. He readjusts himself, pulling the weight even closer, and finds out he was right: your smell already lingers in his sleeping-bag. A third lick of wet, this one from chin to eyebrow, a cringe overcomes his tired face.

Lick.

His eyes snap open, fight against the burning of the light, and there he sees him. Otis, to the right, mouth panting, tongue dangling out his mouth, tail wagging somewhere in the background. Joel tries to move as slowly as possible, fearful of spooking the dog, and even more fearful of spooking you, eyes still shut and hand nestled atop his groin, fingers tangled in coarse hair and poking beneath the layers of his top.

“Sunshine,” he whispers, shaking gently at your shoulder, and nearly apologising as you crack an eye open and pin him with a deadly stare. You’re not much of a morning person, a fact Joel fools himself into thinking he’ll need to remember for the future. He gives your shoulder another shake, a gentle squeeze too, for extra measure. “C’mon now, gotta open those eyes properly for me. Got someone here who’s mighty excited to see you.”

That seems to entice you, eyes peering fully open and giving him a once-over before mumbling a soft, “what’re you talking abo- My baby-boy!”

No sooner than you’ve shot up straight, arms wide and reaching for the furry creature, Otis has bounded over, trampling over the mess of limbs you and Joel make up beneath the nylon. Pathetic whines fill the air, a tail that moves a hundred miles an hour, as the canine smothers his snout into you, his luscious mane shining beneath the sun’s rays.

You’re pressing kisses against the dog, tears brimming your eyes as you wrap your arms around his neck and tell him, over and over, “don’t ever do that again! I was so scared!” The happiness is contagious, spreading with a small smile upon Joel’s lips as he peels himself off the floor, chest pressing into your back and hand stretching out over your shoulder, fingers tangling in the threads of Otis’ soft fur.

“Must’a caught scent of you, followed it all the way till it brought him to us,” Joel musses, feeling you laugh as the dog licks a kiss over your cheek. “He’s a good boy. Aren’t’cha, boy?”

Neither of you mention the sticky dilemma between Joel’s thighs as you pack up. You roll up the sleeping bag while he wipes himself clean with a dirty shirt, quietly passing it your way as he slips off his belt and loops it around Otis’ collar, becoming a makeshift lead to guide the dog home with.

Though, as the four-legged creature sniffs on ahead, with the occasional pull that tests Joel’s grip on the belt, he almost seems to need no guide, leading you all in the direction of home. Your home, not Joel’s. But, what a wonderful thought that would be, if he were just a man, and you were just a woman, and you were both taking an early morning walk around the woods with your dog, catching the first rays of sun, together.

As if hearing his thoughts, Otis turns his head, looking at Joel over his shoulder, tail wagging as he lets out an excited bark. Up ahead, closer than he’d like it to be, stands the borders to Bill’s sanctuary. Up ahead, sooner than he’d like it to be, the place where you’ll part ways.

He finds himself slowing his pace. You do the same, no question, happy to simply have your fur-friend safe, by your side, the occasional brush of his snout against your upper thigh, searching for the affectionate stroke of your hand.

He needs to speak soon, act now, before it’s too late and the chance slips through his fingers. Joel clears his throat.

“My, uh,” a lump catches the words as they try to leave him. He swallows it down in a gulp, and tries again. “My daughter.”

Your face turns so quickly from the trail ahead to Joel, that he swears he hears a snap of something in your neck. Silence settles in like fog, mist on the horizon, a pause pregnant with so many questions he can see running through your pupils. You don’t speak them, however, and it strangely eases his nerves, taking away the feeling of demand to reveal his pain, leaving him to peel off the band-aid at his own pace.

“She was my… Whatever you called it, last night.” He sees you nod along, in the corner of his eye. You’ve both slowed to a mere shuffle, unaware of the three figures manifesting ahead, crowding on the other side of the fences. “The one that changed my life. She was so… bright, I used to worry one day she’d blind someone with her smile.”

In his memories, she’s always a beacon of light. Shining, even in darkness. Joel’s almost convinced glitter, or starlight must have been weaved into her skin, her eyes, her smile.

“She was everything good about me,” he says, and finds he can’t help the small laugh that claws its way up his throat, scratching as it goes. “None of the bad.”

“Can’t imagine there’s much on that list.”

“I know, ‘s hard to believe there’s even one good thing about m-”

“No, Joel,” he swears he feels his heart still at how you say his name, firm, and with conviction, like you’re trying to drill the sound into his head, remind him that he has a name, has a heart. “The bad, it must be a short list.”

Three of you — man, woman, dog — find another similar trio waiting by an open gate. Frank, Tess, Bill, each more relieved than the last to see Otis nearly pulling Joel’s feet from under him as the animal surges forward, pulling against the belt-lead with all his might. You release both man and dog from the tug of war, unbuckling the belt from the German Shepherd’s collar and freeing him to pounce on Bill who, despite the frown embedded in his forehead at the dog’s incessant licking, claps a hand over its back.

Joel feels a hand clap down on his own back, snaking its way up to squeeze at his shoulder.

"C'mon, Texas,” Tess proclaims loud enough for all eyes to fall on them. Yours included, kind and questioning, making him wish he could stay. “We're gonna be in shit if we're not back by sundown."

Bag already on his shoulder, Joel can’t feign a reason to linger a little longer.

“Wait!” You call out, parting from Frank’s side, fingers scratching at Otis’ head as you pass. Without warning, you throw yourself at Joel, arms wrapping around him and holding him close in the gentlest of embraces. “Thank you, Joel.” It’s just a whisper. He’s not even sure exactly what you’re thanking him for. Still, he lays a hand against your back and pulls you a little tighter, one last rush of your shampoo hitting his nose before you’re stepping back and parting ways. You, heading back into the safety of Bill’s gates, and Joel, walking off towards the desecrated city, back to the cold of his apartment.

When he wakes the next morning, beneath a roof and upon an uncomfortable couch, he feels time reset itself.

One day since he last seen you, who knows how many more days to go.

#joel miller smut #pedro pascal smut #joel miller x reader #pedro pascal x reader #joel miller series #joel miller fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel miller fic #pedro pascal fic

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vqnrouged · 4 months ago

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𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐌 𝐅𝐋𝐄𝐊𝐈 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 : fleki

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 : random headcanons i have for fleki, all are modern au

𝐚/𝐧 : fleki is accidentally becoming a favorite of mine so i need to share my thoughts about her with the world. <3

• | somehow has accumulated an insane amount of tupperware, she has no idea how she ended up with so much. lycion knows why though. it’s because she goes to parties so often and just ends up taking food home, the reason she doesn’t remember she took it home is because she tends to get high while she’s out.

• | eats spicy buldak noodles at least once a day and has a specific way she likes it. instead of just putting the packet of buldak sauce right in after the noodles are done, she mixes it in with milk so the texture is creamy! sometimes if she feels like putting more effort into making it she’ll put some sausages on the side or put shredded cheese over top, but that’s a rare occasion.

• | she also loves sour candy! she could gobble up a whole pack of warheads or sour patch kids within minutes and not feel a thing. so if you don’t like sour candy, she will take the candy and eat it for you. which is a lifesaver on halloween if you don’t like sour candies!

• | makes art sometimes, mostly paintings and random doodles. she likes drawing swirls and then using bright colors to fill in the white blank space, so her art comes off as being all over the place. basically it’s the definition of “head empty no thoughts” but with a lot of bright colors. this girl barely ever uses subtle colors, all of her art is very bright and trippy. #neon4life

• | loved as a kid and continues to love lisa frank sticker books, coloring books, etc. she just likes the look of them and they make her brain happy. she also likes to decorate her sketchbooks that she doodles in with the stickers to make them not look as dull and boring.

• | always picks the weirdest halloween costumes, no matter what. she will show up to a costume party in a blow-up unicorn costume and act like it’s nothing. she will probably forget she’s wearing the costume sometimes and go to take a drink from her cup only for it to splash on the costume and onto the floor, she does this multiple times.

• | thought snackies cups were the best thing ever invented. like you could put your snacks in a compartment to eat them and drink from your cup at the same time? amazing, give her fourteen more. she put cereal and milk in it one time and it changed her life.

• | snorted smarties more than one time when she was a kid. this needs no explanation.

• | children love her and she doesn’t fully understand why, but she’ll take it. if she was a camp counselor for a summer, she’d be the campers favorite. she’s literally so chill and will let them do just about anything as long as they let her join in on the games sometimes to. also gives candy to the kids while other counselors aren’t looking, she wants to be nice to the campers but she would rather not get a long scolding from camp counselor pattadol for being too “lenient” on the kids. fleki would also definitely prank other cabins for fun!

#@𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬 #fleki x reader #fleki dunmeshi #fleki dungeon meshi #fleki #the canaries x reader #the canaries #dunmeshi headcanons #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon x reader #delicious in dungeon #delicious in dungeon fleki #headcanons #headcanon #fleki hcs : ❀

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hollandorks · 6 months ago

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haven

battinson! bruce wayne x f! reader

interlude three

Summary: After the sudden deaths of her mother and grandmother, y/n is forced to return home to Gotham…and to the man who broke her heart three years ago. Back in Bruce Wayne’s inescapable orbit, she vows to get to the bottom of her former best friend’s new cold personality. But Bruce’s secrets aren’t what she’s expecting.

a/n: I'm alive!!! I don't want to talk about how long it's been since the last chapter because it's a little bit embarrassing. Anyways, I'm back! Hopefully! So here's a brief little Bruce POV to hold you over until the next real chapter, which should hopefully only be a week or two maybe? (Also, I apologize in advance....)

Series Masterlist

word count: 1.2k

Despite everyone who was trying hard to keep her alive, y/n felt utterly alone.

Bruce's POV

“Bruce, my dear boy, I don’t tell you often enough, but you are…so stubbornly stupid it makes me feel twice my age.”

Bruce startled and whirled around to face Alfred. The older man was leaning casually along the work station where Bruce’s video equipment was, his cane next to him, legs crossed at the ankles.

Bruce opened his mouth and then closed it again.

It was noon now, and he still hadn’t been to bed. He’d been out late staking out Maverick’s again, hoping to catch a lead on Frank Gallo or anyone that could lead him to the man, when Alfred’s call had come. Security breach. Elevator. The panic had almost killed him. Alfred’s next call came in when Bruce was almost home, telling him that everyone was safe. So he had changed direction and left to clean himself up to make an appearance as Bruce instead.

And still the fear lingered. Someone had been in his home, feet away from y/n, and he had yet to find any proof of how they had done it.

He wouldn’t–couldn’t–sleep until he was certain she was safe.

“What did I do this time?” Bruce finally asked. He turned back to the security footage he was pouring over. It terrified him that they could have been so close to y/n. That he could have been too late. That he could have–

He shut the thought down as quickly as it came. No use dwelling on it now.

“What haven’t you done? You imploded the most important relationship you have–repeatedly, if we’re being honest. You keep secrets from her but toe the line so recklessly it’s going to blow up in your face. You let your emotions get the best of you. And that’s just lately. Shall I go on?” Alfred recrossed his ankles in the other direction.

Bruce grit his teeth but said nothing. He restarted the security footage from the beginning and paused it frame by frame. A loud clack echoed around the abandoned station each time he smashed the button to go to the next frame.

“Let’s change tactics then. How long are you going to let her live in fear before you tell her that the Batman is watching over her from inside her home?”

Bruce’s jaw ached with the force of his clenched teeth. Still, he said nothing. First y/n had yelled at him, now Alfred. He knew his behavior was…abysmal to say the least. But he had more important things to focus on than everyone’s emotions, his own included.

He had to find Frank Gallo, and take down the rest of the family, once and for all. When that was done, when y/n was safe, he would think about all the ways he had ruined his relationship with her.

“Are you listening to me, Bruce?”

“I am trying,” Bruce said with a smack of his fist against the table, “to figure out who the fuck broke into my home and threatened y/n!” His voice echoed loudly around him, setting the bats to fluttering and chittering above them. He restarted the footage once again.

Alfred made a noise in his throat. “She hasn’t slept at all.”

Something oily slid down Bruce’s spine. “Neither have I.” It was a deflection and they both knew it. It killed Bruce to know y/n was so scared. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it–other than find those responsible and make them pay. She wouldn’t want his comfort, wouldn’t want him to hover, so he was doing the next best thing and trying to end it.

Alfred sighed. “All I’m saying is–”

“I know what you’re saying.”

“Then why do I have to keep saying it?”

Bruce went back to ignoring the older man. Let Alfred think what he wanted. Bruce had work to do. Nothing would get better until Frank Gallo and the rest of his family and cronies were gone for good.

What gives you the right to act like this? she’d asked, all of her anger turned towards Bruce like a roaring inferno. What gave him the right? He had admitted it to her right before that–I give too much of a shit.

She didn’t know he was still in love with her. That he always had been.

He’d hurt her so badly she couldn’t see what was right in front of her face–who he was, how he felt, what it was doing to him. If she would just open her eyes, she would know.

Instead, she had yelled at him.

He deserved it. He knew he deserved it. But walking in and seeing her hold Officer Martinez’s hand…it made him crazy. He had acted like the worst type of bastard without even thinking. It was pure instinct, the urge to protect her even from a guy like Martinez rising so strongly within him that it was almost as if he had blacked out. Like someone else had taken over his body.

She rarely ever got mad at him. It had only happened a few times throughout their many years together. It was a sight to behold, her rage, and he had been equal measures impressed and angry both.

“I don’t have time for this,” Bruce said after long stretch of silence. His voice was raw with exhaustion and emotion. “Either help me figure this out or go back upstairs.”

He felt rather than saw Alfred bristle. He waited to get berated yet again, but Alfred merely pulled up the footage on another screen and got to work.

They spent a few minutes in silence, Bruce’s eyes burning from lack of sleep, his thoughts churning. She hasn’t slept. He ached to go upstairs, to tell y/n that she was safe with him, that he would never let anything happen to her.

But it already had, and all of it had been his fault.

He knew without a doubt, just as he had known three years ago, that she was safest far away from him. And look what had happened already–the more she’d become entangled with him, with the Batman, the worse things got. She had spent three years in Bludhaven, far away from him, perfectly safe. And the minute she had come home to Gotham, come home to him…it had all gone to shit. Really it had gone to shit before that–when her grandmother had left the tower for the last time.

Bruce liked to think that was his fault, too, not that he’d ever it admit it out loud.

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty,” Alfred said into the silence. His voice was gentle, almost placating.

“Mm.” It wasn’t working, then, Bruce thought. He already felt guilty enough.

“I hate seeing you like this. Both of you.” Alfred sighed again. “I just think that talking about it–all of it–would help you both. It might ease the strain of…everything else going on.”

Bruce couldn’t see how it could help, only how it would make things worse. But he didn’t say that to Alfred, merely nodded and kept working.

Two nights later, all Bruce could think about was that Alfred had been right.

He should have told y/n the truth while he had the chance.

Next Chapter

taglist:

@ktficworld @grunge-n-roses5 @anon-cat-posts @projectdreamwalker @warsaur @lachillona02 @crazyunsexycool @doetic @alexiris @that-girl-named-alex @harry-bowie-mercury @vaniasagitaa @widows-writings @missing-loki @exactlyelegantwizard @miriamnox @mavenmoon @eclipsedplanet @spencerrxids @giulia2372 @katara-is-a-goddess-changemymind @janezat @incorrectmarvelquotesss @spiritdetectivel @i-have-no-life-charlie @ilovemybabes @curseyouperrytheplatypus @lightsinmycity @yondiii @spideybv28 @fictionalmansl4t

#bruce wayne x reader #battinson x reader #the batman x reader #the batman 2022 #the batman #battinson #bruce wayne #bruce wayne x you #battinson x you

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ashsd3ad · 11 months ago

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# t. fushiguro — eighth world wonder.

word count: 0.8 k

tooth rotting fluff; thoughts about having a kid (toji); reader is referred to as sweet girl and it’s implied she’s mamagumi <3; this is so fucking sappy.

he thought he let it go

he was sure he had left it, everything, behind.

his pride, his feelings, they had been left to die in that wretched childhood house of his.

so why?

why was his heart racing in his chest as he laid beside her, unable to sleep?

—

lay beside me

let’s share the gloominess

hand in hand in the darkness

i feel like i’m holding my life in my fist

her face was smushed in his chest, limbs tangled in an endless knot, skin to skin. disheveled hair framed those angelic features of hers he had grown accustomed to staring at, long eyelashes gently laid on her cheeks in her apparently dreamless slumber.

her chest rose and fell steadily, soft breaths hitting his pecs, penetrating his skin and flesh, going straight to warm his battered heart.

these devils around my bed

are waiting for me to fall asleep

the room was swallowed by darkness, thoughts swirling around his tired mind. toji was never the one to ponder much about his feelings; he acted, he didn’t waste time thinking.

during some particularly silent nights though, he allowed his brain to wander, he allowed his heart to be ripped out of his chest by his own consciousness.

the reality of my nightmares scares me

a knife rips my chest apart

it’s an open heart surgery

he had promised himself to never let the muscle between his ribcage feel again, the mere thought too painful to handle. yet, here he was, cradling her body like it was made of the most precious and fragile porcelain, expertly crafted to look flawless. just for him.

with the door and windows closed

the light can’t get through

but if your caress me i can reopen my eyes

tears dry

every wound stitches itself back together

he had honestly forgotten what comfort felt like for a long time, his body and mind getting accostumed to constant stress, anxiety and loneliness, all self inflicted. but then.. she stepped into his life.

with her soft giggles, lighthearted jokes and sunny smile, and she messed everything up. every wall he’d worked so hard to put up crumbling helplessly under the weight of her gentle voice.

i promise you, i’ll learn

to not hate everything i have

both in good and bad

wether it’s rain or snow

for your name, i’ll kill.

his merciless hands had ended many lives, cold and heartless in the process, but it never came from something personal, at least that’s what he liked telling himself. he was the one who left it all behind, the small satisfaction that came with eliminating a gifted one was just a small figment of his imagination.

so why did his entire body shake in pure fury only imagining someone bringing harm to the little slice of heaven he held in his strong arms?

lay down beside me

let’s share the sun

me and you, hand in hand in the desert

but when you smile, suddenly it pours.

i know who you are

you’re splendid, like your name

such a sweet girl she was, and that’s what he always called her. his sweet girl. if toji had to be frank, it was only fitting.

saccharine voice pulling him out from far more nightmares than he liked to admit, dainty hands pulling him back to slumber, running through his unruly locks.

she was so sweet, the sweetest.

suddenly, he felt her stir in his arms, his eyes quickly darting to the digital clock on her nightstand. 3:45 am. fuck, did he wake her? were his thoughts that fucking loud?

“mhmm.. ‘ji, why aren’t you sleeping?” she said, nuzzling her face into his chest, voice still heavy with sleep.

us, a monster and a little girl

hand in hand, navigating the world

towards a new life, i’m ready

this is the ascent from rock bottom

“don’t worry your pretty lil’ head ‘bout that, sweet girl, go back to sleep” he replied, voice gruff and husky, while caressing her back in an attempt to lull her back to sleep.

“why don’t you join me, mh?” she readjusted her body, face now in the crook of his neck, trailing chaste kisses all the way up to his jawline.

“don’t wanna you bein’ all grumpy in the morning" she chuckled in a whisper.

my god, what are you?

the eighth world wonder

the gods’ daughter

you who made the impossible happen

gave me my will to live back.

god she was just so fucking perfect.

his hands trailed from her back down to her waist, pulling her into him more. he needed her impossibly close, bodies melting together, never wanting to let go.

that night toji realized he’d marry her, even give her a kid. maybe he could be selfish for once, and make another little blessing for them to share.

and if the world is too small for us

we’ll redefine space and time,

us.

“yeah.. sorry for wakin’ ya doll, let’s go back to sleep, ‘aight?” he squeezed her hips gently.

i love you.

☆

this was inspired by one of my favourite songs!

listen to it here !!

| @ASHSD3AD ‘S WORD, DO NOT COPY OR TRANSLATE |

#toji fushiguro #toji x reader #jjk toji #jujutsu kaisen #toji brainrot #toji fluff #fluff #jjk #jjk fluff #jujustsu kaisen x reader #i cried #HE DESERVES RHE WORLD

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withacapitalp · 1 year ago

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How to Rehabilitate a Jock Pt 17

Part One Link to ao3 Part 16

A speedy update? Couldn't be me lmao

Step Seventeen: Tell a Story

The party really wasn’t like any of the ragers he used to throw, but in Steve’s opinion that made it a thousand times better.

From his vantage point on the arm of the couch, Steve could see everything, and all looked to be going well. All of the parents had quickly clustered together around the big dining room table, smoking and playing cards as they reminisced about the good old days and enjoyed the wine Steve had broken out of the cellar. Mike and Lucas were sprawled out across the floor, their books in piles around them as they designed new characters and argued about the best way to win against dragons, while Nancy and Jonathan had curled up together on the loveseat by the window, sharing a cup of cocoa and quietly whispering about god knows what.

It all seemed peaceful.

So naturally Steve was sitting next to the most chaotic conversation he had ever heard.

“In terms of controlling the fight and better initiative, it’s the halberd. Hands down,” Frank declared. He was putting emphasis on every single word, as if doing so would somehow sway the three preteens throwing him impressively dry looks.

“That’s assuming you have the speed and dexterity necessary to gain that advantage,” Dustin sighed, shaking his head and tutting. “The greatsword is not only faster, but it is shorter, which makes the swing that much more versatile.”

Mike and Lucas sagely nodded along from their spot on the floor next to Dustin. the calmness of the action only riling Frank up even more.

“Reach is speed on its own!” He snapped, tossing his hands in the air, turning to the others for help. Steve bit down the laugh that was attempting to escape, doing his best to appear supportive, and Eddie was already reaching over to give his friend the conciliatory pat on the shoulder.

Steve wasn’t exactly positive how the debate had started, but it had to have been at least fifteen minutes of furious back and forth between the two. It was pretty entertaining to watch, made even better by the quiet comments Eddie would whisper up to Steve when he was sure no one else was listening.

“Careful there Frank,” Jeff called from the other side of the room, not looking up from Will’s sketchbook as he did, “you sound like you’re losing to a twelve year old.”

“I am not losing,” Frank ground out.

“I’m not twelve!” Dustin protested.

“Of course you aren’t losing, Frankie,” Eddie interjected, his tone practically dripping with false kindness. He accompanied the words with a brief pat to the top of Frank’s head.

“Dustin just isn’t opening his mind to the possibilities that your elder brain has already thought through,” Steve added on, his stomach doing a weird flip-flop when Eddie turned to look up at him with a little gremlin smile. Teasing friends was different when it really was just teasing, and Steve couldn’t resist the urge to jump in and knock at Frank a little for getting so into a debate with the kids.

“Okay just because you play now doesn’t make you an expert, Steve,” Mike added on, never one to miss a chance to try and knock Steve down a peg. Steve, very maturely, rolled his eyes and chose not to reply.

“How about it, Sweetheart?” Eddie asked, looking up at Steve where he was sitting perched on the arm of the couch, “halberd or Greatsword?”

“Steve, if you don’t choose the sword, I will feel personally betrayed,” Dustin spat out before Steve could even open his mouth. It was accompanied by a murderous looking glower, and Steve knew trouble was starting to brew on the horizon.

“Eh, I think Baby might have a problem if I start using a different weapon,” He said, staying neutral and dragging the boys into a different conversation before feelings started to actually get hurt.

“Baby?”

Fuck.

Steve’s whole body stiffened up, and he glanced quickly at Eddie before turning away, mind racing to come up with an explanation. How the hell was he supposed to casually bring up the bat studded with nails that was sitting in the trunk of his BMW?

“Okay, but we’re talking in game, not real life!” Lucas objected, keeping the conversation flowing and unintentionally bypassing Eddie’s question.

“Baby would be more effective than a halberd though,” Dustin pointed out, and Mike hummed in disagreement, flipping the pages of the manual in front of him as he looked for a counter argument.

“So who’s Baby?” Eddie asked quietly as they continued the debate, leaning back towards Steve so only he could hear the words. He was looking up at Steve with those big doe eyes, completely at peace with a soft smile and lax shoulders. He was the picture of calmness, and Steve wouldn’t ruin that with the Upside Down, not even in the most roundabout way.

“I’m gonna get a refill,” Steve whispered to him instead, reaching down to quickly run his fingers through Eddie’s curls impulsively before standing up and stretching. He felt the hem of his maroon sweater ride up over his hips, and the boys groaned as the bottom half of Steve’s stomach came into view. “Do you want anything, Eds?”

“Um no, ‘m okay,” Eddie said, his voice uncharacteristically small. Steve relaxed from his stretch, giving Eddie a quick once over. He looked the same as before, save for a slight color on his cheeks and averted downward facing eyes.

Weird.

Something to check on.

But later. First Steve had to take a lap.

“Dustin, don’t make Frank blow a gasket,” Steve ordered as he passed by, pushing the kids hat down over his eyes. Dustin growled at him and waved his arms blindly in an attempt to smack Steve away, but Steve easily dodged it, sliding over to the edge of the living room and down the stairs to the wine cellar.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid,” Steve muttered to himself as he picked two bottles at random. How could he have said something like that? He wasn’t even drunk! It had just slipped out, but that didn’t make it okay. Sure, the very existence of Baby wasn’t covered by the NDA’s, but just knowing about her would be enough to make Eddie curious, and curiosity led to more questions, which lead to more answers, which lead to more danger.

Steve’s stomach flipped over on itself, and he leaned back against the cool stone wall of the cellar, worrying his lip as he tried to take a deep breath.

There wasn’t any danger. Not anymore. It was just a party, and it was just one little sentence. Eddie would forget about it by the time he walked back up the stairs. He was working himself up over nothing.

Or everything.

‘Or’ might just be the scariest word in the world, Steve thought to himself as he climbed up the stairs feeling about ten thousand pounds heavier. He trudged over to the kitchen and quickly opened both bottles, leaving one to air out as he carried the other over to the dining room table, silently listening to the adults as they gossiped.

“It’s such an insane story,” Sue Sinclair was saying in a quiet breathy voice as Steve walked in, barely even noticing as he started refilling her glass, “it’s hard to believe.”

“It was harder to live through,” Hopper replied, extremely somber as he gravely shook his head.

Steve bit the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise and giving up the act. He looked up just a bit to make eye contact with Joyce, who was also clearly hiding a smile behind her hand.

“Maybe we should pause this conversation?” Karen asked lightly, politely jutting her chin out towards Steve who continued to pour without comment.

“Steve knows,” Hopper quickly smoothed over.

“He babysits Jane with the others,” Joyce added on, giving Steve a secretive look as she continued, “such a big help with acclimating her.”

All eyes were on him now, and Steve played his part perfectly. He poured the last of the bottle into Hopper’s glass and stepped back with a sigh.

“She’s a great kid. Amazing even, after everything she’s been through,” Steve said, his voice pitched to the ultimate tone of caring worry.

This seemed to seal the deal for the rest of the adults, and they fell one by one. Hook, line, and sinker. The women were twittering on about how sad the whole story was, and the men were shaking their heads and muttering to Hopper about how drugs were going to ruin the nation.

Everything was going to plan.

Steve couldn’t help the little burst of pride he felt watching all of the parents gossiping like hens. He was the one to come up with El’s cover story, and it couldn’t have been going better.

El might not be allowed to go to school until next year, but Steve didn’t see a point in keeping her locked up in the cabin until then like Hopper wanted. The government knew she was alive now, and she had all her paperwork. Besides, having her drop out of the blue sky into one of the most unforgiving social settings on the planet was a complete recipe for disaster.

This party had been the perfect test run for the story they were going to use to explain her sudden appearance, and it had passed with flying colors. But Steve had known it would work, never had any doubt despite everyone else’s concerns.

He knew because he knew this town like the back of his hand. If you gave them a good enough story, something juicy and wild but with enough reality that it would stick, then they would buy it. Not only would they buy it, but they would sell it to everyone else on the block too. Now that Sue Sinclair, Claudia Henderson, and Karen Wheeler had the ‘truth’, El would fly into Hawkins High with only minimal odd looks and the occasional jerky kid to deal with.

And what was the best cover story for a girl like El?

“I just can’t believe that there was a suicide cult right here in Indiana,” Chuck Sinclair commented, sitting back in his seat. “How did no one know about it?”

“There was no way to leave without being killed. Anyone who would have told someone was killed. Brenner, the one in charge, was convinced he could create dimensions to other worlds and give children superpowers with LSD, if you can believe it,” Joyce replied, laying on the shock and surprise a little thick in Steve’s opinion. Still, whatever got the rest of them on board.

“Ridiculous,” Ted Wheeler muttered, sounding absolutely disgusted.

“We’re just lucky we found Will and Jane when we did. We were too late for the others,” Hopper paused to take a long slow sip of his drink, really selling the story. He even lowered his voice, causing them all to lean in, “The feds want to keep it real hush hush, and we were so afraid for the kids that we just went along with that bullshit water contamination story. But I mean, c’mon. Water contamination? Those people disappeared.”

A round of mutters among the group, and then Karen Wheeler spoke up.

“But Barbara Holland using drugs? I knew Barb her entire life. She always had such a good head on her shoulders,” She said, grief coating every word. Steve dragged a sharp breath in, holding the bottle close to his chest and forcing himself to stay still and silent as Hopper and Joyce did their best to explain.

This was the part that sucked. To make the story work, really work, it had to involve everyone. Benny, Barb, Will, even the two hunters. All of them had to be explained, or the story fell apart. It felt dishonest to make Barb a part of it all, but El was still here, and Steve still had a chance to help her.

For El. It was all for El.

“That’s how the commies get you,” Ted remarked to Karen the second Hop was done speaking. “We’re just lucky she didn’t bring Nancy into it.”

Steve bit his tongue to keep from lashing out. This wasn’t about him or his guilt. It was about El.

“At least you saved that precious little girl,” Claudia breathed, hand still over her heart as her eyes glistened with tears. “It all must have been so scary for her. Does she know… you know… about her mother?”

“She does, but she doesn’t like to talk about it,” Hopper laid both hands out on the table

“Listen, we really shouldn’t have said anything to you all.”

This was it. This was the moment that would tell them what was going to happen from here on out. Steve held his breath

“Our lips are sealed, Jim,” Chuck said instantly, the rest of the group nodding along. “Last thing any of us would want to do is put your daughter or Joyce’s son in danger. Whether it’s the government or some freaky cult stragglers.”

There it was.

In a small town like Hawkins, lips were always sealed. People said they wouldn’t say a word, they promised to keep a secret, but Steve had no doubt that by the end of the week the entire town would be abuzz with the story. The best part was, there was no one that would end up hurt. Hopper looked like a hero, Joyce went from local crazy woman to single mother who did everything to protect her baby, and El was just a poor child who was rescued from an insane terrible man.

It was the truth, just… shifted ever so slightly. No lies involved. Not really. Just a perspective on it.

The mood and the topic began to move, and Steve moved with it. He went to escape out the side door back to the living room, but as he went past her Joyce reached out, taking his wrist in her small hand and squeezing it once. It was a tiny display of affection, barely anything, but it stopped Steve in his tracks, making his heart do strange weird things that left his chest aching.

Damn.

“Are you alright?” Joyce murmured to him below the sound of the conversation.

“Yeah?” Steve replied, unspoken question sitting between them as Joyce continued to hold onto his wrist.

“You looked upset when you came in,” She observed. That was the best and worst part of Joyce, she never let anything drop. It reminded Steve a lot of Nancy actually, both of them so determined to get to the bottom of everything, even when it was best to just leave it alone.

Of course it had to be Joyce.

“‘I’m okay,” Steve said, trying for a thin little smile.

Joyce hummed, rubbing her thumb over Steve’s arm as she forced him to keep eye contact until the fake smile slipped from his face.

“It’s not a big deal,” Steve said, a dark cloud coming over him as Joyce continued to hold on. It was the same thing as Nancy. Stifling, impossible to be around, a feeling of claustrophobia that would never fully go away.

It wasn’t any of Joyce’s business. It wasn’t like she was his mother.

“Well, if you need anything you can always come to me or Hop,” Joyce said after a too long silence, releasing Steve’s arm. “We’re here for you guys too, not just the kids.”

“You’re allowed to not be okay.”

Eddie.

Since he had said those words, they had been permanently branded in the forefront of Steve’s mind. Every time he tried to forget them, they returned with a vengeance, hitting him directly in the soft spot right above his breastbone.

It wasn’t like Steve didn’t know that. He knew that he was allowed to not be okay. He did. But it was silly for him not to be okay, because nothing had really happened to him. Will was the one who had ended up in the Upside Down. Nancy’s best friend had died. El had been fucking tortured for her entire life.

In comparison Steve’s problems were so small it was laughable.

So why was everyone trying so hard to tell him that they mattered?

“Steve?”

Steve had never been so happy to hear one of his kids.

A hush fell over the adults as El popped her head around the corner, immediately coming over to Steve’s side and pressing close, trying to avoid the obvious stares coming from everyone else. They were looking at her with a mixture of pity and concern, but it was better than fear.

“Hi Janey,” Steve said, playing with her curls and shooting her a warm grin, “you doin’ okay?”

El shrugged, burrowing impossibly further into Steve’s grip.

“The others are being loud,” She said softly. Steve sighed, petting her hair again. He and Hop had talked about the possibility of this being too much for her, same as the Snowball. This party was mostly made up of her people, but even her people could be overwhelming.

Luckily, Steve already had an idea in place.

“Would you mind helping me with something?” Steve asked, already gently nudging El towards the doorway and into the kitchen.

Making cookies was the perfect ‘cool down away from people so you don't have a meltdown and psychically destroy Steve's house’ activity. Steve had learned that El really enjoyed cooking, and although she couldn’t use her powers to get the flour down from the high shelf like she usually would if it was just them, she was still having fun.

“Don’t listen to anyone who tells you oatmeal raisin cookies are bad,” Steve instructed, rolling out another ball of dough and placing it carefully on the cookie sheet. “They’re stupid and childish.”

“Mike hates oatmeal raisin,” El cheerfully replied, licking the spoon that Steve had handed to her when he was done mixing the batter.

Now that it was just the two of them, she had relaxed. She was sitting on the counter next to where he was working, ever so slightly bobbing her head along to the music filtering in from the living room. Steve had relaxed along with her, all of the previous troubles of the night fading away, replaced by the smell of cinnamon sugar and the warmth of the oven heating up.

“My point exactly. Mike hates everything great,” Steve countered, dabbing a bit of cookie batter onto the tip of El’s nose. She laughed softly, and stuck her tongue out, trying to reach the offending treat.

“Mike likes me,” El shot back, continuing to try and touch her tongue to her nose. Steve watched her struggle for a second more before shaking his head and reaching around her to grab a paper towel.

“Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Steve whispered conspiratorially as he wiped her face clean. This started up another round of giggles, and Steve laughed along with her, his entire body feeling light for the first time all day.

He loved each of his kids for different reasons- even Mike- but El was just so easy. The rest of them couldn't help the compulsive urge to be difficult little hell beasts. They were always trying to show off how smart they were, which usually meant disparaging Steve’s intelligence to some degree. Even Will couldn’t resist a few snarky comments when he thought Steve was being overprotective.

But El thought Steve was one of the smartest people in the world, and she was always telling him so. It was objectively untrue, but it was fun to get to show her how to do things without being afraid of being told he was doing them wrong. Even something as simple as baking cookies was an opportunity to give her a new happy experience, and getting to be a part of that was kind of magical.

“How about this- we’ll tell Mike you made these and you’ll see just how quickly oatmeal raisin becomes his favorite cookie,” Steve offered.

“Sounds like fun,” A familiar voice said from the doorway, making Steve’s heart skip a beat.

Steve turned around and gave Eddie a pleased grin, waving him in and turning around to finish up with the dough.

“Hey Eds,” Steve said as Eddie leaned into his space and snagged a bite. Eddie hummed appreciatively, going for another taste but Steve smacked his hand with his spoon before he could.

“You’ll get sick eating that,” Steve pointed out.

“So mean,” Eddie said with a fake pout. He pulled away from Steve, walking around the kitchen aimlessly with swinging arms, “I was just wondering where our liege had run off to. Apparently you went to guide a wayward princess through the fine art of confectionary creation.”

Said ‘princess’ was staring at Eddie with open distrust. Her spoon had been abandoned beside her, and her arms were wrapped tight around her middle. Steve was immediately reminded of her initial reaction to Max. Although they were thick as thieves now, El had been cold to her too at the start. Steve had figured it was some sort of pre-teen jealousy thing over Mike.

Apparently it was just an all around jealousy thing. It made sense though. A girl who had nothing would protect whatever she had with ferocious intensity, especially her people. Time to do a little damage control.

“Eddie’s my friend, and he said he wanted to be friends with you too,” Steve said, pitching his voice soft and low as he reframed things for El. If Eddie was one of her people, then she wouldn’t be quite so possessive over Steve’s time. “He’s a little loud, and a little scary looking, but he’s probably the nicest person I know.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows in surprise, but Steve just shrugged. He was just being honest, Eddie probably was the nicest person Steve knew. He cared about Nancy and Jonathan, and he loved the kids, but none of them were necessarily very nice. Eddie had taken Steve in without even really thinking about it, which would have been amazing even if Steve had just been another nerd.

The fact that Steve used to be one of the people who would have made fun of people like Eddie only made him even better in Steve’s eyes.

El’s mouth pursed into a tiny little scowl, and she narrowed her eyes, evaluating Eddie where he stood.

“Bitchin’,” El said after a moment, punctuating the word with an approving nod. It was probably the closest thing to approval Eddie could earn at this moment.

“Yeah, Babydoll’s totally bitchin,’” Steve said with a laugh, stretching the word out just because it was funny to see Eddie turn bright red. Steve wasn’t sure if it was from the compliment or the silly nickname, but either way he was enjoying it.

“It’s good to meet you, Miss Jane,” Eddie said, coughing and trying to will away the blush on his cheeks, “Steve’s told me a lot about you.”

El turned to look at Steve, adorably confused by Eddie’s statement. Steve stiffened up, avoiding his knee jerk impulse to shake his head. He hadn’t told Eddie anything real about El, just the same story that Hopper and Joyce were selling to the parents. But El wasn’t good with secrets at the best of times, and the elaborate intricate story that they had woven would probably be too much for her.

“El? EL!”

“Mike, stop shouting!” Steve said, shouting himself, relieved at being interrupted before things could get hairy. He rolled his eyes and shot Eddie a look, calm now that Eddie seemed less curious about El and more fondly annoyed with Mike and his antics. “We’re in the kitchen.”

Pandemonium as all four boys trooped in, clustering around El and chattering their heads off like they always did. Steve let out the breath he had unintentionally been holding, leaning back against the counter as he watched the kids mess around.

“Steve, stop hogging her,” Mike snapped as he pulled away from El, glowering at him with all of the brutality of a two week old puppy.

“El’s a person, not a toy. She can do something without you and that doesn’t mean she likes you any less,” Steve said, ignoring Mike’s sputtering denials as he helped El down from the counter, “The oven has to preheat anyway. Why don’t you go inside with them, and when the cookies are ready, you can help me dunk them in the icing?”

El nodded, allowing herself to be pulled away by the boys. But just as she passed Eddie she stopped, grabbing onto the sleeve of his leather jacket and looking up at him from behind her curls.

“You’ll join us?” She asked. Eddie leaned down so they were the same height and nodded, reaching out to ruffle her curls.

“I’ll be here, Lady Jane,” Eddie promised.

“El,” She corrected.

That was big, even if Eddie didn’t fully realize it. It wasn’t exactly a full acceptance, but only people El actually liked were allowed to use her ‘real’ name.

“El?” Eddie questioned.

“A nickname. Not sure where she got it,” Steve stepped in, smoothing out the wrinkle before it could even form. He nudged Lucas, pushing them all towards the door, “Now scram, twerps.”

The kids all immediately began to groan and whisper curses under their breath at the word ‘twerps’, and they dragged El out without another word to Eddie or Steve. Steve turned and began to gather the dishes, dumping them all into the sink and turning on the water. As he started scrubbing, Steve felt more than saw Eddie’s presence approaching him.

“I think she likes me,” Eddie sang, leaning all of his weight against Steve. He caught Eddie easily, carrying both of their weights as he continued to do the dishes.

“What’s not to like?” Steve asked. The question was rhetorical, but the shaky little breath inward that Eddie let out wasn’t. Steve paused, sensing the mood shifting, put down the bowl he was holding and faced Eddie.

He looked wrecked, inexplicably upset and almost guilty as he chewed on his lip and searched for words. All Steve wanted to do was wrap him in a hug and ask what was wrong, but he held back. Whatever Eddie was trying to say, it was important.

“Steve-”

But whatever Eddie was going to say was interrupted by the sound of an engine outside. The motor was roaring, an obnoxious sound that grated on Steve’s nerves and set his teeth on edge. There was only one person who revved their stupid car that way in town, and he was the last person Steve wanted to see tonight.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to be good.

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