#okay there’s only 2 instances I can think of

[divinetransseraphim]

If there isn’t a Jo[h]n in the horror media then I don’t want it

[emdotcom]

*remembers what they did to Vanny* 500 FUCKING PIPEBOMB ATTACK.

[our-lady-of-mcr]

everytime i think im done ranting i remember something else LMFAO this one is extra long i hit tag limit god mf damn

[andivmg]

My experience with Luke (Punz)

CW: toxic relationship, racism, dubious consent

I know in the past i said that i would no longer speak about him publicly, and when talking about my experiences with abuse and emotional mistreatment i begged to keep it anonymous but after reflecting on this for a week and seeing so many incredibly smart and strong women tell their stories. they have given me the strength to say his name.

this is really scary to talk about because of the copious levels of harassment i have received from his fans in the past so if this spreads or gets out of hand i will simply log off.

If you read my last post, i nicknamed him 1.

So aside from everything i said there, there were a lot of things i didn’t include because they would’ve made it obvious that it was him and it could potentially backfire on me so, i’m very afraid to post this. but i’m going to do it scared anyway, because it’s not fair that he gets to just go and live his life worry-free as if he didn’t practically ruin mine.

Because I already made a very lengthy post about him, i won’t include everything i said last time to avoid being redundant but if i repeat myself, please bear with me.

In our year long relationship i had to endure emotional neglect, gaslighting, verbal abuse, one instance where there was dubious consent, and much more.

Starting off at the beginning of our relationship, that’s when i was getting copious amounts of hate and harassment from his fan base (warranted or not), he decided that our relationship must be kept private. he said it was to “protect” me from his fanbase when in reality it was to protect himself. it was so he wouldn’t get all the backlash i was getting. this is funny because one of the things i got called out for was saying the B slur (derogatory term used against mexicans/latinos). I won’t get into the nuances of if i could say it or not as a puertorican because that’s discourse that does not pertain to this specific situation. But you know who definitely can’t say it? A white boy from Massachusetts. When i was getting cancelled for this and getting thousands of tweets calling me names, he decided that was the perfect time to say “I mean you are a b***** aren’t you? my little b*****.” Now, he said this completely unprompted. I was in the process of writing my apology and he just said that. I tell you this because i immediately shut him down and told him that there was no universe in which it was okay for him to say that word and especially not one where he could just call me that. While i was reprimanding him, he was smiling and laughing. he apparently found it amusing to call me a slur. regardless, he gave me a half-assed apology and said he wouldn’t do it again. and he didn’t. but this wasn’t the only time he was weirdly racist to me. this was my first time being in an interracial relationship so i was led to believe that this was normal by all the white people around me at the time. But, sometimes my spanish accent would come out and he would make fun of me and the way i pronounced some words. He also refused to visit me in Puerto Rico when i lived there or come meet my family when i really wanted him to because he “didn’t like the heat” or “it’s dangerous there isn’t it?”. Once, while we were watching season 2 of Bridgerton, he implied that the Sharma sisters were “too dark” for him to be attracted to them. This hurt me because they are brown skinned girls. I am a brown skinned girl. Then this, combined with the fact that he told me once he wasn’t attracted to me made me feel like my skin color was unattractive. These are only a few examples i can think of at the moment, but i’m sure there were more. Our relationship ended in 2022 so some of my memory is a bit hazy. But, I do remember feeling inferior to him throughout the relationship because he was white and I was not. I chalk that up to all the micro aggressions i had to deal with because i had never felt that way around white people before.

Another thing i had to endure was him constantly making me feel like he was embarrassed to be with me. Because i was cancelled, he didn’t want to associate with me too much. He did defend me on multiple occasions, I’ll give him that. But, he only did it because his name was getting dragged in the mud along with mine. Excusing my actions made him look better for being around me. In reality he didn’t really care. Because he was such a big content creator and someone i looked up to professionally, I took his advice as law. He told me to tone down my personality, to keep a low profile, to change things about myself to be more palatable to his audience. The same audience that spoke about me like “The pussy can’t be that good punz please stop defending her”. So i changed a lot of things about myself and my content to better suit what his audience liked. He made me feel like if his audience liked me, he would be public about our relationship and stop hiding it. He told me the reason why he wanted to keep our relationship a secret was because he didn’t want to get hate for it. But this wasn’t true. On my 20th birthday he went to Las Vegas for a twitch rivals event. That night i asked to facetime him to say goodnight and he refused because he was at a hotel room with his friends and he didn’t want them to know that we were together. It was as if my mere presence or the utterance of my name was a source of embarrassment for him. And he didn’t let me forget it. It wasn’t just a public thing at that point. He didn’t want people to know we were together, period. This was devastating to me because I would talk to all my friends about him. I was so proud to be with him and I was just one more problem to him. He made me feel so small and insignificant just because his fans didn’t like me.

He would berate me a lot. Not just due to getting heat online, although he did do that a lot. But in general whenever we would get into an argument or a disagreement he would always call me names like annoying or weird or stupid. He would raise his voice at me if i did something he didn’t like and call me an idiot. And that really hurt, i felt like i couldn’t bring up anything or do anything without getting insulted. If I hadn’t seen him in a few days because he was too busy streaming and i asked to hang out he would call me needy, clingy, and annoying. Granted, he might not have been wrong, but that is not something you say to someone you claim to love. He also insulted me when i was in depressive episodes. I have BPD and at the time i was not being treated properly for it. So, I was all over the place emotionally and he was what i clung to for validation, reassurance, and love. I talked to him when we first started dating about my disorder and told him that if it seemed like something he couldn’t handle that he could opt out of the relationship. I guess he didn’t think it was that bad or something idk because whenever i had really bad depressive episodes, he would tell me I was too sad to hang out with. He said that my sadness was a burden to him. Which would be fair. But, once my mother had a conversation with him about me. She told him that i am someone who needs a lot of love and caring. She said that if he wasn’t willing to put in that kind of effort into a relationship to just leave me alone. He reassured her that he would be there for me no matter what. He told my mother that he would protect me and my heart. He did not. He took all the warnings I gave him and ignored them and then made me feel like I was the problem. And even worse, he would say that i was pretending to be sad to get his attention when he would neglect for days at a time.

There were also some smaller things like the fact that he made me feel really guilty whenever he would spend money on me. Also, he would be really mean about my eating habits. For context, i used to suffer from an eating disorder. I was anorexic and had a really unhealthy relationship with food during high school and my first year of uni. This relationship began when i was recovering from my ED. For me, eating was really hard. So i had certain comfort foods that, while sometimes unhealthy, at least it was something to eat when i didn’t feel like eating anything. He knew this. Yet, whenever i would crave some of these foods he would call me fat. Constantly told me I’d gain weight from eating all that junk food. Saying that to someone with an eating disorder is crazy. Other smaller things were that whenever I would post tiktoks where i was lip syncing or just looking good he would yell at me and say i was looking for attention. Same with Instagram or Twitter whenever i would post photos where I looked hot. He never planned out a single date for us. I would beg him to get me flowers and he did maybe once but i’ll get into that in a bit. He would make fun of me in front of his friends to make himself look better. He let his friends say really degrading things about me in his presence. For example, once when i was showering, i overheard him on a discord call with George and Sapnap and i heard George say “if you don’t go in the shower and have sex with Andi, i will”. Once, when i was really struggling with my legs (for those of you who don’t know, i have arthritis and it’s very painful. at the time i wasn’t diagnosed but i was in a lot of pain) I literally could not walk. I had to beg him to take me to the ER because i didn’t know what was wrong with me. He didn’t want to take me but eventually i convinced him, and while we were there all he did was complain about how long it was taking and that he would have rather been at home streaming. Whenever I would talk about my interests that i was excited about like shows or books he would be incredibly uninterested and say that those things were stupid and he didn’t want to hear about them. I know all of these seem very silly or superficial but cumulatively it was awful.

Now for arguably the most serious thing i’m going to talk about. I want to preface this by saying i am just telling my side of what happened. You can come to your own conclusions about this.

On April 25, 2022 it was our one year anniversary, and i had made a dinner reservation for us. I expected him to plan something throughout the day for us to do. He told me he was going to spend the whole day playing Valorant so I got upset and cancelled the reservation. After a very heated argument, we calmed down and i asked him to come over. He came over about an hour later with flowers and drinks (I was 20 at the time so I couldn’t buy the drinks myself). He brought Smirnoffs and Trulys. For context, I am a lightweight. I always have been. I literally get tipsy on half a cocktail. And that day, I hadn’t eaten anything because i was in distress over our argument. So we get to talking and drinking. I blacked out after my second Smirnoff. Apparently I drank 3 but I genuinely cannot remember anything after finishing the second one. The next morning i woke up naked in my bed. I woke him up and asked him “Luke, why am I naked?” and he said “Because you didn’t want to put your clothes back on.” When I clarified to him that that was not what I meant, he got defensive and said that he didn’t realize how drunk I was. He proceeded to tell me that I initiated sex with him and that i was very enthusiastic about it. He said he didn’t know i could black out on three smirnoffs. He made fun of me for being a lightweight and continued to make light of the situation. Then he mentioned that i fell off the bed at some point in the night and that it was funny how drunk I was. I then questioned him. Because if he thought that me tripping and falling off the bed because i was so drunk was funny, how did he not know that i was too drunk? He responded by saying that i fell off the bed only after we were done. That day I broke up with him. I’m still really confused about what happened that night. I don’t remember anything and all I have to go on is what he said to me. We were in a relationship at the time and he says he didn’t know how drunk I was so I’m not sure what to call what happened. A while after that day, his friend that hmu while we were broken up and I started talking again and i confided in him about that night. He told me to be careful saying things like that because they could get me into trouble. I spoke to some of our other friends about it and they told me it was no big deal and that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how drunk I really was. Because I don’t remember, I have been led to believe that this is not a serious matter. You can think what you want, come to whatever conclusions you want. That is just my side of the story.

I want to add that I’m not proud of how I acted after the relationship ended. I felt really angry at all the shit he put me through and I guess a part of me wanted him to hurt even a quarter of how I did. So I started talking to his friend and got involved with him. This backfired on me because his friend ended up really hurting me too so ig i got my karma. But the thing that hurt the most is that because of what I did, some of our friends took his side in the break up. I was told that I did something terrible by getting involved with his friend that he was already insecure about and that he didn’t deserve that. These are the same friends who were witness to the dumpster fire of a relationship we had and all the things he did to me. They turned their backs on me because of this one thing I did. But stood by and watched as he treated me like garbage for over a year.

I will conclude this by saying that while this relationship has been “over and done with” for almost two years now, I carry a lot of trauma from it still. I still talk about him in therapy and have had to put in a lot of work to heal from what he did and i still cannot say that i am okay. I am very blessed to now have a patient and understanding partner who has helped me heal from that trauma and i just want to quickly thank him for that. Nobody deserves to go through what I did. While yes, it was a toxic relationship, and I had a part in that, it does not excuse all the awful things he said and did to me. This is my truth, thank you for taking the time to read it.

[wordstome]

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)

[twizzie-lairs]

My Darling, My Honey

Alastor X Fem!Reader (Part 5)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Quick Notes:

This is when both reader/you and Alastor are both alive. (... we'll probably end up in hell later on btw so stay tuned...)

Reader is an artist/painter.

Part 5:

It was almost pure bliss.

Except many months later, you found out a secret of his one day.

He was an exceptional chef, you were always in awe of how he cooked such magnificent dishes every day.

But one day, you peeked out into the forest through the window in the living room and saw Alastor standing alone, covered in blood. Your first instinct was to run outside, so you did just that.

You rush to his side and ask if he's okay, and what had happened to make him covered in such copious amounts of blood.

He blinks a few times before oddly turning his head to you, breaking out of his stupor, "Oh my dearest (y/n), do not fret so. For I am only acquiring our dinner for tonight!"

You look down at what he is holding in his hands. Your hand shot up to cover your mouth. A leg. A human leg. Your eyes then trail to the ground where you see a bloody human body, mangled beyond recognition. "This is.. dinner?"

A large grin appears on Alastor's face, "Quite right! This one should be enough to last us through the week!"

He looks at your face with an almost vicious look to his eyes, awaiting your response anxiously, not that he would let that show, anyways.

All you can manage is "Oh. Okay." Before you walk back inside the house without another word.

It's no exaggeration to say that your brain chemistry was permanently altered from that moment onward.

The situation felt so strange and bizarre, you didn't know what to think. Part of you knew that was he's been doing is extremely horrible and corrupt. It almost made you empty the contents of your stomach, it didn't feel real.

It didn't feel real, but suddenly some of Alastor's behaviors started to make sense. His picky taste for food...He never let you help with cooking, you had chalked it up to him being more of a perfectionist, but now... you know its more than that. He was hiding the fact that he was butchering and preparing human flesh, right in your very home, all this time.

But.. for some reason... all you could think about was how dedicated he was to providing a comfortable life for you, because he truly loved you. Everything he did every day showed you that you mattered and that you deserved only the best.

"But I still love him with all my heart... maybe I'm just as messed up..." Was a sentence your mind kept repeating to itself for quite some time.

Your appetite shrinks after the initial shock for a few days, but you were never one to skip meals or have your appetite be gone completely, even if you were sick. In this instance, you weren't sure if it was a blessing or a curse in this case.

The meals he made for you had never made you sick in the past, so your body was already used to eating his cooking, and he made such amazing food, carefully crafted with such love and attention to detail, you couldn't help but keep eating his delicious cooking, no matter how bizarre and immoral it was.

"I think I really am just as messed up..." The thought crossed your mind again, but thoughts were interrupted by a rare occurrence, a kiss on the cheek from Alastor as he set your plate down in front of you.

The fact that you never stopped eating his cooking and always thanked him for his food and hard work, even after knowing where the main ingredient comes from, solidified the fact that you were the one. You loved him even after seeing him all bloody, holding a dismembered corpse, and telling you it was dinner. It was this pivotal moment that he knew, that you were the one to be his beloved forever.

In the coming weeks, things went back to "normal". You were settling into the new normal, as Alastor didn't hide the meal prep like he used to, and seeing him bloody and bringing in mysterious cuts of meat into the house became a normal sight to you.

One night when you were going to see Mimzy, Alastor informed you that he was unable to escort you that night. You were a little disappointed, but he assured you it was okay for you to go, it was just that he had plans that he wouldn't divulge any information on, no matter how much you pressed him.

Little did you know, but that night, Alastor was out on the town shopping for the perfect ring to propose to you with.

-> Part 6

[eldritchravens]

Welcome Home - The Homewarming Update : A compilation of the secrets I could find

⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD!⚠️

This post is simply a compilation of all the things I could find during my exploration of the website. I'm not going to delve too much into theories. Enjoy the read!

1- Statics

Every background is now filled with statics. I tried zooming out but I couldn't find anything. Not really a secret, but still interesting to note.

2- It's a dog! Oh, and a pea!

Found in the "Official Welcome Home Cook Book" in the merchandise page. I am... A little worried about Barnaby. For those who are aware, the pea is foreshadowing for a much bigger secret.

3- Audio distortion

Surprisingly, I was only able to find one instance where the audio distorts. In the "Homewarming Storybook Record", when Wally speaks here (timestamp is 18:16), the audio gets distorted. Please let me know if you found more audio glitches on the main website!

4- The page is breathing

I was able to capture something that made my skin crawl. Look very closely at this illustration. It's... breathing. I'm unsure if any other image in the website does that too. Very troubling.

5- Lost track of time

Uh-oh! Looks like our beloved writer is losing their perception of time itself. An effect of the black substance maybe? You can find this on the News page.

6- Pixels? Smudges? Oh, and a new friend!

In The Neighboorhood page, Home now has little white pixels around him? I'm unsure if this was intentional or not. Interestingly, the secret link under Home dissapeared along with every other traces of Wally.

The logo on certain pages looks... dirty? Look closely, there are brownish stains on some letters. This doesn't appear everywhere.

And! New friend! Hello new friend!

7- Symbols!

Okay, now onto the main course. Something I think we've all noticed straight away! There's a ton of tiny little doodles splattered around the website. The doodles are all named after a letter. Here is every letter translated from their respective symbol you can find on the website :

Home : M I O A Merchandise : P Y E R Media : Y G About us : A R Stickers : E News : T Neighboorhood : S F N E Wally : W Exhibition : N Ghestbook : W W W Transcript : Y

"www" huh? Interesting, like a web link. At first, all of this doesn't really mean anything, until we stumble upon this!

Fascinating, it's a code! Eddie here is giving us the translation to every single doodle. Next, if we solve the question here "What does Home wear at parties?", it gives us the next clue we need. The answer is "ADDRESS". Address? Now, remember the "www" thing? That's right! We need to assemble the letters we found to make a link!

8- Away from Prying Eyes

After assembling a link, you will be able to visit a secret page. In it is by far the biggest secret in this update : https://www.awayfrompryingeyes.net/

When I tell you I lost my marbles when I discovered this. There is a lot to say here! Firstly, one thing to note is that unlike any other secrets we had found in previous updates, Wally didn't put this here. Instead, it was this mysterious "W". Go read the whole thing! It's PACKED with information!

"W" purposely put this here for US to find. W is in distress, confused and scared; this looks like a call for help.

Might or might not be important, but the word "Paranoid" here starts with a capital. It did catch my eye, so maybe it is noteworthy.

This entire phone call is absolutely fascinating and gives us answers about the lore. I highly recommend people to give it a listen : https://www.awayfrompryingeyes.net/phone

AND THIS??? OH MY GOODNESS!!! Clown is spoiling us with gifts for this Homewarming! Truly, thank you Clown and the whole WH team, you're doing such a marvelous job. Watch the whole thing here : https://www.awayfrompryingeyes.net/commercials

And what's this hidden among the commercials? Eddie! Remember how I said the pea was foreshadowing? Eddie can hear Home's heartbeat. Well, our dearest mailman doesn't look too well :( Thankfully Frank seems to be looking out for him!

_________________________

Important things to note: This update is almost completely void of any trace of Wally infesting the website. The symbols were placed by the website manager here. Wally is not there anymore. Also, Eddie is purposely left out of the main update, only to be the center of attention in the commercial compilation.

Well! That's all I managed to find for now! Please let me know in the replies if I've missed anything. Thank you for reading, and Happy Homewarming! <3

Edit : Added some new things I just noticed!

[callsign-rogueone]

one too many

Liam Mairi x reader you have one too many on a night out, but Liam is there to take care of you. this is a part 2 to the spider, but can be read as a standalone. words: 1.0k 🏷: no book spoilers, just fluff, I may be sober but I can still write about drinking and how much it sucks, descriptions of being drunk, she/her "girl" reader, one very minor instance of a guy at the bar being creepy but again -- Liam to the rescue. that's all I got for tags. it's nap time now, byee (yes, there will be a part three to this. it's already in motion.)

You’re definitely starting to regret going out tonight. You have no idea where your friends are, if they’re still here or not, and you really don’t feel good. Weaving through the crowd, you finally spot a friendly face. “Hi, Liam.”

“Hi yourself,” he greets, putting an arm around your shoulders and pulling you a bit closer to keep you out of the way of the other patrons, and to be able to hear you over the lively conversations and music filling the tavern.

You smile, cuddling into his side contentedly. “Missed you.”

You’ve had a soft spot for the boy for a while now. You don’t spend much time together, being in separate squads, but he’s your across-the-hall neighbor in the dorms — you see him a few times every day, coming to and from your room between classes. 

He’s always nice to you, offering you soft smiles and the occasional kind word or small talk, and the other week, when you’d knocked on his door in a mild panic and asked — begged — him to evict a spider from your room, he’d done it without hesitation, and without judgment.

“Are you feeling okay?” He asks gently.

“Head’s a little fuzzy,” you answer with a frown, “but I don’t think I had that much.”

You only remember having one drink, that you’d been sipping on steadily through the night but never finished. You shouldn’t feel this intoxicated — the room is spinning, blurring at the edges, and you feel unsteady on your feet, hence the way you’re rather un-subtly clinging to him.

“There you are,” some guy he doesn’t recognize calls, “thought I lost ya. You ready to go?”

“Who’s your new friend?” Liam asks, holding you a little closer and shifting his body to place himself between you and this new guy, eyeing him with apprehension.

“Oh, this is…” you blink, struggling to recall the other boy’s name. Everything between him walking up to you and the present moment seems a little hazy and unclear.

Liam makes his decision; you’ve had one too many, and you clearly aren’t there enough to agree to go home with a stranger, especially not this guy, who just looks like bad news. “She’s not leaving with you, if that’s what you’re after,” he states flatly, not leaving any room for argument.

The boy scowls, likely thinking that Liam is your boyfriend, and realizing he’s wasted his time flirting with you. He leaves, presumably to find some other girl to sweet-talk into his bed.

“Let’s get you back to the school,” Liam coaxes. 

You agree quietly, letting him guide you out the door and down the street, his arm still around your shoulders to keep you upright. You’re glad you chose sensible shoes for the night — it’s already hard enough to walk in your current state.

You rub at the exposed skin of your arms in an attempt to warm yourself up — you can’t remember if you had brought your jacket with you and forgotten it in the tavern, or if you’d left it in your room.

Ever-observant, Liam shrugs off his own jacket and helps you get your arms through the sleeves. You burrow into the soft fleece-lined leather, warm from his body heat and nicely oversized, the cuffs extending past your knuckles.

“Thank you, Li,” you mumble, taking hold of his arm. “I really didn’t want to go home with that guy.”

“Of course, sweetheart. I just want to make sure you’re safe.”

You continue to tell him how you feel. “You’re such a good guy, you know. Always looking out for everyone. S’ why I like you so much. Well, that ‘n your eyes.”

“My eyes?” he asks casually, as if you hadn’t just drunkenly confessed to having a crush on him.

You hum in affirmation. “They’re really pretty. Like the ocean. Reminds me of home.”

You cover a yawn with a sleeved hand, exhausted, but keep walking alongside him. The alcohol may have lowered your inhibitions, but he still can’t help but feel a little squeeze of pride that you trust him to do the right thing, to take care of you in your vulnerable state.

You don’t protest, or seem to notice at all, that he’s headed in the opposite direction of the dorms — to the healers’ quadrant, instead. 

You continue holding onto him as he leads you into the infirmary and explains to one of the healers what’s going on.

After a quick glance at you and a flip through your patient file, she identifies the problem: “We gave her a medication last week that shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol — it makes one glass feel like five. She’ll be fine in the morning, just really hungover, but she can’t go out drinking again for a while yet. Make sure she gets some water, and plenty of sleep.”

Liam nods, thanking her.

“She’s lucky to have such a good boyfriend to take care of her.”

Liam doesn’t correct her, just offers her a smile and another thank you before he leads you back across the campus to your room.

Thankfully you’re cognizant enough to unlock the door yourself, and you move to sit on your bed as soon as it’s in your sight.

He uncaps your water bottle, finding it half-full. “You should have some water,” he coaxes, extending it to you. 

You comply, emptying it slowly. 

He certainly isn’t going to change your clothes for you, and you look too exhausted and unsteady to do it yourself, so he settles for tugging off your boots and setting them next to the pile of shoes by the door. You can sleep in your outside clothes for the night and just wash your sheets tomorrow.

He picks your stuffed dragon up off of the desk, handing it to you — you hum happily, hugging it to your chest as you lay down. “You gonna be okay?” He asks softly.

Another hum in affirmation as your eyes start to close. 

“Alright. Blythe can have Deigh wake me up if you need me, okay?”

“Mmkay,” you murmur. “Thank you, Li.”

He lays a featherlight kiss on your forehead, draping a blanket over you. “Get some sleep, pretty girl. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

[mousegoesmoo]

Okay I'm sure many of you all have seen this tiktok:

This tiktok has seemingly reached a very broad audience and I'm lowkey beefing with some of the comments. And then comments are stirring some byler doubt in me but I'm just gonna come on here and think through things logically. I'm only going to take into account things that are canon or have been stated by official sources.

Many commenters have stated that Byler will only be one sided, Will in love with Mike. Narratively, this does not make sense. Will's character has been pre-planned to be queer from season 1 episode 1 and in his character description. Additionally, Robin originally was not going to be gay, but that was changed during the filming of Season 3 (Maya Hawke talks about this). So, why would they have the only canonically gay character be used as a plot device to further El and Mikes relationship? It just doesn't make sense for his love to be unrequited. They have stretched out the plot point of Will's sexual orientation and love for Mike for many seasons, it has been slow burned. They could have given Will a sharp rejection in Season 3 during the rain fight, but they didn't. If they did, moving to California would be an opportune time for Will to move on from his love for Mike. But they didn't. Will made an entire painting for Mike and gave him a veiled confession- if it ends in unrequitedness they stretched out this plot line for far to long. It is unnecessary. It would just be unnecessarily devastating for Will to be rejected in the final season. Plus, we have seen it before, entire relationships can form in one season. Mike and El were formed in one season, Nancy and Steve broke up and then Nancy and Jonathan got together, why can't the same happen with Mike and Will?

2. Mike has never been implied or done any actions to suggest he is gay or reciprocates Will's feelings. First of, to quote the byler slides, Mike has more queer coding than Will (slide 7, slides linked). To preface, queer coding is "...when a character’s sexual orientation is implied by significant subtext without being stated outright."(Elizabeth Duarte). So, this doesn't necessarily prove that Mike is in love with Will, but it does imply that he is in the very least bicurious. Personally, I believe that one of the strongest bits of queer coding for Mike is during his initial attraction to Eleven. Eleven was often described to look very similar to Will and boy-ish. A little suspicious if you ask me. To add on to that, the problems in Mike and Eleven's relationship have grown as El has explored her femininity and self. Granted, the problems could have arose due to them both aging, but, it is still another common denominator. But, the byler slides have many instances of queer coding for Mike (some probably better than what I presented), so I would suggest looking into those rather than having me repeat them here. But queer coding implies queerness, therefore, Stranger Things has suggested that Mike is not straight.

2.5 Mike's feelings have never been reciprocated for Will. Now this is a trickier one. We haven't had a scene from Mike's perspective in a while, making it very difficult to have hard evidence that he is into Will as well. However, we can prove that Mike is heavily queer coded (because he is). So, if Mike were gay, who would he direct his affections towards? Lucas, who is trying to rekindle his relationship Max, Dustin, who has had a steady long distance relationship with Suzie, or Will, who has never shown interest in any girls despite having many opportunities (arguably, more opportunities than the other party members)? They would not put Mike into a one sided pining with Lucas or Dustin for the final season, it simply does not make sense. But Will, who has already had a developed crush on Mike for several seasons, the pieces start to click together. Mike liking Will is very dependent on Mike being queer, which we have proven through the fact that he is heavily queer coded. So, the only same sex individual that would make logical sense as his love interest is Will. Also: a huge point about not having a Milkeven endgame is that Eleven was supposed to die and, consequently, so would their relationship.

3. Unlikely for the time, so it will never happen. Girlypops. It is unlikely for someone to be dating someone with superpowers in the 80's. It is unlikely for a parallel dimension to take over and infect this one random town in Indiana in the 80's. ITS FICTION. Additionally, it is know that homophobia exists in the fictional Stranger Things universe (Lonnie, Troy, Robin's extreme hesitance to come out, etc.), ,but on the other hand, the Duffers are actively pursuing a relationship between Robin and Vickie. As of our knowledge right now, Vickie's sole purpose in the show is to be a love interest of Robin's. If they don't end up together it is most likely because Robin either gets a new love interest or one of the two dies in the final season. Ultimately, I do not think that Stranger Thing's taking place in the 80's will have an impact on whether or not byler becomes canon.

So those were the main three points made in the comment section of that tiktok.

I just want to also state that if Byler isn't canon, I would want to consider this to be a case of queerbaiting (but, this still depends on how they wrap up Season 5). Also, I would consider slapping a new love interest for Will to wrap up the season as very sloppy and lazy writing. AND, I think using Will's love for Mike as a stepping stone to progress a heterosexual relationship deeply offensive. If they were going to have Will be rejected, they should have done it way earlier in the series.

Thats all I have to say xx

[nofomogirl]

We need to talk about body snatching

I'm not a massive fan of the 1827 minisode - if you're curious why it bothers me, I've explained it in my post about two GO canons - but there's no denying it does an amazing job at exploring the complexity of morality and moral choices. It starts with a very black-and-white two-dimensional image and gradually adds shading and perspective, making it harder and harder to judge as we go along.

I think it's worth digging into (pun not intended but I'll take it).

Layer 1: body snatching bad

We learn someone did something

It's those first few seconds where we see a person robbing a grave, and since we know that robbing graves is a crime and generally not a good thing to do, we can quickly form a tentative conclusion that this is wrong.

Okay, in this exact instance, we immediately get enough context clues to see that this kind of judgment would be oversimplistic and superficial. Only Aziraphale, who for some reason acts as if it was his first day on Earth after a thorough memory wipe, is ready to condemn Elspeth based on just that.

Nevertheless, this is the first layer - the deed itself with no context.

Layer 2: body snatching acceptable

We learn about the person who did the thing

That's the whole journey with the first dug-up body where we get to know Elspeth and become privy to her circumstances - she's desperately poor, she has another person depending on her, she robs graves to survive. Aziraphale's suggestions that she might earn her living by selling books, weaving or farming just serve to prove how inaccessible more honest and dignified professions are to her. In turn, her comment about how she's not hurting anybody who isn't already dead hints that from the realistically available options, Elspeth could have chosen something much worse.

Technically this layer is a significant step up from layer 1 but it still isn't really challenging. Things are spelt out really loud for us, and most importantly everything we learn about Elspeth is just attenuating circumstances. To top it off both she and Wee Morag are immediately endearing. The takeaway is that sometimes things that in theory are bad can be excused which is important but the verdict still comes without any second thoughts.

Layer 3: body snatching complicated

We learn the larger context around the thing

This mostly happens when Aziraphale and Crowley discuss body snatching with Mr Dalrymple. We learn that the stolen corpses are used for a medical study that can advance human knowledge and make it possible to save living people and that surgeons have no legal means to obtain enough of them for their research - hence their need to buy them from body snatchers.

At first glance it's just more of what we got in layer 2 - more agruments in favour of body snatching that aren't all that nuanced and don't really give us any pause - just from a larger perspective, beyond Elspeth's individual experience. But if you glance more than once you'll notice this is when things stop being straightforward and easy to judge.

The moment we enter a proper grey area is when Aziraphale asks why Mr Dalrymple doesn't acquire the bodies himself. This is a very valid question - while we might easily agree that studying the human body to further medical knowledge is a good thing, and with just the slightest hesitation admit that it's acceptable to resort to using stolen bodies if that is the only way the research may continue, it's not as easy to excuse taking advantage of the poor and the desperate to do the actual stealing that we know is very dangerous.

The moment we know without a doubt we are in a proper grey area is when Mr Dalrymple laughs at Aziraphale's concern.

Objectively, the surgeon is right that it's more effective if he doesn't risk his own life in the graveyard and uses his time on actual research, teaching students and saving lives. But it's also clear he doesn't exactly see people like Elspeth as actual human beings and feels he has every right to use them. On the one hand, he is paying, on the other, he happily benefits from the cruel class system and is not even one bit remorseful about it. On the one hand, he takes risks too, on the other he has a chance of rewards Elspeth will not benefit from. It's not the poorest whose lives will get bettered by the progress of medicine, even though they're the ones who pay with their lives for that progress. And if Mr Dalrymple gets lucky and is knighted for his work (we know he wasn't in the end but it was a possibility), the poor still won't be pardoned for stealing for him. Nevertheless, he has no issue with that.

As I said, things get nuanced.

Layer 4: it's different when it's someone you know

The thing actually happens in your life

I think you'll all agree that the turning point of the minisode is when Elspeth decides to sell Wee Morag's still warm body. This is what finally leaves us speechless.

That's because up until now we've been approaching the issue intellectually. It's not that we didn't care about the characters, but we were allowed to keep a safe distance. The whole thing was like a problem to be solved - "Is body snatching right or wrong? Discuss in 500-1000 words" - and everything we've learned so far was data for this assignment. I believe that one of the reasons why this detachment came naturally was that there was a very thick line between people involved in body snatching and the bodies that were being snatched. The former were, well, people, obviously. The latter were inanimate objects.

It isn't until Wee Morag is to be sold that we are forced to see a person in a dead body. This is also when real emotions enter the equation.

This shift forces us to question our judgment for the first time. It was easy to justify Elspeth when she was selling a nameless corpse. But the fact that she decided to sell her closest companion - and most likely lover - shocks us. Something inside us strongly objects to how quickly she makes the decision.

And then there's the transaction, and it is also different when it's someone we know. The fact that we knew Wee Morag fully exposes Mr Dalrymple for the heartless jerk that he is. The way he treats Elspeth is the absolute worst and if you haven't realized he was a hypocrite earlier, you should be disillusioned by now.

But at least Elspeth is not a hypocrite, right? It may seem cold that she sold Wee Morag but it just proves she simply believed it's all right to sell a dead body, doesn't it?

Well, about that...

Layer 5: it's different when it's you

You are forced to face the thing happening to you

This layer is reached when Elspeth plans her suicide and asks Aziraphale and Crowley to bury her "somewhere where no ghouls will ever dig her back up again".

It turns out Elspeth McKinnon really was a filthy liar.

Not long ago she was insisting that body snatching doesn't hurt anyone who isn't already dead, and asking why she should let Wee Morag rot in the ground when she starves. But she wants to make sure it doesn't happen to her own body. The idea that someone might dig her up terrifies her and she calls people who do it ghouls. So why was digging up other people okay again? Why should she rot in the ground while other people suffer? There were other people living in the street where she and Wee Morag hid. Why not ask Aziraphale to give the money to them? Or just anybody in need? Why not ask to sell her body as well and use the earnings the same way?

Also, if you look at it from a certain perspective, Elspeth betrayed Wee Morag in the worst possible way. Wee Morag believed that if someone's body gets cut, that person's soul cannot enter Heaven. Yet Elspeth sold her to Mr Dalrymple, claiming that Wee Morag would have wanted her to have the means to survive. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps Wee Morag would have made that sacrifice. But then Elspeth decided to kill herself and use the money she got for Wee Morag's body for her own funeral.

But does it make Elspeth wicked? Certainly not. She's simply torn by grief. I seriously doubt she's been planning to commit suicide when she was taking Wee Morag to Mr Dalrymple. She might have genuinely tried to carry on but the reality of what happened caught up to her. Mr Dalrymple's cruel words certainly didn't help her cope with a personal tragedy. I even suspect one of the reasons she sold her friend was that she had no idea what else to do with a dead body.

Does this excuse her actions? Kind of, but not really.

Elspeth was a tragic character, not an innocent lamb with a heart of gold.

The point is - can any of us really judge her?

Which, coincidentally, is a question that the original Good Omens book toyed with quite a lot.

If you've reached this far, thank you for reading!

[lovelettersfromluna]

☆ ★ Still Alive ☆ ★ {Ellie Williams x Reader}

Summary: Ellie Williams has been your best friend since the second grade, the two of you stuck by the hip since you were practically babies. What happens when she starts acting….strange all of a sudden?

an: Okay yes, I folded and I wrote an Ellie fic inspired by Jennifers body, it’s just 1000000x gayer, and a tiny bit different. Ellie is Jennifer and reader is Needy. That’s all I have to say. Just trust me, okay?

Warnings: SMUT! Buckle up bc this one is gonna be filthy, college!ellie and reader, angst, mean!ellie, angst bc your best friend is a basically a demon now, Ellie will kill anyone that crosses her sweet best friend, shy!reader, scissoring again bc it’s hot sue me idc, oral (r!receiving), fingering (r!receiving), I’m sorry but Ellie has fangs what do you want me to do? Let me know if I missed anything! (This isn’t proof read btw I’m sorry)

Part 2 can be read here!

Your best friend had been acting…strange

Ellie Williams had been your best friend since the first day of second grade. She spotted you immediately, her green eyes sparkling the second she caught eye of you swimming in the sea of second graders during recess. She made her way towards you, she told you how cool she thought your shoes were. To think someone as cool as she was thought that you were cool had almost felt like a joke in the beginning.

But it wasn’t a joke, and she had been by your side every day since. Even now that you were both in college together, she was with you.

Except, she wasn’t. Not right now at least. Ellie had been making herself scarce for about a week now, which was not at all like her. Even if she wasn’t feeling well, she’d text you whining until you were at her apartment with everything you needed to nurse her back to health, calling her your big baby.

But all you got was radio silence. It was almost as if she didn’t even exist at certain points. Every attempt you made at trying to reach out at her were in vain, as you were left with nothing on the other side. You even tried showing up at her apartment, a stack of notes that she had missed pressed between your arm and your chest, and brownies from her favorites bakery stuffed in your bag, but still,

Nothing.

What was even worse, was that everyone was coming to you regarding her absence.

Ellie had always been the more popular one of the two of you. Her presence just…attracted others, she was like a magnet. And how could she not be? She was so fucking charming sometimes it felt like she wasn’t real. She had the prettiest smile, and green eyes that sparkled from the moment you first set eyes on them. Everyone who saw her was enamored by her, and you’d never blame them for it.

And it was no secret that you were best friends. You were always close by her, trailing behind like a lost puppy. Ellie always assured you that she liked it that way, that you felt like home to her.

But in instances like this, it was a problem.

You had nothing to say to the people who asked you for her, simply giving them a half shrug and an apologetic smile when you told them you were just as confused about her disappearance as they were. The only thing that truly kept you from filing a missing persons report was that her landlord said she had been in touch with her.

But what really pissed you off, were the girls.

Ellie had always been popular with them, even back in grade school, she had girls swooning over her every time she outran the boys during track, or when she flashed them a particularly bright smile. It was something you thought you’d gotten used to, pushing down the jealousy that came with the countless pretty girls that would interrupt your conversations with your best friend.

But after the fifth girl came to you, twisting her pretty hair between her fingers as she asked you for Ellie, you realized it still fucking bothered you.

You carried on though, getting through all of the attention you had been getting by the end of the week. You were a good student, quiet, smart, a professors dream in all honesty. You used it to your advantage, distracting yourself with your studies so that you wouldn’t worry too much about your best friend.

You had finally gotten back to your apartment on Friday after your last class, a low sigh blowing past your lips as you pressed your back up against your front door once it was closed. You tossed your keys to the side, slowly peeling your jacket off of your tired body as you went about getting comfortable in your home.

You had showered and gotten yourself something to eat, and now you were on your bed, cuddled up with Angel, your precious little calico kitty. These days it was like she was the only one that was around to take up the attention you had to give.

Your hand was stroking between her ear gently, her soft purrs making you feel drowsy. Your eyes were heavy, and you wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and forget about the sinking feeling that came with the sudden disappearing of your dear friend.

A loud banging against your door made you flinch.

You frowned as you sat up, staring in the direction of where the loud, persistent noise was coming from. Angel stared in the same direction as well, her meowing growing louder, as if she sensed something behind the door that you didn’t, something dangerous.

You shushed her gently, giving her a gentle pet as if to reassure her as much as you could before you grabbed your phone. It was already past midnight, and you sure as hell didn’t invite anyone over, let lone expect anyone to just show up.

You gave it a minute longer, hoping that whoever was there simply had the wrong apartment number and would soon realize, leaving before they could bother you any further.

But the knocking didn’t stop.

It was loud, and persistent, and eager to get in, and for a moment you felt as though you really were in danger.

You inhaled deeply, your eyebrows furrowed as you got off of your bed and walked out into your living room, staring at your front door with every move you made. You obviously weren’t an idiot, so you grabbed the nearest weapon you could use to stun whoever it was that so desperately needed to get into your home, which happened to be a spare hanger that was in the closet near your front door.

You gripped it in your hand tightly, inhaling deeply before you unlocked the door and opened it harshly, ready to knock out whoever was behind it.

You weren’t totally sure what you expected, but it surely wasn’t your best friend standing on the other side.

Your best friend who had been missing for the past week, who couldn’t even respond to your text messages with a simple confirmation that she was in fact okay, your best friend who you had been worried sick over for days on end, your best friend that looked like your best friend but also didn’t at the same time…

Her eyebrows were furrowed as she looked down at you, green eyes piercing through your own as she took you in. You were about to go to sleep, and she could tell by your little pajama shorts and your fuzzy socks that you reserved for Friday nights only, something about treating yourself after a long week rung through her ears as she recalled the night she asked you why you wore them.

The breath that you had been holding in your lungs blew past your lips, sighing in relief as you finally let your posture fall. You weren’t sure if you were relieved that it was her, or if you were relieved at the fact that she wasn’t a fucking axe murderer waiting to chop you up into little pieces.

“Jesus…Ellie? What…what the fuck are you doing here?” You questioned breathlessly as you brushed your hair off of your face, far too winded to even ask her where she’d been yet.

Ellie smirked softly as she watched you, a low chuckle leaving her chest as her eyes trailed down to the hanger in your hand. “Is that a hanger?”

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion at her comment, almost taken aback at the fact that she wasn’t responding to your question before your eyes followed hers, and you looked down at the hanger in your hand. You rolled your eyes, a soft huff leaving your lips before you hung it back up and promptly stepped aside for her to come into your home.

“You were knocking on my door like the fucking feds…or..I dunno, Michale Myers or something? God Ellie what the hell is wrong with you? It’s almost 1 in the morning”. She simply smiled down at you while you scolded her, her large palm pressing against your front door as she closed it. God she had missed you, her chest was practically blooming with happiness as she watched you walk over to your fridge without another word, grabbing her a bottle of water before you returned with it and held it out for her, that adorable frown she loved so much still playing on your lips.

She licked her lips, her large hand wrapping around the bottle before she gently set it down on the coffee table next to you both. She hummed, bending her knees a bit before she wrapped her long arms around your waist, pulling you flush to her body and almost off of the ground. Her face pressed against the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply as her eyes fluttered shut, groaning softly.

“Missed you so much Bambi…”

Anymore scolding that you had for her was caught in your throat the second you felt those arms wrap around your body and pull you into her, the familiar nickname she had given you when you were far younger making your insides warm up. Your cheeks burned red, simply letting her take you into her before you sighed softly, your own eyes fluttering shut as you wrapped your arms around her neck, realizing then just how much you had missed her too.

“Where’d you go El….you wouldn’t even text me back..” You huffed out, your fingers toying with the hair at the nape of her neck. She smiled against yours, knowing all too well that you were pouting from the mere sound of your little huffs and whines.

She licked her lips, feeling how much her absence has affected you. She held you for a bit longer, the two of you swaying a bit in the middle of your home as she let herself enjoy you for a bit longer before she spoke.

“I was…um…I got sick…bad cold” She nodded to herself, trying to reassure you.

But you weren’t having it.

You frowned as you pulled away from her, pushing her back by her shoulders as you stared up at her, not buying her excuse for one second. “Then why didn’t you call me? You knew I’d come and take care of you…”

Ellie hated when you looked at her like that. You weren’t mad or disappointed, it was like you were pleading with her. Begging her to just let you help her. And the thing about it, Ellie loved when you babied her, she almost looked forward to getting sick because she knew you’d drop everything and tend to her every need, making sure she got better as soon as humanely possible.

But this…god this was so different than any of those times before.

She licked her lips as she stared down at you, one of her hands coming up to cup your cheek gently, her thumb rubbing over the soft skin before she shook her head. “Didn’t want you getting sick Bambi…this one was just…really bad” She groaned out, making it sound like it really was that bad.

You sighed, because it wasn’t your job to take care of her. You weren’t obligated to do anything for Ellie, and her you. She didn’t owe you anything, and she sure as hell didn’t have to tell you every time she was sick. She wasn’t yours, and you weren’t hers, and this entire situation made that very clear to you.

You’d be lying if you said it was nice to ignore.

You sighed, giving into her as you gave her a gentle nod. The hand on your cheek made your heart burst, feeling like you could cry at any moment, it made the feelings worse.

Ellie had always been touchy with you, your friendship being one that crossed those lines time and time again. You would never shy away from her, and her hands were almost always on you from the moment you could remember.

But why did this all feel…different? Why did her gaze feel so intense, why did it feel like she wasn’t looking at you, but right through you. Like you were something to own, like you were hers.

You figured it was just a lack of her presence for so long, maybe she always looked at you like that and you just never noticed, maybe she looked at all her friends that way.

Regardless of it all, Ellie was back, and you were so fucking happy for that.

Ellie beamed the second she saw your features soften, and she knew that you had given into her. She tugged her bottom lip beneath her teeth as she smiled down at you, her thumbs rubbing circles into your waist as she kept you pressed against her body, a low hum leaving her lips. “You wanna go to a party with me tonight?”

Your eyes widened a bit at her question before you sighed, pulling her hands from around your waist and leaving her in your living room. It was typical Ellie behavior to try and drag you to one of the many frat parties that she attended. It just…wasn’t your thing. You were a home body through and through, you preferred staying inside in the comforts of your own home, cuddling with your cat while you allowed your brain to rot while watching cheesy reality tv shows.

That and…watching Ellie flirt with girls at those parties was just…you couldn’t stand to watch it.

You refused to be the friend that held her back from doing what (or who) she wanted to do, so you didn’t. You always passed up on her offers to those parties, figuring that if you didn’t see it, it wasn’t happening.

It didn’t stop her from attempting though, and the current fire in her eyes was determined to get you to finally come with her.

You sighed as you made your way into your room, Ellie following close behind and watching your every move. You crawled onto your bed, your cotton shorts giving Ellie the perfect view of your ass, causing her to cock her head to the side and shamelessly check you out.

You laid back on your bed, pulling Angel, who had weirdly been on high alert from the moment Ellie had stepped inside of your home, into your lap. You frowned as you looked down at your kitten, her hair raised and eyes slanted as she eyed Ellie’s every move. You pet her gently, trying to calm her down before you pulled her down to cuddle into your chest, grabbing your remote control and turning on your tv.

“M’not going anywhere tonight El…I’ve already showered and brushed my teeth and…I’m just not in the mood to party and get drunk right now” you huffed out, grabbing the plush throw blanket on your bed and draping it over your body, cuddling further into yourself and your cat as your attention was settled on the tv.

Ellie tilted her head back as she whined, mimicking a child throwing a tantrum as she sat at the edge of your bed, her hand slipping underneath your blanket and grabbing a handful of your plush thighs, giving it a firm squeeze.

“Come on..you never go anywhere dude, I can’t stand the people that go there…would be so much better if you came…” Her words trailed off as she pushed your blanket back a bit, needing to see the way your thighs spilled out of her grip as she massaged your skin.

You whined softly, the cool air of your room hitting your skin, but quickly being replaced by the feeling of Ellie’s large hands pawing at your legs. You sighed, turning towards her a bit and giving her better access to you before you shook your head, knowing she wouldn’t let this go without somewhat of a compromise.

“If I tell you I’ll go to the next one, will you drop it?” You practically pleaded, knowing the girl all too well for these games. She’d massage you and caress you until you were putty in her hands, getting you to do whatever it was that she wanted.

She flashed that beautiful smile your way as she finally broke her attention away from your legs, nodding eagerly. Now this, this was progress. Never had Ellie gotten you to promise her something like this, and it made her insides burn with excitement.

You giggled softly as you watched her beam like a kid, making your heart warm up at the sight. You rolled your eyes playfully before you pressed your hand against her chest, pushing her away playfully. “Fuck off…go, have fun tonight…text me when you’re home?” You questioned as you looked up at her, feeling that same sense of anxiety that you felt when you hadn’t heard from her for the entire week.

You had just gotten her back, she needed to know how important that was to you.

Her large hand grasped your wrist gently as it was pressed against her chest, staring down at you as you practically begged her to touch base with you when she got home. She hummed, staring down at you as her fingers caressed your skin gently, your hand emitting warmth against her skin before she nodded.

“Always baby…I’ll see you later, okay?” She assured you with a firm nod, causing you to smile up at her. You gave her a soft noise of agreement before she leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to her head and letting herself out of your apartment.

You sighed as you watched her leave, your heart sinking once her presence was no longer there with you. Once you heard the click of your front door, you fell back into your soft bed, unable to shake the new, uneasy feeling that came with seeing her.

You thought the following week with Ellie being back would be easier.

It wasn’t.

After the bizarre incident that happened with her banging on your door at one in the morning, you didn’t see her for the rest of the weekend. She texted you nonstop, more so than usual, but her physical presence was once again an enigma. Although she wasn’t completely gone as she was before, the lack of actually seeing her was doing your head in, and you had no idea how to actually bring it up to her.

You expected to brush it all off on Monday morning. You’d wake up for class and Ellie would be waiting for you in the courtyard as usual, like she always did because she was just Ellie, your Ellie, no different than before.

At least that’s what you tried to convince yourself.

When you got to your college campus, it seemed as though Ellie’s disappearing act was still in full swing, because she wasn’t there waiting for you. There was someone waiting for you though.

There was one bit of attention that you received during the week of Ellie’s absence that wasn’t directly associated with Ellie, not entirely at least.

Amber was in a few of your classes, and she seemed nice enough. You’d never spoken to her long enough to fully know her, but in the small exchanges that you had with her, you knew she was nice.

She had made her way to you in the middle of the week, noticing that you had been eating lunch alone in the courtyard, or perched up against a tree listening to music or reading. It came to a surprise to you when she wasn’t asking about Ellie, but instead about you. She was sweet, and funny, and as selfish as it may have sounded, she was someone to talk to while Ellie had practically abandoned you.

You couldn’t help but blush softly once she looked in your direction, giving you an excited wave and a small smile as she patted the spot next to her on the bench she was sat at.

“Hey stranger, was waiting for you” She smiled softly, causing you to giggle softly as you sat down next to her. Amber was nice to be around, she made it easy for you. You preferred to listen, and she always had so much to say to you, or about you, complimenting your outfit for the day, or brushing strands of hair from your face.

She was in the middle of asking you how your weekend went, and you opened your mouth to tell her how it was, quiet and uneventful as usual.

But a dark, looming presence cut your words short.

Like a dark, grey cloud, Ellie stood over you both, and she looked terrible. The radiant light that she had emitted on Friday was gone, instead replaced by dull eyes, rimmed with dark bags. Her lips were dry, and the color had been drained from her face, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think that the awful cold she was telling you about was back to harass her.

Your eyes widened as you stared up at her, worry filling your chest at how fucking tired she looked. “Ellie? I…are you okay? You look awful. Do you have a-“ she cut off your words, her eyes boring holes through Amber’s skull as she towered over the both of you.

“Who the fuck are you?” Her words were harsh, and pointed and it sounded like Amber had done something horribly wrong, when all she had done was have a conversation with you.

“Ellie what the hell! Amber I’m so sorry I-“ your attention was turned towards Amber as you rushed out an apology, feeling like things could go south at any moment. Ellie looked fucking mad, and something inside of you told you that you wouldn’t play with her right now.

“Amber? Amber? Who the fuck is Amber?” Her tone was pointed, but this time it was directed towards you. Anyone walking by would assume that you had been caught cheating on your girlfriend, and her accusing tone didn’t do anything to make it sound any different. Your eyes widened in disbelief as you finally stood up, pressing your hand against the fuming girls chest to try and put some sort of distance between the two of them, as Amber was clearly just as confused as you were.

“I’ll…talk to you guys later…” Amber mumbled awkwardly, giving you a small apologetic smile before she rushed off towards her first class of the day.

You were too busy to give her anything but a quick wave and a smile before your attention was turned back towards the angry girl that stood before you.

You were filled with anger, and worry, because not only did your best friend speak to someone in a tone that they did not deserve, but she looked half fucking dead.

Her eyes trailed Amber like she was ready to kill, watching her every move until she was completely out of view. She felt your soft hand against her cheek, trying to pull her back down to you. When she finally did look down at you, the look in your eyes made her heart crack.

You were practically begging her to tell you what was wrong, because so many weird things had been happening. And you had enough.

Before she could even understand, you were dragging her across campus. The sun was so fucking bright, and she was so fucking hungry, and seeing you with Amber made her fucking blood boil.

And don’t even get her started on how good you smelled.

She couldn’t focus on anything other than the empty feeling in her stomach, the feeling nagging at her to be noticed, to be acknowledged, the only thing able to distract her from it was the anger she felt when she saw you settled next to a girl that wasn’t her, bare legs on display for them, why the hell were you even wearing a skirt? Did you want Amber to notice? Did you wear it specifically for her? Did you have a crush on her-

Her racing thoughts were cut off when she felt that you had both stopped. She blinked a few times, her blurry eyes taking in her surroundings. You had brought her to the library, tucked away in the very ends of it where no one would find you. You were staring up at her, arms crossed over your chest as you waited for something, anything, from her.

She gave you a lazy shrug. “What?”

Your eyebrows furrowed, mimicking her lazy shrug. “Seriously? That’s all you have to fucking say to me? Ellie, why did you yell at Amber that way? And why the fuck do you look half dead?? Are you sick again? Why don’t you tell me what’s going on!” Your voice grew louder and louder with each words you spoke, feeling your anger rise.

Ellie groaned softly as she shushed you, knowing she didn’t need anymore attention than she had already been getting. Plus, the pounding in her head wasn’t helping either.

Ellie sighed softly, watching as you waited for her response. She knew she couldn’t keep lying to you, she was acting out and she knew that you could read her like the back of your hand.

“I just…have a headache, okay? I didn’t sleep well last night” It wasn’t entirely a lie, she really did have a headache, and she didn’t sleep a goddamn wink the night before.

You huffed out, clearly still not satisfied with the answers that she was giving you. You felt like calling them answers was too forgiving when they were barely that.

“Okay cool. That settles your appearance, but what about your behavior. What makes you think you can talk to people that way Ellie? What makes you think you can talk to me that way?” You questioned, once again begging for some sort of clarity from the girl, one that she was proving time and time again she could not provide.

She felt ashamed, small under your pleading gaze. She knew she owe it to you, and she knew you didn’t deserve what she was dishing out to you.

But the mere thought of you talking to Amber made her seethe, and she felt the anger return in the blink of an eye. She was irritated with everything, everyone, even you, because what makes you think you can just do that in front of her? Have you learned nothing? Do you know nothing?

She’s angry, and she can’t stop the words that are leaving her mouth.

“Because you’re too fucking stupid to see when someone is using you”

You’re not sure what you expect her to say, but it sure as hell wasn’t that.

Her words make your mouth close instantly, because you truly don’t trust yourself enough to know that anything else that leaves yours will be sensible.

The look in your eyes makes Ellie’s heart tug, and she knows she’s done it, she’s forced you to put up those walls that she had taken down herself throughout her entire friendship with you. But for some reason, she can’t find it in herself to stop.

“Don’t give me that fuckin look, it’s true and you know it. Everyone knows it. They all came to you when I wasn’t here because they see the way you follow me like a fucking child, she was using you to get to me just like they were” lies, it was all lies and Ellie fucking knew that. Amber liked you, and everyone except for you could see that. Amber had never had any sort of dealings with Ellie and she never wanted to, she wanted an opening to talk to you, and she saw it when you weren’t by Ellie’s side.

And that pissed Ellie off.

She struck a nerve, she knew that. Your eyes began welling up with tears, filling up like big swimming pools. You bit your lip to hold it back, you refused to cry in front of her, especially when she was the one that did this to you.

You inhaled deeply before you gave her a small nod. “Okay Ellie….” Was all you could truly say. She’d said all she had to, and you heard her loud and clear. You were a burden, and she had just confirmed that.

Ellie wanted to reach for you, and pull you into her body and tell you that it was all okay. But the damaged had been done, she had said what did and there was no going back from it.

Not to mention, she didn’t fully trust herself to hold you in her arms right now.

The small sniffles she heard when she rushed past her and out of the library was the nail in the coffin, and she let out a low sigh as she pinched the bridge of her nose, the pounding in her head getting harder and harder to ignore.

She needed to fucking eat.

You were avoiding Ellie like the plague.

You’d managed to get by throughout the week without seeing her. Ellie had messaged you the same night after the incident at the library, but you were too exhausted to even care. Her words still echoed in your head.

Because you’re too fucking stupid to see when someone is using you

You winced, the tone of her words making you feel so fucking worthless. You huffed as you stared up at your ceiling, holding back the tears that would spill passed your cheeks and wet your pillow anyways.

You couldn’t wait to come back home after everything happened, wanting nothing more than to just crawl into your bed and ignore everything that had happened.

And you did, you went too and from class without saying a single word to anyone. Anytime you’d caught Ellie staring at you from across the room you’d ignore it, and keep your head down until you were in the clear.

What you did do however, was text Amber.

Amber had done a great job at distracting you from the horrible things your best friend said to you. You were devastated, and you realized while muting Ellie’s messages that Amber had given you her number within the week that Ellie wasn’t there. So you took advantage of it.

You were too miserable to talk to anyone in person, but the warm glow of your phone reflecting onto your face was enough to fill the small void that had become present within the week.

Texting Amber is actually what got you in the position you were in now.

It was Friday night, and you were stood in front of your mirror, smoothing down the clothes that gripped your body. You wore a pleated denim skirt that was far too short, watching yourself in the mirror alone was enough to make you feel shy. The black baby tee that you wore hugged you perfectly, leaving a sliver of skin revealed right below your shirt and above your skirt. You turned around, eyeing yourself and thinking about how ridiculous you looked, and how rifidi you’d this all was.

And the fact that Ellie would be there.

This was the party you had promised her you’d go with her to, and you were going with Amber, the girl she had yelled at in front of you for simply speaking to you.

You shook the thoughts away, fluffing out your hair and reapplying your favorite lip liner before you grabbed your black boots and zipped them onto your feet, grabbing your phone and leaving your apartment without another thought.

Before you knew it, you were stood outside of the godforsaken frat house you had been dreading all week.

You sent Amber a quick message before you locked your phone and made your way inside.

It was dark, purple and blue lights reflecting off the bodies that were smooshed together. The smell of sweat, weed and alcohol assaulted your nose, and the loud music was so strong that it made you feel like your insides were shaking, and you remembered why you hated the party scene so much.

You sighed as you squeezed passed them all, your hands gripping the ends of your skirt to keep yourself from flashing anyone.

You made your way into the kitchen, letting out a sigh of relief to see that it wasn’t as packed as the main area of the large house. You needed breather, because it was all hitting you slowly. You didn’t want to be there, and you almost always avoided places like this because this wasn’t your scene.

It was Ellie’s, and the idea that she was there at the party made you feel even worse.

You needed to distract yourself, and eventually find Amber. You turned around, grabbing a red solo cup and mixing equal parts of flat soda and whatever cheap liquor was available to you before you took a big gulp down, wincing at the sharp taste evading your taste buds.

You turned around, your butt pressed up against the counter as you babysat your drink, eyes drifting towards different people that came in and out of the kitchen. You were almost done, and you had almost completely convinced yourself to get up and leave, until you saw a familiar face beaming your way.

Amber.

You sighed in relief as she made her way towards you, her arms slipping around your waist and tugging you closer to her body. The alcohol already had you feeling warm, and the feeling of someone else pressed up against you made you feel even warmer. You giggled softly as she pulled back, hissing softly as she bit her lip.

“Fuck you look good…where have you been hiding all this, hm?” Her words made you blush, and you nudged the girl playfully before she grabbed your hand, interlocking your fingers as she nodded her head ti the dance floor. “Shall we?”

You gave her a nod, cheeks burning red as you threw back the remaining alcohol in your cup before you let her lead you out.

Suddenly, the party didn’t feel all that suffocating, and neither did your thoughts. It felt easy, like breathing. Ambers hands were pressed up against your waist, pulling your ass flush against her friend as she guided you to grind against her to the heavy beat of the music, and you fucking liked it.

You liked being here without Ellie, being your own person, with your own thoughts and your own wants and needs. Gone were the days where you were her shadow, following behind the girl you desperately wanted more with just for her to say the things she said to you the last time you spoke. You felt like you were floating on air, your hands reaching behind you and tugging at ambers hair, pulling her closer to your neck that she was attacking with kisses.

You almost keeled over and died when you caught sight of the piercing eyes that were tracking you from across the room.

There she was, in all of her glory, Ellie fucking Williams. Your best friend was sat on a couch across from the dance floor, a pretty girl settled on her lap, nipping and tugging at her neck very similarly to the way Amber was doing to yours, and she looked like she wanted to fucking kill someone.

Her radiance had returned, no longer looking frail and ill, but instead beaming like a goddess who had come down the golden steps from the sky and gracing the presence of you mere mortals, if only for a second allowing you to bask in her beauty.

You felt your heart get stuck in your throat with the way she looked at you, her large hand gripping her solo cup so tightly you were sure she’d destroy it if she held it that way any longer. Her eyes made you whimper, and Amber must have assumed it was her making you whine because she smirked against your neck.

“Hmm…you wanna move this party upstairs baby?” Her question caught you off guard, and it took a small squeeze on your hip to break away from Ellie’s intense gaze. You gave her a small hum in response before she chuckled against you. “I said, do you wanna move this-“

Her words were cut off by a very familiar presence next to you.

You weren’t sure if you were drunk out of your mind, or if Ellie really had just crossed the entire house in half of a second, but all of a sudden she was no longer on the couch, and instead she was towering over both you and Amber.

Amber is rolling her eyes once she pries her lips away from your soft skin, staring up at Ellie as she keeps your body pressed against hers. “Are you fucking kidding me man? How many times are you gonna cock block, Williams?”

Ellie is visibly seething, her arms crossed over her chest as she stares down at you both. Her eyes drift towards the way Amber is gripping your hips, and the way your hands slowly drop down from her hair, and she wants to fucking kill someone.

“Leave before I fucking make you Amber”. Her voice is deep, and raspy, most likely from smoking all night. The mere sight of her is making you wet, because she’s glowing like she usually does and she looks like your Ellie again but just….more.

Amber sighs as she gently pushes your body away from hers, her own arms crossing over her chest as she steps closer towards Ellie, silently challenging her as she smirked. When she opens her mouth to say something, Ellie is already placing her palm on her forehead and harshly pushing her back.

Amber stumbles backwards a bit, catching her footing and staring up at Ellie, ready to push back with a punch of her own.

But the look in Ellie’s eyes is fucking scary, you both see it.

Her eyes are dark and low and she almost looks like a fucking animal under the dark light of the house, chest heaving as she watches Amber, ready for everything that she’s going to give her.

But she doesn’t, because she’s scurrying away like a little mouse, and Ellie is smirking in victory as she watches her.

You watch in disbelief as Amber scurries off, and you figure that’ll be the last time you ever hear from her.

You step in front of Ellie, staring up at her with wide eyes, because you truly cannot believe what she’s doing to you.

“Im fucking over this Ellie. You ignore me for an entire week, leave me worried sick about you, then you show up at my house in a weird manic state telling me I need to come to a party with you, and then the following Monday you’re making me fucking cry in a library because of how pathetic you said I am, and now I’m not even allowed to dance with a girl at a party?” Your words were fast, angry babbles leaving your lips as you stared up at her.

And her heart is tugging at the sight of you, because this is the first time she’s been able to talk to you in a week and you’re close to tears, again, and she fucking hates herself for it.

But she also can’t ignore how fucking good you look. Your skirt is hugging your plush hips so well, and it’s making her want to reach out and grab so fucking badly, because she expected this night to go so differently. She wanted to have a good night with you, hold you, tell you how much she wanted you.

And tell you how she had been through literal hell and back within the last two weeks.

Ellie had become a monster because of stupid fucking dare, and she didn’t know how to explain it to you. She didn’t know how to explain to you that the insatiable hunger she had for women could only be satisfied by you.

But you were still staring up at her, waiting for answers that she couldn’t give because she had dug herself into a hole too fucking deep to give you any answers.

So she did the only thing that had been on her mind for the last two weeks, and most likely ever since she had met you. She grabbed you.

She grabbed your wrist and pulled you up the stairs of the frat house to one of the spare rooms that was there, thanking whatever invisible force that was listening that not only was the room clean, but it was empty.

She ignored your whines and huffs as you tried tugging your way out of her grasp, because she knew it was now or never.

When she closed and locked the door behind you, you didn’t even have any time to scold her any further, because her strong hands were gripping your waist and her lips were on yours.

She swallowed the gasp that you let out, your eyes fluttering shut the second you tasted her, she tasted of weed, whiskey, and mint, and you quickly found yourself wanting more of it, because it was authentically her.

You whined against her, tugging at the hair at the nape of her neck as she kissed you desperately. Her tongue was pushing into your mouth and you suddenly felt dizzy, the sudden shift of your entire friendship was too much to handle. Going from not hearing from your best friend at all to having her tongue down your throat was almost as intoxicating as the alcohol that you as consumed earlier.

“Ellie…Els s-slow down…” you moaned out, yet your lips moving against hers said the complete opposite. You burned for her, your body screaming for her hands to be all over you all at once.

You could feel her smirk against your lips, made you whine. She was being so fucking smug, and it made you want her more. You were tugging at her shirt, any anger you had in your body gone, now replaced with the desperate need that you had for her, burning you from the inside out. “Tell me what you want baby..anything…I’ll do anything for you”

Her words were genuine, making you feel light headed. She made it sound like she’d go to the ends of the earth for you, crossing the seven seas for you, whatever you fucking wanted, she’d give it to you.

You moaned softly, confidence coursing through your veins as you grabbed her wrist, guiding her to cup your clothed pussy, letting her feel how wet you were. “Here…need you here Els…please…” you whined out.

Ellie groaned, feeling that familiar animalistic desire fill her up to the fucking brim. Her hunger was usually in her stomach, empty and annoying, but now, with you, she felt it pulsing against her cunt.

“Fuck…come here baby…lemme take care of you…” She walked you back towards the bed, her chest pressed against yours, she kept going until the back of your knees were pressing against the bed and forcing you to sit down on it for her.

You whined softly as you stared up at her in awe, feeling your heart burst with how fucking pretty your best friend looked standing above you. She used her knee to push your legs apart, spreading them further for her before she crawled towards you, pressing her lips against yours once again as she pushed you to sit back further on the bed.

“Lemme make it up to you Bambi…yeah?” Her words made you moan, and you nodded eagerly. For a minute her words from the library were flashing through your mind again your heart tugged, but the attention she was giving you now was truly making up for it.

She kissed down your body, pushing your shirt up and revealing your pretty nipples for her. She hissed, latching her lips around one of them as her hand pressed between your legs, feeling up the wet cotton of your panties.

You were like a dream, your moans and whines making her feel like it wasn’t even real for a moment. The small gasp you let out when she pushed your panties to the side was like music to her ears. You pouted softly when you felt her smirk against, your patience growing thinner and thinner with every passing moment.

“More Ellie..please…fuck…please” you begged, and Ellie wanted nothing more than to please you. She tugged your panties to the side, letting her long fingers dip into your soaked heat.

“Fuck…pussy is so fucking warm for me baby…my perfect fucking girl…gonna be dripping down my fingers if I waited any longer huh?” She questioned. You nodded eagerly, watching her with hazy, lust filled eyes. She reached that familiar spongy spot inside of your cunt and you were sure you were close to tears

Her words were too much, and the feeling of her long fingers, knuckle deep inside of your pussy had you a mess, a mess just for her, and something about that finally satisfied the hunger that she felt all the time.

She began kissing down your body, needing to feel more of you against her. She wanted to be filled up to the brim with you, her senses absolutely overwhelmed with you.

The sight of her slotted between your legs made you moan softly, your eyebrows furrowed as you watched her, a needy moan leaving your throat as your hand came down to tug at her hair gently.

Ellie let out a low groan when she caught sight of your pussy, licking her lips as she pressed her hands against your thighs, spreading you further.

“Fuck…would’a look at that…can practically see you throbbing for me baby…so wet and needy…fuck…lemme taste you baby…” she sighed out, her words muffled as she pressed her plump lips against your soaked core.

Your back arched almost painfully once you felt her skilled tongue flicking your clit back and forth. The feeling was so foreign yet so familiar, as if the girl belonged there, as if she was made to please you.

And she felt the exact same, the feeling of your hands tugging at her hair was like the purest ecstasy she had ever felt. Her green eyes staring up at you as she latched her lips to your weeping pussy, keeping her mouth suctioned onto you as you began grinding against her face.

She wanted to drown in you, she was even sure that if you suffocated her with your thighs, she’d been totally fine with it. Her hands gripped your thighs tightly, stopping you from running away as you wriggled beneath her, unable to deal with the pleasure that she was giving you.

But she gave you no choice but to take it. Her lips were latched onto, making your back arch as you felt yourself cumming all over her face.

Her eyes were rolling to the back of her head as she moaned into you, and it was almost like she was the one that was experiencing the most electrifying orgasm that she had experienced in her entire life, and not you.

The pleasure was soon swapped out with an overwhelming feeling of sensitivity that was consuming you with every flick of her tongue. “Ellie…mmm…fuck..come here…wanna kiss you…please..” you whined out.

Her lips unlatched from your pussy with a pop, and it prompted you to whimper softly. Her face was soaked with your arousal, but her eyes were filled with pure love and adoration as she crawled her way up to you, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips. The taste of yourself made you moan, and Ellie was already pushing her tongue into your mouth and prepping you for what else she had planned.

Her words were muffled against your lips, as she didn’t want to leave your mouth for even a few seconds. “Can you give me one more baby? Wanna fuck you….can you do that for me baby?” You whined softly against her, already nodding and tugging at her top.

“Want it…fuck…I can do it I promise…please Ellie…” you sighed out, your hand slipping underneath her shirt and giving her nipple a soft pinch. She hissed softly at the feeling before she nodded, pressing another kiss to your lips. “That’s my girl…lay back for me baby…” She moaned out, her hands massaging your thighs as she gently pushed you back to lay on the bed.

You took it upon yourself to pull your top off, leaving you only in your skirt as you stared up at her. Ellie peeled her top off as well before she undid her jeans, pushing them down along with her boxers, leaving her naked above you.

You brought your hands up to undo the button to your denim skirt before she grabbed your hand, shaking her head as she swiftly pulled off your soaked panties. “Leave it…I like this skirt on you” she smirked down at you, causing you to blush.

She grabbed your thigh, slotting herself between you and pressing her wet pussy against yours. The second she felt you, she let out a long, loud moan. It was like the hunger she had been cursed with had finally been satisfied once she felt herself press up against you. She looked down at you, watching the way your slick and hers mixed together, coating your pretty pussy and glistening just for her. Her hand gripped your ankle, and you watched in awe as her tattoo flexed as she thrusted against you, her pussy bringing you pleasure that you had truly never felt before.

“H-Ahh! Fuck…Ellie please…please go faster…mmm…fuck fuck fuck fuck” you moaned out, your eyes squeezing shut. You couldn’t focus on anything other than the feeling of her pussy on yours.

A firm hand gripping your cheeks made your eyes flutter open, and you gasped softly at Ellie staring down at you, her lip tugged between her teeth as she groaned and moaned above you.

“Don’t close your eyes..you need to fucking look at me when I’m fucking you. Tell me who’s making you feel this good, tell me who you fucking belonged to” she gritted out, squishing your cheeks together so that your eyes would stay on yours.

And you always knew the answer, you’d always belonged to Ellie. From the moment she found you, you were hers, and there was no way you could ever deny that.

You moaned loudly at her words, reaching your hand towards her and catching her nipple in your hand, cupping her boob and flicking her nipple between your fingers before you nodded. “M’yours El…all yours…always…mmmph-…have been…ahh I’m gonna cum!”

Your words made her insides coil, and she felt like she could die happily right the and there. She nodded, prompting you further as she moved her hips faster, speeding up the pace of her pussy grinding down against yours.

“Cum for me, fuck….I fucking love you…i fucking love you Bambi…fuck!”

Your orgasm hit you like a train the second she said it, and you weren’t even totally sure if she really did say it. Sure you’d told each other you loved one another before, but god it was never like this. It wasn’t like she was on top of you fucking herself down onto you, but she was saying it, and you felt like you’d pass out.

And if you thought you were hallucinating before, god were you wrong now.

Because you swore when she threw her head back and came on your pussy, you saw pretty, pointy white fangs gleaming in the dark room.

She collapsed on top of you, breathing hard as she pressed her face into your neck. You stared up at the ceiling, her hands wrapping around your waist and keeping your naked body close to her own.

You were in shock, because your best friend had just fucked the day lights out of you and you weren’t totally sure if it was a dream, or if it was real, and she told you she loved you…

And you could feel her fangs grazing against your neck.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

how to write a character who suffers a PTSD from their past toxic relationship, how they can react / what they might say in certain situations

trigger warnings for abuse, domestic violence, ed

how they can react in certain situations

✘ avoid making eye contact, but will look up to meet caretaker’s eyes immediately if caretaker tells them to — for instance, caretaker is concerned about whumpee who keeps their gaze on the floor all the time; so, without thinking, caretaker says, “ look at me”. it doesn’t matter if they say it in a soft, comforting tone, they immediately regret it because whumpee quickly jerks their head up to meet caretaker’s eyes, fully thinking caretaker will hurt them if they don’t obey.

✘ whumpee is used to receiving orders. they don’t understand the concept of saying no and not being punished for it. so anything caretaker asks them to do (keyword; ask, whumpee can absolutely say no), whumpee will comply whether or not they want to (but they will do their best to make sure it looks like they want to).

✘ avoid staying in a crowded room or even an open space. whumpee will most likely seek comfort from some quiet corner where they’re away from anybody and nobody can bother them.

✘ an open space where there’s no one around can also bother whumpee, because it’s not just about being surrounded by a lot of people that’s triggering to whumpee. being alone in an open space can make whumpee feel extremely exposed, like an easy target.

✘ so mostly, whumpee will seek some quiet corner where they are alone and aren’t easily seen.

✘ they don’t like being the center of attention or being talked about. because this can also make them feel vulnerable, uncomfortable and exposed.

✘ physical touch that comes with no heads up, the ones that catch whumpee off guard, can result in a terrible reaction from whumpee, even if it’s an act of affection (a hug, a friendly pat on the shoulder, etc), because whumpee has already associated all kind of physical contact with pain and violence. so if someone touches them, they reflexively expect it to hurt.

✘ being jumpy in general. they may flinch away at any loud noise, any physical touch.

✘ lack of opinions in general. if they have to engage in a conversation where more than two people are talking about something, whumpee will remain quiet. not because they’re shy but because they 1.) think their opinions don’t matter 2.) are afraid they might say something wrong that’ll get them punished 3.) don’t want to risk speaking out of turn.

✘ whumpee expect themself to be punished if they make a mistake, doesn’t matter how small the mistake is — for instance, whumpee accident knocks over a glass of water, causing it to shatter, and immediately starts to panic, because they believe they will get punished for it.

✘ the rules whumper previously set for whumpee may still be effective for whumpee, even if they’re with caretaker now; whumpee still follows whimper’s rules because 1.) it’s an old habit 2.) they just want to stay safe.

✘ they can react poorly to food. whumpee may have no appetite at all, and can develop a wave of anxiety that can lead to nausea if they’re forced to eat. (this doesn’t mean caretaker is supposed to just let them starve though, only that it can be challenging and caretaker has to be very careful about how they approach this, how they handle the situation to help whumpee.)

✘ insomnia. whumpee having trouble sleeping at night, this can cause them to feel tired during daytime.

things they can say in certain situations

✘ “it’s okay.”

✘ “I’m used to it.”

✘ “I can be good. I’ll be good.”

✘ “I don’t deserve this.” (on being shown kindness)

✘ “it’s what I deserve.” (on being hurt)

✘ “why are you kind to me?”

✘ “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” (on making a mistake)

✘ “please, don’t be mad at me.”

✘ “I’ll do better next time.”

✘ “you’re not angry?”

✘ “it’s up to you”

✘ “either is fine with me.” (on being asked to pick something or to give an opinion)

✘ “it’s my fault.”

[audley-and-cherry]

Okay, I know I haven't said much (anything?) on Gaiman/Mieville/Munro, but here's my take as a bookseller who has been a bookseller for goddamned too many years:

For the question of "what do I do when I find out that a work that was transformative to me was written by an abuser?" you have to realize that having loved their work is not a reflection on you– abusers can and very often do make art that speaks to us. They are also exceptionally good at having a charming public face, knowing the right words to say, and knowing how to present themselves to endear themselves to a specific audience. Parasocial relationship or not (and I think there's something interesting to be noted that Gaiman was extremely online and Mieville (afaik) had no social media presence), it's not the fault of the fan that they didn't know that their favorite is an abuser.

That said, if you continue to support their work knowing what we know now, I'm giving you a hard fucking side eye.

Here's the depressing part: you can't know if an author is an abuser based on their works or their public persona. My advice to you as someone with goddamned too many years in books?

Read midlist authors. Stop reading bestselling authors and authors who are the darling of their particular genre. Read authors who likely will not sell their work for adaptations or have celebrity coauthors or are invited to teach a semester of literature at [expensive private college full of kids from Long Island].

Read widely, even within your preferred genre. Not only will you expose yourself to so much brilliance, but if a fav is outed as a gross abuser, it's far less difficult to move on.

As a subset of 2: Try try try to develop more than one favorite. Find authors whose works you will read sight-unseen (as I'm sure many of you did with Gaiman), but have a stable of them. (I, for instance, have five authors I will pick up whatever they write, no questions asked.)

Stop relying on cis/het white authors. Read queer authors. Read books by people of color. Fall in love with those books!

This is, of course, not a surefire way to avoid supporting abusers– there is no way to do that. But expanding your reading will have nothing but positives for you and positives for the authors that you read.

[starryeyedjanai]

sitting between comfort and chaos

steddie | 5.7k | rated: teen

5 times everyone thought Steve and Eddie were dating before they got together + the first time Steve tells someone after they actually get together

happy birthday @legitcookie!!! i hope you had a fantastic day!💗

read on ao3

1.

Thinking back on it all, Steve thinks he should have known something was up when Dustin started letting Eddie sit up front when he drove them places, a spot reserved only for Robin or Erica when Dustin was riding with him.

Steve has seen that kid - who's not really a kid anymore, he's in college now which is so weird to think about - elbow his friends in the neck trying to get to the car first so he could ride shotgun. So giving up the coveted spot for anyone - even Eddie - should have been a giant red flag.

Steve brings up Dustin letting Eddie sit up front to Robin and gets an eye roll for his trouble.

"What?" he asks. "It's not like it isn't weird. The kid will literally only let you or Erica sit up front and he only lets Erica do it because he's afraid of her."

"Yeah, and he let me sit up front because he thought that we were a thing or about to become a thing or whatever," Robin says, like that explains anything.

"Right," he says, not quite getting what she's getting at.

Dustin knows better now and has stopped bothering them about it, stopped asking Steve when he's going to finally ask Robin out. It only took a million years, but he thinks Dustin gets it now.

He still lets Robin sit up front out of habit - and because Steve refused to start the car the one time Dustin tried to bully his way up front with Robin after figuring out they would never be a 'thing'.

"You know he still kind of idolizes both of you and now that you're, you know-" Robin says trailing off.

Steve lost the thread a little bit, but he nods. "Sure, sure," he says.

Now that he and Eddie are friends, Dustin has stopped bugging them about about each other. Maybe Robin's right. Dustin is still just idolizing Eddie and that's why he lets him sit up front.

Steve still thinks it's weird though.

2.

The first instance Steve can remember something weird happening even before Dustin started letting Eddie sit up front was at a club in Indianapolis.

Robin's sitting in between him and Vickie in the booth, talking about her classes this semester, when she stops short.

"Rob?" Steve asks, and then waves a hand in front of her face when she doesn't respond.

She snaps out of it when he boops her nose lightly. "Uh, um. Don't look, but-"

He immediately looks in the direction she was looking in when she spaced out and tries to scope out what she saw that caught her attention so hard she stopped talking. He sees the crowd of dancing people in his line of sight, but he doesn't see anything out of place.

"I said don't look!" she snaps at him and he turns back to her.

"What? I don't see anything!" he says, feeling chagrined at her snapping at him like that. "You can't say 'don't look' and expect me not to look."

"Just- Eddie's, like, dancing on someone right now," she says, tone almost apologetic.

Steve fails to see what's so special about that. Eddie's always hooking up with someone when he and Steve come out together. He doesn't even think it's the first time Robin's seen it, so he isn't sure why she's so shocked. Vickie has a sympathetic look on her face when Steve glances at her to see if she thinks it's weird that Robin is bringing this up.

"Okay?" he says, voice lilting high at the end like a question.

"And you're okay with that?" Robin asks, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Uh, should I not be? He's always hooking up when we go out," he says, looking back over and yep - he's got his tongue down some guy's throat on the dance floor, the guy's hands gripping Eddie's ass to bring their hips together. Steve feels a ribbon of want float through him - it's been a while since he hooked up with someone.

"So, you've got like an arrangement where you can hook up with other people?" Robin asks, confused.

And Steve is also confused. The way she says 'arrangement' like it has connotations that he should understand. Why would he and Eddie have even talked about hooking up with anyone?

His slightly tipsy brain tries to rationalize it - maybe she's talking about when they go out just the two of them, like if Eddie hooks up with someone, Robin's assuming Steve would be all alone. He doesn't have a problem with it - he's a social butterfly when he's drunk and even if he wasn't, Eddie running off to go dance or make out or hook up with someone gives Steve time to find someone to hook up with himself. It's not like he's ever bored when he goes out with Eddie.

So he tells her, "He can literally do whatever he wants, Bobbie."

She sips her drink and stares at him, her gaze scrutinizing, and whatever she sees must appease her because she drops it and starts talking about her courses again.

When he remembers that conversation the next day, all he can think about is how bizarre Robin was acting.

3.

The next weird occurrence he can remember happening, he didn't even find out until after the fact that something was awry.

He's on vacation with most of the older crew, staying at a house near the ocean, just a small little bungalow, for the week that they're in California.

When Steve and Eddie go to drop their suitcases off in the room Nancy shuffles them towards, they pause.

There's only one bed.

He and Eddie look at each other and Eddie says, "Maybe all the rooms have one bed?"

"Yeah, yeah, probably," he says, dragging his suitcase to the far side of the room.

"We probably shouldn't say anything, right?" Eddie asks, later, before they all head out to the beach. "Like, about the room?"

Steve thinks about it. He knows Nancy is the one who got the keys to the house through her parent's friends and she got here earlier than them and scoped out the place. If there was another option to them sharing the same bed, Nancy would have told them. "Yeah, I mean. It's fine, right? You don't have a problem sleeping next to me?"

Eddie shakes his head. "Oh, of course not. I'm good sharing if you are."

"Yeah, it's no problem," Steve says. He kind of can't remember the last time he shared a bed with someone other than Robin when she stays over at his apartment sometimes.

"Okay, then we'll just. Keep it to ourselves. Besides, I feel like Nancy would skin us if we tried to complain about a place we aren't even paying for," Eddie says with a grin. The perk of Nancy's parent's friend having a vacation house is that even though it's a little small, they let them use it for free. And it's empty because they only use it when it's winter in Hawkins.

"She one hundred percent would," Steve agrees, so they drop it and don't bring it up. Too few beds isn't the end of the world.

Waking up with Eddie's arm firmly wrapped around his waist is fine, nice even. If Steve turns off the alarm that woke him, snuggling back into the embrace, making them both late for breakfast when they finally do wake up, that's no one's business but his own.

-

It's later, after they're home, that Eddie stops by and tells him about the extremely bizarre conversation he had with Nancy the last day there.

He says, "So something weird happened on vacation and I don't know what to make of it and I'm only telling you because you're the only other person it affected," as soon as Steve opens the door.

"What happened," Steve asks, instantly worried. He lets him in and Eddie starts pacing in the living room. Steve goes to sit on the couch.

"So, that last day on vacation, Nancy asked me to come sit on her suitcase because it wouldn't close with all the souvenirs she bought. I went into her and Jonathan's room and there were two beds," Eddie says, stopping in place to look at Steve to gauge his reaction.

His eyebrows shoot up. "Oh," he says. He's really not sure what to make of that either.

Eddie starts pacing again.

"Yeah. So I asked her why there were two beds in their room, but not two beds in our room - kind of put my foot in my mouth if I'm being honest. I didn't mean to just blurt it out, but then she said 'we were just trying to make sure everyone was comfortable'," he says, inflecting his voice higher to mimic Nancy.

"What the hell does that mean?" Steve asks, trying to wrack his brain and see if he remembers her telling him anything about her and Jonathan's relationship being shaky. He thought they were good. There were some rocky times before Vecna, with the distance and everything, but once they were both in the same place again, things seemed to smooth out between them. They've been happy together for years as far as he could tell.

"Exactly!" Eddie says, finally coming to sit on the couch next to him. "I literally asked her what does that mean? Because I had no idea. Still have no idea. She said 'what? It's not like you have a problem sharing with Steve', which honestly something about her tone made me feel like I was stepping on her toes, so I just dropped it. But I can't stop thinking about it. Are she and Jonathan okay?"

"As far as I know," Steve says. "That's so weird. But if there is something happening between them, it would make sense that they'd call dibs on the one room that has two beds. I gotta talk to her and see what's going on."

"Don't, like, tell her I told you or anything," Eddie says to him. Steve still thinks it's hilarious that Eddie is patently afraid of Nancy and her guns, which are mostly retired and locked up.

"'Course not," he says. "I'll just ask how they're doing the next time we hang out. I hope it's something they can get through at least."

"Yeah," Eddie sighs. "If they don't make it, how are the rest of us supposed to have a chance?"

Steve does ask Nancy about it later, just casually asks how she and Jonathan are doing.

She kind of narrows her eyes at him and says they're fine, but her voice is suspicious like she isn't sure what he's getting at. He drops it because he's also a little afraid of her.

The entire situation just leaves him confused, though.

He doesn't bring it up to Nancy again, but he does talk to Robin about it because his conversation with Nancy left a weird feeling in his chest.

"Eddie told me Nancy and Jonathan had separate beds on vacation," Steve blurts out, trying to go for casual, but absolutely failing.

She looks over at him with a weird expression on her face and says, "Yeah, I thought you knew that? It was just how it all shook out. Nancy just wanted everyone to be comfortable." And those words are eerily similar to what Eddie told him Nancy said about it.

He asks, "What do you know?"

"What do you mean?" she counters.

"You know something," he says, narrowing his eyes. "Are she and Jonathan alright? I tried asking her, but I felt like she was gonna bite my head off."

"They're fine," Robin says. "Nancy and Jonathan were just taking one for the team."

Steve's still so confused.

Robin must see the confusion on his face because she grabs his hand and says, "Look, we don't really ever talk about it, and that's totally fine by the way, but we all just want you to be happy."

Steve isn't sure where that came from or what it has to do with Nancy and Jonathan, but he's touched that his friends want him to be happy, he supposes.

4.

It's when he and Eddie get an apartment together that Robin brings up the thing she said at the club, jogging his memory of that bizarre night.

She's helping him unpack his room, putting stuff in the drawers, leaving space in some of them like she expects half of his wardrobe to be filled with something else. He thinks it's just another one of her weird quirks. Does she keep yarn for her knitting projects in half of her dresser or something?

He's hanging some shirts and she's folding his jeans when she blurts out, "You know, you don't have to let him 'do whatever he wants' just because it's what he wants, right? You're allowed to have a say in it too, you know."

It takes him a minute to realize who she's even talking about and even longer to realize she's referring to the conversation they had at the club years ago now.

"What- Eddie?" he asks confused. She nods, so he asks, "Why, because we live together now and that should, like, change something?"

Robin sighs, setting the folded jeans in the drawer. "I just mean, this doesn't exactly seem like the type of thing you'd be into. You've never mentioned wanting-"

He cuts her off, and says, "I mean, it's not like I don't also hook up with people when we go out."

That shuts her up for a solid minute. He watches as she processes it and almost wants to roll his eyes. His friends really think he has no love life whatsoever, huh?

He knows he hasn't dated anyone in a long time, but he's fine hooking up with people when he and Eddie go out sometimes. He can't say he doesn't miss having someone, or being in a relationship, but he's fine for now. He's still young, he still has time, you know?

Robin looks at him and says, "Okay. Okay, if that's something you want. Only if it's what you want, though. Don't just let Eddie talk you into something you don't want to do. Don't let him walk all over you."

"Yeah, of course," he says easily. "And if you're worried about us bringing people back here and it causing tension or whatever, we have rules in place and everything."

Robin says, "That- that's good! Rules are good."

'Rules' might be stretching it, but they did talk about guests not staying for longer than one night and trying to keep it down when they do have guests and that's good enough for Steve.

Luckily, Robin seems content to let him drop the subject and talk about how they're thinking of decorating the living room.

5.

The invitation comes in the mail.

Max popped the question - surprising Lucas, who had been agonizing for weeks over how to propose - a few months ago.

They knew the invitations were coming. Max told him over the phone that they'd be coming soon and that she expected them to send back an RSVP even though she already knew they'd be coming.

Steve checks the mail and is surprised to find just one invitation addressed To Steve & Eddie.

He takes the mail inside and shows the invitation to Eddie, who's eating his breakfast, still a little bleary-eyed and soft from sleep.

He drags the chair at the kitchen table closer to Eddie's chair and drops into it as he watches Eddie frown at the envelope in his hands.

He looks at Steve and asks, "Just the one came?"

Steve nods and Eddie opens the envelope to pull out the invitation.

They look over the invitation and Steve notices the RSVP section doesn't have options to add a plus one for either of them.

"Wow," Eddie says, dragging the word out. "None of our friends think either of us would manage to convince someone to come with us to the wedding, huh?"

Steve hums in agreement. He knows Robin, Dustin, El, and Erica helped Max and Lucas with the invitations and no one saw an issue with this one.

"God, are we both so extremely single that not one of our friends thinks we could find a date?" Steve asks, putting his head in his hands.

"Truly and deeply so fucking single, dude," Eddie says, rubbing a hand over Steve's back to lament with him.

+1.

"Hey, can we talk?" Eddie asks him after dinner one night and Steve's heart immediately starts beating out of his chest.

That phrase, even uttered by a friend, out of blue, makes him think something is wrong. He has the irrational thought that he's about to get friend-broken up with or that maybe Eddie wants to get his own place or something, which would really fucking suck.

They've lived together for a long time and are kind of co-parents to a cat now - it would just be a supremely inopportune time for Eddie to suddenly decide he wants out.

Eddie must see the anxiety in his expression because he quickly says, "No, it's nothing bad. It's just- it's actually something good, I'm hoping."

"Uh, okay," Steve says, wringing his hands a little with worry.

Eddie takes a deep breath and says, "So you know how I haven't really been interested in going out or hooking up lately?"

Steve nods, his heart finally calming down a little. Eddie hasn't wanted to go out lately, but it's fine - Steve hasn't really been all that interested either, more content to just lounge around the apartment with Eddie than to go out and try to meet new people.

"It's because there's someone I'm kind of interested in right now, but I'm not sure if he likes me back. It's a close friend, so I've been debating whether or not to say anything because I don't want to screw things up if he doesn't feel the same," Eddie says.

Steve's eyebrows furrow trying to think of who Eddie could be into. The thought that he might be into Jeff or Grant or Gareth, one of his closest friends, makes something in Steve's stomach swirl. He's not sure he likes that. Eddie dating a close friend, moving out to move in with him, sharing a life with him - that leaves a bad taste in Steve's mouth.

But it's Eddie - and Eddie deserves to be happy - so he says, "I think if you like someone, even a friend, you should tell him. If he's into guys, I mean. He'd be a fool to say no to you, whoever he is."

The smile that lights up Eddie's face is a little painful to see for some reason.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Eddie says.

Steve expects Eddie to get up and leave, to go find whoever it is he's into, but he stays put, on the couch next to Steve.

He reaches out and takes one of Steve's hands in his, still looking at him, like he's waiting for something.

Thoughts churn through his brain, first wondering why Eddie would hold his hand when he's apparently in love with one of his friends, and then realizing that he's probably also in the category of people Eddie considers a close friend and then-

Oh.

"Me?" Steve whispers, eyes wide.

That smile is still there, fond and happy.

"You," Eddie says, squeezing his hand.

"But why though?" he blurts out.

Eddie laughs. "We kind of share a life together, dude. We have a cat together and a home. And like, I don't think I've ever wanted anyone the way I want you, so there's also that."

Steve looks at him and thinks about their friendship up until this point, thinks about them deciding to move in together, to keep the stray cat Eddie found, the natural stop to them going out to clubs and bars in favor of staying in together and curling up on the couch.

He thinks of waking up for a week straight on vacation with Eddie's arms wrapped around him, feeling safe in his arms.

He thinks about the feelings that wrap around his heart and squeeze when he looks at Eddie sometimes.

He thinks about Eddie's hand in his right now.

He squeezes his hand back.

"I did say whoever you were into would be stupid to say no to you," he says.

"You did say that," Eddie says. His cheeks are a little flushed and Steve is overcome with the urge to pepper kisses all over them.

He scoots closer on the couch and says, "I meant it."

Eddie leans in closer and says, "I want to kiss you, but I want to be sure that we're on the same page. Like, it's not just about wanting to fuck you, which I do by the way-"

Steve interrupts and says, "I mean, I kind of got that when you said you didn't want to ruin your friendship if I didn't feel the same."

"Shut up, I'm trying to confess my love to you," Eddie says.

"Love?" Steve teases.

The blush on Eddie's face deepens, spreading down his neck. "Kind of. I mean, I've known you for how long now? I think it's kind of impossible to know you and not love you."

There's heat prickling behind Steve's eyes, embarrassingly enough. "I'm gonna kiss you," he says, instead of addressing how that one line has absolutely swept him off his feet.

He pushes closer, closing the small distance between them, getting his mouth on Eddie's for the first time.

Eddie sighs against his mouth, this pleased little sound that lights Steve up from the inside. He wants to kiss Eddie until he's dazed with it, wants to hear all the noises Eddie can make, wants to draw them out of him with his mouth and his hands.

Eddie kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until his mouth feels tender under Eddie's.

He pushes Steve backwards on the couch to lay on top of him, his hips in the cradle of Steve's thighs. He keeps kissing him as he settles his weight on top of Steve, their bodies pressed flush together.

They lick into each other's mouths for a long minute, just tongues tasting each other and mouths moving together.

Steve is working up the courage to touch Eddie, to put his hands on him, when he hears him hiss in pain. He pulls away from Eddie's mouth and sees Trick clawing her way up Eddie's arm to get on the couch.

Eddie sits up and pulls her off his arm and deposits her on Steve's chest. She immediately steps on his windpipe in an attempt to curl up near his head.

"God, your daughter is so mean to me," Steve says as he moves her off his neck.

"To you?" Eddie asks, looking at his arm to make sure he's not bleeding. "It was my arm that she clawed."

Eddie's still perched between Steve's legs, but with Tricky on the couch, there's no way they can go back to making out.

And-

"I have to tell Robin," Steve says.

Eddie grins at him and asks, "Immediately after our first kiss? You're gonna run over to her place?" There's no judgment in his voice and that makes something in Steve's chest feel tender - that Eddie knows how he is with Robin and isn't weird about it.

"Yeah, it won't take long. I'll be back before you know it." Steve watches as Eddie climbs off him and adjusts himself in his pants. He covers Patricia's ears and says, "Trick won't like it, but when I get back, we can lock her out of the bedroom so she can't interrupt us next time."

"Oh yeah? And what are we gonna do 'next time'?" Eddie asks.

"Whatever you want," Steve says, watching the flush return to Eddie's face.

He bites back a grin and says, "Hurry back. I'll, uh, I don't know. I'll get myself ready or something."

Heat floods Steve's veins. "You gonna be waiting for me with a rose in your mouth when I get back?" he teases, trying to dissipate some of that heat.

"I think you're the roses boyfriend, not me."

"Boyfriend?" Steve asks, standing up from the couch.

"Boyfriend," Eddie says, cupping his jaw and kissing him again. It's easy to get swept up in it, the feeling of Eddie's mouth moving against his, the feeling of Eddie's hands on his waist.

He pulls back from the kiss with a slick noise and says, "I'll be back in like twenty minutes."

Eddie nods and lets him go.

Steve grabs his keys and heads over to Robin and Vickie's apartment where he knows Robin will be.

"Bobbin," he calls out as soon as he opens the door to her apartment.

"In here," she calls back from the kitchen.

He rounds the corner of the kitchen and says, "I'm pretty sure I'm in love with Eddie."

He watches several emotions pass over her face, none of them excitement, and deflates a little bit.

She says, "Okay?" like it's a question, like she's confused.

"Like, we're dating now and I'm. We like each other and I'm pretty sure it's more than that for both of us," he say, hoping to get some kind of reaction from her.

"I don't understand," she says.

"What's not to understand? Eddie and I- we're together now," he says, in case she didn't get it the first time.

Robin squints at him and says, "Okay, but you've never wanted to talk about it before. What's changed?"

"What do you mean, what's changed? We kissed and he said he was confessing his love to me. I thought you'd be happy?" His chest feels a little tight at the thought of Robin not approving. He really thought she'd be happy.

"Did you, like, break up and not tell me? Why would him confessing his love to you warrant a house call? Where is this coming from?" she asks, and Steve's moment of hurt is replaced with a deep sense of confusion because they are somehow not on the same page about this.

What the hell is she talking about?

"Rob, what do you mean break up?" he asks, feeling off-balance.

"I mean, you and Eddie have been together for years nowso I'm not sure what you're talking about." She looks in his eyes and then lights up. "Oh, are you trying to tell me you're exclusive now? That's exciting!"

Steve just stares at her for a minute, memories of the weird things his friends say to him and Eddie and the weird things that happen coming rushing to the surface. The weird conversations he's had with Robin over the years, feeling like they were talking about two different things. The first vacation where they shared a bed together even though there was a room with two beds, and how it happened again the next time they all went on vacation together. Dustin letting Eddie sit in the front seat of his car. The one, singular wedding invitation.

He's not even sure how to broach the fact that his friends all apparently thought he and Eddie have been together for years, but he says, "Eddie and I weren't dating before now. We literally just got together. We, like, literally just had our first kiss less than fifteen minutes ago."

"That's not funny, Steve. You guys have been in each other's pockets for closing in on five years now," Robin says, coming to sit on a bar stool at the kitchen island. "You, you live together and have a cat together."

He can see her mentally going through all the things she thought about them as he comes to sit next to her.

He gently says, "We weren't together before. We were only friends before today. I'm not sure what we did to make you think that we were together, but you know I'd talk to you about anyone I was dating, even Eddie."

"It's not just me!" Robin says, looking at him again with a piercing stare. "It's everyone! We all know. Or we thought you were together. I'm so confused. How is it possible that you've never kissed before? Like, wait a minute."

She stops talking and puts her head in her hands.

"What are you doing?" he asks her when she doesn't say anything for a couple minutes.

She pinches the bridge of her nose as she says, "I'm trying to channel my memories. Because there has to be a time where I asked you point blank if you were seeing Eddie and you said yes."

"I can guarantee you won't find that memory. Because it doesn't exist. Because Eddie and I weren't dating. Until now," he says.

"You went to Max and Lucas' wedding together!" she says, looking at him triumphantly.

"Not really," he says. "We thought everyone just thought we were both terminally single or something and that's why they sat us together."

Robin smacks her hand against her forehead. "This makes no sense to me. Wait, I asked you if you were in an open relationship before! We talked about it at the club and again when you moved in together. How do you explain that?" she asks.

"That time at the club, I thought you were talking about him ditching me to hook up. It didn't bother me. That's literally all I said. Not that we were in an open rela- wait, you really thought I'd be in an open relationship with someone?"

"I know! It never made sense to me! You're like the most monogamous person I know," Robin says. "Okay, I get that we crossed wires there, but what about when you moved in together? I talked to you about it then too. You said you had rules about hooking up."

He can see how saying that might have been misleading. He says, "I meant like, rules about keeping it down, not about us dating and hooking up with other people." He feels a headache coming on.

Robin looks just as exasperated as he feels. She looks like she's grasping at straws when she says, "You're always together and you touch each other all the time. When I've seen you cook together, you're always bumping his hip or hand-feeding him extra ingredients."

"We live together, of course we found a groove cooking together." he says.

"A groove, okay," she says, rolling her eyes. "But even before then, you were always hanging out."

"Because he's my closest guy friend? Closest friend in general other than you," he says, still so unsure how he missed his entire friend group thinking they were together.

Steve doesn't know how this happened - how all his friends could have thought they were together when he didn't even know how he felt about Eddie until today. How could he have missed this?

But listen.

Steve has never claimed to be a smart man.

If anything, he thinks Eddie should have caught on long before he ever did, so he's holding strong that it's not his fault he didn't see the signs. If Eddie couldn't see them either, how the hell was Steve supposed to be able to?

"And now you're boyfriends," Robin says, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"And now we're boyfriends," he agrees.

She grins over at him and says, "That's the first time you've said the b-word. This is the first time we've talked about it and you said the b-word. You really weren't dating before now."

He shakes his head. "We really weren't. And I seriously can't believe you ever bought me saying we were in an open relationship. It's like you don't know me at all," he says with a sniff.

"No, I was extremely confused about it, but you were happier with him than anyone else I've ever seen you with, so it didn't matter what I thought, you know?"

Steve's face smooths out at that and his heart melts a little. He loves her so much.

He hugs her to his side and she playfully shoves him away.

"I can't believe I've had it wrong - we've all had it wrong - this whole time. The more I think about it, though, the more it makes sense that you weren't together. Like, I expected you to be talking about him all the time, but you never really gushed about him to me. At first, I thought it was because it was your first boyfriend, you know?" she says.

He nods. He can get that. What he can't get is- "You were okay with me not talking about him, sure. But you really think I wouldn't kiss a guy I was dating in front of you? Or hold his hand?"

Robin shrugs and runs a hand over her forehead like she's getting a headache from thinking about it. "I thought you were just shy at first. Again, the boy thing. And then it was just habit not to or maybe Eddie wasn't into PDA- I was just guessing. And, I, everyone thought it, so it's not just me. You guys literally adopted a cat together, how were we supposed to take that any other way?" she asks in an exasperated tone.

"She's Eddie's, technically."

"You're telling me Patricia's not your daughter?" Robin asks.

"No, she is. But Eddie's the one that found her, so I'm just her step-dad," he says.

Robin stands up from where she's seated and says, "See! You say shit like that all the time and expect us not to think you're dating him?"

He winces. "Yeah, I kind of see it now. Well, good news is that we are dating now and I'm gonna go home and fuck him about it."

Robin rolls her eyes. "Christ, I can't believe I ever thought you could be dating him and be anything other than like that about him."

"Oh Robbie, when we come up for air, you're gonna wish we weren't like that about each other. Apparently, we've got like five years of PDA to make up for," he says with a grin.

[weirdmarioenemies]

If you're even vaguely familiar with Kirby, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that one of the most iconic abilities is Parasol. It's a unique ability, it gets a ton of merch, and it's cute, to boot!

But when you think about it, there's not a whole lot of enemies for Parasol, is there? There's a lot of enemies that hold Parasols, there's the Parasol itself, which may or may not be sentient, but Parasol doesn't bring a wide variety of enemies to mind like, say, Fire or Spark might.

Believe it or not, there actually are a few enemies that give Parasol that neither HOLD a Parasol nor ARE "just" the Parasol...but they're wholly exclusive to a few games, and have not had a proper reappearance in the games since the SNES era. So, let me introduce you to all of them! Maybe there will even be some you like, or wish would come back!

But first, an honorary mention...

Name: Parasol (Kirby's Dream Land)

Debut: Kirby's Dream Land

You know it, you love it, it's...Parasol?!

That's right! Before it became the ability we all know and love, Parasol actually debuted in the same game Kirby did, which you might note did NOT have copy abilities! Like Waddle Doo and Sir Kibble, this is a classic example of an enemy that had an ability based around it, rather than vice versa.

I want to talk about specifically its iteration in this game, which is a bit different compared to future entries. First off and most noticeably, its appearance is wholly different! The hood is smaller and shaded but with no discernable pattern, the handle is thinner and the hook itself looks more rounded! Secondly, all Waddle Doos and Dees will let go of their parasol once they land, with none spawning while holding them or keeping them when they land anyway.

And another thing: you can't even dang inhale them when they're being held! The Waddler in question will be swallowed, but the Parasol will drift away or, in the Extra Game, even hone in on you! I told you they were debatably sentient! It actually does that in a few future games like Kirby's Adventure, but not nearly as commonly as it did in the original Extra Game. So strange!

OKAY OKAY time for what the post promised you now I promise. Hold my hand (and your Parasol) as I take you through The Parasol Enemies That Time Forgot:

Name: Floaty the Drifter

Debut: Kirby's Dream Land 2

"Floaty the Drifter", not to be confused with Floaty the Cell Core, is such a wonderful name. "Floaty" would already be a sillily obvious name on its own, on par with names like Flamer and Chilly and Cappy, but adding "the Drifter" makes it even moreso. Is that its species? Its title? Is Floaty an individual? Probably not, we see multiple of them in the same level and often, and this is not like Vividria where it's canonically an individual that just so happens to be fought in pairs for gameplay, but it's funny to consider. Imagine if they followed through with other enemies, like "Spikey the Poker", "Burnis the Scorcher", "Elec the Trocuter"…

Floaty the Drifter actually acts as the main provider for Parasol in this game, wholly replacing the titular object itself except for when Kirby uses it. On its own, it doesn't do much floating OR drifting, instead hopping around in its own little world, kind of akin to Cappy, but it lives up to its name when a Waddle Dee holds it, in which...it will just act like a normal Parasol! Wholly and entirely. Even when dropped, it flies off rather than initiate its normal grounded behavior. I think I've heard some of them fly at you when released, but I can't think of any instances of that, and that's still a Parasol behavior anyhow.

As you can tell, Floaty the Drifter's claim to fame is in its unique design, bearing a single mischievous eye and a stark green coloration only seen in artwork. In fact, despite being a one-off mook, this would even grant it its own role in the anime!

Floaty the Drifter, or just "Drifters" as they're called here (I guess it is a species!) are bought by King Dedede in the episode "Escargoon Rules" to attack Escargoon and his mother after presumably being "I'm With Stupid"’d all day. I did not watch the anime! According to the wiki, they're about as fragile as you'd expect a swarm of umbrellas to be, as while they swarm towards and wrap around victims, they are easily KO'd by Fire and knocked away by Kirby's own Parasol ability.

You might be wondering why, exactly, Floaty the Drifter even has one eye in the first place, considering that its role is largely the same as Parasol. To answer that, we'll have to move on to the next creature to feature:

Name: Jumpershoot

Debut: Kirby's Dream Land 2

I bet you never expected an ability like Parasol to have its own, dedicated midboss, did you? And such a sophisticated one, at that! It's even one of the few Kirby characters with toes, for the freaks in the audience!

As you may have guessed, Jumpershoot and, to a lesser extent, Floaty the Drifter are both based on the kasa-obake, perhaps one of the most ubiquitous yokai! And this is despite not really ever having appeared in folktales, if ever. I was always under the assumption that the kasa-obake was a tsukumogami, an umbrella after it had lived for 100 years, but apparently even this isn't set in stone, either!

Jumpershoot first appears in Big Forest, the second world of the game, and guards Coo because...some reason! I don't think it's ever mentioned why the Animal Friends are kidnapped, they kind of just are! And as for Jumpershoot, does he work for King Dedede? Dark Matter? I don't know how employed midbosses are. Mr. Frosty is on the Halberd once.

Our favorite umbrella attacks by jumping and gently falling towards the ground, then makes a rapid, Tornado-like spin around the room that, after a bit, repels attacks! Then, rather than dropping Stars, he throws his own sandal at you that you can shoot back at him! Don't worry, it regenerates, so you don't have to feel guilty for robbing him of footwear!

I really really like Jumpershoot. And apparently, so did Shimomura, because he reappears in Kirby's Dream Land 3, acting much the same but with more detailed sprites! He's such...a cool character, you know? You wouldn't expect a Parasol midboss to be a yokai, of all things, especially one that acts so rowdy! I love him!

Sadly, as much as we'd all love to, there is no game where you can play as Jumpershoot. Tragic, but true! But...you can get a taste, a crumb of its rapid spin attack by having the Parasol ability while riding Coo, which makes Coo spin around invulnerably just as he does! And while he would later find himself joining the foray of midbosses abandoned after Kirby's Dream Land 3, Parasol Coo still appears in Kirby Star Allies, so his soul is still with us...

This would be the end of the road for Jumpershoot, in terms of games, but luckily for Jumpershootheads, he would make one final appearance in a piece of Twitter art, joining a medley of other monsters by spooking Channel PPP! He's still got it!

Sadly, this wraps up the Jumpershoot section of this post, and thusly we have no more Dream Land 2 Parasol enemies to speak of. But don't worry, we still have more parasolic beasts in the next title...

Name: Sasuke

Debut: Kirby's Dream Land 3

Although Floaty had a cute design, it's rather appropriate that the enemy that replaced the Parasol of Kirby's Dream Land would itself get replaced in Kirby's Dream Land 3, isn't it? But Sasuke is no mere living umbrella!

Sasuke's design might bring to mind Bumber for our veteran readers, and its behavior is much the same! It drifts down slowly and steadily, and starts walking back and forth on whatever block it lands on, just like Parasol Waddle Dee, but its hat never detaches, so it will never not give Parasol! Personally speaking, though, I think Bumber is MUCH more cute and memorable...sorry, Sasuke! At least you will always have Naruto to confide in.

Sasuke also made an appearance in the anime, where he's built a lot more like Lololo & Lalala. Here, he draws a gun at King Dedede and Escargoon, an

Name: Klinko

Debut: Kirby's Dream Land 3

The oddest Parasol appearance in both looks and functionality, and our final Parasol giver, is Klinko! It looks like it would give Cleaning if anything, with its hat reminiscent of a besom! It doesn't even drift down slowly like every other Parasol enemy does at some point–in fact, while it hops around, it doesn't share any traits with the Parasol ability at all, and is the only Parasol enemy like that! So, why does it give Parasol, then?!

The answer is: it's not wearing an old broom, but actually a straw umbrella, because it's based on yet ANOTHER yokai! Shimomura seemed to think yokai were the future of the Parasol ability, and who wouldn't!

The amefurikozō, unlike the kasa-obake, has a bit more concrete lore, being children that appear in and sometimes cause rainfall, hence why they wear straw umbrellas. This is true of Klinko, too, as it appears in cloudy stages or stages with heavy snowfall! Its Japanese name, Kinko, might also suggest some relation to the separate yokai Yukinko, a child associated with heavy snow, which could also explain its tendency towards icy levels.

It's easy to see why such an unparasolic enemy would not be used any further, but I kind of like them more for it. They're an anomaly! Sure, this is essentially just Floaty the Drifter's hopping behavior, but the lack of any other Parasol attributes than just wearing an umbrella really make it stand out to me! And that's the beauty of these enemies—the longer Parasol goes without any new enemies, the more these guys will always stand out, and that's wonderful, I think!

What do you guys think? Is the time right for some of these guys to make a comeback? Is Parasol better with the limited enemies they use now? Or should they make new ones? Tell me! I can't do anything with your suggestions but I have nothing better to do than read them!

[missmonsters2]

Mirror, Mirror | Six: Epilogue

Please do not copy, repost, or translate my work anywhere else.

PART FIVE

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: You never really thought about Wanda other than the fact that she's your best friend. Nothing more, nothing less. It just wasn't in the realm of possibilites, so you never let yourself develop feelings. At least until someone points out that you have a very specific type when it comes to dating, so maybe it is all subconscious? Reader's POV

Warnings: best friends to lovers. shenanigans. jealousy, jealousy. sexual tension. pining. yearning. sexual thoughts. spicy (tumblr's version). stupid steve. neurotic nat. brat & stinky. bug as in shutterbug.

*explicit version will only be available on Ao3 & will be posted there after series is completed*

Note: Mini Series is completed! Thank you so much for tagging along with me <3 Explicit version available in a week.

Reminder there's no taglist but you can follow my library blog for notifications 💘

Series Masterlist || Library Blog || AO3

Count: ~3.1k

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You rarely think about sentences that could change your life.

There are too many instances that could change your life; therefore, it would be moot to think about.

You have a terminal illness. 

You've won 69 million dollars.

Someone you love has horrifically died—no, there were no remains.

It's all too overwhelming to think about; therefore, you don't. Yet, somehow, if you ever did think about life-changing sentences, you didn't think it could ever be, "Hey, have you noticed how you seem to exclusively date girls who look like Wanda?"

And it was like the ground crumbled underneath you. It was such a sickening realization—not that Wanda was in any way sickening—it was the fact that you might just be subconsciously a pervert. 

The more you thought about the words, the more horrifying it became. Every one-night stand, every situationship, every girlfriend—god, they all looked like Wanda. 

You're too scared to think about it deeper in fear of what it would reveal subconsciously every time you kissed or fucked a girl. Were you thinking of Wanda? God, you just couldn't think about it.

This was all Bucky's fault. You wished you had never gone out onto that balcony that night. 

3 months prior to that night at the bar with Wanda & Steve

The cool air felt better, and the breeze settled on the back of your neck. There was definitely too much wine going around, and you only managed to escape as Tony brought out the hard liquor. 

The crowd dispersed after several shots you didn't partake in. You stared into the distance, thinking idly how Tony had way too much money. Old money was ridiculous. Why does someone need a garden fountain as big as a pool?

Movement caught the corner of your eye, and you saw Wanda and Vision walking through the dimly lit garden. You smiled fondly at your best friend as she laughed at whatever charming thing Vision had managed to say. 

Vision was...just okay, in your opinion. You thought he was too nonchalant about Wanda, and that was why they were so on and off rather than consistently being together. Wanda deserved someone who loved her fiercely, and you couldn't imagine Vision always putting Wanda first. 

You watched with slight melancholy when Wanda linked her arms through his as they sat on the ledge of the garden fountain. You wished you had also brought someone along for this party. 

"Hey, thought I saw you sneak out here."

You turned around and saw Bucky holding a glass of beer. You smirked at him with mirth. "You know what I must do when Tony starts bringing out the grey goose."

Bucky shuddered, clearly having been roped into a few shots. He came and stood next to you, catching the scene you were staring at. "Guess they're back on then?"

You shrugged. "Guess so. We'll see how long it lasts. I'm betting 3 months."

"Be realistic. It'll be 2 and a half months," Bucky snorted. 

"Ye of little faith," you teased and then sighed. "I wish I also brought someone along. I should've brought that girl I met at my photoshoot."

"The brunette with green eyes?" Bucky asked, and you nod. "You know what I've noticed?"

"Hm?" you hummed in response to Bucky's casual tone. 

"You seem to have a very specific type when it comes to dating," Bucky mused. "They're always brunette—save those two girls from university—and they always have green eyes." 

You furrow your brows in serious thought. "I suppose so."

"Yeah," Bucky nodded, his tone still casual. "They always remind me of Wanda, especially from the back. I always have to make sure I'm careful not to mix up your date with Wanda." 

Bucky ended it with a chuckle, stating he was getting cold before he left without another world, leaving you alone outside.

The connect dots snapped into place almost instantly, horrifying you as you continued to stare at Wanda from above. 

Oh, fuck. 

Maybe it was a good thing you didn't bring anyone tonight. You're not sure how you'd be able to take someone home into your bed with the daunting realization you go after girls who look like your best friend...because you actually want your best friend. 

The three months since that discovery had nearly driven you to insanity. Since you refused to talk to anyone about it, most of your thought process was, " Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no."

But in the end, you resolved that it couldn't happen. Wanda would never reciprocate your feelings in a million years, especially since she had Vision. Wanda occasionally even talked about the possibility of marrying him down the road. 

It wasn't happening. It was never going to happen. 

Wanda was more important to you than anyone in the whole entire world. You would never allow anything to risk the friendship—even your feelings. 

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You felt like a sick sexual deviant. 

Despite your resolve to bury your feelings and continue on as normal, it was getting increasingly weird to continue to see girls who looked like Wanda. Yet, you couldn't stop. It wasn't doing it for you otherwise. 

But now, every time you kissed a girl, all you could see was Wanda in her. Sex was beginning to become a guilty pleasure for all the wrong reasons. 

When you met Raye, it felt like another sinful thing to lust after, knowing how much she physically reminded you of Wanda. But you could see a big personality difference in the short time you spent chatting with Raye. 

Wanda was the type you spoiled, indulging in her strange, wacky ideas. She could be very emotional, swinging from one side of the spectrum to another. She had such a big heart, willing to love, but also held grudges and was wicked if crossed. Wanda was a brat in all the loving ways you could mean. 

Raye could be best described as emotionally consistent. On the surface, she portrayed a wicked sense of humor and was fun to be around, but she was much more guarded than Wanda. She was very independent, not liking anything that might even intrude on her freedom. Raye kept her true feelings close to herself and seemed to be teasing you to come find out. 

It was different. You didn't mind, maybe liking it even (purely in the sense it was the opposite of Wanda, and you couldn't afford to keep lusting after your best friend in all possible ways).

Even so, your mind was distracted on the first date.

"Have you ever done a boudoir photoshoot?" Raye asks, her tone low and seductive.

"Can't say that I have," you smile, trying to remind yourself to be present during the date. It's been long since you've properly wined and dined someone, and Wanda kept entering your thoughts. 

"Well, there's a first for everything and you might even have a willing model," Raye bit her bottom lip suggestively, her index finger stroking the back of your hand. 

And while the southern twang does stir something in you, and you feel your stomach tingling, you're very aware that it's because Raye physically reminds you of Wanda. So, your mind traitorously imagines Wanda biting her lip and saying seductive things to you. 

"THEY WOULD NEVER—"

You whip your head around, swearing you heard Wanda. When there was no sign of her, you furrowed your brows in confusion, turning back to Raye.

Was this a sign of insanity?

You resolve right then and there to focus on the lovely brunette before you and enjoy the date. It was easy enough if you relaxed and earnestly asked Raye questions about herself. 

It was easy enough to hold Raye's hand and swing it back and forth if you just thought about how warm they were. 

It was enough to giggle when Raye leaned in closer to whisper something silly or naughty in your ear if you just thought about how her breath felt on the shell of your ear.

Suddenly, the car next to you went off, the alarm beeping loudly enough to make you and Raye jump in surprise. You turned around and noticed the couple behind you were gone. You thought they looked slightly familiar, but it was too difficult to determine when they were so far away in the dark under passing streetlights. 

Ultimately, you walk Raye up her steps, unsure what you want your next move to be. Everything feels strange since the revelation. You feel guilty for your lust, but specifically what causes it. 

But when Raye pulled you in for a hot, searing kiss, you decided to just go with the flow...which also ended up being nothing as she got a call from her sister while clothes were discarded. 

The call was only bordering on 40 seconds, but you decided your momentum was lost, and you needed that momentum to have sex with someone else while you tried (unsuccessfully) to not think about Wanda. 

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Fuck. Darcy.

Those were the only words that could come to your mind after Wanda texted her vague answer about whether or not she was returning home tonight. 

You sighed as you scrolled through the videos and photos, trying to get a headstart on putting together the video for Tony and Pepper. As you began opening up files, many were corrupted by the inability to open or glitchy images. 

With another sigh, your chair scraped against the floor as you shifted back, pulling out your phone and shooting a quick text to the videographer asking if you could meet up tomorrow to get the SD card for the originals. You got a prompt reply with a thumbs-up emoji with a time and place. 

You thought you might've just heard something shuffle in your room, but you forget about it when it's quiet again.

In the end, you spent another 45 minutes scrolling through some other photos that weren't corrupted, catching Wanda in the background and staring with a lingering thought about how absolutely pretty she was.

A part of you was in disbelief that Wanda was interested in women. You had so many questions that still lingered, but you didn't want to push Wanda or make it seem like you were interrogating her, and she needed to prove it.  

Still, you wondered what exactly made Wanda come to terms with the fact that she liked women.

Specifically, why couldn't you be the reason she was interested in women? You shoved those forbidden feelings down, beating them back into its box to put away. 

It didn't matter. 

It shouldn't matter.

You're with Raye, and Wanda may be with Darcy. Or some other girl, or maybe even with a guy again.

It's just not going to be you. 

And that's okay, you tell yourself. You can love someone without having to pursue anything. You just want to be there for Wanda. 

Of course, all of this changed the moment you watched a slanted confession video from an unaware Wanda while your roommate was out for lunch with a client.

Shock is the only thing that registers upon the video finishing. Were you hallucinating again? Was this like the first date with Raye where you kept thinking you could hear or see glimpses of Wanda?

But you played the video over and over, blinking every time it was finished.

Then a burst of strange laughter bubbled from your mouth, and then horror dawned on you that, 'oh, fuck. She actually feels the same way.'

It was unclear whether or not Wanda was trying to let her feelings be known or if she was also facing the same issue as you, where she was suppressing them. Either way, Wanda would unlikely be brave enough to say anything soon. 

You spent the week humming and hawing about what pursuing a relationship with your best friend would mean. What would the consequences be if things didn't work out? What would the consequences be if you declined to pursue anything more despite if Wanda confessed? What would the consequences be to watch Wanda move on and love someone else?

Your stomach dropped. 

You needed to break up with Raye. 

Your stomach dropped. 

You wait 3 more days before confronting Wanda since she's clearly a chicken.

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"You knew you had feelings for me for at least 3 months?" Wanda screeches. "And you said nothing?!"

"Okay, relax, you banshee," you wince at the sound. "How is that the only thing you hung onto out of everything I just told you?"

"But...but!" Wanda narrows her eyes on you. "It was getting serious with Raye!"

"Serious?" you raise your brow at Wanda. "What gave you the idea it was getting serious? We were dating but I saw her maybe a few days out of a month with how much she flies out for work."

"So, it wasn't getting serious at all?" Wanda frowns.

"Well," you purse your lips. "Maybe for Raye. She was considering transferring to another department so she wouldn't have to fly out anymore."

Wanda's mouth hangs open, her face pale with the worst thoughts of what might've been if they never confessed their feelings.

"Which," you cut in like you're able to read her mind, "obviously, I told her to not do as I wanted to end things with her."

"How did she take it?" Wanda asks curiously.

You look uncomfortable as you shift in bed, but Wanda waits patiently. "I think she just emotionally shut down. There were no tears, no screaming, or any accusations about why I was ending things. She just looked impassive as she accepted it and asked me to leave."

"Oh," Wanda bit her bottom lip. She feels bad in a way, but not bad enough to regret making you hers. "I'm sorry, bug."

You sigh as you reach over and pull Wanda close, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. The blanket shifts down, exposing Wanda's neck and collarbone where you had unabashedly marked up.

"Now, are you done with the questions, or can we resume where we left off?" You ask mischievously, pressing languid kisses against the side of her neck. 

Wanda closes her eyes with a soft hum, pressing her body closer to yours until you shift and move over Wanda. 

"I notice that you didn't mention anything about Darcy."

"Mention what exactly?" You say between kisses, stroking Wanda's hip. "That I was insanely jealous and wished her ill? Although, now that I know it was a fake date and neither of you had interest in each other, she seems nice."

Wanda laughs. "Even after she hacked your laptop?"

"With your help, might I remind you," you pull up and pointedly look at her. "But if she never corrupted those wedding files, I would've never got the original SD card and found out about your feelings."

"Very true," Wanda muses as she throws her head around your neck and pulls you close. She pecks your lips charmingly. "We should get her a nice bottle of wine."

"What about Steve and Bucky."

Wanda scoffs. "They're meddling little school girls who are probably kicking their feet and giggling."

You can't help but laugh before you dive in for another kiss, eager but slow. Oh, man. You were going to love Wanda for the rest of your life.

After a moment, Wanda sighs. "Okay, fine. We can give our McDonald's coupons to Steve and Bucky."

You laugh again. "Alright, brat."

"Okay, stinky."

"Chicken."

"Stupid."

"Witch."

"Here we go again with that," Wanda rolls her eyes with a smile. "I'll have you know that if I were a witch, I'd be the most powerful and best witch ever."

"I bet you would," you agree very readily. "Instead of cursing people to death, you'd be saving their lives...or causing mass chaos. Huh, I guess that's not so different from now." 

Wanda scoffs indignantly before she starts tickling you. You laugh, trying to jerk away, but Wanda is persistent in keeping you in place. 

"Mercy!" You laugh as you roll to the side. 

"Take that back! I do not cause chaos!"

"I take it back! You're clearly an A-List superhero!"

Wanda continues to tickle you anyway. "Say you love me!"

"I love you!"

Only then does Wanda stop, grinning wickedly as she presses a chaste kiss to your lips, and you're breathing heavily.

You want to call her a menace, but you're afraid that will only result in another tickle fight. 

Wanda smiles warmly.

"I love you, too."

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"See, I told you Wanda would be the one to confess!" Steve smirks.

"That's because you're a little cheater who went and nudged Wanda along," Bucky rolls his eyes with a smile.

"Oh, yeah, like you're the perfect picture of fair," Steve narrows his eyes. "Don't think I don't know that you went to Bug first. I had to step in and nudge Wanda to make the odds even."

"Was it really Wanda who confessed when it was Bug who technically discovered her secret."

Steve seems to think about it before he slumps into the sofa, "I feel like that's a gray area." Then, Steve frowns. "Ugh, but then that means neither of us wins the bet."

"We can just call it even," Bucky shrugs, laying his head on Steve's shoulder.

"Oh, no," Steve shakes his head. "I won't let you wriggle out of our bet. We will watch all the Lord of the Rings movies if you lose."

Bucky groans loudly. "But there's so many and they're so long."

"You really think I want to watch the Star Wars movies?" Steve rolls his eyes.

"They're a classic!" Bucky argues.

"So is Lord of the Rings."

Bucky huffs but concedes. "Fine," he wrinkles his nose. "Should we bet on something else?"

"No, I like the thrill of two people getting together, even if it takes time. Besides, we have the time since we have to finish a whole bunch of shows," Steve says.

"Hm, which ones of our friends are due to get together?" Bucky muses.

"We could try Nat and Maria," Steve suggests.

"No, too hard since Maria doesn't live here," Bucky shakes his head and then offers, "Yelena and Kate?"

"I think they're actually already together," Steve furrows his brows. "But if they're not, I'm too scared of Yelena to get involved in her affairs."

"I think that's all our friends who are technically single with a viable date option," Bucky sighs.

Silence falls between them before Steve suggests, "Want to bet when Tony and Pepper will announce they're pregnant?"

They stare at each other for a moment before they yell out their guess at the same time. 

"6 months!"

"6 months!"

The silliness of it all leaves Steve and Bucky giggling.