#please excuse it and pretend that these are masterpieces

[worth-this-and-more]

[spoilers for legendborn and bloodmarked, read at your own caution ;)]

this is nothing important but i just want to show some of my book annotations aka late-night-sleep-induded-trying-to-be-professional-doodles they are very stupid and i love them

[leonawriter]

Excuse me while I basically make Azure Throne into a hakukai fanfic.

This got... really long, and veered off from what I intended for it several times, but is basically at heart as I said, a look at Azure Throne through the lens of "what if we work on the assumption that Hakuba knew it was Kaito from the start, and/or they're actually outright flirting."

Hakuba: Kuroba what are you doing here. Why aren't you even in a disguise- oh, I see. This is interesting.

Kaito: Oh god it's Hakuba he's going to see through me like I'm made of cellophane or something. Please don't call me out here. I am pretending not to know you. Shush. PLAY ALONG.

Kaito: Come on please let one of my detectives have SOME faith in me. Restore my faith in humanity. Take the fucking bait, Hakuba.

Hakuba: Oh, that's. That's... I see what's going on here. That does complicate matters. All right, fine. I'll play along. Because I want to find the truth more than I want you arrested.

Hakuba: [Merely pays more attention to the actual suspects]

Kaito: [internally shouting "THANK YOU."]

Hakuba: We need to know exactly where everyone is, what they were doing, and if you'll excuse me I am going to geek out over science now-

Kaito: Okay well watch me explain in detail how Kaitou Kid (who is Not Me, by the way, in case you needed to be reminded) got in here. And let's conveniently not bring up how no one knows how Shinichi got here and Kid left.

Hakuba: Oh, and I anticipated your entire trick.

Hakuba: Because I know exactly how you work and I also know exactly what your clothes are made of.

Kaito: Wow... you're creepy, you know that? This is why I try and send you off on a wild dove chase each time you're heading to one of my heists.

Hakuba: Isn't it funny how I planned to catch Kaitou Kid that way, and instead I caught you two. I'm sure there's absolutely no connection between either of you and Kid... is there? Kaito?

Kaito: Oh but you know you can't say anything until this case is closed. I know you can't.

Hakuba: This means you too, Kaito. I'll be needing your firsthand knowledge of the way things went, of course.

Hakuba: It'll be good to have another actual detective on board for this!

Honestly I can just leave this one be. Kaito is enough of a tsundere that "But, to think Hakuba came back... he should have just stayed and studied in London forever!" is accurate to what I think he'd be thinking right there.

It also matches with the several times (Dark Knight and Green Dragon especially) when he's personally redirected Hakuba away from the heist.

Plus, with his attachment issues (one parent he idolised is dead, the other is barely home), I think Kaito would have a very hard time dealing with Hakuba, who (like his mother) travels a lot, and is... barely there, really. :(

Hakuba: Now, I wonder if you can keep up as a detective when playing one?

Kaito: Oh yeah? Watch me! Uh... I just need a pointer. That's all.

The interesting thing here is that Kaito has played at being a detective in the past. He's even played at being Mouri Kogoro right next to Hakuba here, in the Twilight Mansion case. However... in that case he wasn't needing to play a smart detective, and in any other instance he wasn't technically a "detective" (Magic Lovers Murder Case, where Katsuki Doito is a medical student) or he knows that Conan is capable of solving the mystery if he gives the right hints (Four Masterpieces, when he's being Takagi).

There's also the time when he played Hakuba himself in the movie Private Eye's Requiem, and we don't know how many times he'd have done that, that we haven't seen.

Point is, though, Hakuba doesn't know how good Kaito's observational skills are as a detective and it feels kind of like... if he knows (and I'm sure he has a gut feeling from the start even if he doesn't have evidence) he wants to know- "I can keep up with you, on your territory, but can you keep up with me, on mine?"

With that in mind, the fact that Kaito's only relaying what Shinichi's telling him must be... frustrating, for someone who'd actually be curious what Kaito can do, and I'm sure Hakuba would want to push Kaito to be able to figure things out for himself as well.

But I digress. Moving on.

Hakuba: [Has just seen "Kudo" flirting and being sentimental with Ran, "his" girlfriend, in a way that Shinichi himself says is so spot-on its kinda pissing him off] Oi. Kaito. I thought you were interested in Aoko. Watch it. [Also kinda jealous himself.]

I freakin' LOVE these two panels. This entire sense of "Yeah Hakuba's got Kaito sussed and he's already got half of what's going on with Conan, and yeah the next thing he does is question "Are you really Kudo Shinichi?" it's because of a potential flawed deduction when Shinichi's supposed to be this perfect saviour of the Japanese Police Force.

And in posing the question in such a way, he's allowing Kaito - master of disguise! - to come up with a cover story. Which, of course, he does.

But overall? It's the sense of... actually, just as I said. Hakuba's going "Shh. I'm talking to [him]! Don't interrupt us, okay?" - He's going "I know you're helping him, but I want to know his capabilities. Not yours."

Kaito just calling his ass out like "Hakuba I know you're obsessed with me- I mean Kid- c'mon I know you better than that~"

Also the phrase "Rumoured to have his eyes light up at the mere mention of Kid" more like. Kaito you have seen that in person.

More like I look at it and I'm like, is this Kaito saying "I Know What You Are"?

I know that it's not just them, but it's this nice little touch of the two of them standing next to each other, while Conan is on the other side of the group, and they're both mirroring the other's posture.

Kaito's already thought to himself how he barely needs to change his voice, and it's easy to imagine him barely changing his behaviours but adjusting so that he's more serious and less playing the clown or showman.

In this case, he's fully paying attention to the case (just as he has in previous ones as a witness) and...

He and Hakuba are on the exact same wavelength, with Hakuba finishing Kaito's sentence here.

Again with the twinning. Kaito has a slightly more clueless look about him, I'd say, but that's because he is out of his depth. Other than that? He's just as much taking Hakuba's lead on the case as he is Shinichi's!

The sheer amount of "Kuroba, your alibi is slipping!"

Hakuba's not going to outright cover for something that might be noticed as a flaw later on, nor is he outright going to call Kaito's disguise out immediately when other things are going on. He is, however, going to tease him to hell and back, push buttons, you name it.

And, of course, Hakuba in hearing Kaito's alibi and seeing Conan back it up, will also know that Conan is on Kid's side here even more than before.

Small and simple observation: Kaito is behind Hakuba.

At this point Hakuba in canon and the Hakuba who knew from the moment he laid eyes on him both know that this is Kaito. It's Kaitou Kid.

The start of the case had the crime get pinned on Kid.

Yet - Hakuba's just fine with Kaito watching his back and/or fully capable of doing whatever he likes behind him, knowing full well that Kaito's a skilled magician who'd be able to hide his actions. The obvious point is that he trusts Kaito.

And then - we get to the Flirtening.

I call it that because in canon it's bad enough, with Hakuba clearly only started making moves on Ran to make Kid slip up.

But in a world where he knows it's Kaito from the start? In Hakukai Fanfic Land?

First off- I'd say that this is actually payback.

Earlier on in the case, Hakuba saw Kaito (as Shinichi) flirting with Ran. Thinking back to the very first set of cases Hakuba ever appeared in, and... he'd walked into class for the first time and seen Kaito being mean to a girl, to Aoko, who was clearly hurting, and then tried to be nice to her by saying, basically, "If he won't take you to the concert you wanted to go to, I'll go with you."

Going on him knowing that this here is Kaito? He'd be seeing Kaito flirting with someone who isn't Aoko, and getting very in character, and... basically going "watch it."

So Saguru is a) defensive for Aoko, b) jealous because oi, why are you flirting with her, when he is right here, and c) using this as a means of poking a hole in Kaito's disguise, because sure he's more interested in the truth than he is in arresting Kaito, but that doesn't mean he's above making life hard for him.

In which case...

Kaito going "What did you say, jerk!!" is just as much "oh shit yeah I'm supposed to be being Shinichi right now" as it is "Hakuba why are you flirting with someone else?"

The reaction would be delayed because a) Kaito knows Hakuba's not interested in Ran, or not interested in girls in general, and b) the sheer amount of "what the fuck is happening. what is going on in front of me here" he'd be feeling.

Because for one thing, Conan's down there making attack dog noises, and for another- d'you think Kaito would just reflexively fall back into poker face if he saw the guy he likes/who he knows is interested in him just easily flirting around? I think that ordinarily Kaito would just be like "eh, that's just Hakuba being Hakuba" but I'm also aware of how fragile Kaito's social connections and relationships often are, as well as the rift between logic and emotion.

After this we have a few different things happening at once.

We have Kaito not having asked which cheek Ran had kissed Shinichi on and gesturing to the wrong one, which Ran instantly notices:

Note that the flashback isn't just for our benefit; we see later on that Ran realises probably in this moment that there's something Wrong with "Shinichi" because how could he forget which cheek she kissed him on?

This being relevant because right before that...

He'd told Ran to not "space out" - but with the weirdness going on between him, Hakuba, and Conan, I wonder if it was actually Kaito who knew he was kind of spacing out here! Like, sure, Shinichi's sending Kaito lines, but in terms of narrative and themes...

And in canon, this is where Hakuba first notices the mike and earpiece that Kaito and Conan are using to communicate. Even in a version where he knew it was Kaito from the start, this would still be where Hakuba realises "Hey, what's UP with that kid?"

Hakuba, in canon: Could it be... that those two...

My headcanon for that is that he was meaning to say "are working together," which is the easiest and most obvious/simple conclusion of his sentence.

Hakuba, in fanfic hc land: Hey, why are they working together? I know I didn't warn him I'd be here, but he could have been working with me. That kid already stole some of my reputation regarding going against you, and now this too?!

Honestly, sometimes I remember the times when Kaito has shown himself able to figure out a trick or even a murder trick more or less on his own or at the same pace as Shinichi, and I see times like this when he's shown as needing a lot more help, and I feel frustrated that Kaito's seeming to be dumbed down a little to make Shinichi look better.

But then, I think about how there's multiple times over the course of not just Detective Conan but also Magic Kaito itself, where Kaito is uncomfortable around murders and dead bodies.

Which then starts to make sense of the times when he relies more on his detectives' wits for things like this; if it's a logic puzzle trick that he can treat as one, then he can keep up. If there's blood and bodies and Someone Died Here, which they did - someone died before his heist could even begin! - then his mind has a hard time, skittering around the unnerving parts and not being able to give the trick the attention it needs.

I'd imagine his thought process goes kind of like "Okay okay so if I could think of anything that'd be really useful (but a guy died a minute ago I was out there and doing normal things and a guy died) yeah but if you don't think smart now it's going to happen again or they won't get caught (oh god what if I can't do it) I have to but-" and... so on.

And back to point, but - Hakuba hasn't really seen Kaito in the direct aftermath of him having seen someone die, when Kaito isn't pretending to be someone else.

Technically, he still hasn't here, because Kaito is Being Shinichi.

Dark Knight had Hakuba arrive on scene late, as Kid was already leaving the scene, and in Twilight Mansion Kid was Mouri Kogoro, so even if his reactions were touched with reality, no one could tell what was Kid and what was Kogoro. Here, Hakuba wasn't the first on scene, and he only sees Kaito once Kaito's had a chance to put his poker face (and a Mask of Shinichi) on.

I'd even say that... this being Detective Conan, we've had a chance to see an entire character development arc between Shinichi and Kaito, even if it is still one-sided and not the healthiest of dynamics. We know that Shinichi's not really going to hand Kaito to the police on a silver platter.

But Hakuba? The irony is that in MK canon Hakuba is KNOWN for calling Kaito with helpful knowledge about his opponent (Golden Eye, infamously) and withholding information that would put suspicion onto Kaito's civilian identity (Midnight Crow, at least). And yet in this heist, because we're a) seeing things from Conan and Kaito's perspective here, and b) we haven't seen what Hakuba would do in this sort of situation before, he seems... more of a threat if he outright found them out than if it were just the police (who they can trick) or Hattori (who Shinichi would be able to shush).

Personally, I believe that Hakuba WOULD have worked with Kaito to come to all of the same conclusions that they came to in canon with Shinichi as the POV. Hakuba's a good enough detective, after all, as we even see him doing this in canon, drawing the same conclusions without Shinichi having to whisper in his ear once.

Is Kaito side-eyeing Hakuba because he knows Hakuba's being a little shit over this but he can't say anything because he can't admit that he knows the guy personally as well as he does? Is Conan flailing because he feels like they've been sussed out?

Or is it more along the lines of "Oh, you think you're so smart, don't you? Soooo clever. Yeah sure, after you've been hounding me all case- but don't think I'll let you have the last laugh"?

And now, I'm thinking of Shinichi hearing some of the familiarity come out in their voices around now, if not before, and he's finally realising "Oh- okay so Kid knows this guy. Not just aware of him, he knows him. Oh. Oh shit."

Fun fact: we do not see Conan again alll the way through the explanation of the fireman's carry that Hakuba is doing with Kaito as his partner. The next time we see Conan, it's after they've pinned the criminal in place.

I find this interesting because... in spite of this being a case that Hakuba is starring in - the guy who is well known for asking "Why did you do it?" - it's the victim's wife who asks that, by way of her "But why did you kill my husband!?" and it's Conan who suggests a potential reason.

In a sense, they've both stolen Hakuba's thunder here, the wife by taking his catchphrase and Conan for taking the words out of the criminals mouth before the guy can admit it himself, in his own words.

(Ironically, Kaito would agree with Conan on this, probably, what with him having said "isn't it your job to figure [motive] out?" but as I've said before, I see worth in Hakuba asking for it in the criminals' own words.)

I feel like both I and other people have probably made all the jokes about the "I've got the stamina to keep carrying you for ages" part that I don't need to rehash it that much, haha.

But I DO have other observations.

Kaito: So, you figured it out, huh... Hakuba: Of course!

Like... even way aside from the fact that Hakuba's probably just internally going "you're SO lucky I like you, otherwise I'd have just pointed out that you just flattened your hair the moment I walked in" there's something this reminded me of.

In the translation here, Kaito trails off on an ellipsis, but... in a way, that's a question. It's literally "So, you figured me out?" except Kaito may well have been expecting it even in canon, so it's no longer a question.

What's the significance of this?

Well.

It brings to mind how Toichi asked "Will you be able to stop me?" and Yusaku said "[Yeah...] of course!"

And of course we know that whatever Yusaku was able to do, it was never enough to stop the legend of Kaitou Kid from growing - and we also now know that he almost certainly knew that it was his brother Toichi right from the start.

In many ways it's meant to show how Kaito and Shinichi have taken up their fathers' mantles and become each other's rival... but this moment of "You found me out?" "Yeah, of course!" shows that Hakuba is just as much Kaitou Kid's worthy rival. He is thematically and narratively Kid's rival.

(And this is where I get my post limit for images, whoops!)

So, yeah. Kaito then has a space of about three [3] panels between Hakuba saying "I know you're Kid" and then Hakuba trying to walk and finding his legs are cuffed together.

I'd also say that in terms of pranks that Kaito (as Kid) has played in order to get out of a Situation, that was... a lot more on the immature roughhousing side than a lot of what he does. So much of his DC appearances relies on... action movie stunts? Stuff that's actually really risky? Because he needs to rely on that. But with Hakuba he doesn't have to. It reads more like play fighting.

(Because Hakuba, he knows, isn't going to attack him with a deadly soccer ball or knock him out midair.)

A thought on why he cuffed Hakuba's legs together like he did even if they're on better terms would also be the easy "Kaito knows that Nakamori is there, knows that Hakuba wouldn't be allowed to carry him all the way to the station, knows that something would go wrong, and almost certainly by this point knows that he shouldn't go out in public as Shinichi. So he's just as much going "yeah nope, not doing that, bad idea on SO many levels" as he is "I don't fancy going to jail today."

And, for an ending note: Hakuba at no point seems frustrated or upset that Kaito got away. Not for one single moment.

If anything, I'd say he's just going "Ah, there he goes again. Look at him go." with a fond look in his eye.

[lovebugism]

oh my god,,,, gurl!!!! THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT fic is sooo good 😫 my heart literally breaks every time I read this story. Thank you for blessing us with this masterpiece <3

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | square one

summary: eddie makes a confession that's been weighing heavy on his heart. you realize that your future with him is haunted by ghosts from your past. pairing: virgin!eddie munson / f!reader word count: 16.3k warnings: hopper, steve, and robin being the reader defense squad, hints at reader's previously poor mental health, mentions of abusive and toxic relationships, a banshees of inisherin quote, b*lly h*rgrove because he needs a warning. (pretend any typos don't exist pls and thank u!) a/n: guess who's back, back again? ✨✨ i'd apologize for disappearing for a month, but then there'd be apologies in all my notes, so just know that i'm sorry every time i disappear unexpectedly, okay? 🥲 thanks for being so patient! please enjoy this long-awaited installment of tcar ily <3

( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( SERIES MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

Eddie’s got a 1986 Van Halen tape in his boombox and a baby pink heart stitched into the fabric of his shirt. He’s the least metal he’s ever been, but he couldn’t be happier.

You keep your promise to him to patch up his torn Hellfire tee. If anything, you use the absentminded assurance as your excuse to see him again. The night you shared before, all but baring your scarred souls underneath glittering stars and streams of pale moonlight, hadn’t satiated your hunger for him. Eddie left you craving in a way you weren’t used to before — a yearning to be close to him that went beyond the boundaries of physical intimacy.

It was a simple sort of longing. It was a homesickness. A sense of nostalgia for a love you’d never felt before.

You wish you could wear Eddie’s adoration for you like a blanket, wrap yourself in the hand-stitched quilt of many colors and bundle it tighter around your shoulders when the cold comes. You want his softness to hold you in a way you’ve never been able to hold yourself.

You feel swaddled in it, succumbed and cloaked and at peace in all his tenderness. You’ve never been so at ease, so blissfully comforted by the presence of another human being. And Eddie feels all of that, every ounce of warmth you feel, because it pours out of you like rays of sunshine and bathes him in shades of gold.

He didn’t think you could get any softer than you had been that night at Skull Rock, until you were nestled in his unmade bed the next morning. You curled your legs underneath you as you weaved the needle and thread through the tear in his t-shirt, eyes squinted and tongue poking out the side of your mouth in an astute concentration. 

All of the sudden, you were marshmallow fluff and honey on toast — made of all things sickly sweet that made his stomach feel suddenly full. 

You finish mending the rip in record time and beam when he wears the heart-shaped stitching with pride. The rest of the day thereafter was spent in the tiny confines of his one hundred square-inch bedroom. From there, the both of you came to the silent understanding that you didn't want to spend another day apart.

The weekend had given you a limited sort of freedom, allowed you to pretend that you lived in a world with no responsibilities or anything other than Eddie Eddie Eddie, but adulthood made you no such promises. He had a side job to do to keep himself afloat, and you had a cat that thought it was the end of the world anytime you were gone for longer than a night. Both of those things together meant that the eve of parting was ultimately inevitable.

Every second you spent away from Eddie felt like you were grieving.

You mourned for him in the darkness of your apartment and tried to pretend you weren’t half a person in the cat food aisle at Melvald’s.

You tried to lessen the unbearable distance with phone calls, though it didn’t come nearly as close as feeling his fingers thrumming imaginary beats on your thigh or his heartbeat thudding against your ear. 

But his voice filled the emptiness of your one-bedroom apartment and the Eddie Munson shaped hole he’d left just behind your ribcage, and that was good enough for you.

When you weren’t with him, you were roaming around your apartment like some kind of ghost, with the phone tucked between your ear and shoulder and the rotary clutched in your free hand. 

You cook yourself dinner with him ranting about his day in your ear. You hold the receiver closer to Bowie and force him to hear her purr when she’s being exceptionally cute. He falls asleep some hours later to the sound of your soft snores, and you wake up the next morning to the sounds of his.

It was pathetic, truly.

You’d be gagging at how sweet it was if it wasn’t happening to you.

But it was.

Every ounce of this sticky sweet goodness was yours, and it tasted just like honey on your tongue. 

It was the honeymoon stage times a thousand, all rose-colored and reflecting light — your own personal utopia. It brought with it a heavenly sort of refuge, a bubble of peace you never wanted to pierce.

Eddie basks in the serenity of it all when he finally has you with him again. You’re in his lap, on his lips, and all over him, but it still isn’t quite close enough. He doesn’t think he’ll be satisfied until you’ve successfully melted with him and your limbs have entwined with his like tree roots, destined to remain that way for the next couple of centuries or so.

And it’s weird because he could hardly handle living in such a tiny trailer with Wayne, let alone stomach more than a couple hours with the guys from Hellfire all in one place. But you? You entered his life all at once and now he can’t remember what it was like without you.

He doesn’t particularly want to, if he’s being real honest.

It’s why he’s always less enthused about letting you leave when you’ve both got responsibilities dragging you apart. He begs you to stay with him a few hours more, pleads for you to stick around while he makes a quick deal or an emergency pick-up when Dustin Henderson calls and says he needs a ride. 

And you promise you’ll wait on him there, because he makes it virtually impossible to say no to his rosy pouted lips and chocolate syrup puppy dog eyes.

That’s when you run into Wayne for the first time, when Eddie’s out and you’re making breakfast for when he comes back.

French toast and scrambled eggs sizzle on the stove and warm the kitchen with all its cinnamon confections. It makes the man’s face screw up in confusion when he steps inside the trailer because he’s never known Eddie to cook a day in his life. And then his eyes find you — a young, pretty girl all alone in his kitchen with his nephew’s van gone from the drive.

“…Who the hell are you?” he wonders gruffly and pops a cigarette between his lips, totally unbothered.

He’s got no reason to be intimidated by the stranger in his trailer. He’s more confused than anything else, and he’s got this contorted look on his face like he’s blaming the exhaustion from the graveyard shift for his vision of you.

“Oh— my god,” you mumble through the mouthful of whipped cream you’d squeezed into your mouth moments prior. You fight to swallow it all down. “Uh. Hi. I’m, um… I’m Eddie’s... girlfriend?”

It sounds like you’re lying. 

In some ways, it feels like you are. 

You’ve been spending more time in his trailer than in your own home, but it’s not like either of you has motioned to make anything official just yet.

He eyes you with a tired and heavy gaze, eyes as dark and as infinite as Eddie’s. The man gives you a once-over and then chuckles lowly to himself as he tosses his corduroy jacket onto the back of the recliner and his tin lunchbox to the coffee table.

You shift awkwardly on the other side of the room. “…What is it?”

“When Eddie said he was talkin’ to a pretty girl on the phone every night, I thought he was lyin’,” he admits through hearty chuckles. 

It makes you laugh too. 

There’s little talking after the fact, besides you offering him some of the breakfast on the stove and him joking that you should come around more often.

You recount the story to Eddie when he returns, utterly mortified about the whole thing. You’re even more embarrassed when the boy finds amusement in your horror and starts to chuckle to himself — not exactly at you, but not with you either.

He laughs louder when you swat at him for it. You clamber on top of him, mattress squeaking mattress under your weight, as you demand him to stop through giggles of your own.

Somewhere down the line, both of you stop caring. 

Neither of you is quite sure where the conversation stopped and ended, only that when you started kissing, you couldn’t stop. 

They weren’t innocent little pecks, but they weren’t sloppy and full of tongue either. You press your lips together with the intent of being as close as you can to the other, like you haven’t spent every second you could together.

Neither of you will be satisfied until you’ve swallowed each other whole.

And you, you’ve got this ache for him. A swirling of want that’s constantly rippling in your belly for this boy. He’s just not usually under you when it’s happening — and now that he is, the crackling embers have burst into white and blue flames behind your sternum.

Your lips click each time you part, a lewd noise you never want to stop hearing. The sound of it gives you goosebumps, like a good song you’ve just heard on the radio. You wonder if Eddie can feel them as his hands start to creep up beneath your shirt and find purchase along your waist. 

You open his mouth with your own and sneak your tongue inside just as you roll your hips over his lap.

It’s the most forthcoming either of you had been in your three-day stint of nonstop talking. Even when you were over at the trailer, totally alone and pressed underneath him, it was otherwise completely innocent. You just make out like a couple of teenagers until one of you wants to make a food run or offers to roll a joint. 

And you like that. You like that he doesn’t expect anything from you, but it does get a little agonizing when you’ve tried every attempt to give yourself to him and he just won’t take it.

Like usual, Eddie tenses when he feels you grinding on top of him — partly because he feels a tingle at the base of his spine when he gets instantly half-hard, but mostly because he knows there’s nothing he can do about it.

He keeps preaching to himself it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time — but he’s got no idea when it’ll ever be the right time, if it’ll ever be the right time, or if he’ll know it when it comes.

Because he’s had you to himself for days now — no Wayne, no responsibilities, no pressure — with his tongue rutting against yours and your hands fidgeting with the metal buttons of his jeans, and it still doesn’t feel good enough. Eddie doesn’t feel good enough.

He’s not sure if he ever will.

And it’s not you. God, it’s the farthest thing from you. As far as Eddie’s concerned, he’s never had more fun with anyone else. He’s never laughed harder with anyone else. He’s never felt as comfortable with anyone as he’s starting to feel around you. So he’s not entirely sure why he finds the rest of it so hard. 

Eddie wants you so bad that the ache of all his yearning is palpable. It’s like the weight of it is what’s keeping him from you — unstoppable force, immovable object, blah, blah, blah. 

Either way, it leaves him entirely unable to take things further with you, however much he wants to. There’s something in his way and it’s him. 

Your heartache is his own when he has to pull away from you.

“You okay?” you ask him with wide eyes and swollen lips, always so concerned for him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he���s quick to assure you. He’s still breathless when he fidgets beneath you, trying to prop himself up on his headboard without rubbing his half-hard cock against your thigh.

When he succeeds, he musters a smile that shakes at the edges. “It’s just… you know, not everything… It doesn’t have to be about sex, you know?”

He makes himself as soft as possible for you when he says this. He gets rid of all the usual teasing lilts that tend to lurk on his tongue as the words spill from his mouth. The last thing he wants to do is hurt your feelings or, in some roundabout way, make you think you’re the problem. 

He just wants you to know that that isn’t why he’s been wanting to spend so much time with you. There was never an ulterior motive with him other than all the adoration he holds in his hands and his mouth for you.

The strike of hurt that flashes across your face is obvious to only Eddie, who’s spent enough time mapping out your features to know what twitches are ones of discontent. The slight frown that dips between your brows when they scrunch together for half a second comes like a stroke of lightning. It’s a brief flash of purple in the sky that leaves so quickly that it makes you wonder if it was ever there at all.

You fidget on his lap, not resting as comfortably upon him as you had been just moments before. “Oh…” you murmur through soft, jutted-out lips. “Sorry. I, I didn’t—”

“No, it’s not— that’s not what I—” he tries to assure over your insecure stammers, but succeeds only in tripping over himself in return. He cuts himself off with a breathy laugh, shaking his head while his fingers fidget on your hips. “That’s just not what this is about for me, you know? I just… I wanna spend time with you.”

It’s easily the softest thing he’s ever said to you — to anybody, for the matter — and the marshmallow sweetness of it all wraps around you like wisps of pink cotton candy.

Your apprehensiveness twists into something lighter, a pair of twinkling eyes and a bashful smile.

“Oh,” you hum again, obviously more pleased than before. “That’s nice…”

“No one’s ever said that to you before, have they?” Eddie asks you.

He tries to muster a crooked smirk as the words leave his mouth, but he’s got a feeling he already knows the answer. Hearing you affirm his suspicions will do nothing more than make him angry at all the assholes that had you before him, at everyone who taught you that you were good for sex and hardly a thing else. 

It makes him wish that he’d gotten to know you sooner. Maybe then you’d understand that he’d be happy just holding you like this and never doing anything more.

You don’t answer him verbally, just shake your head with your lips pursed softly to the side. You look more innocent than anything he’s ever seen before, even with your lipstick smeared on your chin. 

He’s still not quite sure how someone could be so reckless with such a fragile thing — to watch you break and not spend the rest of time grieving to know that you’ll never be quite the same again. 

There’s a primal instinct that swims in him then, an urge to keep you in his arms and locked in the confines of his trailer forever and ever. He wants to keep the wolves of Hawkins, Indiana from ever getting a whiff of you again. It’d be more than they deserved, anyway.

“God, you have got to get better boyfriends, sweetheart,” Eddie tells you with a playful lilt in his voice despite the anger simmering in his belly.

“Isn’t that what you are?” you giggle.

His world stops.

“Huh?”

You tense at his tenseness. Only when he’s gaping at you does the weight of your words dawn on you. “…Huh?”

The awkward moment goes as quickly as it arrives, chased out by the fit of laughter the two of you are quickly thrown into. Your entwining chuckles rise like smoke in his tiny bedroom and then settle back over you like a fuzzy blanket.

“Are you asking me to be your boyfriend, babe?” Eddie teases.

“Of course not,” you scoff. “Babe.”

“Oh, right, of course not. That would be way too crazy considering we’ve spent, like, every day together and have made each other come… what is it now? Twice?”

“Three times for me,” you correct with you a smile. “You need to catch up, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Another time?” he offers with a scrunched nose.

“Whenever you want.”

Eddie is grateful for your lack of urgency, even more so for the kiss you press to the tip of his nose. 

You peck him on the lips after — once, twice, and then a thiiird, drawn out time — before moving on to his chin and jaw and neck. Whatever part of him you can reach (which is just about everywhere, considering the vantage point you’ve got sitting on his lap), you sprinkle a kiss to it.

It’s an innocent sort of affection, the kind that makes him wonder how it ever came to be in the first place. What evolutionary measures led to this, to you pressing your lips to his skin to show how much you care about him? Eddie doesn’t really want to know the answer, he’s just grateful that it happened in the first place.

You’re so good at it, loving on him. You’re always so kind and so gentle in your way and it makes him feel guilty. There’s a lingering feeling of undeservedness that settles something heavy at the base of his stomach. How could he ever expect you to be so open with him when he hasn’t done the same for you?

A heavy sigh rattles in his deflating chest. 

“I gotta tell you something, sweetheart,” he cautions when your lips smack against the thrumming pulse below the left side of his jaw. “Something you’re not gonna like…”

A billion things run through your head all at once. When you part from him, he can see the rollercoaster of emotions each one of them puts you through.

Your first instinct is that he’s got some kind of partner he’s kept hidden from you until now. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gone steady with a guy who’s then told you about some other girlfriend he had — or, god forbid, a wife. 

But then you realize that you surely would’ve had some sort of inkling if that were the case. There’s no way Eddie would’ve been able to spend every second of his day with you — and then another several hours on the phone when you had to leave — without someone else coming along to burst your bubble. 

And so far, there haven’t been any angry wives, just the occasionally confused Uncle Wayne.

Then you start thinking he’s about to tell you he wants an open relationship. The you’re great, but I’m just not ready to settle down yet spiel that you’ve heard a thousand times before. Usually when people say that, they mean that they just don’t want to settle down with you.

You’ll become some douchebag’s fuck toy for a month or more until the girl next door comes around. He gets her knocked up in record time, his family forces him to marry her, and they begin their cushy lives together in the center of some cul-de-sac — really settle down, as it were.

You’re not sure if you could take that from Eddie. You could grin and bear if it you had to, take whatever attention he’s willing to give you because who cares if he’s giving it to someone else on the side? You’re just not sure how long you’d last like that.

And then you start to worry that he’s just going to break up with you entirely — it’s not you, it’s blah, I’ll always care about blah, please don’t tell anyone about how we blah-ed. That whole talk. 

All the rest of your worries stop mattering so much because you’ve only just called him your boyfriend. And here he goes, about to end it all before it can really even start. That’d be just your luck, you figure.

“Did I do something wrong?” you caution after a few moments of heavy silence.

Eddie’s bleeding heart wrenches at your words, at how sad they sound spilling from your mouth, and how you immediately think that it’s got something to do with you. 

He shakes his head feverishly in response. “No. No, it’s not you. You’re… you’re perfect.”

“Okay…” you concede quietly, voice trembling with a lingering disbelief.

“I just… I haven’t been totally honest with you, you know?” the boy admits before his glimmering chocolate eyes fly open and he corrects himself quickly. “And I haven’t lied to you or anything. Not— Not exactly. I just… I wanna be honest with you… As your boyfriend and all.”

You can tell by the sudden weight in his voice that he’s serious. But the fine coat of glowing rose that splotches Eddie’s cheeks after calling himself your boyfriend for the first time makes you melt. 

You smile to yourself and start to trace the heart you’d stitched into his t-shirt with your finger.

“Yeah. I mean, we are about to spend our two minutes anniversary together and everything.”

“Exactly,” the boy huffs out a laugh. It lacks its usual jest, though, because of the ice-cold anxiety that drenches him from head to toe and makes his hands and feet go numb.

His fingers tremble where the rest on your waist, trying and failing to find a comfortable position there because, right about now, Eddie feels the most awkward he’s ever felt.

“I just want you to know that I… I’ve never done this before,” he confesses quietly and with his eyes squeezed shut. He prays that he doesn’t have to be any less vague than that.

Your face twists in confusion — your brows furrow and your nose twitches and your head tilts to the side like a puppy. And then you’re laughing, a soft little thing of a giggle that normally makes his heart sing, though now he can only feel it breaking.

“What…?” he tries to scoff out his own chuckle. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because you’ve already told me that, dummy. That you’ve never felt this way before…” you answer, reciting his own words back to him. You haven’t yet forgotten how he’d looked at you as you said them, pale skin made silk under the moonlight while he sparkled beneath the beams of it and his love for you. 

“No, it’s… it’s more than that,” he corrects. “I’ve never even had a girlfriend before you. Or anything really.”

You still don’t seem to understand. You just look on at him with uncertainty. 

A quiet “okay?” tumbles from your mouth entwined with a nervous giggle, because you don’t understand what’s got him so somber. He’s never dated anyone, you’ve fucked half of Hawkins — these are just facts that went unsaid before now. 

And maybe it’s because you’ve never been with a virgin before, but the thought that Eddie might be one hasn’t seemed to cross your mind at all. 

It’s that exact thought that scares him. 

Because if it hasn’t already, maybe it’s because you’re avoiding it altogether. And why would he ever be the exception?

He opts to bite the bullet and hopes that his heart doesn’t get broken after.

“I’m a virgin. Okay? I’m a complete, total, proper adult virgin,” he blurts with a brazenness he’d previously lacked when it came to all this. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before now, but I didn’t, because I liked you and I was scared. So if you wanna yell at me or if you wanna break up with me before our five-minute anniversary, I totally get it, but I should probably let you know that it’ll rip my little virgin heart to shreds, so…”

Eddie ends his nervous ramble with a trembling, lopsided smile that does little to ease the leaden tension he’s just manufactured in the four walls of his bedroom.

He can’t seem to gauge your reaction after the fact, which is strange because he always knows what you’re thinking. 

He knows when you’re laughing with him and not at him. You scrunch your nose and giggle when he tells you a funny joke, then tilt your head back and cackle when he trips over the punchline. 

He knows the exact moment when something’s started to bother you — when you get real quiet in your bubble of reserved stillness and your eyes start to glaze over. To anyone else, it might just look like a person who’s keeping to themselves. Eddie’s starting to learn that usually means trouble when it comes to you.

He knows the difference between your gentle sort of sadness and when you’re damn near inconsolable. When you cried at the end of Stand By Me, you smiled at him with a glassy tear-filled gaze, then rolled your eyes when he tried to comfort you. The tears only spilled over when you laughed because Eddie pretended you’d hurt him when you’d shoved him away. 

But when you’re really upset about something, you don’t show him at all — you fight to keep it all to yourself until you’ve squished the problem into a tiny enough ball that you can forget about all of it.

This is something different.

There’s too much crossing your mind all at once for him to get a good read of you.

You just gape at him, like you’re trying to figure out if he’s joking or not, and then fighting to understand what it means when you realize he’s being serious. 

And just when you’ve started to wrap your head around it all, when your brain remembers how to make words again and you realize you haven’t said anything in several agonizing seconds, a foreign voice sounds from down the hallway.

Not foreign in that it was unfamiliar exactly, just foreign in that you and Eddie had spent so much time alone that you were starting to forget that there was an entire world outside of yourselves. A great big world, filled with a great many people, some of whom were your friends who tended to get pretty worried about you.

“Edward Wayne— why the hell is the Chief in my driveway?” his uncle curses from the living room, sounding like he’s speaking through a cigarette in his mouth.

Eddie himself is immediately freaking the fuck out because he figures he must’ve gotten tipped off again. He tries to calculate the quickest way to get you off of him and to all of his cubby holes full of miscellaneous drugs so he can flush them down the toilet before Jim Hopper busts the door down.

And even though you’re not the drug dealer who’s had cops on their ass since they were fifteen in this equation, you look a whole lot more terrified than Eddie does.

Your eyes go wide and the whites of them swim with terror as you launch yourself off of his lap. You don’t spare another glance back at him, not even when you nearly trip over yourself when you shove your sneakers on your feet and shuffle out of the room. He’s forced to follow behind you like a confused puppy as you bound through the trailer at lightning speed. 

The haste of your movements startles even Wayne, who halts mid-puff of his cig when you’re in and out of the living room before he can blink. The opening squeak of the screen door and metal slamming against metal is the only thing that punctuates your exit.

“Would it kill you to answer your damn phone every once in a while?” the powerful timbre of Jim Hopper’s angry voice, of which only the man himself could pull off, is muffled until Eddie cautiously slinks onto the porch behind you. 

He finds the chief standing beside the Cruiser he’s parked sideways. The door of it is still flung open. A distant beeping sounds from the ignition. 

He’s still got on the pressed khakis of his uniform — complete with the golden badge pinned to his chest, darkened sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and flat-brimmed hat on his head. Even with the majority of his face covered, it does little to hide the anger that radiates off of him like a hot stove eye.

You remain on the porch, shifting your weight on your feet at the top of the steps. “Okay, Hopper, just listen to me for a second—”

“Three days!” he shouts over you, not deterred by your composed nature. “I have been calling you… for three days! Seventy-two hours. No answer!”

Eddie decides to speak up from behind you despite his better judgment. “Yeah, uh, that was kinda my fault,” he confesses with an awkward laugh. “Wouldn’t let her hang up the phone—”

“I’ll deal with you in a second,” Jim interjects firmly and without thinking. He goes back to berating you with an admirable finesse. “Buckley wanted my head on a pike when I wouldn’t file a missing person’s report in the first twenty-four hours, but seventy-two? She was gonna kill me!”

Rather than argue with him, like every fiber of your being so desperately wants to, you make the difficult choice to concede with a heavy sigh. Because you don’t doubt that Robin was on his ass the second she realized you weren’t answering your phone or at your apartment when she and Steve dropped by.

She did tend to be on the overprotective side, after all, which obviously paired well with her melodramatic disposition.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’ve just been… busy.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the one before,” the man answers bitterly.

“It’s different, Hopper!”

“I’ve heard the one before, too!”

Eddie can only assume that the both of you are communicating telepathically, what with the way your synchronized glares seem to say a thousand words (probably every curse imaginable, if he had to guess) without your mouths ever moving once. 

He stands on the outskirts of it all, feeling a bit stuck in the thorniness of such a tense silence, like any slight movement might cut him.

Jim moves slowly, akin to a creeping snake, as his hands raise to remove the glasses from his face. Their lack reveals the ice-cold glare that was previously hiding beneath them.

“Get in the car—” 

“—No,” you reject just as the direction leaves his mouth because you knew it was coming.

Jim inhales sharply and smacks his lips against his teeth, like a father whose child is most ardently testing his patience. He plants his work boot in the gravel and his hand on his hips. His steel gaze goes far off for a moment before flitting back to you again.

“…Get in the car or I put you in handcuffs.”

Your breath hitches at the threat. You squint over at him. “You wouldn’t.”

Jim smiles at you, but it’s more threatening than anything else. “We both know that I would.”

Eddie’s eyes flit between the both of you. He can tell that Hopper’s serious and that you’re trying to decide whether or not to call his bluff, with your arms crossed defensively over your chest and lips pursed in a tight line.

You ultimately decide not to. Because Hopper has, in fact, done that before. And even though the circumstances are very, very different, you wouldn’t put it past him to do it again. So you all but stomp your foot like a protesting child and spin on your heel to storm back inside the trailer.

Eddie’s nervous gaze flits between your disappearing form and the storm cloud of a police chief standing in his driveway. When their eyes lock, he realizes he should probably say something. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder and stammers, “I should— I should probably…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He catches the front door before it shuts and slithers through the crack of it to follow in behind you.

“Wait, was he— was he being serious about that?” Eddie wonders once you’re back in his bedroom.

It feels a lot less cozy than it did minutes before, less like the bubble of refuge that you thought nobody could pierce and more like a lonely space that feels entirely too empty. You pluck your things scattered around his room, and it starts to feel less and less like home with parts of you gone from it.

“I don’t know,” you answer within a sigh as you collect your cardigan from the back of his desk chair and shrug the thing back over your shoulders again.

“But it’s happened before?”

“Yeah. Once. When I was…” you confess quietly, then trail off. You get your bag from his nightstand and haphazardly shove your scrunchie, sunglasses, and chapstick into the bottom of it. “…When I was in a bad way— it doesn’t matter now.”

Eddie so desperately wants to pry.

He’d wanted to make a joke before, about the handcuffs — something less than tasteful about them and you and Hopper and some good ol’ freaky deaky that you'd scold him for after. But he decides not to now because you sound so strangely solemn about the whole thing, as though it was a story you buried deep with the intent of never bringing it up again.

“You don’t have to go with him if you don’t want to, you know that, right?”

“Of course, I do,” you scoff at his worries, not nearly as threatened by Jim as the rest of Hawkins. You move to stand in front of him in the center of his room and meet his furrowed brows with a soft grin. “He’s not gonna do anything, he’s just pissed. He’ll berate me on the drive back to my apartment and then it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

That seems to please Eddie well enough, though he’s still a bit disheartened at your leaving.

“I guess we couldn’t keep spending time together like this, huh?” he teases lightly, like the realization of it doesn’t make his chest ache. “Sorta forgot about the rest of the world… whatever that is.”

“It was fun while it lasted,” you tell him with a shrug and a whimsical sigh.

“Wait for me, will ya?” he jokes, if only to make you laugh and to feel like he’s stuck in some sickly sweet ending of a romcom for a couple moments more. 

You roll your eyes at his dramatics but let him wrap you in his arms anyway. His hands find purchase on your elbows, thumbs rubbing soothingly along the outsides of them. “How about a kiss, then?” he offers when the urge to feel you because too great to bear. “For our ten-minute anniversary and all?”

“You never have to ask me, Eds,” you assure with a laugh. You rise to the tips of your toes and he meets you halfway. 

Home is in your mouth. It’s warm and cozy and safe there. It’s easily the most familiar place he’s ever known, with your bottom lip nestled between his own. He feels homesick when you part from him. 

“You’re not mad at me?” he wonders quietly, feeling a bit like a cowering child from where he stands in front ahead of you — eased only when you shake your head almost immediately in response.

“No. I couldn’t be even if I wanted to, I think.”

“Okay. That’s… That’s good.”

“We can talk about it later, if you want. After I get lurch off my ass.”

He tries not to smile too wide, but it’s hard not to beam every time he looks at you. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll… I’ll see you around, I guess?” he stumbles over himself, having forgotten how to say goodbye to you. 

It’s equally as hard for you too, it seems, because you nod at him and turn to leave and then realize once you’re halfway down the hallway that you might not survive if you don’t kiss him again. 

So you turn and rush back, catching Eddie with his back turned and spinning him around so you can peck him again. You feel his cheeks heat beneath your palm and his sigh against your cupid’s bow and his lips melt against your own.

You etch each tingling sensation into the edges of your mind in the hope that you won’t drive yourself completely insane when you inevitably start to miss him like crazy. 

You focus on that and on him when you find Hopper and his stupid proud dad smirk. It’s the only reason you don’t punch him in the jaw and tuck and roll out of the Cruiser when the silence becomes so slowly insufferable.

You’re starting to think Jim left the radio off on purpose. You’ve never known the guy not to drive around without the strumming of an old-school folk song to accompany him. You figure it must be some sort of intimidation tactic, to make you so uncomfortable that you break. You’re a lot closer to that than either of you realize.

You spare a glance over at the man next to you. He hasn’t looked at you once since you get in the car. He’s got one hand at three o’clock on the steering wheel and the other with its elbow propped up on the door as he scratches at the stubble on his jaw. 

He’s too at ease not to be bothered. This is obviously some kind of front he’s putting on to conceal his inner irritation.

You give on the lecture you’d been trying to prepare yourself for and exhale sharply through your nose. Your fingers fidget on your thighs as you kick your restless feet up on the console. 

“Get your feet off the dash,” Jim scolds without missing a beat. 

You huff and obey. “Okay, this is crazy— can’t you just yell at me already?”

He barely wastes a second.

“I cannot believe you right now!” he seethes through gritted teeth, stewing in a dad-like sort of anger.

“It was three days, Hopper!”

“You know what happened the last time no one heard from you for three days?” he shouts back. 

You tip your head back against the seat and groan. You should’ve known he was going to play that card. 

He waves an accusatory finger between the both of you. “You and me— we had a deal, remember? You let me check in on you. You agreed to that. You visit your little high school friends, and I see you at work, so I can make sure you’re not off somewhere killing yourself.”

Hopper becomes a casualty to the tense silence he created then, when you don’t retort with some comeback of your own and force him to feel every ounce of pressure from the leaden quiet. 

He sighs a great big, too loud sigh and shifts in his seat. His softening gaze flits between you and the road. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that, okay? I just meant it, you know, figuratively. I wasn’t… trying to be mean.”

“When have you ever cared about being mean?” you monotone.

“I don’t,” he assures. “I’m just not trying to hurt your feelings, alright? Jeez…”

You try not to take too much pride in the man’s half-apology, though you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a little bit rewarding.

Jim Hopper’s practically an iceberg. He only melts for his kid, Joyce Boyers, and you, apparently. 

It’s why he’s always so damn protective over you. He’s developed this sort of deep-rooted urge to keep you safe after watching you make every wrong decision a human being could possibly make. And when you mess up, because you do mess up, he feels like it’s partially his fault — that, if he’d done more, he could’ve kept you safer. 

It makes you feel like a burden most of the time, but you know it’s above yourself and mostly out of your control.

You’d known of each other for a while before you really met, because a troublemaker and police chief in such a small town are bound to. But somewhere down the line, he found you in a valley of mourning for someone that was still alive and you found him in a black hole of grief for someone who wasn’t. The empty and infinite voids within you both were stitched slowly together all over again. 

Jim Hopper was the dad you never had. You were the daughter he couldn’t.

And you thought something might change after he adopted El. You figured he might forget about you because it wasn’t like it was his job to watch after you or anything. Playing pretend always felt nice, but you knew it wasn’t real. 

It was to Jim, though, who’d developed a similar adoration for you as the one he had for Sara. He hasn’t been able to forget about you in the same way he hasn’t been able to forget about her. 

Every night, after he’s scrubbed the day off his body and washed it all down with a lukewarm beer, he lays on his pull-out bed in the small living room of his cabin and goes through a checklist in his head. 

He makes sure that he’s checked on El and reminds himself to wake up early to make her breakfast the next morning before he brings Joyce coffee at Melvald’s — Joyce. She always comes next on his list, always right after El, and then you. 

He forces himself to calm down when his blood pressure inevitably spikes at the thought of not having heard from you all day. He reminds himself that he saw you at work on his lunch break and that he’ll see you again tomorrow.

Jim hums to himself as he settles more comfortably into his springy cot, deciding that he’ll try a new wine he can’t pronounce when he sees you at Enzo’s the next day and that he’ll drink it while he rambles about Joyce or El’s new boyfriend.

He drifts to sleep with thoughts of Sara.

You’re as ingrained into his mind as every other person he’s grown to love.

He stopped worrying about never getting you out a long time ago. Like a tomato sauce stain on a dress shirt, he knows he’ll never get you out of his head. He knows even more so that he doesn’t want to — no matter how much you annoy him or how angry you make him when you don’t answer his calls.

“Sorry…” you murmur and swallow down whatever mundane argument you could’ve spewed then, at the result of his sudden warmth. You turn to gaze out the window and trace the edges of the puffy white clouds with your eyes. “I wasn’t thinking about that — the… deal, or whatever… Honestly, I was a little too busy being happier than I think I’ve ever been in my life, so…”

You don’t see the dramatic eye roll he gives you in response, but you can’t miss the hearty groan that spills from his mouth. 

“What?” you laugh in response. “Have you never been a kid in love before?”

It’s almost jarring how he goes from huffy to concerned in a fraction of a second. His head snaps over to you, jaw clenched and eyes suddenly stern and swimming with a lingering fear. 

“Love?” he repeats like he must’ve heard you wrong. “Love— That’s— That’s what this is?”

You shrug. “I don’t know… Maybe…”

His eyes flutter shut for a moment. “Please don’t tell me you’ve said that to each other yet. This guy was just a crush four days ago.”

“No, Hopper. We haven’t. I mean, he literally just told me he was a virgin, so I don’t think we’re even close to—”

“A virgin?” Jim echoes, voice high-pitched and giddy. He beams at you from beneath his bushy mustache and slaps you a little too hard on your arm when he laughs. “Shit, teacup. Are you runnin’ out of options over there or somethin’?”

You twist your body to hit him back harder with your right hand. “It’s not funny, Hopper,” you scold. “He’s nice.”

“You said that about Hargrove once—”

“This is different,” you monotone before the words have the chance to leave his mouth.

“Yeah? How do you know?”

The question stumps you for a moment because you don’t know — you can’t.

You’d never admit it out loud, but Hopper was right; you’re still not quite sure how you ever could’ve thought that Billy Hargrove was a good guy, but you did. You felt a similar feeling of elation with him as you do now with Eddie, an otherworldly sort of happiness that makes you feel like you’re the only person it’s ever happened to.

And here you are now, sometime later and reveling in the aftermath, still gluing pieces of your shattered heart together.

You treat love like a drug. You use and use and use until it stops being a fun thing and becomes a crutch you can’t live without. That’s always when it starts to hurt you, but you’re in too deep to stop craving it.

And you know it’s bound to happen all over again, but you have to believe Eddie’s different or else you might as well fall into the deep pit of despair you’ve been trying this whole time to crawl out of. 

He makes you happy, really really happy, and you’d rather gamble that he hurts you than give it all without even trying.

“I… don’t,” you conclude after a few moments.

Jim seems surprised by your admission, shooting you an incredulous look with his untamed brows raised to his hairline.

You meet his look with a wavering grin. “But he makes me really happy, Hop. Like… It feels like it should be illegal or something. He makes me feel so good my heart hurts. There’s like this—”

“Ugh,” the man grumbles in disgust, sullen all over again.

“I didn’t mean it like that, you weirdo,” you chide.

A grin twitches beneath his mustache in response. “I know you didn’t… ‘Cause Munson’s a virgin.”

“Oh my god!” you groan. “I didn’t even mean to tell you that, okay? Leave him alone— and a swear to god, Hopper, if you make fun of him—”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it, alright? I mean, he’s got the expert around to show him the ropes— ow!” You cut off his stupid joke and accompanying sardonic grin with a fist to his shoulder.

Steve and Robin tend to be quite the formidable duo.

They’ve barely got a brain cell to rub together between them, but there’s still something strangely intimidating about them when they’re both angry. It feels a bit like they’re your I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed parents, and you’re the scolded child taking your lashings in the form of a lecture.

It’s what you feel like now, sitting across from them in your designated booth at Benny’s Burgers — the one by the window in the corner. It’s far enough away from the bustle of the entrance but close enough still to gossip about the assholes you used to know from high school when they walk through the door. 

“You scare the shit out of us when you go AWOL like that, you know?” Steve confesses, still soft even though you know there’s a more upset part of himself he keeps hidden for now.

His chocolate gaze flits between you and the pile of fries in the middle of the table that the three of you share. He finds the one covered in the most salt and pops it into his mouth.

“AWOL?” you echo with a distant laugh when you realize how much he sounds like Hopper. “It was three days.”

“Yeah, and you fell off the face of the earth,” Robin retorts, half-muffled through the hearty gulp of strawberry milkshake starting to melt in her mouth.

“You guys are acting like I went halfway across the country,” you scoff. “I was with Eddie. At his trailer.”

“Exactly!”

Steve’s face contorts mid-bite. “Wait, you were with him? The freak?”

It makes you roll your eyes. He’d been too busy hopelessly flirting with the waitress at the counter to hear the entire recounting of your absence to Robin, though it was more of you gushing about it than anything else.

“Yep,” you answer.

“You skipped out on movie night to be with… Eddie Munson?” he reiterates for himself, as though there was any correlation between watching the same three movies while gorging on greasy junk food with your best friends and falling more in love with a guy you were already head over heels for as he tried to explain away the unopened box of condoms collecting dust underneath his bed.

Both are equally fun in their own ways, but totally totally different.

“How did you survive without me, Steven?” you joke back in response.

“He didn’t,” Robin quips.

“So… what? You guys just went on some kinda bender? I don’t get it. Did you just fuck the entire time or something?”

“Well, contrary to popular belief, I can actually spend time with someone and not fuck them—”

“Okay, that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“And to answer your question — no, we didn’t fuck,” you confess, then elaborate more slowly, a tad bit awkwardly. “Because he told me today that… he is a… virgin.”

Your words seem to settle over each of them differently. Robin stills with her lips wrapped around the candy-cane striped straw then furrows her brows, as though their meaning hits her a few seconds after the fact.

Steve, meanwhile, goes entirely agape in an amazed sort of shock. His eyes go wide, his brows fly up and hide beneath the bangs that hang down over his forehead, and his jaw falls open. And then he starts to smile, a subtle hint of a grin on the corners of his pink lips, like he finds it funny.

“I knew it,” he murmurs to himself.

“…Why are you smiling like that?”

His smirk widens. “That freak said he screwed Vicki Carmichael senior year. I knew he was lying.”

“And why do you look so proud of yourself, exactly?” Robin asks him.

“Because now I feel less bad about never fucking her,” the boy explains like it’s obvious. He set his elbows on the table and gestures wildly with his hands. “I always thought the freak one-upped me because she, like, never gave me the time of day after Hargrove came along, you know? But… It’s good to know that I’m still king.”

His delighted grin is met with confused looks from both you and Robin, who look upon him with twisted eyebrows and squinted eyes. 

“Are you not aware of how strange everything that comes out of your mouth is?” you ask him, only partly joking.

“At least that settles why he wouldn’t let you give him a blow job,” the brunette girl concludes with a shrug as she slouches against the booth. “Poor guy was probably shitting bricks about it.”

You realize then that it does make sense, why he’d always been so adamant about your pleasure and never his own. Why he always touched you like you were some fragile thing he might break, and like everything was new to him. Because it was new to him. All of it.

And even though it baffles you to no end how he went his entire life without someone wanting to jump his bones (because truth be told, you’re doing a terrible job at hiding your want to do just that), the fact still remains — Eddie Munson is a virgin. 

He’s a virgin with an acute infatuation for the local slut, both of you freaks in your own right. 

It just adds more intricacy to a puzzle that already feels so complicated.

“I’ve never been with a virgin before,” you admit quietly, mostly to yourself, as you train your gaze on the straw wrapper you curl around your finger. “It’s different… Scary.”

“Why?” Robin wonders aloud.

“I don’t know. I just— I don’t know what to do now.”

“Just do what you always do,” Steve tells you like it’s that simple. He folds his arms on the table and leans in closer to you. “Experience is good. Okay? Experience is key.”

“No, it’s not that. I think I’m just… I’m scared I’m gonna treat him the way, you know, that I was treated. And I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna do that to him.”

You’re not sure when the shift started, when you stopped being a person to people. You only know that you were something less than that. Somewhere between junior and senior year, you become a plaything that anyone could do anything they wanted to with, and you were too starved for physical affection to tell them otherwise. 

You liked the attention. You liked feeling loved, even if it was only for a minute and a half, and all you had to show for it was a pool of cooling come on your belly.

Eddie’s the fragile thing now that you were then. 

He was a delicate little thing that can break so easily, something you could split in half if you wanted to. 

You don’t. 

You want so desperately to be kind, but you’re scared you won’t know how to, because no one’s ever been kind to you.

Steve reaches across the table for you, taking a wild stab at an attempt for affection after several months of being scared to touch you — he did enough of that, he thought, and he’d hurt you. But he can see the lingering ache hiding in your glazed-over eyes and feels an overwhelming urge to quell your worry. 

Five warm fingers wrap around your wrist, not too tight or too strong, just enough to stop you from cutting circulation off to the tip of your pointer finger and to remind you that he’s still there.

“Trust me,” he tells you with a sudden soft swimming in his caramel-colored eyes and a smile playing on his lips. “You couldn’t do that to anybody. Not even if you wanted to.”  

Your heart nearly stops at his words, at the sheer kindness of them, and at the way he holds you in the soft way you’re used to only Eddie holding you. Your eyes go wide when they flit up to him and then start to sting with the weight of unshed tears. 

You’re quick to blink them away though, while you playfully shrug him off and joke — “stop being so nice before I get the wrong idea, Harrington” — because it’s easier than accepting his tenderness.

Robin takes one look at his fond gaze, all gooey and dripping with honey, and then at your rolling eyes and accompanying shy grin, and groans at the softness of it all. She slides out from the confines of the booth and grumbles something about getting a refill on her milkshake.

“Some fries too, while you’re up?” Steve offers with a hopeful grin.

He’s met with the girl’s signature scowl.

“Please,” you finish for him.

Robin grins. “Anything for you,” she croons, if only to make the boy pout, before skipping off to the counter.

She leans her elbows upon the red wooden laminate top and smiles that same sickly sweet smile for Benny by the grill — no doubt trying to get her refills for free. 

Even though the bearded man seems unimpressed with her presence, you know that he’ll give them to her free of charge. He’s always had a soft spot for her, one of the only people in town who could rival his wit.

The door dings open, a familiar and high-pitched chime that often becomes more frequent as the evening progresses. This time it lets in a foreign, bitter breeze when the door swings open and closed again.

You can feel the chill from a distance — it resembles the crispness of autumn despite being comfortably settled in the middle of March. It nearly takes your breath away, prickles your skin and makes you grimace back a shiver. 

When your eyes leave Steve, a difficult feat considering he’s doing an alarmingly good impression of a walrus by sticking fries in his upper lip, you find that it wasn’t abnormally cold air at all. It was a Peter Parker spider sense form of anxiety that had felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over you.

Billy Hargrove used to turn heads when he walked into a room. 

Now he just sucks all the air out of it.

And it’s not like you haven’t seen him since the break up; for a while, the asshole was painted on the backs of your eyelids — he all but haunted your consciousness. You’ll see him around town on occasion, in his sunglasses and jean jacket and too-tight denim pants, while he struts around Main Street with his new girlfriend (otherwise known as, his flavors of the month).

You think this is the first time you’ve been in the same room as him since your split, though. It feels like it must be with the way your throat starts to tighten and you forget how to breathe. 

All at once, you’re scrambling for an exit. It’s like Billy’s a fire and his smoke is rapidly filling your lungs. Your legs start to tremble when your adrenaline spike. Your brain tells you to get out as quickly as you can before he burns you.

Steve notices the look of fear flood your features like a dark storm cloud. You were laughing just seconds before the door opened, equal parts with him and at him, but now you just looked terrified — like a child who’s just spotted a boogeyman in her closet.

He turns in the booth to find what haunted thing has just caught your eye and finds that it’s worse than any monster you could conjure up. It’s Billy fucking Hargrove, with his pretty hair and his pretty smile and his pretty girl under his arm.

His presence filled targeted, almost. Like he chose to come to this diner, on this day and at this time just to fuck with the group of you.

“Don’t even look at him,” Steve advises when he turns back to you. “Look at me, okay? He’s not even worth it. That asshole doesn’t deserve to ruin our day.”

And you try to listen to him. You try really, really hard to let him change that subject to the cold fries or Robin taking too long or a combination of the two, but you can’t focus on him. You’re already so overwhelmed at the sight of Billy that you can’t focus on anything else but him. 

You settle on the fact that you might just have to drag Steve and Robin out by their wrists because you can’t sit in this booth any longer, and you definitely aren’t hungry anymore.

And that’s when he spots you.

Your eyes lock and you freeze, immediately averting your gaze but catching the sudden sparkle in his own as he grins a sly, sadistic grin.

“No way,” you hear him say with a laugh under his breath. The sound of his voice makes you tense. You hadn’t realized how at peace you’d been all this time without having to hear it. Now it feels like so many little needles piercing your skin.

“Fancy seeing you guys here,” he greets after he’s made a b-line for your booth and dragged Vicki Carmichael along with him. He smiles with all of his pearly whites while he smacks pungent wintergreen gum between them. 

When he slides into the booth beside you, he does so without invitation, and forces Vicki to slink in next to Steve.

And like it wasn’t already awkward enough, you know Vicki — like, know her, know her. There was a drunken makeout at a Halloween party in ’82. Then a one night stand with her brother before he left for college in ’83. And then her Tom Selleck clone of a father at a sleepover for her eighteenth birthday in ’85. 

You’re not exactly proud of it, but you’ve gotten a rather hefty taste of her family tree, and the fact that both of you know it makes it that much more uncomfortable.

“We’re kinda busy here, Hargrove,” Steve tells him when he notices how comfortable he’s making himself in your booth.

“Ooh… Is this a little date?” Billy teases with a grin.

Steve’s face falls. “…No.”

“Oh, right,” he nods, though the sardonic lilt in his voice tells you that he already knew the answer. He crosses his arms on the tabletop and turns to look at you with eyes bluer than any ocean. They flicker up and down your form. Suddenly, you feel self-conscious in your baggy jean and tank top duo.

“You’ve been seeing that guy, haven’t you? What’s his name again? The, uh— the freak?”

“His name is Eddie,” Steve answers for you, defending him because you can’t find the words to.

“That’s it,” Billy snaps his fingers, then points. He nudges you with his shoulder. The familiar feel of his jean jacket against your skin makes you wince. “God, you must be runnin’ out of steam over there, huh? I mean… the freak? Seriously? You couldn’t do any better than that?”

The jokes were tolerable coming from Jim and Steve and Robin — they weren’t funny by any means, but you could stomach them because you knew they were jokes. But this? This was just to hurt you. And it works too easily because Billy knows exactly how to break you. He knows all the wires to cut and buttons to push because the puzzle of shattering your psyche is one he memorized long ago.

“He’s actually a really nice guy,” you manage through a tight throat, still staring at your fidgeting hands.

“Well, that’s good,” he hums like you need his approval. “It’s about time, right?”

You huff and choose to entertain him despite your better judgment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He only shrugs. “I don’t know... Just, you know, that found a guy willing to settle for you. That’s all.”

“Settle?” you repeat, trying to laugh despite how tiny your voice sounds.

“You know what I mean, c’mon,” the blonde boy chuckles. “Sluts are fun and all, but they’re not the kinda girls you wanna settle down with. Steve knows what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Steve monotones quickly and without thinking, gaze hardened and jaw clenched. “And you need to leave.”

“I”m hungry, Billy,” Vicki whines, feeling every ounce of the tension surrounding her — like syrup or quicksand. She slides her permed bangs from her eyes and tucks a rogue strawberry strand behind her ear in a nervous tick. “Can’t we just get something to eat?”

“Alright, alright. I know when I’m not wanted,” Billy chuckles.

You grumble bitterly under your breath. “Apparently not…”

“I’ll see you around, Harrington,” Billy singsongs with a grin that wreaks of insincerity while his girlfriend slides out from the booth. He turns to look at you and squints. “Don’t be a stranger, alright? Matter of fact, point Munson my way, and I’ll give him a few pointers.”

You’re uncowed by his offer and angered by his mention of Eddie. Your eyes are stern and unwavering as you meet his gaze for the first time since he sat down beside you. 

“I think you could learn a thing or two from him, actually,” you retort, words sounding sweeter than the venom lingering behind them.

Billy’s grin only widens, impressed by your arguing. “Ooh… I forgot about the mouth you had on you, sweetheart.”

The use of the nickname makes you cringe. It doesn’t sound nearly as fulfilling as it does when it comes from Eddie. Now, it just sounds artificial — degrading.

He leans in close to you like he’s about to tell you a secret and splays his arm along the back of the booth behind you. The nicotine on his breath makes you grimace; it’s intoxicating when it comes from Eddie, disgusting from the boy sitting next to you. 

His eyes are bluer so up close, darker than you remember them being, and you notice he’s trimmed his usual stubble to a patchy mustache. He looks like the grown-up version of the boy you used to know, visually more mature but still the same in his way.

“When he gets bored of you — because, let’s be serious, he will get bored of you — you know where to find me,” Billy murmurs to you, a cynical smirk on the edges of his lips. “I’ll make sure you stay nice and broken in for the next dozen guys that want a taste—”

Steve can’t hear a word from where he sits across the booth, but he’s fuming with fists clenched under the table anyway. He hates how close Billy is to you, more so how uncomfortable you look with the proximity and how his words make you flinch. 

“Alright, you need to leave,” he blurts. “Now.”

Before the blonde could respond with a quip of his own, Robin all but teleports to the head of the table. She’s standing in front of the four of you suddenly, carrying a basket of fries and a strawberry milkshake and wearing a frown on her face.

“You’re in my seat, dickwad,” she monotones, even though she hadn’t been sitting next to you before. She’s not the least bit threatened by the Californian douchebag.

Billy smiles up at her anyway. “I was wondering where the third musketeer was! Still a carpet muncher, Buckley?”

“Happily.”

“What do ya say me and you head up to Lover’s Lake later?” the boy offers despite his date shifting awkwardly a few feet away. It’s a joke, for reasons that are more than obvious, and that’s what makes it so unbearably unfunny. 

He slinks out from the booth. The lack of his warmth is strangely comforting and you’re able to breathe for the first time in five minutes. He stretches his back out when he stands to his full height in front of Robin, then shrugs with his hands splayed on his hips.

“Maybe you just need some good dick. I mean… we’re gonna die anyway, right?”

“I’d rather,” she quips with a rouge-tinted smile.

The way it makes him laugh is startling. He finds a strange humor in being rejected — in most things, really. You still haven’t forgotten the cackles that left his bloodied mouth when Steve delivered blow after blow to the boy’s face in the middle of his living room, like it was all a fun game to him.

That was, of course, before Billy got the upper hand and nearly killed Steve that night. He laughed about it that too, until Max knocked him out with a baseball bat.

He’s got the same grin on his face now as he did then when he turns to look at you. A pink and pretty smirk, just wide enough to reveal the dimple in his left cheek. It’s nothing short of taunting, like he’s mocking you without having to say anything at all.

“Don’t be a stranger, alright?” Billy repeats. He keeps smacking his gum between his teeth and winks at you before spinning on the heel of his boot. He guides Vicki with him to the counter with a hand on the back pocket of her jeans.

Even when Robin slides in next to you and effectively pierces the bubble of tension that had already started to shrink with Billy’s leaving, you still find it hard to breathe. You have to keep reminding yourself, forcing oxygen in and out with wobbling breaths through your nose, or else you just stop altogether.

The other two move on rather quickly, having no trouble finding their voices again after he’s gone. Their words are muffled, though, like they’re underwater.

“I forgot what an asshole he was,” Robin grumbles.

“Well, I didn’t,” Steve retorts, eyes scanning the basket of fries for the most strategic pick of the bunch. “I can still barely breathe through my nose.”

“That’s because you didn’t go to a doctor, dingus.”

“Because I didn’t need a doctor, Robin.”

“Yeah, because being concussed three times in two years is so healthy—”

Your eyes act like magnets as they stay locked on Billy’s form. He leans in closer to Vicki to tell her something, then pats her once on the ass before walking towards the exit again. The door dings when he swings it open. Through the window, you catch him pulling out a red and white pack of cigarettes — the same brand of Marlboro Reds he’s been smoking since he was in middle school.

“You okay?” you hear Steve say, but it sounds too far away for you to realize he’s talking to you.

Robin nudges you with her shoulder to jog you from your stupor. You blink hard once and then turn to her with wide eyes. “What?”

“You doing alright over there?” the girl wonders.

“Yeah,” your answer is too quick and too high-pitched to be true. “Fine.”

“Like, fine as in you’re actually fine, or fine as in, if I leave you alone for too long, I’m gonna find you living under a bridge like a troll?”

You roll your eyes at her. “Fine as in, if someone bums me a cigarette, I’ll be good as new.”

Steve huffs when you hold out the palm of your hand toward him. He’s the only one of you who smokes recreationally enough to carry a lighter and pack of cigs with him. You swear he only keeps it with him because the weight of them makes him feel cool. You’re grateful for them now, though, and for the escape they unexpectedly provide you.

His fingers are warm when they brush your hand. The metal zippo he drops in the center of it is far colder and carries a comforting sort of weight to it. He thumbs a cigarette from the pack for you, and you take it with a sardonic smile and a sickly sweet “thank you, Stevie.” 

Robin gets out of the booth to let you slide out of it.

The door chimes again, this time over your head when you open it. 

Fresh, spring air nearly knocks you on your ass when it hits you for the first time. You realize then, that you’d forgotten to tell yourself to breathe and now your vision’s all swimmy. The cool breeze tries its hardest to quell your swelling anger, but you’re still at a simmering boil. Fists clenched over the lighter and cig duo in your palm and your sneakers slapping angrily against the cracked pavement.

That’s what signals your arrival, the raging stomps that echo in the alleyway Billy takes his smoke break in. 

The boy takes a puff of his cigarette and smirks on the exhale at the sight of you. All he needs is one glance to see how angry he’s made you. It’s an innocent, childlike sort of rage that’s got you all scrunched face and red — a heartbroken girl on a war path.

“I knew you couldn’t resist me, sweetheart,” he taunts with his signature sarcastic smile. He holds his arms at his sides, like he’s waiting for some kind of embrace from you. “You used to be like that all the time — all over me, you know? Clingy.”

“You know what you used to be?” you ask him once you’ve planted yourself a few feet away from him, fists shaking at your sides in a nearly overwhelming mixture of rage and apprehension.

“What’s that?”

“Nice! You used to be nice! Or do you not remember that?” you wonder rhetorically. Your anger fades slowly, an ebbing tide, as a reminiscent sadness eclipses your fury — a flood of blue in all your red. 

The sharp frown between your brows crumbles and so does your clenched jaw as your harsh features crumple like a balled-up piece of paper. You look upon the man that broke your heart with all the shattered pieces of it.

“You used to let me sleep over at your place when I was too scared to sleep alone at mine, and you’d bring me food when I told you I hadn’t eaten all day, and you’d take me on drives when you knew I hadn’t left my apartment in days,” you ramble in a single breath, gesticulating wildly with your hands — waving them at him and at you and the still air between. They fall hopelessly to your sides. 

“You used to be so sweet, Billy…” you conclude with a wavering breath. Your chest trembles on the inhale as you straighten out your shoulders and lift your chin, trying your best not to look as defeated as you feel. “And you know what you are now?”

Billy grins that stupid grin at you, the one that almost looks kind. Almost. It’s still soft in all its insincerity, like a parent entertaining their kid that’s gone on some meaningless tangent.

“No, sweetheart,” he answers after a beat. “What am I?”

“Not nice.”

He scoffs out a laugh.

“You used to tell me, all the time, how scared you were about ending up like you’re dad—” he tenses at the mention of the man, of his own monster in his own closet. “—He’d beat you black and blue every night, and I’d bandage all your cuts and put makeup on you when you begged, so you could go out and pretend like everything was normal. And you know what? You’re just like him!”

Billy doesn’t cower when you walk closer to him. He’s got no reason to be afraid of you, but your words hit him in a place far deeper than a thousand bloodied fists.

“What he did to you, is exactly what you do to me… Or do you know see that?” you don’t wait for a sarcastic reply, mostly because you wouldn’t see the indicators of it through the tears that blur your vision. “You’re not punching me, but it feels like you are. You break me over and over and over and I have to pretend like everything’s just normal and that we—”

“Real mature of you. To bring out the dad-card,” he interjects, if only to stop your ramblings so that he might not have to hear the truth that comes with them.

“You used to he nice,” you repeat, you agonize, you deflate. “Or… Or did you never use to be?”

The shell of your mind answers for you, paints itself with all the memories you’ve been trying like hell to forget for the past six months. It’s easier to pretend the bad things aren’t real than unravel all the reasons why they were bad to begin with, you find.

The negative memories come together like renaissance paintings — dark and gloomy and blotted with too realistic tears and spatters of blood. The oil stains the backs of your eyelids, destined to remain there forever like paintings in museum that’ll stand the test of time if you nurse them well enough.

You hadn’t yet been able to forget the screams and the cracks of fists colliding with bone. They tend to keep you up at night, even when you squeeze your eyes shut and beg for your memory to be wiped away completely. 

Billy crouches over Steve’s chest and pummels wholehearted punches to the boy’s face, never tiring in their force, even well after the boy goes limp underneath him. You beg for him to stop while trying like hell to shield Max from the sight of it all. 

For a while, you’d blamed yourself for it — for Max being there in the first place and for Steve’s cuts and bruises. 

You’d taken the girl and sought refuge in the Harrington home after witnessing a rather heated fight between Billy and his father. There was a sudden urge within you to take her far away from it before it ended how it always did — in weeping cuts and salty tears and insincere apologies when the cops were called.

But you made it worse anyway. 

For Max, for Steve. 

And you apologized profusely for it after, cried to the boy in his bathroom while you nursed his cuts like you were the one who put them there. 

When he told you it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t believe him. Not until now. Not until you realized that Billy had always been angry — always raging with an ocean of fear and grief and violence.

When he fought with his sister, you thought it was normal, that that’s just what siblings did. But the way she cried to you after couldn’t have been normal. Neither could the unearthly fury that washed over Billy like a riptide when he found out you and Max had sought safety in Steve The Hair Harrington — angered that it was Steve and that he couldn’t be that for the both of you.

And then there was the fights. The yelling and screaming and crying fights that felt like the end of the world every single time. The kind of fights you shouldn’t be having when you’re eighteen. You thought that maybe there was some normalcy in the cheating and the secrecy and Billy’s accompanying assholery because that was all you’d ever known.

Or maybe because you had to tell yourself that was normal in relationships because you didn’t want your’s to end. Billy was the first guy to give a damn about you in ways that went beyond just sex. How were you supposed to just give that up?

But then there’s Eddie — Eddie The Freak Munson, who was really just sunshine wrapped up in leather jackets and wild hair and chunky rings and metal music. He makes you happy. The sort of happy that makes you suspicious because something bad has to counteract all the goodness he makes you feel. 

Maybe that’s what this was. 

Seeing Billy after having wrapped yourself in a blanket of Eddie’s warmth made you see somehow more clearly. He loves on you so much that it’s made a mockery of everything else. 

Whatever you had with Billy wasn’t normal, it was a goddamn shit show. He loved you when it was convenient and then had you believing it was the real thing, that you wouldn’t find it anywhere else, when you tried to leave him. 

It was a lie, all of it.

The realization makes you falter.

“Oh, god…” you sigh, voice fragile like cracking glass. “Maybe you never used to be…”

For the first time ever, you see Billy’s grin shake. The edges of it flitter, like he’s fighting to keep the corners quirked up. And his eyes have gone a lighter shade of blue, the way they always did when he blinked back angry tears as he talked about his father.

It isn’t rage glassing his eyes now. It’s something sadder, but still as real — something you never got from him in the two years you were together.

He tries, still, to cover it all up. He smacks his lips against his teeth, sympathetically. “Sorry it took you this long to figure that out.”

The laugh you exhale then is heavy with sadness. Your smile is far away and so is your gaze as you stumble back from him. You turn your head to the edge of the alley where mom’s with strollers and people in fancy suits bustle on the sidewalk and keep your eyes on the strangers that whiz by you’ll probably never see again. 

“This is… This is pointless,” you murmur. His lean form is blurry through the burning tears you blink away. “Every time I see you, it’s just more bullshit so let’s just— let’s just leave each other alone, okay?”

Billy takes a puff from his cigarette. When he sighs, white smoke billows from his plump, pink lips. “That’s a shame… I was just thinking that you were the most interesting you’d ever been.”

The ebbing tide that had just left you rushes back in a bubbling scarlet wave. His words don’t make you sad anymore, they just make you angry all over again because you know you don’t deserve them. And you’re not entirely sure why he’s chosen you to antagonize out of all the other girls who’d made the mistake of falling for him, but you’re too far past the point of not caring to ask.

“Bother me again and I tell Chief Hopper,” you threaten even though you don’t feel very threatening just now. “I know you’re not scared of me, but you’d be stupid to be scared of him.”

“Why’s that?” he wonders before sticking the half-gone stick between his lips again.

“Because he runs Hawkins. And he fucking hates you—” for what you did to me, you almost say. You swallow the words down like bile before they have the chance to spew out. “And… And be nice to Vicki. Okay? She’s too good for you. Don’t do to her what you did to me.”

Your plea for another is the last thing you say to Billy before you turn away from him. You wouldn’t be upset if it was the last thing you ever said to him. You’re grateful for the resounding silence that follows. It’s nothing but the sound of your receding footsteps and the soles of his shoes scrapping the concrete as he snuffs out his cigarette. 

There is no snarky remark or insincere plea — just two people who used to love each other that have no idea to exist together anymore. 

When you step outside the brick confines of the alleyway, you feel as though a fraying string that had always connected the both of you had been finally cut.

It allows you to take a deep breath in for the first time in months. A lungful of fresh air that cleanses you, body and mind.

And when you catch Steve and Robin idling at the corner and doing a terrible job of pretending like they hadn’t just been eavesdropping, you don’t get upset or angry with them — you don’t feel much of anything, really.

You just hand the boy his lighter and unused cigarette and let them comfort you on the drive back to your apartment.

A misery sandwich. That’s what Robin calls the three of you and the heaping pile you lay in. 

Your queen-sized bed is in no way meant to accomodate three moderately sized adults, but you make it work anyway, like you always do.

Steve lays on his back, legs crossed and hands tucked under his head. Robin is on her stomach on the other end of the mattress, arms wrapped around the pillow she smushes the side of her face into. You lay between the both of them — on the both of them. Sprawled out sideways, you’ve got your head on propped up on Steve’s ribcage and your legs thrown over Robin’s thighs. 

The awkward position is the most comfortable you’ve ever been.

“I can’t believe that asshole had the nerve to show up to the diner on our day,” the boy rants. “And then sit in our booth, I mean— who does he think he is?”

Robin’s response is mostly muffled by the pillow. “I thought he left, like, forever ago.” 

“Maybe he just couldn’t stay away. It’s Hawkins, shit attracts shit, right?” Steve answers with a shrug that jostles your head slightly. It doesn’t little to knock you from your stupor, though, where you’ve been stuck for the better part of the day. You pick at the skin around your nails with little regard for how red and raging it's gone.

He notices this and thumps you on your temple — hard enough for you to feel it, gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt you. 

You turn your chin to your shoulder to look over at him. He tilts his own head to stare down at you, honey-tinted gaze somehow stern and soft at the same time. “If he bothers you again, I’ll kill him.”

You’re instantly warmed by his protective disposition. You know that he cares about you, even though you like to joke that he doesn’t. Steve hurt you once, made a promise to himself to make it up to you, and then just never left you alone. 

You’re grateful for it. 

You’re not sure who’d be the butt of every joke if he wasn’t around.

“Good to know,” you answer, nodding against his side and trying to hide the smile he gives you. You fail. “You think if he breaks your nose again, it’ll pop back into place?”

His face falls. “You’re real sweet, you know that?”

You open your mouth to respond, something along the lines of “I’m always sweet. You of all people should know that, Stevie,” before a knock sounds at the front door. It comes in the several rhythmic raps that Eddie is known to give when he’s got a tune stuck in his head. 

Apparently now, it’s the chorus to “Why Can’t This Be Love?” The Van Halen song he said he couldn’t stand before you.

Robin huffs at the sound of the muffled taps. She frowns like a child. “Who the hell…?”

“It’s just Eddie,” you affirm through a half-hearted grunt as you rise from your comfy position.

That brightens the two of them up almost immediately. Her and Steve share a look you can’t place as they grin at one another. Then they turn back to you with identical mischievous twinkles in their eyes. “Your boyfriend is here,” the former of the two singsongs.

You roll your eyes, but make no move to correct her. 

When you stand from the bed and make the short journey towards the door, you hear the patter of their feet following close behind you. 

“Gonna go all the way tonight?” Steve teases and jabs you on the shoulder. “Do you want us to leave?”

“No, nothing is happening. And yes, I think you should leave,” you monotone playfully.

Robin rushes past you suddenly and grabs the brass door handle before you’re able. She swings it open without thinking twice about it. Her sudden appearance, coupled with the fact that it isn’t you, startles the man on the other side of the door.

Eddie’s umber eyes go wide, brows raising and disappearing beneath his fluffy bangs, as his head jerks back.

“Eddie Munson,” the girl full-names the stranger she’s never spoken a word to before now. She leans against the doorway and effectively blocks the boy’s view of you. Steve, who squeezes himself in beside her, doesn’t make it any easier. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“You too, Buckley…” he wavers, trying to peer past them for any sight of you.

“Perfect timing, Eds,” you call out from behind them. “They were just about to leave.”

He’s relieved at the sound of your voice — even more so at your appearance when the two in front of you step off to the side to toe on their sneakers. 

You don’t look much different than when he saw you last. You’ve put on some makeup that’s started to smudge after the long day and changed your baggy sweatshirt for a more fitted tank top and boxers, but other than that you’re still the same. Still familiar and comforting in your way, a home away from home.

His smile is a tired one and it wobbles at the edges. “Oh, shit, am I— am I interrupting something?”

“No,” you’re quick to reassure him. “You’re saving me, actually.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Steve scoffs. “You love us.” 

The boy pulls you into a hug before he leaves, and it’s not the rarest thing in the world, but embraces like this do tend to be few and far between. He whispers  “use protection” in your ear and then a sharp “ow!” when you jab him in the ribs.

He and Robin smile kindly at Eddie when they walk by him and out the door, but waste barely a second before turning back around and grinning wildly at you. Steve flashes you a thumbs up while she mouths a cartoonish ‘good luck’ — like it’s the first time you and Eddie had ever been alone together. Like they were just on your ass about having been with him this whole time.

You usher Eddie and shut the door behind them. A quiet sort of peace settles on the apartment like a weighted blanket. The boy revels in every bit of its warmth.

Exhaustion drips from him like syrup. He’s sticky with it. His eyes have lost their usual twinkle, weighed down now with the burden of his fatigue. His face has lost most of its color, leaving a pale sheath of monotoned skin, and his hair is wilder than normal, with an unintentional sort of ruggedness to his curls.

It’s what being without you has done to him.

“You okay?” you ask him softly. It almost makes him want to cry.

“Yeah,” he answers anyway and idles in the spot where your kitchen meets your living room. “Just had a pretty shitty day. Wanted to spend time with you.”

“Me too… About the wanting to spend time with you part— and the shitty day part, too, I guess.”

Eddie smiles at your rambling, but purses it to the side to conceal it from you. “And since it is just about our…” he trails off and bends his elbow to check the watch on his wrist. “…Twelve hour anniversary, I picked us up some takeout.”

He sets the plastic bag on the counter. The red logo of Oriental Jade on the side of it makes your stomach roll with a distant hunger. You hadn’t realized how starved you were feeling after you abandoned your early dinner at Benny’s. It makes you more grateful for Eddie, who always seems to be on the same wavelength as you without even trying.

“Keep this up and we’ll be married before we hit hour twenty-four,” you joke as you rifle through the cartons — chow mein, sweet and sour chicken, dumplings, the works.

Eddie settles in next to you, propping his elbows on the countertop. “Well, I’m pretty sure the courthouse opens at nine, so… What were you thinking for the honeymoon? Hawaii? Bora Bora?”

“How about a cabin in the woods where no one can find us?”

“Hmm… Spooky. Sexy. I’m into it.”

You settle in the living room and eat on the couch while She Ra re-runs play on the television. You try to teach Eddie how to use chopsticks, though he can only work them with his non-dominant hand and all the wrong finger placements. You think it’s cute to watch him fumble with them, and you giggle about it until you’re scolding him for trying to feed Bowie some noodles. He laughs as you swat at him.

When all the containers are fully scrapped clean and tossed in the recycling bin, you migrate to the bedroom — which is perhaps too raunchy a phrase to use when the two of you only bury yourselves under the covers to talk shit.

Eddie drags out the chunky box fan you use when the air conditioner goes out in the summer — because it always goes out in the summer — and props it on the chest at the foot of your bed so the covers will billow around the both of you. “And it’s perfect because we can stay in the fort forever and not get hot,” he tells you, all giddy about it like he's a kid again.

“What if I get cold?” you retort.

Without missing a beat, he answers, “Well, lucky enough for you, I know several ways I can warm you up, sweetheart.”

He ditches his leather jacket and strips down to his boxers and settles in beside you underneath the blankets. The two of you lay shoulder to shoulder while you trace absentminded patterns on the palm of his hand and tell him about your day.

You make sure to leave out all the re-traumatizing-Billy-Hargrove bits, though. You focus mainly on the tense drive with Hopper and the small fight you’d had with Steve on the drive to the diner later that afternoon about the lyrics to Love My Way (both of you had been wrong).

Eddie tries his hardest to focus on your story and your fleeting touches, but he’s too far in his own head. You tell him all these things but he can’t stop thinking about himself — about whether or not you might’ve brought him up somewhere in between. 

He wouldn’t have blamed you, if you had. Steve and Robin are your closest friends and, for whatever reason, so is Chief Hopper, you’re bound to bring him up eventually. He was just hoping it would’ve been in a better capacity. Maybe about how kind he was or what a god he was in bed — not how he could only be one of those things because he’d never been anything in bed.

“It doesn’t make things weird between us, does it?” he wonders out of the blue.

You halt mid-sentence and turn to him with furrowed brows. “What?”

Eddie realizes then, that the first half of the conversation with you had only happened in his head. He prays that it’s too dark beneath the covers for you to see how red his cheeks get. “Just… What we talked about this morning. About me… you know…” He finds it hard to say the words. Or any of them at all.

“Why would it make things weird?”

“I don’t know. Because I wasn’t… totally honest with you, I guess? I feel a little bad about it, you know?”

“It’s okay,” you assure and turn on your side to be closer to him. Eddie stays on his back, more than happy to let you cuddle further into him. “I guess I do wish you’d said something before, though.”

His chest tightens. “I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t know how to—”

“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad!” you interject quickly when you catch the spiral of regret he was about to twist himself into. You curl tighter into his side, tossing a leg over his thigh and wrapping your hand around his bicep in an effort to melt with him. When he turns to face you, your noses nearly brush.

 “That’s not how I meant it. I just meant that, if I’d known before, I wouldn’t have… I would’ve taken things slower. I wouldn’t have been so, you know, so all over you.”

He hates how apologetic you sound. Like there was ever an ounce of him that would want to take back what happened that night at his trailer or a part of him that might hate how much you love on him.

“I liked it. I do like it.”

“Maybe we can just start over,” you offer. “Pretend like none of that ever happened.”

Eddie knows there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to forget about a single damn thing — not his cum stained jeans and how you looked so pretty washing them for him, not the feel of your tits in his mouth or you wrapped around his fingers, not how you made him blow his load all over his fist just by talking to him. 

He goes along with it anyway, though, just for you.

“Okay...” he nods slowly, then squints over at you. “You’re still my girlfriend, though, right?”

“Of course I am,” you giggle.

He grins proudly to himself. “Well then… Hope it’s not too early to have our first kiss then?”

It makes you roll your eyes because it’s such an Eddie Munson way of asking to kiss you. You told him earlier the day that he never had to ask you — in fact, you’d prefer it if he’d just kiss you out of the blue and take your breath away without you ever knowing it was coming. But there was something foreign and sweet in his little reassurances.

“Kiss me silly, Eddie Spaghetti,” you beam. He twists on his side to press tiny pecks to your smile.

It’s rather strange, you find, to kiss someone this way without the intention of it ever becoming something more. You kiss him just to kiss him — just to map the outline of his cupid’s bow and memorize the pattern of his tongue. Just to feel him, as much of him as your mouth will allow you to.

With one arm curled under his head and the other cradling your jaw, when his watch alarms — high-pitched beepbeepbeeps in quick succession — it’s sudden and close to your ear. 

Your lips click in protest when they part. His are pink and swollen and glossy with your spit. He smiles with them. “Happy twelve hour anniversary, sweetheart.”

“How long are you gonna make that stupid joke?” you laugh like your heart isn’t swelling so much you’re scared it might burst entirely.

“Uh, I was thinking… forever. Yeah. That sounds about right,” he concludes after a moment of feigned thought. He turns his watch off again and you swear you see him set for another twelve hours from now.

“Forever?” you echo.

“Uh-huh. Forever—” he presses his lips to yours once. “—And ever—” Twice. “—And ever.”

Eddie kisses you until you’re flat on your back and surrendering to each of his tiny little pecks. You twist your hands in his hair and let him love on you a little while more. You giggle when his mouth trails from your lips to your chin to your jaw to your neck. Please don’t get bored of me, you beg silently within your laughter.

I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, he answers with each kiss his sprinkles to your starved skin. How could I, when you’re the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me?

[angstbyangeline]

Hatred Within The Masterpiece

Reiner Braun x gn!reader

genre: angst

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

Renier woke up from another nightmare. He reaches out for… nothing. Just a nightmare. Porco was sitting in a chair next to Renier’s bed.

“Sounded like you were having an extra sweet dream. So I’d thought I’d like you enjoy it.”

“You saved my life back there, thanks Galliard. I owe you.”

“Don’t want your thanks. If I had inherited the armored titan nine years ago, none of this would’ve happened. My brother would still be alive because he wouldn’t have gotten eaten trying to protect you. And I saw Ymir's memories. I saw you through her memories. You acted like the tough, reliable type. Not at all like yourself.. I also saw how close you got to a certain… devil.”

Renier’s eyes widened in realization. He jumps from the bed and quickly crawls over to Porco in the chair. He grabs the hem of Porco’s shirt.

Renier pleads, “Porco, please! I know you don’t owe me a thing. But please, I never would fall in love with a devil. It had been years- I- I was bored. I wanted comfort. Please don’t report me…”

Tears welled up in Renier’s eyes as he remembered you. He couldn’t let anyone on Marley know of you. It would be shameful for him to have fallen for an ‘island devil’.

“I don’t believe you. From the memories, you seemed pretty in love. So give me one hell of a reason why I shouldn’t report you?!” Porco’s word held so much hate for Renier and his devil.

“They were the only reason I didn’t go insane on that island. Yes, they’re a devil but not like the rest of them. They’re a good person but they mean little to me now…” First part was true, the last was a lie.

Porco scoffed, Reiner contradicted himself. He hated Reiner but decided to let him slide as he just came back to Marley.

Pieck then walked in on crunches. Reminding Porco to remain kind to Reiner. She’s too kind to him. The duo had a bit of small talk while Porco walked out of the room. Pieck left the room as well after some friendly chatter.

Reiner lays back down. He grips the pocket on his shirt tightly. Them he unbuttons it and pulls out a thick folded up paper. Unfolding it to reveal a beautiful portrait of you.

The portrait drawn by one of your best friends, Jean. Reiner had bribed Jean with extra food during their cadet training days. All Reiner wanted was a drawing of you. Jean found it cheesy, annoying but accepted anyway. There was also the condition that you shouldn’t know anything about the drawing and the situation.

To play this off, Jean pretended to have you, Sasha and Connie pose. You were pretty excited to be posing and to see the finished product. But you never saw it and neither did Connie or Sasha. You honestly forgot about it after a couple days but the pair whined to Jean unapologetically to see the drawing. Forcing Jean to pull them aside and explain the situation. Jean had to explain and emphasize that they are not to spill a word about this to you. They agreed but loosely joked about the situation to themselves no matter how nearby you were. Leaving you confused often as they wouldn’t explain what was so funny.

Reiner asked for the drawing a little after the two of you started seeing each other. He wanted something of you. Knowing it wrong to engage with ‘your kind’. Some days he would tell himself that you didn’t deserve the hate Marley had for you. Others he was distant and ignored you, remembering his mission and original ideologies of Eldians. Regardless of his switch ups, you love him endlessly.

He pulls the drawing out every time he misses you. Now that you knew his secret, his chest physically ached from the pain and betray he inflicted on you.

Reiner told Bertholdt that he wanted to bring you to Marley, by force if he had to. Berthold obviously told Reiner he was insane and Marley would never accept you into their nation. Reiner created every excuse he would use to have Marley let you in. He was very certain of going through with it.

That was until you refused. When Reiner and Bertholdt transformed on the wall, Reiner’s titan held you in its hand. You screamed for Reiner to let go of you. Yelling a string of profanities and how could he have lied and betrayed everyone, how he could betray you.

Reiner wasn’t going to let you go. Holding you so tightly, you swear he had broken your rib cage. No one would have saved you, if it weren’t for Mikasa who was on the side of the wall. With her gear, she swung up and sliced the armored titan’s hand.

You fell onto the top of the wall where you were blown away a second later due to the titan transformations happening around you. You used your ODM gear to stick to the wall. After the brutal wind of the transformations, you had a clear look at the armored titan. Who was looking right back at you. You gave it the most angry heartbroken expression.

“You make me sick!”

Those were the last words you ever told Renier. The same words still ring in his head every time he thinks of you. Words that will forever pierce his heart and mark the day he left you.

He looked at the drawing. It had been a couple years since he received it. It had many wrinkles, water droplets and small tears in the corners from how much it’s endured in his front pocket.

He knew the artist hated him but he was sure the artwork hated him so much more.

[red-velvet-0w0]

*knocks on your door*

Excuse me, Your Majesty, if I may ask, do you know of Epic: The Musical? It is one of my favorites as it is based on the Greek tale called 'The Odyssey'. Perhaps you should let your eyes all upon this masterpiece if you so please.

*bows dramatically*

Why indeed I am well aware of "Epic: The Musical". It is also one of my favorites. I like the part where he sings about infanticide. I also like the part where somebody pretends to be his wife to drown him. Also circe is hot.

[restlesssinner]

Things I noticed watching Bullet Train a second time at home so my family could see the movie too (spoilers):

Tangerine tells lemon to wear a vest to protect his chest and lemon says it gives people a false security cause you can still get shot in the neck; lemon gets shot in the chest and lives BUT LATER tangerine gets shot in the neck and dies

The first time I watched it my heart was shredded by Dominic Lewis’ cover of bubbles that plays when lemon finds tangerine’s “corpse” (I’m DL’s #1 Spotify listener, he also worked on OSTs for violent night and spirited this year) but the song also plays when the brothers are counting their kills in its original form and in a rock cover when they slow-no walk to find the thief

Ladybug has bad luck but not only does little prince constantly talk about good luck but her father does too, seeing how he keeps forcing and winning Russian roulette on his enemies

Ladybug has long hair and a beard, looks homeless and is forced to face all the misfortunes of the world so that others can rest in peace, and for once it’s nice to see a Jesus allegory that isn’t shoved in our faces by the movie

The elder and the white death both worked under the same boss, both lost their wives, both have two descendants one of which is affiliated with crime and another which is kidnapped to get to their parent; the prior spent most of the movie in the same scenes

“He shot my brother” “you shot my son” both of these where also caused by little prince manipulating the shooter into thinking they’re the victim

The nurse that kills the child’s assassin is in the background of every shot showing the assassin

Almost no one in the movie is known by their real names but by symbolic nicknames: even agent carver alludes to an assassin with butcher-like instincts

In the bottle flashback you can see lemon and tangerine changing clothes from their countdown scene to the ones they wear on the bullet train

First ladybug pretends to be tangerine’s twin and later lemon taunts him as not being a replacement to his brother

Lemon says Logan Lerman’s character looks like a “Percy” alluding to his famous PJO role

The wolf’s envelope is shown earlier when ladybug searches his coat for a gun and has to exes to represent cartoon dead eyes and two suspects that were at the wedding undercover: ladybug and hornet. The contrast between these two is shown by how one kills the conductor to steal their clothing whilst the other pays bisexual icon Channing Tatum to exchange clothes

I might be dumb but I realized that the Wild West stand off between hornet and ladybug was also her waiting to see if he succumbs to the poison in thirty seconds

Lemon tells an old lady she is fucking excused and ladybug later tells the same lady to eat a bag of dicks

Tangerine is at first suspicious of little prince because he knows all the seats were sold out by the white death but that knowledge dies with him

I still don’t know how the elder psychically knows his son is fine can someone please tell me if they know

I swear this is my favorite movie after EEAAO there’s so much rich detail even it has to remind the audiences by re-showing earlier scenes it literally made me forgive Brad Pitt for straight washing Troy I watched it in cinemas just cause I didn’t feel like waiting for the movie I went to watch without planning it and I hope this artistic masterpiece is never forgotten in the corridors of cinema history if there’s anything more you can think off feel free to add your thoughts

[enha-hype]

maeumi & me - ch 12 : is this the thanks i get?

a/n : this chapter alternates between tweets and written parts so be sure to read them in order! and as always ignore the timestamps. if you saw me post a different version of this on friday, no you didn't :3

Jungwon looks up from his phone, chuckling at you, Jake and Sunghoon arguing once again over your choice of movie. The others were too busy in the kitchen to care. But Jungwon sure was having a little too much fun watching you enjoy yourself testing his friends. He thought you were so adorable when you were mischievous; he liked this fun, playful and kind of badass side of you that liked horror movies.

You happen to catch his eye then, and he looks away blushing. You feel your cheeks getting hot too, for some weird reason. Then as if remembering something, Jungwon gets up and walks into one of the other rooms and emerges a few seconds later holding a paper bag. To your surprise, he comes straight to you and hands it over.

“My friends and I happened to see this while we were out the other day and we thought you'd like it,” he explains sheepishly.

You're too busy looking at what's inside to notice Jake and Sunghoon whipping their heads up simultaneously, furrowed brows and confused faces silently questioning Jungwon.

“Jake! Hoon!” Jay calls from the kitchen just then, “I need you to have a bite of this and tell me if it tastes the same as last time,”

The two gladly excuse themselves, leaving you alone with Jungwon and a soft toy replica of your pet. You take it in your hands, your heart swelling.

“Do you like it?” Jungwon asks hesitantly, sitting next to you.

“I LOVE it! You guys really didn't have to, but thank you soo much!”

You had actually been worrying a little about how you were gonna be able to sleep without Maeumi, since you had gotten so used to having him snuggled up next to you all night. So it was kind of uncanny how perfect this gift was. You teared up a little, you hadn't expected this at all. It might seem like just a simple gift but you're so touched because it means so much to you.

Jungwon notices you dab at your eye and looks concerned. He's about to say something but you silence him with a stern look. “If you tell anyone about this, I will have Maeumi piss your bed.” You know you would never hear the end of it, especially from Riki, if he found out you got emotional over a stuffed animal.

“Woooww is this the thanks I get?” he pretends to be offended and you both laugh.

You wonder why you hadn't become friends with him much earlier. He's sweet, funny, mature, has a lot in common with you, and it's so fun to hang out with him. And he's so cute. That's normal, right? To think of your friends as cute? Of course it is, you call Sunoo cute all the time. But wait, this feels a bit different. Ah, whatever. You're probably overthinking it.

“Yn I think you're gonna love my masterpiece,” Riki's voice startles you both and you sit up straight, shuffling away to make space in between for Riki, despite the fact that there's plenty of seat available on either side of you and Jungwon.

“Pfft please, Jay did like 80% of the work,” Heeseung corrects, flopping down next to you.

“Ok but still, that 20% is important. It has the power to make or break the dish,” he argues and Heeseung rolls his eyes.

You show them the plushie Jungwon and his friends got you, and they all agree that it was indeed very sweet of them. “Okay but put it back inside quickly because if Maeumi sees it he'll mistake it for a chew toy,”

Meanwhile Jungwon quietly slips away to join his friends in the kitchen.

“Uhh Won, what was that?” Jake asks, referring to what had happened earlier.

Jungwon just shrugs. “I was being careful, like you guys asked. Figured me giving them the plushie might be a bit overkill. But if they think it's from all of us, it won't seem like such a big thing, right?”

The three older guys share a look, impressed.

After dinner, the guys slowly start leaving one by one until it's just you left with Jungwon. It's partly because you're reluctant to leave Maeumi and partly because when you leave, you'll have to face reality again. You'll be starting a new chapter of your life and you have no idea how it'll go. You'll have to start packing your own stuff to move in at the dorm, and this time there'll be no tiny pitter-patter of paws following you around. You decide to leave once Maeumi falls asleep, which to your disappointment, happens soon enough.

Jungwon comes to see you off at the door. “I know you're a little tense,” he says, picking up on your mood, “but this might not be as bad as you think. It'll get easier, and the 3 years will be over before you know it,”

You smile, nodding. “Yeah, I suppose you're right,”

“And remember, we're just a couple of minutes away. You can come see him anytime you want.”

“Thanks a lot for doing this again. It really means so much,” you give him a hug, and immediately regret it when you feel him stiffen. You step back, say an awkward goodbye and leave. God, what were you thinking? Well, you didn't think. That was the problem. You surprised yourself with that hug, to be honest. But God, Jungwon must think you're so weird. Ughh, you-

“I think you should stay over,” he blurts out just as you're at the gate.

You stop in your tracks. “What?”

[onetimetwotimesthreetimess]

Can we get part four - maybe with Magnus opening up about what he did?

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

“Raziel, what the–” Alec swears the second he enters the room.

His entire office is covered by bouquets and bouquets of flowers, there’s not a single surface that isnt being occupied by one. 

He moves closer to the desk and picks up a flower from the bouquet of lilies and brings it upt o smell it. 

It smells fresh.

Alec knows that magnus handpicks all these flowers himself—that he could do it with the snap of his fingers but he won’t.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to make of that considering everything that the man has done.

Magnus has been relentlessly sending him flowers for the past ten days, with the same note attached to it, written in his beautifully artistic handwriting.

You once told me that you have never been to an amusement park since the shadowhunter codex doesn’t have a chapter on ‘fun’ in it. I’m sure you have heard of Coney Island and please do not do that thing that Jace does where he pretends to not know about mundane things just to seem more mysterious.  I know you know of Coney Island. 

I will be waiting for you there. There are things that I need to tell you that I do not think I can write. I have magic in my veins but I have been wishing at every shooting star that you will show up today. 

I have caused you a lifetime worth of pain, Alec. So, I will wait for you for a lifetime, if I have to.

It’s the same note like everyday. Just a different location.

Today it was Coney Island.

Yesterday it was Rockefeller centre.

The day before, there was a small fair being organised by some college students.

An ice-cream parlour they used to frequent. 

All perfectly mundane places.

Alec had wanted to visit each and every one of them but he didn’t have the courage to push through the heartbreak. 

He didn’t want his hopes up.

He didn’t want excuses. 

He just wants Magnus and he knows that he can’t have that. 

Alec sighs and sits on his chair, his eyes darting across the flowers. 

“What are you doing?” Alec had blushed the first time Magnus had gotten him flowers. Magnus had snapped his fingers and turned the flowers into a beautiful flower crown.

He moved closer to Alec and placed the crown on his head.

“You look pretty,” Magnus had said, tilting his face from left to right to inspect his work. 

He had wanted to thank Magnus for the compliment but it had been hard back then. He’d still been getting used to being called pretty and beautiful.

“But why?”

Magnus cradled his face in his hands and said softly, “I saw a flower and it reminded me of you. That’s why.” 

Alec had giggled at that because it really was that simple.

“Okay.” 

The memory seems as clearly as the day it had happened. 

It always seem impossible to forget anything about Magnus.

Alec doesn’t want to either.

He picks up the note and reads it again. 

He remembers the heartbreak and pain from the past few month—from the day that Magnus broke up with him. It hadn’t lessened even a bit and Alec doesn’t know how long he can keep living like a dead-body. 

He thinks if it’s reasonable that the person who broke his heart is the one he wants to go to get it fixed. 

He wonders if it’s the same for everyone around the world. 

And then he wonders how Magnus went through so many of them and made through it.

Maybe he really should see Magnus.

If there's anyone in the world who knows a thing or two about moving on: It has to be Magnus Bane.

@carelessflower this will always be your masterpiece anh sjjsjsksk

[pocchi-poket]

I had one of the most awkward and incredible experiences of my life today because I went to watch the D&d movie at the theater and:

1) I WAS THE ONLY PERSON THERE. THEY LITERALLY STARTED THE MOVIE FOR ME (And, ok, it was a Sunday and the afternoon showing, but still). I even felt guilty because they were basically wasting electricity (and their time) to show a movie to a single person. Honestly, go watch movies at the theater not because they are dying or to support the film industry, but because I never want to be in such a situation again, please.

2) I sit in my seat, the sound starts, they dim the lights, but I can see nothing on the screen. Everything is pitch black. I stay there, listening to the Mario movie trailer and the other ads in a sort of radio drama experience, already uneasy for the fact they're doing this for me only and wondering if I should go tell someone. I message my friends, who understandably laugh at my situation, and who also tell me to not to waste my ticket money and do something. Anyways, I fight my social anxiety and get up. Thankfully, the staff had already noticed, but I still ran back to my seat hoping they would forget I was even there today.

3) At the end of the movie, the credits start, and since they're illustrated I kind of want to stay and see them, but the lights turn on and, since I am the only one there, I have no excuse to stay. I try to stall for time: I tie my hair, pretend I'm looking for something on my seat, look up the time on my phone, but not even a minute later a staff member shows up and, even if she didn't say anything, I'm convinced she came to see why I was still there.

Seriously, I cannot stress enough what kind of psychological horror this is for someone with social anxiety. I think I could write a short novel based on the experience, set entirely in the two hour length of the movie, and it would be one of the most harrowing and anxiety inducing things ever.

The movie was good, btw. It had some plot holes (why did the rogue want so much to keep Edgin's daughter with him? Had he just given her back to him he would've probably even got away with his plan) and it was not a masterpiece (but I literally study movie-making, so my standards are high) but it was still entertaing and it really conveyed the feeling of a D&d campaign. I would watch it a second time.

[holdmytesseract]

First, I'd like to apologise that it took me SO DAMN LONG to read this masterpiece. @muddyorbsblr Bestie, I'm sorry. I wanted to devour it, but life got a bit in the way. 🥲 But now, finally, I read it! 😍 And what can I say? I ABSOLUTELY loved it! 😍 It was SO freaking hot and delicious and sexy, I can't. 🥵 I'm still drooling over Tommy btw. 😂

He gave you a soft smile, holding you captive in an oceanic gaze that you had to practically pry yourself away from and at least pretend to busy yourself with the paperwork on the little desk.

*swoon swoon swoon*

"It's only one size down, I'll make it fit." His free hand twitched toward you briefly, some bizarre part of you instinctively itching to reach for him in turn, but your more rational mind decided against it and sat back on your little seat.

"I'll make it fit." "I'LL MAKE IT FIT." Ummm, excuse me, Ma'am??? 🥴 You can't say that, bestie, while giving Tom a way too small t-shirt. I barely survived this scene! 🥴

"N-Not at all. Go--Go right ahead, there's a curtain over--Ohh okay then that…works…too," you mumbled to near incoherence as he proceeded to undo the buttons on his thicker overshirt, shrugging the garment onto the floor before giving his light blue button down the same treatment.

I can't describe the feelings I had while reading this, so I'm trying to convert it into gifs.

"It's not too bad, is it?" He swung his arms around to test his range of motion, before raising his hands above his head in a stretch, causing the borderline illegally tight fabric  to ride up on his abdomen, exposing his lower stomach.

*whines in erotic frustration* Bestie, honestly, if you'd have mentioned his happy trail, I would've gone into cardiac arrest. 😫🔥

He smirked at you when you a tiny yelp slipped through your lips as he placed his hands on the backs of your thighs and easily lifted you into his arms. "I'll have to try a bit harder next time," he whispered, walking until you felt your back make contact with the wall. "I believe you owe me a kiss, sweetheart."

After this scene in the fic, I think I was way too far gone; drowning helplessly in thirst.

Ma'am, I am thankful for this fic and please don't stop writing soccer Hiddles. Ever. 🫡

a sizing mishap

See my full list of works here!

This story (and in turn this entire collection) wouldn't have happened if I weren't inspired by this comment from the amazing @lokischambermaid. Thank you for the thot!! 💖🫡

Summary: You hand Player #6 his uniform but it's the wrong size…

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: 18+ | smut-ish at the end (minors & pearl clutchers, don't try me. not today); language; side-eye worthy behavior from less than minor character at the beginning [let me know if i missed anything!]

Things to be aware of: trust the process, and let me know if you caught on to the hints 😉

It was slowly and surely getting a touch too stuffy in this tiny room you were stationed in for the day. You knew that it was the misfortune that would befall the newbie on the crew but it didn't ease your frustration any. No amount of guzzled water or time spent holding your handheld fan down your shirt could help the fact that the entire room felt like you were slowly being cooked sous vide.

And as if your predicament wasn't uncomfortable and mentally taxing enough, you had to do an inordinate amount of moving about from scouring through the piles of jerseys and shorts to hand off to the various players because most of them hadn't even bothered to fill out the order forms with their size weeks prior to today. To make things even more interesting, some of the men thought themselves charmers and attempted to flirt with you while you were already under enough undue stress.

Your therapist was definitely going to hear about your exchange with that former tatted up boybander who answered your question of "Size, Sir?" with an overconfident "More than big enough for you, luv."

At least you were proud of your deadpanned response of "Somehow I highly doubt that" that made him grumble out his actual answer of "Medium". Another uninterested look that carefully examined his torso and legs and you made the executive decision to hand him some sets in a size XS instead.

"This isn't a Medium. Can you even read?" he snapped at you, waving the uniforms in his clenched fist.

"It's your size, sir," you shot back, your tone still deadpanned and unwavering despite the temper he was showcasing. "If you don't believe me you're more than free to try it on behind that curtain there. If I'm wrong then I will gladly assist you and hand you a set in the next size up."

It only took a few minutes for him to stomp behind the curtain, try on the uniform, and then stomp all the way out of the tiny room without another word. Guess you handed him the correct size after all.

You had a few minutes to breathe after that first wave of players walked through, allowing you to prepare yourself for the sweat-inducing task of moving about the piles once again when the next batch came in and told you they didn't input their sizes, either. At this point, you jokingly told yourself that you'd outright kiss the first one who actually had a size next to their name on the sheet.

"Name?" you called out when you heard the door open again, already facing the surplus of extra unlabeled uniforms to thumb through the piles.

"Douglas," the woman answered, chuckling when you let out a sigh of relief finding a size next to her name on the chart. "I take it some of my teammates didn't give you their sizes in the form?"

"Try nearly all of them so far," you huffed to confirm. "It's been so bad that I was telling myself that I'd kiss the first person who actually had a size next to their name on this damn thing." You waved the printed papers of the chart around to punctuate your point, making her laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"Well I think you'd be better off saving that promise for the one coming after me, assuming that he filled out the sizing form. Trust me, you'll probably want to pass on lil ol' me. Then again he might not be up for it considering he does have a very pretty lass that--come to think of it, from what I know about her, kind of looks like you…?"

"Now I'm intrigued," you teased, turning around to the comparatively small pile of labeled uniforms and handed her the one with "DOUGLAS" written on the top. "There you go. Good luck out there."

"Thanks. And good luck to you too it's like a brazen bull in here, bloody fuck."

You waved her off, already holding your tiny fan down your shirt again and just trying to take deep, slow breaths to try and lower your body temperature somewhat. The sound of the door opening again nearly had you whining to any deity listening to give you at least fifteen minutes to cool down before having to deal with another conveniently forgetful soul. "Name?" you all but sighed out.

The effort it took for you to fight back a face splitting grin at the name and buttery smooth voice that reached your ears should have gotten you some form of accolade in the realm of sheer Herculean level restraint. "Hiddleston."

You perused the charts, pursing your lips to keep yourself stoic upon seeing that the field beside his name was, in fact, not blank. "Just a moment, Sir." There was a very faint mumbling coming from the towering man a few feet from you while you retrieved his uniforms from the pile of labeled bundles, an expression nearly as stoic as your own on his face when you handed him the parcel. "There you go."

He gave you a soft smile, holding you captive in an oceanic gaze that you had to practically pry yourself away from and at least pretend to busy yourself with the paperwork on the little desk.

Suddenly all the bravado you had facing all those hubristic men from earlier melted away, as if karma had literally deflated it out of you as some warped retaliation for your earlier behavior. He didn't even have to do fuck all anything and you could feel your pulse skyrocketing and your body overheating that had nothing to do with the current climate of the even more seemingly cramped and overcrowded room.

But then he spoke.

"Erm…I truly hate to be a bother but…this isn't the correct size."

Your eyes snapped up to meet his, showing him your visible shock. "That--That can't be. This came straight from the suppliers, they're the ones that labeled these all."

"I understand that but…these are a size Small. I distinctly remember leaving instructions for y--For my partner to input a Medium."

Another look through the chart had the hairs on the back of your neck standing up. "It…it says Small," you choked out, visibly struggling to meet his eyes again. "I'm--I'm so sorry, let me see what I can do, I'll make a few calls and-and--"

"No no no, hey hey…" he called out, placing the parcel back on the table before placing his hands on your arms in a gentle hold. "Calm down. It's alright, just breathe." He started running his hands up and down your arms, the motion calming you almost instantly, before sneaking a glance at your little nameplate on the table. "Y/N, just breathe for me, sw--Breathe for me, alright?"

The motions of his hands began to guide you through your breathing, feeling your racing pulse begin to mellow down. "I'm--really sorry about that, it's just I'm new here and this is gonna get me in some serious trouble if I end up fumbling and blundering like--"

"You're going to be alright, it's not that big of a deal, really," he told you in a reassuring tone, squeezing your shoulders lightly before letting go and picking up his jerseys and shorts again. "It's only one size down, I'll make it fit." His free hand twitched toward you briefly, some bizarre part of you instinctively itching to reach for him in turn, but your more rational mind decided against it and sat back on your little seat.

"There's something off about you," you rambled, shuffling the papers of the chart once more and reaching for a pen. "You're way too understanding and mild-mannered for this industry."

He hesitated before taking the pen from you, holding your hand in his as he asked, "Would you mind if I tried it on? Just to be sure." There was the slightest twitch in his eye, as if he was about to wink before he made the split second decision not to, and all you could do at that moment was look up at him with the most foolishly dumbstruck look on your face.

"N-Not at all. Go--Go right ahead, there's a curtain over--Ohh okay then that…works…too," you mumbled to near incoherence as he proceeded to undo the buttons on his thicker overshirt, shrugging the garment onto the floor before giving his light blue button down the same treatment.

Get a hold of yourself. Pick your jaw off the ground you're embarrassing yourself, you hissed inwardly, reminding yourself that you were about to be in the presence of a lot of shirtless men this entire weekend throughout all the practices and promotional events, not to mention the game itself on Sunday. But none of those guys look like this. Look like a literal god among men.

All the while he never broke eye contact with you, holding you hostage in a stormy gaze as if daring you to look away while he effortlessly pierced through the plastic that contained the jerseys. You did your best not to fixate your eyes on the sinewy, well-defined muscles that were moving fluidly with every minute movement of his hands, holding his gaze with all the confidence you could muster.

He made a show of unfolding the shirt in slow, deliberate movements, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in a smirk when he noted the visible movement of your neck from a strained effort in swallowing and calming yourself. It was only then that he put the shirt over his head in one fluid motion, the fabric stretching taut across his chest and threatening to burst at even the most minute flex of muscle.

The internet is about to have a field day and I am about to get kicked out of this committee, you thought to yourself. And on your first year, no less. You should've known it was a bad idea to agree to the invitation just because your boyfriend encouraged you to.

"It's not too bad, is it?" He swung his arms around to test his range of motion, before raising his hands above his head in a stretch, causing the borderline illegally tight fabric  to ride up on his abdomen, exposing his lower stomach.

You could barely hold in your composure as you choked out, "It looks…manageable." You held out your pen in his direction again. "You just uhm…need to sign on the chart."

He approached you with a certain sway to his step that vaguely reminded you of a wolf stealthily assessing its prey, fingers slowly brushing across your skin as he took the pen from your hand and uncapped the pen by placing the cap between his teeth. When he finished signing his name on the chart, his eyes never left yours as he recapped the pen and placed it back into your hand, his large palm engulfing your entire hand in a warmth you couldn't even bother to complain about despite the stale humid air of the room.

"There you are, darling," he rasped. "No harm done. You won't get into any trouble with your superiors because of me, don't you worry your lovely little head." You watched with bated breath as he turned around and bent at the waist to pick up the discarded shirts, putting that ass that the internet shamelessly thirsts over and stares at for hours on end mere feet before your naked eyes.

I have no idea if my job is cursed or if it might just be the best thing that ever happened to me, you thought helplessly to yourself, watching as he stood back upright and turned again to face you, giving you a small wave as he exited the room.

You fought the urge to hold your tiny fan down your pants after that exchange.

The sound of your phone chiming with a new message brought you out of your stupor, a smile finding its way onto your face as soon as you saw your boyfriend's name on the screen.

"Are you alright? Have you eaten since you got there? Make sure you're drinking lots of water, I hear it's going to be sweltering today. I love you and I miss you already, goddess."

Just the mere thought of how he'd taken the time to type out the message despite how busy you knew he was had you biting your lip to try even slightly to prevent yourself from letting out a stream of giggles like you were back in school all over again. You could feel the ache in your heart as you began to feel your own yearning beginning to intensify after his message.

"I just have a few more people to hand off their uniforms to and then I'll go get some food. Thank you for checking in on me. I love you and I miss you more than you know."

The rest of the day was thankfully a bit more merciful towards you. Once you'd handed out all the uniforms and put all the surplus jerseys and shorts into a merch pile for audience members to purchase before entering the stadium proper and perhaps have the players sign at the end of the game, the hours up until training was over were spent outdoors coordinating with press photographers, making sure that security was on peak alertness in case anyone managed to sneak through the cracks, and confirming that everything was in place for some hot sauce challenge that would take place tomorrow.

You also made a note to take one of those bottles home since you were running low. Only if you could, of course.

When the fields were empty and you were locking down the press room for the night, you heard someone walk into the otherwise quiet room. "I had the most interesting conversation with some of the other players today." The sound of the man's rich, velvety voice had your heart violently pounding in your chest. "About you."

You took a few steadying breaths before you addressed your unexpected visitor, your back still turned to him as you finished writing down the names on the media passes for tomorrow morning. "And what is it that I can do for you, Mr. Hiddleston?"

The sound of his footsteps slowly approaching you had a thrill running up your spine, making you abruptly stand to attention when you felt large hands rest on your waist. "One of them told me about how you were tempted to…what was it again? Ah yes…you said something about kissing the first player that actually had their size on the chart?" You bit back a smile, looking out the window to double check that nobody was lurking and trying to peer into the room as he wrapped his arms around your waist. "Now Douglas told me that allegedly it was her, and she passed it on to whoever came next. And if memory serves me right…I believe that would mean that immensely fortunate player was…myself."

He'd leaned in so close at this point that his lips were grazing the shell of your ear. "This is highly unprofessional," you mumbled, barely able to contain your smile now.

"I don't care. I've been thinking about you all day." Fingers ghosted up the length of your spine while his nose traced a line from the shell of your ear down to a very specific weak spot on the juncture between your neck and shoulder. You went nearly limp in his hold the second you felt him press a soft kiss to that same spot, his free hand deftly undoing the ribbon you had holding your hair up before weaving his fingers through your hair. "Take this as me officially breaking character. I've missed you, goddess."

The groan he let out against your skin turned you into putty in your boyfriend's arms. "One day," you giggled out. "You lasted barely one day."

Over the last few years since you'd gotten together, whenever you were both signed on to a project, you tried to commit to this bit of "staying private and professional" throughout the course of the project, so as to not draw too much attention to the fact that you were involved. It had come to the point where it collectively slipped the mind of the general public that you two were actually still, in fact, happily together and borderline maddeningly in love. And it also granted you both a comfortable enough sense of privacy, which you were immensely grateful for and neither of you ever dared take for granted.

On previous projects, he would 'break character' within the course of a few hours, and you had a feeling that the only reason it took him nearly a day this time around was that you two weren't around each other as much due to him practicing for the game, and you running around the entire facility.

"I have to be honest, though," you started, letting out a squeal as he abruptly turned you around in his arms to face him, pulling your body flush against his. "For a second there I thought this would be a first and I would break character. This afternoon." It was a good thing that he was currently holding you upright with the way he was looking at you through hooded eyes, his chest heaving through that one size too gloriously small shirt; if you were left to stand on your own, your knees would've buckled the second he touched you. "If you kept up that goddamn striptease for even two more seconds I might have caved."

He smirked at you when you a tiny yelp slipped through your lips as he placed his hands on the backs of your thighs and easily lifted you into his arms. "I'll have to try a bit harder next time," he whispered, walking until you felt your back make contact with the wall. "I believe you owe me a kiss, sweetheart."

You crossed your hands behind his neck, leaning in to give him the quickest peck to his lips. "There you are," you teased, letting out a stream of giggles against his lips when he grabbed the back of your head and pressed you against the wall before pulling you in for a deeper kiss. He let out a desperate sounding moan into your mouth as his arm around you tightened and his fingers tangled into your hair. As if he couldn't possibly get enough of you. Or as if you hadn't seen each other for months.

"Where are you staying?" he rasped when he pulled away, resting his forehead against yours as you both caught your breath.

"I have a room that I'm sharing with 2 more members from the committee--"

"That won't do," he cut you off, pressing his lips to your jaw and kissing a trail down your neck. "You're staying with me. I already despise the mornings that I wake up away from you, it's cruel and unusual punishment if I go to sleep tonight alone knowing full well that you're here in another room." You stifled a moan when he proceeded to suck a bruise onto your neck, already anticipating the questions from your fellow committee members in the morning when they catch sight of it.

"I uhh--ohh fuck--I'll need to get my things," you stammered, leaning your head back and arching into his kiss to expose more of your neck to him. "My clothes--"

"You won't need them, darling," he retorted, smirking against your skin when you let out a squeak trying to feign protest against his words. "Say yes," he pleaded between kisses. "Stay with me." He kissed his way up to the corner of your mouth. "Don't deny me the simplest joy of getting to wake up with you in my arms."

Those were the words that did you in. "Okay, okay yes," you breathed out, your moan muffled by him once again capturing your lips in a kiss that threatened to steal you of every last breath you had left.

Neither of you seemed to care in the slightest if you crossed paths with anyone on your way to his suite, Tom adorably refusing to let your feet touch the ground as he carried you down the halls. "There was one more thing that some of the players mentioned…Something about you being able to assess their sizes and giving them their correct fitting instead of the size that they told you they were?"

Dammit, the boybander told on me, you grumbled to yourself, meeting your boyfriend's gaze with your worst attempt at an innocent smile. "Aaaand…what about it?"

"You've known my measurements since they sent in the roster form," he started with a knowing smirk, causing you to purse your lips and basically out yourself that you knew exactly where he was going with this.

"I did…"

"Did you intentionally input the wrong size?"

Biting your lip before letting out a fit of near uncontrollable giggles told him more than a spoken admission ever could. "I might have…"

"And I would also be right to assume you had everything to do with the swapped out trousers in my bag?"

Your giggles got louder, practically giving the entire floor a homing beacon signal to where you were, take one look at your current positions, and give them a vivid idea of what type of noises they would expect to hear throughout the night.

"I had to do it," you managed to say between laughs. "For Tumblr."

You held on to him a bit tighter when he went to unlock his door, pressing the keycard to the scanner and balancing you on a single arm, and giving him the perfect opportunity to kiss yet another particularly sensitive spot behind your ear. He let out a seductively dark chuckle against your skin when your giggles had morphed into moans.

"Naughty little goddess," he rasped, tracing his lips along your shirt's neckline as he laid you down on the bed and then proceeding to kiss a path down your clothed torso until he reached the hem of your shirt. His hands traveled up your body, working the fabric up and over your head, kissing and licking and biting at a leisurely pace at every sliver of skin that was exposed to him.

Once the shirt was up to your raised hands, he hovered his face above yours, capturing your lips in another languid, decadent kiss that had you sighing against him as a warm contentment washed over you. You'd only realized now how much you actually missed him since having to leave your home yesterday to come here and begin preparations with the rest of the committee. All day you were so caught up with finalizing every meticulous detail you had control over it was almost like your mind didn't allow you to feel how much you were yearning.

"What am I going to do with you, my darling little menace?" he murmured against your lips, your combined moans filling the room as he licked into your mouth, your tongues meeting in a tangle long practiced and perfected over the years. You quickly tossed your shirt aside to free your hands and pull him closer, giving him the perfect leeway to unclasp your bra.

"Whatever you want," you gasped once you both pulled away, the silliest grins on both your faces as your hands fumbled for the hem of his jersey. "I love you and I've missed you more than you know."

"Shouldn't have said that, my love," he growled, pushing you back down on the bed so that your back was flat against the mattress, a near filthy moan escaping you when he hooked your legs around him and rolled his hips into yours. "There's a lot of pent up energy in me." He proceeded to summarize what he'd spent the day doing, punctuating each item with a thrust of his hips. "Running." Thrust. "Dribbles." Thrust. "Shooting drills." Thrust. "Endorphins are running amok. You understand, don't you, darling?"

"Let me repeat myself," you said breathlessly, crossing your ankles and pulling his hips to yours and making him let out the most delicious stuttered moan. "You can do whatever you want."

A/N: Suddenly those reblogs I did of 'one look and they'll know' are making sense, huh? 😉😈 Welcome to the Soccer Aid 2023 Hiddles collection! As of writing this Author's Note, there are going to be 5 stories in this collection, the next one being 'a tale of ice baths and hot sauce' which covers the Elementals challenge video, and I'm already working on it as we speak. 🫠

everything taglist: @simplyholl @loopsisloops @unlucky-number-13 @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-zie @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @sarahscribbles @kats72 @kikster606 @evelyn-kingsley @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @peaches1958 @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th @lovelysizzlingbluebird @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @dangertoozmanykids101 @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95 @superficialdomina @anukulee

[ao3feed-iwaoi]

So good at being in trouble

Read this masterpiece on AO3 at https://ift.tt/9QvTyR0

by Annawlfn333

(Title is from unknown mortal orchestra)

!TW!

Whether it's his background or his dysfunctional coping mechanism, Atsumu is exceptionally skilled at hiding. Despite the fact that he appears gregarious and self-assured, nobody would be aware of his problem with lying frequently. There is no turning back once one's past is publicly discussed on television, especially if there is evidence to support it. Though he senses that his system of lies is beginning to fall apart, he is not yet prepared to confront the truth. Instead, he becomes inactive, concluding that lying is pointless and that there is no use in pretending any longer

(Also englisch is Not my first language so please excuse)

Words: 314, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Haikyuu!!

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con

Categories: M/M

Characters: Miya Atsumu, Miya Osamu, Miya Atsumu and Miya Osamu's Parents, Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime, Suna Rintarou, MSBY Black Jackals

Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi, Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru

Additional Tags: Child Abuse, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Bulimia, Childhood Trauma, perfectionist, Smoking, Athletes, Passing Out, Depression, Self-Harm, anger issues, breaking stuff, bad way dealing with emotions, Bad Coping Mechanism, Unhealthy - Freeform, Past Relationship(s), Parent/Child Incest, Sex Work, This is literally so hard to write, Miya Atsumu Needs a Hug, Really dark, trigger warning

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/9QvTyR0

[yoonkookieluv]

This are some fics I’m obsessed with

I started reading fics just a few months ago and this are some of my favorites 🥰

I’m so glad I found these amazing stories by these incredible authors 💓 each story is a masterpiece and if you can please give them a try and don’t forget to give these authors lots of love for their hard work and creativity 🫶🏻

SERIES

Mutual help by @personasintro

Genre: fluff, angst, smut, slow burn, fake dating au

Sumary: in order for you to pretend to be his girlfriend, he helps you with your sexual desires ⏤ he calls it a mutual help

Red by @taestefully-in-luv

Genre: FLUFF, smut, angst:(( pregnancy au

Summary: You drunkenly sleep with your ex-boyfriend, Jungkook. Can’t be that bad right? Unless he gets you pregnant.

Always you by @taestefully-in-luv

Genre: friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, roommate au, college au, SMUT (starting ch2), fluff, angst (in later chapters) slight crack

Summary: you and Jungkook have been best friends since freshmen year of college, there’s a lot of unsaid feelings and tension but neither make a move. what happens when his friend Taehyung (also your crush) needs a fake girlfriend?

Rule #5 by @taestefully-in-luv

Genre: fwb au, friends to lovers, fluff, maybe a little angst, SMUT

Summary: You strike up a fwb deal with your childhood friend Jungkook after kissing him one night after a dare. But you have rules…5 of them to be exact and it seems Jungkook doesn’t want to follow any of them.

As we were by @archivedkookie

Genre: divorce au, infidelity au, eventual smut, heavy angst, lots of pining

Summary: Your husband cheats on you and find comfort in someone else’s arms. He claims he’s happy—but is he really?

Long way home by @sparklingchim

genre: dilf!jungkook, friends to lovers, fluff, little bit of angst

summary: the one where you babysit jungkook's baby and somehow let the night end up with being a cockblock for him.

Cruel intentions by @explicit-tae

Genre: smut, Mafia!Jungkook

Summary: You adored your eldest brother - you truly did. Before his addiction got the best of him, he was amazing at caring for you and your other siblings. Now, however, it was your turn to care for him without the help of your siblings who long abandoned him, advising you to do the same. Once your brother manages to get himself imprisoned, you realize just how much trouble he got himself into. Once your family is threatened, you offer to pay off the debts your brother owes with the one thing any powerful man couldn't resist - your virginity.

Practice by @chryblossomjjk

genre: m/18+ | college au, fwb, smut, fluff, angst

summary: You usually spend Friday nights on your own. Tonight, however, your friend and campus fuckboy, Jungkook, decides to pay you a visit.

Bloodline by @jjkeverlast

genre: slow burn (sorry y’all) smut (a lot of it oop-) humor, angst and college au

summary a relationship was the last thing you wanted, but having wild and experimenting sex? now that was something, and jeon jungkook is there to give you simply that. as long as either catch feelings… but that won’t be hard for you knowing you’d never go for a guy like jungkook, although jungkook might have another opinion about you. let the (fun) begin!

Just friends by @kinktae

genre: uh best friend AU but really just an excuse for angsty smut

summary: The transition from best friends to best friends with benefits is never easy, especially when there’s a daddy kink involved.

Blackout by @jjungxkook

genre: best friends to lovers, roommate and college au, fluff, crack, smut

summary: Utility bills shooting up like this should be an international crime. Luckily, Jungkook has the perfect idea(s) to save up money and make your night sinfully unforgettable.

I loved you by @kimtaesss

Genre: angst, fluff, friends to (?)

Summary: being friends for 10 years means nothing, especially when he betrays your trust so easily.

Bad Guy by @taehoneys

Genre: Drama

Summary: A certain video circulates the school after your big mistake and you never do mistakes, but you did this time… a big one: Jeon Jungkook

Leave the door open by @here4btsfics

Genre: smut, a dash of fluff, humor

Summary: Your neighbor loves to sing karaoke in the middle of the night. You finally get fed up and confront him about it. Except when he opens the door, you realize you’re screwed. He’s gorgeous. 

THIRTY-FIVE by @bangtansmauyeondan

Genre: rivals au, social media au, frenemies to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn, fluff, smut, angst, crack.

Summary: It has always been the battle of the best between you and your college rival, Jungkook. What happens when years later, you cross paths again working for the same broadcasting network company, and the competitive flame is rekindled? Well, a whole new drunken bet that determines your futures wasn’t in your line of vision, but here you are… and you have until 35.

Out of Time - JJK by @97erstan

Genre: angst | smut

Summary: after being invited to your ex's wedding, he invites you to visit his room for a final goodbye.

OUR TIME by @taestefully-in-luv

Pairing: Jungkook x Fem Reader (Detective!Jk x Graphic Designer!OC) side pairing: Seokjin x Reader

Genre: crime au, fluff, heavy angst, smut, romance, darker themes, amnesia au. Best friends to ???

Summary: After an accident and being in a coma for three months, you finally wake. But the last nine years of your life have been completely erased. You rely on none other than your best friend, Jungkook, to help regain your memories and yourself. But what happens when the truth of your missing time starts unraveling and it isn’t all it’s made out to be?

An abundance of luck & a sprinkle of fate by @borathae

(Spin-Off to I hate you I love you)

Pairing: CEO!Jungkook x Sexworker!Reader 

Genre: Strangers to Lovers!AU, BDSM, Hurt and Comfort, Smut, Romance, Fluff, Angst

Summary: When two souls, with different reasons for why life has broken them, find together, it needs a whole lot of a luck and a little bit of fate to make them see that maybe healing together isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Love to Hate by @kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: Jungkook / Reader

Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Fuck Buddies!AU

Summary: Born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you've done your best to rid yourself of the taste since you were old enough to walk. Occasionally though, your mother manages to rope you into an obligatory function – or a blind date with playboy billionaire, Jeon Jungkook. Jungkook stands for everything you loathe about the world you left behind, but you can’t deny the spark of attraction between you. Intrigued by the promise of mutual satisfaction, you agree to one night in bed… and quickly realize you’re in far, far deeper than you ever intended.

Runaway by @archivedkookie

pairing ; tattoo artist / biker!jk x reader 

genre ; best friend’s brother au, fwb (they’re not rlly friends tho), 4 years age gap, smut, angst, fluff, slow burn

summary ; When your best friend's brother, your first-ever crush, offers to help you explore your sexual desires, you just can't refuse. Especially when it's someone as irresistible as Jeon Jungkook.

Paradise by @minisugakoobies

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: smut, neighbors to lovers, slow burn, love triangle, Stripper!AU

summary: That sexy man on stage - the one currently giving your friend the lap dance of her LIFE - is your super shy neighbor, Jeon Jungkook?!

ONE SHOTS

CRAZY by @personasintro

Pairing: jungkook x reader, jungkook x f!character

Genre: angst, smut, cheating au

Summary: your boyfriend comes with an idea

THIRTEEN ROUNDS by @moni-logues

Pairing: Boxer!Jungkook x f!reader

Genre: smut smut smut smut smut! sex ban smut lmao; established relationship

Summary: JK’s boxing coach tells him he can’t come for four weeks before his title fight. Ah, four weeks isn’t that long, right? … Right?

SERIES

The island by @taestefully-in-luv

Genre: strangers to lovers, slight enemies to lovers, soulmates au, roommate au, slow burn, fluff, smut, angst, slight crack, and drama.

Summary: You’re just two strangers waking up in a room on a lonely island where a company in the business of love has placed you. They believe that thanks to their in depth research you two are destined soulmates. What happens when your ‘soulmate’ and you want nothing to do with each other but falling in love is the only way to leave?

if it’s not you · kth (m) by @mercurygguk

content; exes to lovers!au, smut/angst, a bit of fluff

summary; Kim Taehyung grew up watching his parents fall more in love for each day that passed and he always longed for that great, passionate love himself. But if it’s not you? Then he doesn’t want it

I HATE YOU, I LOVE YOU by @borathae

Pairing: Taehyung x f.Reader, minor Jungkook x f.Reader 

Genre: Enemies to Lovers!AU, Arranged Marriage!AU, CEO!Taehyung, CEO!Reader, Romance, Smut, Fluff, Angst 

Summary: “You are marrying Kim Taehyung, heir to Kim Enterprises, one of South Korea’s hottest bachelors and a total pain in the ass. You do not want to marry him and neither does he want to marry you. But in families likes yours’, marriage does not come with love. “

ONE SHOTS

Pick of the Patch by @taestefully-in-luv

Genre: fluff, angst, smut, enemies to lovers

Summary: You’re a struggling artist with a strong desire to escape so when your mother suddenly calls and asks you to return home to replace her in this years Harvest Festival dance, you never said yes faster. However, she informs you that you’ll be working with another dancer, Kim Taehyung and upon meeting, you decide you do not like him…but right when you think you could grow up and move past it, Taehyung makes it clear that he does not like you either.

SERIES

Love Again | PJM by @taestefully-in-luv

Genre: exes au, exes to ???, fluff, angst, smut

Summary: A friend of yours is eager to introduce you to her new man but what happens when Park Jimin, the man who broke your heart 5 years ago walks in through the door?

SERIES

monachopsis by @personasintro

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: angst, fluff, smut, mini series

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢���; after receiving unpleasant news that doesn't allow you to grow your family, your husband comes up with an idea that unfortunately involves his brother whom he despises

Away From You by @personasintro

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: fluff, angst, smut, divorce!au

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; Trying to divorce Yoongi might be harder than you thought it’d be. Especially when you’re having a two year old toddler.

ONE SHOTS

Stay High by @personasintro

genre: fluff, angst, smut

synopsis; You’ve to stay high to keep your ex out off your mind when he comes back into your life.

Selfish Love by @personasintro

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: yoongi x reader

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: infidelity au, smut, angst (?), drabble

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; we’re all a little bit selfish sometimes

SERIES

Sanguis Alpha by @borathae

Pairing: OT7 x f.Reader with main Taehyung x f.Reader & Yoongi x f.Reader

Genre: Mystery, Fantasy, Romance, Smut, University!AU, Vampire!AU

Synopsis: You change universities after moving towns. Your new university is an old, ancient building with secret tunnels and whispered ghost stories. There are two fraternities, which for some reason always seem to be in a quarrel. Alpha consisting of Kim Taehyung, Kim Namjoon, Park Jimin and Min Yoongi. Handsome, porcelain skinned men, who act as if they are out of another century and for some reason everyone on campus seems to be scared of. And Sanguis consisting of Jeon Jungkook, Kim Seokjin and Jung Hoseok. Men with skin just as pale and their faces just as beautiful, who always wear sunglasses when it is light outside and who never seem to open their curtains. And for some peculiar reason you always find yourself in the middle of them....

[babybluebex]

perv!Eddie would use any excuse to be touching you. Walking by you in the library? he'd make sure to walk behind just a little too closely so he could rub his crotch on your ass.

Pretend your skirt was riding up/blowing in the wind, just so he could tug on it himself and feel the line of your panties while he did it.

would definitely get you to bend over to grab stuff for him all the time so he could see your cute little butt, and would die over how innocent you were and how you were so eager to please him, you'd do anything :')

I love him

RIE YOU HO I LOVE YOU

i literally have nothing to add to this, just, just look at it. perv!eddie using any excuse to touch you. it's a masterpiece. he'll touch you and when you fuss at him, his apology feels so hollow and insincere "jesus, i'm sorry, baby, i couldn't help myself"

[daydreaming-in-letters]

For Auld Lang Syne

12/31/2021

Pairing: Henry Cavill x fem!reader (2nd person)

Word Count: 3,142

Warnings: rpf, mentions of breakup and heartache, mentions of alcohol, fluff

Summary: It's New Year's Eve, and the first night you manage to leave the safety of your home since Henry broke your heart. Unfortunately, your worst nightmare seems to come true when he attends the same party.

A/N: I wrote this a while back and kept it for the occasion. Happy New Year, folks. May it bring you everything your hearts desire.

Picture by RENXIN PAN via Unsplash

Divider by @firefly-graphics

If you like my story, you are very welcome to like, comment or reblog. Please don’t copy, repost or share my work on other platforms.

A pair of cerulean eyes found yours in the crowd. Again. About two hours ago, you had lost count of how many times that had already happened this evening. But no matter how often they locked with yours, they always caused the same reaction. Infuriation.

It was almost cynical how things came together so shortly before the turn of the year. It was the last night of the year, and ironically the first night you had found the strength to leave the safe haven of your home in months. It felt strange and awkward to be around people for the first time since… Really? A wave of shame hit you hard when you realised that, although it had been more than six months already, you didn’t even dare think the words, too afraid they would rip apart your poorly stitched up heart again.

But as if this night wasn’t bad enough on its own already, your worst nightmare had come true when suddenly you had heard the dark timbre of his voice from across the room. At first, you had tried to convince yourself that it was only your mind playing tricks on you, but when you had finally mustered the courage to look behind you, he had actually been there. Like a deer caught in the headlights, you hadn’t been able to avert your gaze. He was gorgeous as ever, slightly tanned, stubbly cheeks, hair neatly combed back, the width of his shoulders sinfully displayed by the tight shirt he wore—a shirt, you noticed, you had given him—and on top of all this torture, he had started to smile, brightening the whole room with his presence. It had been right in that moment when he must have sensed your eyes on him and looked over to you for the first of many times this evening.

As if someone had detached your brain from the rest of your nervous system, you were unable to move and forced to watch in horror while he made an excuse to the person he had been talking to and pushed his way through the crowd of people to get to you.

No, this couldn’t be happening, not now, not tonight, maybe not ever. And yet you were trapped in your petrified body, forced to watch in disbelief as he came closer and closer, a hopeful little smile dancing across his lips that brought back all the memories you had been trying so hard to force aside with an ease that made you shiver. Memories of days you had felt almost delirious with happiness, so complete that you thought your heart might explode from all the joy you felt. Like a best of video, scenes of your favourite moments together flickered across the canvas of your mind, a summer day at the beach, a walk in the winter snow, a whole Sunday spent skin on skin in his arms, whispered words of affection, soft lips pressing to yours…

And then, as if someone had decided to cut your favourite movie against your will, the words that had broken your world into a million little pieces echoed through your head and darkness fell across your cinematic masterpiece.

With a jolt you snapped out of your trance, just in time as it seemed, and took a few steps backwards before you turned on your heels and vanished into the kitchen. As soon as the door fell shut behind you, you could feel the panic subside bit by bit. It was stupid, of course, to feel safe inside this room when he could just walk through that door any time he pleased. Yet, it was easier this way to pretend that you had just been hallucinating this worst case scenario.

But of course you couldn’t hide from him forever. He probably wouldn’t leave, even if it would have been the decent thing to do in your opinion. After all, this was your best friend’s party and he should have known that you would be here. Which made you wonder why the hell he was here in the first place. You knew for certain that Hannah didn’t invite him. She would never do this to you, especially not after nursing you back to life for half a year after the breakup. Maybe it had been her husband’s idea. Gerry had always taken a shine to Henry and you had suspected all along that they might have stayed in contact.

But it didn’t matter in the end because he was here now and you had to deal with it somehow. The only problem was, you had no idea how. The one thing you did know however was that you didn’t want this messed up situation to ruin New Year’s Eve for you or your friends. And so you pulled yourself together, shutting away the despair that clawed at your heart, and stepped out into the living room again.

For two hours, or to be precise, for two hours fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds, this had worked out perfectly fine. It hadn’t exactly been a piece of cake, but you had somehow managed to avoid him this whole time. Although there had been some pretty close calls. On top of that, you had also successfully pretended that you were absolutely fine with the two of you being in the same room, his eyes on you every time you checked if there still was a safe distance between the two of you.

You had almost started to believe that your acting skills might be even better than his, when someone raised their voice to announce in excitement that there were only fifteen minutes of the old year left. And with that, the crowd started to move. Some of the ladies vanished into the kitchen to prepare the champagne, others went to get their jackets to watch the fireworks outside and someone had switched on the telly for the live countdown.

Panic began to grab you in a tight hold as you realised what was about to come. Like every year, all of you would go outside, grab your loved ones and hold them tight. Just before the countdown, everyone would chant ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Why you had decided to do this before midnight was still a mystery to you, but as far as you could remember, it had always been this way, and then…well, then came the best part. Except when you were one of the few singles. In that case it would be a horribly awkward moment until your friends were finally finished kissing their partners and would turn their attention to the lonely ones with a pitiful look.

Suddenly it dawned on you that you hadn’t fully planned this through when you had agreed to coming here tonight. But now that the awful truth of what was to come had dawned on you, there was no way you would drive down this highway to hell with open eyes. Especially not with him close enough to watch you.

And so you did the only thing that seemed reasonable and hid in the bathroom until all the voices had disappeared into the garden. At first you had planned on staying here until all the hugging and kissing and cheering for the new year was over, but then again you loved fireworks and didn’t want to miss them for the world. However, the only place to watch them without getting caught would be the dining room and so you carefully popped your head through the door of your hiding place and had a look around the hallway. When your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you found that it was empty and darted over to the dining room. Feeling a little like a super spy, a small rush of adrenaline made it impossible to suppress a giggle as you shut the dining room door behind you quietly.

“Seems like you didn’t want to be the odd one out either.”

The smile fell from your lips instantly as you realised you weren’t alone. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, you were alone in a dark room with the one person you had been trying to avoid all evening. Immediately, your frustration mixed with all the anger you had kept inside since that unspeakable day and you could feel the hot venom roll through your veins.

“I never took you for someone who hides away from an awkward situation,” you spat coldly, “I mean, after all, you didn’t have a problem telling me to my face that you didn’t want to be with me anymore.”

Despite the darkness that surrounded you, you could see his face fall from your harsh words. But you told yourself that it was his own fault if he had come here, after everything that had happened, thinking you would play nice.

Yet, he didn’t rise to your deliberate provocation. Somehow you had known he wouldn’t. He had never been someone to lose his temper easily.

“Did you skip all the fun outside because of me?” he inquired calmly, taking a step towards you. And when you didn’t budge, he closed the distance even further.

“Maybe I did.” You sighed, rolling your eyes in frustration before you finally asked the questions that had been nagging you all evening. “What are you even doing here in the first place? You knew I would be here, didn’t you? So why did you accept the invitation? And who invited you anyway? Hannah?”

“Hannah didn’t know I would be here any sooner than you did,” he admitted. “It was Gerry.”

You narrowed your eyes to small slits. Gerry, that traitor. You would have a word with him later.

“I know what you think, but it really wasn’t his fault. I practically begged him to invite me.”

“What? Why?” Was he out of his mind?

“Because I needed to talk to you.”

Crossing your arms in front of your chest, you stared at him in disbelief. “You know, you could have just called instead of ruining this evening for me.”

A timid smile pulled the corners of his mouth upwards. “You never answer any of my calls.”

Outside, your friends had started to sing goodbye to the old year, their voices muffled through the glass, but the melody was unmistakable.

“All right,” you sighed. “Then let’s get it over with before the new year begins, so we can both have a fresh start.”

A glint of hope flitted across his face that was illuminated by the pale beam of moonlight that fell through the curtains.

“Well, since you seem to be in a hurry, I’ll make it quick. I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. I was a fool for leaving you, Y/N, and I -“

You huffed, stopping his little speech abruptly, your head shaking in disapproval. After all this time, he actually had the audacity to come here to tell you that he regretted leaving you? And what did he expect now? That you would forgive him, just like that? As if he hadn’t ripped your heart out of your chest and crushed it so thoroughly that you didn’t know if it would ever be whole again. You could feel the tears that were threatening to spill, but you wouldn’t let him see them. And so you turned your back. For a moment, no one said a word, before you finally found the strength to speak.

“Do you have any idea how much you hurt me when you left?” your voice was quiet, inaudible to anyone but him above the chanting from outside.

But you didn’t really need an answer because obviously he either didn’t know or care about the distress he had caused and you had no desire to find out which one it was. And so you carried on, deciding to face him again so he could see the misery in your eyes.

“I was like a shadow, disappearing without the light. Whenever someone told me they didn’t know how to move on after a break up, I laughed at them and thought them weak. But now I know better. Because I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved you. And I probably never will again.”

You didn’t know where that had come from, but you sure were glad to finally have it out of your system. In the rush of pride you felt for your courage, it took you a moment to register what your words had done to him. But as soon as you saw the hint of a tear glistening in his eyes, you somehow wished you could take them back.

“I’m sorry. I know what you’ve been through and I wish you would have never had to feel that way.”

His voice was a little shaky and you didn’t doubt for one second that he truly meant every word he said. Then again, there was some part of you that still didn’t believe him, that still wanted him to be the bad guy, needed him to be, so that you would have a target to aim your remaining anger at.

“How would you know what I’ve been through?”

It seemed to be a legitimate question since—other than you—he had chosen not to be with you anymore.

“Because I felt it too. The loss, the pain, everything. And on top of that, the frustration about my own stupidity to leave you.”

He took another step towards you, but instead of the desired effect, he had hit the wound with the precision of a scalpel, cutting it open again and releasing the beast within.

“How dare you say that to my face? You didn’t even love me enough to stay with me when you still had me.”

You almost screamed now, your voice breaking at the end of your sentence. If you had been here with anyone else, you would have done the smart thing long ago and simply left. But with him, your mind didn’t work properly, putting your masochistic heart in charge. And so you stayed and kept on watching your own trip down disaster road. But never in a million years would you have taken into account what happened then.

“Of course I loved you. You were everything to me. You still are. Y/N, I love you so much that it scares me because no one has ever been that important to me before. But instead of embracing this feeling, and cherishing it as the treasure it is, I ran because I didn’t know how to handle it.”

For a moment there was complete silence in the room. Inside your head on the other hand, your mind was screaming a hundred different thoughts at once. Not knowing how to deal with that at all, your autopilot simply took over, making the fatal decision to blurt out the one thought that was even louder than all the others.

“You still love me?”

The softest smile graced his lips as he finally reached out for you, his warm hand gliding down the thin fabric that covered your arm until it reached your fingers.

“I do. I guess I always will. And even though I lost you, I wanted you to know that. That’s the only reason I came here tonight, because I needed you to know.”

You didn’t really realise what had just happened, a thousand thoughts still spinning in your head and making you dizzy, as his lips gently pressed against the palm of your hand and pulled you back into the moment. It was only then that you realised his words had been a goodbye. He was already about to walk away, when, without thinking twice, you reached out and grabbed his hand.

“Wait.” And of course he did, letting you pull him back around to face you. “What about now?”

His forehead wrinkled slightly when he didn’t immediately understand what you meant.

“Your feelings for me. Do you think you could handle them now?” you clarified and without hesitation his face lit up into a bright smile.

“I can. If you’ll let me. Believe me, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

You wanted to believe him so badly, yet you hadn’t forgotten that he had not always been as sure about his feelings as he claimed to be now.

“And what makes you so sure of it?”

“The fact that now I know what losing you feels like. And even more than wanting to avoid that feeling, I don’t ever want to hurt you so deeply again.”

Silence fell across the room again as outside the countdown had begun. But neither of you cared about that at the moment. Taking a step closer, your hand had found its way to his cheek while you allowed yourself to take him in for a moment, enjoying all the little things you had missed so much. The dimple in his chin you sometimes laid your finger into just to tease him, the little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes that deepened so beautifully whenever he flashed you one of his beaming smiles, the tiny freckle on his lower lip that you had kissed so often and of course his shiny blue eyes, perfected by their imperfect splash of brown.

With tender eyes he watched you, leaning into your gentle touch that he secured with his own hand above yours, afraid you might let go again, when the clock finally stroke midnight.

“Happy New Year, Hen Wen.”

Slowly you wrapped your arms around his neck, allowing him to pull you closer as well. You were sure that he could feel your heart beat against his chest, just as you could feel his, while the vibrant colours of the first fireworks illuminated the room. And then, finally, you felt him lean in, closing your eyes to fully succumb to the moment. His lips felt heavenly, just as you had remembered them, moving against yours with no hurry. The familiar taste of sweet malt and a touch of chocolate made you smile and even before he softly pulled away, you could feel that his lips mimicked your expression.

“Happy New Year, my love.”

He pulled you close again, embracing you with his strong arms the way he knew you liked. Slowly he started to sway you to a melody only the two of you seemed to hear.

“May it bring you everything your heart desires.”

You smiled foolishly, so deliriously happy as you rested your head on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck.

“Well, I think it is off to a very good start already.”

With a deep chuckle that rumbled through his chest, he softly kissed your hair. And while he pulled you another impossible inch closer, for the first time in months a long lost feeling filled you again—hope.

Tag List: please let me know if you want to be removed or added by either ask or DM - thank you!

@summersong69 @myloveforhenrycavill @dorothea-hwldr @omgkatinka @ashesofblackroses @amberangel112 @madbaddic7ed @icarusblinders @zealoushound @asuni921 @endofalldays01 @nerra75 @indigosaurus @nowyouseeme098 @cap-just-said-language @miss-rebel-without-applause @wheretheriversrunintothesea @maan24 @mochionly @introvertedmouse @sofiebstar @kebabgirl67 @marytudorbrandon @littleone65 @thoughtfullyfurryangel @agniavateira @enchantedbytomandhenry @lumiousmoon @tumblnewby @crazybutconfidentaf @viking-raider

[pies-writes-and-more]

just friends

word count: 5,393

pairing: Akaashi Keiji x Fem!Reader

warnings: literally all fluff. maybe some swearing lol 

a/n: this literally was supposed to be a short fluffy drabble and turned into a full on fic haha. I wrote a lot of this while I was half asleep so please excuse any spelling mistakes haha. I hope you guys like it! 💕 gif below isn’t mind, creds to the original creator!

haikyuu masterlist

Your window was only open slightly, meant for allowing the cool air to flow in, while also aiding for a certain somebody’s quick escape if it came down to that.

The Fukurōdani Academy Group Summer Camp started tomorrow. Well. Today, if you count the fact that it was already 2AM.

It had originally been 11PM. 3 hours ago, Akaashi Keiji had crawled up the side of your house and tapped his knuckles ever so softly on your window. It had freaked you out for a second until he texted you “Lemme in”, to which you then moved to the window to greet him with a confused look.

“Akaashi, if my parents hear you-” you started, glancing over your shoulder and hoping they hadn’t somehow managed to get to your bedroom door without you noticing.

“Then stay quiet and help me in,” he shrugged, slowly plopping into your room and smiling down at you. “How’s your evening?”

You just stared at him, “Akaashi, it’s late!” You hissed as he crawled into your bed and got comfortable like he was meant to be there. “What’re you doing awake anyways? Don’t you have to be up early for your training camp?”

Akaashi just gave a hum and a nod, patting the other side of the bed he wasn’t currently occupying and giving you a smile. You rolled your eyes and tucked yourself in next to him. It didn’t matter that the two of you were slightly squished, if anything your bed actually felt comfier this way.

Without any more questions, you and Akaashi laid there for hours, whispering as the time ticked by. Your legs slowly tangled together under the sheets and you fit in his side as if you were made to be there.

“What’re you thinking about?” Akaashi asked suddenly, his voice coated with fatigue, eyes lazily opening to look over at you and your pensive expression. It had been so long between topics, you had actually started to think he had fallen asleep.

“What do you mean?” You smiled back at him, your fingers still tracing along the lines on his palm like you had been for the past 10 minutes.

“You’re too quiet to be not thinking. And you’re obviously not sleeping. So what’re you thinking about?” Akaashi explained, interlacing your hands together for a moment. Just to see how they fit.

“Why did you come?” You questioned after a moment, turning to really look him in the eyes this time. Akaashi had such a soft demeanour about him tonight, a gentleness that you hardly ever saw when he and Bokuto were getting up to their usual mischief. But he was always kind and sweet to you, always took a moment of his day to tuck your hair behind your ear, or pluck a piece of fluff off your shoulder. Always put his plans on pause to ask you about your day, texted you about life and school and plans for the future.

His future included nationals. Playing in front of crowds and cameras, screaming fans and loud cheers. His future included volleyball. But you always wondered if there was room for you in that future too.

Akaashi paused, watching your eyes and for a moment, you could’ve sworn he had looked at your lips, a flicker of something different crossing his eyes. “I needed to see you.”

He said it so casually. As if this was normal. As if it was normal for a guy to crawl into a girl’s bedroom and lay in her bed like they were already married.

“I see you practically every day when we’re at school,” you pointed out, brushing a piece of hair from his eyes and trying to determine what he was really thinking because lord knows you could never tell.

Akaashi just stared some more at you, eyes slowly blinking from exhaustion. “I’ll be busy the next few weeks. With volleyball. And I know you’ve got plans for the summer too. I just... wanted to see you before I got all busy. I wanted to just be here with you and pretend like i could come back here.”

“You could,” you added quickly, maybe a bit too quickly, because then he looked at you with surprise. “I like it when you come by,” you admitted to him quietly, sitting up slightly in your bed. “I’m going to miss you while you’re all busy this summer.”

“I can make time,” Akaashi said hurriedly, his teeth tugging on his lips as he sat up with you. “For you. I can make time.”

You look at him with a smile, his thumb grazing over your hand again as he interlaced your fingers together once more. The two of you sat there, both wanting to ask the hovering question that sat buried in your throats.

What are we?

We’re friends, you’d always insist to your friends.

But friends don’t come crawling into your room at the middle of the night to hold you and hold your hand.

We’re just friends, Akaashi had told the team before with flushed cheeks.

But no friend of Akaashi’s had ever made him so nervous, Bokuto pointed out. And friends don’t stare at each other across the room the way you two do.

What are we?

“You should go,” you pointed out as you felt the tensions rising, glancing at the clock. It was almost 3:30AM now. Maybe it was sleep exhaustion or maybe you were just tired of never knowing what you were to Akaashi, but you knew if you didn’t get him out of your room now, you might end up spilling your guts to him.

Had she felt me try to get the courage to confess? Akaashi wondered as he gathered his things, moving to leave from the window again. But not before he wrapped you up into another hug, pressed a gentle kiss on your forehead. Do friends give forehead kisses?

“I’ll miss you,” he stated as he started to climb out the window.

“It’s not like you’re going across the world,” you teased with an awkward sort of laugh. “I’ll come see you guys maybe. When you’re not too busy.”

It could’ve been your imagination, but he seemed to lighten up at this idea. He nodded and pulled his backpack off for a moment to pull a hoodie from it. “To keep you warm when I’m not around,” he told you as he handed it to you. So casual. Like this was just something friends do.

“T-Thanks,” you tried to hide your smile, tried to hide the fact that you wanted to squeal out like a little girl. You held onto the hoodie as he gave you another little wave and crawled out of your house. You held it tighter as he landed on the ground, looking up at you and smiling at you like you were his romantic interest.

Do friends look at each other like that?

When he disappeared from view, you held the hoodie to your chest, smiling as you smelt his cologne or body wash or whatever the hell it was that made Akaashi smell like Akaashi. You crawled back into bed after closing your window tightly and turning off the lights, still gripping onto the hoodie he had left with you.

Do friends miss each other almost immediately after they’re gone? A few days later and there was Akaashi crawling through your window again. You heard the knock on the glass and found him with a tired smile on his face.

“Are you just going to keep visiting me in the middle of the night?” You asked with a giggle, watching him flop into your bed and open his arms asking you to join him.

“I have to look at sweaty annoying boys all day. What’s wrong with seeing a pretty girl every now and then?” He asked as you crawled in. Do friends say things like that to each other?

“Aw it can’t be all that bad,” you insisted, avoiding his eyes as you tried to wave off the compliment. “Bokuto is rather nice to look at.”

Akaashi huffed a bit, tickling your sides briefly until you reminded him in a harsh whisper that your parents were asleep. “Stop thinking about another boy while I’m here with you,” he stuck his tongue out at you playfully.

“Sorry I’ll stick to thinking about them when you’re not around,” you teased, making him poke at your side some more.

Did friends get jealous that easily?

“Why did you come?” You asked him after a while, tracing soft lines with your finger tips down his cheek and jawline, as if carefully measuring out a masterpiece because that’s exactly what he was. “Is the training camp really that bad?”

“Nah it’s alright. It’s fun getting to play with some new teams. Bokuto gets all excited about showing off his skills,” Akaashi responded softly, his eyes closing slowly as the two of you spoke.

“Aren’t you sore? From all your games?”

“Extremely. I’m not going to feel my legs tomorrow that’s for sure.”

“You shouldn’t have walked all this way then, idiot. You’re going to tire out your legs even more.”

“It’s worth it if I get to see you,” his voice was so quiet you weren’t even sure he actually said it. You looked up at him and found his eyes open again, watching you as if gauging your reaction.

Did friends make you feel like your heart would beat out of your chest? Do friends walk all the way to your house in the middle of the night after exercising all day?

What are we?

You wanted to ask, the words forming at your lips. The question was begging to be answered, pleading at your vocal cords to produce some sort of sound.

But what if you were reading into things?

What if friends really do all the things you wondered about? What if you weren’t exactly friends but weren’t anything more either? What if Akaashi saw you as a placeholder. A warm body to be everything a girlfriend could be until he found someone actually worthy.

What if you really were just friends?

Akaashi left a few moments later, groaning softly as he stretched and giving you another exhausted smile as he insisted he’d be back some other time. He traded sweaters with you, pulling out a brand new one for you from his bag and taking the one he had left earlier.

“I’m okay with this one Akaashi, why are you giving me another?” You asked confusedly.

He shrugged and you could’ve sworn there was a blush on his cheeks, “Just cause.”

He wrapped you up in a hug, pressed another kiss to your forehead and slipped out the window. Then spent the whole walk back shaking his head at himself for not saying what he wanted to say.

“Because I like how my clothes smell like you after you wear them,” he spoke aloud into the quiet night. “Because I wanted a part of me to always be with you. Because I don’t want you thinking about Bokuto, I want you thinking about me. Because I wanted to walk all this way to tell you how I felt and I chickened out again.”

The reasons piled into his head and he angrily kicked at some rocks as he walked. Why was it so much easier to think of why when he walked away?

“Because I want to know what we are,” he whispered to himself, stopping his footsteps and staring at the sky for a moment before walking further from you.

More days passed and you couldn’t help but feel disappointed when you didn’t hear from Akaashi as much. He was busy. You were busy. Everyone was busy, you told yourself. It’s not like he forgot about you. Or that he decided to ghost you.

It’s not like he found someone else. It was a volleyball training camp, who could he have found?

You wanted to tell yourself that there wasn’t anyone else and even if there was, it’s not like you had a claim to him anyway. You and Akaashi were just friends.

But you still waited for him every night, looking out the window in hopes he’d come.

Finally you heard a little tap at your window, and there was Akaashi with another tired grin. He seemed like he was glowing more than usual. He seemed bigger, more toned under his jacket.

“I missed you,” you told him shyly and the two of you curled back under the sheets together again.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, pressing his lips briefly against your forehead. “I got all caught up in training and even after the day is gone, everyone still wants to practice. Even that blond boy from Karasuno seems like he’s getting into it.”

You smiled and nodded, thinking about the few texts that Akaashi seemed to get out to you when he wasn’t so busy, “I’m sure everyone’s training hard for Nationals.”

Akaashi nodded and smiled, shifting so he was lying on his back and staring at your ceiling, “It’s getting really close. We got to be the best we can be.”

“You’re already really good. But I know you guys will win it all,” you beamed up at him excitedly. It was one of your favourite things, watching them play. And these National games always came with such excitement.

“Only if you’re there cheering us on,” Akaashi glanced at you, as if he had asked if you were coming and waiting for you to confirm.

“Of course,” you nodded up at him. “I wanna watch my boys beat everyone! Wipe the floor with them!”

Akaashi smirked and held onto you a little tighter, fingers dancing along your skin gently.

Did friends send tingles up your spine when they touched you? Because you hadn’t noticed it with anyone else but him.

“I can’t stay long tonight, love,” he whispered to you softly after an hour of whispered conversations passed. “I told Bokuto I’d wake up early with him and get some more practice.”

You nodded understandingly, though your heart felt a little as he started to move, “After your camp, maybe we can start doing all those summer things you wanted to do. When you’re not practicing of course.”

Akaashi chuckled and nodded, “Sure. Ice cream, find a beach, go swimming, whoop your ass in a water balloon fight,” he listed off.

You rolled your eyes, shoving his shoulder back as you insisted that he was definitely going to lose a water balloon fight.

His hands grabbed you by the shoulders, pulling you into another hug. This time a bit tighter, like he was scared you were fading away, “I’m sorry I can’t stay,” he murmured to you, pulling away slightly to look down at you. “But I promise I’ll come see you soon.”

Why did everything he say always seemed like something a boyfriend would say? Do friends say things like that?

“I know you’re busy, Akaashi, don’t worry,” you told him with a small shrug, staring at your hands nervously.

“Y/N...”

There was something in his tone... something so foreign. You looked up at him and saw nervousness in his eyes, his hands sliding down your arms to hold your hands.

“Yea?”

Akaashi cleared his throat awkwardly, his eyes glancing between yours and your hands.

“I- We...” he started.

What are we?

Three words.

Or maybe he should ask what you wanted you two to be?

Is that too much? Is that too pushy?

What if you didn’t think there needed to be anything more to this relationship? What if he was overthinking it? What if this was just for fun and you really were into Bokuto?

“Are you okay, Akaashi?” You asked after a moment of him stuttering.

“Yeah... we’ll do all those things and more,” he finally managed out, his eyes avoiding yours more now. “Promise.”

You nodded slowly, wishing he would keep holding your hand as you two moved away from each other. He traded sweaters with you again, pressed another kiss to your forehead, and disappeared into the night.

You spent the night wondering what he had started saying. Why was he so nervous tonight? What was it about tonight that made him so awkward? You hadn’t seen Akaashi nervous in a lot of situations. He was always so calm, but not tonight for some reason. Could it be that he was nervous… just like you were? Could it actually be that you two were something other than just friends?

It was the last day of the summer training camp and the smell of cooking meat made Akaashi’s mouth water. He looked around him, carefully calculating exactly what kind of meats he wanted to grab off of the barbecues. He and Komi chatted with Tsukishima briefly about their baby Ace’s tantrums, Akaashi smirking to himself as he watched his idiotic best friend going around with Hinata, drooling over the lunch. 

“When Bokuto told me to swing by for lunch, this isn’t quite what I expected.”

There was a little lurch in Akaashi’s chest, hearing that voice. He swung around to see you standing there, Suzumeda giving you a little wave after she had shown you to where the team was. “Glad you could swing by! It’s not every day we get to hang out with Akaashi’s friend,” she snickered, a teasing tone in the way she said friend. 

You and Akaashi both just looked at her funny before turning back to each other, a smile on your face, “Did you miss me?”

Akaashi just gave you a little smirk, grabbing you by your wrist and pulling you into a hug, “Obviously.” He smiled down at you. “Sorry, did you say Bokuto told you to come?” He asked suddenly, looking around to find a wide smiled owl looking Bokuto behind him.

“I just thought that you’d actually smile a bit if she came by!” Bokuto insisted with a laugh, hands on his hips all proud-like. “Good to see you, Y/N! Must be nice to come by and hang out with Akaashi huh?”

You smiled up at him and moved to pat his head affectionately, “Of course! But I like coming to see you too, Bokuto,” you teased.

Bokuto’s smirk seemed different this time as he gave Akaashi a wink, “Sure but there’s nothing wrong with being here solely for Akaashi so you two have some time together,” he grinn, poking your nose playfully.

Before you could ask him what he meant, questioning his word choices and teasing sort of tone, Bokuto got called across the field, eagerly grabbing a plate with the food.

“Are you hungry?” Akaashi asked, nodding towards the gloriously smelling food. You nodded but stayed at his side, finding the massive groups of boys a little daunting. “I’ll get you something then, you can stay around here.”

“Thank you,” you squeezed his arm gently and he just gave you one of those kind soft smiles before disappearing into the crowd.

“Come on! She’s super sweet, you’ll love her!” Suzumeda was saying, dragging a bunch of girls in your direction. You blinked in surprise, Shirofuku giving you a wave as she also made her way over.

“How you doing, Y/N?” Shirofuku wrapped her arms around you excitedly, squeezing you into a hug. “You should’ve come with us! You could’ve been a big help keeping these boys in line.”

You laughed, shaking your head, “I’m not quite sure I could do what you guys do,” you insisted shyly, smiling at the other girls who were smiling at you. “Hiya! I’m Y/N Y/L/N,” you offered to the new faces.

Soon, you met all the managers from the other schools and it didn’t take long for you all to be laughing and joking about the various attitudes and characters your teams all had.

“Aren’t you hungry, Y/N?” Kiyoko asked suddenly, noting the lack of food in your hand. “We have lots, and I’m sure some of these boys don’t need to have 7 helpings!”

You nodded and glanced behind your shoulder, finding Akaashi yelling at Bokuto for trying to steal all the meat. “Akaashi already said he’d grab me a plate. Figure it’s better than me getting lost in that group,” you pointed out and turned your eyes back to the girls. 

They were all sharing grins with each other, Suzumeda giggling, “Aren’t they adorable?”

You blinked in surprise as they laughed some more, tilting your head, “Who?”

“You!” Ōtaki laughed. “I don’t know Akaashi much but Shirofuku and Suzumeda told me you two really bring the best out of each other.”

You paused a bit more and the Fukurodani girls noted your hesitation, “Sorry, was it supposed to be a secret?” Shirofuku asked with wide eyes. “Leave it to Bokuto to go spilling everyone’s secrets!”

Your eyebrows furrowed more as you glanced between the girls, “I’m so confused. What secret?”

“That you and Akaashi were dating! We heard he snuck away between days here at the summer camp to go see you and that he finally confessed!” Suzumeda explained, her smile getting more and more stiff as you seemed more and more confused.

“Akaashi and I are just friends,” you insisted nervously, heart pounding against your chest. “W-Why would Bokuto tell people that?”

“I’m sorry, Y/N, we didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that! I thought it was pretty obvious you two liked each other,” Kiyoko admitted, the rest of the girls apologizing profusely. You shook your hands in front of each other, insisting that it wasn’t their fault that Bokuto was being dumb again, your face heating up from embarrassment.

You wondered just how many other people Bokuto had been whispering this news to, but it didn’t take long for you to find out. You excused yourself from the girls, saying you were going to find Akaashi and your food, but really just feeling way too embarrassed to look them in the eye.

You met with a few Karasuno third years, Daichi grinning as he told you that Akaashi had mentioned you before and said nothing but good things.

“It’s really great to finally meet you!” Sugawara had chimed in. “Bokuto told us about your new relationship so congratulations! I have to say, Akaashi seems like he’s smiling more that you’re around.”

You quickly insisted to them as well that you and Akaashi were in fact not dating and that you weren’t quite sure why Bokuto had gone round telling otherwise. The third years apologized on their behalf, sheepishly walking back to their team as you excused yourself yet again.

Even some of the Furkurodani boys grinned at you and gave you a thumbs up, thanking you for making Akaashi smile every now and then. As much as you wanted to take credit for those smiles, you weren’t quite sure how to awkwardly tell them that you and their setter were just. friends.

Did Bokuto not realize that you and Akaashi were just friends? Why was he torturing you like this? It’s not like he didn’t know you were constantly staring at his best friend. You wanted to slip away, hide in a corner, because now it felt like everyone was looking at you differently. You were no longer just a friend of the Fukurodani boys, now you were Akaashi’s girlfriend. You wanted that title more than anything, but not like this. And what would he say when he found out? He’d probably kill Bokuto for insinuating that the two of you were dating because you two were just friends. Just. Friends. And nothing more.

You finally managed to find Akaashi, who was giving a weird look to some of the Karasuno boys, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, “-who told you that?” He asked, a slight hint of surprise in his voice.

“Bokuto!” A small redhead grinned widely, catching your eye and his eyes widening, “Your boyfriend is so cool!” He yelled at you before stuffing his face with more food.

Akaashi whirled around to see you, both of you sharing a look of what the hell is going on? “I’m going to kill him,” he huffed as he walked over to you, handing you a plate of food. “I’m sorry I took so long but I piled enough on there for the two of us. But… everyone keeps asking me… questions.”

“About… us?” You asked slowly and he just shifted in his stance, nodding slowly. “Me too. Bokuto seems to have a big mouth for things that don’t exist.”

Don’t exist, the words rang in Akaashi’s head as he tried to remind himself that as much as he wanted, you two weren’t dating. He wasn’t sure why Bokuto had it in his mind that you were, or that he could go telling literally everyone around, but he would kill him first and ask questions later.

“Hey hey hey!” Bokuto yelled, as if he felt you two thinking about him and magically appeared behind you two. “How’s the happy couple!?”

“Bokuto, what did you do?” You groaned, not at all hungry anymore even though the food on the plate still smelled incredible.

“Do?” He asked, tilting his head as Akaashi groaned. “Why do you two look so stressed? It’s a BBQ!”

“Bokuto, you idiot. Why does everyone think we’re dating?” Akaashi asked him, flicking his upperclassman in the head. “What did you do?”

“Aren’t you?” Bokuto asked with a furrowed brow, looking between you two. “I thought all those nights Akaashi snuck away, I thought he finally got up the courage to tell you how he feels,” he told you, an oblivious and concerned look in his eyes. “Did he not tell you?”

“N-No,” you managed to get out, your face feeling hot again. What would it take to just forget all of this happened? To forget that Bokuto just insinuated that Akaashi has feelings for you? It had to be a lie right? Akaashi was going to insist that he didn’t have feelings for you and that you two were just friends. You didn’t want to hear it - you’d give anything to just slip away and forget this whole day ever happened. 

“Bokuto, I hadn’t told her yet,” Akaashi sighed instead, shaking his head. 

“You chickened out again?” Bokuto gaped, patting his friend’s shoulder in comfort. “It’s okay, I’m sure it’ll go great when you finally tell her!” He insisted, as if you weren’t standing right there.

“Tell me what?” You asked quietly, watching Akaashi’s somewhat strained expression. Why did he seem so nervous? What did Bokuto mean when he said Akaashi chickened out again? You didn’t want to believe that all of this meant what you thought it meant because getting your hopes up was terrifying. But you stared at him anyways, waiting for someone to explain to you like you were a child. 

Bokuto just grinned, looking between you two as if watching a film and waiting for the ending. “Go on, tell her!” Bokuto insisted to his friend, nudging him towards you.

Akaashi had a flush on his cheeks and he was starting to avoid your eyes. His weight shifted back and forth on his feet as he played with his fingers, sighing quietly, “I didn’t want to do this in front of everyone, Y/N,” he admitted softly.

Your heart was pounding in your ears. This couldn’t be happening now, could it? You were just friends, you were just friends, you were just friends. The words had been repeating in your head ever since Akaashi had first snuck into your room. You two were only friends - there was nothing more. You had to believe that. Because if there was something more, it meant leaving your heart open to be broken. What if he only liked you because you were available? What if he didn’t really see anything in you? What if he moved away after high school and the two of you drifted apart? Losing a friend hurts, but if you two took the next step and then you lost your friend and a lover? It would be devastating. 

“Stop overthinking,” Akaashi stated after a moment, his eyes finally catching yours and seeing that telltale sign that you were spiraling mentally. He took the plate from your hands, setting it on a nearby table so you weren’t holding it for forever. “I like you. I’ve always liked you. I wanted to tell you that night before the summer camp. And every other time that I came to see you. I’ve been wanting to tell you since that day we spent at the park and you kept picking flowers for me. You don’t make me feel like I need to be anything more than me.” Akaashi swallowed hard as he watched your eyes, feeling a little light headed as the words spilled from his lips. “I know we’re friends. But I don’t want to be just friends anymore, Y/N…”

“You don’t?” You asked softly, biting down on your inner cheek nervously. Was this really happening? Your hands were trembling at your sides, looking up at Akaashi like everyone else had disappeared (though you could still feel Bokuto squirming and squealing beside you, watching the interaction). 

Akaashi just gave you that same smile he always did, taking one of your hands and giving it a squeeze, “I’m tired of always telling people that we’re just friends. I don’t want just any friend in my sweaters and I don’t go climbing into people’s rooms in the middle of the night just because they’re a friend.”

“You did what?” Bokuto gasped, eyes widening but immediately shushing when Akaashi sent him a little glare for interrupting. 

Akaashi took another breath and just shook his head slightly, “I want us to be more than friends, Y/N. So maybe if you’re okay with it, we can start telling people that Bokuto isn’t a liar and that… you are my girlfriend?”

You looked around the space, expecting the sky to be falling or some imaginary creature to randomly show up. Because this had to be a dream right?

“You’re not dreaming, dummy,” Akaashi laughed, seeing the panic in your eyes. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. But I needed this off my chest,” he explained, starting to let go of your hand. You watched as a flash of disappointment crossed his eyes before you grabbed his hand again, squeezing.

“Of course I want to,” you breathed out shakily. “I just… always thought you wanted to be just friends. But I’ve always wanted something more with you.”

Akaashi’s face broke out into the biggest grin you’d ever seen before, pulling you into a tighter hug than he’s ever given you before, actually forcing a breath from your lungs.

“Don’t kill her before your first date!” Bokuto screeched, trying to pry Akaashi’s arms from around you. “God, that took you guys forever! I gotta go tell everyone that I’m not a liar now!” Bokuto beamed, rushing away from the new couple to shout it from the top of his lungs that his best friend finally had a girlfriend.

Akaashi laughed a bit and shook his head, watching his idiotic friend bounce around. “You should eat,” he pointed out after your hug was interrupted by the sound of your stomach growling.

You nodded and smiled up at him, “Only if you eat with me.”

“Of course. Can’t leave my girlfriend to eat on her own now, can I?” He teased, a smile on his face as he realized how easy and natural it seemed to call you that. The two of you walked around before finding a spot to eat, mingling with those around you.

You watched as Akaashi talked to people, so calm and almost unaffected by everything that just happened. But then he’d look at you with a smile, open his mouth for you to feed him and take your hand in his, and you felt like you were falling for him all over again. You couldn’t help but laugh to yourself later thinking about how many people you were going to have to hear “I KNEW IT” from. Because maybe you and Akaashi were just a little bit more than friends.

Okay fine, a lot more.

haikyuu taglist:

@al0ehas​ @aurumk​ @neko-chii1​ @thisnoodlewritesao3​ @satan-ruler-of-hells​ @trashy-simp​ @jeppiet​ @tobi-momo​ @darkvadeeer​ @haikyuutothetop​ @livy384​ @babyshoyo​ @jesssobs​ @b-bakana​

[peculiarlylost]

Amberprice Fanfic Compilation

To whom it may concern,

I've been felling quite shitty lately and nostalgia is the only thing keeping me breathing, therefore I'll be providing you the best Amberprice fanfic recommendation you didn't ask for.

Previous warnings before you proceed: a. Amberpricefield it's not my cup of tea, so you won't find any here; b. This was made completely based on my own literaly taste (don't come for me if you hated it all); c. I've been struggling with keeping my focus for long periods of time, that's why you won't find a lot of multichapter works here. I'm really sorry, but a long history requires a lot of brain cells and I've burned them all lately; d. Huge thanks for all the amazing authors who wrote this pieces, you've been doing Gods work; e. Fell free to recommend all types of Amberprice fanfic that I missed out. I've made this thinking that someone could be felling as shitty as I'm felling right now and could use some escape from reality to help cope with everything else.

START OF THE LIST

1. Buried Childish Qualities by Scorpion_Queen (https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196012/chapters/66428533) Amberprice + Summer Camp = pure nostalgia. This fanfic fells like those endless summer nights where you would stay up until dawn doing absolutely nothing simply cause you could. It reminds me a little bit of "Looking for Alaska" by John Green which only added for the nostalgia felling.

2. Castles in the Air by Scorpion_Queen (https://archiveofourown.org/works/19161673/chapters/45544687) When I started my marathon of reading Amberprice Fanfic until my eyes stopped working, something that really pissed me of was the over-the-top romanticization of Chloe and Rachel. For me, the beauty in their characters was the visible flaws, that's what made them "touchable". No one is completely good or bad (except Mark Jefferson, fuck him), and this author understood beautifully this assignment. Definelly a must read if you like the nuances of their relationship. Chloe and Rachel are actually Chloe and Rachel in this one.

3. Slumber Party Rules by Scorpion_Queen (https://archiveofourown.org/works/28055220) At this point you must think that I'm in love with Scorpion_Queen. Well, you're completely correct! It's been a while since I loved so much an authors work that I wasted long hours reading all their pieces. I couldn't thank Scorpion enough for that. Basically, this one shot involves a game of truth or dare from Max pov. It was very interesting seeing how other characters interpret the relationship between Chloe and Rachel.

4. Coward by Mogatrat (https://archiveofourown.org/works/11067531) Smut + Angst = pain. I'm a huge simp for authors that shows the ambiguous relationship between them. It's a very quick read, ideal for poop time (that's me trying to be funny).

5. Every Move Just for Herself by Mogatrat (https://archiveofourown.org/works/15923051) Mogatrat do a FINE job when the business is Smutt + Angst. Also, the internalized homophobia is *chief kiss*. This is a very quick read, so you know...

6. Pink Bubblegum by Danganphobia (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13155687) This one just fells like home. It's the type of reading that just fells right, you know? It's easy and uncomplicated. Do you remember how I said it that i hated over-the-top romanticization of Chloe and Rachel? Well, my hatred does not apply to this one. HAPPY ROMCOM AU Y'ALL. Just accept this gift without further explanation.

7. Yours by craashintome (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210812) Another gift without further explanation. HAPPY ROMCOM AU Y'ALL!

8. Strawberry by Danganphobia (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12627669) Here's the thing: after a while, reading fanfic and pretending that the real world is a mirage got me quite happily alienated. Therefore, that's my excuse for all the fluffy one shots in a role. So, you know, enjoy yourself :)

9. Notice Me by lunargrrrl (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13505091) The format of this one fells like a poem. Honestly, I never thought that something like this would captivate me at all, but it definely did. Pleasant surprise to say at least.

10. So, You're a Fatalist Then? by Dandybear (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434655) After I read this one, it took me a while to read another Amberprice Fanfic. I have this theory that most of us reads to live a life that do not belong to us. We have the privilege to simply escape. And I loved to escape the fact that Chloe and Rachel never left Arcadia Bay. This piece reminded me what actually happened.

11. Can't Complain About Much These Days by breezered (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13267965) Do you remember the cutscene in the end of Before The Storm where Chloe paints her hair completely blue? Well, I hope you do, because Rachel helps her out in this one. Believe me when I tell you that you need a little bit of fluffy after the last one.

12. Please Don't Be My Valentine by Ghost_In_The_Hella (https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082052) Conversation Hearts by Ghost_In_The_Hella (https://archiveofourown.org/works/29562945) No need to call me Santa or, in this case, Cupid (ba dun tss). Valentine's Day Special y'all!

13. Tonight I'll Lie Awake, Felling Empty by orphan_account (https://archiveofourown.org/works/4583376) If there was a Life is Strange Before the Storm part II, this piece would definely be a part of the plot. If you need more persuasion to read this masterpiece, I will leave you with this quote: "For Rachel, who doesn't believe in past regrets, it will probably be like it never happened."

14. Alright in the Evening (Baby With You) by breezered (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13214394) That's the euphoric felling that Rachel tried to describe to Chloe the night after the play, where everything is possible and running away is the easiest thing in the entire world. This piece fells light.

15. And the Forest Burned (You See Smoke) by breezered (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13153557) This one destroyed me in the most beautiful way possible. I've been staring at my computer screen for a embarassing amount of time trying to describe how this made me fell so I can indoctrinate you to also read it, but I'm failing horribly. Do you know that book that list 1001 things you have to do before dying? Well, if I've written that book, reading this fanfic would be one of those things. If that's not enough for you, stay with this GENIUS quote: "No, loving Rachel Amber doesn’t kill you. It never burns out, not really. Her absence doesn’t make the fire fade or dwindle, it stokes it and stokes it until the passion and the heat from loving a ghost burns you up and leaves you empty. You spend every second of every day painfully loving Rachel Amber until there’s nothing left for you to give, no more energy and no more attention." (I'm also in love with breezered. What can I say? I'm a whore).

16. The Way You Kiss me (Will Work Every Time) by breezered (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343250) This author is just *chief kiss*.

17. Gone by orphan_account (https://archiveofourown.org/works/16579007) I've never seen a single soul in this Earth that doesn't love Smut + Angst. Have fun kiddos :)

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