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piningforstan · 3 months ago

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Memories

Part One | Part Two

Summary: You’re relieved to see your husband alive, but you have yet to learn at what cost.

Pairings: Stan Pines x F!Reader

Word Count: 5.9k

Warnings: memory loss, it’s a bittersweet fic (let me know if there’s anything else)

A/N: I could honestly stay in this story forever. I hope you enjoy! (If you don’t think the small attempts bits of humor are funny, just do me a favor and pretend like they are)

Life moved on, of course, even though it felt like yours had ended. The town needed rebuilding. Newspapers and media outlets needed to be dealt with — Ford recommended telling reporters that there had been a series of animal attacks. But most townsfolk just wanted to forget. The lasting effects of the memory gun meant they preferred to just pretend like nothing happened.

You busied yourself however you could, clearing fallen brush and trees, reuniting families, making do with whatever food you could find and cooking for anyone who hungered.

And when you weren’t focused on resurrecting the infrastructure of Gravity Falls, you focused on doing it for your family. Dipper had withdrawn inside himself. Mabel practically resided in Sweater Town. And Ford largely made himself scarce as he puzzled out ideas for getting Stan’s memory back. So you invited Dipper to join you for nonsensical errands and you laughed your way through Mabel’s favorite movies and you always made sure that Ford had something to eat.

You had time for everyone, it seemed, but Stan.

He floated along the edges of your day to day life, suspended in a state of limbo — wanting to participate but not knowing whether his presence would be tolerable or not. And you didn’t want to provoke his already weakened mental state so you let him be, an observer to a family that he had been the nucleus of.

“Oh, uh, mornin’.”

You were sitting at the kitchen table, staring at nothing in particular when Stan shuffled in, donned in his boxers and wife beater. It ached to see him how you had so many other mornings. Perhaps that’s why you avoided him; to do so was easier than confronting this pain.

“Stan. Good morning.” You sat up a little straighter. “Coffee is made already.”

He grumbled his thanks. You noticed that he grabbed his favorite mug, one Soos bought him that stated WORLD’S GREATEST FARTER, without thinking. There were small, fleeting moments like this that made you believe that he might regain his memory. But they often slipped away, just like Stan clearing his throat and saying, “So, uh, we’re married?”

“Yes,” you said, inhaling sharply. “Thirty years.”

Stan wrapped one large hand around the mug. He let out a whistle as he reclined back on the counter. “No offense sweetheart, but that doesn’t speak highly of your intelligence.”

You can’t help it. You croaked out a laugh. “No, no it doesn’t.”

“How’d I do it?”

“Do what?”

“Keep ya around for thirty years.” He gestured in your general direction, veritably flustered. “I don’t need to ‘member much about myself to know you’re too good for me.”

“Well, you could be very convincing,” you supplied after a moment of consideration.

Stan scoffed. “Bullshit. What’s the real reason?”

You eyed him, then said in a resigned voice, “A wife can’t testify in court against her husband.”

A beat of silence ensued, followed by the loudest belly laugh of anyone you’ve ever known. Stan clutched at his chest, coffee spilling over his mug and onto the floor. He all but wheezed out, “I knew it!“

“It was my idea, actually,” you said, smiling fondly at the memory, “we had only gone out a few times when it happened. You wanted to make a run for it. Even though we hadn’t known each other long I already knew that I didn’t want to go a day without you. So we got hitched at the courthouse and the case was dismissed on account that I was the only eye witness.”

You were surprised to discover that relaying the story brought you more comfort than sadness. It fanned the dying ember of hope inside you.

Stan processed this information. “What was the crime? Must’ve been bad.”

“If I told you ‘stealing my heart’ would you believe me?”

“I’d believe you’re a shitty liar.”

Stan pestered you for an answer but you staunchly refused to give it to him, if only to prolong the conversation even more. Eventually you lapsed into a comfortable silence, but after thirty years of marriage, you knew that Stan hadn’t given up, rather reconsidered his angle. It wouldn’t be the end of that conversation.

Only the dredges of your coffee remained but you sipped it every now and then, taking the time to study Stan when you didn’t think he noticed.

Did he realize that he remembered more than he thought? Like the mug, for instance. The way he stood. How he moved around the kitchen. How much did the memory gun erase? You read once that memories consisted of just the last time you remembered something — a great portion of your life would pass without recollection. But the feelings stayed the same. You might not remember specific moments of your mother being kind to you, but when you looked at her your chest swelled with affection for her.

Was that how Stan felt now? Wading through residual feelings and sentiments without the memories to attach them to?

“Listen, uh.” Stan rubbed the back of his neck. “I know this is weird ‘tween us. But I-I hope we can be friends. Still. If you want.”

Hopefully your expression did not betray the stab of pain in your heart. “I’d like that.”

Apparently, rebuilding your friendship with your husband meant him “Stan-napping” you.

“If it’s Stan-napping wouldn’t that mean you’re the one being —”

He flapped his hand. “Shhh, shhh, shhh.”

You grinned and slid into the front seat of El Diablo like normal. Gum wrappers scattered the ground at your feet, along with a lighter and several cassette tapes. You inserted one, faint rock music playing from the radio. A laugh escaped you. “Remember when —”

You stopped. Stan smiled sadly.

“It’s a’right. Promise. Tell me anyway.”

And so you did, retelling the story as best as you could in detail. Stan listened intently as he drove, interjecting his own comments and questions, laughing at all of the parts you knew he would. The tape had played on repeat during a week that you spent running a con in Arizona. An unsuccessful one at that.

“You really did all that w’me? Now I really don’t trust the likes of ya.” Stan drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the door with his elbow out the side.

“In my defense, I was always more of a reluctant volunteer.” You focused on the trees flying past, silhouetting Stan’s handsome features and his easy smile. “But I would follow you anywhere.”

It’s an embarrassing admission.

You stumbled over your words, but Stan was quick to cover for you. “So I didn’t need to Stan-nap you?”

“No, but I’m still glad you did.”

“And to think, all of the work I put into it.” Stan feigned clutching his chest in indignation.

You snickered. “By all of the work do you mean withholding caffeine from me until I agreed? That was more of a hindrance than anything. I would’ve said yes much faster with coffee.”

“Noted. Anything else I should know?”

“I can also be persuaded with chocolate.”

Stan mock-glared at you. Whenever he spoke, he used his hands in big gestures, emphasizing whatever point he was making. “Wait, wait, wait. Chocolate? What happened to followin’ me anywhere?”

“I’m just saying it helps,” you told him.

For the duration of the ride you regaled him with whatever tale that came to mind. Eventually the trees thinned out and the lake came into view, water shimmering. An outcropping of cliffs hugged one side of the lake, extending an almost natural awning over the small hut Stan parked in front of. Picnic tables dotted the sparsely grassy area and families darted in and out from between them, children laughing with sticky faces and parents chasing after them waving napkins.

“Ice cream?” You climbed out of the car, the door swinging shut behind you.

Stan watched the children with soft fondness, making faces at them as they passed. Together you walked down the worn path to the counter manned by a pimpled teenager.

“Ford said I should do things I used to like to try and jog my memory,” Stan said. He peered at the menu — 107 flavors! it boasted — instead of meeting your curious gaze. “He, uh, told me we used to come here.”

“We did.” Your throat felt thick.

He had kissed you for the first time on that picnic table over there, when dusk had settled and fireflies lit up the night around you. You had been sitting on the table with Stan slotted between your legs. His mouth was cold from the ice cream but soft and sweet tasting, dancing across your tongue. You never cared for mint before that day.

When it was your turn to order, Stan persisted that you deserved a senior discount. The teenager caved, leading you to roll your eyes as Stan put his change in the tip jar only to draw out more than he put in. He took the first taste of his mint, double-scooped cone and winked at you.

“You’re insufferable,” you said with a laugh.

“He made it too easy,” Stan replied. “Sucker.”

You sat down at one of the empty tables. No one approached you but they cast glances in your direction, undoubtedly interested in the hero of Gravity Falls. If Stan noticed he didn’t say, challenging you instead to an ice cream eating contest until one of succumbed to brain freeze.

Stan had a voracious appetite, as did you, and you won out in the end. Stan, as a result, had to jump into the lake with his clothes on.

“Wait, before you go.” You couldn’t hide your amusement as you leaned up on your tiptoes and wiped ice cream from the corner of Stan’s mouth. Your thumb lingered. Recognition flashed in Stan’s eyes, then disappeared as soon as it appeared. Had you imagined it? “Um, there.”

“Thanks, kid.”

A moment passed between you, the span of a few heartbeats, before Stan braced himself. He yelled, “TELL MY STORY!” before racing off towards the shoreline of the lake. You doubled over with laughter as his youthful sprint soon turned into a hobble, the wind carrying Stan’s curses back to you. He collapsed on the sand mere inches from the lake.

Concern worried the edges of your mind. You called out to him, “Stan? Stan!”

No response.

You smiled sheepishly at the townsfolk observing the whole situation, then trotted after Stan. Upon inspection he was still breathing, one hand draped on his chest. The sand crunched underfoot as you stood over him. “Did you die?”

“Maybe.” He cracked open an eye. “Does that make you an angel?”

Your worry vanished. Staring up at the sky, you searched the clouds for an answer about why you still put up with this old man. “No use flattering me. This doesn’t hold up your end of the deal.”

“Yeah, yeah. Gimme a hand, would ya?”

You reached down for his hand, but instead of meeting yours it clasped around your wrist, pulling you down on top of him. You cried out in surprise. The water lapped at the pebbled beach, soaking through your clothes as Stan caged you with his body and rolled you both into it.

You shrieked in protest. Entrapped in his arms, he hauled you out into knee-deep water. It was no use trying to fight against him, though you gave your best effort. He could’ve held you like that all day and you knew that when you twisted to face him, it was only because he let you.

Somehow you winded up with your hands on his chest, his shirt plastered to his skin and revealing a glimpse of the body beneath. The moment reminded you of how young Stan made you feel, still blushing over him. He never treated you as if you were old or frail and you might as well have been in your late twenties again, when you first met, not a crease or wrinkle in sight.

Stan cleared his throat and the spell broke.

You removed your hands and stepped back, already missing the warmth of his proximity. In an attempt to ease the tension, you quipped, “I won’t forget this, Stanley Pines.”

Stan’s mouth twitched into a smile, eyes soft. “Neither will I.”

Stan assured you that evening that the outing had roused a memory, but you knew that he just wanted to console you. It didn’t matter. You were determined to recreate as many memories as possible, some alone, others including Dipper and Mabel. Great fun was had by all but you could tell, sneaking glances at Stan whenever he looked away, that it wasn’t registering.

Dipper and Mabel’s last days in Gravity Falls were swiftly approaching. It was a general consensus in the Pines household to pretend that this was not happening.

“You know, you could go with them.”

Admittedly, while watching Stan entertain Dipper and Mabel with an outlandish story, you forgot Ford was sitting beside you. The sinking sun created an orange glow over everything, glinting in Ford’s glasses as he waited for your answer.

“Who?” You asked, distracted.

“The kids.” Ford made a flippant gesture towards them. “Back to Piedmont.”

“Oh.” You hadn’t given any thought about it. It was, after all, never your plan to leave Gravity Falls. Was Ford trying to get rid of you?

Ford continued, “Just…I see the way you look at Stan. I know it hurts that he doesn’t remember.”

“It does.” You grew a sudden interest in the fray of your jeans. For the kids you put on a brave face, recreating memories with enthusiasm, but in truth, each one that failed was a stake through your confidence in Stan's memory.

“My theory might be incorrect. Or just an outlier in Stan’s case,” Ford added with afterthought, never the one to admit failure. Unlike you. “It doesn’t seem he will ever recover his memories.”

“We can’t give up, though,” you said, voice wavering with emotion.

Ford’s jaw feathered. So much of him reflected Stan down to the last detail, but with an air of superiority that Stan lacked. “Stan told you about Stan-o-War.”

A statement. Not a question.

“Yes.” Irritation raised under your skin like an itch you couldn’t scratch.

“I want to take him out. On a boat. Explore the world like we promised each other.”

“What boat?”

“I have one,” Ford vaguely promised.

“What about The Shack?”

“We can leave it to Soos. Assuming that you go with the twins.”

“Why would I do that?”

A lull happened in the conversation as Dipper and Mabel exploded in uproarious laughter at something Stan said. You suspected Ford was gathering his words. “I’m afraid that if we carry on as we have, the stress on Stan’s mind will break it completely. We need to face the music.”

“I’m not giving up on him,” you gritted back.

Ford heaved a sigh. “I’m not suggesting that you do. I don’t think you ever would. But we have to do what’s best for Stan.” He put his hands on his knees and pushed up, his shadow falling over you as he stood. “Just think about it.”

And think about it you did. A lot.

You still hadn’t come to a decision a week before the twins left. Ford informed you that he planned to surprise Stan after they left, leaving you with the decision of staying with Soos or going with Dipper and Mabel. Could you just…up and leave?

Reportedly, their parents were looking for help; from what you understood, a divorce lingered on the horizon. It brought comfort to you to think about caring for them during a tumultuous time. Not to mention you couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing them every day — but to gain it at the risk of losing Stan?

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Stan strode into the room, dapper in his Mister Mystery suit. Your cheeks heated. Too many times you had been caught this week lost in your thoughts. “Oh, I —”

“No, seriously. I need a penny.”

You opened the register. He proceeded to take said coin and spin some elaborate tale to a group of tourists about how it had been crafted from a rare alien metal. Stan sold it for “only ten dollars” after pretending to meditate on the offer, chuckling as the unsuspecting tourist walked away.

He tapped the money into his sleeve. “Okay, but really, what’s eatin’ at ya?”

“I’m just sad about the kids leaving,” you told him after a pause, which wasn’t a complete lie. Unable to bear the flicker of sadness across his face, you panicked, racking your brain for something else. “We should…throw a going away party for them.”

A party? That was the last thing you needed to concern yourself with. But Stan had already latched onto the idea.

“Hey, that’s not a bad idea. We could promote the Shack, invite their friends, exorbitantly mark-up entry tickets.”

Stan listed each idea on his fingers. Although you regretted suggesting it, it filled you with warmth to see him invigorated by the notion of a party. You couldn’t steal that away from him now.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise to you that Stan was an expert party planner considering he was the life of one wherever he went. He got to work assigning roles and soon after you were hiring a caterer (Greasy Sue’s), a DJ (Soos, who insisted you call him despite being in the same room), and security (the man you only knew as “the one with the tattoos”).

The more you inquired, the more people wanted to participate. It opened your eyes to how much the Pines family impacted the town over the last few months. It was heartening, to say the least.

And by the time the party started, everyone in Gravity Falls was either attending it or volunteering at it. Everywhere you looked there was someone you knew, someone there to celebrate the people you loved most.

“You think they were surprised?” Stan’s booming voice floated over the music.

Strobe lights flashed overhead, casting him in an array of colors as he parted the crowd to your side. Dressed in dark slacks and a deep v-necked shirt, gold chain nestled in a patch of chest hair, Stan cut a perfect image of himself in the ‘70s. And although the outfit invoked memories of a younger man, you found this older one much more preferable.

“Definitely,” you replied.

Stan leaned down. “What?”

“I said definitely!” The music blared, pulsing through the whole building like a living thing. It didn’t help that Mabel and her friends had acquired full access to the speakers that Wendy’s dad lugged in earlier.

“What?” Stan wrapped one hand around your waist and pulled you in, putting your mouth dangerously close to his ear.

Heat flooded you. You yelled, “Let’s go outside!”

“Lead the way!”

To your pleasure and mortification, Stan removed his hand from your waist just enough to rest on your lower back, steering you through the crowd of partygoers. The cool night air was a balm to your heated skin as you stepped onto the porch.

Stan strayed from you long enough to shoo away two people kissing passionately on the couch — Blurbs and Durland— before patting the spot next to him for you to sit down.

“Are we old or is that music too loud?” Stan asked. He fished a cigar from his pocket and lit it.

You were entranced by the smoke curling from the end, the fixture of the cigar resting against his bottom lip. You swallowed and uncrossed your legs, then recrossed them.

“All that matters is that the party is a success,” you said.

Stan chuckled. “Heh, it is, isn’t it? Little twerps didn’t know what hit ’em.”

A small eternity passed in which you hunted desperately for something else to say. Stretched out above you on an inky canvas, the stars shone, rendering you small and insignificant. You stared up at them as exhaustion claimed you. You were so tired of thinking, of inventing conversation, so you said the one thing you knew to be irrefutable.

“You’re a good man, Stanley.”

He guffawed. “Don’t let anyone hear ya say that.”

“It’s true.” Since that day at the lake you had been careful not to touch him, but now you put your hand on his knee. “You’re a good man. What happened doesn’t change that. Your memories do not amount to your character.”

The corner of his mouth quirked, and you could tell he was fighting a swell of emotion. “I wish I could do better. Everyone has these…expectations of me. I dunno how to live up to them. I want to be that person.”

“You are that person, without even thinking about it. You’re still passionate about your family. And you’re clever and brave.”

“I’m, uh, not complain’ or nothin’ but I can see the disappointment in your eyes. And-And not just you. Everyone.” He took a drag from the cigar, chest expanding with an inhaled breath. Stan blew the smoke out slowly. “I’m a stranger in my own life, ya know?”

Ford’s words, his expression grim, emerged: We have to do what’s best for Stan.

Tears sprang to your eyes but you willed them away, swallowing until your throat no longer felt quite as thick. It wasn’t fair to push Stan to be someone he couldn’t remember by clinging to a past that only you knew.

Maybe Ford was right.

Maybe the best thing for Stan was to shed the weight of these expectations and carve out a new existence for himself. He would be thrilled to explore the world with his brother — who might as well have just been introduced to him considering the time they spent apart.

There was no room for you in this new life. You knew he could never look at you without thinking about his shortcomings, even if they existed only in his mind. You were standing on one side of a chasm, yelling at him; Stan on the other side, but he was too far away to hear you.

“Well that got depressing.” Stan stubbed out the cigar, ash crumbling. He stood and held his hand out to you, eerily reminiscent of how Ford had last week. “C’mon, dance w’me.”

He looked nervous to ask you this, which dumbfounded you — you would do whatever he asked. The quiet observation made you smile.

You took his hand and allowed him to pull you back inside, a sense of bittersweet finality settling over you as you did.

The party prevailed. People were drunk on the cheap beer and good company, cheeks reddened, smiles wide. When Soos played a string of throwback songs, Stan animatedly swung you around the dance floor, surprisingly graceful for his age and size. Every touch and graze seared through you, and Stan’s gaze lingered on you in a way that heated your core and stole your breath, his dark eyes glinting with customary mirth.

A particularly enthusiastic move spun you nearly into the beverage table. You stumbled but Stan was upon you in a moment, catching you and steadying you with his hands on your waist.

“You okay?” He inspected you from head to toe, then chuckled. “Heh. Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

One moment you were like that — brimming with happiness, entangled, chests pressed together — and the next Stan had pinned you to the wall, the darkened corner lending plenty of privacy to his wandering touch and fervent kisses. You kissed him back with similar urgency.

There was no part of him that you hadn’t mapped at one point or another, though it felt jarringly now like new territory, the same broad shoulders and thick arms but somehow different.

And you wanted to explore all of it.

With your teeth you tugged at his bottom lip, teasing open his mouth in order to get a better taste. Stan, pliant and obedient under your lead, sighed in pleasure. Nothing you did sated the need inside you to consume him, devour all that he offered so that you could never miss it again.

Stan had just moved his hand from your ass down along the curve of your lower thigh to lift your leg up around his waist — hardly an appropriate position for a Grauntie, you thought vaguely— when you were interrupted with unmistakable cheering. “Get ’em! Get ’em!”

Stan ensured to cover your body with his own as he whirled on Tyler in a move of unexpected gentlemanliness. The next words out of his mouth? Not so much.

Stan rasped, “I swear to God if you don’t get outta my sight right now I’m gonna rip out your eyes and sew them on whatever horrible affront to nature I have in my shop. Now scram.”

Tyler paused. He breathed out a small, “Get ’em” then turned tail and fled.

You covered your mouth to stifle your laugh.

“Pervert,” Stan grumbled.

“Can you blame him?”

“Nah. I’d watch us, too.” Stan grinned then, renewed in his delight. He gestured with his chin towards the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. “Wanna get out of here?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The music, muffled by distance, sounded like an erratic heartbeat from the living room chair where Stan pulled you on top of him. You both laughed as your knees protested against the maneuver, Stan carefully guiding your legs to rest on either side of him. He kissed you at once. It was as if there had been no interruption from before, his hands in your hair and your fingers clumsily working the buttons of his shirt.

Stan shifted to accommodate the subsequent unbuckling of his gaudy belt, taking the opportunity to also unburden you from your top. Your entire being seemed to warm as he admired this new development, gaze drifting lazily, drinking in his fill. Stan always made you feel desirable. Even after your skin freckled and your breasts no longer held their perkiness.

Smiling with the ease of a contented man, Stan reached out and brushed a thumb under your collar. “How’d ya get this?”

You froze. You didn’t have to look to know what he was talking about — a tiny, heart-shaped scar.

The obvious shift in attitude made him recoil. His features spasmed with regret.

“I should know that, shouldn’t I?”

Your chest tightened. You whispered, “Yes.”

“Damnit.” He breathed your name. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known better than to say anything —”

The rest of his apology fell on deaf ears. You awkwardly climbed off his lap and collected your shirt. The shag carpet nearly swallowed your bare feet, having kicked off your shoes sometime after crossing the threshold into the house. Stan sat motionless, watching you.

“You don’t have to apologize,” you quietly said.

Stan’s fingers flexed, an effort not to reach out to you again. “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“It…it’s okay.” You felt, somehow, as if you were both shrinking and expanding. The words you managed to eke out next sounded hollow. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t a good idea.” For the second time that night, tears burned your eyes. Stan, upon noticing, leapt out of the chair but you stepped out of his reach, wrapping your arms around you.

Stan deflated. Actually deflated, shoulders curving into his usual rounded posture. “What’s going on? Listen, I shouldn’t have said —”

“It’s not that,” you interrupted.

But wasn’t?

Not exclusively, you corrected. It was a whole jumbled, tangled mess of things. We need to do what’s best for Stan.

You couldn’t do this to him. To yourself. Couldn’t cycle through these moments of normality that inevitably tainted themselves. Like oil in water, you couldn’t separate one from the other. You had been delusional to think that you could defy that basic logic.

You would do anything for love, wouldn’t you?

Didn’t that include letting it go?

“I can’t do this, Stanley,” you told him. You were floating above yourself, presiding over the conversation in incorporeal form. “I-I can’t move out of the past. And I want to move forward, I do. But it’s impossible, and I can’t have both. I can’t.”

Tears flowed steadily down your face now.

Stan moved to console you but must’ve thought better of it. “What are you saying?”

“I’m going to go to Piedmont. With the twins.”

“What? What about us?”

“There is no us anymore, Stan.”

His throat bobbed uncertainly. “I know that it’s not like before but I…I’ve really enjoyed our time together. We could make this work.”

You shook your head. Sobs racked you, great shuddering, choking cries.

Stan stepped tentatively forward. “I dunno what to say.” His mouth worked as he searched for his next words. “We’ve made so many new memories together. Ain’t that enough?”

Was this really happening? You couldn't believe that it had come to this, all of those years. You didn't have any words for the emotions wholly encompassing you.

“Look, kid, I —” Stan’s brows twisted up in grief, in regret and confusion, “— I wish you would stay. I think I’m fallin’ in love with you again.”

The pleading tone of his voice proved exactly why you needed to leave. Realistically you could never have him this way, and you would only hurt him because of it. Stan deserved more than a constant reminder of the consequences of his heroic deed.

You turned from him. “I’m sorry, Stan.”

Your name from his mouth sounded like the prayer of a man desperate for salvation. “No. Please. Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

Heart heavier than it had ever been before, vision blurred, that’s exactly what you did.

As anticipated, the next day brought an onslaught of tears and goodbyes. You traipsed the halls of the Mystery Shack alone, ghosting your fingers over the chipped paneling and peeling paint. You were married to the old house as much as you were to Stan. Deep down you knew that you would return, but it didn’t make the goodbye any less difficult.

You avoided Stan at every possible turn. Only when you all piled into the car with your luggage did you force yourself to acknowledge him, fatigue creasing his face. You wanted nothing more than to comfort him. But this would be good for him — no more sorrow, no more pain. After the bus departed, Ford would surprise him with the boat and he would start a new life.

The walk from El Diablo to the bus station seemed to stretch on forever. You held Mabel’s hand while Dipper pushed ahead, feigning bravery, though last night you heard him crying softly in his room. So much had transpired over the summer, and now the days of adventure and laughter were over.

“I made these for you,” Mabel said. She handed Stan and Ford a pink sweater each, the former putting it on immediately and glaring at his brother to do the same. “I’m gonna miss my Grunkles.”

Ford smiled wistfully. “We’ll miss you too, kiddo.”

“C’mere, sweetie.” Stan brought Mabel in for a hug. It didn’t elude you that he used the endearment he chose before the memory wipe.

You felt as if your chest might burst from all of your suppressed, cresting emotions. Dipper bid his goodbyes next. The bus rumbled to the station then, kicking up dust, and the four of you fell into a tightened embrace.

You pulled away last. Stan regarded you with large, reproachful eyes as you kissed his cheek. “Goodbye, Stanley. We’ll see each other again.”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah.” He looked jarred by the interaction, a faint blush burning his cheeks.

Ford dipped his chin in your direction, a silent acknowledgment between you. Your lower lip trembled. But, as you turned to Dipper and Mabel, you summoned your most convincing smile and led them to the bus. Stan and Ford ensured that the driver allowed Waddles on the bus, who squealed his delight at entry. The duo, Stan outfitted in his brass knuckles and Ford with his gun, watched over your departure like two handsome, vengeful guardian angels.

Your bus seat creaked as you settled down into it, Dipper and Mabel on either side of you.

“To Piedmont,” you said.

“To Piedmont,” Dipper echoed. His grim smile had you reaching out to hug him again.

Mabel sadly waved Waddles’ hoof out the window. You couldn’t bear to look out it, staring straight ahead until the bus gained traction on the gravel road and the bus station — and your heart, your home — shrank in the distance.

For a long time the only sound was the bus chugging along and the only other rider, a snoring old man. You weren’t sure what the twins were thinking. Perhaps they were recounting their many adventures just as you were, Stan starring in most of yours.

No. No Stan. You needed to be brave.

You tried valiantly to raise morale. “We had so many great memories this summer. Fishing, swimming, being with Wendy and Soos and —”

“Grunkle Stan!”

You nodded somberly, adding, “And Grunkle Stan.”

“No! Look!” Mabel clambered in the seat, stabbing her finger at the window. Both you and Dipper righted in order to peer around her sweatered form. Sure enough, there was Stan, running to keep up with the bus and waving his hands.

“Wait! Stop!” He yelled, panting. “Stop the bus!”

“We have to stop the bus. He wants to tell us something,” Mabel said, eyes wide with urgency.

You eyed Stan, stumbling over rocks and roots, knowing that he wouldn’t last much longer. You signaled for the bus driver to stop; after the Waddles incident, he was only too willing to obey. The bus sputtered to a halt and the three of you piled off, Mabel and Dipper darting out in front to meet Stan’s breathless approach.

“Stan, what are you doing?” You shielded your face, blinking into the sun.

Stan doubled over, hands on his knees. He signaled that he needed a minute. You stood, smiling sheepishly at the bus driver, who looked less than impressed to be waiting. You started, “Stan —”

“I remember!” His face absolutely beamed. “I remember. I remember it all.” Stan grabbed Mabel’s shoulders. “You eat glitter when you think no one is looking. You told me once that you invented invisible ice cream but couldn’t find it when it fell on the floor.”

It was Dipper’s turn next for this onslaught of information, brimming out of Stan like an overflowing sink. “You! At the beginning of the summer you thought Mabel’s pet rock was an alien tryin’ to blend in. You were freakin’ out because it kept movin’.” Stan burst into laughter. “But it was just ME!”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel and Dipper leapt to embrace him. He hugged them tighter than you had ever seen before.

He remembered? He remembered?

“Don’t think I forgot about ya.” Stan released the twins, crossing the space between you in only two strides. “I’m sorry, doll, ‘bout everythin’.” His large hands cupped either side of your face, gaze roaming over you with renewed wonder. “Everything is so clear now.”

Your lip wobbled. “You remember?”

“Yes I remember you beautiful, crazy woman!” Stan laughed and suddenly he was wrapping his arms around your middle and lifting you off your feet, spinning you in a circle. “I remember! I remember!”

You put your hands on his shoulders to brace yourself. “Stan! Stan! Are you sure?” You couldn’t let yourself hope again if it wasn’t true, fluttering in your chest like a trapped bird.

He set you down again, grinning like a child. “Like hell I’m sure. When…When Bill went in my mind, I ‘member thinkin’ that I could never lose you. None of you. I suppose I was s’scared of it that I repressed it deep enough to protect the memories. Then when you got on that bus, when I thought I lost you for real, it all came rushing back.”

“Really?” Tears strained your voice.

“Really.” Stan’s features softened. “I understand now why you fought so hard to get these memories back.”

A sound of strangled, delirious joy burst from you and you threw yourself against him, arms encircling around his neck. Stan’s mouth hovered near your ear, lips brushing the outer shell of it. “I love ya, doll. Even-Even when I didn’t remember why, I loved ya.”

“I love you, too,” you sighed into the crook of his neck and shoulder. “I can’t believe this.”

“Well, believe it.” Stan retracted enough to study you, curious and awed all in one. “You can’t get rid o’me that easily.”

“I-I really thought…” you shook your head, unable to get the words out. You just held him tighter.

“I know. I know, doll.”

You didn’t need to speak to understand each other, to know what the other one was thinking. When he held you now, he held you with thirty years of memories, a bind stronger than even the ring on your finger.

Mabel broke the embrace, tugging on Stan’s shirt. “What happens now?”

In the distance, Dipper and Ford were chasing Waddles. Stan observed this, then took a long look at you before turning to his niece. He waved off the bus driver, saying, “You ever been on a boat before, kid?”

A/N 2.0: In my head, they all get to go on their adventures together and reader homeschools Dipper and Mabel and they’re a big, happy family.

There’s little nods to the Swooning Over Stans dating game by @gfdatingsim and By Steps and Inches by @funkingrunkles . Memories is kind of my love letter to both stories that I enjoyed so much. (So if you read this, thank you💕)

#gravity falls #stanley pines #fanfic #writers on tumblr #writing #stanley pines x reader #memories #Your Honor I love this weird old man

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lunarcloak · 6 months ago

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Blue Lock Chapter 262: Visual Storytelling

Can we talk about the visual imagery this chapter?? Kaneshiro is always cooking but Nomura cooked extra hard this time with his own illustrative storytelling

An almost entirely white panel. Except for the black spot of Kaiser's hunched figure. Almost as if he's the stain on an otherwise perfect game from BM right now. (He's thrown off balance.)

Here, in the first picture, this is Isagi's view of where Kaiser is right now. On top of a puzzle piece— a symbol of Isagi's power, and also a symbol of how off kilter he is. The second picture is part of a larger paneling of how he's being left on the ground as Isagi runs past him in a flurry of puzzle pieces. Almost as if Isagi's kicking the pieces of his perfect puzzle astray, leaving him to rebuild them from scratch. (The theme of this chapter.)

You can tell he's only barely listening. Eyes are always a huge indicator of visual storytelling— i picked this up from looking at BSD panels for too long. Here there's virtually no pupils, smaller, wider eyeballs because he's not listening to Ness's words. They're going in one ear out the other. Because Ness's words are superficial— He's trying to help, he is, but that is desperately NOT what Kaiser needs right now. He needs to figure out how to FIX this. Not to retreat back into the safety of his cocoon so that he can pretend he's still the star on the field.

NOTICE HOW EVERYTHING IN THE SECOND PANEL CAN DIRECTLY BE RELATED TO ISAGI. The offer from Reale— what if Yoichi gets it instead of me? The throne in this team— what if Isagi takes that, too? Am I about to lose everything I worked to get myself? The whole world is watching my worst performance in years. I can't lose here. I can't be defeated here. Not here, of all places, in Blue Lock.

Negative colouring. The previous, prominent memory I have of this is when Rin went to his "flow" state. It's specifically to emphasise the "HUMAN" wording. It's usually used to showcase a very prominent moment, in this case it's Kaiser realising exactly what the core of his worry is right now. It isn't the defeat, not beating Isagi, not anything. At the moment, he's afraid of losing the very humanity he had thought he clawed himself into. To emphasise this, the black and white being reversed are to indicate that time almost freezes, completely changing his perspective and line of thought at that moment.

Less dramatic, still negatively scaled panel. Emphasising how he's really digging into his psyche here and going "Oh, I'm scared. I'm afraid of losing everything I've got for myself." The last time this happened was when his secret money stash was found— he didn't care as much then, because there was nothing to lose that he hadn't already lost. But now? Now, it matters a lot more. Because he's built himself up on an entirely shaky foundation. Note how he's also sliding below here, losing his footing, like he's lost the stable ground he thought he had.

The angle of this panel makes it look like he's climbing upwards, and he's just lost his grip on the wall before him, and is in the process of falling. It's extremely well done.

Plenty people have already pointed this one out— yeah Isagi's just reached a height that's similar to Noa's. The position Kaiser thought he used to have, but now he's not even on the staircase to victory and the treasure he thought he would attain soon is now inching towards his most challenging rival to date.

You will never see him this tired, this defeated, or this melancholic ever again. At this point, his eyes are no longer that wide, shocked stare of not seeing. Now he's comprehended his stance, and he's come back into himself.

Each petal is a memory, a visual representation of the crumbling of the rose he once held. It's gone now, there's no rose in his hand anymore (nothing for him to hold onto anymore). When you have no roses in hand, you grow a new bouquet. When you have nothing, there's nothing to lose if you go reaching for something to hold onto again.

But HERE, the petals can be interpreted in two ways— either he's being reformed from the petals of a new rose (blank petals, not representative ones). OR, you can interpret it as those very petals dissipating from his being, leaving him as this black, blank slate to rebuild himself. Zero— as in no colour, no petals, no gardens to flourish anymore. Only way to move now is up.

Also I'd like to draw your attention to the negative paneling again— inverted this time, the exact opposite of the previously conveyed emotion. Now he's the one in the black, working to redefine himself. He's already redefined the external aspects.

Your Zero— Your Beginning. I LOVE this page, even if it's a repeat. It conveys so much. Kaneshiro and Nomura are such a GOOD TEAM

A black hand clasps around the core memory— the memory of when he truly had only his football. He can't let that petal float away, that's one he wants to keep. That's the idea he wants to hold onto. He crushes the petal into his hand, assimilating it into his new beginning. That's the one he'll hold onto, to recraft the person that is Michael Kaiser.

#blue lock #bllk #michael kaiser #blue lock chapter 262 #this one took me a bit longer #but it was SO WORTH IT #i have a lot of thoughts like this for many chapters #but this one I just HAD TO DO #lune thinks #bllk 262

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teeful-corner · 1 year ago

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𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ How? .ᐟ. . . (THE FUCK ARE YOU ALIVE!?) Lloyd Garmadon x Reader | Gender Neutral Reader

ੈ˳light Dragons Rising (s1) spoilers, reference to previous seasons; Ghosts of the past come to haunt Lloyd in the future, while somehow also quelling a long-term ache in his heart. ੈ˳tags / warning: implied relationship, death (slightly detailed), dealing of lost and angsty Lloyd, Jay and Cole are still not back :(, not proof read! 4.9k words.

"Hey Lloyd!" Arin called from the library, catching Lloyd's attention sharply as he tried to pass by. The call didn't seem urgent, yet Lloyd wasn't going to do anything of particular urgency either, so he decided to peak inside; he was also wondering why (and how) Arin was in the Library. Not that it had been locked, or anything of the sort, yet because the Library somewhere that Lloyd would have thought Sora would be, not Arin. Hmm, maybe scratch that. Arin would probably be in the Library if it meant he could learn anything about the ninja. Good dedication, he had to admit, albeit it a tad weird. "Yeah Arin?" Lloyd called back when Arin didn't turn his attention over to him, still engrossed in whatever he was looking at. When Lloyd entered the room, walking over to Arin to peer at the book from behind, he would soon notice it was an old photo album. Zane, Pixel, and Nya used to keep it up to date with adventures and general family outings. "Who's that? I don't think I ever remember a ninja wearing purple on your team before." Arin asked, pausing for a minute before he added on quite proudly. "And I know more about you guys than anyone should know!"

The photo that Arin was looking at was a group photo, one in front of the Monastery before one of the countless times it got burnt down. Sometimes Lloyd couldn't help but wonder why they didn't rebuild the Monastery out of something that was inflammable; though he guessed Master Wu always enjoyed coming back to a Monastery that hadn't changed. And Lloyd had to admit, it was also a nice change of pace of the constant changing world outside. It felt like a part of the chaotic world was standing still; even if that feeling was usually a brief one. Yet, in the photo, Arin would point at a Ninja who was piggy-backing off of Lloyd back. Well, maybe not piggy-backing. It was more of, at the time of the photo, they had jumped onto Lloyd's back and he was in the process of falling down. Meanwhile, Kai had burst out laughing and Nya was elbowing him, rather harshly, with a snicker. Though her efforts were rather targeted as seeing the rest of the team was already bursting out in bubbly laughter. Lloyd swore he could hear all their laughter echo in his pointed ears, like the day had just happened. But he knew he was wrong. His eyes became saddened as much as he tried to smile; if not to soothe Arin, then to soothe himself. "Ah, well, that's the Master of Crystals." Lloyd began to explain to Arin, who craned his neck back to look up at Lloyd. "...um, shoot. What can I say about them?" Lloyd tried not to laugh at his own short comings, a habit that he was constantly teased for yet he couldn't help. "The Master of Crystals?" Arin mumbled in echo to Lloyd's statement. His eyes filtered back down to the frozen photo, taking in how blurry everyone looked from moving. He couldn't help but crack a smile. "You two seem close!" "We were!... we really were." Lloyd's voice drew off a bit, his eyes glancing to the side as he still tried to wrack his mind on what to say. He knew if he said too much he would start crying, yet he also knew that Arin would want to know as much as possible. Yet how could he sum up them in words? That task, Lloyd thought, was impossible. "I wish you could have met them," Lloyd would find himself mumbling. "They were amazing, well as great as a person can be." Lloyd started as Arin turned to face him again, photobook still supported in his hands. "They were rather talented, some of their paintings are actually hung around the Monastery - well those that didn't burn in the fires. They were. . . wonderful, incredibly funny at all the wrong times. Fearless, in their own way, and yet reckless at the same time. Master Wu always scolded them for jumping head first into situations instead of using their head. "They were rather passionate as well, yet somehow managed to be a total introvert; they would not speak to the press, nor anyone they were uncomfortable with. Always gave one of the Ninja this stare that screamed 'help me'. Social awkwardness, that's the word for it." Lloyd couldn't help but smile as memories began to surface themselves after being dormant for years. Arin kept his eyes on Lloyd as he spoke, only occasionally glancing down at the picture to look of the Ninja that Lloyd spoke of. Arin couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't heard of them before. "They were also kind... maybe too kind." Lloyd paused in his speech, he had been rambling for a while before his words fell short. So much so Arin had noticed that Kai stopped to listen from the doorway; he seemed curious on the conversation, yet soon realized who Lloyd was talking about and grew the same solemn look. "What happened to them?" Arin was compelled to ask when he noticed all the past-tense that Lloyd was using when describing the Purple Ninja; furthermore the solemn look that the two grew when speaking about them. Yet, Arin wasn't sure if those looks were because the Ninja got lost during the merge. . . or if something before the merge happened.

The silence was more deafening than a rock-n-roll concert. Arin's brain was flooded with reasons for the sudden silence, ranging from the simplest answer (they were lost in the Merge) and the most complex scenario his brain could possibly think of. He would gingerly close the photo album and try and place it back into the shelf, "We don't have to talk about it if you guys don't want to!" He was quick to rush out. He didn't want to cause any sort of discomfort, and the silence suggested he had; that or he had just resurfaced some horrible memories that were being shoved away. Arin didn't hear when Kai had came over to the two, jumping when he felt the sudden warm hand on his shoulder, and gingerly glancing back over to Kai. He seemed in a much better shape about the question than Lloyd was. Arin knew Kai was trying to offer some sort of smile to soften the anxiousness that coursed through Arin - yet his smile wasn't very convincing. "They gave their life to try and protect us, kid." Kai explained, ruffling Arin's hair in another attempt to soften the mood. Yet, somehow Arin felt worse in hearing the news, turning to look over at Lloyd with apologetic eyes. Lloyd wasn't facing them.

Sora was quick to pick up on the more solemn mood that Lloyd seemed to be slumped in, not being as attentive during training or flat out spacing out - which tended to cause multiple accidents. Sora knew she wasn't the only one who caught on either. During her training with Nya, the Water Ninja continued glancing back at Lloyd with frowned eyebrows and eyes swimming in worry. Nevertheless, they both saw how careful Arin was around Lloyd, and Sora half wondered if some sort of stress caused Lloyd to crack and snap; she's heard from a few sources that he could have a temper on him. Yet, Nya pointed out how Kai acted around Lloyd and claimed that something happened that wasn't Lloyd snapping at Arin. Something much bigger. "How can something bigger than Lloyd snapping at Arin make Lloyd so. . ." Sora fished for the right word. Distant didn't feel right. ". . .I don't know! Not-Lloyd and Arin so cautious?" Nya glanced over at Sora, lips pierced in a frown, before her eyes returned over to Lloyd, "I don't know, but something did happen. Not Lloyd snapping happen, yet something. I've only seen Lloyd this despondent since-" And Nya stopped, causing Sora's interest to peak. She waiting for Nya to continue, dutifully noticing the rise of suspicion mixed with realization that swirled in Nya's eyes. When Nya did not continue, though, Sora asked with a cocked eyebrow. "Since some big even that caused Lloyd to lose someone close to him, and he somehow still blames himself over all these years?" It was a rhetorical question, laced with some humorous sarcasm, as Sora went back to her work. She was fixing up her mech, trying to add some enhancements on it so it would run smoother. All the while she was also trying to channel her elemental power without Riyu's help. This allowed Riyu to be able to lay in the sun nearby while intensively watching Sora's work, ready to bounce onto his feet if Sora needed his help. Sora noticed the silence from Nya, yet ignored it at first as she tightened a screw. Yet, after the third, the silence got a tad awkward. Sora glanced back at Nya, who was staring at her with a baffled look; almost as though she had seen a ghost. "What. . .?" Sora glanced behind her, seeing if she had missed something. Yet, she only saw her mech and came to the conclusion that she didn't. "How did you?" Nya's posture straightened as Sora glanced back at her. Now Sora was positively confused, "How did I what?" And Nya would roll her wrists, acting like that had carried the answer to Sora's question. It didn't and Sora was left just puzzled. Yet Nya seemed to get the hint that, maybe, Sora didn't know what she was talking about and happened to just take a rather accurate jab in the dark with her rhetorical question. As for Nya shook her head, clearing the baffled look on her face, before actually waving off Sora's puzzled look this time. "Nothing, nothing. I just thought-" And again, Nya wouldn't finish her sentence as her eyes drifted back to Lloyd. Sora would notice as she rubbed her neck, her eyebrows frowning more so than before, and a frown tugging deeper on her lips.

"I LEFT YOU GUYS ALONE FOR ONLY A SECOND!" Kai's shouting filled the court yard as Sora, Arin, Wyldfyre, and Riyu stood away from the gigantic hole in Monastery wall. Kai had gone inside only a a few minutes before a merge portal had appeared right above the Monetary; which both frightened and confused the four, seeing as Lloyd had used the dragon cores a few weeks ago! "It wasn't us!" Arin started, instantly trusting his hands up in the same way a cop would ask you to. Kai gawked at the four before rushing down the Monastery steps as Zane peaked door behind him, confused. Sora was quick to add to Arin's plea for innocence, yet she was cut off by Wyldfyre. "This was not our faults!" Wyldfyre crossed her arms, "Someone just fell out of the sky, crashed, and broke the wall! It was not me this time." Sora resorted just to agreeing with the two at this point. Kai groaned, and Sora wondered if it was out of laziness (for not wanting to deal with another broken Monastery wall) or out of 'I'm going to be killed for leaving you all alone!'. Either way he rushed past the four and over to the wall, but to Riyu's concerned growls, to check out the damage. He drew his sword just encase. "Fell out of the sky? But Lloyd should have stopped the rifts from reopening." Zane said as he walked over to Arin's left, staring at the rubble with confusion before he began to analyze the rubble as Kai began to carefully climb onto of it. "That's what I thought!" Arin shouted, thrusting his hands out at the crashed wall, "but then someone just- FELL FROM THE SKY!" Sora would add, "While being spit out of a rift. Though it disappeared after they got spat out." "Again, none of this was Wyldfyre's fault." Wyldfyre stated again, nodding in agreement to her own statement as though to add value to it. Nya didn't seem too amused as she rushed out with Lloyd to the hole in the wall and the proclamations of rifts and people falling out of them. Kai swore he was getting a headache from listening to Arin, Sora, and Wyldfyre explaining the situation again; not from their voices, yet from the sheer annoyance that these rifts were causing trouble again. Especially when they had all thought that they were taken care of. And just as he thought life was getting back to normal, or as normal as life after the Merge could get, life slaps him in the face. Again! Thanks life, you're really helpful. Yet Kai's sour thoughts towards life didn't stop him from checking the rubble and coming to a quick stop after he noticed a familiar gi lying on top of the white stone. His body froze at an instant, the grip on the Monetary wall tightened, both out of fear and unknowing how to process who laid in front of him. "Lloyd-" Kai called into the flurry of voices that tried to figure out what had happened. Gaining no response from Lloyd at first, Kai tried calling him again despite not being able to tear his eyes away from the person. Finally, "LLOYD!" "What?!" Lloyd shouted back to Kai, turning to face the Fire Master both confused and more aggressive than he intended. Though his stance quickly softened as he noticed Kai's face: pale white. A beat. Lloyd gingerly, yet with as much confidence as he could muster, walked over to Kai and where he stood on the rubble. As he approached behind him, Lloyd called out again: "Kai?" Yet the only response he gained was a shaking hand that Kai pointed towards the rubble. Concerned, and with adrenaline now rushing through his blood like crazy (the held silence from the others not helping his nerves at all) Lloyd climbed upon the rubble to come face to face with a haunting face. In an instant, it felt like Lloyd's world was turned upside down as his eyes flickered over every detail of the familiar body that was no longer mangled or torn, no longer gruesomely defiled in the most repulsive way.

Lloyd could still remember how their limbs hung on like strings, or were disconnected entirely. How their blood stained the concrete road blacker than it had been, how the rotting smell filled the streets before the war had ended and they were safe to burry their friend. The details rushed back to Lloyd quicker than he wanted; more graphic than Lloyd remembered it being. The shock, horror, terror, slight disgust all made him recoil away from the stones wall; it forced him to completely turn his back and cup his mouth in fear of puking. His eyes were wide, his pupils shrunk as he tried to get those horrible, god awful memories out of his mind. The smell he remembered that coated the streets hit him, causing him to hunch over. He knew this was all in his head, old trauma resurfacing to bite him in the ass for never fully recovering from that scene. He could hear the voices, panicked and just as disturbed (mostly from the original Ninja) when they realized who laid in the rubble. Lloyd distantly felt a hand on his back, but his mind swirled and circled as he felt like his gut had been punched. "What's going on? What's happening?" Arin panic sounded so far to Lloyd, and Arin seemed further when Lloyd turned to look at his student. Arin grew fearful as he saw the detailed horror on Lloyd. Nya was trying to calm the situation. Zane was examining the body, trying to make sense of what was happening. He first ran a diagnostic and the only words Lloyd picked up were "Alive", "Breathing", "Vital". They weren't mangled and torn and tattered, they breathed and were whole and alive. That was a wild concept to Lloyd, caused his knees to buckle. His hand slid down roughly on the Monastery wall as he crashed to his knees. He was trying to keep the tears from spilling over, hiccupping escaping his throat as he choked back sobs. "Can someone explain to use what's going on?!" Sora shouted as Lloyd balled his hand into a fist against the Monastery. Sora sounded distressed, Lloyd couldn't blame her. He couldn't blame any of the new students for how they felt at the moment, after all this was slowly turning into a shitshow of emotions. Lloyd could feel Nya trying to snap him out of his engrossing thoughts yet the felt all consuming; It's like Lloyd felt everything all at once and yet, somehow, nothing at the same time. He blanked out at the explanation the students were given. He blanked out for a while. He wasn't sure when someone had managed to move him, yet he now sat in the living room of the Monastery with his fists clenching at his pants and this sickening feeling still in his stomach. How can you possibly explain that the fact that someone who had died, gave their life, to protect something greater than them (yet somehow also meaningless after they gave their life) to students who hadn't heard of them before? Lloyd moved his hand to cup his mouth, trying to control his breathing as his eyes zooned out on the floor. His knee bounced now without the weight of his arm. He could hear Nya next to him trying to explain the seemingly impossible to the three students: "A long. . . long, time ago, during one of our last fights with Lord Garmadon, after Harumi had resurrected him, we were almost cornered." Nya explained, "Well, we had been running from their joint forces for a while, taking refugee in abandoned building of Ninjago, yet this time we had no were to truly run. I suggested we split up, confuse Lord Garmadon and Harumi and Lloyd said we needed to all stick together." Nya would pause, allowing Lloyd to notice how she had rambled a little and how Kai had to place a hand on her shoulder. There was a silent nod that was shared from Kai to Nya, something to reassure her. Nya took a deep breath before she continued, "To make a long story short, the Ninja you saw crashing through the wall was the Purple Ninja, Master of Crystals. . . (y/n). "They had, despite much protest, said they would ward off Garmadon and give us a chance to escape; promised that they would meet us back at the base-"

"Garmadon tore her to pieces." The growl in Lloyd's voice didn't go unmissed as he interrupted Nya. His hand pulled down from his mouth, pulling at his skin a little before he rubbed his neck. "Left her to die rotting on the street, limbs hanging on by threads. . ." His statement was followed by silence, stunned if not horrified silence. Lloyd didn't look up at the three students, who sat or stood nearby. He couldn't bare to catch their eyes, to catch the horror that their mind was crafting after the vague description that Lloyd left hanging in the air. The silence was thick, thicker than Lloyd would have wished. "But... but they seemed.. fine?" Arin choked out, trying to get some sort of positivity back into the room; or at least to get some people to start looking on the bright side. Despite the gruesome topic. "We don't know how." Nya answered, shaking her head. "The best explanation would be that she was fixed when their soul moved on to the Departed Realm? But we haven't seen much trace of that realm in the merged... nor have we seen many traces of other realms for souls, like the Cursed Realm." "Yes, and it is rather odd that she would appear now." Zane walked into the room, cleaning his hands with a cleaning cloth. Attention snapped to him in a unsettling way (from his standards) yet he guessed it was just worry for the Ninja he had just been taking care of. "Especially after Lloyd stopped the MergeQuake. We can only hope that means that the Realms are settling into their new place, and returning people to where they're meant to be. Yet, that would not explain how (y/n) managed to resurrect." Zane noticed how Lloyd didn't look in his direction when he spoke, yet he couldn't blame Lloyd, not after all they've been through. Not after all he's been through; Especially since he was the closest to (y/n). "Well, the only thing we can do now is just wait for them to wake up, yeah?" Sora pipped up after a moment and she would receive a nod from Zane. She made sure to think on her next words, as well as her tone, before she crossed her arms, "So then let's go do something! I'm sure your friend wouldn't want to wake up after being dead for so long to see you all depressed!" "OH!" Arin pipped up instantly. "I have just the thing!"

The smell of some sort of bread was the first thing that came to mind, the second would be the warmth of a weighted cover that was tossed up to my shoulders, and the third would be the softness of the pillow at my head and the mattress under me. The warm and softness coaxed me back to sleep, yet my mind made it feel as though I had been asleep for decades. Decades. A soft murmur escaped my mouth as I rolled onto my side, my brain slowly registering the sounds that echoed from where I laid. The sound of birds nearby, the clattering of pans, the sound of laughter and chatter and talking; Feet on wood floors and sliding doors. The smell of different ingredients mixing with the smell of baking bread or maybe pie. It was like the sweetest dream. I grabbed at my covers and turned again on the mattress below me. It was so tempting to go back to sleep, to let the soft, warm sounds bring me to a dream where I was with everyone again. That was until I had fully registered what was happening. With a quick motion I shoved the blanket off of me, sitting up, and looking around feverously. I stared at the room in front of me, all too familiar and all too haunting. My hands had a mind of their own at they first touched the sheets under me, then my cheeks and face, and slowly my whole body as I began to register something: I was. . . alive? How was this possible? Hadn't I died, oh I don't remember, a few years ago? This shouldn't be possible, it shouldn't-. Thoughts circled around my mind like a storm that could not be tamed, panicked and frightened, terrified and horrific. I tried to remember what I could not, at the time, and my only last thoughts were those of the moments before I had died. The feeling of my bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles all pulling apart are screams ripped out of my throat in a piercing way that still haunting me. The tears that streamed down my cheeks, the pain; oh the unbearable pain, all suffered to make sure that everyone else could hopefully see another day. So Lloyd could see another day. I raised my hand, feeling my damp cheeks. I didn't even realize I had been crying, and I frowned my eyebrows as I couldn't understand whether it was because the memories or the confusion. And I couldn't help but sit on the bed, my bed, as I reeled in all that was happening. I was alive, I was back. Yet was everyone else here? What had happened after I died? Did the resistance work? Is Ninjago City back to how it had been? Is- The thoughts brought me onto my feet and tugged at my gi, taking in a shaky breath as I felt it. My feet guided themselves, my mind in a foggy trance, to the door and out the room, down the hallway of the Monetary while following the sounds of voices and laughter. I was led to the kitchen, were I would stand at the door and look in at the scene: Lloyd, Nya, Zane, Kai, and four people I didn't know; three kids, one frog guy. They all were making Pies, from what I could tell, and they were laughing and smiling and joking. Kai had flicked flour at Nya, who sneezed and glared playfully at Kai. Zane was putting pies into the stove, helping as the kid with pink hair read a book out loud. Lloyd with a kid in orange stood at a counter nearby, seemingly racing to make the pie that the pink-haired kid was shouting. The frog guy stood nearby. I didn't noticed as tears flowed back down my cheeks as I stared at the scene, my mouth slightly agape. Everything seemed so peaceful, so right. I could only guess Jay was in his room changing because there was a massive pile of flour on the floor and on Kai and Lloyd. Cole probably in the bathroom from having eaten too many of the sweets, with all the empty pie tins that laid on the table. Nya was the first to notice me, she was about to throw water at Kai yet paused as her eyes caught a glimpse of me and looked back. I could see the way her eyes widened, realization and relief and overwhelm wash her. All I could give her in response was a small smile, a weak bit of laughter.

There was a brief moment were we just stared at each other, and the next thing I knew Nya had rushed away from her spot and enveloped me in a hug. And I couldn't help but hug her back, feeling tears form in her eyes as I choked on mine. "Oh fuck-" Kai mumbled, and I could only guess he had realized why Nya had not shot him with water and instead rushed towards the door. The room grew quiet, confused then realized, as attention darted over to Nya and I. Lloyd's eyes. Oh, his eyes. Despite the pain that rang through them, they way they scrunched and drew out lines on his face. Despite the way he could only meet my eyes for a few seconds at a time. Despite the way they reddened, looking like he was about to cry. His eyes were still lovely as ever. I tightened my grip on Nya, "What did I miss?" I mumbled softly to the shocked silence. I let out something akin to a airy-chuckle. "Most recently, the ending of MerqeQuakes which occurred when all the realms were merged together into one big realm; before that,-" Zane began to respond yet he stopped himself. He couldn't help but smile, and I swear he was about to cry (if he could). "Actually, that does not matter. What matters now is that you're back... and awake." Nya slowly let go of me, I could feel as she tried to break from my grip and I slowly loosened her. She was smiling, yet she was crying; choking on her own tears. I couldn't help but give Nya one last reassuring squeeze before I slowly moved around her and towards Lloyd. The silence seemed thicker as I reached Lloyd, his hesitance more noticeable as his brows thickened and frowned. A thin frown spread across my lips, I knew what this was about (that much didn't take me being alive for years to know). "Lloyd I-" My voice felt weak as I started, reaching out to Lloyd with my hand yet stopping. I balled it into a fist, seeing Lloyd turn away from me, and slowly dropped my arm back to my side. What words could you say to someone who you betrayed? Nevertheless someone like Lloyd, who's been through so much and the last thing he wanted (I knew) was to see my body on the concrete floor. Blood staining the road. Limps ripped apart by his father. I knew that so much that my last thoughts had been about Lloyd had how he would react when he saw the scene. My mouth twitched as I stood there, next to Lloyd, in silence as my head fell. Sorry was not good enough, it would never be good enough; no apology would be good enough to start trying to make up for the time I had missed. For lying, as I knew that I wouldn't meet them back up. For everything. For leaving him alone and making him bear the world without me for so many years. For not being there for him for whatever he had to go through while I was gone; it had aged him so, I could see the aged pain in his eyes. It would never feel enough. "I'm-" And yet, somehow Lloyd turned to face me. And somehow, he came to embrace me, hugging me tightly as though he were afraid I would die again. And somehow, he managed to be near me after everything I had done. And somehow, I had a feeling, we would slowly get through this. Slowly, I wrapped Lloyd in a hug and gripped onto his gi, just as tightly. I buried my face into his shoulder as he did the same and we just stood there and hugged tightly. And everything felt right, even if it was for a brief moment. Everything felt like it had and how it should here in the Monastery, with Lloyd: It felt like home.

©this work belongs to teeful-corner.ᐟ please do not plagiarize, copy, or steal this work; like, reblogs, and saves are appreciated :D

#lloyd garmadon x reader #ninjago lloyd #ninjago dragons rising #ninjago #lloyd garmadon #lego ninjago #lloyd ninjago #lloyd montgomery garmadon #zane julien #kai smith #nya smith #ninjago arin #sora ninjago #ninjago fandom #ninjago fanfiction #ninjago x reader #nya ninjago #kai ninjago #zane ninjago

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lemon-russ · 2 months ago

Note

Sometimes I just want to take care of Mortarion, cook for him, give him a nice bath, with a massage and take care of his skin with soft lotions, so I can get my hands all over him. And then wrap him in a soft fuzzy bathrobe and tuck him into a freshly made bed. That boy needs someone to take care of him, and he sure as fuck isn't going to do it himself

I got carried away, partially because @moodymisty won't stop talking about the stinky nasty man and I NEEDED to wash him.

Get cleaned, idiot.

Tags: @sleepyfan-blog @undeaddream @scriberye @lisikk,

and thank you for dividers @squishyowl

Mortarion x F!Reader

(Actually i dont think there's any reference to the reader actually being fem?)

CW: kinda gross Mortarion stuff, vague suggestiveness

Word count: ~2000

Mortarion trudges through the threshold to your shared chambers. You gasp and shoot up from your seat where you had been reading. He'd been gone for months on a mission, and you weren't expecting him home for a month still.

“Mortarion!” you say, rushing to his side. He blinks slowly, turning his tired gaze onto you. He takes a moment to fulky process you're there.

“I… return.” He rasps through his mask.

You frown, seeing the grey circles gathered under his eyes, his gaunt cheeks. He always looked ill, but today he looked a foot in the grave.

“You look exhausted, my love.” You say gently, leading him to a chair. He sits with a soft groan, slumping back and letting his head roll back. His robes are dirty and stiff from being worn so long, and you wrinkle your nose. You're glas the serfs brought fresh laundry today.

“It was a long, long ordeal…” he rasps again. You sit on the arm of the chair and push back his hood from his face. His grey hair, greasy and dust caked, falls around his face to his shoulders. You ran a hand along his cheek and he looked up at you tiredly with his cloudy green eyes.

“Here-” you say softly, standing, “you must have not had a decent meal in weeks, let me get you something-”

He blinks, scrunching his brow and raising a pallid hand a bit as you scurry away from the chair.

“You don't have- come, we have serfs for that-” he weakly protests, but you're already out the door.

You return quickly with a spread of cheeses, fruits, meats, and some wine. Mortarion couldn't get drunk, but he sometimes enjoyed the taste. You place it on the sidetable nearby, hopping back next to him. This time he places an arm around your side, but carefully as not to touch you.

His pale eyes soften at the plate. “…thank you. That is… very kind.” He says, reaching for his respirator.

You watch him take the gas infusing mask off, and wince when he starts gasping rattling sounds. You hand him a cloth to cough into, and rub his wide back as he hacks and wheezes while his lungs struggle to rebuild themselves enough to breathe unaltered air. When he's able to breath mostly uninhibited, he swallows a few times and looks up at you again, a thin sweat on his brow.

“You don't have to… always stay with me, when I take off the mask…” he croaks weakly. You smile and give a soft sigh.

“It's alright. I can handle it.” You say gently. You bring him over the tray, and he scrunches his nose and coughs when a tart fruit hits his tongue. He instead gulps some wine, then sighs.

“Tastes… awful, at first.” He mumbles in his hoarse voice.

“I know, my love.” You soothe, rubbing his shoulder and ignoring the dust and blood caked robes. “But your taste will kick back in soon like always.”

You slide off the chair again, and his dry, paled lips give a small frown. You smile back. “I'm going to run you a bath while you snack.” You say, flittering over to some cabinets. You start gathering scented herbs and oils and soaps.

Mortarion gives a resignated sigh. “Very well, then… I have… learned better than to fight with you on this. Go make your soup.” He gruffs, halfheartedly waving a hand your way.

You giggle. He may give you attitude about it, but you suspect some part of him liked the comfort and attention, as antithetical to his personality as it was. But he had to keep up appearances.

You leave him to his food, hearing him occasionally cough over a bite, and head to your bathroom. You asked Mortarion to build a spacious bathroom when he asked how you wanted your chambers. He delivered, a large heated bath pool set into the floor, big enough that he could sit fully submerged. You turn on the water and throw in the oils and herbs.

Ginger, because he looked like his muscles were sore, and it helps his throat and cough. Lavender and chamomile, to help with the stress you could see in his tense shoulders. And some jasmine scented epsom salt for- well, everything else going on with his cracking, healing skin. Plus, you like the smell.

When the pool was sufficiently full, you return to him, now resting with his head back and an empty tray. You smile, content that he has real food in him, and gently take one of his hands in both of yours. You purse your lips at how bony his knuckles feel.

He cracks a red rimmed eye at you. “Is there something you'd like?” He asks, voice sounding a tad clearer.

You pout. “Come, before the water cools.”

He lets out a deep, rattling sigh, but seems too tired to argue. He rises with a groan, and dredges after you as you lead him to the bathroom.

His clothes are… well. They're going in the burn pile. Mortarion doesn't do laundry, so much as replace clothes. The serfs enjoy the lack of washing, but the tailors don't love the constant sewing of huge outfits.

He watches you, expression unreadable as you start undoing his various belts and ties. You free his hooded robe, and he helps you slide it off his shoulders, leaving him bare armed in a loose, sleeveless tunic. You undo the belt to that, fumbling with the knot around his hips, and glance up at him when you notice he's staring.

His face looks taught, and your brow knits. “My love…?”

He squeezes his tired eyes shut, making a small noise. “Its- nothing.” He hisses, turning his head away.

You frown, but shrug and go back to fiddling with the tied fabric. The dirt seems to have made the knot hard to loosen, but you manage to free it, and toss it aside and start tugging at his soiled tunic. He groans a little, but leans to help you tug it off. He kicks off his boots himself, and when you reach for his pants, he gently grabs your wrist, dwarfing it in his hands.

“I can manage the rest.” He says, voice strained. You smile and step back, watching as he peels the pants off. He gives you a look, before sighing and peeling his loincloth off as well. You don't know why he makes a spectacle of getting undressed. You've seen it all before. And more.

You giggle, but move a stool over for him. He sits, and lets you take buckets from the bath to rinse off the more offensive dust and grime. You'd prefer his bath not immediately turn black when he touches it.

When he's rinsed, he trudges tiredly over to the pool and lowers himself in. He hisses through his teeth as the water hits his cracked skin, but lowers in anyway, leaning so only his head is unsubmerged. His grey hair- brighter now without so much filth- splays across the tiles. You smile and sit behind him cross-legged on the floor.

You drizzle some flowery scented shampoo on his hair, and start massaging your fingers into his scalp as it lathers. He sighs a deep breath, sinking into the pool a little more. It takes a few rinses and lathers before you're confident his hair is actually clean, but his dull gray hair is now shiny silver once again.

You undress yourself next, and he tilts his head up to peek at you as you do. You giggle. Again, he acts like you aren't getting in the bath lole this. You slip in with him, his eyes never leaving you.

“What?” You chuckle softly.

His eyes roam your body, and he almost smiles the tiniest bit. “Nothing. Please, continue with the frivolities.” He replies, settling back again.

You do just that, using a loufa to gentley exfoliate the skin that was cracking and shedding as his body recovered from the gas.

He makes a small groan now and then, moving every so slightly to give you better access to him as you scrub sweet soaps into his skin. You make him roll over, and he does so, propping arms on the side of the pool as you nearly climb his back to scrub and exfoliate.

He looks half asleep by the time you're done, and his shoulders are slouched in a much less tense way. The red around his eyes is now pink, and his pallid skin is starting to look less translucent and waxy as the heat and healing slowly brings a hint of blood to his face. And, apparently, other places as well, you chuckle to yourself.

You run a comb through his hair, detangling it with scneted oils. He watches with half lidded eyes as you sit in his lap, gently tugging out knots.

“Why….?” He mumbles, letting one of his hands splay across your small back.

You smile up at his tired, soft face. “Why what, my love?”

He sighs and rubs his thumb over your spine. “Why… this? Me…?” he murmurs.

Your face softens, and you set the comb aside so you can cradle his face between your hands.

“Because you're you.” You say gently.

He sighs and lets his cheek rest in your small palm, eyes fluttering closed. You stay like that a moment, stroking his cheek and cuddling in the warm waters.

When the water starts to chill, he sighs and pulls you up with him as he stands.

“You'll catch a cough if we stay.” He says quietly.

He places you carefully on the tile floor, and you're quick to scurry over and fetch towels- one to wrap around you, and a massive one for him. You hold it up to him with a grin, and he cuckles a rattling sound, coughing slightly from the exertion.

He kneels so you can toss the fluffy towel over his head and dry his hair, then the work it down his shoulders and back.

When you've given him a once over, he plucks off your own towel, making you squeek, and plops ot over your head. You giggle and towel off your own dripping hair, and when you pull it off, you see Mortarion holding your robe out for you.

“Last time you caught a cough,” he says, “you couldn't get up for days. Don't walk around cold and wet, you're too… frail.” He grumbled.

You smile and chuckle as you slip into the robe. “I get sick one time, while you're always sick, and I get lectured…” you huff softly.

He makes a small grunt. “It's different.”

You roll your eyes, but tug him to the bed, and he doesn't protest when you urge him to lay on his front, crawling up to the plush pillows and letting his face flop into them. You smile at the sight, the pale king, face first on a bed, hair fanned over the pillow, looking like a kitten that was fighting off falling asleep right there.

You scoot to the bedside table and take the oatmeal and honey lotion you have made just for him. His only response when you start working it over his broad shoulder muscles is a resigned, tired groan. You follow the contours of his back, working your hands over his fair skin, kneading away at his muscles, down his arms, over his fingers.

You make him roll to repeat the process over his chest, sruggling to push into the firm muscle. You take a break to shake out your tiring hands, and notice mortarions eyes are shut, and his breathing is slow and rythmic.

You smile, returning to massaging the sleeping primarch down his thighs and calves. When you are content that youve worked out at least some of his muscle knots, and lotioned all of him you could reach, you sit back and smile.

Clean, fair but slightly pink toned skin, silvery hair slightly disheveled over his face, the dark circles of his eyes fading already as he slept. The peacefulness of his sleeping face, silvery lashes fluttering as he dreams, lifts a worried weight off your shoulders.

You pull a few covers up over him, slipping in beside him. He automatically hooks an arm around you, holding you to his chest like a stuffed animal without stirring his sleep.

With a heavy, worn and contented sigh, you rest your head on his shoulder, taking in the smell of lavender and honey, and let your own eys fall shut in sleep.

#mortarion #mortarion x reader #wh40k fic #my work #mortarion x f!reader #wh40k

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five-and-dimes · 2 years ago

Text

Brick by Brick

Dream is not accustomed to being treated with patience.

Those who claim to love him are not shy in only loving the parts they cannot see, the parts they assume. He is cold and aloof and guarded and they do not want those parts of him but that’s okay because surely there is more underneath, surely he is hiding something better. They do not love the locked chest, they love the treasure they assume must be held within it, and they want him to give it to them right now. They fight him for it.

Don’t be so guarded, they say, and they come at him with a pickax.

Open up, they say, crowbar already jammed in a crevice.

And it is terrifying, in a way he would never admit to anyone, can barely admit to himself. He is armor and walls and closed doors and no one loves that part of him, and Dream wonders if there even is anything else, maybe that is all he is, all the way down, an empty chest, walls around a barren field, hollow armor, and it is terrifying to think of the ones he loves (love wholly, loves every part of) ripping him apart just to discover that there is nothing lovable among the rubble.

So Dream closes himself tighter, because he does not think there is a treasure inside him, and so when will they stop? They scrape and break and tear at the shell of him, and he thinks that if they do not find what they want they will just keep going- shatter the armor and then the person underneath without slowing down.

They are determined to break through his walls, even if that means breaking him in the process.

Open up, they say, and they do not knock.

Well. Hob knocks.

But Dream can’t recognize it, just hears a thud against his protections and flinches. Hob says “I think you’re lonely” but all Dream hears is “I will love you with my fists. If you loved me back you’d let me hit something soft”.

So he hits back. Lets the gates slam shut and runs and runs and runs, Hob pounding on the door behind him.

When he is trapped in Fawney Rig, it only seems to prove him right. Cut off from his power, from his home, his purpose, himself, he feels hollow. Scraped out and empty, and he holds fast against Burgess, makes his walls impenetrable even as he realizes there is nothing there to protect. He escapes and finds his home, himself, decayed and rotting and wonders if it has been like this from the beginning. He hunts down the missing pieces of himself, the fragments that feel next to nothing now, thinks that he is next to nothing, just crumbling walls and battered doors and locks damaged from all the people who would rather break them than ask for a key.

Dream sits before Hob, and feels himself settle somewhere between peace and resignation.

Still guarded. Still locked. Still hollow. Worn down and weak, one hit to his defenses and he will crumple, and no one ever hits just once.

Hob smiles at him. Hob offers him food and drink. Hob tells him of all that he has missed in the past century, laughs and gestures enthusiastically, and never once demands, never once pushes or pulls or pries and it is enough for Dream to want to weep with gratitude.

And then, to his confusion and surprise and utter awe, Hob begins to help him rebuild.

They see each other more often, their centennial pattern broken and their friendship declared. Sometimes Dream feels cracked and raw and Hob catches glimpses of his vulnerability, but instead of taking advantage of the openings, he shields them. Dream’s voice cracks when he tries to explain where he’s been, and Hob jumps to make him tea, bustling in the kitchen and chattering about nothing, still there with him but looking away while Dream pulls himself together. Dream’s eyes well with tears the first time Hob tells him he loves him, and Hob smiles and kisses his forehead, says “it’s getting late, shall we talk more tomorrow?” and lets him leave without running away. Dream’s hands shake when he tries to take his clothes off for him, and Hob kisses his fingers and wraps him in blankets until only his face is showing, laughing lightly and talking about the coldest places he’s traveled.

Dream rebuilds his walls and Hob hands him the mortar. Dream barricades the door to his heart and Hob happily sits and calls out his love from the other side.

Hob makes him feel strong. Hob loves Dream, and he loves his walls, his doors, his locks, his armor, too.

And that is precisely the reason Dream invites him in.

#Hot take: the best way to get someone to be vulnerable with you #is to be okay with the times they aren't #the sandman #dream of the endless #hob gadling #dreamling fic #dreamling #my writing

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loverboykirstein · 1 month ago

Text

biting the bullet // kinktober pt. 4/5

sam (sdv) x afab! reader

wc: 7,574

mdni -> warnings: mentions of addiction/neglect/throwing up/mental illness, unprotected sex, breeding, possession

***“go. whatever happened, whatever-“ he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “whatever happened, fix it. go-” another sigh, covering up his lack of words. “you can’t claim a broken heart that you broke on your own,”.

you can’t claim a broken heart that you broke on your own.

you did break his heart, right?

you..

a deep breath, the last swig from the bottle that had mixed with the night sky’s tears of solidarity.

on his feet, another deep breath for the road.

“samson, go,”.***

the mismatched pattering of his heartbeat in his ears began to close his throat, chest cavity torn apart by the weight of a passing phrase.

“can we do tomorrow? i’m taking them to the look-out on my bike tonight,”.

what..?

it was happening again. he let his guard down for just a moment, a fraction of a second, and his lungs and heart and every nerve ending were spilling out of his ripped apart being, invisible to all but him.

you..seb..? of course you want seb. everyone does. we each have a role, right? just like mom? like dad?

is there something that wrong with me? how do i atone for my sins in my past life to mediate the bullshit i’ve drug into this one? that’s the only explanation, right?

it followed him everywhere, a sick joke that didn’t even have a punchline. in its wake, it simply stole his soul away, piece by piece, a sick treasure hunt of trying to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild.

for what cause? to sit up and stare at his ceiling, snapping the rubber band on his wrist over and over and over again, a piss-poor attempt to calm himself down that never seemed to work.

what was he supposed to do? he hadn’t even been handed the short end of the stick, simply tempted with it like a dumb dog and locked in a collar for the rest of time as punishment for his greed.

the desperate, aching, bruising desire for a life.

to be more than a secondary, to figure out who he was.

to fall in love and not get hurt.

to begin to trust without losing his joints in the process, left a brittle mess of grinding bones at the end of it all.

to make the decision to live for himself, not for the need of the image of others.

to make it out of a war-torn cage, to never follow in his fathers footsteps.

to build a family that was wanted, unlike his.

he wanted that with you.

he never knew why he existed, or what the point was.

then he heard your laugh for the first time, handing him an extra maple bar you had made and he nearly collapsed at the life that made his fingers numb and filled his lungs instantaneously.

but now, quiet trembles rustled through his bloodied fingers, too busy taking out anything he could on anything he could.

near the edge of the valley, beyond leah’s quaint home lied a hidden little cave, behind bushes and trees and the occasional critter or two.

his blood stained parts of the exposed rock, the only thing he could hit without feeling bad. far enough away, no one ever finding him out there.

for no one to hear his violent sobs, his screams out to whoever was behind all of this, why, why, why. over and over and over, prayers for a reason as to why things had to be this way.

but if he wasn’t home to set the table, his mother would lose her temper before the oven timer even rang. the sun finding its way back to the never-ending horizon was her queue, the so-called ‘acceptable’ time of day to numb the sorrow crawling near, pushing it onto the son she never wanted in the first place.

which left vincent to his own devices, luckily not alone, but he knew he wasn’t doing well, penny not focused enough on teaching, more on playing, as she glued herself to the novel of the day, explicit enough to be banned from the library entirely. in front of the kids? really?

so he would swallow his heartbeat, coughing up a stable voice through his constricted windpipe that built a facade good enough to fool just about everyone.

he sat on his floor for hours. the hum of the washing machine was echoing through the paper thin walls.

everything was else felt silent, felt quiet.

except the unrelenting grave digging itself wide open in the middle of his messy bedroom.

because things weren’t quiet. dad was fighting for god knows what, narrowly missing shrapnel with each breath.

mom was mixing pills and booze, manic-depressive in nature and waiting until the very edge before it was too late.

but the worst was knowing that you and seb weren’t being quiet. you weren’t asleep in your bed, cuddled up with your cat under a quilt and your childhood blanket held close.

you were clinging onto him, body pressed against his. sharing a spot of the world that he had only seen once, seeing the city ahead of him that he could barely remember being a part of.

the most he could remember was his childhood therapist, the only one who saw past his so-called laxidasical disposition and class-clown behavior. struggling with reading, a common case of adhd and anxiety all jumbled up inside of a first grader.

a hint of dyslexia, and the guilt of his mothers cries he could hear against the locked doors, mourning a life without children.

nothing a child should have to bear, tiptoeing as to not crack the paper thin ice that made up his floorboards.

craving attention from the ones who created him, from the one who carried him in her womb.

father rarely around, making up for the lack of stability in the form of a paycheck and health insurance.

reprimand after reprimand, the only way to get his mother to look him in the eyes.

acting out as a cry for help, at validation, at fucking anything.

from the comedy covered pain, he learned to always know how to make someone laugh. to make sure they could exhale a little bit of whatever was holding them back, even if it meant that he had to let it settle in his lungs so it wouldn’t fall back into theirs one day.

he promised himself that he would never open up the small little lock on his exterior for anyone. ever.

maybe he didn’t notice, or maybe you tripped the wires first, but the alarm bells never rang. no emergency protocol, no swot team to barricade his entire being shut.

you left the door open, not even bothering to worry about the heat being on, letting all the cold air in.

or maybe you didn’t even know, the key hidden in the corner of your room, under your bed mixed with dust and other lost memories.

how was he supposed to face you again? he had planned on inviting you to the band’s first show, your excitement bouncing off the walls at the thought, when he mentioned the idea.

even though they only had a few songs, rough drafts at best, poor attempts at writing lyrics in an attempt to give abi and seb the spotlight.

also in fear, knowing someone would put the pieces together, that someone would connect the dots. that they would see the unrepairable shattered glass of his being behind it all.

that you would figure it out, never looking at him the same way again.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

weeks flew by in aching stretches, avoiding contact with anyone, his only bandaid over the wound. declining invitations that could maybe bring you close, making your laugh ring in his ears or the smell of your perfume that would replace his train of thought.

all his time spent sleeping, the sun becoming his worst enemy.

braving the light only upon vincent’s summertime pleas, just to lie and say that dad was okay, that there was nothing to worry about.

flickering his eyes between his brother and the beach entrance, hoping, praying, you wouldn’t appear behind him, or anyone for that matter. not strong enough to explain his absence, to explain the proverbial last straw that chewed up and spit out his barricaded soul.

you would stop by, questioning his mother on his wordless disappearance. she didn’t have an honest answer, blaming it on music school?

weeks turned to months, watching the seasons pass by. he couldn’t figure out why it hurt so goddamn bad.

trying to process two decades worth of grief, wrapped up in his dna as he grew inside his mothers unwanting body.

every effort, every last ditch grasp with a mildly politically incorrect joke, another brick laid on his wall of lies.

why did this become his downfall? the dramatic, be all end all suffocating downfall.

what did his subconscious craft while he wasn’t fixing up the cracks? too busy lost in your stories that filled him with a mix of worry and thrill all at the same time, the small scrunch of your nose, and the way you bit your lip when you lost your train of thought.

two weeks after the attempt harvey made to check up on him, to ‘have a talk’, a government letter arrived through the mail slot on the door.

kent was coming home. dad is coming home. dad is coming… home..?

arriving in a week, realizing he had a week to build the wall back up.

to rid his eyes of the rubbed-raw corners, saltwater leaving a red hue around his lashes.

to cover up his sullen cheeks, too fucked to get up and take care of himself beyond the minimum.

the hole in his chest mirrored the grave he had to step around when he got the courage to move, too deep and vacant to see the bottom.

he couldn’t figure out why you were the one to kick all of this off, you weren’t even that close? sure, friends who saw each other all the time, near habitual meetings that would worry the other when routines changed.

but you weren’t together, did he even have the right to blame you?

you didn’t cause every ounce of pain he had endured through the fabric of his life, you didn’t stitch pain into the pattern of his fingerprints.

but every goddamn thought came back to you. you, you, you.

all he fucking wanted was you.

it was pathetic, a childlike reaction to not getting something he made no effort to get. to try and make, to try and prove himself to you.

you were probably waiting for the next rain by now, already modifying your cabin to accommodate your soon to be husband.

FUCK.

the 7 letters managed to make him ill, rushing past the all consuming ending cornering him against his wall.

knees melting the cold tile, reaching to turn on the sink and the fan so that no one could hear him try and expel the hell of that idea.

that he would get to sleep next to you every night, he would want love songs about you, he would get the chance to see the most intimate parts of you and so much more.

everything sam wanted, gone. stripped away.

but it was never his to begin with, was it?

⊹ ࣪ ˖

a blur of days meshed together, world now sideways as a version of his mother he had never seen cleaned every corner of the house, paint chips repaired, hiding every dark secret she tucked away in his absence.

the dread made him want to hurl, want to really disappear. how was he supposed to face a version of his father he didn’t know at all?

two bags in hand at the doorstep, his mother and vincent sobbing in unison at their reunion. but he saw it. the visions in his eyes, the forced image of being alive was like looking in a mirror.

he didn’t know what to do. he was stripped of anything he ever knew. any hopes of his life ahead.

except his was lost in a real war, fighting for some sort of cause that came with a paycheck and praise and thank-you’s.

sam’s was a selfish mess, ruining himself over the idea of something that wasn’t real over a goddamn sentence.

a look of unblinking eyes, both bloodshot and sad, a nod of mutual understanding but also complete confusion.

kent wondering what went wrong with his eldest as he was gone, mouth running dry when he recognized the look plastered on his son.

a hot meal, the first real one kent had eaten without the threat of an air strike in god knows how long, mixed with his favorite beer he could finally share with his eldest.

despite the distaste, sam took the opportunity to drink, no reprimands on something that would make him feel less.

but it seemed to do the opposite as he stepped out into the pouring rain, clouds appearing out of nowhere as the sun took its leave.

letting the cold, wet air settle the heat of panic in his stomach, he jumped half to death when his father tapped his arm with an open beer bottle.

“take it,” kent tipped the bottle towards him, watching the rain patter on the glass.

he nodded, nearly losing his grip as he swung back far too heavy of a drink, not wanting to taste it anymore. it tasted like guilt, disappointment.

“kid, spill it. i didn’t stay alive to see the same look in your eyes,” kent’s demand knocked sam’s brain around in his skull, stunting his breathing and blacking out his vision.

“what?” he coughed, knowing it wouldn’t work worth a damn on his unhappy father, who seemed to already know what happened, yet equally clueless as he had never asked about sam’s feelings before.

“samson, c’mon kid. i-” he sighed, eyes tracking the rain on the porch make its way to the sidewalk. “i want to help you. i want to be a father, at least a friend. i realized that, alone out there. i can smell it on you, so talk,”.

a lingering, sulfur filled silence crushed his passageways, nearly collapsing into his father like a small child after scraping his knee on the playground.

‘i want to be a father’.

“look kid, if you don’t wanna talk, that’s fine,” kent leaned up against the painted exterior of what felt like a new home. “just, whatever it is, you can’t run away forever. it doesn’t wor-”

“I DONT KNOW WHATS WRONG WITH ME, DAD,”.

the first time he had ever spoken up to his father, that he had raised his voice.

a cracked voice still managed to let the sorrow spill, pooling over his lash line and mixing with the rain.

“i can’t fucking take it anymore-i-FUCK,”.

his syllables were broken, caught between desperate gasps for air in his first cry for help.

paper mache hands disappearing under the diluted salt, crouching down as if to save them.

“she’s-” his words barely coherent, choking up his pathetic admittance. “she’s probably already gotten that stupid fucking pendant god damn it all,”.

broken laughter, a mix of every feeling known to man, choked up with gravel and acid.

“i never fucking did anything about it, either,” running his arthritic bones through his sopping wet hair, he looked up at the man who had just been through the troubles of war.

real war.

not the emotional one, the near psychosis-like state of a few months passed.

“so do something about it,”. kent was cut and dry, the only way he knew how to cover up his heartache.

his eldest, the one he held the most guilt for, the most agony for. the one he prayed for every night, the one who was his first thought every time a bullet flew past a little too close.

he didn’t want to break, knowing that if his son watched him collapse at the sight, he would never forgive himself.

“what?” nothing more than a scoff, but a halt of accidental waterboarding at the gasps for air.

“go. whatever happened, whatever-“ he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “whatever happened, fix it. go-” another sigh, covering up his lack of words. “you can’t claim a broken heart that you broke on your own,”.

you can’t claim a broken heart that you broke on your own.

you did break his heart, right?

you..

a deep breath, the last swig from the bottle that had mixed with the night sky’s tears of solidarity.

on his feet, another deep breath for the road.

“samson, go,”.

his fathers gruff tone, eyes sharp and stern sent his feet moving, running.

barely able to see in the dark, pouring rain, letting nothing but his burning blood carry his body to the place you called home.

i have to fix this i have to fix this i have to-

over and over and over again, repeating like a broken record, the only words left engrained.

even though you didn’t know that anything needed to be fixed, he needed to fix things for him. he couldn’t look at his father the same if he at least didn’t try.

soaking wet, hair in his eyes and catching on his tear stained blinks, out of breath and on your front porch.

the only shield left was your front door, metal handle illuminated from your porch light.

do it, you already got here, do it.

scattered shallow breaths from running turned to shaky heavy ones, raising his still-bruised hand to your wooden door.

two knocks, two seconds, two more. the way he always did before his self-inflicted imprisonment.

“sam..?” you rubbed your eyes, shocked awake by his unnerving knocks in the dark. “what are you-come in, you’re soaked,”.

you looked panicked, not bothering to worry about anything other than him being soaking wet and out of breath.

he took his sopping wet shoes off at your door, leaving them to sit on your porch next to your rain boots. with less than a passing second, you had disappeared and returned with a towel and a change of clothes.

“sam what the fuck-are you-” running around in your pajamas, a short pair of flannel shorts and a tshirt that nearly covered them entirely, turning the heat on and running a kettle on the stove, his drying eyes were too focused on you.

questioning why you weren’t out as late as you used to, knowing marlon had found you passed out cold on one too many occasions.

“y/n it’s-it’s fine, i uh-” he stood still, shaking his head as if to force himself to blink.

“go, go change before you freeze half to death in my house,” busy standing on your tip-toes to reach the top cabinet, barely able to grab the box of tea you kept specifically for him.

peeling his eyes from your strained calves and your ass peeking out of the bottom of your sleepwear, he hurried off the other way towards your bathroom.

the sight of your overly exposed legs was enough for him to twitch, his mind such a goddamn mess that he couldn’t really even remember what he was going to say.

suffocating in your perfume that had soaked into your walls, he forced his rain soaked clothes off his shivering body. the purple hue on his lips, aching joints.

hands on either side of the counter, flushed cheeks and sunken eyes, sam caught his breath, stealing any strength he could from the hardwood holding his hands.

i have to fix this. don’t be a fucking bitch. suck it the fuck up, you fucking moron.

hanging his clothes over the bathtub, towel still in hand, he caught sight of you pacing back and forth in your kitchen.

chewing on your thumbnail, something you only did when you were stressed. brows furrowed, only snapped out of your endless loop by the kettle whistling loud.

“better?” you asked, back turned to him as you poured him a mug full, adding a bag of his favorite tea from the traveling merchant in to simmer.

“y-yeah. thank you,” rustling his hair with the towel, worn and faded, trying to rid it of any extra sorrow carried inside.

“sit, mister,” you pointed at your couch, eyes stern almost like a mothers.

he did as he was told, slowly caving in on himself as he felt like a bigger burden than ever before.

“here, i’ll be right back,”.

gently handing him the warm blue ceramic mug, the one vincent had given you after you spent your afternoons helping him learn to read, the corners of your mouth turned up slightly at the lax in sam’s shoulders once his joints found warm relief.

grabbing a comb from under the bathroom sink, you came back wordlessly, floorboards creaking below your hurried feet.

in a matter of minutes, you went from fast asleep on the couch, tv paused from lack of activity when asked, cuddled up closely to your cat and your blanket, to wide awake and flustered, worried beyond belief.

you knew that kent had come home, and you had planned to introduce yourself in a few days, allowing him time to settle in.

rattling your skull was the fear that something horrid had happened, so bad that sam had run in the fucking rain to your cabin of all places after the endless era of radio silence.

“so,” you sighed standing behind him, a small shadow casting over him as your body blocked the light in your entry way. “you gonna tell me what the hell has been going on?”

your words were harsher than you wanted them to be, but fuck man, you hadn’t seen him in months, no matter how many attempts you made.

pulling his head back a little, you began to comb through his incredibly tangled hair, feeling him dissolve under the slightly bit of affection.

“can-can i ask a question..first?” his eyes were closed, mindlessly rubbing his thumb into his opposite palm.

“only, if you pinky promise to tell me everything after,”. you stuck out your pinky, and he didn’t hesitate to reach yours. locking in his fate, peeling away the plastic film that was the only bit of his shield still remaining, your fingers crossed and released as the promise was sealed.

“how are uh, how are you and seb?” it felt like blood came up as he spoke, riddled with sorrow filled expectations of what your response would be.

“what?” you hands stopped their attempt to comb through his tangled blonde mess, stunned at the question. “were..fine? have you not talked to him recently?”

huh?

“no i uh- no i haven’t. i thought you guys were like…”

“sam, you don’t think we’re dating, do you?”

you-

“you’re..not?” covering his face with his hands, trying to hold any bit left of him together.

“no? sam i-”. your breaths were deep, focusing all your downright confusion into releasing the knots through his hair.

“oh,”.

oh.

“alright, now that your speculations on my nonexistent sex life are over can you please explain why you are here right now?”

a black hole, all consuming, everything everywhere all at the same time. the inside of his skull, spinning, spinning, spinning.

“i um-fuck, im so sorry, y/n. i’m so sorry,”. leaning his head back, fully into your overworked fingertips, soaking in every ounce of touch he could.

“why are you sorry? sam you didn’t do anything, other than give me a goddamn heart attack,”.

how are you not mad?

how are you so casual about this?

“i-”

“if this is because of seb i swear to god i’m going to beat the shit out of you samson,” he could feel you shake your head in disbelief, as if he should have known or as if there was this big sign that was supposed to be placed in front of him that he managed to look right through.

“y/n, i-”

he couldn’t cough the words he wanted out, embarrassment flooding his entire being, shame mixing in at a searing rate.

he felt you silently leave, pulling his airways closed the further you went.

so pathetic, so goddamn fucking pathetic. cant even tell her, what am i doing-

“sammy, come back from whatever planet you're on please,” you were sat on the coffee table, knees touching his. two shot glasses in one hand, a bottle of liquor in the other.

you set them both on the table, filling them each to the brim. dark amber syrup, so foolishly innocent, burning its way all the way past your lips.

as if your voice didn’t make him dizzy enough, the liquor you kept on hand was always the strongest, outshining anything else he had ever had before.

“each shot, we each share something. okay?”

handing him his glass, clinking them together and kicking it back.

he winced at the burn, the warmth bubbling in his stomach.

he watched you drink it far too easily, better than you did the last time you drank together. your eyes, your soul looked tired, gone unnoticed in his own self-pity.

soon the heater was shut off, both of you warm enough from the poison seeping into mutual bloodstreams.

shot after shot, losing track in storytelling as he listened to you speak on your adventures in the newly found desert, all of the new weapons you learned to use.

how he had tried to teach alex to skateboard, his first time getting high, struggling to find any reason to talk about himself when you were sat in front of him, inches away.

he was simply infatuated, beyond infatuated, soaking up every breath to make up for lost time.

“oh! sammy, sammy,” you nearly whined, placing a hand on either one of his thighs. “will you pleaseee tell me where you’ve been all this time?”

your slightly jutted lip, flushed cheeks and steadfast grip on his legs froze his surroundings, eyes locked on your pleading heart.

just fucking bite the damn bullet.

“i-seb canceled on me, that night he took you to the lookout. and i-” he leaned forward, heaviest sigh blowing fear out of the way. “i realized i couldn’t handle that. i couldn’t handle you being with-”

“sam-”

“i couldn’t handle seeing you with someone else when all i ever wanted was you, i just,”.

“sam-”.

“i knew that wasn’t fair to you and i just, i didn’t realize how much i-”

guilt ridden words cut short, your liquor stained lips shutting his. entire body pushed into him, not even enough time for him to fully register what was happening.

is she..?

“you’re fucking stupid,” you pulled away for a moments time to mutter that to him, pressing your forehead against his. “it has been you this whole time, idiot”.

what?

“what?” his eyes forced rapid blinks, unable to process what you had just said, what you had just done.

“i-god damn it all sam LISTEN TO ME, i never went with seb that night, i wanted to do that with you,”.

shock was the only way to think of it, the world frozen on its titled axis as it listened to your confession, to his heart that was on the brink of collapse as it beat so hard it shook the ground.

a few short stutters, words falling flat. months of self-imposed torture, losing everything he knew, breaking his father’s heart, really was selfish, too scared to do anything.

if he had swallowed his fear, faced the music, done something, anything.

don’t let this get away. don’t fuck it up. don’t fuck it up.

lifting his hands from his awkward side, roughly placed on either side of your hips.

using a newfound strength, he pulled you from the table, right into his lap.

falling into his wordless surrender, you let your body collapse into his, legs straddled on either side.

your clothed cunt immediately rolled against his length, pulling all of the blood from his body to an aching throb under you.

addicted to the sheer desperation in the air, gravity itself forced your lips back together, making up for months of time apart.

feverish from the first touch, wildfire to a field of wilted grass, burning oxygen faster than it could be replaced.

each heavy breath another exposed confession, his grip pushing you into him even harder another apology for leaving you for so long.

tongues fighting for a chance at forgiveness, soaking up the words that were too hard to exhale.

he let out a soft whine at your separation, instant drop of his stomach as you pulled away from his bruised lips.

dropping your head to the side, he shivered under your heated breaths against the side of his neck. heartbeat nearly visible, your swollen lips pressed slow praises down, not leaving an inch untouched.

opposite hand keeping his jaw turned, you trailed your tongue back up, a smirk hitting your lips at the twitch you felt against your spread legs.

no permission, no hesitation, just a gasp from his aching lungs as you sucking a mark of sheer possession in the form of broken blood vessels. grazing your teeth along with your vampiric latch, leaving a bruise dark enough no amount of makeup could cover.

your hips now indented with the lines of his fingerprints, permanently etched into your skeletal structure.

“bedroom,” you whispered into his ear, sin coating your voice in blatant need.

body driven by nothing but lust, he stood from the couch as you wrapped your legs around him, one hand cupping your ass while the other was itching to open the door to a new life.

it was all happening so fucking fast.

you wanted him.

this whole time, you wanted him.

letting your head hit the plush of your bedding, he loomed over you with two devilish sparkles in his eyes.

one glistening as his broken heart glued itself back together, your touch ensuring that every piece was perfectly aligned.

the other shimmering in primal greed, suffocating any thought other than possession. to not lose the chance to keep you all to himself.

a needy look twitched in your jutted-lip pout, a wordless plea for him to take what was his this whole. time.

now fluid joints, unphased by the ache in his tortured hands, hooked under your shorts, no underwear in between.

warm fingers against exposed skin, the small bit of decency on the floor with one swift effort.

cold air hit your already wet cunt, a small trail of your sticky pleads following your clothing to the floor.

“can i..?” he looked up at you for a moments time, not wanting to lose sight of your glistening slit like his life depended on it.

you nodded, not letting the small voice of insecurity speak up before your aching heart did, unprepared for intimacy to this degree.

or intimacy at all for that matter.

a touchy subject, too used to getting hurt. leaving your life behind in the smog coated city, one night stands back in the poorly painted walls of your studio apartment.

you thought you knew what love was, the overwhelming panic, the world ending promises to be better, to be prettier, to be someone they wanted.

forcing the thought out of your mind, each synapse in your aching brain going fuzzy at the first swipe of his hesitant tongue.

it had been so long since you had been touched, too afraid to ruin a friendship in such a small town. to not overstep your place as the new addition in an already woven community.

too exhausted to do it yourself most of the time, the thoughts only settling in when it came to him.

a single brush of your fragile bud make your ears buzz, the sheer ache to feel it again, and again, and again.

silent prayers answered, waters tested, sam’s tongue writing apologies and months worth of confessions in your pooling slick, feeding him the first meal of his life.

placing your hand over your mouth, muffled whimpers replaced exhales, sharp inhales through your nose not providing nearly enough oxygen to your racing heart.

“don’t hide, pretty girl,” his slightly slurred voice stuck like honey, pulling your hand away without a second thought.

his plea a few octaves deeper, your walls clenching around nothing at all and with his drunken confidence.

like he would die of hunger if he strayed away any longer, you lost sight of him between your legs, tongue teasing your pleading hole.

“sammy please,” you couldn’t do anything but whine, a fistful of his hair in your shaking fingertips.

pushing his flushed face deeper, nose pressed against your clit, shoving his tongue in as far as he could.

muffled vibrations of his satisfied moans shook your core to near collapse, the slight movement of his nose making your legs quiver against the side of his head.

thighs increasing their strength, ensuring he couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to, the telltale that you were already on the brink of release.

the first of many, just the beginning to a man who would never forgive himself for leaving you for what felt like an eternity.

no time for warning, words broken into a mess of jumbled up letters, your salty-sweet slick flooding his overworked taste buds at an alarming rate.

nerve endings twitching, spine forced to endure repeated bolts of serenity with each spasm. all ten of his fingers bruising your thighs as he held onto them so tightly, a feeble attempt to keep you still until you rode out your first high of the night, your first in so, so long.

finally able to breathe at the weakening of your hips, legs shakier than you would have liked them to be. wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, more than enough of you on him, and he loved it.

meeting your blown out eyes, you couldn’t stop the nervous giggle that bubbled over, dragging his long lost smile out of the dark with each little sound.

both hands covering your face, embarrassed, nervous.

how a man like him, so gorgeous, so gentle, would want a single thing to do with you, you didn’t understand.

hiding away your feelings for him for what felt like ages, heart shredded when he took his reclusive leave, without a word on why.

weeks spent spiraling, wondering what you did wrong, how you could fix what you didn’t even know.

“nuh-uh, no thank you,” his tsks were so thick, so heavy as he pulled both your hands away from your face, eyes softening just enough at the sight of your embarrassment.

“do you want to keep going?” question so very gentle, not assuming like you had always known.

and it was fucking hot.

a quick nod, a little shy at the urgency in your reaction, but needing him anywhere was all you could think of.

you watched him stand beside you, a better angle to strip himself of his clothes.

nearly drooling at the sight, you could have died and gone to the highest bits of heaven, and it wouldn’t compare to the feeling of him looking down at you with his hand on his cock, thumb tracing over his pre-coated pink tip, silver bar glistening.

oh fuck.

each scar that covered his arms, each muscle contracting with labored breaths, made a whimper fall out of you, like a bitch in heat.

“needy girl, aren’t you?” he climbed on top of you, urging you to sit up just a little so he could tear away the fabric hiding the rest of you. “haven’t been touched in so. very. long. huh?”

usually, patronizing teases would have angered you to the third degree, but it had you melting into his palms like ice cream on a midsummers day.

feeling his fingertips graze over your whole body, thumbs baaareely drawing circles around your nipples, another guilty whine for more, more of him.

“think you can take me without stretching ya out?” his demeanor turned a little cocky, nearly pulling a bratty remark out of you, just to run his tongue against your over-sensitive chest.

palming one tit, mouth fixed on the other, you nodded without thinking. a muffled ‘mhm’ and a handful of hair, pulling his fixated mouth away.

“tell me if it hurts, okay?” a sliver of seriousness caught in the bubbling excitement pooling inside his blood, you knew he really did mean it.

length in hand, he lightly traced his leaking head up and down your already swollen cunt, a small attempt at teasing you before he plunged inside your screaming walls, begging to pull him in and not let go.

both hitching in air through gritted teeth, holding onto the last molecule you could manage as he slid inside, so. goddamn. slow.

maybe in fear of hurting you, but really trying to gather himself at the sheer grip you had on him, regretting his own choice to not stretch you at least a little before letting his greed take over.

so warm, so wet, better than any drug he had ever taken, or ever would.

“s-sam, m-more, please?” you begged, batting your lashes ever so slowly to not give him a choice, but needing him so, so much deeper.

any sense of restraint lost as your pleading eyes surrendered to him, and who was he to say no?

he would never say no to you, not after what he did.

an obedient dog, snapping his hips into you, flush against you. knocking the wind straight out of you, only thing you could feel was him.

settling in, head dropping as he lost all of his strength, losing it all to restraining his urge to breed you right then and there.

“fff-fucking hell,” his sputters were whiny, causing a slight spasm around him. the sound of struggling, barely keeping it together drove you fucking. insane.

feeling full, feeling whole, wanting nothing more than for him to destroy you, molding your walls to the shape of him.

“sammy, please,” you shifted your hips slightly, pushing against his hip bones, brushing the sweet, sinfully sweet spot you don’t think had ever been reached.

his blacked out eyes, taking photos of the scene to never forget how goddamn angelic you looked under him, committing a cardinal sin.

white-knuckle grip on your sides, bruising your bone marrow with his desperate grasp.

jaw slacked, eyes locked on the mess of slick you coated him in, a slight clench in his jaw.

free of his chain link leash, a feral animal let free for the first time since its previous carnation, learning to live again.

focused on nothing else but you, your pleas for him to claim you, to mark up your insides far beyond recognition, begging for him at every breath beyond this moment in time.

his whimpers mixed with low hums and exhales with each violating thrust, veins pulsing, a sick smirk pulling on his lips as he ruined you.

instinctually squirming away, the urge of another trip over the edge already settling in, overstimulation hitting you like a bullet train without its lights on.

feeling the slight quiver of your legs against his hyperactive body, a hand released your side, pulling one of your legs over his shoulder without a falter in rhythm.

held hostage, you swore you could feel him in your chest as he fucked into you again, and again, and again.

hypnotized by the furrow of his brow, glossy lips swollen from his hyper focused bite, holding back his own profanities as he tried to hold back his own release, never wanting the moment to end.

if heaven existed, it was buried deep in your cunt, chest bouncing with each relentless thrust. it was the dig of your nails, grasping on to whatever they could.

it was your fucked out eyes, watering at the corners in desperate need, in submission to his every want, his every dream.

since that very first day, you were the thought at hand when he was fucking into it, edging himself for hours as punishment for thinking of you that way.

but your innocent glances, and hard to read gestures every friday, the time you wore a that dress, dancing along with abi at the flower dance.

taking the masculine role while dressed in a white skirt, a little too short for such a windy day, excusing himself to the depths of the forest.

back against an oak tree, knowing seb would come looking for him at any moment, and god did it excite him in such a twisted way.

he couldn’t fuck his fist hard enough to get the thought of taking you then and there out of his mind, flipping up your skirt and pulling your panties to the side.

making you carry his cum around all day, slowly dripping out of you as you spoke to his mother.

but this, the real thing, was better than any fantasy he could ever imagine, the sound of your sopping wet cunt pornograohically loud, each wall of your unpainted cabin holding onto your sobs for more, more, more.

hiccups caught in your throat, back arched and nails leaving crescent moon cuts in his arms as your second snap pulled him in harder, deeper.

watching you fall apart was the sweetest thing, spilling out onto your bedding as he refused to let up.

a dangerous game, knowing he was teetering on his own edge from the start.

“m-‘ya gotta let me know if this is gonna be-”, his words cut off by the purposeful squeeze of your walls, offering a raised eyebrow and your bottom lip bitten.

nearly knocking the wind right out of you, he flipped you onto your stomach, forcing you onto your knees.

“you think it’s funny, huh?” leaning over you to purr in your ear, only focusing on how empty you felt, needing his pierced tip beating the life out of your cunt.

“mm-no,” you shook your head, face red, pushing your ass into him just a smidge, hoping he would grant you your wordless wish.

a palm to your ass, red hot and stinging, a startled gasp slipping out as he lined himself up with your dripping hole.

without a warning, his hips were pressed against your ass, one hand forcing your arch deeper, the other holding your hip to keep you upright as he rammed into you.

mine, mine, mine.

over, and over, and over.

sobs of overwhelming everything spilled out of you, moans nearly cut silent by the permanent bruising to every inch of you.

sucking him off so well, pulling him back in with a force greater than gravity itself, his jumbled profanities mumbled under his breath only making it that much harder to hold on to reality.

“wanna-” stuttered breathing, feeling the twitch of his cock buried inside you flash like a warning sign. “wanna fill you up- m-make you mi-mine,”.

higher pitched, through clenched teeth, you had never heard a man so shattered, so beyond steady that his eyes blurred.

the most you could offer was the push of your ass against him, too close to your own unraveling again to remember a single word.

his hand slid from your hip to your swollen, battered clit, squirming against him as the warm pad of his middle finger matched his sacrilegious pace.

a matter of seconds is all it took, suffocating his overworked length that much tighter, too lost in your own ecstasy to feel the ropes of sin inside you, met with a loss of rhythm and short gasps for air.

a weak attempt to catch your breath, feeling him slowly relax inside you, blood making its way back to his shaking hands and overworked core.

releasing himself from your now relaxed grip, his fingers ran small circles on your back, delicate whispers that slowed your heart rate to normal.

drained, all the energy stored in the form of internalized anxiety depleted, no control over your emotions anymore.

a silent sob, tears of everything allowed to flow free at your relaxed inhibitions.

“shhh-shhh it’s okay, it’s all okay,”. he pulled you up from your knees, gentle fingers moving you to his lap.

head against his chest like a child, he rocked back and forth ever so slowly, biting the inside of his cheek to hold back his own tears at the sight of you upset.

what happened ? is she okay ? what-

“never-” your muffled words caught behind a screen of hyperventilation. “never run away like that again,”.

your heaving body against his, his heart paralyzed at the sheer heartbreak rooted in your syllables.

so goddamn mad at himself for bringing you to tears, but so fucking relieved that you wanted him to stay.

“i-” a tear stained hiccup, an attempt to bury yourself inside of him completely, “i thought you left and didn’t say goodbye,”.

she-she thought i would do that..?

“shhhh, no no no, i’m not going anywhere,” cradling your face, letting a small stream pool over his lash line. holding his breath enough to mask the sputtering spasms thrashing around in his chest. “i would never, ever, do that to you. i promise,”.

“pinky promise?” you pulled your face away from his chest, blurry eyes meeting his. raising your fragile hand, awaiting his interlocked promise.

“pinky promise,”. interlocking without hesitation, pressing his forehead against yours.

“will you stay tonight?” body running cold, the fear of him leaving settling in your stomach, overtaking the bubbling acid.

“i will stay with you forever if you asked me to,”. gentle, soft. thumb against your cheek.

“will you stay forever, then?”

“anything for you,”. a gentle kiss on the nose, a sigh of relief mutually exhaled.

tears dissolving, mending two broken hearts as they dried.

matched breathing, hearts beating in unison.

anything for you.

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

long time no see! so sorry this was so delayed, i had to work an insane amount of overtime at work and had a massive lyme flare up.

i have an alex fic in the works, who else would you like to see?

lots of love to @justwolosers for being there through all this!

mwuah! ᥫ᭡。

#this is a big projection of some feelings ive had forever #so sorry #i promise the next one will be just smut #me actively awaiting requests like mmmm #mwuah love you all so much #ok love u bye #sam sdv #stardew valley #sdv sam #sdv #kinktober #mwuah #sdv sam x female reader #stardew valley sam #sdv sam x reader #sdv smut #sdv farmer

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cirusthecitrus · 1 year ago

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Thinking about the portal incident again How it was never explained what caused the portal to appear, was Light Hope involved, was it someone else or was it wild magic. Was it planned or was it a pure random and luck How it saved Hordak from certain death. How it saved him from Prime How it appeared at the right place at the very right time. And had this happened a day late or anywhere else on the front lines, he most likely wouldn't have survived

How in that moment on the battlegrounds Hordak probably no longer believed he could be saved and just accepted his fate

How he might've as well been mere weeks/days old and his life could've ended before it even began. And he was ready to accept it

How in his mind he might have thought he was dying. And how confused and defeated he must have felt once he realized that he was still alive. That this portal did not kill him, but rather took away his chance at doing something "right", the last chance at pleasing his god. How he might've saw himself as an even bigger failure, because he couldn't even die right

How this sudden brutal separation from Prime and the Hive Mind was necessary and, in retrospect, was the best thing to ever happen to Hordak. How by physically cutting all the ties he had to the Horde and the known universe, some random portal did more to protect Hordak than most people in his life ever did

How Hordak himself viewed his situation not as a miracle but as fate worse than death. How at first he only felt immense pain, fear and grief, like a very young child whom was forcebly taken away from their abusive family. How he did not understand that it was good for him and only wished to return home and see his brother again. How Hordak wasted years of his life trying to find him. How his indoctrination, loyalty and love were stronger even than such powerful magic/technology

How Hordak had no idea what to do with himself at first, for he never thought he would've lasted this long. For he was not meant to live that long. And yet, he no longer welcomed death and once again found will to live. He did not let himself give up this time

How he's been looking for a portal home, hoping that one day it's going to appear again. How eventually, tired of waiting, he decided to create a portal of his own. How it became his life's work

How it was a portal that sent Adora to Etheria, someone who will one day free Hordak and the entire universe from Prime. How, if he wasn't waiting for another portal this entire time, no one would've come for her and Adora could've died on that field. But Hordak was there, and (as best as he could) he took care of someone who ended up in the same situation he was in

How it was a portal that brought Hordak to Etheria, and into Entrapta's lonely life. How they would've never met each other if it wasnt for that incident

How it was a portal that invited Entrapta into his life and helped him connect with a person who will forever change his life. How it was a portal that became a catalist for their friendship (and love)

How the "natural" portal that sent Hordak to Etheria can represent real connections and the painful process of growth and change (seeing new places, meeting new people, trying new things, distancing from harmful enviroment, learning independence, being responsible for oneself and others)

How the "artificial" portal Hordak created himself can represent desire to return to this false safety of the past, where everything was simple and familiar, as well as his desperate wish to rebuild his connection with Prime. A connection that was never there. How it was falling apart from the start, how at first Entrapta was so eager to help her friend succeed, but eventually realized that the portal was dangerous. How in the end it only hurt Hordak and everyone around him

How the portal that appeared "naturally" gave him not what he wanted, but what he needed. A safe place, people who understand him, a chance at better life, his personhood. How, after the "artificial" portal gave him something he thought he wanted, Hordak went back to square one. How, in reality, it only took everything from him

Portals, man...

#ramblings #hordak #spop #shera #spop meta #it was very late at night when i wrote this and it shows lol #the portal being light hope's doing and her trying to snatch a future shera and failing makes sense and works for the story #but the idea of it being uncontrolled magical phenomenon or its own entity is fun to explore as well

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pikahlua · 3 months ago

Note

What are your thoughts on Deku's whole arc about wanting to save Shigaraki? I am a little confused on what his goal was, as it seems he was okay with killing him if he was left with no choice. What exactly did he mean by 'save'?

This is actually a big piece I've been pondering over for a while, and I've got a sort of work-in-progress reading on it.

The person that triggered Izuku's instinct to save was Tenko crying inside one of Tomura's memories. Tenko is the one he wants to save. The thing is, Tenko doesn't exist anymore. Izuku is too late to save him, whether it be in that traumatic moment where he killed his family, or the person he has grown into by the time Izuku comes to this conclusion. AFO has already fused with Tomura. The entity into which they are fused is no longer Tenko, and thus no longer savable (or at least not 100% savable).

It's like the piece of Shirakumo inside Kurogiri. Shirakumo has been used as an "ingredient" in a sense and merged into Kurogiri. There's no separating the spliced people that went into Kurogiri. There's no undoing the programming. BUT there is a small, unfused sliver of Shirakumo that can "muddy the waters" when you poke it hard enough.

Still, Izuku wants to save Tenko, even though he's too late. The only thing he can do to save that memory of a crying child IS to go after the memory. Consider: before MVA, Tomura didn't have that memory of killing his family. He blocked it out. His ascension into a "monster," the "greatest villain," at the end of MVA was a process triggered by the resurfacing of that memory. As Tomura regained that memory, he framed it as a piece of his identity. He didn't want to face the tragedy of his past and the hurt he experienced because it was too great, so instead he justified the memory by believing it was always in his nature to destroy. He believes he is a destroyer, which is rooted in that traumatic memory, and that explains everything he has gone through. It justifies the destruction he wants to wreak as well. This internalized framing is core to his motivation.

The only chance Izuku has of stopping Tomura's destruction is to reframe that core memory. So he goes into the memory and does that. He tries to save Tenko, he tries to hold his hand and be there for him as he cries, and in doing so rejects this idea that Tenko's very nature is just to destroy. Izuku unearths the other feelings that were core to Tenko before his trauma--his desire to help others. This is the proof that Tenko was never a destroyer by nature, and it frays the existence that is Tomura Shigaraki.

Izuku cannot ACTUALLY go back in time and undo all that happened to Tenko, but he CAN change Tomura, who was birthed from Tenko's suffering. He does so by changing the way Tomura perceives that core memory of Tenko's. This is the way in which "Tenko" is saved. Tomura acknowledges Tenko was just a child who was hurt and needed help. This is likely what All Might was referring to when he told Izuku he saved Tomura's heart (or soul or whatever).

HOWEVER, Tomura himself is not undone by this revelation. The Tomura we see in the end that destroys AFO and bids Izuku farewell is one that has regressed back to his unfused state. This is the Tomura who sought to lead the League of Villains--or in other words, this is the Tomura who destroyed to save people. This is the Tomura who wished to be a hero for the villains, and he refuses to be "saved" from being that person. If left alive, he would go on destroying to save those people all the same. He would just do it for a different reason than to justify his identity. Tomura himself has never professed any interest in what happens after he destroys everything, so his ending was always one of instability. He wouldn't build anything upon the ruins of what he destroys, he would likely end up destroyed himself and leave the rebuilding to others to do. Because he is committed to this path, he destroys AFO, the source of everything about his life he hated and always professed he wanted to destroy, and in doing so destroys himself as well.

That last bit is where things get hazy for me. AFO's "trump card" is the piece I haven't fully integrated into this reading, and I know I need to...[long-suffering sigh] go back and reread the Overhaul arc before I come close to finalizing anything. But it's been long enough that I feel I can start to share some of these readings I've been stewing on.

#anon ask #ask pika #my hero academia manga spoilers #epilogue arc spoilers #meta #izuku midoriya #tenko shimura #tomura shigaraki

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sarahjtv · 6 months ago

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My Hero Academia Chapter 425 Spoiler Talk

I'm enjoying writing about this stuff again, though I've got a headache going on, so I'll do the best I can for now. I might add in stuff later:

I'm very happy to see our Big 3 graduate finally! I was kinda worried Mirio wouldn't even graduate for a second, but I'm happy to see that he did and he gave a valedictorian-esque speech to everyone talking about rebuilding society so everyone can have a bright future like Sir Nighteye wanted. Ending his speech with a joke is such a Mirio Togata thing 😂. I'm going to miss that guy so much 🥹

Why are Deku and some other students just lying on the ground with their feet up like that btw? Did they run out of chairs or something? It's a weird, quirky little thing that's just there, I guess.

The narration mentions that it's June in the MHA universe now (Happy Pride, btw 🏳️‍🌈). So, if the War took place around April or May, then it's been at least 1 month since we last saw the kids at the hospital.

Our class 1-A is now officially Class 2-A! They're finally second years as they should have been. Everyone including Aizawa is alive, though saying they're well is debatable. Everyone is clearly still injured in some way, shape, or form. Most have several bandages and even Jiro looks like she has a prosthetic for her missing left earphone jack.

Quick note: I notice that Bakugo is actually wearing a tie with his uniform now. It's still not buttoned up, but you can tell that he's definitely softened a bit since the war. EDIT: Looking at it again, it might not be buttoned up because he has a cast holding his right arm, but it’s hard to tell from the scans.

Aoyama not wanting to return to UA is sad, but it makes sense. I'd argue that he earned his place there regardless of AFO's influence, but I can understand that he doesn't feel that way and wants to redeem himself and become a hero in his own way without being forced to betray his friends and teachers.

Replacing Aoyama will be Hitoshi Shinso! I think most of us predicted that Shinso would be joining Class 2-A, but I'm very happy to see that confirmed. It's going to be a bit of a weird start for him, but I think he'll get used to his new classmates quickly.

Another quick note: The second-year cloud girl, Fuwa Mitawa, is seen quite a bit in this chapter and her return is something Horikoshi promised many volumes ago, so I'm glad to see him keep that promise.

Those two first panels of Shouto make me so sad, y'all 😭... His hair is so messy and you can see bags under his eyes. It's hard to tell because of the leaks, but I don't know if there's even light left in his eyes. He looks so exhausted. What happened to Dabi, Endeavor, and the rest of his family? I have no doubt that he's been agonizing over them for god knows how long. I hate seeing him like this, honestly. He's my favorite character and deserves all the good in the world, especially after the harsh life he's been put through. I want to give Shouto all the hugs in the world 🩵.

I don't think Deku smiled at all this whole chapter btw. He tries to talk to Ochako at one point, but she interrupts him with a comment about his new haircut. He just looks sad this whole chapter. I bet he's still grieving and processing what happened. I need Izuku to open up to someone because he can't just bottle this up.

Then we have this mysterious man walking around a desolate town. We have absolutely no idea who this is, but apparently it isn't someone we know of. I want to say it's a grown-up Tenko Shimura somehow, but even that might be too farfetched.

Finally, there's Shouto and the Todorokis. Shouto reassures Deku that he's ok, but I bet my gatcha game currency that he's putting on a brave face because that final beautiful panel of him does not scream "I'm ok!" to me. If anything, I'm amazed Shouto doesn't look like he got any other permanent scars on his face at least.

It looks like Shouto is going to see his family at the hospital. Specifically Endeavor and what might be Dabi who's being kept alive in a big machine. It's hard to tell because the scans are so unclear, but I'm 90% sure that's Dabi in there. It's a miracle that man is alive given he was just a skeleton last we saw him. I'm 99% sure we're going to get a Hellish Todoroki Family Part 3 or something next chapter.

But, we won't see that until 3 weeks from now because we're officially on a 2-week break. There isn't a given reason why like Jujustu Kaisen got (Gege Akutami is sick, so he's taking 2-week break too), so I really hope Horikoshi is ok. It's either he's sick too or he needs time to think of the final chapters of MHA. Or both, that too. Regardless, any breaks given to Kohei Horikoshi to give him time to rest is ok with me. Just sucks for us as fans. Leaving us on THAT kind of a cliffhanger is just mean 😭

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brbsoulnomming · 1 year ago

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Tell Me Sweet Little Lies Part 18

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Fortunately, Eddie doesn't actually have to participate much once he and Robin make it back to the living room. The best seating seems to be reserved for the injured and injured adjacent, since Max is already sitting between Lucas and El on one of the couches, with Dustin and Steve on the other. Steve scoots over, leaving the middle cushion open for Eddie to claim, and Robin comes to sit on the armrest of the couch by Steve. He drapes his arm over her thigh, and she checks his shoulder with her hip, shooting him a little smile.

He watches them for a moment, attempting to be an adult and sort out what he's feeling about it now that he knows Steve and Robin are soulmates, but after a few moments he concedes that's going to take longer to process than he's got right now.

Everyone else is scattered around the room in various seating - Will and Mike squished together in the armchair right by Max, Lucas, and El's couch, Erica curled up in the second armchair, Nancy, Jonathan, and Argyle occupying what looks like chairs dragged in from the dining room.

Conversation goes around in circles. There isn't an active threat forcing them into a quick decision, which apparently means they interrupt each other and veer off on tangents and attempt to solve at least four problems at once.

Eddie's a little too floaty from the pain meds - and a little too occupied with Steve's thigh pressed up right against his own - to join, but it's nice, listening to them. It reminds him he's not alone.

They talk about what to do with Vecna - nothing, for the moment, just continue to let El rest and rebuild her powers, with El and Will keeping an eye on Upside Down things; what to do about the gates still open in Hawkins - regular patrols, no one goes out alone and everyone brings a weapon and their walkie with them at all times; what to do with Hopper, who has apparently been alive this whole time and was being held in a Russian prison after being captured at Starcourt - which, sure, of course, it's not like that's the craziest thing that's happened this week. Some guy named Murray is working with his contacts and they're going to spin a story to present to the Hawkins PD.

Eddie watches Steve out of the corner of his eye when he feels him go tense at that one, sees him shift his hand on Robin's leg so it's palm up. She immediately takes it, lacing their fingers together and giving his hand a squeeze. He debates with himself for only a moment before he lets his own hand rest on Steve's knee, squeezing it lightly as well.

Both Robin and Steve turn to him, smiling at him in a way that makes warmth bloom beneath his ribs - Steve with surprised affection, and Robin with a pleased little knowing. He ducks his head and pretends to be really focused on what the group is arguing about.

At some point, the conversation shifts to what they're going to do about Eddie's situation, and, unfortunately, then he really does have to focus.

He doesn't really want to. They don't really seem to have a lot of ideas other than to get Hopper reinstated at Hawkins PD, to work with Murray to come up with a story to pin everything on Henry Creel, carrying on in his father's footsteps.

It just makes him tired.

"This is a lot of talking for what's essentially wait until everyone's back up to full strength and then we can figure out the details," he says after a while.

Steve snorts next to him. "It's not like Eddie's going anywhere," he tells the others. "He's safe here until we figure it out."

Some part of Eddie - the Eddie he was before all this, who didn't need anyone and was convinced Steve Harrington was a jackass - kind of wants to bitch about being under house arrest at the Harrington palace.

But, well. That part is a fading ember compared to the rest of him that wants to grab onto that and take it as an excuse to make himself at home in Steve's life and never leave. The rest of him wants everyone to just get the hell out already, so he can stop trying to pretend he isn't pants shittingly nervous about finally telling Steve he thinks they're soulmates.

Platonic soulmates, he reminds himself.

It takes forever.

Everyone stays for dinner, and Eddie really wants to be pleased about that, to bask in the sounds of so much life, of bickering and teasing and shouting and a fierce, aching love that's woven into every word spoken and every one left unspoken, into every gesture and laugh and shout. To bask in the way that it includes him, how easily he's been folded into it all, how it makes him itchy and content all at once. To bask in the way it makes Steve come alive, golden and vibrant and looking like he's never been happier.

It's just that it also makes him even more antsy about confirming once and for all if Steve is his soulmate, and every time he sees him light up or look so goddamn fond beneath a bitchy expression, he kind of wants to bite him. Or, barring that, get his hands on him, run his fingers over the words etched on Steve's skin to see if it's really true, what he's heard about. If it really does feel like nothing else when your soulmate finally touches the words they've marked you with forever.

Robin keeps shooting these little looks at him, which doesn't help at all, especially because he catches Steve looking back and forth between them with a little scrunch to his forehead - that only gets deeper every time Steve meets Robin's eyes and she just looks back at him, wide eyed and innocent.

She does loudly mention her curfew multiple times, though, and that she's sure Eddie is exhausted after being subjected to them all day, which is worth the protesting shouts she gets from his Hellfire trio.

When they finally all leave, well. Eddie is kind of exhausted, and he tips his head back to rest on the back of the couch for a moment.

"You want me to carry you upstairs?" Steve asks.

His voice is teasing, but when Eddie cracks open one eye to look at him, he looks sincere.

"Thanks," Eddie grumbles. "But I think I'll try to keep what's left of my dignity."

He does kind of want Steve to carry him up, is the thing, but he definitely doesn't want to admit it. Or to deal with it while he's still trying to figure out how the hell he wants to do this.

Steve looks like he wants to say something scathing about Eddie's dignity, but he holds himself back, and offers out a hand to help him up instead.

"Yeah, yeah," Eddie grumbles, deciding to respond to whatever Steve thought of anyway, just to show him that nope, he can't get away with that.

He does take his hand, though, and leans on him as they walk up the stairs. He counts each step as they go, telling himself over and over that okay, he needs to get this sorted out before they reach the halfway point - before they reach the top - before they make it halfway down the hall - at least before they get to Steve's room, come on -

Eddie plops down onto Steve's bed, silently cursing himself as he accepts the bottle of meds Steve offers him, downs two and hands it back.

"So," Eddie says, because he's an idiot. "You and Robin, huh?"

Steve's brow furrows in confusion, which - yeah, fuck, of course it does, because Eddie literally announced that out of no where, and he focuses on that and not on how cute Steve looks.

"She told me this morning," he clarifies. "About the whole two soulmate thing."

His expression clears up, goes all warm and fond even as he rolls his eyes. "That's what all those looks were about, I knew it was something."

When he looks back at Eddie, his expression is a little more closed, eyes a little wary. "Yeah. She and I are soulmates, and we've both got another one we haven't found yet."

Eddie nods, hoping he's accurately conveying just how cool he is with this. In the grand scheme of things, his maybe soulmate having another soulmate is a whole hell of a lot more normal than everything else that's happened in his life recently. "The same one, you think?"

That gets a small smile. "Nah, we've compared." Steve picks at the label on the bottle of pills, not looking at him. "You don't think it's weird? Or I'm - just greedy, or something?"

He flinches, just a little, because if he's being honest - yeah, if he'd found out a year ago, hell even a few months ago, that Steve Harrington had two soulmates, he probably would have rolled his eyes and called him greedy. Little rich boy taking more than his share, Mr. Popular Jackass who of course has two people destined to fall over him. He thinks back to what his uncle had said to him, before high school, and feels shame curl at the bottom of his gut.

"I think," Eddie says after a long moment, because he's still an idiot, but he doesn't want to run anymore, he doesn't. "That I'm your other one. Your - uh, platonic. You and me, platonic soulmates."

Steve looks - all right, Eddie can't actually figure out how he looks.

"I think I like weird," he continues, because he doesn't know how to shut up. "I think you're so, so different from everything I thought you were, and I'm still a little pissed off about that, man, the Munson Doctrine was sacred and here you are blowing it all up. I think if I had to have a jock for a platonic soulmate, I don't want it to be anyone but you."

Steve's looking up at him with these huge, liquid eyes, now, and Eddie's tongue feels like it's glued to his mouth, and then -

"I didn't miss you before I even met you," Steve says, and Eddie feels the quick prickle of heat around his ankle, and -

"Holy shit," he says, laughing because he doesn't know what else to do with all the feeling bubbling up inside of him, because -

Because Steve'd told him that Nancy was the only person that he'd ever wanted to be his soulmate so bad that he wanted to test it, and it - it's not the same, it's not, and when he comes down from the high of having found his soulmate he's going to realize how fucked he is if he doesn't get over this crush on him, but -

"I didn't think about my soulmate all that often," he says, just so Steve can have the same feeling he does, and then he ducks his head a little, hand tugging his hair in front of his mouth. "Yeah? You wanted it to be me, too?"

Steve quirks a little smile. "Yeah. I really did."

Eddie groans. "Jesus, Steve, you can't just say stuff like that to me."

Steve's smile grows. "Too bad. I'm going to say stuff like that all the time, you're going to have to learn to take it."

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck don't think about that, nope, don't think about Steve - his soulmate Steve - telling him how much he wants him and showing Eddie how to take it and - Eddie laughs, feeling it bubble up through his chest, a little bit giddy and a little bit hysterical.

Before he knows it, Steve's huffing out a little laugh, too. "I knew you lied in there with Mike, man, I could feel it. I just couldn't drop my pants in the middle of the living room to check what it was, but when I did, you were going to be so busted."

"I mean, you could have. There were a few people in there who probably would've appreciated the view," Eddie teases. "You might've scarred Mike for life, though."

Steve's lip curls into a grimace, and then they're both giggling again.

"Thanks for being brave," Steve tells him quietly when they've managed to put a lid on their laughing.

Eddie twitches, barely resisting the urge to twist to check to see if he's got a new lie on him. It's just - Eddie hasn't been brave. The one time he did decide to be brave, he nearly died, and people keep yelling or almost crying at him about it, so he's pretty sure they think that was more stupid than brave. "For being what now?"

"For being brave about this," Steve says. "I've kind of wondered if it might be you for a while, just kept telling myself it wasn't the right time to ask."

Oh. All right, yeah, he did beat Steve to it, didn't he? He grins at him. "So when did you first start wanting it to be me, huh?"

Steve rolls his eyes, and for a few moments Eddie thinks he's not going to answer, but then he says, "In the woods, when we were trying to find the gate. After you tried to make Lucas feel better, got him and Dustin distracted."

That - Eddie wasn't expecting that, even though part of him thinks yeah, it would be about the kids. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, I suspected earlier. There wasn't a lot that could give you away, but what you said about jocks being violent monarchs - some of your table speeches had similar phrasing."

Fuck.

It's - he'd known, that he and his soulmate would have to talk about why they stopped talking. Known that he and Steve would have to talk about it. He'd just kind of hoped it was another one of those things he could add to his pile of later.

"Steve," he says softly, but he can't think of what to say to continue, and it just hangs heavily between them.

"I know," Steve says after a moment. "I figured that was why you stopped talking to me. That you realized I was one of the kind of people you hated."

He wants to tell Steve that he wasn't, but he's too worried it'll be a lie. Steve was the kind of person that Eddie used to hate - not really because of anything Steve had done, but because of what Eddie assumed about him, because it was easier to believe all the popular kids were the same than maybe some of them were different.

"You aren't," he says instead. "The guy I was talking about - he graduated the year before you - you're nothing like him. You weren't even back when we were in high school. You weren't a bully, man, just kind of a bitch. I was the one who didn't care about the difference."

Steve considers that for a moment. Then, "I'm still kind of a bitch."

Eddie lets out a bark of startled laughter, hand coming up to press against his abdomen. "Fuck, dude, don't be funny, it pulls at my stitches."

Steve grins at him, entirely unapologetic.

Eddie almost hates to ruin it, but - shit, he has to know, and he lets out a slow exhale. "That why you stopped talking to me, because you knew I didn't want you to?"

Steve's grin fades, but he looks like he'd kind of been expecting that question. "That was part of it. But also, I was mad at you," he admits. "Everyone always had these expectations of who I was and who they wanted me to be, and when I saw you talking about jocks and popular kids like they were the enemy, I realized you had them, too. I knew I wasn't going to live up to yours."

"Fuck my expectations, you're better than anything I could have dreamed of." Eddie - hadn't meant to say that, and he spends a quick moment freaking out a little in the back of his mind, because that didn't sound platonic at all.

Steve doesn't seem to think anything of it, though, just gives him a pleased little smile, ducking his head like he thinks it's going to hide how his ears have gone pink.

"It's not like your expectations were that unreasonable, lumping everyone together aside," Steve says. "I could have taken a step back and wondered why it pissed me off that you expected me not to be a violent jackass, but I was too busy getting wrapped up in all that popularity shit. I'm sorry for that."

There's a pause, then, "I'm not sorry for being a jock, though. I like sports, that's not going to change."

"I don't want it to change," Eddie says, but it comes out more like a promise. "You already did a hell of a lot of changing, man."

Steve gives him a little crooked smile. "I guess a good thump on the head will do that to you."

Eddie grimaces. "Upside Down shit?"

"Nah, just Nancy and Jonathan, actually. When Jonathan and I had that fight in the alley, I - I was angry, and hurt, and I wanted to make him hurt. It comes easy, you know, knowing what to say to hurt someone the most. How to be cruel."

The other side of being good with people, yeah, Eddie knows that. He'd never been on the receiving end of it, but he'd heard the gossip about what happened when Steve Harrington got pissed. It's what he meant when he said Steve was a bitch.

"Later, I was sitting with Tommy and Carol, listening to them talk about jumping him as soon as he was released from the station and I just kept thinking - I sounded exactly like my dad in that alley. That's the kind of people that Tommy and Carol were, and that's who I was going to be if I stuck with them."

"But you didn't," Eddie says.

"But I didn't," Steve agrees, giving a little shrug.

Eddie's quiet, in case Steve wants to say more, but it seems like he's done talking about that, because after a few moments he gives Eddie a little smile.

"So I, uh. I told you mine, you gotta tell me yours now. When did you change your mind and decide you wanted it to be me?"

"Oh, uh. Same as you, actually. I didn't admit it until after the first time in the Upside Down, but when we were in the woods, and you looked at me like I was doing something good, and I - yeah." Eddie's pretty sure he's a little flushed, now, and he looks away.

Steve just gives a little hum, and Eddie looks back at him, eyes narrowed, but he can't quite make out his expression. Eddie barrels on past all that, then, not giving him time to do - whatever that face he's making is a sign of.

"I wondered way earlier, though," he adds. "I kept getting stuff about not being all that hurt and not wanting to go to the hospital, and then you'd show up all beat up. Which, by the way, I was really mad at you for, you kept scaring the shit out of me."

"Sorry," Steve says, and he does look reasonably apologetic. "At least I went to the hospital this time?"

Eddie raises one eyebrow, assuming the withering look he gives him is enough to tell him exactly what he thinks about that. "How about you stop needing to go to the hospital, huh?"

Steve looks at him, quiet for a long moment. Then, "You're the one who said I'm a paladin."

"And I already regret it." Eddie nudges him with one knee. "Mike's convinced you're a barbarian, anyway."

Steve makes a face, like he's immediately having some regrets of his own. "Mike's in on this now? I'm still not playing with you guys any time soon."

Eddie grins at him. "Any time soon isn't never, man, I-"

He cuts off as he realizes that this is the second time that Steve has said he wasn't playing any time soon, and it prompts him to remember -

"You lied!" he shouts gleefully.

"What?" Steve asks, caught off guard.

"Hang on, gimme - just let me-" Eddie grunts as he tries to pull off his sweatshirt too quickly, ends up twinging his shoulder, and has to do it more slowly.

"There," he says triumphantly. "Left shoulder blade, it says I'm never going to play this thing with you, man, you might as well stop asking."

Steve wrinkles his nose. "How do you know that was about this?"

"Because you're good at adjusting your words to make sure what you're saying isn't technically a lie, and this fits. I'm right, aren't I?"

Steve is looking at him like - well, like Eddie probably looked at Steve when Steve told him that he knew what it meant when Eddie's face shut down. Like he didn't realize Eddie noticed that about him, and Eddie almost lets himself get tripped up on it, but - no, he doesn't want to go there, doesn't want to let them get off track.

Instead, he just waggles his eyebrows at Steve, who groans.

"Okay, okay. I knew after I said it that those kids were going to wear me down sooner or later, I just didn't want them to know that."

Eddie scoots a little closer, until their knees are brushing together. "Have you played yet?"

Steve tips his head back, like he's looking to the heavens for support. "I played. Erica wanted to practice as a DM, so Robin, Dustin, and I played for her first game. And before you ask - yes, I did have a good time, but I don't really think it's something I'd want to do all the time."

Yeah, all right, that's fair enough, and it doesn't really put a damper on Eddie's glee. It means it's pretty likely that he could get Steve to play for a one-shot sometime, maybe even a short campaign.

If he's honest, part of him was a little worried that he might not look at D&D the same way after all of the comparisons to a campaign he was doing, but no, he feels the same excited energy that he has before. It's a relief to know that this wasn't taken from him.

Steve's tipped his head back down and is looking at him, now - or, more accurately, looking at his bare torso, eyes scanning a clear line from his neck and shoulders down to his waist, and back up again. Eddie's mouth goes dry, and abruptly he feels - self conscious? Hesitant? Some kind of nervous energy, which is stupid, because it's not like Steve Harrington would - but shit, Eddie knows the way Steve looked at him after washing his hair, he doesn't think he was so out of it that he could conjure that out of nowhere -

"Let me get the first aid kit," Steve says, pushing himself up.

And right, yeah, the first aid kit. For the bandages that Eddie almost forgot he was wearing, which is a far more likely reason that Steve was staring at his bare chest, except - well. Except there'd been a hunger in Steve's eyes, and Eddie doesn't think it's just because the guy was so damn eager to change out his bandages.

He drops it, though, reminds himself platonic over and over again until Steve comes back with his massive first aid kit.

Steve strips off his own sweater before he sits back down on the bed, and Eddie doesn't bother to try not to look. Now he doesn't have to feel bad about letting his gaze sweep over every bit of that perfect, hairy chest, eagerly reading any bit of writing he can see, and - wait.

"Can I?" Eddie asks, making grabby hands at him.

Steve looks down at himself, sees where Eddie had been staring - at I love it when coffee is so weak you can barely taste it just below his collarbone - and huffs out a little laugh. "Yeah, sure."

Eddie reaches out, just barely brushing over the words with his fingertips, and Steve sucks in a harsh breath.

"Bad?" Eddie asks, going still.

"No," Steve says. "Just different."

He's going to take that as permission to continue, so he keeps going, rubbing his thumb over If I could have a whole swarm of silverfish in my room, I'd be so happy on Steve's side. Steve shivers, and Eddie reminds himself - platonic.

"Here, let me-" Steve reaches down, carefully peeling off the bandages from around his stomach.

His demobat bites look a lot better than the last time Eddie saw them - less open and weeping, more stitched and healing, which makes Eddie give a soft sigh of relief.

There's ink leading up to one of the bites, looking like it got cut off, and Eddie leans in a little to see it better.

For your mo, it says, and Eddie barks out a laugh.

"For your modesty, dude," he says, lightly touching it with one fingertip. "It caught me. It was for my own sanity, I knew I was going to keep trying to see your writing."

Steve huffs out a little laugh. "I didn't even feel it."

"The gaping stomach wound probably edged it out a little," Eddie teases. "You feel it now?"

Steve's gaze catches and locks on his. "Yeah."

Eddie swallows. "You said it was different?"

Steve hums an affirmative. "From Robin's. It feels different when she touches her words."

Right.

Of course it does.

"How does hers feel?" he asks. He half fears it'll come out jealous, but - no, it just sounds curious, and he realizes that's mostly what he feels.

Curiosity, not jealousy.

"It's changed, but at first it was… fizzy," Steve says. "Like butterflies in your stomach, or drinking a beer too fast. Now it's like - holding hands in the rain, or the first drink of hot apple cider when it's cold. Like coming home."

Huh.

"Poetic," he says, half teasing and half sincere. "What does mine feel like?"

Steve considers that for a moment. "Electric," he decides. "Like static shock, or the moment before a first kiss. Or a metal guitar solo in the Upside Down," he adds slyly, then reaches out for him. "Can I…?"

"Yeah, uh, go ahead."

Steve's eyes scan over him again, like he's looking for something, and Eddie's gaze drops down automatically to his own torso. Which - is covered in gauze and medical tape, and at this point he's pretty sure there's more bandage showing than skin.

"Not a lot of real estate left, though," he says.

It comes out shakier than he'd meant it to, and he sucks in a ragged breath. If at least one of his lies on Steve had gotten cut off, he knows that means a decent number of the words on his own skin are gone.

Fuck.

He hasn't really looked at himself, but now he wonders which ones it is, what words he'll never see again. If it's the ones that he read over and over again, that made him smile so wide when he was fourteen, the ones that made him so fucking angry, the ones that scared the shit out of him. It shouldn't matter, he tells himself, because they aren't meant to have this many words between them anyway. It's supposed to mean there's something wrong with them, that there's too many lies to make things work, but - it's different, it means something else.

It's always meant something else, to Eddie.

"Hey," Steve's saying softly. "Eddie, hey, look at me."

Eddie nods, already preparing to hear Steve tell him that it's okay, that it's better this way, that less words are a good thing, and then looks up.

"I'm not taking my rain check now."

There's a sting somewhere on his lower back, and Eddie blinks at him.

"What?" he asks.

"My rain check," Steve repeats, like it's supposed to make more sense a second time. "To tell you the things I like about you. I'm not taking it right now."

Eddie's mouth goes dry, and he feels like he can't do anything but stare at him.

"I don't think you have a good heart," Steve says.

Lie, blooming over his spine.

"I don't think you're clever. I don't find you funny. I don't think you're really good with the kids. I don't think you're brave."

Each one of them a lie, writing themselves on Eddie's skin forever, and every one of them steals more and more of Eddie's breath. Fuck, if he keeps going, Eddie's going to kiss him, going to ruin this right after he found it.

"Steve," Eddie says, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm not proud of you."

"Touch me," Eddie blurts out, sounding a little strangled.

Steve's brows furrow, pupils blown wide as he looks at him.

Eddie forcibly wrangles his thoughts back into some semblance of order. "Didn't you want to…?" he trails off, gesturing at his own torso, jerking a thumb at his shoulder where he knows at least some writing is visible.

"Oh!" Steve swallows, looking like now he's the one who has to get his thoughts back in order. "Yeah, yeah I did."

He reaches out determinedly before Eddie can try to think too much into that, resting his palm flat on Eddie's chest for a moment - right over his heart, and Eddie wonders if he can feel how quickly it's beating, if he - then it slides up, smoothing over where some of his words peek out from under the bandages.

Fuck.

Despite Steve's halting poetry about how his soulmate touches felt, Eddie wasn't prepared for this. It feels like -

It feels like Steve's fingers running through his hair, blunt nails scratching over his scalp, little goosebumps shuddering over his skin. Like hot water washing everything away, strong hands cradling his head in their grip.

"Oh," he breathes out, not really meaning to, but his entire brain has just shut off.

"Yeah?" Steve asks, sounding pleased, and his hand sweeps up, stroking over any bit of soulmate ink he can find. "What's it feel like?"

"Like a hot shower after a week in the Upside Down," Eddie tells him, because that's true, and easier than admitting it feels like when Steve washed his hair for him.

Steve huffs out a little laugh. "Pretty damn good, then," he teases, then pulls his hand away. "Speaking of showers - we should both probably take one before we change these bandages. You want help with yours?"

Yes, fuck yes, he really does.

And yet -

"Nah," he says, and it's not a lie. He knows there's no way he can handle being in the shower with Steve after all this. "I can stand long enough now, I should be good."

If Eddie didn't know any better, he'd think there was a brief flash of disappointment in Steve's eyes. But he doesn't say anything, just helps him remove his bandages, gets out a clean set of clothes for him and gets the shower going.

"I'll be right outside, just yell if you need anything," Steve says before he steps out of the bathroom and leaves the door open a crack.

Eddie takes a few deep breaths before he looks at himself in the mirror. It's… not as bad as he was expecting, really. He'll have scars over his stomach, scattered across his chest, curving up to his neck, but it's no where near as bad as it could have been if the bats had been able to go at him even just a little longer.

He's lucky, in more ways than one.

The shower goes - fine. He manages. He can't really wash his hair, but he gets the rest of him okay, gets to look at Steve's shower products and grin a little at his shampoo and conditioner - Faberge Organics, with honey and wheat germ oil. When he's finished, he even manages to mostly towel off and get dressed, forgoing the shirt for the moment.

He pokes through the first aid kit while he waits for Steve to take his turn in the bathroom, not entirely surprised at how well stocked it is, considering everything.

When Steve's finished, Eddie insists on bandaging him up first, carefully wrapping them around his stomach and trying not to think about Nancy doing this for him in the Upside Down, or what he'd thought it might mean then, or what it means that Eddie's doing it for him now.

It means they're soulmates, and Steve trusts him. When it comes down to it, that's all that really matters.

When he's finished, Steve twists a little so Eddie can spread some ointment over his shoulders and back, hissing in sympathy at the healing skin there.

Steve slips on a short sleeved t-shirt, then returns the favor.

His hands brush over the words on Eddie's skin often enough that he's reasonably sure it's purposeful, especially because they linger on the ones that Steve'd just put on him.

Eddie huffs out a little laugh, more to diffuse the way the feeling keeps bubbling up inside him than anything else. "This a thing for you?" he teases.

To his surprise, Steve's ears go a little pink. "I mean, kind of? It's - nice. I know everyone says that having so many lies is bad, and it's supposed to mean more when you only have a few to touch like this, but…"

He trails off, but he looks like he wants to say more, so Eddie stays quiet as Steve finishes bandaging him up.

"Did you know you can get them removed?" Steve asks after he's done.

There's a surge of panic, and Steve must see it in his eyes, because Steve's own eyes widen.

"Shit, I'm sorry, that - wow, that was really bad timing, I can't believe I just said that when you-" he cuts off, gesturing at Eddie's torso. "I don't want to remove ours, I'd never remove them."

The panic fades, a little, though he still has to resist the urge to cup his hand over his own side, where some of his words are missing.

"I'm okay," he says after a moment. "You can keep going."

Steve frowns, looking uncertain.

"Please," Eddie adds. "I like it when you talk to me like this."

And that's the right thing to say, because it makes Steve light up a little.

"Okay," he says. "Just - let me know if it's too much, okay?"

Eddie nods.

"My parents never had any visible words, no matter what they wore," Steve continues after a moment. "It was a point of pride."

Of course it was. It usually is - that's not something exclusive to the rich. The fewer lies you have, the better your match is, everyone is supposed to want that.

"They always told me to be careful what I said, that my match was going to be someone like them, someone who didn't have lies between them. Said I would be messing up her life if I told too many lies and she had to have a visible mark. I believed them."

"What changed?" Eddie asks, before he can help himself.

Steve gives him a crooked little smile. "When I was like eleven or twelve, my mom got a few on her arm, where she'd have to wear long sleeves to hide them. Never knew what they said, but I saw them. I was… I don't know, shocked, I guess. I couldn't believe what happened. She wore long sleeves for a couple of days, and the next time I saw her arm, they were gone. I asked her what happened, and she just - looked at me, and told me it was nothing to worry about. 'The Harringtons aren't liars, sweetheart, those were a mistake.'"

Jesus Christ.

"I didn't really know what to think at first. But then I heard her and my dad fighting. She was yelling at him about the money she just wasted getting his little mistakes corrected." Steve's face mimics a cold expression, then, a haughty sneer at his lips as he says, "'What good is all that Harrington charm if you can't even get your little bimbos into bed with you without lying? The next time I see any words, that's the end of your trips alone.'"

He deflates, rubbing absently at the back of his neck. "It was like - the cheating wasn't even worth fighting about anymore, but the lying? That's when I started realizing that it was all about appearances with them."

Eddie's quiet for a long moment, fitting all of that into what he knows about Steve - and what he tried to figure out about his soulmate, all those years ago. "She was the one you lied to about being able to handle it by yourself."

That little crooked smile is back. "Yeah, after she started going with my dad on his business trips. I figured out how to handle it eventually. You, uh. You really helped a lot, you know, when you started talking to me. Made me feel like I wasn't alone."

Fuck if that doesnt make him feel all warm and pleased, knowing that Steve had gotten something out of it like Eddie did, even if it had gone sour for a while.

"My uncle helped me talk to you most of the time," Eddie admits. "I think he knew that it was probably going to go south at some point, but he wanted me to figure that out on my own, you know?"

Steve smiles. "Your uncle sounds like a good guy."

"He is," Eddie replies, trying to push past the twisting in his gut at the reminder that Uncle Wayne is out there with no idea what's happened to him right now. "Course, he also called us little jackasses with no impulse control."

That makes Steve laugh. "He was probably right," he says, eyes gleaming with mirth. "Anyway, I, yeah. It's how I figured out I had two soulmates, because Rob got freaked out at all the words appearing on her skin at first. It wasn't until we actually met that we figured out how we both really feel about them."

Eddie's breath catches, mouth going dry. He licks his lips, trying to work up enough saliva to speak. "How's that?"

Steve's quiet for a bit, brows scrunched just a little like he's trying to figure out how to put it into words. "They're a lifeline," he decides finally.

And what the fuck is Eddie supposed to do with that?

"So I just, yeah, it's kind of a thing for me." Steve runs his thumb over a scattering of ink on Eddie's sternum. "I get it."

Nope, no, Eddie is not equipped to handle this right now, not prepared to deal with the shuddering feeling that rocks into him with Steve's touch to some of his words at the same time that Steve just validated every feeling he's ever had about having so many lies splattered across his skin.

He sucks in a ragged breath, and just barely manages to get out, "Thanks. For, uh." Eddie clumsily jerks a hand at himself, vaguely in the direction of one of the lies that Steve had just said tonight.

"Yeah," Steve says, and fortunately for Eddie's everything, that's it.

Admittedly, Steve looks pretty drained, too, and Eddie gets the feeling that he's not the only one feeling wiped from this much emotional honesty.

With his soulmate.

He kind of thinks that exhaustion or not, there might be too much on his brain to sleep quickly tonight, but his brain has also apparently decided it would really rather just not.

It shuts off pretty much the second he's under the covers and flat on his back.

This ended up being the longest part so far, but I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! We're definitely winding down now - I anticipate probably six or so more parts to this and then it'll be wrapped up.

-----

Part 19

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#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steddie fic #steddie soulmate au #platonic soulmates stobin #soulmate confession #they talked about so many things and yet #mention of steve's less than stellar parents

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