#quarry au anyone?

[timaeusterrored]

Vincent: Oh and Jesus Christ I can’t believe I haven’t told you this yet, I saw a fuckin body in the lake!

Mike: Like… like a dead one?

Vincent: Oh no-no-no-nono, uh, one of the swimmers from the varsity swim team. He got lost on his way to practice and- YES A DEAD ONE DUMBASS.

[iridescentis]

Ride The Cyclone: The Quarry AU

I've been thinking of making a The Quarry AU for RTC for a while and now I finally have it!

In 2009, a fire took place during a talent show at Elysium. Ezra, a born werewolf, was a circus attraction named Ezra the Dog Boy, raised and cared for by his adoptive older sister Penny, an orphaned witch. Penny is sixteen, her brother thirteen. Three teenagers Ezra's age come snooping into Elysium under the impression that it is an illegal drug plant taking advantage of child labour: Ocean wants to expose them, Constance wants to help the kids and Noel tags along because he always does. They find out while they're there that they have a boy held captive, and try to free him. Noel has the idea to set fire to some plants to cause a distraction, while the girls unlock Ezra's cage and free him. Ezra is freed but as a werewolf, ends up biting Ocean in the process. The three kids manage to get out mostly unscathed, but the whole population of Elysium is killed as the place goes up in flames, including Penny, who puts a curse on the three kids and the town of Uranium.

The Original Three

Ocean - The first werewolf cursed by Ezra, Ocean is determined to free herself from her condition. At thirteen, only a few full moons after she was bitten, she breaks down in front of Father Marcus, telling him everything. He doesn't believe her, but after a failed exorcism, he agrees to trap them in the abandoned warehouse and watch from afar. With visual evidence, and only narrowly escaping as the werewolf teenagers break free, he dedicates his time to researching and hunting down Ezra to break the curse for good.

Noel - In failed attempts to help Ocean during full moons, he and Constance get bitten. Curing himself is important, sure, but Noel wants freedom more than anything. He is sick of missing out on life to keep his condition a secret, and feels trapped. The trio are kept in electric cages which were built in the warehouse after a few years, but in June 2015, he's running late and accidentally transforms in the woods, ultimately attacking Hank.

Constance - Constance tries her hardest not to blame Ocean for the curse, but drowning in self-loathing she struggles not to. She's hyperpositive to make up for the fact she feels like a monster, but all she wants is to not be a werewolf anymore so she can leave everything behind. She doesn't want to die, or harm anyone, and she hates that they have to kill Ezra in order to break their curses.

The Lovers

Astrid - Recently graduated, she looks forward to taking a roadtrip vacation with her boyfriend. They pack the car and stop at a gas station just before midnight, preparing to leave, when Father Marcus spots them and tells them to go home, or find a motel until the morning when they can travel safely. Astrid doesn't listen, and continues to drive as planned. Down the road, they spot a figure and Astrid swerves into the woods. They attempt to fix the car and check out to see if they hit it, but Astrid gets distracted by the ghost of Penny, and Hank is attacked and bitten by Noel. Father Marcus, who followed them, shoots Noel to make him run away and tranquilises Astrid and Hank, bringing them to holding cells.

Hank - Bitten by Noel, Hank becomes a werewolf and deteriorates, terrified of hurting people but especially Astrid. The couple are kept in holding cells for months, questioned and gradually getting information out of Father Marcus. They find out that it was Noel who bit him, and Astrid decides they have to escape and kill Noel to break Hank's curse.

So, important notes:

Astrid and Hank were a year above the others and graduated the summer of 2015. Everyone else is in their senior year.

In this AU, Ezra is the same age as the choir and Penny was three years older, so Tammy doesn't really fit into the AU anywhere, but she could? I'm not sure how it would make sense for her to be there but hey potentially?

The rest of the choir are technically side characters although the main portion of The Quarry plot would be centred around them: Mischa, Ricky, Corey, Trishna.

The plot happens at the fall fair, when it's a full moon and the choir van breaks down, meaning they're stuck. Ocean, Constance and Noel all turn but Ezra is present too. Astrid was hiding Hank in the woods closer to the fair, so he breaks out and shows up.

The Quarry werewolf mechanics apply, so the original wolf (Ezra) has to be shot with silver to cure the kids, but any werewolf shot with silver is dead permanently.

Obviously The Quarry itself has many endings, for this AU my first idea has Astrid, Hank and Trishna as the only survivors, but it could be a Final Girl moment or a Last Man Standing, or everyone lives! Lots of potential versions of this AU

I'm not going to write this as a fic but I'm definitely going to come up with more stuff for it because I love this so much :D

[vamprnce]

hey what type of horse breeds do you think the counselors would have/ride? this is important bc I'm tryna think what they'd have in my cowboy au (and I'm not super knowledgeable on horses </3)

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 16

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8 || PART 9 || PART 10 || PART 11 || PART 1 || PART 13 || PART 14 || PART 15

Aside from bathroom breaks, Eddie doesn’t leave his room for two days. Friday bleeds into Saturday, bleeds into Sunday, and Eddie wallows in it. Wayne knows him well enough to not bother him, but Wayne also knows him well enough to barge into Eddie’s room Sunday morning without even knocking.

“Up, boy,” he says gruffly, turning Eddie’s overhead light on. “Your eggs are getting cold.”

Eddie groans, and tries to roll over to bury his face back into his pillow, but Wayne grabs him by the ankle and yanks until he goes tumbling out of the bed.

“Wayne!”

“I ain’t asking,” Wayne says, storming out of Eddie’s room without closing the door.

As is his right, Eddie whines and rolls around on his floor for a minute until he can finally find the will to get up. Clearly knowing that it would take Eddie a minute, Wayne’s just plating eggs and potatoes as Eddie walks into the kitchen, still clothed in only his boxers and the same shirt he’d been wearing when Carver’d kicked his ass on Thursday.

They settle across from each other at their dingy table, Wayne letting him get a few bites of breakfast in him before the interrogation he knows is coming begins.

“What happened?” Wayne asks, pushing his own plate away so he can focus on staring Eddie down.

Eddie swallows his bite of potatoes, throat suddenly dry. But, he wants to tell someone, he wants to tell Wayne, who, no matter how Eddie fucks up, is always in his corner.

“I’ve been getting these letters,” Eddie starts, using his fork to play with his food so he doesn’t have to meet his Uncle’s eyes as the whole sordid tale comes out.

He tells it like he experienced it: thinking it was a joke at first before getting wrapped up in the letters, finding out it was Chrissy, trying to connect the living, breathing girl to the words on the page.

And then, Harrington, strong and sure as he defended him from Carver, taking care of his wounds in the aftermath, lying to him for months until he couldn't get away with it anymore.

Wayne just listens without interruption while Eddie talks about Jeff’s betrayal, the fear in Chrissy’s eyes, the defeated slope of Harrington’s back as he’d walked out the door, going god knows where with his car still at the quarry where he’d left it.

When Eddie’s finally done, Wayne hums and pulls his now-cold food back in front of him, picks up his fork and starts to eat. Eddie watches him, gobsmacked.

“Wayne?” Eddie asks, moving his hand up and down in front of his Uncle’s eyes, checking to see if the old man can even still see him. “That’s all you’re going to say? Hmm, and then back to breakfast?”

Eddie scowls as he forks another potato into his mouth, chewing as he continues his tirade. “Where are your wise words, old man? Why the hell’d you even make me get up if this is all I was going to get?”

Wayne hums again, clearly just to piss Eddie off, then finally answers, “you needed to eat.”

Eddie stares at him, mouth hanging open half-masticated potatoes on full display for anyone to see. Not that anyone’s going to because Wayne’s gone back to polishing off his breakfast.

“That’s it?” Eddie demands, throwing his fork down in a huff.

Wayne sighs, like Eddie’s the one being unreasonable here and finally puts his fork down to meet his nephew’s eyes.

“Finish your breakfast, and we can talk.”

Eddie whines, but dutifully scarfs down his plate, never breaking eye contact with his uncle, like they’re in a stand-off. And in a way, they are.

Once done, Eddie tosses his fork across the room into the sink just to prove a point, leans across the table and glares at Wayne. Because he’s an asshole, Wayne takes another sip of his coffee, maintaining eye contact, before finally opening his mouth to speak.

“You like this boy?” Wayne asks.

Eddie sputters and stalls out. “You—I—what?” Eddie asks, fisting his hands into his greasy hair.

“It ain’t an unreasonable question,” he replies. “You’re talking about the kid like he’s a knight in one of those little games you like so much.”

“I—no I wasn’t!” Eddie cries, cheeks burning at the implication.

“Mmmhmm,” Wayne replies, eyebrow raised as he drinks more of his coffee like what he’s saying is of no importance at all.

“Wayne,” Eddie says, leaning over the table to clutch at his shoulders, ribs protesting at the pull. “I’m not gay.”

And that, out of everything, is what gets Wayne to put his mug back down and take Eddie seriously. “You ain’t?” Wayne asks, eyebrow raised. Eddie shakes his head, eyes wide. “You sure? There’s an awful lot of men in leather on your walls.”

Eddie squawks, sinking painfully back into his seat. “That’s Metallica.”

Wayne squints at him. “Is that one of them code words y’all use to stay safe?”

Eddie stands up, chair screeching against the linoleum floor. “It’s a band, Wayne!” Eddie cries, at a loss for what the fuck is happening. “I’m not gay!”

Wayne looks up at him, both eyebrows raised enough to scrunch up his forehead, wrinkling his mostly-bald head. “Well, alright then.”

Eddie stares at him, brain buzzing with even more questions than he’d had before. How long had Wayne thought he was gay? Why? What did he do?

Was he really okay with it?

Eddie turns on his heel and marches out of the kitchen and back to his bedroom without another word. He slams the door and collapses onto his bed, gut squirming with all the thoughts churning in his head.

*** 

Chrissy isn’t surprised when Eddie doesn’t come to school on Monday; she is surprised when Steve does. He’s got bags under his eyes and Robin Buckley super-glued to his side, but he’s still there.

She can’t help the way she runs into his arms, leaving Jeff behind without thought. Steve catches her—he always does, pushing his hands beneath his letterman jacket to grab at her waist and pull her in. They sway there in the middle of the hallway, all their classmates jeering around them.

Chrissy doesn’t care; she’s spent the entire weekend thinking about the crushed look in his eyes as he walked out of the Munson trailer without a backwards glance

“You’re okay?” she asks, face pressed into the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

He runs his hand up and down her back as he responds, “I will be.”

She pulls back to smile up at him and reaches up to brush a floppier-than-usual lock of hair behind his ear. “Walk me to class?”

He links their elbows, and does just that, Jeff and Robin falling into line behind them, Robin prattling on about some movie marathon her and Steve had had at her house over the weekend. 

Chrissy’s just glad he wasn’t alone.

Steve sighs, shoulders slumping as he says, “I’m sorry, Chris,” he says, not looking her way. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into my mess.”

She stops abruptly enough that Robin stumbles into them and bounces back, cutting off her stream of words mid-babble to squawk at them. Chrissy doesn’t acknowledge her, too busy standing on her tippy toes so she can grab Steve’s shoulders and yank him down to her level.

“You listen to me, Steve Harrington,” she demands, looking into his big, bewildered eyes. “Your mess is my mess, okay?”

He’s still just staring at her, eyes wide, mouth hanging open, so she digs her nails in hard and says, “forever,” with as much finality as she can muster.

He keeps staring at her, looking like he’s about ready to burst into tears in the middle of the hallway. Finally, he says, “come over tonight?” more a demand than a question.

She drops her grip on him and nods, content.

Chrissy doesn’t ask questions when Steve leads her over to Robin in the cafeteria. It’s easy to take that last, final step into social suicide with him at her side. 

They fall into their usual routine that night—they watch trashy TV neither would admit to liking to another living soul, and paint each other’s nails.

The lack of letter writing sits like a dead body between them.

“He won’t tell anyone,” Chrissy says, tightening her grip on his hand when he jerks. Chrissy keeps carefully painting his nails, her favorite pink, not looking up at his face. The color suits him—it’s not fair, but everything does. “He promised.”

Steve doesn’t ask for clarification, they both know who she’s talking about. “You believe him?”

She thinks about that torn, guilty look on Eddie’s face and replies, “I do.”

She finishes his pinkie and settles his hand down on her own knee to dry, knowing from previous experience that if she gives it back, he’ll ruin all her work running his hand through his hair.

“That’s good,” he mutters, looking down at his own hand, tilted so far forward that even when she looks up, his hair’s flopped too far into his face to see his eyes. “It still hurts.”

Chrissy sighs. She’d seen this coming all those months ago when she’d helped pen the first letter. Had seen the writing on the wall like it was she herself that was writing it. But, she’d helped him anyway, hoping to salvage his safety, if not his dignity.

She can only hope she has.

“I know,” she replies, biting her lip against apologies he won’t accept. “But, we’re in this together, okay?”

Steve’s fingers twitch on her leg, but he doesn’t pull away. “Even with you and Jeff?”

“You figured that out, huh?” she asks, and that’s what finally gets him to look up at her with a raised brow, making her laugh.

“I mean, you told me you were going to ask him out,” he starts, before leering over at her. “And you two aren’t exactly subtle.”

“Tell that to Eddie,” she replies, wanting to swallow the name back down once it comes out of her mouth, but it’s too late—it’s already been said.

Steve smiles wryly as he says, “well, he’s not exactly the most observant, is he?”

He has her there. Steve himself, no matter how hard he tried, wasn’t subtle with his affections: the compliments, the stuttering over his words, the blushing. But none of it had done more than make Eddie give Steve suspicious looks, like there was some sort of game he wasn’t in on.

There was, but even without knowing he was playing, he’d still beaten Steve.

“No, he’s really not.”

Steve hums, picking up his hand to check if it’s dry before moving onto painting her nails. He picks his favorite yellow for her, even though he knows it washes her out. She holds out her hand and doesn’t complain.

“I really like him,” Steve says, quietly enough that it’s barely audible over the murmur of voices coming from the TV.

“I know,” she whispers, watching the flickering sadness on his face by the illumination of the Harrington’s big television screen. “I love you. You know that, right?”

He pauses in painting her nails to meet her eyes, smiling for real now. “I know,” he says, stroking the skin on her wrist with the free fingers not holding the nail polish applicator. “And you know what? This was all worth it if I got you out of it.”

And then he just goes back to painting her nails like that wasn’t the most romantic thing anyone has ever said. Eddie Munson can fuck himself; Chrissy’s going to be buried in Steve’s letterman jacket and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

*** 

Eddie doesn’t go to school on Monday. He’s too busy rereading the secret admirer notes—the notes Steve Harrington left him—like if he reads them in the right order, it’ll all snap together in his brain in a way that makes fucking sense.

And it does, sort of. It’s like sorting out a bunch of puzzle pieces after finally knowing what the shape of the puzzle even is. Some parts of the letters just jump out of the page, the longer he looks. In the end, he processes this the way he processes everything: he makes a list.

   Proof that Steve Harrington is my Secret Admirer:

   1. I’m not trying to bully you.

   2. I wish I was brave enough to tell you. Brave like you.

   3. I know you don’t like them, but I like sports.

   4. My favorite color is yellow, like the sun, and sunflowers, and all those happy, bright colors.

   5. But my eyes? They’re brown, but nowhere near as pretty as yours.

   6. I tried playing the piano again, and I’m a little rusty.

   7. Do you hate all of them, or just the bullies?

   8.   You laughed, but it wasn’t your real laugh like when Mr. Danver accidentally said ‘orgasm’ instead of ‘organism’.

A jock afraid of Eddie labeling them as a bully? Check. Favorite color, the same one Steve Harrington had painted his nails all those weeks ago? Check. Rich enough to have a piano that’s just not played? Check. But the most damning part of all: Chrissy was never in Mr. Danver’s class with him last year, but Harrington was. And Chrissy? Her eyes are bright, translucent blue.

The longer he looks at those two incriminating bits of evidence, the stupider he feels. It was never her, and from the looks of it, they hadn’t put much effort into pretending it was. It was always Harrington from that first, forever-lost letter that they’d stuffed in his locker.

And the longer he pours over the letters, the less he can picture Chrissy sprawled on her bed, writing each letter with a shy flourish before spraying it with a puff of her favored scent. No. It’s Harrington, frowning down at the page because words have never come easy to him; it’s Harrington sleeping with Eddie’s letter placed gently beneath his pillow; it’s Harrington who’d made Eddie smile like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

And now that he thinks about it, wasn’t it Harrington whose eye he kept catching from across the cafeteria? Harrington who’d stutter over his words around Eddie, but still told him he was a good storyteller?

Harrington who wanted to go to his show. Chrissy hadn’t even remembered Corroded Coffin’s name. 

Harrington had–of course he had. 

And he can picture that, too now. Harrington in the crowd in his stupid polo with his bright yellow nail polish, sticking out like a sore thumb in the gruff crowd at the Hideout, beautiful brown eyes trained solely on Eddie.

He can still feel the way his pulse had ratcheted up when they were in the bathroom, Harrington between his spread thighs, palms warm against his tender ribs, sucking all the oxygen out of Eddie’s lungs with how close he was.

It’s too much.

“Hello?” Jeff’s mom sounds curt over the phone, already fed up with Eddie calling before he’s even said anything. Eddie doesn’t care; he can’t when he needs Jeff this badly.

“Can I talk to Jeff?” he cries out, hand shaking around the receiver as he listens to her grumble, but she still shouts for her son to come pick up the goddamn phone. 

“Hello?”

Eddie should wait until he’s sure Jeff’s mom is no longer in hearing vicinity, but he can’t, too wound up tight to keep from blurting out, “am I gay?”

There’s a moment of silence that Eddie can barely breathe through before Jeff says, “uhh, Eddie?” in such a bewildered voice that Eddie sort of wants to punch him.

“Yes, yes, it’s me,” he says, words spilling out over each other. “And I’m sorry about what I said, and you’re sorry that you kept secrets from me—we can do that later, Jeff!”

“Uh, oka—”

“Now, am I gay?” he’s panting by the time he’s done, not having taken a single breath during his tirade. He’s waiting for Jeff’s confirmation or denial, but all that comes down the line is his quiet breathing. “Jeff?”

“Uh, shit, we’re doing this? Okay.” Eddie can almost picture the fed-up palm Jeff’s rubbing against his face, as if it’s somehow Eddie’s fault that Jeff is taking so long explaining the squirmy nebulous feeling in Eddie’s gut. “I don’t know man, why do you think you’re gay?”

Then, Eddie does what he should have done all along, and spills everything to Jeff, from the first letter all the way up to Steve Harrington’s bitchy little speech in the quarry as he put himself bodily between Eddie and Jason Carver.

“—and then he kneeled between my knees like that’s a normal, straight guy thing to do and just like, put his hands in my shirt!” Eddie whines, long since having settled onto the cold linoleum of his kitchen floor. “I mean, what the hell?”

“I think you’re forgetting one important fact, dude: Steve’s not straight.”

“Which brings me back to my question!” Eddie replies, trying for breezy and landing on whiny. “Am I gay?”

Jeff hums down the line like he’s really thinking about it this time. “Well, when he was touching you,” he starts, like that already doesn’t have Eddie’s face flaming, “what did you feel?”

Eddie puts himself back into that moment, thighs splayed pressed open by the heavy weight of Harrington’s body, Harrington’s big, warm hands running over his skin, his worried golden brown eyes roving over Eddie’s face.

“I felt like I was on fire,” Eddie whispers, feeling that same heat now pooling lower in his gut.

“…in a good way?” Jeff asks.

Eddie’s brain goes static, full of too much to differentiate good from bad, if that’s a distinction that ever existed at all. Eddie makes a questioning noise in his throat, knees twitching restlessly where they’re crossed in front of him.

“Okay, okay, uhh—hmm,” Jeff hums across the line. “Did you want to move closer or away?”

Eddie closes his eyes and thinks, imagining that trapped, warm, overwhelming feeling of being caged in by Harrington’s body. “Both?”

Jeff hmms again, clearly trying to think it through. Eddie can’t blame him—this is the most confused he’s been in his entire life, and Jeff doesn’t even have an all-access pass to his brain to try to pick answers out of–not that it’s currently doing Eddie much good.

“Do you want to try kissing a guy?” Jeff asks. “I’d do it, if it was for you, dude.”

Eddie’s nose wrinkles, lips puckering in disgust, “ew, you’re like my brother.”

Jeff laughs at him and replies, “so you don’t want to, not because I’m a guy, but because we’re like brothers? Sounds pretty gay, dude.”

“Oh.”

Jeff doesn’t say anything; he’s always been good at sensing when Eddie just needs a minute to think. But this time, he doesn’t think a minute will cut it, so he continues with a, “hey Jeff?”

“Hmm?”

“I really did mean it, you know.” He squeezes the phone tighter against the side of his face, like that will help his sincerity ring down the line. “I am sorry, and we should talk about it, but I can’t yet.”

Jeff still doesn’t reply, but his breathing is steady and sure down the line, settling Eddie’s anxious heart down to a little flutter.

“Is that okay?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah, dude,” Jeff replies gruffly. “So, you’ll still call me?”

Eddie smiles. He’s missed Jeff, is the thing. They’ve been so distant lately, and no matter how well Eddie and Gareth get along, he’s no Jeff. “Or accost you at school, whichever comes first.”

That makes Jeff laugh; Eddie lets the sound warm him. “Okay, but I’m serious about the kissing thing!” Jeff replies, “Come over and I can plant one right on y—”

Eddie hangs up on his friend, feeling more himself than he has in days. No matter what happens, he has Jeff.

PART 17

[dixons-sunshine]

Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams AU Headcannons Part 4 | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Word count: 625.

A/n: Okay, so here's some more of my own personal headcannons for this au because I have nothing else to post lol. However, these focus more on the canon timeline, because I want to write more for this au in the show's events. Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy!

★ When the quarry camp got overrun with walkers, Daryl couldn't find you at first.

★ His whole world shattered for a moment when he called for you but you didn't answer him. He thought that the walkers had gotten you, and he was ready to kill anyone and anything in his path.

★ However, you finally called out to him. When you did, he ran to you and practically crushed your body to him.

★ He had just lost his brother. He couldn't handle losing you, too.

★ He held you that entire night. He wouldn't let you go.

★ When everyone got to the CDC, Daryl was relieved. Not only were you safe, but there was a doctor that could help deliver the baby.

★ He spent the night (while very slightly intoxicated) cuddled up on your stomach. Before he fell asleep, he whispered sweet nothings to your baby, his baby, as well as saying an endless amount of “I love you's” to you.

★ Yeah, that dream of his got ruined quickly. You think he was pissed at Jenner in the show? Multiply that by a hundred when his wife and unborn child are in danger. The only reason Jenner didn't get a beating was because you were clinging to him and trying to calm him down.

★ When those doors opened, he practically dragged you out of there. The others were still stumbling around, but the two of you were running for those doors upstairs the minute Jenner opened the doors.

★ When the horde on the highway passed and everyone was looking for Sophia, you were right by his side. He wanted you to stay by the RV but with T-Dog injured and him not fully trusting only Dale to keep you safe, he brought you along.

★ Not without a gun, though. He trusted your shooting skills. The two of you had taken up shooting practice with guns for hunting back in the day, so he felt comfortable enough with letting you carry a gun.

★ It did take a lot of threatening convincing for Shane to give in, but Daryl wouldn't let up.

★ When the farm finally came along, your escapades were put on a temporary halt.

★ Not because he didn't trust you to help look for Sophia, but because with the safety the farm provided and with a doctor available, it was time to properly start thinking of the baby.

★ Hershel gave the two of you a few baby books to read, and Daryl stayed up late into the night while you slept, reading and preparing himself for everything.

★ He did get excited when he learnt that having sex didn't hurt the baby, but he would never force you into that. It was just nice knowing that if you wanted to, he could give you what you wanted without having to worry about hurting the baby.

★ You did want it, more easily aroused than ever before because of your hormones, but there was a time and place for that—Hershel's farm while sleeping in a tent near everyone wasn't the time nor place for that.

★ Daryl really wanted the farm to work out. Unlike in the show, he'd be on Rick's side with wanting to stay. It was the safest option for you and your unborn baby, and he'd be damned if someone (Shane) ruined everything.

★ When Daryl got shot, he may or may not have been proud of you when news of you punching Andrea circled back to him.

★ He did get a proper scolding from you for scaring you like that, though.

★ He wasn't mad because he understood, and when he saw your tears, he brought you into his arms, despite the pain in his body.

★ You were the only one who was able to reach out to him when everyone found out that Sophia was dead.

★ Seeing walker Sophia instilled a new yet old fear in him—what if he failed your baby? What if your baby died because he couldn't protect them? What if you died because he couldn't protect you?

★ It took a lot of comforting to calm him down. You knew that you wouldn't be able to erase his fear, but you could be there for him and reassure him to the best of your abilities.

©dixons-sunshine 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified, adapted or translated to any other site or platform without evidence of my given consent.

[rigginsstreet]

Has anyone done a fic where it’s like modern au or the 2000s, something where steve wasn’t a teenager in 80s or at least really young

So anyway he’s driving along the road one night and sees a kid about his age walking along, looks kind of dated with his curly mullet and leather jacket and unbuttoned shirt but maybe he just came back from a costume party or something. And Steve, being the good guy he is, pulls up to the guy and asks if he wants a ride home, is maybe looking for something more when he gets a look at the guys face and realizes what a knockout he is.

And the guy is charming too, smirking at him and accepting the ride, tho there’s something a little sad in his eyes, a little haunted.

Steve asks questions like his name (billy hargrove) and “haven’t seen you around here before, you from here?” (No, California)

He doesn’t really offer up much else and he doesn’t ask Steve about himself, which…is fine, Steve guesses.

But when he asks billy where he should drop him off billy gets a little panicked look in his eye. Repeats that he can’t go home, his dad’s gonna be so mad, he can’t go home.

And Steve’s like okay….quarry then? Because that’s his spot when he doesn’t want to go home, wants to avoid his parents.

Billy agrees and Steve drives them to the water. Parks the car. Steve tries to strike up conversation but Billy’s reluctant to say anything. When Steve, going out on a limb, suggests a late night swim, Billy agrees.

So they strip off their clothes. Steve runs to the water, dives in. Waits for billy to come but…he never does. And Steve can’t see him on the shore, the only light coming from the beemers headlights. He calls out for him, but nothing. Steve’s shoulders sag, he swims back to shore, assumes he’s been had, billys left to go…wherever. Steve sulks and goes home

It’s not until the next morning he gets in his car and notices a leather jacket in his backseat. Which…weird. But he’s kinda hopeful. He can use this to see billy again. He’s just…gotta find him

Problem is when he asks around, no one’s heard of a billy hargrove. It’s not until someone mentions knowing a Neil Hargrove that Steve finally has a lead. So he tracks him down to a house on a cherry lane. Knocks on the door. An angry old man answers, demanding to know what Steve wants

Timidly, Steve asks if a billy lives there? Or if the man knows anyone named Billy Hargrove?

And the man goes cold. Stares Steve down in a way that has him wanting to run for the hills.

The man says “Billy was my son. And he died years ago.”

And that…can’t be right. Steve just saw him last night so… he has his jacket for christs sake

But before he can say anything else the door is slammed in his face.

Later that day Steve’s hanging out with his best friend Robin. Tells her about the weird interaction he had today. And Robin loves a good mystery so she drags Steve to the library or pulls up her laptop and searches the obituaries for a billy hargrove and sure enough…July 4, 1985 a billy hargrove died in a car crash along the same stretch of road Steve found him on the previous night. And right there in black and white is the face of the boy Steve had in his passenger seat

Steve doesn’t know what the hell to think

[koyagifs]

𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓯𝓸𝓾𝓻: 𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓾𝓫𝓵𝓮 𝓲𝓷 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓼𝓮

pairing: poly!ot8 x reader au: werewolf | camp counselors | the quarry genre: angst | horror | fluff (?) word count: 3.7k synopsis: oh megan, what comes around goes around warning(s): Minors do not interact! blood, mention of attack , implied death

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @tunafishyfishylike

August 22 21:43

Megan's voice dripped with venom as she muttered to herself, her arms crossing tightly over her chest. The crackling of the firepit did little to mask her bitterness. “Eight boyfriends. In the same group. What kind of messed-up fairy tale is that?”

She kicked at another rock, her irritation only growing as she glanced toward the cabin where everyone had disappeared. Her mind replayed the scene over and over again—the attention you had, the way the others gravitated to you, protected you, loved you.

“Like she’s so damn special,” she scoffed, pacing back and forth, her frustration boiling over. “One girl surrounded by all of them. And now they’re acting like she’s the victim.”

She rolled her eyes, muttering louder to herself as if justifying her feelings. “Maybe they’ll realize how ridiculous it all is. I mean, they can’t all love her forever, right? It’s not natural.”

The forest seemed to groan in response, the trees creaking ominously as the wind picked up. Megan paused, shivering slightly as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She glanced around, suddenly aware of how alone she was.

“Hello?” she called out, her voice a little shakier than she’d intended. The fire crackled behind her, but the dark woods remained silent. Megan swallowed, her bravado faltering as she took a cautious step back toward the fire.

A branch snapped somewhere deep in the trees. Megan whipped her head around, her eyes darting through the shadows. “Very funny, guys. If this is some dumb prank, you can knock it off now.”

But no one answered.

Another snap. Closer this time.

Megan’s breath hitched as she spun on her heel, her annoyance quickly being replaced with unease. The firelight cast flickering shadows on the edge of the treeline, but she couldn’t see anyone. She clenched her fists, forcing herself to stand tall.

“This isn’t funny,” she hissed, her voice louder now, but still trembling.

The silence was broken by the sound of heavy, deliberate footsteps, just beyond the light. Megan’s chest tightened, her heart hammering in her ears. “Who’s there?”

From the darkness came a low, guttural growl—inhuman and menacing. Megan froze, her body going cold as the sound reverberated through the clearing.

“W-what the hell…” she whispered, stumbling backward.

There stood in the middle of the path where she last saw the boys stood a tall, skinny figure. Megan's breath caught in her throat as she stared at the figure. The flickering light of the fire danced across its gaunt, inhuman form. The forest was silent, the crickets that once echoed the night now held still. The werewolf staring Megan down as she noticed something dripping from the creature face.

Hollow eyes glowed faintly, locked on her with an unnatural hunger, and its mouth stretched into an impossibly wide grin, sharp, blood-stained teeth glinting in the firelight.

Her knees buckled slightly as the creature tilted its head, its body twitching with a jerky, unnatural movement. It took a step forward, the sound of its footfall a sickening thud against the earth.

Megan stumbled backward, her voice trembling as she gasped, “S-stay away…”

The creature didn’t listen. Another step. And then another. Its grin widened, as though her terror only fueled its sick delight.

“Help—HELP!” Megan shrieked, turning on her heel and bolting back toward the firepit. Her vision blurred with tears, her breath coming in panicked gasps as branches whipped against her face and arms. The sound of its footsteps grew louder, faster, the thudding impossibly close behind her.

She risked a glance over her shoulder—and instantly regretted it. The creature was right there, its limbs contorting unnaturally as it gained on her.

“No, no, no—!” Megan’s scream was cut short as her foot caught on a root. She hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs. She clawed at the dirt, scrambling to rise, but before she could move, the creature was looming over her.

Its growl rumbled like thunder, low and vibrating through her chest. Megan sobbed as she tried to crawl backward, her wide, terror-filled eyes fixed on the beast as it lowered itself, its face now inches from hers.

The creature opened its mouth slowly, the sharp teeth dripping with fresh blood, and for a single, horrifying second, Megan swore it smiled.

And then it lunged.

From a distance, the faint crackle of the fire could still be heard, along with the wind rustling through the trees. But the clearing by the firepit was silent now—empty, save for a few scattered embers and the scent of blood lingering in the air.

August 22 22:00

The crackling of the fire in the cabin's hearth was the only sound cutting through the tense silence. Yeosang’s breathing was slow and steady, though every so often he shifted slightly, letting out soft groans of discomfort. You sat on the ground beside him, your knees pulled to your chest, your hand gently resting on his arm for reassurance—maybe for him, maybe for yourself.

San sat across the room, his elbows resting on his knees as his fingers ran through his hair in frustration. His usually bright and mischievous eyes were now dark and stormy, barely blinking as he stared into the fire. Wooyoung was leaning against the wall nearby, his usual energetic demeanor completely drained. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, his lips pressed into a thin line.

" What even happen? just explain it one more time, please," Seonghwa asked. Seonghwa's voice was steady, but there was an edge to it—a mix of worry and frustration that he was trying to keep at bay.

San let out a heavy breath, his head leaning back against the wall as he looked up at the ceiling for a moment before finally speaking. “We were in the woods looking for Yn—she’d run off because of Megan.” His eyes flicked briefly toward you before he continued. “Yeosang and I found her, and we were heading back when…” He paused, his jaw clenching tightly, his voice wavering. “...that thing came out of nowhere.”

" are you sure it wasn't a bear hyung? I mean - it's the forest," Jongho asked.

San shook his head, his eyes landing on your figure. " that thing is a werewolf..you guys have to believe me."

The room fell silent at San's words. The crackling fire seemed to echo loudly in the tense atmosphere, everyone exchanging uncertain glances.

Jongho furrowed his brows, his usually steady voice wavering just slightly. “San, think about it. A werewolf? It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe you were in shock—maybe it was just a bear, and everything happened so fast that—”

“No,” San cut him off sharply, his voice firm, his gaze locked onto Jongho. “It wasn’t a bear, Jongho. I know what I saw. It stood up, taller than me, taller than any of us. It was smart, it was hunting us.”

Seonghwa let out a sigh as everyone looked frighten.

" what do we do now..?" Yunho asked.

Seonghwa shrugged before he looked panicked, " we left megan alone at the camp fire"

Everyone froze at Seonghwa's words, their panic and shock hanging heavy in the air.

"Shit," Wooyoung breathed, his voice barely above a whisper as realization struck.

Seonghwa’s expression hardened, though a flicker of regret passed through his eyes. “We didn’t think. We were too focused on finding Yn, Yeosang, and San.”

“We don’t have time to sit here and argue!” San snapped, struggling to stand despite the gash on his side. “We need to go get her. Now.”

“Hold on!” Jongho interjected, raising his hands. “You just said there’s a werewolf out there. We can’t just go running in without a plan! We’ll get killed.”

“And what, we just let Megan die?” Wooyoung shot back, his tone sharp.

Yunho shrugged, " wouldn't be a bad thing..." he mumbled.

Seonghwa shot a pointed glare. “Enough,” he said firmly. “I don’t care how any of you feel about Megan—no one deserves to be out there alone with that thing. Whether we like her or not, we’re going after her.”

Seonghwa pushed his hair back as he looked at everyone. His heart aching that you're covered in blood. Letting out a long sigh, he sat down on the other side of the table.

" Me, Yunho and Wooyoung are going to head back out. In the meantime go look for some weapons we can use. Jongho you're to stay here and protect yn, san and yeosang."

Jongho straightened up at Seonghwa’s words, his expression resolute. “Got it. I won’t let anything happen to them.”

You let out a small, shaky breath, leaning slightly against Yeosang. who stirred faintly on the couch, still too weak to respond, but his chest rose and fell steadily, offering at least a little comfort.

You left Yeosang side as the boys came back from looking weapons, each of them heading towards the door. Seonghwa was first to greet you, a weak smile on his face.

" promise me you'll be okay?" you mumbled, tears stinging your eyes.

Seonghwa pulled you close to him, hugging you tightly as if it's the last time he'll see you. " i promise.."

You held onto Seonghwa tightly, your fingers gripping the back of his shirt as if letting go would make this nightmare worse. He rested his chin on top of your head for a moment before pulling back just enough to meet your tear-filled gaze.

“Don’t cry, Ynie,” he said softly, brushing a thumb across your cheek to wipe away a stray tear. “We’ll be back soon. You’ll see.”

Your lips trembled, but you gave him a small nod, trusting in his words even if the pit of worry in your stomach didn’t fade. Seonghwa turned to the others as Wooyoung stepped forward, his usual playful demeanor replaced by a more somber expression.

Wooyoung tilted your chin up gently, flashing you a faint smile. “C’mon, baby girl, don’t look at me like that. I’m too handsome for sad tears, you know?” he teased lightly, though his eyes betrayed his own anxiety.

“Just come back,” you whispered, voice barely audible.

“Of course we will,” Wooyoung replied, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead before stepping back to join Yunho and Seonghwa.

Yunho was next, his tall figure leaning down so he could meet your eyes. His hand rested gently on your shoulder, offering a warmth that calmed you, even if just for a moment. “We’ll make it back. I promise. You’re safe here, okay?”

You nodded again, though your heart still ached as they all prepared to leave. Seonghwa adjusted his grip on the crowbar he carried, and Wooyoung checked the knives tucked into his belt while Yunho hefted the makeshift weapon Jongho had found earlier.

San and Jongho stood quietly nearby, watching the exchange with heavy hearts. As the three boys reached the door, Yunho paused and looked back one last time. “Stay strong for us, Ynie. We’ll bring Megan back and get through this—together.”

With that, Seonghwa slowly opened the door, the cold night air rushing in once again. The three of them slipped out into the darkness, their figures disappearing as the door shut behind them.

The cabin fell silent except for the sound of the wind outside and the faint groan of the barricaded walls. You stood there for a moment, frozen, before you felt San’s hands on your shoulders.

“They’ll come back,” San murmured softly, his voice reassuring as he turned you around to face him. “They’re strong. You know that.”

Jongho pulled you to his side, " why dont you take a nap? Lie down for a little bit and rest up"

You hesitated, glancing between Jongho and San. The thought of lying down felt impossible with the pit of dread sitting heavy in your stomach, but the exhaustion was starting to hit you like a wave. Your body ached, your mind raced, and the adrenaline that had kept you standing this long was starting to wear off.

Jongho guided you gently toward the couch where Yeosang still rested. “Come on, Yn,” he said softly, his arm wrapped protectively around you. “You’re no good to anyone if you collapse from exhaustion.”

San crouched beside the couch as you sank down next to Yeosang, his warm hand brushing a stray piece of hair from your face. “Just close your eyes for a bit, baby,” he whispered reassuringly. “We’ll keep watch. I promise nothing’s getting past us.”

You looked up at him and then Jongho, whose determined expression left no room for doubt. “Okay,” you relented finally, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jongho grabbed a blanket and draped it carefully over you, tucking it around your shoulders. “We’re right here. If anything happens, you’ll know.”

You nodded faintly, settling into the couch. The fire crackled softly in the background, and the gentle rise and fall of Yeosang’s breathing beside you was somewhat comforting. San and Jongho positioned themselves close—San near the door, Jongho by the window—like silent sentinels ready to guard you against whatever might come.

“Get some rest, baby,” San murmured one last time, offering a soft smile as your eyelids grew heavier.

As you lay there, the world around you still felt far from safe, but for just a moment, wrapped in the warmth of the blanket and the faint sounds of your boyfriends standing watch, you let yourself slip into a fragile sleep.

August 22 22:45

" what the fuck do you mean they got away?"

" the girl must of gotten help really quickly by the time we went to get the two bitten ones."

The man let out a frustrated groan as he shoved his partner aside. " go check the cabins, make sure they're in there and not outside. Bring them back to the main base, without killing them. Understood?"

“Yes, sir,” the partner muttered, stumbling slightly as he straightened up. The frustration was clear in both their tones, their movements tense and agitated. It was obvious things weren’t going according to plan.

The man, the apparent leader, turned and ran a hand over his face, his anger barely contained. “Damn kids,” he growled under his breath, pacing. “If they’ve seen too much, we’re screwed.”

“Maybe they didn’t realize what’s really going on,” his partner offered, hesitating as he glanced nervously toward the dark treeline. “We can still handle this.”

The leader shot him a sharp glare. “Don’t assume. You know how fast it spreads.” He pointed a finger toward the woods. “Check every cabin. Every damn inch. If they’re in there, you drag them back here alive. If not—then we hunt.”

The partner swallowed hard, nodding quickly. “Understood.”

Without another word, he turned and jogged off into the darkness, his flashlight flickering as he moved deeper into the campgrounds. The leader remained behind, his sharp eyes scanning the dark, his breath ragged with frustration.

As the partner disappeared from view, the leader muttered under his breath, “They won’t get far. They can’t.” His voice carried an edge of menace, his gaze lingering on the faint glow of the distant cabin lights. “It’s only a matter of time.”

The man squatted to the corpse on the ground, blood splattered everywhere as he tsk. His partner long gone as he moved the corpse hair, a sigh of relief leaving his lips.

" it's not yn. thank god"

August 22 23:15

Jongho wiped the sweat from his brow, his chest rising and falling heavily as he surveyed his makeshift barricade. The once-cozy cabin now felt like a fortress, shadows dancing across the walls as the faint light of the lantern flickered. He turned to check on you and San—San, fast asleep on the couch, his body still healing, and you laying quietly beside Yeosang, whose breathing had grown more even.

Jongho smiled at the scene, heading to Yeosang to check his wounds. His heart sank as his eyes locked on the black veins crawling along Yeosang’s pale skin, a sickly contrast to the faint lantern light. His breathing hitched, his hands trembling as he gently pulled back Yeosang’s shirt to get a better look at the wound that wasn’t there anymore.

“W-what the hell…” Jongho muttered under his breath, the words barely audible. His chest tightened as panic rose inside him, his mind racing to process what he was seeing. Yeosang was burning up, his sweat glistening and dripping down his forehead as his body twitched slightly.

Jongho was quick to pull you up, a whine leaving your lips at your sudden disturbance of sleep. San opened his eyes, getting up quickly before Jongho pulled you behind him.

" stay the fuck back hyung"

San furrowed his brows, his body still sluggish as he tried to fully register what was happening. “What? What are you talking about, Jongho?” His voice was hoarse, his eyes narrowing at the tense look in Jongho’s expression.

Jongho stood firm, shielding you behind him as his gaze flicked back to Yeosang, whose breathing was now shallow, his body trembling violently. “Something’s wrong with him,” Jongho hissed, his voice low but urgent.

" is he bleeding more?" you asked, trying to get close to Yeosang but Jongho pulled you behind him.

" jongho...listen to me carefully-"

" show me your wounds San," Jongho hissed

San froze at Jongho’s command, confusion flickering across his face. "What? My wounds?" he asked, his voice tense.

"Now, San!" Jongho snapped, his eyes darting between you and Yeosang, his grip still firm on the poker, as if ready to defend you at any cost.

San hesitated, his hand instinctively reaching for the still-healing wound on his side, the one that had been inflicted by the creature. He pulled up his shirt and revealed the jagged scar, which had been fully healed—no blood, no mark of the injury at all.

Jongho’s gaze flickered between San’s wound and Yeosang, whose body was still writhing on the couch, the black veins spreading further. A sinking feeling settled in Jongho’s stomach. " you're turning to.."

Your heart sank as San eyes widen at the accusation, " now Jongho let's think this through"

Yeosang eyes sudden snapped open, his once light brown eyes are now a golden color. He sat up making you and Jongho flinched as San took a few steps back. Yeosang looked at you and Jongho, an animalist growl leaving his lips as he got up.

" get away from her Jongho," Yeosang snarled.

Jongho immediately took a step back, his eyes wide with fear, but he didn't stop watching Yeosang, his posture tense and ready. He had no idea what Yeosang had become, but the transformation was undeniable. The air around them seemed to shift, thick with a palpable tension.

You took a shaky breath, your heart pounding in your chest as you looked at Yeosang—this was still him, wasn't it? Your chest ached, the weight of the situation sinking in. You didn’t want to lose Yeosang. You didn’t want to lose any of them.

Yeosang took a step to reach you but Jongho pulled you back, making Yeosang grow irritated.

" stop fucking grabbing her you fucking cunt. Always fucking clinging onto her,"

Jongho’s grip on you tightened, but the venom in Yeosang’s words caught him off guard. His eyes widened, a mix of hurt and anger flashing across his face, but he held his ground, trying not to let Yeosang’s words break him.

“Yeosang,” you whispered, your voice shaking.

Yeosang rolled his eyes, another painful groan leaving his body. " yeosang," he said mockingly.

San gulped, " Yeosang don't. This isn't you.."

Yeosang’s lips curled into a twisted smirk, his golden eyes glowing with a predatory intensity as he stalked closer, the growl low in his throat. “You really think I’m gonna listen to you?” he sneered, the animal inside him rising to the surface, his features becoming more distorted with each passing second.

You could see the conflict in Yeosang’s eyes—flickers of the person he once was—but the beast within him was clawing its way to the forefront, controlling him, overwhelming him.

" you let another women kiss you." Yeosang snarled.

"Don't listen to him Sannie," you whispered, your voice trembling but full of determination. "Yeosang, why are you saying these things? We love you."

His body twitched again, a sharp snarl escaping his lips. “Love?” Yeosang's voice was guttural, mocking the words as if they were a joke to him. “You don’t know what love is. You have 8 fucking boyfriends and still don't know the definition of love. God, what did i even see in you?"

Your heart sank, the harsh words cutting deeper than any physical wound could. Yeosang’s words, twisted by the creature inside him, stung, and for a moment, it felt like the weight of everything crashing down on you. " you don't mean it...right?"

Yeosang let out a laugh before he hunched over, another growl came from him. San rushed towards you and Jongho side and before you three knew it. Blood splattered on all of you, and where Yeosang stood was now a werewolf.

Your breath hitched as you stared in disbelief at the creature standing before you. The once familiar and loved face of Yeosang was now obscured by the massive, towering form of a werewolf. Its body was sleek, covered in matted fur, with glowing golden eyes locked onto you. The blood splattered around you was a sickening reminder of just how far gone he was.

You staggered backward, your heart racing, unable to tear your eyes away from the monster that had once been your boyfriend. San and Jongho quickly stepped in front of you, their expressions full of fear but also determination to protect you.

“Get back!” San shouted, his voice low and commanding, trying to shield you from the monstrous form of Yeosang.

Jongho’s eyes were wide with panic, but his voice was steady as he spoke. “We can’t let him hurt you.”

The werewolf, with its snarls and animalistic growls, stalked forward, its claws scraping against the floor. The air grew thick with tension as Yeosang’s human consciousness seemed to fight against the beast inside him. His golden eyes flickered in and out of recognition, as though he was still there, trapped within the monster.

“Yeosang!” you cried, voice shaky but filled with desperation.

"yn nows not the time to play hero! This isn't a movie," San hissed.

Yeosang let out a powerful howl before he leaped over you three, rushing out the window. You stared blankly at the shattered window not fully processing what had just happened. he was gone, disappearing into the night with a howl that sent chills down your spine. You could feel your heart racing as fear and confusion flooded your chest.

[quinnyundertow]

About Me

Quinny F/30, She/Her

Obsessions: Jujutsu Kaisen, Genshin Impact, Pokemon, Gundam/Mecha, My Hero Academia, Yuta Okkotsu, Figure collecting, Writing.

Quinny's Masterlist

AO3 Account

My Works Below

Series

Title “Picking up the Pieces” (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Choso x Reader Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy ending, strangers to lovers.

Manga Spoilers - Battle vs Sukuna is over

Words: 12,000+

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Title "When I Catch You Gege " (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Summary Reader is Isekai'd into JJK with the determination to change canon and make sure she rights the wrongs of Gege. Oh and enjoy her time there...yeah that too. No manga plot spoilers. Reader x everyone. All characters 18+ unless otherwise stated.

Content Warning: Canon typical violence, torture, suicide, Non-con, extreme bullying, angst with a happy ending.

Pairings: Reader x Nanami Kento, Haibara Yu, Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Junpei Yoshino, Okkotsu Yuta, Toji Fushiguro

Genre Fix It, Reverse Harem, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Angst w/ Happy Ending Status Ongoing Length 40 Chapters / 180,000 + Words Chapters Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Title Sanity's Last Stop (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Summary Forced to work after the death of her father y/n finds themselves filling a nurses role at Hillsboro Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The patients and workers alike have her questioning her own sanity in this new insular world during WWII.

Ryoumen Sukuna has become a fixture in solitary confinement for the last seven years. His sanity was barely there before but now it is frayed beyond redemption. A good will gesture brings him and y/n into a strange secret relationship

Okkotsu Yuta swears he isn’t insane he didn’t hurt anyone it was Rika who killed those people. Just because no one else can see her doesn’t mean she isn’t there. You believe him right?

Pairings: Reader x Ryoumen Sukuna, Reader x Yuta Okkotsu

Genre Horror, Angst, Eventual Smut, Angst w/ Happy Ending Status Ongoing Length 5 Chapters, 18,000 Words Chapters Chapter 1 Chapter 2+ on AO3

Title Cult Leader’s Quarry (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Summary You’re living an average non-sorcerer office workers life when you catch the eye of a certain unstable cult leader. The more you pull away the more trapped you become.

The first time Suguru Geto saw you was also the first time he wondered if the girls needed a mother figure in their lives. Not that he was considering you. No, never, his lip curled at the very notion. Even the passing thought of a monkey like you around his precious daughters was enough to make him feel ill.

Pairings Suguru Geto x Reader, Slight Gojo Satoru x Reader

Status Ongoing 14,000+ Words

Chapters Chapter 1 , Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 Chapter 5

One Shots

Title Kick-Off - Goalies Turn (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Genre Comedy, Fluff, Smut, Soccer AU

Pairing Reader x Choso

Fic Recommendations

Jujutsu Kaisen

The Gallery (Fanart & Commissions for my Fics)

[savvthedate]

The Quarry x Stray kids Au

based on the game 'the quarry', I highly recommend it, It's such a cool concept and story. Just an intro will be a full story.

Characters

Chan

• Born to be the cool band teacher, forced to be the Supervisor and organizer of the Jype Quarry and summer camp

• a personal favorite of the camps owner

• without a doubt going to be the most missed counselor after summer is over

Lee know

• head of cooking class and helps out in the kitchen

• the kids are both scared of him and love to mess with him

• fist day of camp, kids locked him in his cabin (he almost quit and went home)

• kids aren't to big on his cooking class but they do enjoy eating

• tbh summer camp wasn't all that exciting to him

• scared to death of the possibility of bears in the camp

• camp mascot, Maize the cat, sleeps In his cabin

Changbin

• gym instructor, in charge of most camp activities

• High energy and always encouraging kids to push the selves

• first day of the job he was almost registered as a camper

• One of the counselors the kids were scared of the first day but quickly became the goofy fan favorite

• for some reason he was never in his cabin at night, if he wasn't doing anything with the other counselors he was just doing random things

Hyunjin

• Art teacher

• mainly does small crafts like pinecone bird houses, etc

• does majority of the designs for camp

• luckily for him he only actually has to do work once a week

• the first choice for campers to come to if they need something

• extremely trustworthy, funny, but still strict

• next to changbin, he's the only counselor the kids listen to

Han

• in charge of camp announcements, music, technical support

• practically hides from the kids

• they always find him though

• got in trouble one time for leaving his radio hut unlocked and someone stole the movie projector

• cried his first week at camp, mainly because he was supposed to aid Lee knows cooking class but got overwhelmed, so Chan moved him to announcements and radio duty so he won't actually have to interact with kids

Felix

• is he even a counselor tbh?

• just showed up a week late for the job and was assigned to be a fill in and assistant to anyone who needed him

• kinda just hangs around, he's practically one of the campers

• most hardest part of his summer was losing a kid he was in charge of on one of changbins hikes

• he promised to never join that class again

Seungmin

• supervisors assistant

• takes his job seriously half the time

• the only time he doesn't is when a camper says he's not really necessary

• just look at him wrong and he's like 'im not doing this anymore just to get disrespected'

• honestly just the embodiment of 'old man yells at cloud'

• honestly he was ready to go home after the first two weeks, but then realized he lived really far away

• longest 2 months of his life and he won't do it again

Jeongin

• head swim couch, main life guard when it's a camp beach day

• he had signed up to be the art teacher but since the position was filled he settled for swimming

• always has at least 3 assistants with him, there is no one way he's teaching all those kids by himself

• tbh wishes he showed up late like Felix to get a lucky job

• the campers won't let him breathe. Always makes fun of him and Lee know

• everyone feels bad for him because he always has the most complaints from parents, he really doesn't understand what he did wrong honestly

[thefluffyrailway-official]

Questions: Diesel pups; how many diesels have pups and can you share a little more on the egg care? Are they like birds and keep the eggs warm with their bodies or like reptiles that build nest mounds or like need to be in water? Do both parents care for the eggie? And do the pups have an 'egg tooth' to help them hatch?

Yayyy pupsie question!

•Well the ones with pupsies are: Diesel and Mavis ofc, Daisy, Frankie, Salty and BoCo (though their kids were built and not born. Still counts ^^) Rusty and Philip.

Oh well, and Diesel 10.

• A little bit of both. But they're more like reptiles, their crew and workers usually give them fluffy blankets and pillows to make their nests.

They like to put them in their own nests and protect the eggies by theirselves.

Also diesel pupsies usually don't need to be in water at first, their skin was already wet inside the egg, and that will stay like that for a few days, but after that the parents will leave them in a little puddle so they can roll a bit there. (Diesel pups are usually much faster than steamie pups in learning to walk and swim)

• Absolutely! Diesels may not be as protective as the warm-blood breeds like Steamies, Coaches or Electrics, but they do have a heart >:(

So yep. They may let their pups climb rocks at the quarry where their mum works at, when they're barely 2 days old, and then get scolded by their wives (NOT LOOKING AT ANYONE DIESEL) but ye. They're good parents :)

And ofc both take care of the eggie. But they take turns. Usually, the parents don't need to be in a maternity leave like viviparous engines. So one of them stays at home with the pupeggie and the other does it's mate's work. (Unless the pup is from a hybridation and it's born unable to eat prey like normal diesel pups. Then the non-diesel parent will nurse the pup. And the other will have extra work till the pup grows a bit :D)

•Yup! They're born with sharp tooth, and it helps them hatching ofc. And as i mentioned before, diesel pups can eat prey like mice, little birds or squirrels. So be careful if they try to bite you 😅

(AU inspo creds: @steam-beasts <3)

[nox-icate]

🐊 Welcome to the blog of your favorite swamp-dwelling reptile 🐊

. ‧˚₊꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶About me︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷₊˚‧ .

࿐ I go by quite a few names, which include: Evander, Donatello, Laurie, and Corrie! But I more commonly go by Nox on here! But feel free to call me whatever you deem suitable.

࿐ I use he/him, xey/xem, and they/them pronouns. Please only use enby or masculine terms when referring to me. Pronouns page <- ࿐ Please keep in mind that I have Autism, Dyslexia, Anxiety, ADHD, and that I am under the bipolar umbrella, keep patience with me in mind while interacting! ࿐ My birthday is 12/18/2007 making me a MINOR. ࿐ I am a teenager, meaning I have a tendency to make dark/inappropriate jokes, I can put on a filter if requested. ࿐ I do tend to be forgetful about some things (I genuinely have a horrible memory /srs) so please don't be afraid to point out on my slip ups/correct me if needed. ࿐ I am a very affectionate person with a tendency to cling onto people, and come off too friendly too fast. If I’ve ever crossed a boundary/made you uncomfortable please, PLEASE don’t be afraid to let me know. I don’t intend nor want to make anyone uncomfortable in any way shape or form and struggle with picking up cues/indicators that I’ve crossed a boundary (Plus being online the majority of my life and being homeschooled I tend to cling to people who I want to befriend and lack proper social skills).

. ‧˚₊꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶Links + Tags︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷₊˚‧ . LINKS: ࿐ Bluesky <- ࿐ Discord server <- ࿐ Toyhouse <- ࿐ Youtube <- ࿐ Instagram <- ࿐ Pronouns page <- TAGS:

#my art <- Pretty self explanatory. #my sona <- Posts including one of my many sonas. #my ocs <- My original characters. #🐊 shiggles <- Just me being a dumbass. #🐊 rambles <- My text/rant tag. #TMNT Solidarity <- My TMNT iteration. Masterlist (TBA) #ROTTMNT FQ <- My ROTTMNT AU (FQ standing for Four Quarters). Masterlist (TBA) #TMLP AU <- An AU where the boys get teleported to Equestria I made that me and my close friends are working on. Masterlist (TBA) MOOTS:

@mossy-box (The Leo to my Donnie, and one of my closest friends!) Tag: #Overgrown box 🐢 @k9alpine (The Raph to my Donnie, also one of my closest friends!) Tag: #K9Alpha 🐺 @that-was-pigeon (My parental figure!) Tag: #Twas pigeon 🥔 @drixxtavern (Fish wife! /p) Tag: Tba More moots TBA

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࿐ I'm absolutely obsessed with reptiles, dinosaurs, bugs, and aquatic life! My favorite animals being Alligators and Crocodiles.

࿐ I have also found I have a strange infatuation with radiation (chernobyl in general), natural disasters, geology, abandoned buildings, and vintage children's books/poetry. ❗ DNI AND BOUNDARIES BELOW, PLEASE READ BEFORE INTERACTING ❗

. ‧˚₊꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷︶DNI + Boundaries︶꒷꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷₊˚‧ .

DNI LIST: ࿐ Do NOT interact if you are/you associate yourself with, or support anything below. ࿐ Anyone under the age of 13 (This is for my own comfort as I'm not comfortable interacting with extremely young users). ࿐ Romanticizations/Sexualizations of unhealthy/toxic relationships (This includes heavy yandere shit < This is for my own comfort). ࿐ Sexualizing transgender people/characters (This is for my own comfort). ࿐ Dsmp (This is for my own comfort). ࿐ T-cest/Incest. ࿐ Proshipping. ࿐ Homophobia. ࿐ Transphobia. ࿐ Racism. ࿐ And any other basic DNI criteria. REQUESTS + ASKS: ࿐ I do NOT do requests outside of requests of my own work, either it being my own ocs, aus or iterations. ࿐ My ask box is always open and I love getting asks/messages (I'm lonely..) ࿐ Please keep it PG in my ask box I'm literally a minor, jokes are fine but please use common sense when talking to a stranger online. ࿐ Don't fucking request NSFW, once again. I am a minor. BOUNDARIES: ࿐ Please don't repost my art or work anywhere. ࿐ If you use my work as your profile picture PLEASE give me proper credit. ࿐ For the love of god, don't flirt with me. ࿐ Don't attack me, if you don't like me or what I do simply just block me. ࿐ Please use tone tags while interacting if we aren't close.

(Last edited 11/9/24)

[bakugotrashpanda]

Tribute!Touya x Stylist!OC Word Count: 4.5k

Hunger Games AU

A/N: This was supposed to be a couple paragraphs, but here we are. No beta we die like men. Thank you @t-tomuras for the inspiration <3 I know it’s supposed to be self-ship, but I put an OC in for my comfort.

They escaped the Reaping only to be pulled back in.

The games have gotten boring. There's no shock in seeing kids fight each other in the arena any more. Sure, it serves as a reminder of the past and shows that no matter where someone is from, given the right circumstances, anyone can kill. Barbaric. But… the glamor of voyeurism, of watching kids suffer mentally and physically as entertainment, has lost its spark.

But pushing the age range for the reaping back? Giving kids more time to hope and dread, to understand what they're losing once they have a taste of a future – their future? Ripping families apart at an age where maybe someone is losing their parent rather than a sibling? Cruelly putting a decade of adults who thought they escaped the horrors of the Capital back into the running of dying? Delicious. 

At least in the jaded eyes of the Capital.

For Touya Todoroki though, it’s a chance for him to finally live up to his father’s expectations. Living in District 2 has its perks – if you’re seeking glory in death. The finest training establishments for Peacekeepers also means the finest training for careers who want to put their names in the stars or die trying. Touya wouldn’t even have to sneak into these facilities if he wanted that; he’d just need to throw his last name around and every door would open for him.

Special benefits of being a colonel’s son.

But he was never interested. He skated through life putting his name on the stupid ring out of some sense of duty and familial pressure only for it never to be drawn because some other idiot volunteers. Usually it was multiple idiots all clamoring to be first. 

He escapes his teenaged years unscathed. 

Adulthood means nothing to him. There’s no sweet relief he knows other districts must feel now that they have one less thing to worry about – for now, nor is there any bitter resentment at losing the opportunity at doing something great and having the eyes of the country on you. Life just… goes on. 

When faced with the prospect of needing a job, Touya’s options were to follow his father’s footsteps and become a low level military grunt and rise through the ranks, or join the miners in the quarries. 

It was a never-ending tirade from his father about how he ‘wasted his potential’ and ‘humiliated the family name’ by going into the quarries.

A couple years passed. Touya finally got a place of his own, left a string of broken hearts, and generally felt unsatisfied with life. There has to be more to living than just waking up, working, joining his coworkers at the bar, and then going back to his shitty apartment at the end of the day to wake up and start it all over again.

And then the rules change. It happens mid-shift. A roar rises above the normal work noise. He thinks it’s another truck rolling over – that would be the second one this week. But the angry cries work their way down the line to where he’s stationed. 

We’re back in the Reaping.

Fear. Chaos. Anger. 

Everyone around him is in a tizzy. And Touya feels numb. Back in the Reaping?

The site clears out. People panic and run home to hear it for themselves and not through the grapevine. 

Touya goes to the best source he can (unfortunately) think of; the Todoroki household.

Tensions are high.

His brother and sister sit ramrod straight around a rarely used dinner table that is more for show than anything else. Fuyumi fiddles with the locket around her neck – pictures of her new child no doubt. Natsuo’s clenched fists on the table are stark white causing the onyx band on his ring finger to stand out even more.

“It’s true,” his father says quietly. “You’re all back in the Reaping.”

Silence. 

Tears trickle down Fuyumi’s face.

As adults, there will be less bravado about volunteering. Less people will want to willingly leave their lives behind and–

“I’ll volunteer.” Shouto. Perfect fucking Shouto. Of course he would. Touya has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“You’ll make me proud,” their father says and fondly claps him on the shoulder. 

That’s that. Everyone disperses back to their own homes. If Shouto volunteers, then that’s the boys taken care of. If Fuyumi’s name gets picked, then she’s shit out of luck.

So why does Touya stand tall on the day of the Reaping? Why does his voice ring out loud and clear after the introductions are done? Why do his feet carrying him onto the stage?

Standing next to the announcer, his gaze flicks from his stunned brothers to his father. That’s why. Watching his father try and fail to control his bitter rage, his face turning dark shades of crimson. That’s why he did it. To rob him of what should’ve been a proud moment in his life.

There’s a mic in his face. He stares at the announcer who’s hungry for an answer.

“Your bravery,” they start again, “What motivates you?”

He looks at the screen behind him and smirks. He’s no longer the scrawny teenager internally mocking all the tributes. His years working have filled out his formerly lanky frame. 

“To show that the Todoroki name means something,” he answers condescendingly, “And that I’m not wasting my potential.”

There’s an outburst from the stands. He refuses to look. He knows who it is. It would only be the cherry on top if his old man keeled over and died from anger right here right now.

He did it. He volunteered. 

What a stupid fucking mistake. 

His goodbyes are awful and he spends most of it deflecting questions from his family. Yes, he’s aware Shouto was going to volunteer. No, he doesn’t have any remorse for what he did. Yes, he definitely is thinking of family, just not in the way they’re implying. Will he survive and win? That’s to be determined. 

His father doesn’t make an appearance.

The short train ride to the Capitol is spent silently with the mentors and the other tribute. His counterpart seems… alright. She has some training  and a determination that’ll maybe help her live past the first day. What can Touya do? Explosives. Operate heavy machinery. Swing a hammer. How much different can a skull be from a rock?

Peacekeepers escort them to a processing center with sterile white walls and bright overhead lights that give Touya a headache. How many of them were trained by his father?

The tributes from 1 arrive at the same time as them. He gets a glimpse of the duo before being whisked away to a slightly less off-putting room. A woman with matte black lipstick and electric blue hair styled in an angular bob waits inside.

He can feel her calculating brown eyes rove up and down his body. Taking stock.

“Like what you see?” Touya says sarcastically. She doesn’t respond, but walks up to him, the slightly dimmer light reflecting off the gold lining her gray suit.

The woman extends her hand. “Alex. Your stylist.”

“Great,” says Touya, ignoring her hand. “Just what I need. Fashion.”

Alex pulls out a tablet and a laser pointer of sorts and starts circling Touya. “Think of me as your personal storyteller,” she says and taps away on her tablet before returning to scanning him. “I use your body to tell the world about you.”

“I’m not one of the children you can dress up like a doll.”

“Good. No one needs another sob story in the lineup. There are enough people leaving spouses and kids behind that’ll try and use that to their advantage.” She stops in front of him and shines the laser from his left to his right shoulder. From this close he can see the layers of makeup the Capitol is renowned for. “Tell me you’re more interesting than that.”

“Got no wife, and no kids with my name.” Maybe a bastard or two, but who’s counting?

“And what do you do in 2?”

“Quarry work.”

“Which is?”

“You’re fuckin’ annoying. Rocks. Demolition.”

“Why not military? Your father is up there, right?”

“You do your homework,” Touya smirks, “I was on a train for less than two hours after I volunteered.”

“I have to in order to be good at my job.”

Touya crosses his arms over his chest. “What’s your real question?”

A smirk crinkles her supposedly flawless facade. “Why volunteer?”

“To be every bit the disappointment my father expects me to be. One final ‘fuck you’ just for him.”

Alex stands there for a moment tapping one perfectly manicured nail against her thigh. Lost in thought, she chews on her bottom lip for a second, the black lipstick coming off at the inner edge to reveal her natural lip underneath.

Fuck he wants to smear it. Take the perfection of the Capitol and ruin it any way he can. 

“I can make this work,” she says determinedly and taps furiously at her tablet. “Your first appearance isn’t for a couple days. I want something bold; something that’ll make everyone stop and stare and the first volunteer and wonder what was going through his head.”

“Don’t dress me up like a fucking gladiator,” Dabi says. He recalls that being the go-to in the past – a show of strength and closeness to the Capitol. Gaudy. 

Brown eyes meet his, and fingers that were flying fast over the screen are still for a second. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Back to work.

“Then what, want me to show you my work uniform?” Because nothing says ‘I’m here to win’ like beige coveralls.

“I have bigger plans for you. You’re not going to be something as archaic as a gladiator, and I’m certainly not playing up to your district’s masonry export. If I wanted that I’d go to 12 and deal with the coal mines.” She turns her tablet off and tucks it away to stare up at him. There’s a small spark in eyes otherwise devoid of life. “I know about the secret export that the Capitol overlooks. We’re going military chic.”

Touya’s face crunches into a sneer. “Why don’t you raid my father’s closet, there’s nothing but uniforms in there.”

“You do a good job of looking like a stuffy asshole on your own,” she counters. “I’ll make you look good. You just need to focus on making sure you can win.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Touya says sarcastically. 

Alex goes to the door and knocks twice. “I have full confidence in you Touya — if you want it, I believe you can win it all.”

The Peacekeepers return and escort him to the training grounds. More like a prison with shiny luxuries meant to distract them from the fact that they’re going to die in a few short weeks. 

When the tributes are rounded up the following day, they’re brought back to the harshly lit facility. Alex waits for him again in their room, hands clasped behind her back. Wisps of bright blue hair purposely fall out of the two buns at her neck and barely graze the white dress covering her lightly tan skin. The loose material is cinched at her waist with a thick golden belt. 

For someone who doesn’t want to dress her tribute as a gladiator, she pulls off the toga-esque dress well.

Alex raises an eyebrow and nods to a clothing rack beside her. Touya approaches it and nearly drops the only thing hanging there on the floor when he realizes what it is.

“You can’t be serious,” Touya says.

Alex’s smile drips with overwhelming sweetness that sets Touya on edge. “Today is all about you and making you look good. That’s what you’ll wear today. I’ll step out of the room for three minutes.” Her dress flows behind her as she walks out of the room.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Touya mutters to himself. Regardless, he pulls the clothing off the hanger and strips.

The black, lightweight bodysuit bends easily with him. He gives a couple test jumps with no hindrance. Black boots with thick soles remind him of his work boots – but much better quality. Something the Capitol can no doubt afford. A subtle dark blue honeycomb pattern runs throughout the suit and is only noticeable in the light. Silver metal plates are seamlessly worked into the chest area, forearms, and various points in the back.

There’s a small knock at the door. Alex slips back inside, her eyes greedily roving over Touya’s body again. The corner of her gold stained lips quirks up briefly.

“Is this it?” Touya asks. He extends an arm and moves his bare wrist around. A pair of gloves would help. Immediately he drops his arm. Help? Help what? This is just for show. It won’t help him in the arena.

“I have some accessories to try out over there.” Alex points to a table Touya didn’t notice before in the opposite corner. “You’re my dress up doll today.”

“And this?” Touya gestures to his outfit.

“You’re the future of Peacekeepers.” Alex reaches a hand out and hesitates. She meets Touya’s gaze and hesitantly asks, “Can I?”

He nods and fights the heat rising up his face.

“Naturally, it’s functional,” Alex says confidently. Her nails tap against the metal plating on his forearm. “In a real fight, this would help protect you without the clunkiness the current Peacekeepers have.”

“And protect the vital organs.” Touya can’t help but notice the not so decorative metal covering certain parts of his body.

Alex smiles impishly. “Precisely. Titanium-reinforced plating protects key organs, and a strong reinforced weave body suit resists knife and other close combat weapons.”

Touya frowns. This could actually be for a Peacekeeper in the future. Is he just her toy to promote her fashion line or whatever?

He should be angry. He should tear it all off and wear a his fucking work uniform. He’s going to die, and she’s using him as a model.

But it doesn’t matter. He agreed to this. He volunteered for this. And so what if she wants to use him?

It shouldn’t sting as much as it does…

“If you’re trying to get on my father’s good side to gain his favor, you chose the wrong son to align yourself with,” Touya says bitterly.

“Why would I get on his good side?” Alex tilts her head, “You’re doing this for whatever personal vendetta you have against him.”

“And possibly outfitting the future Peacekeepers hadn’t crossed your mind?” he quips.

“Of course it did,” she snorts, “But I have other avenues for that if I really want to. For now, I enjoy the freedom I get with you tributes.”

Freedom. Tributes. How ironic.

Alex floats over to her accessory table and comes back with a pair of black gloves lined with silver. “Put these on.”

She flits back and forth between the table and Touya, holding up various tools and having him put things on and take things off. It feels like an hour of bartering for different accouterments. No, the belts are overkill. Yes, the gun and knife harnesses are fine. Yes, kneepads are bulky, but they’d be practical. No, he will absolutely not wear anything that covers his neck entirely.

He thinks it’s over and he can go – where? He doesn’t know. Anywhere but here – but Alex drags Touya over to a full length mirror. He’s startled by his own appearance. Alex wanted military chic, and she delivered in a cyber punk, dystopian way. He looks like he should wear a faceless mask and keep the masses bent through fear.

He looks like a minion trained by his father.

He looks like someone his father would be proud of.

Brilliant blue fills the lower half of his vision. Standing on her tiptoes, Alex runs her hands through his hair. Her nails scrape his scalp lightly and send shivers down his spine. This close, he can smell her perfume — an amber and rose mix. To someone who has no time for luxuries like perfume, it’s an assault on his senses, but by Capitol standards it’s rather lackluster. 

“What’re you doing?” he murmurs before clearing his throat and asking the question again in a harsher tone. 

She frowns and runs her hand through his hair again, pinning it back between her fingers. “Trying to figure out how I want your hair styled,” she says absently. 

“Wouldn’t the mirror be better for that?” He gestures at the enhanced mirror, no doubt recording his every move. 

With a huff, Alex steps back and plants her hands on her hips. “Is that what you want?”

No. 

“It’ll make this go faster.”

“Fine.” Alex taps the mirror and pulls him over. Bright lights illuminate his face. Alex taps his hair on the reflection and a menu pops up. “I was thinking about having it slicked back or parted instead of this spiky mess you leave it in.”

She swipes through a couple hairstyles, pausing on a couple to see his reaction. 

Touya turns his head on a couple and stares at his augmented reflection. Slicked back doesn’t look half bad. Parted is a no go.

“I look like my brother like this,” Touya grimaces at the near perfect Natsuo hairstyle, “But slicked is fine.”

Alex studies his reflection. With a wave of her hand everything resets. 

“One more option.” Pulling up a color wheel she drags the color selector to black. Touya watches his hair change from stark white to inky black. “Keep it styled as you have it and change the color. Then during your interview go with slicked back.”

Hair dye?

He does look sinister with it. Deadly. 

“Do it.”

It’s a whirlwind of activity before the parade. Lambs being led to the slaughter.

He’s harnessed into the chariot with the other District 2 tribute who sports a similarly designed suit. Her hair is pulled back in a low bun and her face is caked with enough makeup to be mistaken for a Capitol native.

They’re the second ones in. Cheers and roars from the audience and the warm sun slam into him. When was the last time he felt the sun? On the day of the Reaping?

A round camera flies with them, zooming in on their outfits and faces. Without thinking, Touya raises a hand and makes a finger gun. This one’s for you, old man. Pulling the ‘trigger’, he smirks and goes back to ignoring the device. The crowd’s reaction is deafening.

He ignores the other chariots coming to a rest beside them. He ignores the President and his speech. He ignores the audience. 

Calm.

Cool

Collected.

Keep a level head.

Survive. 

With a jolt, his chariot is following District 1’s out. 

He’s plunged back into darkness and artificial lighting.

Unhooking himself, he hops down and purposefully walks back to his room. Keep the facade going as long as possible.

Silence is just as bad as thousands of people cheering for him.

Amber and rose teasing his nose is the only warning he gets before warm arms wrap around his neck. “Genius! Pure genius.” Alex’s hands trail down his arms. “You made this work for you and the audience loved it.”

He lets her prattle on but doesn’t listen. Instead, his eyes follow the curve of her cheeks and the spark in her eye. There’s even flecks of gold in her irises. How much of her is actually her and how much is changed for the Capitol? Does it really matter? He drinks up her essence and commits it to memory. 

A week passes. Much like the Peacekeepers training in his district, Touya’s kept to a tight schedule. Eat. Sleep. Train. There’s more to it though – layers and layers of politics; impressing the right people, finding allies to fight alongside, measuring up threats.

Trying not to get to know the people he’ll have to kill.

It’s after a brutal day of training when Alex whirls into the room, her eyes ablaze. 

“I heard you took a beating in training today,” she says. Walking over to the wall, she pushes a panel and drags a hidden clothing rack out.

“Is that concern I hear?” Touya taunts.

“Take your shirt off.”

“Bossy,” he scoffs but lifts his shirt knowing full well that if he doesn’t do it, she’ll do it for him. He turns and tosses his shirt in a corner.

“You have your final interview tonight and I need to see if there are bruises where-” There’s a pause. Touya smirks. He knows what she’s seen. “There’s a tattoo.”

One he got as soon as he was old enough and had the money. The first thing he purchased on his own. A dragon that starts at his left shoulder and wraps around his back, crosses his abdomen, and ends below the belt. “And?”

“I didn’t know you have a tattoo,” she says bluntly. He watches her eyes follow the scales wrapping around his hip. “How… How far does it go?”

“Interested in what’s below the belt?”

“I’m interested in how I can use it.”

“In that case, find out for yourself.” Touya expects some banter – a witty retort telling him where he can shove it. But nothing comes. With a sigh he pats the end of the art. “The tail ends on my thigh.”

“Okay. Okay.” Alex says, hands clasped together tightly in front of her mouth. Even with all her makeup, Touya can see the flustered glow rising in her cheeks. “I can work with this.” A pause. “I can work with this.”

“You sound so confident,” Touya says sarcastically. That gets her attention.

“I am a professional,” she snaps back, but it seems to be more of a reminder for herself. She clears her throat and marches over to him. Her eyes pinpoint every bruise on his chest from training. “I’ll cover those up, but we’re leaving your art on display for everyone to see.”

“What, no shirt?”

“No,” she smirks, “You’ll have a shirt… of sorts.”

Turns out ‘of sorts’ means ‘mesh shirt under a leather jacket. Much to Touya’s chagrin, his verbal sparring partner remained quiet during their time together – only answering questions when he asked.

In the end, Touya ends up in leather pants and jacket with neon blue lighting at the seams. Even his boots from the parade were updated with the same strips of light. The only alteration Alex made on site was removing the zipper of the jacket and installing more lights in its place to keep it open and exposing just enough of his tattoo to pique Caesar Flickerman’s curiosity.

True to her word, Alex slicks back Touya’s hair for the interview.

And as usual, he’s impressed with her work.

They’re the first ones to gather at the studio. The other tributes trickle in with their mentors and stylists, but Touya ignores them all. The general buzz of noise around him doesn’t compare to the frustrating silence between him and Alex.

“I don’t know what they’re going to ask, but the vibe I’m going for is ‘play boy’,” Alex finally says. “Make the women want you, and the men want to be you. Confident. Charismatic. Charm the money out of their accounts.”

He lets her ramble for a minute more before sweeping up both her hands in one of his own. Wide brown eyes framed by blue hair stare at him.

She’s shaking.

“Stop,” he says in a gruff voice. “You’re worrying. Where did the confident stylist who wanted to take on supplying the Peacekeepers go?”

“This is your last chance to make a good impression before you go in the arena tomorrow. You need them to like you,” she blurts out. As if he didn’t already know that.

“Whatever happens happens,” he shrugs. “Pull yourself together.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be my line.”

He hears his name and thunderous applause. Dropping her hands, Touya steps back.

“It’s my time.”

“Good luck,” she whispers. Was that meant for his ears? He almost stops. Almost. But she’s right, he needs all the money he can finesse out of these people.

The day of the Games is a somber affair. A bodysuit waits at the foot of his bed for him, and he wonders for a moment when that arrived. He pulls it on and waits silently in his room. No doubt his counterpart is in the main dining area with the mentors going over strategy. He should be there too. But starting this afternoon it’ll be just him.

So why not start being by himself earlier.

He even opts to wait in the arena loading zone by himself. Until Alex arrives to make last minute appearance alterations.

“No special outfit for me today?” Touya asks and gestures to his bodysuit.

“No.”

Right. And he knew that too, but damn, any conversation would be appreciated right now. “Any advice?”

“Don’t die.”

A voice booms through the intercom in the room. Two minutes, tributes.

“Alex.” Desperation rises in his gut. “Kiss me.” Don’t let the last thing I hear and see of you be misery.

“What?” Deep brown eyes filled with pain stare up at him. Fuck. It hurts to see. It’s not the first time he’s left a woman with that look on her face before, but dammit why did it have to be her?

“Just once, before I die.” He’s not pleading. Touya Todoroki doesn’t beg. “You can’t refuse a dying man’s wish.”

“Touya,” Alex smiles faintly, “You’re not going to die.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re going to win.”

“Alex…” 

“I know you will,” Alex says fiercely. “You have to.” He hates the way her voice starts to break and quaver. “I… I don’t want to watch you die.”

“Why?”

Say it.

“You know why.”

“You’ll regret it if you don’t say it now.”

Say it. For me.

The intercom goes off again. One minute, tributes.

“I won’t ask ag-”

Soft lips are on his. He wraps his arms around her body and pulls her close. Fuck the Peacekeepers in the room. He’s going to die, and he’s going to enjoy this last moment with Alex.

Nails rake through his hair and elicit a groan from him. He digs his nails in and deepens the kiss. One minute feels like an eternity, but Touya takes it all – her taste, her scent, her sounds – and commits it to memory. Breaking the salty kiss, he stands on the pad and watches the glass casing come down around him at the last second.

Drying her tears, Alex beams at him. Probably trying to stay strong until I’m gone. “Come back to me, Touya.”

And maybe he will.

[bambi-kinos]

McLennon male/female AU

So way back in June 2022, I was talking with some friends including @dovetailjoints about this Paul McCartney manip where his face was converted to a woman's:

I promptly lost my mind on account of being a huge d*ke so I started spinning up a McLennon m/f AU about it. I still think about it a lot but I also don't know if I'll ever write it or not. Looking at @erinarigby's beautiful rendering of John and Paula reminded me of it, so I am publishing these notes for the pleasure of the reading audience.

I might still return to it at some point but I am currently waist deep in my longfic and have different projects lined up after that.

John and Paula are at the fete together but Paula is being crowned the Rose Queen or whatever it was that was happening in the background. Her best friend is Dot and her closest guy friend is Ivan and she's too busy basking in the attention of winning a competition to give a single fuck about John Lennon. She already knows her worth so who gives a fuck about that guy? They do NOT have a fateful meeting at the church hall.

(The secret is that she quietly follows him on the bus and has his route memorized. Light stalking of the teenage girl kind and I bet Dot has been helping but they treat it as a big joke.)

Ivan and Len both know Paula from school before they went to gender segregated academies or whatever. Paula actually finishes her education here because her dad wants her to do it and I bet she would have been a daddy's girl through and through. Mike is still her little brother and she vacillates between doting on him and bullying him. (Older sisters can be really mean to their younger brothers, I've noticed.)

Ivan still sings her praises to John but John does not take this in the slightest bit seriously. He and the rest are convinced Paula is Ivan's secret girlfriend (it's actually platonic between them, George is the one who carries a torch for Paula) and that Ivan wants her around so that he doesn't feel lonely at Quarry Men practice.

Things finally come to a head when Paula helps Ivan carry his tea chest bass to a QM band practice. The mythical J. Paula McCartney! (She won't tell anyone what the J stands for because it's embarrassing.) Paula's face definitely catches some unwanted attention so she deliberately plays up being Ivan's girlfriend to escape it. I imagine she's pretty cold about this kind of thing and probably much more ruthless than AMAB Paul because she has to play for keeps to be taken seriously.

Then she notices John playing with banjo chords. She says something. This goes very, very poorly.

John could take direction from an AMAB Paul who showed off his skills but Paula just rocks up and makes fun of him to his face. "She doesn't even play! Ivan, muzzle your bitch and get her out of here." Doesn't help that John is immensely taken with her but he doesn't like this at all.

Years of slapslap (no kiss) ensue, Paula eventually does make her skills known to John in someway but he's able to put her down for being a girl and therefore not a threat. I have no idea how they would both develop musically but I imagine that any attempts at a collaboration between them would go immensely poorly at this stage. John would not be able to put aside the sexism and Paula would needle him mercilessly.

Eventually though they come to a sort of détente which means that their two social spheres get some measure of peace after some 2 odd years of them screaming at each other during house parties. Everyone else can tell they want to fuck each other's brains out but they both frequently declare their public loathing of each other. For some reason John makes it his business to know what the guitar girl from Allerton is doing with her time and who she is spending it with. As she gets older this might even become a more reasonable proposition as Liverpool is still a rough neighborhood and she insists on walking home by herself after dark. Eventually she and Ivan stage a public break up so that John realizes its "over" (lol) between them and stops bothering poor Ivan about it.

George is more territorial about Paula which is cute coming from a pipsqueak that John easily has 30 pounds over. Unfortunately Paula does not see George that way.

At some point Paula becomes a bit of a woman about town and starts seriously dating men. John muscles his way into this, for some god forsaken reason, and makes a nuisance of himself running off Paula's dates. More screaming matches ensue but John seems incredibly agitated about something that Paula doesn't understand.

At some point in the détente John makes it into art college. Paula makes sure to mock him to his face for being an academic failure and reminds him that he'll never graduate because he doesn't have the guts. To this end John does in fact buckle down out of pure spite. I don't know if he would actually finish but I think he'd actually develop as a painter and a sketch artist just to show her up. I don't think John Lennon of all people could bear a beautiful woman mocking him for his inadequacy.

John might go on two dates with Cynthia but I think she would be a little unsettled at how he manages to insert Paula McCartney into every single conversation, but not in a jealous way. Cynthia tracks down Paula at some public gathering and asks her if she's being bothered by John. A trio of Dot, Paula, and Cynthia forms. SLEEPOVERS etc. John settles down because Paula isn't actively dating anyone here, she has her galpals and they are extremely epic friends.

Something happens that triggers Paula and John running off on their own. I'm imagining John stealing a college teacher's keys and they drive out to get some lunch somewhere. It's an unexpectedly good gesture from John Lennon who Paula usually dismisses as a cad.

I think at some point during this conversation John would admit that he knows Paula is a good guitar player -- its just that he can't really own up to it in public. A unique moment of vulnerability from him and she responds in kind. She tells him she thinks he's the best singer she's ever heard. For the first time things are not shitty between them. John probably ruins this by honking her breasts.

Paula graduates secondary and has to decide what the fuck to do now. It is 1960, they're going to go to Hamburg eventually but not yet. John has managed to establish something with Stu and I think Paula sent George John's way because he needed support that he refused to accept from her because she's female. She's been a loner for all her life, it's not a big wrench now.

George has had a front row seat to John's Paula obsession for years now and he's both intrigued and weirded out and wants to date Paula himself.

I'm imagining some scenario where John finally goes…why not try it. What's stopping him. So he finds her at an outdoor market and he actually tries to be smooth. He catches her eye on the other side of the road and nicks a wildflower bouquet. He trips comically and almost goes down but then appears three stalls later. Paula is laughing, yes yes she thinks it's funny. He waits at the end of the strip and gives her the bouquet and they spend some quiet time together. Nothing sexual, John is just ready to try something he's never attempted before: treating a woman like a person.

Paula reciprocates and buys him something to eat probably. He really is very handsome and very intelligent. She likes him better without the quiff and says so. He succeeds in making her laugh. His hair is so red and he's still the beautiful boy she saw on the bus.

They're watching the sun set over the Mersey when she says "I was accepted to [university.] I'm leaving at the end of the week. I'm studying music."

John goes quiet but doesn't really react except to congratulate her. He knows she will do well.

He goes home and it goes poorly.

Cyn and Dot throw a big good bye party for Paula to celebrate her leaving home. Their pearl is escaping into the big wide world. Paula is deeply unhappy. Something is missing. She gets very very drunk. George shows up and tells her that John and Stu have secured a gig in Hamburg. They'll be leaving at the end of the week too. For some reason John was really, really intent on leaving all of a sudden. Paula definitely locks herself in her childhood bathroom and cries her eyes out.

John notably does not put in an appearance at the party even though Stu and his hot friend Pete Shotton definitely do along with George. Everyone knows that John and Paula have a thing so where the hell is he? Even if they don't like each other they've still been a big part of each other's lives -- John has an arrest record because he punched out the guy who spiked Paula's drink a few months ago and she screamed bloody murder in the police station until they let him go. What gives?

John still does not put in an appearance. Someone sees a creeper by the front door but he slides away before anyone can see him.

Around 4am Paula finally drags herself upstairs upset and wasted and not sure why she's unhappy. She hears the rocks clatter against her window and by the time she pokes her head out John is risking death by climbing up the drainpipe. She almost screams but helps him inside instead.

John is a MESSY PERSON and he promptly goes to pieces in her arms. What am I supposed to do without you, he sobs. Aren't you going to miss me? Aren't you going to think about me? Don't I matter to you at all?

They have another small argument but its not very serious and its clearly flirting at this point. They're both pretty bombed so they just end up stripping and holding each other.

Jim finds them the next morning. It goes poorly.

Paula decides she's going to Hamburg with John. He told her they need a fifth person and he gave her the eyes. She knows what he wants and she knows what she wants and she isn't wasting money on some stupid school. She doesn't want to be a music teacher anyway.

Jim informs her she is not going to Germany in the company of four randy boys much less with the town ne'er do well John Lennon. Paula bides her time and packs a bag and her guitar. She escapes out the window the morning that they're set to leave for Hamburg and shows up at the last second. John hugs her tightly and doesn't let go for several hours. She just blew her uni placement to be with him.

Hamburg happens. It goes poorly but also very well. John suddenly gets a lot more sensitive to their accommodations. If it was all blokes he wouldn't care but now that they're out of the cradle of Liverpool he's suddenly sharply aware of how many people are watching them, and watching Paula, and how vulnerable she actually is. Paula adjusts to the German catcalls and otherwise refuses to appear ruffled. Honestly don't know how to render this particular section except that John would get an early education on how a woman and a bandmate can be treated. This isn't Cynthia being pawed at by a German sailor, this is his bandmate Paula having to dance away from blokes trying to climb up the stage to get to her. "Alarmed" doesn't quite cover it.

For Paula its an education. She's never performed live in front of an audience before; this version of Paul never performed with the QM. Gelling with the band out of no where is a hell of a challenge but Hamburg still makes them. She surprises John by engaging in the loogie races and by being intrigued by the sex workers around town. I think that she and John still wouldn't be having sex at this point because John is still absorbing all the new experiences and it's easier to keep her on a shelf where he can admire her tits without actually trying to fuck her. In John's mind he's keeping the upper hand by not ruining Paula by having sex with her. In his mind he's protecting her from something; he doesn't feel worthy of her and if they get physical he's scared of making her "dirty."

Paula still has ways of unsettling him though. Imagining John's face if she shows him the underbust corset she bought without a shirt to go under it. He's only seen her nipples in the dark before so seeing her dressed up like one of the street girls makes him pretty feral and that's on top of the prellies.

Paula only performs dressed this way once which results in some mass chaos at whatever club they're performing at that night, kek.

Honestly Hamburg is still intensely deranged and Lennon and McCartney's fixations one each other becomes even more pronounced once they start writing songs together. I can't imagine how their music would change once they have access to Paula's vocal range. Probably something more Nightwish-esque as I think Paula being a woman would make John more tolerant or intrigued with operatic styles just because he wants to hear her belt it.

George still gets deported for being underage but I think John and Paula end up staying in Hamburg together because Paula doesn't light a condom on fire this time. She's too busy putting it on John. I like to think they spent Christmas in Germany performing and boning.

They finally make it home after New Year's. Paula is half dead and John is barely a person because he's full up on amphetamines and sex. Mimi won't let John into the house because he had the nerve to take off with a scarlet woman to Germany without asking permission which means…

Jim does not officially let John into the house so Paula sneaks him in through her window. The band recuperates through out January and John gets used to sleeping next to his lady. It's a quiet hibernation period that they think back on fondly later.

At this point Paula is somewhat disgraced for running off with John Lennon and once again John gets to see this up close and personal which is discomfiting for him since its his actions that are visiting these consequences back on Paula's head. He didn't quite understand how intense the judgment was before he saw it aimed her way. It forces him to grow up a little.

But he still takes her to Paris. Common expectation is that they're running away to get married. Neither of them want to get married yet but they're also doing the Lennon-McCartney dance with each other where they become screamingly jealous of anyone who looks at their partner.

Things progress to 1963. They meet Brian, shit happens idk. Beatlesmania kicks off. I have this idea that maybe Paula crossdresses as a man. She is beautiful but she still has a strong jaw and her breasts are small enough to bind without much effort. She is also still the tallest member of the Beatles and she easily has a full inch over John in height (which regularly leads to the best erections of John's entire life.) Being an Amazon has its advantages and this one means she can present herself as a man to secure a unified front with the other Beatles.

I am unable to render how Beatlemania would change if Paula was the single girl in the Fab Four but I can imagine how it would change their look -- 3 beautiful matching boys and the sole female. Lots of color play in my mind going on and of course there's the quiet understanding that Lennon and McCartney belong to each other.

Paula "accidentally" gets exposed as a woman when John loosens her undergarments as a prank and her breasts pop out during a performance. (I don't think anyone would see her nipples, it just be immediate cleavage and a button pops off her jacket.) I am unable to render how this would go, I can't imagine anything except a huge uproar that would send the Beatles into the stratosphere. This would become a moment that gets debated for decades, whether it was a prank from John or if John and Paula came up with it together.

Paula has incentive to do something like this: Brian won't let John and Paula get married because it would disrupt the Beatles image.

1965 - the big one, I think. Paula can be a woman in public now which results in the photoshoot that breaks the world. Referred to only as "the Beatles wedding." It's just too good to pass up.

Paula gets to model a few hundred different wedding gowns (most of these are separate from the boys just because there's so many and she looks good in everything) with various accoutrements anc accessories. There is a portion where the boys will be dressed up as grooms and they'll be getting special sessions with her each.

John is a complete and utter bastard leading up to and throughout the days of this shoot and its commonly conjectured in Beatles fandom circles for decades afterwards that he was seething with jealousy and humiliation -- he should have married her years ago so that this kind of spectacle couldn't come to pass, and he knows it, but he can't change it now and he's furious that she's dressing up as a bride when she's not even really his. And on top of it George and Ringo are getting to see her before he does and they won't tell him what she looks like.

"I hate you and I will never forgive you for as long as I live," is what George tells John when he asks how it went, what she wore, what it was like. John is hurt and confused.

"You're a lucky man John Lennon. Don't squander it," is what Ritchie tells John when he asks about it. "Make sure to brush your teeth and whatnot though."

John is nervous as hell even though its just some stupid photo shoot and they've done thousands of those already. Brian won't let him drink to calm down so John now has to face Paula in her wedding gown while completely sober.

There's a modern trend of "photos of grooms seeing their brides in their dresses for the first time" and I think all 3 of the boys would get these with Paula. It might even be enough to power several magazines, idk. Collectors items and whatnot. The McHarrison issue, the McStarr issue, the McLennon issue…

Photogs definitely capture the moments leading up to the reveal and then the seeing, the shock, the surprise, the awe. George started laughing and flung himself at her and danced her around, Ritchie did that presses-his-fist-to-his-face thing men do sometimes when they're overcome, yes, Paula is an absolute joy. She made sure to insist on having all different dresses per day because she didn't want repeats. Her boys deserve something brand new every time.

John though. Oh, John. Very nervous, trying not to be, clearly hating the camera, he doesn't turn when he's supposed to and he only reacts when she touches his shoulder and calls his name. Honestly I can see them leaning into a beauty and the beast angle with these two.

If there was any doubt before there isn't now. It's love. Everything else fades away and it's just John and Paula being themselves, except they were always in love, weren't they.

The world promptly goes completely insane upon the release of the Beatles wedding photographs. They got what they asked for and then some. Honestly John and Paula probably have one iconic photo spread of just the two of them that day and in that timeline, that portrait blots out pretty much anything else of cultural significance from 1965-1968. The world turns on but the wedding portraits from that day is what ends up being the most iconic part of Beatlemania.

after that IDK, I'm not really capable of thinking past that. I just like the idea of the wedding photoshoot and how John and Paula came from those humble beginnings. I think they'd definitely have children together but I don't know if they could manage a stable family unit or if they'd be able to save the band from the break up. But there wouldn't be any faffing around about "the Lennon and McCartney rivalry" or "they always hated each other." The wedding shoot was too real.

Notably, John and Paula did attend the premier of A Hard Day's Night with Paula in a white dress and John in a black tux. Symbolism.

I think by the time the Get Back sessions happen John and Paula have an almost three year old and Paula is heavily pregnant with their second or third child. Instead of the deadline being Ringo's acting job they're trying to get one last project in because the second baby is due in February.

I think with Paula's height (she would still be taller than John after all and this time she's wearing high heels to make the point) and her androgyny they would also get some mileage out of early boundary pushing by dressing her up in the boys clothes, so the Shea uniforms would definitely make an appearance unchanged except Paula's tits are out to here and John spends a lot of the stadium concert unbuttoning her jacket every time she buttons it back up.

Just occurred to me that Help! would be a much more straight Dr. No parody especially with Paula as the built in Bond girl. AHDN would be more similar as a documentary with surreal comedy elements but Help! would definitely be more ridiculous and Johnny gets his girl in the end haha

-----------------------

These are all my notes from last year. Thought you guys would appreciate. As I was writing this out last year, I remember being caught between two impulses: the "John and Paul would be a pregnant teenagers couple" idea (which I see many other based users have agreed with!) and then the "Beatlemania but if Paul was a woman" idea. In the end I went with the Beatlemania Paula because that's more interesting as a story especially with Paula having to exploit her androgyny for success. That being said I think Paula would absolutely be the Domme to John's sub, there's no way a Beatlemania Paula doesn't have John's balls in a cage and John liked being controlled by a strong woman. He's not allowed to finish until she tells him that he can.

I remember thinking that they would have their first child in 1965, with the idea being that Paula is pregnant during the Beatles Wedding Photoshoot, which would take place sometime in the winter so that the fashion designers could sell their wares with Paula advertising them. IMO Paula would make John wear condoms for years but once Ed Sullivan happens John makes a disturbingly sincere plea to trash them and Paula assents. Two months later she's pregnant after John's been climaxing inside her multiple times a day <3 But honestly, she's rewarding him for being so fucking brave all the time, he's unironically earned it.

I also think that a female Paula is still has full on baby rabies and by late 1964 she's desperate to get pregnant by John so they can finally start their family. There's an element of rebellion too because she'd be furious with Brian for not letting her and John get married and retaliates by having out of wedlock children.

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 15

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8 || PART 9 || PART 10 || PART 11 || PART 1 || PART 13 || PART 14

Steve wishes it was raining. Instead, it’s a crisply cold day, but the sun’s shining brightly, illuminating Steve’s dour mood as he walks, unsure of where he’s even going.

The quarry’s miles away, holding his car and house keys hostage. So, he walks, and walks, and walks, aimless.

Chrissy’s probably still at Eddie’s, reading him the riot act, Jeff at her side, so she’s out. He doesn’t have anyone else—Tommy and Carol long since moving on to greener pastures, and no one on the basketball team would go out of their way to spit on him if he was on fire.

There’s always Nancy, but they’re ghosts in each other’s stories now, ships passing in the night.

He should walk to the quarry to pick up his car, and go home to his quiet, lonely house.

He calls Robin at the first pay phone he passes, digging around in his pocket for loose coins as he dials a number he hopes is hers. She picks up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Where do you live?” he asks.

“Shit, Steve?” her tired voice turns frantic. “Are you oka—”

“Robin,” he cuts in, voice cracking just enough to shut her up. “Can I come over?”

The other line’s quiet for a moment, only the sound of her muffled breathing assuring Steve she hadn’t hung up. “Robin?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry!” she cries, then rattles off her address. “When will you be here?”

It’s a small town, so it only takes Steve a second to reorient himself, figure out the quickest path from where he is to Robin. “About fifteen minutes?” he guesses, not used to accounting for walking time.

Robin sighs, “oh, good,” that frantic edge finally bleeding out of her voice. “Hurry up, dingus, okay?”

He runs out of time before he can reply, phone kicking the dial tone back at him until he hangs it back up, the barrel of the phone rattling as he puts it back on the dirty receiver.

The sun’s low in the sky when he finally stands in front of an unassuming house with a dingy white door. He’s numb, tired to his bones as he knocks quietly on the front door.

Robin flies out, arms wrapping around Steve in a tight hug before he even realizes she’s there. Steve shudders and buries his face in her hair, hands shaking as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her further into his chest.

She pats his back awkwardly but doesn’t let go as she asks, “you okay, dingus?”

“No,” Steve murmurs, afraid of how his voice will come out if he talks any louder. “Can I come in?”

Robin lets go immediately, but Steve holds on a second longer, not wanting to lose her warmth. “You can hug me again in my room, Steve,” she says, arms awkwardly held down at her sides.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he replies with one final squeeze to her middle.

When he finally lets go, fingers flexing in the cold air, Robin leads him into her house. She pulls him through the living room and up a set of stairs too quickly for Steve to get much of an impression past lived in and homey.

“I’ll be in my room!” Robin calls just before she shuts the door behind them, muffling what must be her mom’s response.

Robin’s bed’s messy, and there’s clothes all over her floor. The walls are covered in posters of bands he’s never heard of, pictures cut out of magazines, and little post-it note reminders.

While he gawks at his surroundings, Robin pulls him to her bed and pushes on his shoulders until he sits down on it. She then proceeds to wrestle her quilt away from her other blankets and drape it over his shoulders. Only then does Steve realize he’s shivering as the cold of the outside world slowly seeps out of his bones.

In here, as Robin sits down across from him, he feels safe, finally—safe and warm.

“Okay, spill,” she demands, taking any sting out of the order by reaching out and taking his hand.

Steve takes a breath, ready to heed her orders, before letting it all out. Where does he start? What does he say? Does he start with Jason? With the note to Chrissy? There’s just too much and it’s all tangled together.

But then she squeezes his hand and he says, “I told Eddie.”

He looks down at their linked hands, unwilling to meet her eyes as she prompts, “You told him…” in a hesitant voice.

“That I was the one writing the letters,” he replies. “That I like him, that it was never Chrissy.”

“Oh,” Robin says, scooting closer so their knees bump. He wishes, absurdly, that they were in that same boy’s bathroom stall for this conversation. “Oh, shit. Is he going to tell everyone? Oh my god, are you okay? What did he say?”

“Robin,” Steve cuts her off, knowing from experience that she’ll just keep on spiraling if he lets her. “He’s not going to talk to me anymore.”

And that, for the first time since everything started spiraling out of control, is what makes tears pool in his eyes. Eddie might tell everyone, and he might be run out of town, but that feels unimportant right now.

How can that matter when he’ll never go to another band practice or Dorks & Dragons session? How can that matter when Eddie will never smirk at something Steve says when he thinks Steve’s no longer looking? When he’ll never write another letter, or receive one back?

“I am so sorry, Steve,” she says, and she sounds it, even as she drops his hands to clutch at his face hard enough that his cheeks squish together. “But, are you stupid?”

“Hey!”

She loosens her hold long enough to wipe the few tears off his cheeks before clutching on tighter, nails digging into his cheeks. “I need you to listen to the words I’m saying,” she says, each word enunciated and slow like she thinks Steve’s stupid. “I know it hurts, but Eddie’s just some boy.���

She says the word “boy” like that in and of itself is some cardinal sin, mouth puckered up like it tastes bad on her tongue. Steve laughs, just a little, and she beams at him.

“He’s just a gross, icky boy, but you, Steve Harrington,” she says his name like it’s a revelation. “It has shocked me to my core, but I really, really like you, and I don’t want to have to kill Munson if he tells everyone in town about this, okay? Blood makes me squeamish.”

Steve laughs again, all tears and snot and gross-sounding phlegm. Robin grimaces, but doesn’t let go of him.

“Eddie won’t tell anyone,” Steve replies, pretty sure he’s telling the truth. “He’s too nice.”

She pulls his face closer, eyes boring into his as she says, “he made you cry,” like there is no worse crime. Steve loves her so much.

“I lied to him, Rob.”

Robin sighs, slumping into him until they both tumble down onto her unmade bed, quilts and sheets and comforters lumpy beneath them. “Okay, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hate him, alright?” she asks, shoving a stuffed elephant into his arms. Steve squeezes it to his chest and stares up at the little glow-in-the-dark stars taped up on her ceiling. “I don’t give a fuck about Munson—I’m here for you.”

And no matter how much he wants to defend Eddie, it’s a comfort to hear. With Chrissy and Jeff, he’s not sure where their loyalties will shake out. Eddie’s their friend, even if they’re Steve’s too. When their newly-forming group fractures at the seams, he’s not sure where they’ll land.

But, he’s got Robin, and maybe that’ll be enough.

“Can I spend the night?” he whispers. “I sort of left my car at the quarry along with my house keys.”

Robin spins around, her hair tickling Steve’s nose as she makes herself comfortable nestled into Steve’s side. “You’re a disaster,” she sighs, “but, yeah. Let me go ask my mom.”

*** 

In the morning, while Steve’s still starfished out on her bedroom floor, Chrissy calls. Robin’s mom is the one that picks up, but when she yells up the stairs, Robin comes running.

Chrissy’s tinny voice sounds frantic as she asks, “have you seen Steve?” quickly enough that Robin barely catches it. “He was at Eddie’s yesterday, but his car’s not at his house, and he’s not picking up his phone, and I’m so wor—“

“He left his car at the quarry,” Robin cuts in, relieved when it shuts Chrissy up. A small part of her burns that it took Chrissy so long to call her when she’d asked her to, like without Robin in front of her, she’d fled the other girl’s mind entirely. “He’s with me.”

“Oh, good,” Chrissy sighs, sounding so relieved that Robin has a hard time holding onto her grudge. “Did he…tell you?”

Robin glances at her mom, standing in front of the stove and stirring eggs around in a pan, well within hearing range. So, all she says is, “he told me.”

“Is he okay?”

Robin runs her fingers through her hair, trying to smooth down her bedhead. “Would you be?” Chrissy doesn’t reply—she doesn’t need to, not when they both know there’s only one answer to that question. “Look, I’ve got him, okay?”

“Okay,” she sighs, sounding relieved. Before she can make her excuses to get off the phone, Chrissy asks. “Hey Robin?”

Robin hums in reply, out of words.

“Thank you.”

With that, the girl that Robin likes hangs up on her, probably to call her own boyfriend and update him on the situation. Robin’s gut clenches, but she tries to take her own advice—Chrissy’s just a girl, but Steve? He’s her friend.

“I’m trying not to be nosy,” her mom prompts, and Robin jumps, having entirely forgotten she was there, “but is your friend okay?”

Robin tries to think of a non-outing way to explain the situation before giving it up as a bad job and just saying, “he’s going through a break-up.” Emotion-wise, it feels close enough to the truth anyway.

Her mom spins, spatula in hand as she raises an eyebrow at Robin and asks, “moves on fast, doesn’t he?”

“Ew, Mom!” Robin cries, stalking out of the kitchen to the sound of her mom’s laughter.

Steve’s up when she goes back into her room, rubbing his eyes blearily as he looks around her room like this is the first time he’s seeing it. “You want breakfast?” she asks.

They eat eggs, hash browns and toast, her mom keeping the invasive questions to a minimum, and then they commandeer the TV in the living room to watch shitty romcoms and complain about their disastrous love lives.

It’s fun—Robin can’t remember the last time she’s had a friend over, much less one she can be honest with, so when Steve makes no move to leave as afternoon turns into evening, she doesn’t mention it either, just shoves a baggy clean shirt and a pair of her dad’s sweatpants at him and demands he change.

It’s in the dark of her room that night that Steve asks, “can I sit with you at lunch on Monday?”

Robin smiles, picturing King Steve Harrington strolling up to the band geek’s table like he belongs there. “Course, dingus,” she replies, and is rewarded by Steve reaching up to take her hand.

“Love you, Rob,” he murmurs.

She stares down into the darkness, gobsmacked as his breathing evens out and he falls asleep. Tomorrow morning, her mom will drive Steve to pick up his car, and he’ll go home.

But right now, tonight, Steve Harrington loves her, and he fell asleep holding her hand.

PART 16

[hauntedcheesecakewizard]

I've been thinking up a "The Quarry" AU for house of ashes where the characters of House of Ashes got to work at Hackett's Quarry to give the kids an insight into military training. The characters will have the same personalities (aka, nobody deliberately brakes the car, teen drama is toned down, they all have more skill with weaponry, etc)

Ryan = Jason Kolcheck.

Dylan = Salim Othman (obviously).

Kaitlyn = Clarice Stokes.

Jacob = Eric King

Emma = Rachel King.

Nicolas = Nick Kay (again, for obvious reasons).

Abigail = Joey Gomez (not to ship with anyone, but who knows, I sure as hell don't).

Laura = Nathan Merwin.

These are just rough guidelines for their encounters with the werewolves. Jason, with his killing curiosity to touch things he shouldn't (the fossilised alien) he'd be more likely to investigate Chris' room than Salim, but the bisexual jokes about him, Salim, and Clarice are too good to pass up on.

I'm thinking that this takes place in the same universe as house of ashes just to be like "WEREWOLVES??? THE FUCK??? FIRST VAMPIRES, NOW WEREWOLVES. WHATS NEXT, ZOMBIES???"

"Jason, if you jinx this, I swear to Allah above I will end you."

Feel free to chip in about ideas for this AU or questions.

[inaris-mage-of-storms]

It didn't rain in the mesa often, but when it did, it rained. Jimmy was no stranger to the heavy cloudbursts that could erupt with little warning, and it wasn't even the first time he'd been caught in one out in the middle of nowhere. But it would be much easier to make his way home if he still had his horse under him, or didn't have a splitting headache from the blow to his head that had left him unconscious just long enough for his quarry to get away.

He squinted against the rain and steadied himself against a rock. He knew this entire county like the back of his hand, hadn't gotten lost since he was a child no matter how far into the desert he went. But now he couldn't seem to...which direction was home, again? He could see the rock formation that marked one of the old mines, so that meant Tumble Town was - it must be in that -

That abandoned cabin was somewhere near here. He could wait for the rain to pass if he could just -

Oh, he was falling. When did that happ -

"I've got you. Up you get, the cabin isn't far."

Jimmy clung to the arms that caught him, taking a moment to parse the accented words through the ringing in his ears. The stranger supported his weight while he took a step, then another, making their way to the wooden structure Jimmy could see now that he wasn't staring at the ground.

"Thanks," he mumbled, grateful that whoever found him didn't seem to be an enemy. He didn't see a gunbelt, only a hunting knife strapped to a boot.

"What happened?"

Jimmy's groan was more out of frustration than pain. "Bastard took me by surprise," he grumbled. "He was supposed to tell me where Swift plans to hit next. Wasn't expecting anyone to hit me."

The stranger hummed, but didn't question him further. "Almost there," he said instead.

Jimmy's vision swam as he looked at the stranger's arm, and the motley assortment of colors that made up his outfit. "Where'd you get this get-up, the circus?" he said with a snort.

He found himself face-down in the mud before he could blink, gravity taking over the second the stranger stopped supporting Jimmy's weight. "Oops," he said without an ounce of remorse in his voice. "Seems I've lost my grip."

"You motherfu - "

The stranger clicked his tongue as he knelt by the sheriff. "Don't be rude," he admonished. "I was quite cozy inside, you know, but came all the way out here and got myself soaked to the bone when I saw you struggling."

Jimmy's face flushed with both anger and abashment as he wiped his face on his sleeve. "Sorry," he ground out through gritted teeth. "Your coat looks fine or whatever."

"Why, thank you," said the stranger cheerfully, then his arm was around Jimmy once again. "Up you get, cowboy, just a few more steps."

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