#one fuckin older teen.

[hey-hamlet]

just watched the only two poc men at my bus stop get pat down for a knife, fuck qld cops, fuck jacks law, this is so fucking gross

random search my ass

[ablednt]

It's also really frustrating that I spent my whole childhood and teenage years being dehumanized, having my peers joke about keeping me as a pet and toying with/manipulating me for fun or bringing me places with them like I'm an accessory and not their friend and literally being called a tool and an object by the adults in my life but when this had long lasting effects on how I viewed myself/what I related to and also how I could only view my place in relationships (of any kind) as being one of subservience like I can have all of the problems that come with that

But when I expressed that in any way, when I connect with media where people are dehumanized/objectified/enslaved etc, when I acknowledge that pain the main response I get is people calling me a freak, trying to force me into kink spaces surrounding my trauma, sexualizing me and then punishing me for that, etc.

Like idk I think it says more about the people saying this shit than it does about me but I've been made to feel like such a goddamn creep for having regular ass trauma symptoms that my OCD over it is insane and it really sucks how much I've been taught to be ashamed of myself for not just repressing all of my trauma (and the even more on the nose exotrauma my brain pulled in to cope with this shit) and how I've had to try and make myself as small as possible in survivor spaces lest I make anyone uncomfortable with my existence

Like idk what if y'all let me live my life actually/nbh

[mordacitatis]

age gap discourse has rotted the brains of people on this website i cannot lie

[novashelby]

Forgive Me-Tommy Shelby Smut

Pairing: TommyxReader(third person)

Word count: 2k-ish

Summary: Tommy Shelby is attracted to his attorney's daughter, and decides to corrupt her little nun brain at work.

Prompt: "What makes you think I am going to fuck you?"

Warning: Degrading language, non-con, Dubcon, oral(m), religious banter.

@darlingsfandom

“Y’know,” Tommy said, weaving himself through the wooden pews. It was a rare occasion that he was in church as he and God didn’t talk very much. If not, at all. You see, they weren’t on the best of terms. But he could admit that. He had no shame in his religious affiliations, or lack of. But her? Looking at her kneeling in the novice robes with her hands folded was laughable, at best. Tommy pointed his finger at her, wiggling it. “This, honestly…Love, why?”

She’d been trying hard to focus on her prayer for the last thirty minutes, knelt down, hands folded. Stiffening, she rolled her eyes up and let out a long sigh of frustration. Perhaps she was a little wild in her teen years, but what did he know of any of it? He was just her father’s client. Her father was an attorney, a big wig one in London. However, she hardly ever associated with him. And the only times she ever spoke with Mr. Thomas Shelby was when she was required to go to dinner parties and he just so happened to be there. “Mr. Shelby,” she greeted, though he’d been circling the pews for quite some time.

Finally he made it to hers, sliding in and kneeling right next to her. When his elbow caressed her arm, she flinched away, giving him a wild look. Amused, he asked, “oh, sorry, is that a sin these days? I mean, you are a messenger of God…know all his updated terms of services, eh?”

Getting up, she looked down at him.  “Instead of saundering within the pews, perhaps you should head to confession, Mr. Shelby. I can direct you, if you’d like? Or….” She leaned in, a snarky grin playing on her face. “I can give you the fast pass to hell, surely the Devil can’t wait to meet his biggest fan from Birmingham, eh?” It was the mockery for him. The little teasing infliction of her voice. Eh. He reached up to grip her cheeks, but she turned away before he could. Tommy got up and followed her, and when she heard the click of his lighter, she stopped. “There is no smoking allowed in the church, Thomas. Put it out.”

The cigarette rested between his fingers. “Do the rules still apply to nonbelievers?”

“If you are such a nonbeliever,” she said, turning on her heels. “Then you’d best find better company elsewhere.” Instead of leaving, he sat on the priest’s velvet chair on the altar. He leaned back, crossing his legs as if it was his lounge chair. Luckily for her, she was the only one in the church besides a few custodians. 

“What would your father say,” he said, pointing at her with a cigarette, giving her a knowing look. “Being so disrespectful to his client. To an older person. To a man.”

“He’d say nothing,” she quipped, gathering her bag with her notes and bible. Some of her hair had been peeking through her white veil. Tommy pushed off the chair and walked over, grabbing her arm. Flinching, she pushed him off, a nasty glare on her face. “Don’t touch me-”

“C’mere,” he said, regaining his grip and pulling her in. “You’re being immodest,” he said, a teasing glint in his eyes as he poked the loose strands back under the veil. People were weak under him. Once they were trapped by his little games, it was hard to push away. And she was no different, so small under him. Like the good girl she was meant to be, she stayed in place. “You see,” he started, words muffled slightly from the smoke perched between his lips. “I don’t think this is all you. I think…I think you are here just to be a little fuckin’ brat-”

“Mr. Shelby,” she interjected. “If you don’t mind, I have to get to study.”

When she tried to move from him, he gripped tighter. “I do mind, actually.” Yes, it was true, she had a wild era once in her teens. But it stopped at dancing and drinking. Never had she ever broken the seal. The church was safe. It was to keep her safe, and never had she considered the scenario where a man had her trapped. Mr. Shelby of all men. The small of her back pressed against the side of a wooden pew, digging into her body. The edge felt sharp, even through her thick robes. “I quite like your company. I find it…redeeming? As if my soul is just cleansing being in your presence.”

“You’re mocking me,” she said in a mere whisper, their eyes connecting.

“No,” he said, sarcastically while his knee pressed between her legs. “It’s true. Forgive me, I’m just thinking….” He paused, words trailing off. “Just how much you can save me.”

“I’ll pray for you,” she said, pushing at his chest, but he was just too strong for her.

Grinning, he leaned in, forehead resting against hers. “And how do you pray? On your knees? Hmmm…that’s a good idea. You’ll pray for me, right here. On your knees. Go on, be a good little girl and get on your knees.” He stepped back and waited. His face said it all…don’t try to move. Without breaking eye contact, she slid to her knees. A nun, sure, but she knew enough about life to understand what he wanted. “What do you think you should do?” he asked, all emotion leaving his voice. Her hands reached up to his trousers, closing her eyes. To his amusement, her fingers fumbled with the belt loop, struggling. “I guess those wild years did you no good. Or are you just out of practice? C’mon.” He took over, undoing the metal clasp on his belt and unzipping his trousers.

Eyes squeezed shut, chin quivering, she sobbed. “Mr. Shelby, please-”

“It’s coming, love,” he chuckled, flicking her forehead. “Take it out.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, pleading, tears streaming down her face. “I could lose my apprenticeship!”

“Then Mr. Shelby will give you a better one,” he said, grabbing her hand and placing it against his hardening cock. “Take it out, go on. Do your job.” She couldn’t look at him while doing it; pulling the waistband of his underwear down by the hooks of her fingers. Her fingers gently caressed the cock before it came out, displayed in front of her. Gently, he lifted her chin. “Open your eyes.” Her eyes fluttered open, averting her glance from his cock. Tommy laughed, and teased, “looks like you don’t wanna be here. Come on now, put a smile on that pretty face.” He pulled the sides of her trembling lips and forced a smile upon her face. “There we go, all happy to take your father’s cock.” The words were enough to send a chill up her spine, nevermind his throbbing cock lightly teasing at her lips. Releasing her lips, he snaked his hand around her head and grabbed her hair through her veil. “That’s what you call your priest, right? Haha, Father Shelby….Fuckin’ ‘ell. Never in my life….” 

“I’ll do it,” she agreed in a whisper. Just please stop taunting me. 

“I know you will,” he said, his other hand rubbing her cheek. What he did next took her by surprise; pulling her head back and a ball of spit forming at his lips. He spit in her face. “Cause I know and you know that deep, deep down you are a dirty fuckin’ girl that craves a cock buried in her holes.” She nodded to please him, repeating that she was a dirty girl and that she wanted his cock in one of her holes. The spit was running down her cheek, dripping to her dress leaving a wet streak. 

“Ahhh,” she moaned, opening her mouth wide and sticking her tongue out. He commented how no true good girl knows how to display her mouth so pretty. Leaning in, she took the tip first; kissing, sucking with a pop. Salty and feeling like sin, his precum rested on her tongue. Deeper he had told her, hands resting on the back of her head, pressing her lightly.

His hips jerked and twitched slightly as he cursed. “Shit,” he hissed, fingers digging into the veil. “C’mon, you can take daddy in more. I know you can…Fuck, baby. How dare you try to hide this mouth from me.” Nervously, she choked and tried to back away before taking him in a little more; tongue swirling around his length. 

With a free hand, she wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock and pumped while her tongue worked the tip. Removing him from her mouth, she slid her lips in an array of kisses and licks around the shaft before taking him in again, sucking up and down, drool dripping from her bottom lip. Tommy closed his eyes, gently rocking his hips into her, head thrown back. Fuck he hissed, enjoying how her mouth was so warm and wet around him. It took all his strength not to pick her up and throw her over the altar. No, no…he couldn’t be that disrespectful. “Fuck, baby girl…You’re too good. You’re so good for me. Look at you…being such a whore for the Devil of Birmingham.” She hated to admit it, but it was getting to her; his hands, his words, his cock. Her legs were trembling with need, and it made her feel ashamed. Sucking his cock, she moaned at his degrading, taunting banter.  “Faster, whore….C’mon, take your daddy deeper.” He pushed in more. The poor girl choked as it hit the back of her throat, but he loved that. It was the best feeling; dominating a cunt’s throat. The way it would make their throat burn. It certainly made hers burn in agony, but she wanted to make him happy. He paused, thumb wiping away tears from under her eyes, giving her a moment's beak. Then, to his surprise, it was her who started bobbing her head again, looking up at him with doe-like eyes. 

Tommy didn’t break eye contact, enjoying it as some form of submission. Bobbing her head faster, her moans matched the speed. To keep him the way she wanted, she gripped his hips. “What a pretty girl,” he commented when she pulled back, allowing the pool of spit in her mouth to drip over his twitching dick. She smiled up at him, lips puffy and abused, before sucking him back in; licking, sucking, swallowing. He helped her along, feeling his orgasm build up; bucking his hips forward, faster and with better rhythm. “Good girl, my good girl…fuck! You’re going to swallow it all for me, right?”

“Mmmhm,” she moaned, cock filling her mouth as she matched his speed.

“Daddy is going to fill all those fuckin’ holes,” he said mid high. “Every one, baby girl. You’re gonna drip his cum from your tight ass and daddy’s going to breed that tight fuckin’ cunt.” His words spilled out, and after a while, he was incoherent. His orgasm ripped through him, lacing the inside of her mouth with hot ropes of cum. “F-fuck,” he groaned, getting a few last pumps out while his eyes went hooded. Breaths jagged and uneven, he pulled away, gripping her chin. “Show daddy…ah, good fuckin’ girl. Swallow it.”

“Ahhh,” she moaned, mouth opened as if she was proud before swallowing it. It tasted salty and a bit sweet. Truthfully, perhaps a little vile, but it made her feel dirty. Tommy leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cocked ruined lips. “Thank you, sir.”

“I told you,” he said, teasing. “I know you are just a dirty little slut deep down. Now, are you going to go repent your dirty little sins or do you want to go for a ride with Mr. Shelby?” He tucked himself away and helped her up. “C’mon.” He answered for her, helping her out of the church and to his car. 

She looked up at him, and asked with a teasing glint in her eyes, “What makes you think I’m going to fuck you?” 

“We already established,” he started, pushing the wooden doors open. “You’re a dirty little girl.” 

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

Talk. || baby daddy!Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

[MASTERLIST]

Rating: M Words: 2.2K~ Pairing: dad!gaz x mother!reader CW: canon-typical violence, events of MW2019 (references), CHILD DEATH (mentioned), pregnancy, underage!! pregnancy, some cultural/religious judgements regarding underage/out-of-wedlock pregnancy, birth (references). Tags: you/your pronouns, (reader implied female because 'mum', 'mama' and other nicknames are used + mentions of pregnant!user), hurt/comfort, fluff?, military inaccuracies I'm sure. Summary: Gaz and the reader are co-parents of a 10-year-old girl (the result of a teen pregnancy). Gaz calls home to talk to his family and he's having a bit of a breakdown after a mission. a/n: This happens in the MW2019 game timeline, somewhere after the Butcher's interrogation. NOT PROOFREAD, NO BETA WE DIE LIKE MEN.

“SIMISOLA RUBY GARRICK, I WILL NOT CALL YOU AGAIN, GET DOWN HERE!” You shout at the top of your lungs, your voice reverberating all the way to the upper floor of your small townhouse.

“IN A MINUTE!” The girl’s voice calls out from upstairs for the… umpteenth time in the last 10 minutes.

“I swear, Kyle, this girl will be the death of me one of these days.” You tell him. “I’m not well-equipped to deal with a teenager.” You grumble as you look at Kyle’s face on the phone screen.

“She’s not a teen yet, lovie.” He retorts with a little smile. “She’s only 10.” He reminds you.

“She’s teenager enough for my taste. Bloody ignoring me whenever I call her!” You reply with a bit of a huff.

“She’s gettin’ older.” He says simply. “You tellin’ me you obeyed your mum every day at her age?” He asks.

“No, but…” You trail off and sigh, dejectedly. “I hate when you make sense, you know that?” You retort, glaring right at him with your best attempt at the ‘mum stare’, but it’s not as effective through the phone.

“Sorry, mama. One of us has to.” She adds with a mischievous smirk on his full lips. He knows how much you like it when he calls you that.

“Shut it, Garrick, I don’t want to hear it.” You retort and you can hear, and see, him giggling on the other side.

From the way the area around him has gotten progressively darker as you spoke for the last 30 minutes, you can tell he’s somewhere out East, somewhere where the sun is starting to set, since in Birmingham it’s only 3 P.M. and still fully bright outside.

“How’s the OP goin’?” You ask despite knowing that he’s not allowed to say anything about it so he simply shoots you a look before raising his fingers to bring a cigarette to his lips, taking a good long drag.

“It’s goin’ fine enough.” He adds and shrugs, before looking off to the distance just off-camera. He’s… lying. You can tell from the way his eyes furrow and his scarred cheek scrunches in frustration.

Turning your head back up, you aim your eyes at the stairs. “BLOODY FUCKIN’ HELL, SIMI, DAD’S ON THE PHONE FOR YOU!” You announce to what, at this point, has to be the ghosts that kidnapped your daughter because she refuses to come downstairs.

Your ears pick up on the sound of her bedroom door flying open and her feet taking her through the carpeted hall and down the steps.

You watch her coming through the vintage, little pass-through window in your kitchen. “Did’ya say dad?!” The dark-skinned girl says as she comes sliding around the corner and into the room.

“Oh, THAT lights a fire under your arse, innit? But not all those other times I told you to come down? What if I was dying, huh?” You scold her and she immediately smiles the same impish smile your baby daddy is sporting on the phone screen. He loves seeing you be maternal.

“Sorry, Mamsie.” She says while showing absolutely no regret at all in her young features. Shaking your head, you pass the phone over to Simi, whose face lights up at the sight of Kyle. “Dad!”

“Oi, kiddo!” You hear Kyle say through the phone as Simisola takes the phone with her down to the sitting room and parks herself on the sofa, talking about all sorts of things with her dad.

You watch her for a moment through the pass-through window. She’s bouncing excitedly, talking about school, her mates, her grades… It’s not often she gets to talk to Gaz, less even that she gets to see him.

Sometimes you wonder if the unpredictability of his job is going to mess her up one day. I mean, her chances of that are already high enough considering the two of you are merely 28 and have been raising her since you were still kids yourselves… But the fact he’s more gone than around in her day-to-day life is bound to mess her up too…

Maybe you should get her into some therapy, just in case.

But then again, she seems surprisingly unaffected by all of this. She’s healthy, smart, sweet… a bit of a smartass (she takes after her dad in that)... And above all else, she seems... happy.

All things considered, of all the blokes that could’ve gotten you knocked up at seventeen, Kyle Garrick was the best option… And your daughter was the best outcome possible.

Sure, you weren’t official or anything back then (nor are you now, really... though you share a bed and a home and you kiss and-), the pregnancy had been an unforeseen consequence of a tryst in the back of a car after drinking at the local pub… But looking back, you got lucky.

Either way, you were both too young, too eager, too needy, too… stupid. Neither of you thought of condoms, hoping the ‘trusty’ pull-out method would suffice.

It didn’t.

You still remember the way you had a panic attack in a toilet stall at school, you and a girlfriend skipping class to pop over to Tesco and buy a box of pregnancy tests… She took one with you, just to ease your worries… And then yours came out positive.

The fear and absolute dread you felt was paralyzing, the way you stayed holed up in the loo while your friend tried to console you and used her fuschia Motorola Razr to text your other friends to come to the toilets after class.

From there, your girlfriends texted his mates, and by the time you noticed, Kyle was elbowing his way into the bathroom, past the group of waiting students, all of them mutual friends of you both. He spotted you sitting on the dirty tile floor in the corner, eyes glued on the pregnancy test in your hand. You were ugly crying, snot all over, and hyperventilating.

Even back then, Kyle was already years ahead of any other teen you knew. He was mature and calm, collected… He sat beside you, rubbed your back, and told you it’d all be okay. You know deep down that he only held it together to calm you down but once he was alone he probably cried like a baby too.

His parents are Nigerian immigrants. In their minds, there was an order of doing things and their only son getting a girl pregnant before marriage (or before hitting maturity, really) was NOT it.

And your parents, well… They weren’t very happy about it either. Not that any parent ever is when their daughter comes home and drops the bomb that she’s expecting.

That was a bad moment for your lives… You both lived with your parents and you had to go back and forth between school and baby appointments… Kyle was by your side the whole time (or as much as he could, considering he had enlisted as soon as he hit 18) and both your parents tried their best to be supportive… But you never quite earned Mr. and Mrs. Garrick’s affection. Not even now, 10 years later.

At first, they didn’t even want to believe the baby was Kyle’s. Your father ended up having some very heated choice words with Mr. Garrick, defending your honor, and almost bringing the house down screaming that you weren’t a slag.

You were on edge and depressed back then. Once the news spread, most of your friends stopped hanging out with you out of pressure put on by their own parents… They still smiled at you and showed encouragement to you whenever you saw each other… But they didn’t come over anymore, barely spoke to you in the halls… 

People stared in the streets… Whenever you went into a baby shop or the diaper aisle at the supermarket… You were stared at. The whispers of “Look at her, such a slag”, “So young and already up the duff…” never came, at least not that you heard them, but you found yourself clutching your mum’s arm particularly hard whenever she managed to drag you out of the flat and to the shops.

You don’t like looking back on the pictures of that year in sixth form. As much as you love your child, seeing the way your face became hollow and sad, your eyes weighed down by dark circles as your belly grew consistently until nothing you wore fit you right… It still stung.

You wonder how you managed to retain enough mental faculties to not earn yourself a post-partum depression diagnosis. Whatever your brain did, it did it well...

With her skin all wrinkly and red and screaming at the top of her lungs, her little fists shaking, eyes all glossy, and a little clump of dark hair on her head slicked back by the amniotic fluid… You fell in love with Simi the moment the nurses set her against your bare chest.

And Kyle did too. You could see it in the way his eyes softened, his lip trembled and his nose and chin scrunched up to contain a wail. As soon as he held her in his arms for the first time, so small against his chest, her little body wrapped in a blanket against his fatigues... you started openly weeping at the sight, blaming the hormones, but the fact of the matter was that she was so small, so tender, so… perfect.

You tune out most of your daughter’s conversation with her father as you go about preparing dinner for the two of you, moving about the kitchen, lost in your own thoughts.

Your ears perk up when you hear Kyle ask Simi if she can pass the phone back to you and let the two of you have a conversation. The girl complains a bit about how much she misses him but ends up acquiescing to him. Daddy’s girl, she is.

She rushes over, her mini twists bouncing with each step as she drops the phone onto your hand and then waves an exaggerated “See you soon, dad!”. You watch her bounce away and trot back up the stairs before you look down at the phone.

Putting on your earpods, you set the phone down on the counter, propped up by the flour container so you can still be in frame as you go about breading some thin chicken cutlets. 

“What is it, Kyle?” You ask him softly and raise your brows at him. His face is a lot more grim and he lights a second cigarette.

“We lost a kid.” He replies softly. “A little boy in Urzikstan.” He adds and sighs loudly. Your whole face twists lightly into sadness. “Some… fuckin’ plonker of a terrorist…” He trails off.

“Did you kill him?” You ask him and he nods his head solemnly. You’ve learned long ago not to give your input too much on these topics… He’s chosen to keep you and your daughter away from it all… 

He once mentioned that asking to be let in would be like 'dipping your pinkie toe in a pond, never knowing if something would be reaching up to pull you in'. You swore he got that quote from a John Wick movie, and then you both laughed… But you knew he meant the sentiment of it.

“I had to stoop down to his level first.” He tells you as he takes another drag os his new cigarette. “Threatened his wife… his son… to get him to talk.” He trails off and sucks in a sharp breath.

Even with the progressive darkness that has set in now, wherever he is, you can still spot the way his nose scrunches as he tries to hold in his crying… His voice is still steady, but his eyes… Always so expressive… You’ve learned to read them in 10 years of co-parenting.

“Every time that bloody barrel even went slightly near that kid’s face I-” Kyle trembles out a breath and rolls his shoulders. Then, he goes quite.

“Anyways…” He says, trying to deflect his feelings away from the things he’s had to do. “I… I miss Simi… And I miss you.” He adds.

“We miss you too, Kyle.” You reply, trying your best to be positive for him. He needs it. “She can’t stop talking about you, counting down the days ‘till you walk through that door and come wrap her in one of those alledgedly ‘annoying’ bear hugs of yours.” You quip and a genuine smirk forms on his lips.

He nods and you notice him through away his cigarette and move somewhere else. As he walks you notice the space is brighter, the camera is facing upwards, and you can see the ceiling and ceiling lights… But above all else, you see his handsome face, the light wisp of a mustache and a goatee, the scar on his left cheek, his tired eyes, and disheveled hair.

He crosses a threshold into another darkened space, but this one is much quieter. You hear some shuffling sounds and even though now you really can’t see shit, you know he’s there, staring at you… And you know he’s lying down.

“Lovie… Can I ask you a favour?” He says as he sighs deeply and slowly.

“Yeah, what is it?” You end up saying as you set aside the breaded cutlets and wash your hands.

“Tell me everything I’m missing. Tell me everything that Simisola did and said… Tell me about your day… about work… share all the gossip you’ve got…” He requests. 

“Just… Just talk my bloody ear off.” He pleads. “I just need to hear your voice.” He adds, his tone a lot more gentler. “Please…”.

[erodasfishtacos]

A Fix For Loneliness Sneak Peek (up on patreon)

prompt: YN is learning she has no self-preservation. It’s why she keeps running into her stranger. A man who won’t tell her anything, gives her instructions, and occasionally isn’t downright awful.

word count: 9.5k+

warnings: h is obviously not a good person, violence, blood, medical stuff, mean H, dark H

authors note: the rest of the one shot is up on patreon. i will be updating this shortly over there too! I update every one to three days.

you can subscribe for $3USD here

I have upwards of 300 pieces of exclusive writing available 💓

———

YN was too kind.

She knew that.

It’s why she became a nurse, to help others in their time of need, and that’s exactly what she did in the emergency department of her local hospital.

When she was walking down a back alley one night (she knew it wasn’t safe but it was such a quicker shortcut after a thirteen hour shift she couldn’t ignore it even if it was one in the morning).

YN’s half-asleep on her feet when she runs into quite the scene, a man who has to be around her age was dressed in dark jeans and a black tee shirt.

There was blood dripping from his jaw and his bottom lip was swollen up, already bruising under the drying blood.

He had just tossed something into the dumpster before slamming the lid shut with a deafening echo and despite the warning signals, YN can’t ignore him.

“Oh my goodness. You’re bleeding, sir,” YN jumps into nurse mode, hurrying up to him and without permission, tilting his head gently to the side.

The man narrows his eyes at her, clearly taken aback, and takes three big steps away from her reach towards the opposite building.

He makes a show of spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the pavement before wiping his mouth crudely with the back of his hand.

His voice was deep and scratchy, it matched his appearance, his accent thick and rough, “M’fucking fine. Back off and mind your own god damn business.”

YN is used to fiesty patients, it doesn’t phase her much as she examines him from afar now, “I’m a nurse.”

The man sneers at her, “Surprisingly, I’m not fucking blind. I don’t want your help. Run the fuck along now, little miss hero.”

YN glances down, still in her scrubs, of course he would see she’s a nurse, and distraught at this man refusing help.

She’s tired, she’s overworked, and the fact that she knows she’ll perseverate on this if he doesn’t let her help makes her choke out a frustrated sniffle.

The brunette man, with a scowl of impatience scoffs of disbelief, “Are you really about to fuckin’ cry?”

“I jus-just want to help. I lost tw-two patients today and couldn’t-couldn’t save them,” YN begins to tear up now, wiping her eyes, it was always a hard day when she lost patients.

Two today.

An older woman with a heart attack.

A teen in a car accident.

“Fucks sake,” The bloody man groans under his breath, his eyes darting up and down the alleyway, “You’re going to cause a scene over this, aren’t you? I don’t have bloody time for this.”

He stomps towards her which makes her freeze but he stands in front of her with a agitated flick of his hand, “If you’re going to do your nurse shit, do it! I don’t have god damn time for your cry baby act. Of course, I get my plans ruined.”

YN obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he seems like he has places to be and she’s holding him up.

Where on earth could he go with his face looking like that anyways?

“I-I don’t have anything with me,” YN stutters after a moment, this man was intimidating as he had major height advantage, he appeared lean but his muscle definition proved he was strong.

“Okay, then see ya’,” He grunts lowly, moving to turn on his heel but YN grabs his wrist without thinking to stop him.

“My-uh, my apartment,” YN’s throat is dry, what the fuck is she doing, “I have the stuff at my apartment up the street.”

“Did your parents never teach you stranger danger? Inviting a man you’ve never met, bleeding, up to your apartment?” He asks with an eyebrow raise, wiping his continuous bleeding wound with his shirt, flashing a sliver of his carved abdominal muscles.

“You need help,” YN replies unsurely, her behaviors are so uncharacteristic but she felt drawn to help this stranger.

A small group of people pass the corridor of the alleyway, with laughs and drunk words, and the man she’s standing with perks up at high alert.

“Fuck,” He hisses angrily, that seemed to be his favorite word, yanking his hand out of her grip and muttering so softly YN doesn’t know whether she heard him right, “gonna get me caught.”

“Stand over there and turn around,” The man demands sharply, YN wasn’t used to being talked to that way but she finds herself walking towards the edge of the alley and turning away.

YN hears rustling, the dumpster being open and closed again, and a few unidentifiable noises before she hears his footsteps approaching.

His hand on her shoulder is tight as he spins her around, “If I let you fix me up, will you leave me the fuck alone and more importantly, never mention this to anyone?”

YN’s brow furrows, “Why can’t I tell-“ The man hisses in agitation, fingers digging into her skin more has harshly, “Answer me.”

It’s the first time that chills are sent down her spine at his gritted words, everything in her is screaming to run, her fight or flight triggered.

“I-I won’t tell,” YN agrees breathlessly, skin tingling when he lets go and pushes her forward, not aggressively but enough that she stumbles.

“Then move already,” He orders and when she tries to turn around to look at him, his hand comes to her neck, keeping her facing forward.

Whatever he was doing in that alley, he really didn’t want her to see, and he didn’t seem like he was open to answering questions.

YN keeps trying to justify why she’s letting a bleeding, angry man into her home as she shakily unlocks the door.

[aingeal98]

Orv on the brain again but I really can't get over Han Sooyoung's future clone travelling back in time, possessing her tween body while she sleeps, and using every moment to write a story in order to keep one guy alive. And then when teen HSY starts getting dreams about the story her future self is writing and uses the dreams as writing material for herself because fuck it if you're getting possessed might as well get a skill out of it, the teen boy her older self is trying to keep alive accuses her of plagiarism. Plagiarising herself even though neither of them know it. And so teen HSY sends him anon hate and also writes hate comments about the story her older self is spending every minute of her time conscious writing. And she doesn't have a fuckin clue. Neither of them do. They are the universe's favourite little cosmic joke and they won't understand how deep their own lore goes until the feelings are too real for them to do anything but repeat the cycle. Like. One version of herself sacrifices herself for this guy and another version meets him for the first time and they're both like "Damn what an annoying loser." The layers and complexities that go into the doksoo Ultimate Story: Clown to Clown Communication are a marvel to read.

[himbo-ford-pines]

hehehehehehe evil thots illegal thots here have bad babysitter Stan

CW: drinking

——————

Stanley watched his brother run full speed around the house. He sighed. He should have never given into the boy’s pleas for ice cream. Their parents were going to be gone overnight and had tasked Stanley with watching the seven year old Stanford. He recalled his pa’s warning before they left the house: “He’d better be asleep by eight, and eat his entire dinner and-“ blah blah blah. Stanley knew what he was doing. Christ they worried so much.

He was pulled from his thoughts when he heard a crash. He paled. “Sixer, I know you didn’t run into that fucking urn.” He stared hard at their grandmother’s ashes on the floor. “God… dammit. Okay.” He stood and grabbed the broom, muttering to himself. He was gonna get his ears boxed for this.

Stanford stepped back and rubbed his arm sheepishly. “Sorry Stanley, I was pretending to be a B-52 and-“

“Yeah, bud, I saw.” He sighed. “You need to calm down a little, you’re literally bouncin’ off the walls. In fact-“ he glanced up at the cat clock monotonously ticking away above the entrance to the kitchen. “I think it’s bedtime.” He considered ashes in the dustpan and grabbed a Tupperware, dumping them in while his brother whined at him.

“What?! That’s not fair, you get to stay up all night and watch tv!”

“Yeah, cuz I’m charge tonight, and Pa gave me specific instructions on what to do with you. I’m not getting my ass whooped because you wanna watch cartoons longer than normal. I’m already getting it because you spilled Grandma on the fuckin floor.” He wiped his hands off on his white shirt, grimacing at the dark smudges. Sorry Grandma.

Ford frowned. “But I’m not tired.”

Stanley frowned. Getting this kid in bed when he didn’t want to go was nearly impossible. Then he remembered his ma talking about giving them gin on her finger when they were babies to calm them down and put them to sleep. He wondered if beer would do the same. “Tell ya what, you can stay up with me, but you have to drink with me. You wanna be a man or whatever? Come on.” He grabbed a six pack he’d stolen from the local grocery store from the fridge and placed it on the coffee table imposingly. “Think you’re up for it?”

Stanford puffed out his chest in pride. “I can do it! I am a man!” He ran over to the couch and sat down, keeping his arms crossed.

Stanley threw some pajamas at him. “At least get cozy.”

Ford groaned and started taking off his clothes. Stanley found his eyes trailing over the boy’s soft body, coming to rest on the boy’s tighty whiteys. He shook his head when Stanford pulled his pj’s back on and flopped down onto the couch, cracking open a cold one with the boy. He grabbed the clicker and switched on the tv, flipping through channels until they hit some documentary and Sixer started yelling at his older brother to stop there so he could learn about jellyfish. Stanley groaned but figured the kid would only be up for a little longer so he obliged and settled back as he was lectured on the stages of jellyfish life, polyp stage, Medusa stage, blah blah blah. He sipped his beer boredly, and pulled the boy closer, offering him the bottle. “Here. You said you’d keep up with me.”

Stanford took it, a bit unsure of himself and sniffed it, recoiling a bit at the heavy fermented wheat smell. “You sure Pa won’t get mad?”

“Not if Pa doesn’t know. You gonna rat me out?”

“No.”

“Then shut up and quit worrying. Drink.” He opened another beer for himself and chugged half of it, letting out a loud long burp afterwards that sent Stanford into giggles.

“Gross Stanley!” He hit his arm and regarded the bottle before taking a tentative sip and almost spitting it out. Stanley covered his mouth.

“Swallow, Sixer.”

Ford swallowed with a shudder and let out a much smaller burp. Stanley grinned and nodded for him to keep going as the teen continued sipping his own beer. Stanford wasn’t going to back down from a challenge- he never did. So he drank. He finished the bottle about the same time that Stanley was half way through his second. He leaned back with a groan. His tummy hurt, but he didn’t feel drunk? At least, he didn’t think so?

“Hey kid, go grab those chips.” Stanley pointed to the bag of potato chips on the counter in the kitchen. “But finish this first.” He handed him the half full bottle of beer he had been working on. “Then we’ll be even.” He smirked, seeing the unsure look on Ford’s face. “Unless you’re chicken.”

Ford wrinkled his nose and tilted the bottle back, holding his breath to avoid tasting the sour liquid as it washed down his throat. He slammed the bottle down on the table, burped in his brother’s face, stood up determinedly, took one step towards the kitchen, and fell flat on his face with a groan.

Stanley burst out laughing and stood, stretching. “That was so easy. Alright, bed-“ his inebriated brain focused in on the lining of Ford’s underwear peeking out from his pajama pants. His cock jumped in his own sweats. He looked at the clock. He still had hours before their parents were home… and he and Ford had played before. It’s not like he hadn’t gotten a yes any other time he’d asked, why would this time be different. He picked the drunk kid up and tossed him on the couch.

Stanford grunted and blinked up at him. “Dizzy…”

“Shh.” He pulled the boy’s pants and underwear off, silent, and let Ford’s legs fall back onto the couch as he stared at the boy’s soft cock. He just… he needed this. He reached for another beer and took a drink of it before pushing it to his brother’s lips, making him take a drink despite Ford shaking his head. Stanley pushed Sixer back down onto the couch and pulled his cock out, stroking himself with a small groan before going down, taking Stanford’s entire package into his mouth and moving his tongue around, playing with his tiny cock and his fucking grape sized excuse for a sack. Ford let out a lewd noise, tangling small hands in his brother’s hair. “S-Stanleyyyy~” he crooned before his mouth fell open. He stared at the ceiling fan for what felt like a very long time as he focus’s on his brother’s warm mouth on his privates. He gasped- he was about to finish in his brother’s mouth when Stanley pulled off with a shimmery line of pre connecting his lips to Ford’s cock. He grabbed his brother’s legs and lifted them before spitting right onto his ass and shoving two finger into him. Ford yelped at the sudden penetration, wiggling clumsily in Stanley’s grasp but Stan had a big advantage on him in size and sobriety. “Easy buddy, I’m not gonna fuck you tonight, not really anyway. You get fingered and put to bed, that’s it.”

Ford let out an unintelligible whimpering slur of words at him that Stanley ignored as he felt around for Ford’s sweet spot. He found it quickly- he knew his way around- and didn’t let up on it, touching and feeling the boy’s prostate until Stanford came all over his own legs, blubbering and gasping. Stanley pulled his fingers out slowly and wiped them on the couch as he watched Ford catch his breath. “Are you ready for bed yet Sixer?”

Ford just closed his eyes and Stanley sighed in relief, curling around him in an apartment that was finally quiet.

[jessiexcorner]

Heartbreak Highs

Description: Amerie, Harper, and (Y/n). The three were the best of friends until the incest map. A heartbreak high x reader. 

"I met Ameire when I was five."

A little brown girl with blue overalls and a pink shirt walks over to two girls one blond hair and the other (h/c). The blond draws a crocodile while the (h/c) hands her green crayons as she makes her own painting. “What’s that?” The new girl asks,

“It's a crocodile.” The blond responds.

“It's shit.” The brown girl states. The blond drops her pencil to flip off the new girl, making her smile, while the (h/c) hair girl giggles.

"For a long time, it had just been me and Harper, but with Ameire we were unstoppable."

The three girls run as a teacher chases them through the hall, “Stop it!” The girls giggle and run faster.

"They were my ride or dies. Nobody could come between us. Well, that was until the incest map. Ameire and Harper were super into romance, not that I wasn’t, it's just they tended to watch people.”

(Y/n) takes out her books from her locker clutching onto them as her friends, Amire and Harper giggle holding their books while staring at a couple making out against the lockers. The (h/c) color girl tries to pull them away from the scene but they don't budge.

"In so a creepy way.”

The girls now older, still watch as a couple fights making fun and guessing what the couple could probably be saying. “Oh, I swear to god Jessica you know I'm good for it eh?” Harper makes her voice deeper playing the man.

“If you touch her again I’ll fuckin smash ya, ya cheatin’ dog.” Ameire uses a high pitch.

“No babe, I'm fuckin’—“

“Kiss me!” Both girls make kissing noises. (Y/n) watches the teens quietly shaking her head.

“I don’t exactly know when it started to happen, but somehow I ended up drifting apart from the two,”

Amerie and Harper giggle as they write on the Incest map while (y/n) stands in the corner watching quietly. “You’re obsessed,” Harper comments as Amerie draws a line with a gold marker across her name and dusty.

“Destined,” Amerie says with a smile, (Y/n) looks down playing with the small rock on the floor, kicking it around, bored.

“Harper tried to include me in their activities, Amerie on the other hand seems to forget me more often. Maybe it's because Harper knew me for longer. Eventually, Harper left me behind too. I used to miss them from time to time and the fun we used to have, but now when I look back at those times, I remember they mostly kept me around because their parents trusted me, and if they were around ‘(Y/n) the good kid who gets grades and doesn’t do drugs’, they thought maybe their kids wouldn’t either, which gave harper and Amerie more freedom to actually, go out and do drugs. I completely stopped talking to them after the fight.”

“Ugh, I can't wait for the festival,” Amerie states sitting down on (Y/n)’s floor while eating a bunch of junk candy. Home worksheets thrown on the floor, harper lays on (y/n)’s bed taking some junk food from Amerie.

“I know right, I even got Cash to come and sell us some drugs, we are going to get so wasted.” Harper boasts. (Y/n) sits on her desk trying to finish her homework, ignoring the girls.

“Ah, no way? I can't wait, I got the tickets too! Look,” Amerie says taking out the tickets from her backpack and holding them out for Harper to see. Harper takes the tickets to inspect them noticing something.

“Am, there are only two tickets,” Harper states sitting up now.

“What?” Amerie looks up.

“You only got two tickets, what about (Y/n)?” Harper asks confused.

“Oh, well, she didn't give me the money for it so,” Amerie says glancing at the (h/c) hair-colored girl who sighs.

“I'm not coming.”

“What? Why not?” Harper questions.

“Because I don't want to keep being your guy’s babysitter when you get high or drunk.”

“..well you can just, drink with us,” Amerie states as if it's the easiest solution in the world.

“No, I can't Amerie, because if you knew anything you would know I don't want to.” (Y/n) snaps a little putting her finished homework away.

“..why are you so pissed off? It's just—“ Amerie gets cut off.

“Why am I so pissed off? Amerie. It's like the only time you guys ever hang out with me is because you want something from me or when I have use to you!”

“That's not true.” Harper defends herself and Amerie.

“Yes, it is! You only hang out with me because your parents think that you wouldn't possibly be going out to get drunk with me, and you guys are literally here because you wanted to copy my homework answers. You never hang out with me anymore just doing things like normal, it's always watching the latest hook-up or gossip or getting high and drunk. You never even invite me out anymore.” (Y/n) says angrily shaking a little trying to keep calm. The other two girls are silent and look at each other before collecting their things ready to leave.

“We’ll talk when you've calmed down,” Amerie says picking up her back.

“Oh fuck you, Amerie, just leave, I don't wanna talk to you again.” (Y/n) snaps. The brown girl walks out leaving Harper.

“..I,” Harper starts but then pauses not knowing what to say, muttering an apology while she walks off following Amerie, leaving (Y/n) by herself.

“After that, Harper would occasionally text me, and ask to try to hang out and watch movies like old times, but it wasn't the same. There was always this weird tension. I made new friends though, better friends. Quinni and Darren. Those two are actual ride or dies. They made me feel like I didn't have to pretend or have to get high for them to like me, they treated me right. I had almost forgotten about Harper and Amerie for a while, well that was until that night..”

At school grounds early in the morning, (Y/n) walks up to Quinni and Darren who are talking before someone bumps in between the two, squealing, ‘Dusty spoke to me!’ And giggling. “‘Dusty spoke to me’ what a pick me bitch. Also rude.” Darren mocks the brown girl who bumped them. (Y/n) chuckles lightly, agreeing.

“Maybe she didn't see us,” Quinni says kindly giving Amerie the benefit of the doubt.

“Oh please, Check the material. We are beautiful, exquisite jellyfish.” Darren says linking arms with both girls, brushing Quinni’s hair lightly, “of course they saw us.” They all walk heading to the school building. (Y/n) looks at her phone, sending a quick message to a contact labeled ‘H.’, ‘you coming soon?’ There’s a pause before the person responds with ‘yea see you there.’ The trio walks towards the steps seeing a new face. “Fresh blood,” Darren whispers to the two girls, (Y/n) looks up from her phone noticing a boy in a yellow t-shirt and multi-colored striped pants, asking for directions. As they walk past him to the stairs, the boy makes eye contact with (Y/n) giving a small awkward smile. (Y/n) smiles back and walks with her friends up the stairs, “What was that?” Darren questions,

“What?”

“Were you trying to flirt with him? Oh, baby (Y/n), growing up so fast.” They say teasing.

“Shut up.” (Y/n) ignores the taller stylish kid. The three are about to head to class when someone shouts gaining everyone’s attention.

“Oi! There’s a fully-gacked sex map in the old stairwell. It's called the incest map!” The person shouts walking away, everyone intrigued follows, heading to the stairwell. (Y/n) looks over noticing Amerie stood still with a look of panic. Both girls rush to the stairwell, (Y/n) catching up with her friends. She looks over the map noticing it has grown much bigger than the last time she saw it, then again she stopped coming her long before the fight. She notices new names, including those of her friends Quinni and Darren, she looks over and notices her own name, not connected to anyone just having the words ‘Fish.’ In bold written in familiar handwriting. She tries to swallow the lump in her throat. She notices Missy walking away from her girlfriend upset about what she saw on the map.

“Darren jerked you off? Nice bro, you into dudes now?” A kid, Spider, teases their friend Anthony, also named Ant.

“Little cheeky huh?” Dusty comments, making a crude hand gesture.

“Who says I'm a dude?” Darren retaliates.

“Oh! Look (Y/n)’s a fish!” A couple of boys laugh. “Awe, I can change that for you if you want (Y/n)” Spider says making kissy faces at the girl who clenches her jaw. Looking over at Amerie who looks panicked and avoiding the girl’s gaze. Quinni searches the wall for her name before finding it, labelled ‘lazy kebab’

“That’s not true, what’s a lazy kebab? Spider what's a lazy kebab?” Quinni calls the guy who is said to spread the rumor.

The kids are called for a school meeting and they all sit in the hall. “It's mostly kids from our level, it must be someone we know,” Quinni comments her observation to the other two, who sit down.

“It's probably Spider or one of those idiots. Most of its bullshit anyway,” Darren says sitting in the middle comforting the girls. (Y/n) sits quietly beside Darren, glaring at Amerie, and forcing the kid in the seat next to her to move, leaving an empty seat beside her.

“So crazy right?” Amerie comments. (Y/n), although sitting a couple of seats away, hears this and scoffs. A girl walks into the hall wearing a grey shirt and red pants and having a shaved head.

“Holy shit is that Harps? Oh my god her hair,” Sasha comments sitting next to Amerie, she throws a paper ball at Harper only to miss. Most kids turn to look at the girl. Harper walks towards (Y/n) and sits next to her in the empty seat quietly. 

Amerie notices and stands calling out, “Harper,” only to be ignored and told to sit down by the principal.

“Fish, really couldn’t think up anything more clever than that?” (Y/n) comments blankly not looking at the girl next to her, Harper turns to glance at (Y/n) and mutters an apology.

“I didn't write it.”

“I know but, you didn’t stop her either.” (Y/n) sighs as she looks over at Harper before turning away and focusing on the principal. Both sit quietly next to each other.

There is complete silence. “I am a woke woman.” The principal starts. “I enjoy sex as much as the next person.” She states, making a couple of kids laugh and snicker. “But reputation is everything and this map has jeopardised your reputations and the reputation of our school on the first day back. We are currently in the process of contacting all the parents of everyone on this map and have strongly suggested that there are to be no more parties, shindigs, or gathos.” The students erupt in protest, while Amerie continues to look at Harper and (Y/n), who are sitting quietly. “Hey, hey, unsupervised parties equals alcohol. Alcohol equals poor choices. The risk-taking behaviors outlined on this map are unacceptable. Hartley High prides itself on being a safe environment.” Darren laughs at this. “But clearly this is a wake-up call that we are not doing enough. Oh, and we will find out who did this.” Amerie gulps. “Get to class, go, go, go.” Students stand and head to their classes, (Y/n) and Harper stand and walk together while Darren and Quinni follow.

“Harper, (Y/n) oi!” Amerie calls out only to be ignored and stopped by the principal. “Miss Wadia. Come with me.”

Ameire sits in principal Stacy’s office. “Well, I’ve had quite the education this morning, Amerie. “Wristy? Oh, right.” She reads off her phone. “Doughy? Fish?” Her dog, Joan of Bark, whimpers sitting in his bed. “I think I can work out ‘tongue punch in the fart box.’” She sighs and puts her phone down, while Amerie sits smiling. “I know it was you, Amerie. One of our maintenance staff saw you in the stairwell multiple times. Who else was in on it? Your usual accomplice, Harper? Did you also force (Y/n) into it with you two?”

“Nobody else was in on it,” Amerie says confidently no longer smiling.

"Do you know who I just got off the phone with? The Guardian, Amerie. The Guardian."

"...Okay?"

"Were all of these acts consensual?"

"I guess." Amerie shrugs confused.

"Are your mates using protection?" The principal questions.

"I don't know."

"Well, how can you know that Alyssa scissored Nina, but not know if they're using contraception?" She asks suspiciously.

"I don't think you have to use contraception when you scissor someone, Miss." Amerie sarcastically retorts.

"I'd say that's a very dangerous assumption actually, Amerie. What do we have to do to get through to you? We've done the classes. We've watched the videos. We've had the police consultants in. And yet, here we are with this map." Miss Stacy scolds, "One foot out of line, one late slip, one phone infraction, and I will expel you. Understood?"

"Can I go to class now?"

"Yes, you may."

"Okay."

"Wait! You call this the Incest Map. I'm assuming that's just a play on words and not the actual..."

"Play on words, Miss." She quickly assures the principal.  

"Okay, good. Now, get out of my office before I do expel you, by the count of three. One, two, three!" She sighs.

Pt.2;  https://www.tumblr.com/jessiexcorner/716409910079913984/heartbreak-highs-pt-2?source=share

[madam-o]

Re the weird divide in the Beetlejuice fandom, which I really don't get

Fandom is so strange. Just liking Beetlejuice himself as a character has invited all manner of unusual kinks and personal interests into the fandom, and hey, the more the merrier. Beetlefans and netherlings are an assembly of interesting weirdos, so like, you do you. And obviously, this means that you should try not to judge or make assumptions about others based on your own feelings about their interests. Riiiight?

So, Beetlebabes as a ship has been around since the beginning of the fandom, and it certainly seems likely not to be going anywhere with the sequel. Now, my own personal stance on the pairing lies straight in the middle. I think Lydia and Beej have a beautiful friendship in the animated series and musical. They're such a great comedic duo and there's something very pure and sweet about this girl and her bug-man. Their relationship in the musical IS colored by the fact that they're both using and tricking each other a lot of the time, but they seem to have a mutual respect on this point and don't let it ruin their friendship, well until the topic of moms comes up, anyway.

In the movie, it's more complicated. BJ is motivated primarily by his desire to be free and couldn't care less about Lydia's problems. He also gets just a tad creepy with Lydia, though he's not over the top about it. He claims that he thinks that she "really understands me", which is a frickin weird thing to say about a kid who you talked to for like five minutes. But the pervy implications are kept to a minimum so as not to drive the movie into darker territory. His motivations are still kept as primarily a green card thing, although the viewer is still pretty grossed out by the forced, child-bride marriage.

Re BJ, I don't see him as a human or someone who really follows human rules. He's a supernatural creature who has a vague, outsider's understanding of what being human means. Even interpreting him as a ghost and not a demon, he's too different from a human to remember what being one is like. In the musical and cartoon, he relates to Lydia from a child's pov, but tries to behave like an adult with the Maitlands. He's neither, though. He's an unliving, essentially immortal Thing. And while Lydia clearly has a lot of affection for "her monster", she's not exactly into this gross, stinky, creepy old guy. As for BJ, he's very attached to Lydia, perhaps unhealthily so, but he's not being a sexual predator with her.

However, as a Beetlefan, I've seen that it's pretty natural to pair the two up romantically. I certainly shipped them as a kid. And yeah, it's kind of a weird ship, but Beetlejuice as a concept is just weird, period. Weirdness and age gaps are hardly anything new or unique in any part of the internet. Teen fans ship characters their own age with much older characters all the time, and it's not usually frowned upon. But in the Beetlejuice fandom, there appears to be a lot of ship-shaming and accusations of p3d0ph1lia when it comes to this teen/ancient monster pairing, which I'm guessing is a lot more of an internet drama thing than about the actual pairing itself.

Now to be clear, I don't ship teen Lydia with anyone, but I also acknowledge that she's not gonna stay a kid and that things could change between them.

Personally I like the idea of Lydia and BJ being reunited after spending several years apart and things being super weird and tense based on their history. I've become primarily a fan of the relationship dynamic they have in the musical, so I see them as being distrustful of each other and competitive about getting one over the other. But they still gel in a unique way, and they can't help but enjoy their messed-up frenemy thing. And I think the awkwardness of the teen bride thing should be leaned into rather than forgotten or brushed away.

Lydia (to BJ): You really fucked me up, you know. I was just a sad kid who you manipulated. You fuckin creep.

BJ (to Lydia): Yeah but at least I didn't literally STAB YOU THROUGH THE HEART, so...point to me, there.

This type of prickly, antagonistic relationship is like catnip to me, honestly. So it's pretty disappointing and sad that all this fandom drama crap can and probably will affect my ability to share and enjoy beetlebabes content because "beetlebabes dni" appears on so many profiles and posts. It's the kinda thing that makes fandom culture such a double-edged freaking sword. Why can't people ever just let people enjoy the thing they like and try to be respectful of each other, ya know?

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

it's finally here! one month late, and a couple thousand words more than i thought it'd be! happy leap yeap!

Here's my entry for Lex's (@thefreakandthehair) Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge! I had dialogue prompt #22 "Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?”

pairing: steddie | word count: 10,446 | rated: E | on AO3: hey you really turn me on

Why in the hell did he agree to this? It’s 20 fuckin’ degrees out and he’s outside?? In the snow?? Voluntarily?

If the boys could see him now.. “Who are you and what’ve you done with Eddie?”, “Since when do you do shit outside?”, “All this for Steve fuckin’ Harrington…”.

And that’s the rub, it is because of Steve. Hopeless crush aside, Steve is the reason he’s there. Why they’re all there in the first place.

When Steve got the call, Eddie and the other older teens of their world-saving group were just hanging out; movies, beer, snacks, a little weed, music playing low…all in all, a great kick-back. 

Then the phone rang.

It was relatively late too, 10 maybe?

Steve went to answer it of course, the conversation muffled through the living room and kitchen walls, but after a minute or so he came back. The long phone line stretched across the hall back to the hook in the kitchen.

“When is this again?” Steve says into the receiver, waving towards the sound system. Robin had scrambled up immediately, nearly falling back on her face to turn the volume down.

“Uh huh. And you and Dad won’t be there? Mm hmm.” he nods.

Eddie looked over to Robin first, eyebrow raised. She only shrugged, as does Nancy when he turned the look to her.

“And how many rooms?” Whatever the answer is causes Steve’s brows to shoot up. “Wow, okay, yeah we–” 

Eddie was closest to him, previously starfished out on the carpet, but had sat up and leaned back on his palms when Steve returned, so he could just barely hear the sound of another voice on the other end of the line.

“Yeah of course, that’d be great, we definitely will. Thanks Mom.”

Steve had sounded actually…happy to be talking to his mom. And here Eddie thought the Harringtons were objectively the worst.

“No, they’re going to love it, Mom, I promise.” another pause, “Nope. They’ll all be on their best behavior.” Steve glances down at Eddie, “We all will be.”

He scoffs up at Steve from his spot on the floor. Rude.

Steve only waves him off with a smile, “Yeah, the usual.” he says, “Rob, Nance, Jon, Jon’s friend Argyle–yeah, he’s the one from California, and Eddie.” Steve’s eyes flash down to Eddie again and his stomach twists sharply. Aw fuck, here it comes; the scolding, the yelling, the berating about how Eddie’s no good for him to be associating with, why are you stooping to his level, he’s a murderer, yadda yadda yadda.

“Yeah, he and Wayne are doin’ much better now, I’ll have to tell you about it next time, okay?” 

Uh.

What?

“Yeah, that’d be great if you don’t mind! Yep, Wheeler, Henderson, Sinclair,” He looks again at the other people in the room, they’re still just as puzzled as he is. What do the kids have to do with this? “I’ll talk to Hopper and Joyce, and I’m sure Ms. Mayfield would let Max go. Oh absolutely,”

Steve starts back into the kitchen, and Eddie can hear him all the way back to the hook. “No–Nope, it’s fine, I actually have a couple people over right now so I want to–yeah. Yep. Okay, love you too. Bye mom.”

Eddie looks around at the others; Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, even Argyle, though he’s not looking around wide-eyed at what all just occurred like the others are.

Steve comes back into the living room. “So…” he lets out a long breath, “How do you all feel about skiing?”

-x-X-x-

So yeah. Here they all are, at some ski resort up in Michigan. Boyd Mountain…or Bowie? Something with a ‘B’.

Turns out, Steve’s parents had a four-room cabin rental set aside as a perk for some deal they were trying to barter. It fell through though, and they wouldn’t be back from Colorado themselves until after the reservation would’ve expired so they offered it to Steve and whoever he’d like to invite.

They took care of everything too; got lift passes, boot and ski rentals set aside for each of them, even sent a whole ass passenger van to be dropped off in the Harrington driveway for them to make the drive; A huge 15 passenger one that even with the three extra seats, still barely held all their crap for the long weekend.

All of them piled into the van in the dark on a Friday morning, sleepy-faced and crusty-eyed; Robin as Steve’s co-pilot, and each of the rest of the older teens and the party piling in wherever they could (they’d fight about their seats when they woke up more, Eddie was sure of it).

The first rest stop on the way up went by without incident, but by time they stopped for late breakfast/early lunch at another, everyone was stir crazy. Sandwiches were passed out, gas was gotten, bathroom breaks were taken, and almost as soon as they got back in the van, Robin was snoring.

“Damnit, if I knew she was gonna tank like that I would’ve had someone else sit up here.” Steve had groused. 

“I’ve gotcha big guy, I won’t let you fall asleep.” Eddie said, now seated next to Dustin and El on the first bench behind the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, me either.” Dustin agreed.

He was snoring an hour later, El leaning into him for her own nap.

“That’s cute.” Was the first thing Robin said after waking back up.

All in all, not a bad drive. The worst part was tramping through the snow to the cabin after they’d arrived.

“Goddammit Steve, How am I supposed to get through this week in only my jeans?”

Steve sighs, “Eddie, you have made the same argument ever since my mom called; and every time you did, I told you everything would be here for you.”

He finally gets the door open, shoving it wide for them all and gesturing them in, “Get comfy guys, I’m going to grab the cooler with our groceries.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Jonathan says, following Steve back out to the van.

The large open main floor has a full kitchen with a raised bar counter and four stools, tall peaked ceilings, a fireplace on one wall with two couches and a rocking chair situated around it, and a sliding glass door to a balcony off the back side of the building overlooking the trees below.

There’s stairs too, a set going up and a set going down, and at least one bathroom here on this floor, off the kitchen.

Eddie wanders into the living room, picks out some pieces of kindling from the bucket on the stone beside the fireplace and a couple logs from the stack nearby, and busies himself with starting the fire while the party pokes around the place.

He glances over his shoulder when he hears the fake leather of the couch cushions squeak together, only to see Argyle has perched himself on the backrest, squashing a cushion beneath his feet.

The fire takes less than no time at all, and once it’s going and he’s re-situated the trifold metal screen back in front of the fire, he sits down beside Argyle’s shins and is immediately entranced by the flames.

Steve and Jonathan return not long after, lugging their things with the cooler hanging between them.

“So how do y’guys want to split up the rooms?” Robin asks aloud, ignoring the yelling the other teens are already doing about the same thing.

“I’m not picky.” Eddie shrugs, standing up to stretch again, deciding he really did not want to be sitting anymore.

“Me either sister, whatever you decide is cool with me.” Argyle agrees. “What’re the rooms like?”

“There’s a master up here!” Max calls from above them, looming over the log railing at the top of the stairs with El.

“We walked right past it, but there’s a room with a queen off the front hall there,” Jonathan says, shuffling his bag against the kitchen bar.

“Hey! Assholes!” Steve yells down the steps, the boys must’ve gone down there. “Go get your shit out of the van and we’ll head over to the main lodge!”

The four thunder up the steps, how any of them can understand any other over the other is beyond him.

“Will,” Nancy calls as he rounds the stairs last, “There are bedrooms down there?”

“Yep!” he grins, “Two rooms with queen beds, and a bathroom.”

“I don’t mind taking one of the queens,” Nancy says, “Robin, wanna share with me?”

Robin starts to splutter, still somehow not convinced that Nancy’s got a thing for her. It’s obvious to him, but he and Steve have both tried to tell her this. To no avail. Even after Jonathan and her had confirmed they’d split and that he was moving back to California with Argyle come spring.

Steve rescues Robin from her spluttering. “It’s only fair that Argyle gets next dibs, since he’s the one that’s offered to cook for us.” he says, lugging the cooler over to the kitchen to unload it.

He’d insisted on picking up groceries for their stay, saying “There’s a restaurant, sure, but that’d get expensive quick and we’ll have a full kitchen so why not?”

“Appreciated my man; y’wanna bunk with me, Jonny?”

Eddie follows Steve, leaning on the bar across from the fridge from him, “So where’s all my snow gear, Stevie?” he asks the back of Steve’s head.

“Eddie, I swear to God.” Steve huffs in return, bending down into the cooler at his feet to fish out a couple of cartons of eggs.

Eddie does not watch how the denim of Steve’s jeans pulls tighter over any part of him, thank you very much.

“Mom called ahead and has everything we might need set aside in the main lodge, we’ll go there first before we hit the slopes.”

“Oh my god, did you really just say that?” Eddie asks as Steve stashes away two jars of jelly, one strawberry, one grape.

“Say what?” Bacon and some packs of lunch meat are next.

“Like, that’s an actual thing that people say? It’s not just in the movies?”

Steve sighs, finishing off the groceries with a couple 12 packs of pop stashed on the bottom shelf. “What is just like the movies?”

“‘Hit the slopes.’? Really?”

“You’re super annoying, you know that, right?” he says, closing the fridge and pushing the lid back onto their cooler.

“Awe, c’mon baby, you don’t mean that.” Eddie coos, slipping around the counter to cup Steve’s face in his hands, “What happened to the man who loves me for my antics, huh?”

“Get off me, dude,” Steve laughs, batting Eddie’s hands away, his cheeks tinged pink.

‘Yes! Success!’ When did he decide he was trying to fluster Steve? Eh, whatever. No harm, right?

 “So, did you guys figure out the sleeping situation?” Steve asks the rest of the group, walking back around the bar.

Eddie follows, leaning back on the counter in his previously vacated spot.

Nancy nods, “Jon and Argyle will take the room on the main floor, us girls will take the two downstairs, you can take the master, and the boys will take the couches.”

The boys return with their bags then, and Mike immediately starts complaining about being relegated to the fold-outs. Eddie also hears Dustin and Lucas trying to talk him down, saying things like “Dude, that means we’ll be close to the fire!”, “We can throw things in it!,” and “We can make s’mores!”.

Steve doesn’t seem to hear them though, otherwise he’d be shutting that shit down. Instead, his face only scrunches in confusion, “What about Eddie?”

Nancy looks surprised for a blink, then disgruntled, like she’s pissed she forgot someone.

“I’ll just crash out here on the floor with these losers, no worries.” he shrugs.

Steve turns toward his voice, a deep crease between his brows. “That’s not fair.”

“I promise I’ll survive Stevie,” Eddie chuckles. At least he’ll be the warmest out here in front of the fireplace. “I’ve slept on worse, believe it or not, I’ll be sleeping like a king compared to then.”

Steve’s brows scrunch almost all the way together, then spring apart and settle into determined lines. “You’ll sleep with me.” he says with a nod, his arms folding across his chest.

A beat passes.

Eddie can’t resist.

He leans close to Steve’s side, “A bit presumptuous, Stevie darling,”

Steve’s face practically glows with the flush that appears in the next beat, mumbling something to himself as he walks to the door and starts to pull on his coat and boots.

Eddie pushes off the counter and follows, obnoxiously holding a hand up to one ear. “What’s that, sweetheart?” he teases, walking to his own tossed-aside boots, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“We going to the lodge now?” he hears Lucas ask as he passes.

“Finally.” Mike adds, unhelpfully.

Steve huffs, standing up again and leaning close to Eddie’s cupped hand, “As if you hadn’t thought about it, darling.”

Four of the other ten are in their coats and boots and out the door after Steve before Eddie comes back online.

-x-X-x-

So here he is: outside. In the snow. With skis strapped to his feet. All because of Steve and his surprisingly generous parents.

He watches, amused, as Robin stands as still as she possibly can, arms spread wide, while Nancy helps strap her into her skis. As soon as the skis had gotten remotely close to being attached to her, it was discovered that no matter what section of ground they may be standing on, Robin would start to drift away. Sliding down some sort of unseen incline backwards, frontwards, and/or sideways.

Jon and Argyle are already almost to the closest lift, and Eddie watches as they do a weird half-jump onto the bench as it comes up behind them.

The gremlins had scattered after Steve’s ‘be careful’ lecture, telling them all when to be back to the van by, or back to the cabin if they will be coming off the slopes near there, telling them all to be safe and to keep to pairs or more so they can be radioed.

They’d all brought their walkies with them, and Eddie can see where the boys are still huddled together, swapping out their batteries.

He watches them split off soon after, Dustin and Lucas pushing off to where Max and El are waiting at the standing lift to the top of the training hill.

Mike and Will scoot off together in the opposite direction, toward the centermost lift a few dozen yards away.

“Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?” He says as Steve slides to a stop on his own skis beside him.

He’d meant it jokingly, was probably going to follow it up with some jabs about being Steve’s wingman if he needed (there were already a few ladies he’d seen giving Steve some looks while they waited for their gear in the main lodge), but Steve shrugs and says: “I’ll be your date this weekend, Eds. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out or anything.” 

Eddie whips his head around to look at him, “That’s not–” he starts, but cuts himself off at the look Steve is giving him. His goggles have been haphazardly pushed up his face, trapping a few loose locks of Steve’s hair between them and the roll of his beanie, his cheeks are already bitten red with the cold, and he’s smiling so painfully sincerely under that damn teasing smirk that all Eddie can do is acquiesce.

“You better be the best date here then, Stevie,” Eddie chides, starting off toward the lift Jonathan and Argyle had disappeared up, “I won’t settle for anyone other than the bes–” he pitches forward suddenly, one of his skis sticking to the snow under it more than it should’ve.

Steve catches him, of course, and says “Will I get points taken off as ‘Best Date Ever’ if I make you go on the training hill?”

They do go to the training hill, lovingly called the Bunny Hopper, but he and Robin are thankfully saved from the embarrassment of actually being taught by the volunteers there; Steve and Nancy taking them to the slightly taller ‘big kid’ hill and teaching them there.

Surprising even himself, Eddie picks up on the motions and the feeling of being on skis easily. The whole ‘pizza’ thing about stopping was still iffy but the rest is no problem. Fun, actually.

“That was great, man! You’re a natural!” Steve beams at him, his grin lopsided from the meat of his cheeks being squashed under his goggles.

“I just had a great teacher,” he brushes off the compliment, elbowing Steve playfully.

Steve somehow grins even bigger, and Eddie’s heart stammers.

“You ready to go to the real hill now?” “This isn’t a real hill?”

He’s positive Steve just rolled his eyes under his goggles. “C’mon smartass, let's get in line for the lift.”

Eddie bows him forward, “After you, sweetheart.” 

He follows Steve to the end of the line; thankfully it’s not too long, now that it’s late afternoon and will be getting dark soon. 

Steve seems to notice this as well, lifting his goggles off his face again. “We’ll have to call the gremlins back sooner than I thought. It’ll be dark soon.”

“Stop reading my mind, Stevie.”

Steve looks over at him, squinting hard and pursing his lips (Eddie’s stupid lizard brain has a split second thought of those lips pursed around something). “Ugh! Ew, gross Eddie, what would make you think about that?!”

He feels his face blanche and scrambles to recover. “I was only thinking about our good friend Robin, Steve-o, you saying Robin is gross?” He pitches his voice higher and glances down the line to where he can see Robin and Nancy.

Robin flips her mitten up at him, and he can infer the gesture just fine, thanks.

“Shut up, asshole.” Steve laughs, pushing him out of the line on his skis.

They’re the next to hop up on the moving bench, and Steve’s…everything…seems to seize up as soon as they’re seated and on their way.

“Could you imagine?”

“Hm?” He’s still looking down anxiously, so Eddie scoots just a bit closer, pressing what he hopes is comfortingly into Steve’s side.

“If we could read each other's minds? If the bats biting us both somehow linked us together?”

It works a little; Steve tears his eyes away from the ground as it drops away from them, huffing out a short laugh, “I don’t think I would survive inside your head, it’d be even more chaotic than you already are.”

“As if your head would be any better.”

“Hey, my head is great!”

Eddie grins wickedly, “You get told that a lot, Stevie?”

Steve seems unphased, smirking slowly. “I do, actually. Why? You tryin’ t’see if it’s true?”

His cheeks start to prickle, “You offering, big boy?”

“Maybe I am,” Steve shrugs then leans closer, “Now the real question is if you’re gonna take me up on it.”

Eddie’s head reels in the couple seconds he takes to respond.

Where in the hell is all this coming from? Is it just part of the ‘date’ thing? There’s no fuckin’ way Steve is actually into him, is there? He’s always been flirty, just like Eddie is himself, but there’s no way there are any actual feelings behind it… So there’s no harm in playing along.

“I’m gonna have to now, aren’t I?” he grins back, “Gotta see if it lives up to the hype.”

Steve smirks, his eyes hooded. He’s good at pretending, he’ll give him that.

His eyes glance away, then back to Eddie’s face. The sultry look he’d been hamming up for his sake is gone, just an easy smile remains. At least this sudden flirting Steve’s decided to do isn’t going to ruin their surprisingly solid post-apocalyptic friendship.

“It’s almost time to get off, ready?”

Eddie looks ahead to where the couple on the bench before them are hopping off. They stand up off the lift easily and don’t end up in a heap, but he is starting to feel the anxiety Steve was feeling only minutes ago. How’s he supposed to get out of the way fast enough, isn’t there a drop? That looked way too easy.

“As I’ll ever be,” he gulps.

“Give me your hand.” Steve says, not waiting for a response and snatching up Eddie’s hand in his, “Okay, when I say so, you just gotta stand up. Ready?”

“Stand up, what do you mea—” he feels his legs lift a bit as the ground rises to coast under his skis, and it makes sense.

“Now!”

Wait, no! He wasn’t ready!

He stands just a breath after Steve, but isn’t fast enough, the lift continues up on its path and catches him again, forcing his butt back into the seat.

“Eddie, you gotta–”

He tries again at the same time Steve pulls him forward and he pitches forward, landing with an “Oof–” on top of Steve and forcing the breath from the other man’s lungs.

“Aw fuck, sorry Stevie!” He rolls off of him and out of the path of the upcoming lift chairs. “That went exactly as well as I thought it would.”

Steve wheezes out a breathless laugh, standing back up on his skis with no problem at all. Wait, how did he do that? How’s he supposed to get up with these things on his feet?

“Here,” Steve arranges his skis for him, putting one long side of each onto the snow, “Give me your poles, and push yourself up with your hands. You want to get your feet under you.”

He does as he’s told and walks his weight around on his hands to the fronts of his skis until he’s bent forward at his hips, standing straight out of the bend.

“...Huh.”

“Good job, man!” Steve grins, handing him back his poles, “Getting up on skis can be a bitch and a half; way to catch on quick.”

Eddie grins mischievously, deciding to be a little shit. “I dunno, you’d think my date would like seeing me bent over for him, huh Stevie?”

Steve just rolls his eyes, snapping his goggles back down with a smile, “C’mon, asshole, let’s get out of the way; the run to the right of the lift looked shorter on the map.”

Thankfully, the chair behind them had been empty, but the next one had a full four people on it and it was coming up fast.

“‘Sides,” He says, pushing off toward the top of the run, waiting for Eddie to scoot in next to him at the crest before leaning in and murmuring low into his ear, “I’d rather wait ‘till we’re alone to bend you over properly.”

Steve’s a good 20 feet away by time Eddie comes back to himself enough to follow.

They get about an hour and a half in on the hills, a grand total of six wipeouts under Eddie’s belt, and a couple others under Steve’s, with one successful landing off one of the jumps on the main drag to finish off the day.

“Didja see that?!” Steve yells, pulling down the balaclava he’d unceremoniously added to his getup about an hour ago.

“Hell yes Stevie!” Eddie calls, breathless, still coasting to the bottom of the slope after him. “You landed it!”

“I landed it!” 

Steve holds his arms open as Eddie once again fails to slow himself down properly, and catches him at the bottom in a crushing hug. His cheeks are flushed with adrenaline, bitten with the cold, his eyes bright in the setting sun and smile nearly as beautiful.

Damn he’s pretty.

Courteous as ever, Steve waits until Eddie’s arranged his feet the right way again before letting him go to spin the pack off his back for their assigned walkie.

Steve radios the party, and everyone is packed away in their van a scant ten minutes later. The older teens had already made it back to the cabin, letting themselves in off a run near there, so it was only the similarly flushed and excitement-filled younger teens babbling away in the back seats.

There’s overlapping stories of their own wipeouts (including one Robin took that Max swears was hilarious), Dustin insisting he saw a brown bear through the trees at one point, and all six debating whether or not they’d want to go to the main lodge for the waterpark tomorrow instead of back onto the hills.

They are still debating amongst themselves when they pull into the driveway. “Alright dorks,” Steve calls over the bickering, “Go inside and hang up your shit next to the fireplace so it can dry out.”

Eddie follows the troop into the living room and watches them pile all their outerwear together on the two hooks closest to the stone fireplace, then tear off downstairs where he heard there may have been a Nintendo stashed in one of the bedroom dressers.

Jonathan and Robin start methodically re-arranging the coats and snow pants on the hooks so they’ll dry easier, while Argyle pushes up off one of the couches to start on dinner. 

“C’mon Eds, get comfy,” Steve says, coming up beside him and gesturing to the loveseat directly across from the roaring fire. Eddie can already feel the burn of it across his frigid skin, “I gotta make sure I get you unthawed before I get you into my bed.” Steve murmurs into Eddie’s ear.

And isn’t that a whole new type of torment. They will actually be sleeping in the same bed tonight…the next three nights!

Steve turns back to the kitchen when Eddie drops cross-legged onto the sofa, and the tingling feeling in his cheeks has nothing to do with the fire.

It’s half from Steve’s scarily earnest-sounding flirting, but also about half from the look Robin is giving him while she takes the spot next to Nancy on the other couch.

“What? What’s the look for?”

Robin shrugs, picking up what must’ve been her discarded book from the end table between them (which she’s got the already read half curled backward around its spine, like a heathen), “Nothin’ at all, Eds.”

His face is burning hotter than the fire by the time Steve returns.

He passes them each a mug of cocoa, then flops down on the floor in front of Eddie’s knees. 

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” Eddie asks, surprised at the nonchalance he was able to muster up. He reaches forward and tugs on a lock of Steve’s hair without even thinking about it (and ignoring the muffled giggle coming from somewhere to Robin’s left. Oh great, Nancy’s in on his torment too?).

Steve lets out a contented hum, dropping his head back to lie heavily in Eddie’s lap, “Argyle’s whipping up some burgers.”

Eddie leaves his fingers in Steve’s hair, absentmindedly pulling them through a few tangles left behind by his hat.

Steve’s head lolls around in Eddie’s lap with the motions of his fingers for a whole thirty seconds before he snaps it back up, “Oh–ugh–wait, don’t do that,” Eddie pulls his hand away immediately, an apology on his tongue, but Steve continues, standing up and saying, “I’m all gross and sweaty, man, at least let me take a shower first. Be right back.” Steve grins, and heads upstairs to the master bedroom.

Eddie blinks into the space left behind by Steve’s departure, then Nancy is standing as well; “That’s a good idea,” she says, unfolding from her spot at Robin’s side and walking around the back of the couch, “I’ll be back up soon.” She gives Robin’s shoulder a squeeze, and heads downstairs.

Not a full five seconds pass before Robin says, “So...Steve’s super into you.”

Eddie balks at her, his eyes darting around the room automatically. Jon’s helping Argyle chop up toppings for their burgers, the two of them paying less than zero attention to him or Robin, there’s a yell from downstairs followed by laughter, the sound of a shower starting from the open balcony to the upstairs bedroom..

“You can’t just say shit like that, Birdie.” he whispers, his tone harried.

“What, the truth?”

“He is not into me.”

She nods in sarcastic understanding, “Ah, so you’re into him.”

“No I’m—” she levels him with a look. He sighs, glancing around at the no one around them, “Okay fine, yes, I am super into him. But he is not into me.”

Robin shrugs, going back to her book. “You don’t have to believe me, but I think he is. And I think you should make a move.”

“Make a mo—He’s straight as fuck, Robin!”

She gives him a glance, her brow furrowing for a split second then smoothing out. “Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to.” he says, sinking back against the cushions.

She doesn’t say anything else, and he goes back to staring at the fire.

“If you make a move on Steve, I’ll finally make a move on Nancy.” she says a handful of minutes later.

He processes that slowly, takes a deep breath, then shoves his hand towards her without looking over.

She takes it, giving it one hard shake.

As soon as he takes his hand back, Argyle lopes into view with a plate in his hand, “Food’s ready my dudes.” He says, sinking into the armchair closest to the glass balcony door.

Robin snaps her book shut and sets it down on the little end table between them (the cover curls back up immediately, the poor thing), standing up and heading into the kitchen. 

Eddie has just let his feet fall to the floor and has scooted to the edge of his seat to stand up himself, when Argyle yells out “Nice tits!”

“Whose tits are out?” Eddie asks, following his gaze automatically. 

Argyle goes back to his plate. “Steve’s.” 

Uh…Yeah…He can see that for himself now.

Steve is standing at the railing of the upper floor in nothing but a towel. One hand is flipping Argyle off, and the other is preoccupied with scrubbing a second towel over his damp hair.

The towel wrapped around him is slung low on his hips, and Eddie’s eyes start to roam on their own.

Steve’s stomach is solid yet soft-looking with all its faded pink scars, and it and his chest are still as hairy as Eddie remembers; strong shoulders, solid jaw, dusty lips that pull up into a smirk, all of him is so fucking perfect.

“Hurry it up, dingus, food’s ready!” Robin calls, startling Eddie out of his gawking.

His face goes hot with embarrassment, chancing another glance up to Steve and hoping he didn’t get caught…

Steve winks at him, then turns out of sight, disappearing just as his hand comes down to grab the towel twisted around him.

His face burns, and doesn’t stop burning until long after Steve returns from upstairs.

He makes up a burger for himself, and once each of them have theirs, they call the rest of the hoard upstairs. The six teens all but destroy the remaining burgers, two whole bags of chips, and would have gulped down at least one whole 12 pack of Coke if Nancy hadn’t relegated them to one can each.

Steve’s about to herd them back downstairs when El pipes up and says that they’ve decided they want to go to the waterpark in the main lodge tonight instead of tomorrow. Surprisingly, Steve agrees to drive them over there on the condition “you shitheads are careful, and are ready to go as soon as the pools close at midnight. Got it?”

“Agreed.” they say in unison, splitting off in all directions to grab their swim stuff.

“I’m surprised at you, Stevie, letting them go off on their own.”

He just shrugs, “There’s lifeguards.”

The troops are back in the living room within ten minutes, and in their boots and out the door in 12. 

Once they’re out the door, Robin goes back to her book, Jon and Argyle step out onto the balcony to smoke, and Eddie follows Nancy into the kitchen without even thinking about it, grabbing up the hand towel hanging from the oven door and placing himself to her right.

“Thanks,” she says, handing him the first wet plate from the mess of suds in the sink.

They work in silence for a few minutes, listening to the crackling of the fire, the clanging of silverware in the sink, the muffled voices of the two on the porch.

“Nancy?”

“Yeah, Eddie?”

“If I–If Ste–” he wasn’t sure how to ask this, how to even approach the topic, “Robin said—”

“He’d be lucky to have you Eddie, and you him.” She says, not looking up from the sink.

“How’d you–?”

“Robin tends to ramble when she's nervous, have you noticed?”

He stares down at her, dumbfounded. Her lips quirk into a smile. “She’s like that around me a lot, actually.”

“I’ve noticed.”

They fall back into silence again; on the last plate, she says, “Robin’s already had this conversation with Steve about me, so I only assume it’s fair that you have it with me about him.” She passes the last plate to him and pulls the drain from the water. 

“Just remember Eddie,” She pauses and turns to face him, one hip cocked over to lean on the edge of the counter. “If you’re gonna go for it..Steve loves with all of him at once. Don’t take it for granted.”

He sets the dried plate onto the rack beside the sink as she passes behind him, patting him on the shoulder as she does.

He wants to take a moment to process all that, but just his luck, Steve returns then, passing in behind him where Nancy just left to grab up a six-pack.

Steve hands one to Eddie as he leaves, “You okay, Eds?”

“I’m good, thanks Stevie.” he says, fixing his face into an easy smile.

The six of them lounge around the rest of the evening, slowly sipping on their drinks while they play cards in front of the fire, but there’s a catch: Eddie’s going absolutely insane.

Steve’s touching him everywhere. His thigh and foot are sitting comfortably under Eddie’s own thigh where it’s crossed above it, his arm is draped across the back of the couch behind Eddie’s shoulders and methodically twirling long lengths of dark hair between his fingers.

Eddie’s been doing his damndest to ignore it, and succeeds, actually, for short periods of time while they are playing Uno, but every time Steve leans back from dropping his next card on the coffee table, he casually puts his arm back where it was, and grabs up a new lock of Eddie’s hair to torture him with.

And each time he does, Robin gives him the same knowing look.

It’s. Agony.

He wants to relax, wants to scream, he wants to swing his leg over Steve’s lap and press him into the cushions with heated kisses, he wants to haul the other man upstairs and throw him onto the bed…be thrown onto the bed.

Finally, Nancy calls it, breaking their little bubble to stand into a long stretch around nine. Steve hops up off the couch after Robin to gather up all the rest of the cans, and Eddie helps Jon and Argyle pull apart the couches enough to fold out the beds for when the goblins come back.

He escapes upstairs after a short goodnight to the two, Robin and Steve are still bickering in hushed tones about something in the kitchen, and pulls out his bag. He’s fishing out a new pair of boxers when Steve finally gets upstairs, shutting the room’s double doors behind him and heading into the ensuite.

He left the door open in his wake, so Eddie grabs up the rest of his things and follows. He drops his pile of stuff onto the closed lid of the toilet and shucks his shirt unceremoniously, tossing it to the floor.

The glass door of the huge half-walled stone shower squeaks softly on its hinges when he opens it to start the water, squeaking again when it swings closed. He reaches up to a shelf above the toilet to pull down one of the provided towels, turning to hang it on the hook beside the shower.

It’s while he’s turning back to the hook that he chances a look at Steve.

Steve, frozen at the sink with his toothbrush hanging listlessly in the air and a glob of foamy toothpaste slowly drooping off his lip, is staring. 

Unabashedly.

At Eddie’s bare torso.

Eddie caught and cataloged this in the split second it took Steve to realize Eddie was staring back, but it was enough. 

The flirting had been one thing, a natural, goofy continuation of their friendship that led to their ‘date’ today, the soft touches and hair-playing had been another, something Eddie could explain away just as easily. Steve is a touchy guy once you get close to him, and had been with Eddie since they’d gotten closer after spring break.

But this?

He’s looking at him with the same wide-eyed look Eddie’d given him earlier: gobsmacked and slightly hungry.

Steve turns away quickly, spitting into the sink and mumbling something under his breath while he finishes rinsing out his mouth. 

Eddie snorts, shaking his head and finally hanging up his towel.

“Oh, what, now you’re gonna be all shy?” he grouses, twisting around to scowl at the back of Steve’s head. Steve looks over his shoulder to glare at him in return, his cheeks glowing red. “Really? The guy who was joking about bending me over only a couple hours ago? The same guy who was winking at me in nothing but a towel earlier?”

Steve flushes darker, and it irritates him to no end. “Honestly Steve?” Eddie starts, turning back to the shower and pretending to fix how his towel is hanging, “If you’re into me, just do something about it. Otherwise, just…back off, okay? I’m super into you but I can be a big boy about it because honestly, I’d rather keep you around as a friend if nothing else and—”

His rambling is cut off by the click of the bathroom door closing.

Eddie lets out a long breath, “Yeah.. that’s about what I expected.” Robin was wrong.

He takes a moment to collect himself, but just as he pops open the button on his jeans, Steve’s voice breaks through the sound of rushing water.

“Were you being serious?”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Eddie yelps, spinning around to face the man who’s still very much in the bathroom with him. “What the fuck, Steve?”

“Were you?” he asks, pushing off from where he’d been leaning back on the door.

“...About what?”

“About how you’re ‘super into’ me?” he grins.

Eddie crosses his arms across his chest defensively, “You don’t get to be an ass about it, Steve.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve says softly, reaching out to unfold Eddie’s arms. His fingers follow the length of them and grasp Eddie’s in his, “I wasn’t trying to be, promise; I’m just surprised is all.”

“Surprised?”

“Well yeah,” he shrugs, “The super hot metalhead you’ve been mooning after since March confesses he thinks you’re also super hot? That’s kinda hard to believe.”

He can feel Steve’s shirt brushing faintly against his stomach now. “I never said you were super hot.” he manages to say.

Steve catches his eyes, smirking at him with an obnoxious head tilt, “Didja have to?”

“Shut up..” Eddie snorts out a laugh and pushes lightly at Steve’s chest; he’s laughing too. “Okay, okay, now leave me alone so I can shower.” he says, pushing a bit harder this time. “I’ll be out soon and you can do with me what you wish.”

Steve’s leaning his weight against him, fighting going back to the bedroom, “Or…”

“Or?” Damn, he’s heavy what the fuck!

“I could, maybe, if you want..Icouldgetinwithyou.”

Eddie stops pushing.

Steve scratches at the back of his head in embarrassment, “I mean, I’ve been wanting to get you naked for months now and there’s a perfectly good reason right there, and I think it’d be nice to shower, y’know…together.. and wow, I am being super awkward, actually..so I’m just gonna…yeah.”

Steve gestures over his shoulder toward the bedroom but he doesn’t even move to turn before Eddie is pulling him back the other way.

He lets him go a couple steps away from the glass shower door, “Better get t’stripping big boy, can’t shower very well with clothes on, can you?” he winks, then faces away from Steve to finally shed his jeans (and for his own sanity).

Eddie can hear the split second it takes for Steve to start pulling off his clothes, taking another second for himself before pushing his jeans and boxers off his hips.

He had been trying to be in the shower under the spray before Steve was even out of his clothes, but one of his legs got caught, then he had to pause further to pull off the stubborn sock that decided not to come off with his jeans.

Which of course led to him nearly toppling over.

He caught himself on the wall, but not before Steve’s hands caught him around the waist too. “Careful, Eds.”

Oh fuck. Steve’s hands should not feel that good against his skin..also, dammit! He was trying to be all suave and cool by getting in under the water before Steve could see him fully, and now his bare fuckin’ ass is out for all to see…

Eddie laughs to himself.

“What?”

“Nothin’, I just thought I’d be…better? At this?”

“At what?”

“Stupid fuckin’—” Eddie finally gets his sock off, then sighs, “I dunno, being sexy, or mysterious I guess? Coy maybe?” 

“Why would you need to be any of that?”

Eddie shrugs, stepping out of Steve’s hold and into the shower and under the spray, staying faced away from the door while Steve follows.

“Are you gonna look at me?” he asks, voice devoid of anything but concern.

Taking a breath, Eddie steels himself and turns to face Steve in the large shower.

Steve’s expression is calm, open, but skews slightly into concern under Eddie’s gaze.

The long lean lines of his torso are just the same as the other two times he’s seen them, but they’re close now, and in good lighting too; Eddie can see a few other scars other than the ones from the bats, others he’s gotten over the years protecting the heard of goblins they’ve been co-parenting since last September.

He watches rogue droplets of water slough down the now-damp hairs on his arms, his legs, his chest, the ones that follow the path of darkening hairs down his stomach to his—

Steve steps closer, sharing the warm, wide spray of the shower with him.

He lifts his hand and brushes the damp hair back from the scar that marrs Eddie’s face and neck, stepping forward fully and cupping the puckered flesh in his palm when the hair settles wetly behind his shoulder

Eddie feels time stop for a brief moment. 

All of Steve is pressed into him and they line up perfectly, like they were made to share the same space. Steve’s other hand slides onto Eddie’s hip and it tugs him closer. Steve's half-hard length slots into place beside Eddie’s own, into the crevice where his crotch meets thigh.

Eddie shudders a breath at the feeling, opening his eyes to study the planes of Steve’s face and the way he is seemingly drooping forward into Eddie’s orbit. 

Steve’s smiling softly at him, the soft spray of water reflecting off their chests is misting up onto his cheek and lashes. His eyes are so much more green than he’d thought before, besides how little of the color he can see around the much larger pupil.

“Gorgeous.” Steve says, his voice is breathy and low, full of admiration, of longing…and it takes Eddie out of his reverie.

“Wha?” He says, eloquent as ever.

“You’re gorgeous, Eddie.”

Then, Steve’s lips are on his, tentative and sweet; soft, but becoming heady fast. 

The next time their lips meet, it’s punctuated with a short huff of air from Steve’s lungs when Eddie spins them, pressing Steve into the stone wall beside the shower knobs. He parts his lips to mumble out an apology, but Steve’s tongue decides to fill the space instead.

The hand Steve had on Eddie’s jaw snakes down to grab hold of his other hip and pulls him even closer, using the both of them to roll Eddie’s hips into his.

Their tongues slide languidly against the other, the fast pace they’d been building into falling off in exchange for slow, sanguine kisses instead.

Eddie lets out a shaky breath when they do part, blinking across the short distance between them at Steve’s kiss-bitten lips for only a second before letting his eyes fall shut with the exhale.

“Steve…is this—Is this real?”

Steve breathes out a shaky laugh of his own, “Why wouldn’t it be real, Eddie?” He asks, gently tracing the length of Eddie’s nose with his.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve had this exact dream before; are you sure I didn’t snap my neck during one of those falls earlier?”

The younger man laughs fully this time, and Eddie relishes in the slippery feeling of the wet skin of Steve’s stomach rippling against his own. He can’t help but grin in response to both the laughter and the funny feeling, his eyes opening without a second thought.

Steve looks like he’s floating, his face soft and dripping with a bright beaming smile..

“Do you need me to pinch you?” Steve asks, finally coming down from his brief fit of laughter.

“I don’t know if I want to find out this isn’t real.” Eddie grins in return.

One of Steve’s large hands leaves his hip then, snaking around to pinch the underside of Eddie’s asscheek.

He sucks in a short hiss of pain and lets out a soft whimper of something else (holy shit, when did that become a thing??) in the same breath.

“Okay…” he gulps down a mouthful of nothing, “Not a dream.”

“Not a dream..” Steve repeats. 

There’s a beat, two full breaths of more nothing before Steve spins them around and pushes Eddie back into the cold stone instead, his arm wrapped around him and up to cup the back of his skull protectively against the tile.

He presses a thick thigh between Eddie’s and does three things almost simultaneously.

The first, a second before the other two: He locks his heavy-lidded gaze on Eddie’s; two and three: presses the thigh between Eddie’s legs up, and pulls the hand at the back of his skull down along with a fistful of dark curls.

“Aahhh—ohhh fuck, Steve…” The sting from his scalp pulls a moan from his exposed throat, and Eddie scrambles to grab hold of something.

His nails dig into the slick skin of Steve’s back automatically, and he opens his mouth to apologize the same moment Steve latches onto his neck with a low groan of his own.

The hand not tangled in Eddie’s hair is starting to pull him down in waves against Steve’s thigh and hips, both of them hissing in pleasure with each pass of the other’s length against theirs.

“Mmmm, Eddie..” Steve moans, unlatching from the bruise he’s sure to have left on Eddie’s throat to lave his tongue and lips against his jaw instead. “Baby, you feel so good against me.”

“AAaahh—mmm..”

“Ooh, and you sound so sweet..” His lips trail down from his jaw back to the definitely sore spot on his neck, one that he prods lightly with the tip of his tongue before continuing on to nip at the taught skin of his collarbone, kiss lightly over the skin of his scarred pec, finally landing tongue first onto Eddie’s remaining nipple. 

The reaction to this is immediate; Eddie arches his chest further into Steve’s mouth. Steve, the sonofabitch he is, suctions his lips away from Eddie’s flushed skin in response.

“Hhnng—what the actual fuck, Steve?” Eddie glares best he can though the panting, “Get that mouth back over here.”

Miraculously, Steve obliges, sliding forward into a saccharine kiss and pulling Eddie away from

the wall and back under the spray of water.

“C’mon Eds, tilt your head back before the hot water runs out.”

Eddie just gapes at him, at his dick, both their dicks, still standing at attention, back up to his face.

Steve just purses his lips together as if holding back a grin and tugs Eddie’s head back by his hair again, soaking the strands through under the water.

He lets Steve turn him this way and that, reveling in the feeling of the other man’s hands in his hair, slick with soap on his skin, the gentle nudges and pulls relaxing him further into this weird world where Steve’s totally into him and also they’re naked in the shower together.

Finally, when Steve tilts his head back for the final time to rinse the conditioner out of his hair, Eddie decides to be a little shit, pushing his hips forward to clash their (still half-hard) dicks together.

“What are you—really? A sword fight?”

Eddie lets out a long cackle, “What? You knew what you were getting into with me, didn’t’cha Stevie?”

Doubt crashes into Eddie’s chest the instant the words escape his mouth.

He did, didn’t he? He likes him for his antics right? Oh fuck…How long would it take for Steve to get sick of his shit?

Despite Eddie’s near-crushing doubts, Steve smiles and says, “That I did.” easy as breathing, then pulls Eddie flush against him in another heated kiss.

Steve walks him backward after a moment, and Eddie drops his hands behind him to feel for the inevitable press of cold stone on his back, shuddering when it finally makes contact.

His gasp from the cold tile only seems to egg the other man on, hunching down to grip him around the backs of his thighs.

Eddie’s legs lock around Steve’s waist in panic, but pleasure shoots through him with the motion too, the horny thrill of being picked up so effortlessly along with the pressure of Steve’s stomach against the underside of his dick.

“Mmph—Steve holy shit,” he’s only just managed to thread the fingers on one hand into those sleek brown locks when he has to stifle down a long groan with a bite to his knuckle. “Hnngh–Steve, Steve, you gotta—oh fuck..”

The muscles of Steve’s stomach bunch under him as he grinds up in slow, torturous rolls..

“Oh, fuck—” the words spill out of his mouth, loud and long; his palm snaps up to hold them in as Steve pushes his shoulders into the tile behind him and leans back, leaving Eddie’s body balanced between strong thighs and shower wall.

The tile hits hard on the back of his skull when Steve wraps one of those hands of his around both their lengths. Eddie manages to look down, only to knock his head back again at the sight. 

Even with the added height of being on top of Steve’s thighs, their heads are exactly level, disappearing over and over again into the water-warmed skin of Steve’s fist.

Steve hunches forward again, pressing kisses into Eddie’s sternum. “Gorgeous.” 

“Steve...” he whispers in return, grinding as much as he can against the length slotted along his.

Again, too soon, Steve is pulling away, releasing his grip on them both.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, already moving to drop his legs back to the floor. 

Steve stops him, hoisting his legs back around him and lifting him off the wall. “I’m taking you up on your offer.” He says, twisting off the now-cold stream of water and carefully stepping over the lip of the doorway through the glass door.

“My offer?”

“You said that after your shower, you’d come back out here to the bedroom and I could have my way with you.”

A half whine, half moan curls out of Eddie’s throat to his utter embarrassment.

“D’ya like that idea, sweetheart?” Steve says, grinning mischievously. 

Eddie manages to scowl at him as they leave the steamy bathroom, and is dropped down onto the mattress soon after. 

“Aw shit!”

“What? What happened?”

It’s cold as shit, that’s what.” The air-cooled temperature of the covers against his skin has him breaking out in goosebumps.

Steve winces, “Sorry, I didn���t think about that.”

What was calm and collected confidence flickers off his face, and Eddie can’t have that. “Jus’ come over here and warm me up, big bo–wait,” He sits up and stops Steve when only one of his knees has made it onto the bed. “Lemme look at you.” 

He looks down at Steve, and yep. Big Boy is very accurate. He’d felt it against him already, Steve’s too-gorgeous-to-be-real dick; he’s longer for sure, cut and curved up like something out of a wet dream. 

“Oh, definitely big boy,” Eddie grins, looking up at Steve’s somewhat embarrassed expression.

“It’s nothing special.” he shrugs, his cheeks heating up as he climbs up Eddie’s damp body. He lowers himself down lay between his legs, his dick slotting itself beside Eddie’s once again.

He hunches over to kiss lightly up the scars on Eddie’s left side, lips brushing along the healed edge of the biggest one. It tickles, then it doesn’t, then does, then doesn’t, his lips pressing halfway onto skin and halfway onto puckered pink flesh.

“Steve..”

“Yeah baby?” he responds after a few more kisses.

“You’re giving me more goosebumps.” Eddie says, somewhat breathless.

Another kiss, “Mmmm.. You’re welcome.”

That shocks a laugh out of him, “You’re such a dork.”

Steve takes one of Eddie’s hands where it lays on the mattress, lacing their fingers together and pressing them back into the mattress beside his head.

“Says you.” he affirms, locking those ridiculous hazel eyes on his.

Eddie’s about to crack off another one liner, say something to…all that, but it’s completely erased from his mind when Steve ducks his head down to find his nipple again.

“Oh fuckin–nnng..” his hips buck up hard into Steve’s, who presses down into him in return.

He can feel it when Steve grins against his skin. “Shut up, asshole, that fee–ee–els so good.”

“Hmm, tell me about it, baby.” He’s grinding down slowly now, adding to the exponentially increasing Steve-addled brain fog he’s currently experiencing.

“Ahhh—I want to but–”

“But what?” Steve’s breath over the spit-slick spot on his chest sends a chill through him. 

“Oh fuck–If any of them hear us, we’re never going to hear the end of it.” he tries to warn around another stifled moan.

The Menace is undeterred, swirling his tongue around the little nub open-mouthed and hot once more before moving upwards, trailing his lips up Eddie’s breastbone until he’s sucking kisses into his throat once again. He continues up along the length of his neck until he reaches his ear, “Then you’d better keep it down, huh?”

Well that didn’t help. He lets out a long moan in response, clamping a hand over his mouth way too late.

“You sound so good though,” Steve says, continuing his slow grinding, “I can’t wait to get you alone so I can fuck you properly.”

That pulls another moan from behind Eddie’s palm. “Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie bucks his hips up as much as he can, but Steve's palms move down to hold him in place.

“Can’t have that now, can we?” Steve chides, trailing his lips down his stomach as he slides back to the edge of the bed, his eyes locked on Eddie’s.

“Wh–Why not?”

“Because I’d prefer,” a kiss above his belly button, “to choke,” a kiss below, “on my own accord.”, then swallows Eddie down in one go.

“Oh fffuuck—”

Steve hums in agreement around Eddie’s dick and the vibrations course up his spine to rattle around in his brain.

“Oh shit, Stevie, that feels so fuckin’ good.” He breathes, twisting his fingers into Steve’s hair.

In response, Steve starts to bob his head, swirling his tongue around Eddie’s on the upstroke, and sucking with fervor on the down.

“Steve, sweetheart–fuck–if you keep going I’m gonna—haah—”

“And what if I want you to?”

“And what if I want to to-together?”

Steve releases him with a wet pop, kissing his way back up to Eddie’s lips, humming in satisfaction when he reaches them, like kissing Eddie is the best part of all this.

And doesn’t that make his head spin.

“All you’d have to do is ask.”

Eddie pulls Steve back to his lips and bucks up into him again. “That’s me asking.”

Steve grins down at him and re-starts his slow, tortuous pace.

He’s rock hard against Eddie’s thigh, and this is getting fuckin’ ridiculous.

“Alright, you know what,” Eddie pushes his hips up hard and flips them over, straddling Steve’s thighs in no time at all.

“Holy shit—“ Steve blinks up at him in astonishment, like he’s surprised that he’s been flipped so easily.

 Eddie grinds down onto Steve, “You don’t get to tease me like that, big boy.”

“Is that so?” He chuckles, then groans when Eddie wraps his hand around their lengths. His hands grip onto Eddie’s thighs, squeezing tight to match the hold on them.

Eddie fucks forward into his fist, pulling his hand down to meet each thrust and watching as Steve’s head drops back onto the mattress.

He lets out a long groan. “Eddie…”

“Yeah, Stevie?”

Eddie runs his fingers over both their heads, adding to the slight slip of pre with a well aimed glob of spit that makes Steve hum out a short breathy moan as it makes contact with his head.

More noises of appreciation are pulled from the man under him as he rubs the pad of his thumb through the mess and under the head of Steve’s cock in small circles.

“Mmhm oh fuck..”

“You like that?”

“Mmhmm,” he nods dazedly “Keep moving though, feels so good, Eds.”

“You got it, sweetheart.” Eddie grins, wrapping his palm around them again and pushes forward into his fist.

Steve’s head drops back onto the pillow beneath him, “Just like that Eddie, fuck.” 

He gives them a few more strokes, then Steve’s hands start to move; his warm palms skirt along the wiry hair on his legs, one traveling around to grab onto Eddie’s horribly non-existent ass, and the other comes up to his remaining nipple, pinching it between two digits.

That did it. The hot coil of pleasure already broiling in his stomach twists even tighter. “Ahh—Stevie..I’m so close, Jesus Christ…”

“Me too..”

“Yeah? Well c’mon sweetheart, give it to me.”

A scant two passes of his hand later, Steve shoots hot across his stomach, and Eddie follows a half stroke later. 

He sinks down to the bed against Steve’s heaving ribs, tucking his shoulder under the other man’s arm.

After a few more breaths, Steve pulls Eddie into him and presses his lips to Eddie’s still-damp forehead.

“Ew gross, don’t do that, I’m all sweaty.”

“Don't care.” Steve mumbles softly into his hairline.

In return, Eddie wipes his soiled hand off on Steve’s stomach.

“Ew! Gross!” Steve laughs, shoving Eddie away with no actual intent behind it.

A few minutes later, Steve breaks the comfortable silence. “So,”

The word sinks heavily into Eddie’s gut. “So?”

When Steve doesn’t continue, Eddie turns his head to find Steve gazing at him with soft eyes, and even softer smile.

It morphs into a teasing smirk. “Did it live up to the hype?”

—--

One snooze and another heated shower later, Eddie crawls back into their bed and gets comfy while he listens to Steve pull his clothes back on to go down to the main lodge for the hellions.

He hears a short shuf when Steve’s leg skirts around the end of the bed. “I’ll be back in 15,” he says, kissing the damp hairs on Eddie’s temple. “Go to sleep, Eds.”

“Hmmm…” he hums in return, cozy as ever, and is out as soon as the door clicks shut.

Too soon, the sounds of the shitheads scrambling into the house interrupts his dozing, the door to the bedroom squeaking open not long after.

“Eds? You awake?”

Instead of answering, Eddie simply opens his arms.

He listens to Steve strip off his clothes, beckoning the man forward again when he feels the end of the mattress sink under the other man’s weight. 

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’, hold your horses.”

“My horses have been patient enough.” Eddie grumbles as Steve finally shuffles between the sheets and into his waiting arms.

-x-X-x-

“Dude! What the hell happened to your neck?! Did you get attacked by a vampire?”

“Henderson, you are way too loud for how early it is.”

“It’s 10 am, Eddie.”

“Exactly.” the barstool creaks as he climbs onto it, gratefully accepting the plate of eggs and bacon Argyle passes him.

“Leave him alone, guys.” Steve says, coming up behind Eddie on his stool and kissing his cheek as he passes into the kitchen with his empty plate.

There’s three whole seconds of silence before the younger teens burst out into a cacophony of various outbursts.

“Aw, what? Eddie! Steve’s way too lame for you to be dating!”

“Steve, did you fuck my DM?!”

“I fuckin’ knew it. I told you they’d get together, didn’t I? Dustin, you owe me 10 bucks.”

“I don’t owe you shit, Maxine.”

“Holy shit, congrats guys.” Lucas is his new favorite… Will and El too, nodding along to Sinclair’s assessment.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough; All those heading back to the waterpark better be ready to go in T-minus three minutes otherwise I’m leavin’ without you.” Steve calls out over the noise.

The complaints follow him out of the kitchen and into the tiny laundry room off the entryway.

“Why don’t you guys get yelled at?” Eddie grumbles, poking up a forkful of egg.

Robin snorts a laugh, “Because none of us are sleeping with the babysitter.”

okay, some notes:

steve's mom is a lawyer in this canon and she's the one who paid for eddie's legal counsel/helped with clearing his name after s4

wha?? steve harrington has good parents?? insanity

"canon" hawkins is about an hour outside of indianapolis so i used shelbyville, indiana as my base and from there to boyne mountain is about a 7 hour drive. if they left at 6 am from hawkins, they'd get to the resort around 1 or 2 and have a good couple hours to ski before it gets dark again at 6 (daylight hours in the midwest during winter are a bitch.)

i did way too much research into the ski resort i based this at, only to realize that neither the cabin itself OR the waterpark were there in the 80s. so...let's all just pretend, okay?

the map above is a trail map of the resort from 1985

when i asked my husband what i should add to 'my most recent blorbos' he said 'nice tits!' so that's why that line lmao

who'da thought this'd go from skiing to shower sex? cause i didn't

i got stuck on the smut part of this for way too long and i am so glad i am a) done with it and b) that it actually turned out relatively coherent.

on that note though, i have been looking at this damn fic for so so long that i don't know if it's actually good or what. 'cause to me, it's complete garbled garbage

the title of this is from 'Object of My Desire' by Starpoint

lex i am so sorry this is late ilysm 🫶

[antiquitea]

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: john egan x gale cleven.

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: the last place that john egan wants to be the summer before he graduates high school is the egan family cottage, a place where time and everyone else seems to have forgotten. having been intent on finding a summer job, spending time with his friends, going to parties, and making out with pretty girls, john is irked that the egan family matriarch has other ideas and wants the family to spend "one last" summer together.

john's sour mood shifts just a little when he meets local, but also not-so-local, gale cleven, a boy his age who works at the small town's one pizza joint. through teenage angst and a desire to break free of the awkward position of not being children anymore but not yet men, the two form a bond that makes their summer a little more bearable. a bond that comes to shock the both of them.

but what happens when more than the summer comes to an end?

𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: teen, though later chapters might have a slightly higher rating.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4.2k

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: YEAH FIRST MASTERS OF THE AIR FIC. thank you to everyone who reblogged the mood board and expressed interest in the story. special thanks to @wildbornsiren for being my ride or die and @swifty-fox for letting me share snippets and bouncing ideas off of you.

likes / comments / reblogs are very much appreciated! thank you for reading! 💚

» mood board. » read on ao3.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈.

Summer 1986 Somewhere in Wisconsin

“Johnny!”

Evidently, John Egan had ignored the shouts from his mother to come inside for the last time. Her voice turned into something shrill that he could hear even down by the lake, where he could normally escape all manner of ruckus that came from the cottage. It wasn’t that noisy, he supposed. But it was difficult to get a moment of peace and quiet when his whole family - his ma and dad, his sister, and himself - were all crammed into the small two bedroom space.

When they were kids, John and his sister, Billie, would bunk together in one room, at first sharing the one bed, John then eventually sleeping on the floor when he “got too long,” as his dad put it. But when one is suddenly seventeen, and the other is fourteen, bunking together isn’t on the table anymore, no matter what Ma said. John would just as soon take the couch, which he was too long to fit on comfortably anymore, in the living room, or grab a tent and camp out under the stars if the weather was nice enough.

“Johnny Egan!”

The last name had been included, it was getting serious.

John pushed himself up with a soft grunt, hands instinctively wiping grass and dirt from the ass of his shorts. He reached over to pick up the battered copy of ‘Salem’s Lot and the empty bottle of Coke that he’d brought down to the edge of the lake with him, cramming the book in his back pocket, and holding the empty bottle between his long fingers.

He didn’t know what all the fuss was about, having dinner at the same time every night. It was summer, no one else seemed to be on a set schedule. Kids, teens, and adults ran wild in cottage country. At least that had been the way. Once upon a time, he and Billie had been allowed to miss dinners and stay out past their bedtimes. Yet somehow, as they got older, Ma and Dad were trying to tighten the reins. Ma had tearfully mentioned that it might be the last time they all got down to the lake together for the summer, as if one of them were fuckin’ dying or something.

John tramped through the brush and tall grass to get to the path that would lead him back to the small cluster of cottages on the the top of the hill. There had been four that had always been there, as long as he could remember, situated around the lake. They went back generations, passed down through handshakes and wills, little more than a handful of rooms for families to sleep, eat, and unwind after a day in the sun.

But over the past few years things further up the road were beginning to be developed, real proper like, and it was only a matter of time before it reached the older cottages down by the lake. John had ridden his bike past them shortly after they’d arrived a week ago; they looked almost as nice as the house that they lived in ten months out of the year back in Manitowoc. John had heard the stories about how the Egan Family Cottage had come to be, put together by his grandfather and a few friends over the course of the summer in 1945, a product of coming home from the war, too much time on their hands, and a lot of packs of cigarettes and beer.

“Jo -”

“I’m comin’ Ma!”

When he was a kid it seemed like a much greater distance between the cottage and the lake, and now he realized that they were within spitting distance of one another. He’d taken up less space then. 

John crested over the small hill at the top of the path, the cottages in full or partial view now. Theirs was on the far right, and despite its location amongst the small cluster, had been the center of his universe, and the universe of all the other kids, summer friends, that spent summers there, for as long as he could remember. But the Miller kids were both off to college the last couple of years, and Amos Cook had passed away early that spring, and his widow couldn’t bear to come down and bring their grandkids with her.

Suddenly, at seventeen years of age, John felt too young and too old all at once.

—

“Lucia’s dad said he would drive us to the mall the next town over tonight. If that’s okay? Ma? It closes at eight.”

John pushed the remnants of dinner around his plate with the prongs of his fork, desperately wanting to be set free from the small dinner table shoved into a corner of an equally small kitchen, to go and find somewhere to finish his book. He only had a couple of chapters left before he was finished, and he really wanted an excuse to take his bike (or the truck if Dad was in a good mood) into town the next day, go to the library, maybe spend some time at the pizza place that had Galaga and Time Pilot arcade cabinets, see a pretty girl. Any girl, really. He was beginning to think his summer would’ve been better spent in Manitowoc. At least then maybe he stood a chance of feeling up something pretty in the back seat at the drive-in.

“Who’s Lucia?” John Egan the Elder asked, reaching over and opening the fridge door. The perks of the small kitchen and its small dinner table meant that the fridge was often within reach. Egan Senior pulled out a beer and held it up, looking at John with raised eyebrows. John nodded, and his dad pulled another one out. He popped the caps off of both and then handed one to his son.

“A new friend,” Billie replied after a sip of water. “Her parents have one of the cottages up the road. I met her today. She’s really nice. Ma, you’d like her.”

“Oh, Billie. Why would you want to go to the mall on a night like this?” Ma Egan asked, dabbing her lips with a napkin.

Dinner had been steaks and vegetables that Dad had cooked on the barbeque. It dawned on John that in the summer that his dad did most of the cooking on the grill, which meant Ma got a break from cooking. Perhaps that was why she had been so eager to come down to the cottage every year. 

“Oh let her go, Ma,” John Sr. said, then taking a sip from his bottle of beer. “She’s met a new friend and wants to go to the mall. Ain’t no danger in it. So long as she doesn’t spend her entire allowance.”

John swore his Ma still believed that they were children who needed coddling and protection from the world. He had his own feelings about his sister getting older - for one thing, she was infinitely more annoying than he had ever remembered her being - but Billie didn’t need Ma looming over her shoulder at all times.

“Well, who will John spend time with if she’s gone?” Ma asked John Sr., as if neither Billie or John will be present.

“He’s seventeen, he doesn’t want to spend summer nights with his kid sister.” Again, they may as well have not been there. “Am I right, John?”

John inhaled, waiting for a moment of quiet in which he could reply in, before Ma was filling the void. “Oh, all right. Is Lucia’s dad going to pick you up from the mall?”

Billie brightened. “Yes. Eight o’clock on the dot, he said.”

“Then I suppose it’s all right. But I want you home no later than eight thirty.”

“May I be excused?” John asked, looking between his parents.

“Of course,” Ma replied, before immediately turning back to Billie to go over the five new rules she’d just concocted for going to the mall with Lucia.

John cleared his plate, grabbed his beer, his book from off the table by the back door, and made his way back down to his spot at the lake. He still had a couple of hours of daylight left, and even after he finished his book (he was a fast reader) there would be plenty of time for him to just lay by the lake, sipping the remnants of his beer, and enjoying the sounds of the crickets and the lake.

—

Back in Manitowoc, the library had a couple of girls John’s age who worked there part time. While he did enjoy going there to check out something new, he also enjoyed leaning over the counter, smiling with all of his teeth, and asking what their favourite books were. He also enjoyed watching them duck their heads and giggle, and on occasion following them to the very back stacks where their favourite books were not at all located and putting his hands under their skirts while they tried to stifle their moans against his shoulder.

In the town library down at the cottage it was small enough to be staffed by one woman, and that woman was old enough to be his grandmother. John wasn’t opposed necessarily … she just wasn’t his type.

His solitary errand completed for the day (he picked a couple more Stephen King books), John glanced at his watch. It was only ten in the morning.

Letting out a huff, he leaned against the brick exterior of the library and looked up and down the one street the town possessed. So many shops weren’t even opened yet, their proprietors moving as lazily as the out of towners who took over in the summer. John didn’t know much about business or economics (despite Dad’s best efforts), but thought that opening earlier would be more profitable.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. He was just bored out of his skull.

They had six more weeks there.

Books placed in the milk crate at the back, John mounted his bike and began lazily cycling down the street back toward the direction of the cottage, passing by the pizza place. It was open, and John spotted a couple of kids Billie’s age playing Galaga. It felt far too early for a slice, but John wasn’t quite ready to go back to the cottage and get through another book in a day.

Parking his bike outside, John then opened the door to Rush Hour Pizza. What passed for rush hour in this place he would very much like to see. The boys were playing Galaga, one shouting very unhelpful directions at the other, but aside from that the shop was empty, save for the thin blond working behind the counter, her back turned to the entrance. He leaned over the counter, one hand pressed against the linoleum and set his voice to purr.

“Hey pretty thing.”

The blond turned around, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline, blue eyes wide.

Fuck.

“Um.”

“Yeah,” the boy around John’s age supplied, tucking a piece of his long blond hair behind his ear. “My dad’s been saying I should get a haircut.”

He was slender, but not so slender that John should’ve been mistaking him for a girl. John was scarlett with shame, but tried not to let it show, instead just clearing his throat and looking down at the counter for a moment to get his bearings.

“What can I get for ya?” the boy asked.

“Uh,” John replied, finally glancing up. Okay, so he may have been a boy but he was still extremely pretty in a masculine sense. Was that a thing that men were? John had never thought a boy was pretty before. He’d looked at men with curiosity, but never -

“You okay, man?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” John replied. “Can I, uh, get a slice?”

“This early?”

John looked at the boy across the counter incredulously. “It’s … a pizza place. You sell pizza. You’re open.”

“Yeah, but … it’s ten in the morning.”

“Then what …” John trailed off, gesturing to the boys playing Galaga.

The blond boy leaned over the counter, looking at the two younger boys shoving quarters into the arcade cabinet, and then looking back at John. “They’re playing Galaga.”

“I see that they’re playing Galaga. But isn’t this the sort of place where you, I dunno, have to buy something in order to use … the facilities?”

The boy chuckled and John kind of hated him. He stole a glance at the nametag pinned to the boy’s apron - GALE - and then lifted his gaze to his face once more.

“When my dad is here, probably. But I dunno, it’s summer and this place is boring. I don’t care. If they wanna feed quarters into the machines they can go for it. We get their money regardless. At least, that’s what my dad would say. They bought some Cokes about an hour ago,” Gale said. “Pizza’s not even ready yet.”

John blinked. “Then why are you open?”

“Galaga,” Gale replied, pointing at the boys and the arcade cabinet once more. “I was here making the pizzas anyway.”

“So when you asked what you could get me, it was limited to beverages,” John said, letting out a sigh.

“There’s a menu,” Gale said, pointing to the large board above his head. “I can make you a sandwich. Or a sub.”

For the first time, John picks up on Gale’s accent, and cocks his head. “Not from around here, are you?”

“No sir,” Gale replied, leaning against the counter. “Born in South Dakota, grew up in Wyoming.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” John asked. Gale opened his mouth to speak and John interrupted him. “If you say ‘Galaga’ one more time -”

Gale laughed, something big and bright, showing all of his perfect fuckin’ teeth. It stretched up to the corners of his eyes and made his nose scrunch up, and John’s face felt strangely warm again. “Change of scenery. Dad got tired of Wyoming.” He tilted his head at John. “You’re not from here either.”

“Well, I’m from Manitowoc. My family summers here.”

“Summers. Fancy,” Gale said a little teasingly, straightening back up. It was far from fancy, but John didn’t correct him. “Can I make you a sandwich or what?”

John reached into his pockets and pulled out his wallet, rifling through his cash. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. Cold cut sub sounds great. Not gonna get on my ass about it being too early for lunch?”

“I would never,” Gale replied with a slow smile.

—

“You were gone long,” Ma said the moment that John walked in through the back door of the cottage, a stack of books under his arm.

John rolled his eyes and placed the books down on one of the side tables next to the couch, which had been serving at his nightstand. “Ma, please.”

“Well, I’m just sayin’ is all,” Ma Egan said defensively, looking up from washing dishes in the kitchen. “Said you were going to the library. Figured you’d be there and back in half an hour or so.”

With an exasperated sigh, John flopped down onto the couch. He wasn’t certain if he could bear even just another day of his mother being overbearing. “Ma, we’re on vacation. I’m almost an adult -” Ma snorted, and John ignored her. “- can you stop hasslin’ me about being a bit longer in town? It’s not like I have anywhere else to be.”

“Now John Egan, I’ve had just about enough of your complaining,” Ma said with a sigh, tossing her washcloth into the sink.

John sat up a little straighter, hands stretched out in front of him, eyebrows raised in confusion. “I haven’t complained once since we got here.”

“Oh yes you have,” Ma Egan said. “Maybe not in so many words, but you’ve been throwing yourself around like a rag doll since you set foot inside this place. Mopin’ about, spendin’ all of your time down at the lake.”

“There’s nothing for me to do here,” John said, and he sounded much whinier than he had meant to. Definitely not an adult.

“Like hell there ain’t,” Ma Egan said, hands on her hips. “Your sister has been makin’ friends up the road, and don’t tell her I ever said it, but you’re far more personable than she is.”

“Ma,” John began, his voice firm and level. “Billie is a kid. There are other kids around. I, your son who is a completely different person, am not a kid. There’s no one my age around here. They’re probably all working jobs. Which is what I wanted to do this summer back home, but you and dad insisted that we all come here. So forgive me for feeling a little bit put out that I’m spending my summer vacation with nothing to do, when I wanted to get a job, make some money for school, and spend time with my friends.”

“And get up to no good,” Ma Egan said quickly.

“Ma -”

“Those boys you pal around with aren’t exactly model citizens.”

“Neither am I,” John muttered, really wishing he had thought to buy a pack of cigarettes while he was in town. He hadn’t thought he would need to take the edge off there, but it was becoming apparent that he would.

“Not if you keep aligning yourself with that lot,” Ma Egan said, stepping into the small living room, cluttered with John’s belongings. “Look, the reason why your father and I insisted that we all come here this summer is that it’ll probably be the last time we all get the chance to.”

“Ain’t no one dyin’, Ma!”

Sighing, Ma sat down next to John on the couch. “John, it ain’t about that. You and your sister are getting older, you’re not going to want to come down here anymore with the whole family. Hell, you already didn’t want to. But next summer you’ll be off to college, or getting a job somewhere, and you won’t be able to make it down. And your father and I aren’t gettin’ any younger.” She paused and reached over, taking one of John’s hands. “Our lives are all going to change one way or another in the coming years, and ain’t nothin’ guaranteed. But we could have this one last time. Some time together. I’m sorry that we dragged you here. But I ain’t sorry that you’re here. You understand me?”

John glanced over at his mother, letting out a small sigh of his own. He loved his family, he did. But he was filled with that sort of unbridled rage that all teenagers feel when they’re on the cusp of adulthood. Even if he couldn’t identify it, quantify it, it was there. He did an excellent job of keeping it to himself for the most part, unless his mother drew it out of him, like she was doing then and there.

He didn’t quite understand her insistence that they all be together at the cottage when they could’ve been together back home. But, agreeing with her in the past had sometimes been a better option than arguing with her, and John couldn’t bear to break her heart with his own teenage angst anymore.

“Yeah, Ma. I understand.”

—

That afternoon, John had found his father, who was working on a truck for one of the newer neighbours up the road. Turns out it had been Billie’s new friend’s father. Billie and Lucia were inside, enjoying some air conditioning and listening to New Kids on the Block, while their two dads stood over the open front hood of the blue Dodge Ram, each holding a beer in their hand. John the Younger managed to lend a hand, which seemed to please his father, who really wanted his son to one day take up the mantle of the family business back home.

John was still undecided if he wanted to be a mechanic or not. In fact, he was still undecided on what he wanted to be at all.

As a thank you, Lucia’s dad suggested they get pizza. John was about to take his leave when Lucia insisted that he stay. John didn’t miss the way that Lucia looked at him, and couldn’t find it in himself to break the girl’s heart, so he agreed. Billie looked equal parts shocked and disgusted, and he later heard her say, “My brother? Seriously? Ew.”

“He’s got a moustache, Billie.”

“Not a good one.”

John was glad he was out of sight, if not out of earshot, rubbing at the hair above his lip absentmindedly. The moustache was a work in progress. He thought it looked just fine. And Deborah Jensen back home in Manitowoc had seemed to be quite fond of it as well.

Lucia’s dad gave him the keys to the newly fixed truck to go pick up the pizzas, and John Sr. reminded him to be on his best behaviour with a truck that wasn’t theirs. John fought the urge to roll his eyes, wanting to be a good guest, and after taking his time to ensure that the mirrors were properly adjusted, hands at ten and two (he knew his dad was watching), John drove ten under the speed limit until he was out of sight.

—

John pulled up to Rush Hour Pizza with a groan, not really in the mood for Gale. He didn’t know why, they’d gotten on well enough that morning. Gale was clearly bored to tears waiting for the pizzas to come out of the oven, so he’d chatted with John from across the restaurant while he ate his sub (it had been really fuckin’ good).

When the bell above the door chimed, Gale popped up seemingly out of nowhere, looking a little bewildered to see John again. “Couldn’t get enough of me?” he asked.

“Very funny,” John said, looking around. The arcade cabinets were abandoned. He supposed it was dinner time, all the neighbourhood kids were probably at home. “I’m just here to pick up a couple of pizzas. My dad’s friend ordered them.”

“Oh yeah. Of course,” Gale said, hands braced against the counter. He paused. “What’s the name?”

John blinked at Gale. “I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“You don’t know your dad’s friend’s name?”

“... Lucia’s Dad?”

Gale chuckled, shaking his head. “Can’t say I recall taking that order, man.”

John sighed, shoulders slumping. “Okay. Well. Are there any orders here?”

“Yeah, a few.” A beat of silence passed between them. “Do you know what he ordered?”

“Pizzas.”

Gale smiled, cocking an eyebrow and folding his arms across his chest. “How in the hell do y’all get by in Manitowoc?”

“I’m beginning to wonder that myself.”

Still smiling, Gale pulled some receipts from a small pile to his right. “Here. We’ll go through them both together. You tell me if any of the names or orders ring any bells.”

“Doesn’t this violate pizza-client privilege or something?” John asked, leaning over the counter slightly to look at the order slips with Gale.

“That’s not a thing.”

Apparently, all twelve people in town had ordered pizzas for pick up that evening. As Gale rattled off names and orders, John realized that the pizza boy didn’t even know his name. It seemed very unfair that he knew Gale’s.

“I’m John,” he said, interrupting Gale mid-sentence.

Gale glanced up at John, blinking slowly. “Well, all right. Hello John. I’m Gale.”

“I know. You have a nametag.”

Gale glanced down at his chest and smiled. “So I do. Forgot I had that on. Okay, where were we? Carlos -”

“That’s it! What’s his last name?” John interrupted excitedly.

“I was gonna get to that, y’know,” Gale said, looking up at John and smiling. “Navarro.”

“That’s the one!” John said, taking the slip from Gale and looking at the order. “One pepperoni, one meat lovers, and one vegetarian.”

“Coming right up,” Gale said, heading toward the back as John pulled cash out of his wallet.

While John waited for Gale to come back with the pizzas, he craned his neck to look into the kitchen. “Do you work here alone?” he called out.

He heard Gale laugh. “Why? Comin’ back to kill me tomorrow night?” he replied, still hidden in the back.

“Not my style,” John replied. “Just … you’re the only pizza place in town it seems, and it’s just you here. Seems like a lot of work.”

Gale returns to the counter with three boxes of pizzas, setting them down and then taking the cash from John. “I like to keep busy. My dad comes in during the rushes, but once the pizzas are actually in the oven the rest is just … transactions. Making sandwiches and stuff like that.”

“Right,” John said, watching Gale as he rang up his order and handed John back the change. John tossed some into the tip jar. He picked up the pizzas and nodded a thanks to Gale, who nodded one back and tucked a piece of his hair behind his ear. John was halfway to the door, before he stopped and turned around. “Gale, what the fuck do people like you and me do around here for fun?”

…

[spellbooksandcricketbats]

Thinking about why DBD managed to hit me so hard in the Older Queer feelings place.

I went to high school from 2002-2006 and it fucking sucked. For reference, YouTube wasn't founded until 2006, and this was before smartphones and social media and thus easier access to ~*~socially transgressive~*~ material.

The only queer characters I remember seeing on TV while growing up were punchlines (Will & Grace) or grimdark suffering and tragedy (Queer as Folk, The L Word, Nip/Tuck). The biggest slur hurled at us was gay ("Dude, that's so fuckin gay, don't be such a pussy!"). I never actually came out of the closet in high school, but I was still bullied for being perceived as queer because I dressed goth and, at the time, goth was still enough of a subculture to get mashed in with 'everything else society considers fucked up.' I knew two 'out' queer kids in high school, both gay cis boys who leaned effeminate, and dear god they were not treated kindly. Matthew Shepard's brutal torture and murder was still fresh in our collective memory. I also made the classic mistake of falling in love with one of my oldest, and straightest, girl friends. 🙃

And this was near the California Bay Area, traditionally considered one of the most queer-friendly regions!

So anyway, fast-forward to today, and here's Edwin, being unabashedly effeminate in all the ways that I learned to associate with getting a fast fuckin beatdown, and he's...treated with respect, both by other characters and ALSO the broader narrative. He's the recipient of multiple different kinds of love and attraction. None of his flaws have anything to do with being effeminate. And even the surface-level dynamic of Charles being his self-proclaimed protector has nothing to do with Edwin's own abilities -- that he is, in fact, able to endure in ways that no other character has been shown capable of yet, and again, not for any reasons that have to do with the narrative itself punishing Edwin for daring to be gay.

And then: the confession in Hell. When I eventually confessed to my best friend, she hemmed and hawed and put me off without a concrete answer, only that she was happy with her current boyfriend. Fair enough! But then she strung me along for a couple of years until I finally pushed for an answer on whether or not there was any hope, and only then did she said no, she's straight. In retrospect, both of us could have handled it better than we did; we haven't spoken since.

So when Edwin confessed, I found myself getting tense, bracing myself for the inevitable brush-off and awkwardness, which is a common reaction IRL, just...not the fictional wish-fulfillment one from a viewer, y'know? Except that's not what happened! It's not that Charles didn't give Edwin a hard 'no' (no one is ever, ever obligated to return affection), it's that Charles gave Edwin an HONEST one, AND it was kind, and there wasn't a sense that their friendship had lost any trust or anything!

And I'll be honest, that made my cracked, stoic heart cry just a little bit and healed something from my late teen/young adult self.

[empydoc]

i keep getting miku on my fyp so in honour of that:

which of the redacted boys like, are neutral/unaware of, or dislike hatsune miku?

* all personal opinion. if you disagree that’s completely ok!

forewarning: this post is a mess

who likes miku?

the biggest mf miku fans, in my humble opinion, would be geordi, guy & marcus. all for different reasons.

geordi actively likes miku songs, engages in fan works of miku, and is a generally big fan.

guy isn’t a miku fan because he likes her music or anything, but instead it’s because he finds her incredibly ‘iconic’ & interesting. he’ll sing her praises for the meme and insist she was the one who made minecraft.

marcus is simply a nutcase.

other miku fans include:

• gavin, who was introduced to vocaloid music by freelancer. he likes her a lot. caelum follows this same process.

• asher, who found good vocaloid music in his late teens & never really ‘grew out of it’. even so, i don’t think he’d ever tell other people about liking it unless asked prior.

• flyboi ivan feels like the type to have heard a song involving miku in passing and being like ‘damn this kinda hits’ and later finding it online and going down a rabbit hole (pun).

• lasko moore who’s been a huge fuckin fan for the longest time and, upon finding out freelancer enjoys hatsune miku as well, had to act Incredibly Normal

• elliott, who was introduced to it by his partner as well and started adding certain songs to his playlist over time.

• and anton, who either was recommended certain songs by his lover or heard in passing and found a liking for the ‘genre’.

who’s neutral/unaware of miku?

by neutral I mean ‘has no defined opinion’ & by unaware i mean ‘hasn’t heard/hasn’t identified any vocaloid/miku songs before’.

the biggest ‘meh’ people of miku in my opinion include blake, damien & david. all for different reasons, naturally.

blake has heard vocaloid, but finds since he doesn’t understand it necessarily (both as a language thing & a concept), there isn’t much to look into.

damien knows of hatsune miku, but it’s the case of being overexposed to it which causes him not to want to engage. maybe he just needs a bit of encouragement or recommendations?

angel certainly has listened to hatsune miku & enjoys it, but david isn’t necessarily interested. he doesn’t like or dislike it.

others neutral on miku include:

• camelopardalis, who’s been recommended songs but never really clicked with them

• huxley, who doesn’t really ‘get it’ the way he gets certain other music (but he isn’t opposed to listening more and forming a different opinion!)

• milo greer. man hasn’t found that song for himself

• ollie, who used to be a big fan but now finds that he doesn’t like newer songs compared to older songs.

those unaware of miku include:

• brachium.

• hush

• sam collins

• avior

• morgan kyne

• vincent solaire

who dislikes miku?

the biggest hatsune miku HATERS include hudson, kody & aaron. all for varying reasons.

hudson used to listen to miku songs so much that eventually he got sick of them and cannot listen to one without missing how it used to hit before. if anyone plays one unprovoked he’s immediately outta there.

kody, like the hater he is, just dislikes fun. dislikes miku as a character, as a vocalist, as a music tool, as everything. awful.

aaron never got it, and finds the ‘hype’ unnecessary. he’s never really gotten into that sort of music anyway.

others who dislike miku include:

• james. just doesn’t care, man (would be way different if his spouse liked her)

• adam, who i feel is the type of guy to only like one genre and detest every other genre ever.

• porter solaire, who heard one song & disliked it, so he didn’t delve into anything more

• regulus. idk. he just doesn’t like anything i think.

• vega. who cares???

other

alexis solaire finds a guilty pleasure in vocaloid. especially miku. specifically miku.

one time brian found marcus listening to vocaloid during work hours and just sighed

lasko vs kody: miku wars. who’s winning?????

that’s all 🦉

[ladamedusoif]

I know we’re always told it’s “affectionate”, “not that serious” and “younger fans are in the majority” (or worse, “aren’t you too old for this?”) but the fuckin’ ageism in some parts of this fandom towards the person they’re supposed to be fans off pisses me the fuck off.

(This one goes out to the post-VF shoot tweets about “his old man neck”, “old man neck wrinkles”, “he’s so elderly”, etc.)

(It’s fucking weird because it’s from people in their 20s. I had crushes on actors c. 20 years older than me as a teen but I a) never insisted that the fandom was only for people like me, and b) never called them “elderly”.)

[posarmeklen]

Don’t you hate when you turn your back for a minute at your dead-end copy job (sorry, dead-end desktop publishing job), and all of a sudden, one half of your sister’s cool teen quartet along with your horndog conspiracist friend are holding paper products (er, helping with a big job) and flapping their lips about the latter’s fairly new unplanned pregnancy?

It was just a coincidence that Goat swung by to visit Alex at Repro Man’s shortly after Fruity and Matt came in, and even though they had heard through Chaka (who, naturally, knew because of Alex) that the older man was in a “delicate” condition, it was their first time bumping into him in person since.

Hearing Fruity’s compliments, Matt turned around from the poster in his hands. “Oh, hey, Goat,” he greeted him.

“Hey, Matt, what’s up?”  

“Probably nothing compared to what’s up with you, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy.” Goat coughed.

“Yeah, you know, my cousin just had a baby a couple months ago,” Matt offered up. “I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t easy for her, but she said it was totally worth it. You know, yin and yang and all that.”

“Hey, I don’t think this situation calls for the poetry.” Fruity made a disapproving smacking sound with his lips.  “Man, can’t you just leave this beautiful thing be?” Goat smirked.

“Chill out, alright?” said Matt, gingerly transferring a large stack of paper from Fruity’s hands to his own and placing it by the copier. “I was just going to ask how he’s taking it.”

“Well,” Goat said emphatically. “Do you want the miracle-of-life Demi Moore Vanity Fair edition, or the cold unabridged truth?” His words conjured an image of himself, au naturel and assuming the pose of the actress, which subsequently splintered and fell away like a broken pane of glass.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less than the second one from you.” Matt smiled.

“Oh, it’s fuckin’ brutal,” he asserted. “Imagine the most head-splitting zombifying hangover, with none of the fun from the night before.”

Fruity raised his eyebrows. “None?”

“Oooh, rough…” Matt mumbled sympathetically.

“My back hurts all time. Everything’s sweaty. Plus, on top of that, I can’t really see my junk. It makes for a challenge when women’s volleyball is on and I wanna –”

“Alright, alright…” Matt’s laugh cut the description of his plight short. “I think we get the picture.”

“Hey, we’re all guys here!” grinned Fruity, giving an open-palmed shrug.

“I will say, it’s not a total loss,” Goat went on. “I seem to have unlocked a brand-new level of savoring life’s pleasures.”

“Oh, because you had trouble with that before, right?” teased Matt.

“Eh, I don’t know, but this baby must love Ring-Dings and Bud Light.”

“Hey, and at least the ladies eat up this stuff,” Fruity said. “You know, feeling the baby kick and comparing its size to a dill pickle and crap. They must be all over you.”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, right on.” Goat looked past him, letting out a sigh. “Is there a bathroom in this place? I gotta take a leak.”

“Yeah, right over by the back wall,” said Matt.

“I won’t keep you,” Fruity added, motioning in the general direction of the door.

So anyway, when it comes to Fruity’s comment re: the “fairer sex” and pregnancy, I would be remiss not to mention the kindred spirit Goat hit it off with, the child’s second parent (seen in my Downtown posts of yesteryear. However, I did change her name for some reason. Friendship ended with “Jackie”, “Kasey” is my best friend now). *clears my throat and shuffles flashcards* There came a point of awareness that despite their similarities, they were at really different life stages (Goat had been doing his own thing for years, but Kasey, a trans woman who was Goat’s age, had been living as herself for a fraction of that and was relishing her freedom) and while Goat initially hadn’t changed his lifestyle a bit to accommodate the pregnancy, she didn’t want to live like him forever and begrudged his seeming lack of trying. Words were exchanged, and the pair went their separate ways. Not to worry – they would soon rekindle, and both put forth effort to be healthier (in Goat’s case, he was mostly propelled by the knowledge of his physical condition; in Kasey’s, she was inspired to show a sort of solidarity with him, plus she would soon be a parent as well, despite not physically being pregnant).  But given their respective issues, neither swayed the other in a positive direction, and they soon reached the disappointing yet amicable conclusion that they were perhaps too alike to remain close. And in the midst of that, they just knew neither of them were cut out to raise children (what were we thinking?) – so wish granted for a lucky adoptive parent(s). But I digress… I wonder if some of this diverted him from regaling Fruity and Matt with salacious tales when given the opportunity.

Also, by the way? Even though Fruity was being facetious in my picture and Goat wouldn’t name his offspring after himself, he and the aforementioned second parent did discover at an ultrasound (the first and only; Goat completely forgot about an appointment scheduled earlier in the pregnancy 😑) that the fetus was male. Goat after he and Kasey exchanged an overwhelmed glance and muttered fragmented agreeable noises upon being asked if they were interested in finding out the baby’s sex today: “Rock on! Built-in apprentice and wingman, here I come…” *medical technician politely chuckling intensifies*