#season three divergent

[bellessimaa]

No but hear me out, Kanthony in India could be quite the story.

Anthony Bridgerton in a kurta! Him seeing Kate in a saree or lehenga because lets face it, the man will lose whatever braincells he had left and simply disintegrate.

The only problem with the writers trying to send Kanthony away to India is the timing of it. Edwina is already married and Kate is with child. After the trauma of Hyacinth’s birth, nothing on earth can convince me that Anthony Bridgerton would willingly let his wife take a hazardous six month journey back to India. Tha just doesn’t make sense.

Another thing that does not make sense woth the timeline is that, if Edwina made a match in India, it must have been while Kate and Anthony were on their honeymoon and I’m sorry but how on earth do you expect me to believe that Kate would miss her little sister’s wedding?

It is all tempting me to write again, something like a fix it where Kate and Anthony embark on a journey to India, because Edwina is supposed to get married, maybe to someone from the maharaja’s court because why not?

Kate leaves for India, but with her endearing, besotted husband who worships the grounds she walks on. They come to India and they do all the things that we are craving to see on screen (Anthony in Kurta? Another sneaky, playful haldi ceremony in the privacy of their rooms? Another mehendi ceremony because ofcourse Kate will have Anthony’s name sneakily written on her hands in hindi? Vexing one another? Potentially some old suitors of Kate, just to make Anthony sweat? Her taking him to all the spots of her childhood, just the way he did in Aubrey hall? Babymaking? Recieving the happy news firsthand?)

Anyway this list will never end. I dont know if we would get a spin off or not, but I might just get around to writing this.

[i-hear-a-sound]

A2 will be the character to cause the most on-screen and noticeable “divergences” in season 2, and I’ll even go on to say that if Accord shows up— like physically, at all— in this season, A2 will be why, in some way or another. A-1 dm’d me as such trust

[celestialbruise]

I feel like a mitski song whenever I think of Nacho :/

[stellarstolen]

-- tag drop.

[bonnie-the-butcher]

Rip Tide | Chapter II

[ MDNI ] [ word count: 6.978 ] [ Masterlist ] 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬: Canonverse/Canon-Divergent; Dark! Content; NSFW; Strong Language; Cheating; Drug Use; OVERDOSE; Some shades of Munchausen syndrome from dear old Rafe; Manipulation; Toxic, obsessive behaviour; Stalking; Violence; DUBCON/NONCON; My writing is really pretentious and English is not my first language, so please feel free to call me out in whichever grammar mistakes you might find find.

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | You and JJ have always been in each other's orbit. He's your brother’s best friend, the guy you've known your entire life. He was kind, protective, familiar. You never meant for the two of you to start hooking up. And you never meant for it to last so long. But when this boy you thought you'd come to know like the back of your hand turns out to be no better than the men he'd warned you about, you find yourself in the sights of the guy he hates most, regardless of wether you want that or not.

Likes, asks reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated. This chapter is a little heavier than the previous one. Please read the warnings and proceed accordingly. You can skip this chapter or skip the story altogether if this is a trigger for you. PUT YOUR MENTAL HEALTH FIRST.

You press your hands against your ears and close your eyes, willing yourself to wake up from whatever nightmare dimension you’d just been thrown in. You do the whole routine: pinch your arm, think of math problems, look at the time, but to no avail. Every time you open your eyes, there you are, in Rafe Cameron’s Range Rover, heading God knows where to a party you were most definitely gonna regret going to.

Barry doesn't share in your dread. He holds you against his chest, bursting out in laughter every so often as he points out different ways the pogues had humiliated themselves thanks to you. And Rafe, king kook, the man who your brother had sworn to kill more than once, steers the car, all but crying in laughter. Every now and then you’d feel him glancing over at you, lips quirking in a strange smile.

You were fucked.

Completely and utterly fucked.

You gazed at the car door longingly, pondering what your odds would be if you just got it over with, and jumped out of the moving vehicle straight into the road. But your daydreams were interrupted as your best friend pushed you softly, turning to you with that shit-eating grin:

– Quit acting like you’re going to your execution, sweetheart. You know damn well you enjoyed every minute of that as much as we did. – You couldn’t tell if he was being serious or just trying to get you angry, and honestly, you didn’t know which was worse. – Damn. Just the look on his face when you jumped in. Shit was a kodak moment.

– I’m gonna be on my deathbed, still laughing at the thought of JJ falling face-first into the ground. – Rafe added, breathless with joy, the words stained by his ear-to-ear smile.

Barry did a double take: – He fell?!

– Bro, you didn’t see it?! – the blonde’s cackling resounded around the car. – It was fucking priceless!

– Sweetheart, please tell me you have security cameras!

– Why would she, man? Who’d wanna rob that dump? – You were taking a deep breath, planning not to be offended, but Barry laughed just then.

– I swear to God, Barry, if I hear your trailer trash ass laugh at my house one more time, I will choke you in this passenger seat.

– Oh, believe me, I don’t want no beef with your house. Someone might say beetlejuice three times while I’m near and God knows what will happen, then.

You’re disappointed more than anything to hear Rafe laugh so hard at that half-baked joke. – Haunted house, really? Is that what you’re going with? If you’re gonna humiliate me, at least make it funny.

– Sweetheart, I don’t know why you thought that was a joke. It’s a warning. Your house is haunted. You need to get out of there.

– I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were living at the Four Seasons.

Rafe snorts, a mix between a laugh and a scoff:

– No offense, but Barry’s place actually looks like the Four Seasons when you compare it to your house.

– Rafe.

– I’m just saying! I’d be as miserable as your brother is if I had to spend a fucking second there, let alone my entire life. Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up and a gremlin was at the foot of my bed, telling me to leave.

Barry didn’t miss a beat: – What are you talking about man, what would JJ be doing at the foot of your bed?!

– Shining my shoe, probably.

You scoff, unamused:

– You guys are so funny, you know? I’m laughing sooo much.

– Lighten up, sweetheart. You’re acting like this shit is the end of the world.

– Oh, but it’s not. It’s not the end of the world, Barry, the world is fine. It’s just the end of my life. What time is it now? Quarter to seven? In eight hours I’m gonna be stepping out of this Range Rover, and when I walk into my house John’s gonna hit me over the head with a shovel and bury me out in the backyard!

– Not the backyard! – Rafe mocks.

– Yeah, sweetheart. Just cause you’re hause looks haunted, doesn’t mean that you have to do it.

You chuckle slightly, wiping your hand over your face. The absurdity of it all is starting to sink in. You don't want to laugh, you really don't, but you can't help it. Because maybe—just maybe—you’ve resigned yourself to this entire shitshow of a night. – Fuck you, Barry.

The chuckles come out in spurts, unexpected, but loud enough for them to catch it. Barry grins, leaning in closer. He pulls your hair away from your face with a grin, pointing at the smile on your lips as if he’d found a gold mine.

– There it is, sweetheart. I knew you had it in you.

Rafe catches your eye as he looks over, a gleam of amusement in his gaze. You can’t help but roll your eyes.

– Oh yeah, – You mumble – I’m definitely losing my mind. That’s gotta be it.

– No, no, no. Your little surfer rat friends were the ones driving you crazy. We’re helping you out, that’s what we’re doing.

Rafe’s voice is almost too smug for how proud he sounds.

You snort, both annoyed and entertained. – My savior! – You deadpan. – Whatever would I do if you weren’t there to rescue me from the claws of my evil older brother?

Rafe chuckles, leaning in a little closer, like he’s enjoying the way you’re playing along.

– I don’t know, get rat fever or some shit? Whatever it is that they’re passing around to each other all day. – he says, his voice almost too smooth, as you and Barry both recoil in disgust of the picture he’s painted. – But hey, at least you'd still have your looks. That’s gotta count for something.

You shoot him with a side-eye, laughing at the absurdity.

– Aren’t you a charmer? Tell me, Rafe, do you threaten every girl you talk to with the possibility of dying from disease or am I just that special?

His smirk widens, and he shakes his head. – Your guess, beautiful.

Barry cuts in:

– You better not flirt with her too much, Country Club. JJ might come after you.

Your smile couldn’t fade any quicker if you tried. – Let’s not talk about that.

– Oh we’re talking about it, alright. You’ve got a brand new guard dog, and you don’t even say shit to me? Y’know I could use someone to keep the merchandise safe.

– Chill out, Pablo Escobar. Nobody’s trying to steal your stash.

Barry shrugs, leaning back in the seat as he rolls his eyes. – You say that now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your brother and his little rat pack are plotting some Mission Impossible shit to break into my place.

– Please. – You scoff, crossing your arms. – They’d probably trip over their own feet trying to climb your fence.

Rafe snickers, tapping the steering wheel. – That’s if they could even find your place, man. You practically need a treasure map just to figure out where the hell you live.

Barry flips him off lazily, but you can’t help but laugh.

Then the realization hits you. – Wait, where is this party, again? – you ask, glancing between the two.

– Don’t worry, you’ll like it there.

– Oh, I will. It’s my last day on earth. That’s not what I’m worried about.

– Country Club here’s the navigator tonight. I’m just the moral support.

Rafe smirks but for once doesn’t take his eyes off the road. – Moral support, my ass. You just didn’t want to waste gas getting your own car.

– You know gas ain’t cheap, man. Not all of us are rolling in daddy’s money.

– Right, – Rafe drawls. – But you’ve got no problem freeloading off me.

– Call it historical reparation. – Barry counters with a grin, and you roll your eyes.

– Seriously, where are we going?

– Figure Eight.

Your stomach drops. – You’re kidding.

– Didn’t I already tell you that? – Barry quips, and you glance down at your outfit: your dad’s old marina shirt, a pair of cut-out shorts, and sneakers that had definitely seen better days.

– I can’t go dressed like this. – You gesture at yourself, already imagining the judgmental stares you’d get.

– You look fine. – He pauses, sitting back so he can have a better look at you. – Shit, sweetheart, you look more than fine.

His compliment throws you, so you laugh it off. – Shut up, Barry.

Rafe smirks, his eyes flicking over you in a way that makes you immediately self-conscious. – Take off your shirt. It’ll look nicer like that.

Your mouth falls open, heat rushing to your face as Barry bursts out laughing. – Chill, Country Club!

– Jesus Christ! – you exclaim, glaring at him, but the cocky grin on his face doesn’t waver. Caught off guard, you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, trying to diffuse the tension: – The party’s at a nudist beach? Is that it?

Barry’s laughter grows louder, though his eyes flicker down to your chest. His grin sharpens, and for a split second, you catch him licking his lips, the idea amusing him a little too much. – That’d be a damn good party.

– Now I kinda wish it was. – Rafe murmurs, barely under his breath.

The air in the car feels heavier suddenly, like all the joking had edged into something else. Barry’s laughter fades into the background as your heart skips a beat. You clear your throat, forcing out a chuckle. – Right. Well, hate to disappoint, but I think I’ll keep my shirt on, thanks. Turn around here, Rafe. – You point to a dirt path to the right.

– Why? – He hums, though he’s already turning, and his hand brushes your leg for a little too long as he reaches to shift the gears.

– It’s a shortcut to Barry’s. I’ve got some clothes there.

– When did you ever leave clothes at my place?

– Oh no, I didn’t leave them. Your hookups did. Half of my closet comes from your conquests.

Barry gives you a long hum, raising a brow, yet still grinning. – So that’s where my “lost and found” is going.

You steer Rafe in the right direction, looking straight ahead in an attempt to avoid his eyes. – You should really change it to just “lost”, y’know? I’m the only one who finds it, it’s not like they come back.

Barry flips you off, tsking under his breath as the car rolls to a stop before his trailer.

You step out, grateful for the fresh air despite the faint smell of salt and weed lingering around Barry’s place. The house isn’t much to look at, but it’s not a complete wreck either, and the little things you left around through the years to make it seem less like a shithole sure did the job.

– I’ll be quick, – you announce, already heading for the door. – Don’t get too comfortable.

– Take your time, sweetheart.

You nod, pushing your way inside. The air is stale but familiar, and you head straight for Barry’s room. The “lost and found” drawer is where you remember it, stuffed with random clothes that have no rhyme or reason. You sift through the mess, trying to avoid touching the more questionable items—like the endless pairs of mismatched underwear—until your fingers brush against something soft and smooth.

The skirt’s fabric is lightweight, almost slippery against your skin, and you can’t help but pause to run your thumb over it. It’s simple but pretty, and you decide it’ll do. Holding it up, you eye it over briefly before tucking it under your arm along with a cute top you find nearby, on his nightstand.

You can faintly hear Barry and Rafe talking outside. Their voices are muffled, and you can’t make out the words, but it's not hard to guess what they’re doing. Barry cuts up quickly, the sound of a random old credit card banging against the glass table outside echoing around the small place. You shake your head, making your way to the bathroom.

You set the clothes on the sink and catch your reflection in the mirror. The reflection staring back at you wasn't unfamiliar, bruises weren’t exactly a rarity in your life, but the one forming around your arm gave you pause. The faint black and blue watercolor stops you cold, a dark smudge against your skin.

You knew it would happen, of course. John’s grip earlier hadn’t exactly been gentle. But seeing it there stirs something inside you—guilt, anger, a mixture of both.

You touch it lightly, wincing at the tenderness. Great. You can bet that if you asked John what that stupid fight you just had was about, he'd be able to give you a play by play, but as soon as he saw this thing on arm —this thing that he'd done— he’d be asking who did it, why didn't you say anything and for how long it had been there.

The thought of your brother sends a sigh out of you. And your mind reels back the bad memories, the memories about how things used to be.

You wanted to believe that his sudden shift toward caring was a good thing, a sign that maybe your relationship could finally improve. But if this mark on your arm was proof of anything, it told you that this protectiveness he'd suddenly pivoted to wasn't going to end great, and leaving like you did tonight only added another crack to that already fragile foundation.

You dread the moment you have to return. Not because of the eventual screaming and fighting, or the possibility of new bruises to accompany his chorus of complaints, but because of the look he'll have on his face right before he realizes you’re back. —The worry, the anxiety of not knowing if you would return.— You know that look better than anyone, because you could feel it on your face every time you looked at the river bank where your father once docked his boat.

Your heart tugs painfully at the thought of his worry, despite knowing it would turn to rage as soon as he saw your face, and you reached for your back pocket, trying to think of something to text him, when the scene flashes in your mind again: His hands wrestling the phone out of your hand, the joyless smile on his face as he held it over your head, beckoning you to grab it.

Your ears aren't burning, but you can bet he's calling you all sorts of names right now.

You'd be surprised if he hasn't thrown your phone in the river. You wince at that thought, knowing you don't have the money for another one. There's barely enough cash for groceries as it is.

But you sigh, resigned, pushing the thought away as you reach for the borrowed clothes. The skirt’s fabric is cool and smooth under your fingers, the kind of material that whispered against the skin. You eye it for a moment, wondering what something so nice was doing buried in the back of Barry's drawer. It's rare you ever have anything nice for yourself.

You’re mid-thought, slipping on the skirt, when the door suddenly swings open. You freeze, your heart jumping to your throat as Rafe steps in. He stops in his tracks, his blown-out eyes widening for a split second before he smirks.

– Oh, – he drawls, standing in the doorway holding tight to the door frame as a crooked smile splits his face. – My bad. Didn’t know you were in here.

– Rafe, get out! – You snap, grabbing the top to cover yourself.

He doesn’t move right away, though. He chuckles, glancing down, and leans in. His hand brushes your bra strap, and you push him away. – You could just go like that, you know. Saves time.

– Out. Now.

– That tattoo is pretty. – He mumbles, you look down at the ink for a split second, and push him away again.

– OUT.

He finally turns, hands over his head in mock surrender. His movements sluggish as he steps away. You slam the door closed, wishing you could shut the door on this memory forever, and pressing your hands into your eyes, cheeks burning against the heel of your palms.

Maybe it was because you’d been humiliated so many times tonight that your body just can't process another hit, but you sit in that moment as if it had burned you. You stare at yourself in the mirror, running your hands under cold water, trying to shake off the shame that still burns under your skin.

You take a deep breath, then another, then push the door open, stepping back into the thick, hazy air of the house. Barry was right there, leaning against the wall with a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He meets you with a wolf-whistle, giving you a slow once-over before grinning – No idea who that skirt belonged to, but I know for damn sure it looks better on you than it did on her.

You scoff and roll your eyes, as the awkwardness that comes from flattery flutters up to your face, but before you can say anything, another voice cuts in.

– Looked better when you weren’t wearing it.

Rafe’s voice is thick, sluggish. You turn, meeting his gaze for a moment that seems to last a lifetime. His eyes are dilated, lidded, for a split second it seems like he’s struggling to keep them open, but you glimpse at that bright, almost radioactive blue while he smirks up at you, and a wave of feelings washes over. He runs a sweaty hand through his damp hair, blinking like the lights were too bright, like he was a second away from melting into the floor.

Barry’s expression shifts, amusement flattening into something sharper, something just shy of irritation. He doesn’t look mad, not really, but he isn’t entertained either.

– Alright, that was funny at first, man, but now you’re starting to piss me off.

Rafe only laughs, breathy and uneven. His shoulders curl inward slightly, his hand pressing flat against his chest.

The sound isn’t right. Every breath he takes feels off, like his body has forgotten how to regulate itself.

– Rafe?

Barry’s voice was firm. No answer.

You were closer, closer than Barry, and that meant you could see it first. The way his face twitched. The way his body swayed.

– Rafe.

Nothing. Your stomach turned.

You glanced at Barry, but he was already looking at you, his jaw tight.

– He isn't well. – You’re not pleased by the obviousness of your statement, but you double down. – Rafe, what’s going on?

The second the words left your mouth, Rafe faltered. His knees buckle, and before you could think, before you could process, he collapses into you, his weight knocking the breath from your lungs.

– Shit. Shit. Hey, hey—Rafe, look at me.

You gripped his face, shaking him slightly, trying to get his eyes to focus. He mumbled something, but it was nothing, just a string of syllables with no meaning, no coherence.

Then Barry was there, looming over the both of you. His eyes weren’t wide with shock or fear. They were narrow, jaw clenched tight. He stood there for a second, just watching, just breathing. And then suddenly, he lunged forward, grabbing Rafe by the collar and shaking him.

– What the fuck did you take? – Rafe didn’t answer, barely even reacted. Barry’s grip tightened. – Do you hear me, you fucking crackhead?! What the fuck did you take?!

You barely registered the pounding in your skull as you snapped:

– What’s happening?!

Barry didn’t look at you. His attention was locked on Rafe, his grip unrelenting.

– What’s happening is that Rafe’s a fucking moron, that’s what’s fucking happening!

Your pulse roared in your ears. Barry shook him again.

– What did you take, Cameron?!

Rafe inhaled sharply, he makes a couple sounds, just as incoherent as before. His hands fist the fabric of your skirt, eyes fluttering between you and Barry, lips moving soundlessly until he exhaled one word, slurred and barely audible:

– Xanax.

That didn’t calm Barry. If anything, it made him angrier. He shoved Rafe back, sending you both to the ground, dragging his hands through his hair in a frenzy.

– FUCK!

The word came like an explosion. Whatever was in his hand went flying, shattering against the wall. You flinched before you could stop yourself, clutching Rafe tighter, your nails digging into his clammy skin.

– Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die— You didn’t even realize you were saying it out loud until Barry’s pacing snapped you out of it. – We need to do something! W-what do we do? – Your voice was thin, cracked around the edges. Your head was spinning. You were scrambling through every piece of information you’d ever heard, anything, anything – Naloxone—should we try naloxone? Or—should we try to get him to puke?

Barry cut you off.

– That’s not gonna do shit! The pills are already in his system, the coke’s already snorted! We can’t get that shit out of him!

– Then what? What do we do?!

– I don’t fucking know!

He turned away again, pacing, cursing, shaking his head like he was trying to shake the whole night off of him.

And that’s when it happened. That moment. That split second where everything should’ve gone numb, where your brain should’ve shut down, checked out, but it didn’t.

You felt everything.

Rafe’s breath, uneven and wrong. His half-open eyes, staring through you. His body trembling, like every nerve ending in him was screaming in agony.

You couldn’t breathe.

Barry suddenly spun on his heel and rushed inside.

– Where are you going?! Barry. Barry! Talk to me! Where the fuck are you going?!

He didn’t answer.

You nearly got up to follow, but then—

– Mmh—

Rafe groaned, weak, so fragile it made something in you snap.

You couldn’t leave him. Not like this.

Barry came back seconds later, shoving something into your hands. A plastic bag filled with some kind of powder.

– W-what is this?!

He didn’t answer immediately, rushing back with a water bottle, pushing that into your hands, too.

– Activated charcoal. Dump half the bag in there and shake it.

Your hands trembled, eyes darting between the bag and Rafe, between Barry and the door.

– And then what?!

Barry wasn’t looking at you. He was searching for something, grabbing his helmet.

– Then you give it to him. Make sure he drinks it. Don’t let him puke it up. Not for a while, at least.

– What-what are you doing?! – Your voice was sharp, frantic. Barry avoided your gaze, snapping his helmet on. – Barry! You can’t do this to me right now! You can’t just leave me here again! I’m gonna end up killing him!

He exhaled sharply.

– I have to go.

– Go?! You can’t fucking go! I don’t know what to do, you can’t just leave me here!

He didn’t meet your eyes. He just shook his head, looking everywhere but at Rafe, the walls, his hands, the floor. His gaze shifted almost desperately, and when he spoke, you caught a sort of shakiness in his voice that he couldn’t mask as anger. – Just do what I said.

– Barry, please— Barry!

You reached for him, but before you could, Rafe curled into you, his fingers weakly gripping your wrist.

You were stuck.

Stuck between your best friend, who was abandoning you, and Rafe Cameron, who might actually fucking die in your arms.

Tears blurred your vision, but you forced them back. Your hands trembled as you tore the bag open, powder spilling onto your fingers, onto Rafe’s skin.

His breathing was getting worse.

Your own breath hitched, but you forced yourself to move. Shaking, you dumped the powder into the water, mixing it as best as you could.

– You’re gonna be okay.

Your voice wavered as you lifted the bottle to his lips.

– You’re gonna be fine, Rafe.

You tilted it gently, coaxing him to drink.

– Everything’s gonna be okay.

The words felt like a lie.

Rafe barely managed to swallow, his fingers weakly gripping your sleeve.

He's still clinging to you, breathless and half-conscious, his shoulders relaxing, the shaking slowly going away.

The hours got away from you.

Sat there on the floor with Rafe in your arms, you were frozen. Shell-shocked. At some point, your hand had drifted down to his chest, and you left it there, shaking over him, almost lulled by the erratic beating of his heart.

He didn’t move much either.

You shook him a couple times, feeling the panic spike inside you again, and only then he opened his eyes, gaze lingering on your crying face for what felt like centuries, until he curled up closer, and that radioactive blue you’d come to be so familiar with over the night disappearing behind his eyelids again.

You’re not sure how much time has passed when he suddenly shoots up, so suddenly that, for a second, you don’t even react. His body jerks away from you, retching.

Rafe scrambles to his feet, managing to take maybe two or three steps into the grass before he falls to his knees again. He heaves violently, and your stomach clenches at the sound of it, at the sharp gag that follows. He pitches forward, one arm barely catching him on the floor before he spews his guts onto the grass beneath him.

You should move. You should move.

But you can’t.

You’re just sitting there, watching him.

The vomit is grey, almost completely liquid. His whole body shudders, fingers twitching against the soil. For a moment, you swear he looks smaller, weaker.

Not Rafe Cameron. Not the boy that smirks like he owns the whole world. Just a person. Some kid that almost died in your arms.

Your instincts take over as you see him falter again, rushing forward, steadying him before he can fall face-first into his own sick. Your hands shake as they find his head, holding him upright, keeping him there.

But he doesn’t stay put for long. Rafe lets himself fall back into you as he gasps and groans, his hand wrapped around your wrist. – Thank you. – He whispers. You hate the words, hate being the object of gratitude, but you’re quiet for a moment as he catches his breath.

You’re still holding his head, brushing his hair off his face. – You’re fine. You’re gonna be okay. – Your sympathetic platitudes sound more sincere now that you’re more certain he won’t just drop dead, but the noises he makes, the groaning, the mumbling. Rafe splutters painfully, his eyes screwed shut.

You try not to breathe as he presses himself into your arms again, as firm as jelly. – Ugh. Shit.

– How are you feeling?

He breathes in deep. His hair brushes against your neck as he lays back into your chest, eyes still tightly closed despite the fact you two had been sitting on that dark porch for hours. – My head… – The suggestion of pain is all he can manage to verbalize, so you don’t push him any further.

– I’ll go get you some water. Just sit still, okay? – You shift, only moving slightly, but he stops you before you can even stand. – Rafe.

– Don’t. Don’t do that.

– I’ll be right back.

– Don’t lea—don’t leave me here. – It hurts to hear it. Hurts to see the hollowness in his face as he begs, hanging onto you like a lifeline.

You soften your voice. – I'll be right back, I promise.

– I don—I don't want water. I'm fine.

– You’re clearly not fine, just let me— The kook pulls you back, back into him, back onto the ground. A flash of his paper-white teeth meets your eye, and the chuckle he lets out rumbles against your skin, warm and breathy. – This isn't funny, Rafe.

– Wanna bet?

– Just stop it. Stop it, man! Look at you! You're a mess! You almost died!

– Didn't though.

You roll your eyes before you can help it. – Are you kidding? You better be kidding.

– I am alive, – He takes a hold of your hand, sitting idly on his shoulder, and pulls it to his chest, where it had been before. His heart thumps steadily under your touch, though it isn't exactly normal. – See? It's a miracle! It's aliiiive!

He giggles stupidly, his smile somewhat tainted by the pounding in his head.

– You're hilarious. Now can I please get up?

– Don’t want you to.

– No. You need me to. Is your ass gonna walk to the kitchen? You can't even stand up.

– Baby, I'm fine.

You disregard the random nickname, though the smile he gives you sends a shiver down your spine. – You don't know that, Rafe. – The smile on his face shifts from mocking to mischief as he raises a brow, and you can feel your own face fall when the realization finally dawns on you. – You… You do know. Are— Are you INSANE?! Why the fuck would you do that, Rafe?! You almost died!

He exhales, still smiling. – It’s not like that, okay? I just got the doses mixed up.

– Mi— You stop yourself short, facepalming. – Mixed up?! You should never mix those two things in the first place! A stimulant and a retardant, at the SAME TIME? No shit your body shut down, what else did you expect to happen?!

– It was just the dose, okay? It feels nice if you do it right.

– It feels nice? – You stagger. – “It feels nice”? You've done this before?

The words don’t register. Not at first. Your brain scrambles to process what he just said.

It feels nice if you do it right.

The way he says it, so casual, so indifferent, makes your stomach turn. Like he wasn’t completely limp in your arms a moment ago, like he wasn’t this close to crossing a line he could never come back from. Like this was just another Saturday night for him.

You blink. You swallow. You try to will down the rising irritation in your chest.

And Rafe? Rafe just leans back against you, impossibly lax, as if the weight of his own mortality hasn’t even touched him.

He laughs again, quieter this time, his breath warm against your skin.

The bastard doesn't even have the grace to answer you, he just chuckles softly, as if he’s talking to a child, as if he hadn't just brushed so close against death you could still smell it on him.

– You— Your voice catches. You shake your head, pressing your fingers to your temple, trying to force some kind of logic into the moment. – You almost died, Rafe!

– Didn’t though. – He murmurs.

The smugness in his voice is unbearable. You feel like shaking him, like splitting his head open to see if the memory was there at all, to see if the sudden hit at his nervous system hadn’t thrown him into some realm of delusion.

– Don’t. Don’t do this shit. It wasn’t funny the first you said it, and it sure as hell isn’t funny now.

– Baby, look. You’re overreacting, it’s okay. I’m okay.

Your brain does not register the words after “overreacting”. You feel like you’re short-circuiting, like this whole moment is some stupid comedy skit where the world has gone crazy and you’re the butt of the joke for not catching on.

– Jesus Christ. – You whisper. – I should’ve let you fall on your face. I should have. Maybe that would’ve knocked some fucking sense into you.

Rafe tilts his head back just enough to look at you, grinning, like this was some great joke you’re both in on. – Shit, maybe. – He chuckles. – You didn’t, though. You wouldn’t.

The worst part?

He’s right.

You wouldn’t. Of course you wouldn’t.

You sit there, staring at him, at the lazy smirk on his lips, at the complete and utter lack of concern in his eyes. It’s like watching someone sleepwalk through a minefield, completely unaware of how close they came to blowing themselves apart. Worse, completely unfazed by it.

Your hands flex against your thighs. A bitter thought creeps in—why does it always have to be you? Why do you always end up cleaning up the mess for people who don’t even care if they survive it?

First Barry. Now Rafe.

It’s not a new pattern. You’ve seen this play out before.

Barry did those kinds of stupid things exactly for the same reasons —To feel good, even if it’s just for a minute, even if this momentary pleasantness can only happen at the doom of everything else.— The sad thing is that both of them think people can’t see through that. That need to do crazy, wild, reckless things that they think are just fun and games, knowing things can —and most likely will— go wrong, just so that the people around them, those people that did nothing but ignore them, and neglect them, would look their way.

And though they usually never did, someone was always there to fix it for them.

Rafe’s someone was his father. Barry’s someone was you.

You think of the way Sarah speaks about Ward. Like he’s hung the moon up in the sky, and it sounds exactly like how John spoke of him. How he thought of him. How he still does. You've worked for the Camerons a couple times. You knew Ward. You know how he treated his son.

Still, every time Rafe got in enough of a fight with your brother’s friends that they ended up at the Station, there was Ward, to make it all go away.

You think of Barry when you were kids, the way he used to flinch whenever someone mentioned his father, the way he refused to go home until he absolutely had to. His mom was gone, his dad was an asshole, and the rest of his family was too busy pretending he didn’t exist to care what happened to him. You weren’t much different. The two of you were just a couple of kids that no one was really looking for, drifting through life, trying to figure out where the hell you were supposed to go. It made sense that you stuck together.

But Barry leaves you behind all the time.

And though you hate to give John the right to say “I told you so”, you know tonight isn’t an exception. It’s just another reminder.

He’d always been careless, reckless in a different way—never planning for tomorrow, always looking for the next easy out. And even as kids, whenever the two of you got into trouble, you were always the one who cleaned up the mess. You were the one who had to make sure he wasn’t living off the food he stole from house parties, who patched him up when he got in fights, who made sure he didn’t get himself killed.

When you met, you’d both been desperate for something, anything, to fill the void. For Barry, it was drugs and trouble. For you, it was Barry.

It wasn’t the first time, and you know it won’t be the last. He always leaves you holding the bag, trying to figure out how to cut the wire before the bomb goes out. Its painful, because you know he has it hard, harder than you. And maybe that’s why he does this to you all the time. He’s older than you, he’s been alone for longer. So when push comes to shove, he always makes sure he’s okay first.

And though you know he isn’t trying to screw you over, or at least so you hope, that doesn’t make it any easier. And maybe—maybe—this resentment you’re feeling has been there for longer than you realized.

The thought is ugly. But it’s there.

Rafe shifts against you, pulling you out of your spiraling thoughts. You blink, refocusing, and find his eyes on you, the exhaustion weighing heavy in them, but still glinting with that same unreadable amusement.

– What are you thinking about? – He’s looking at you now, head tilted slightly, still sprawled against the floor like he has all the time in the world.

You shake your head. – Nothing. I’m getting you some water.

You try to pull away, but Rafe holds on, his grip tightening just enough to keep you in place. His fingers latch onto your leg, curling around your ankle, and he tugs—not hard, but enough that you stumble slightly. – You’re thinking about something. C’mon, you can tell me.

– Yeah I can. You won't be conscious for long enough to remember it.

– Great. So tell me.

– You need the water, Cameron. Just let me go.

– What I need is for you to stop worrying so much. – His voice is slurred, thick with whatever is still running through his system, but there’s amusement there too. Like this is funny to him. – I can keep a secret, y’know? Promise your asshole brother and his little cult won’t find out.

– Let go of me, Rafe. – You glare down at him, but he just grins, pulling again, enough to make you step back.

– Nah, stay. You’re warm.

– I’m gonna be real fucking cold in a second if you don’t let go.

That makes him laugh. A deep, rough sound that rattles through his chest. – Just tell me what you’re thinking about.

– I’m thinking about how you’re an idiot. And how I’m apparently the only person in this conversation who cares if you live or die.

– You care about me? That’s cute.

– Don’t flatter yourself. – You shoot back. – Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t choke on your own vomit. Or dive straight into it. – You frown, pulling him away from the wretch. – Get on the couch. The ground is filthy.

Rafe’s happy to let you pull him around, as he does nothing to help but throw an arm over the cushions and lay back. – You’re good at it, though. Taking care of people. You’ve got, like, a vibe.

– A vibe? – You echo, lips twisting into a smile despite yourself. – What vibe is that?

He shrugs, smirk widening. – A hot vibe.

– You’re unbelievable.

– And yet, here you are. – He laughs. – Putting up with it. You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you liked me.

– Yeah, well, it’s a good thing you do then. – You scoff, shaking off his hands. But he’s still chuckling as you step inside the trailer, and his laughter follows you all the way in.

Barry’s trailer is a mess, as expected. Clothes draped over furniture, an ashtray overflowing on the coffee table, empty beer bottles scattered around.

When you pull the fridge open, a wave of cold air rushes out. Only then you realize how hot it is out, the damp, humid climate clinging to your skin even as you stand there. The shelves are mostly bare, save for a few instant ramen cups and a pack of American cheese that might not even be good anymore. The only thing that seems fully stocked is the beer.

Figures.

You grab a bottle of water and head back outside. Rafe hasn’t moved much. He’s managed to drag himself into a slightly more upright position, but he still looks like he could pass out.

– C’mon, – you sigh, reaching for him. – Let’s get you up.

He doesn’t argue, but he doesn’t exactly help either. He’s heavy, leaning against you like dead weight, and it takes everything in you to lift him onto the couch. You drop down beside him, handing him the bottle.

– Drink.

He takes it, twisting the cap off with shaky fingers before bringing it to his lips.

Rafe takes a long sip, then looks up at you, eyes glinting. – What do I get if I finish it?

– Hydration.

He chuckles slightly, that glint in his eye growing brighter as his smirk widens. – No gold star, no nothing? That’s not right. I’m being a very good boy right now. And what? I don’t even get a sticker?

– Tell you what, you finish this bottle and I won’t tell the teacher you misbehaved, how ‘bout that?

You watch as he drinks, throat bobbing with each swallow, before he finally lowers it, exhaling deeply. Rafe hums, his lips twitching up. – Where’s my gold star?

You scoff, leaning back. – I'll show you where it is.

He doesn’t respond right away. Just watches you. The silence stretches for a beat too long, and something in his expression shifts—something unreadable, something you don’t have the energy to try and decipher.

You clear your throat. – Can you stand?

He shifts, testing his weight as he pushes up from the couch. You stay close, hands hovering, ready to catch him if he goes down again. He wobbles, but he stays up.

– Keys, – you say, holding out your hand.

He raises a brow. – Already looking to split the assets? We’re not even married yet.

You roll your eyes, fingers curling impatiently. – Rafe. – With an exaggerated sigh, he digs into his pocket and hands you the keys. – I’m taking you home.

He doesn’t argue. Just takes your wrist, turning it slightly so he can glance at your watch.

– Almost ten, – he murmurs. – Everyone’ll be asleep by the time we get there. – He pauses, glancing up at you with a lazy smirk. – Won’t be the first time I’ve snuck a girl into the house.

You ignore him, looping an arm around his waist as you guide him toward the car. He leans into you more than he needs to, his body pressing into your side as you help him into the passenger seat. You’re careful with him, though there's a part of you that is confused at how he seems to be okay one minute, and completely helpless the next.

The drive isn’t long, but it feels longer.

Your fingers tap against the steering wheel as you approach his driveway, nerves prickling under your skin. You don’t need someone seeing you. You don’t need this getting back to John B.

You park, cutting the engine, already looking at the windows, searching for movement. Rafe lets out a small laugh. – Relax. – He grins. – No one's watching.

[ilovemilestellersmoustache]

The Party Planner

Matt Rempe x Reader

Summary: Trevor, Jack, and Luke learn they probably should knock before surprising people for their birthday…

Word Count: 2K

A/N: Gonna make this a series abt her being a lowk nepo baby

Y/N’s life had always revolved around hockey. As the daughter of a star defenseman from the ’90s, her childhood was filled with rink-side memories, locker room laughs, and endless conversations about the game. Her dad had gone to university with Ellen and even played on the Mens National Team when Ellen played for the womens. With that remaining close especially when she married Jim. They all remained close with him. Because of that, Y/N grew up with the Hughes brothers—Jack, Quinn, and Luke—feeling more like family than friends.

As she got older, Y/N’s life diverged from the rink. She found fame as an actress, rising through the ranks to become a household name in Hollywood. Still, no matter how bright the spotlight got, she stayed close to her roots. Her friendships with the Hughes brothers expanded to include other NHL players like Trevor Zegras and Cole Caufield. Whether it was hanging out in the off-season or cheering them on from the stands, she was the unofficial sibling of hockey’s rising stars.

But her personal life was a little more complicated.

For the past few months, Y/N had been dating Matt Rempe, a towering enforcer with a reputation for physical play and an even bigger temper. The hockey world knew him as the guy who spent more time in the penalty box than on the ice. His aggressive playing style and frequent fights had earned him a demotion to the AHL—a fact her father and friends couldn’t overlook.

“Are you sure about him?” her dad had asked more than once, skepticism clear in his voice.

Even Jack, Luke, and Trevor had their doubts. “I mean, he’s a good guy, right?” Jack had said cautiously. “But, uh…maybe not your guy.”

Yeah, like someone who doesn’t punch people for fun,” Trevor added.

Y/N brushed off their concerns. They didn’t know Matt like she did. Sure, he had a reputation, but beneath the rough exterior was a man who was kind, funny, and fiercely protective. He treated her like gold, and that was all that mattered. Winning over her friends and family would take time, but she was willing to wait.

As her birthday approached, Y/N opted for a quiet celebration. Between work and travel, she wanted nothing more than a simple dinner with close friends. What she didn’t know was that Luke, Jack, and Trevor had cooked up a plan to surprise her.

Trevor stood in the aisle of a party supply store, holding up a pack of balloons. “I’m telling you, this is the move. We sneak into her place, decorate, and when she gets home—bam! Surprise party.”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “How do we know she’s not there?”

“She told me she was filming or something,” Jack said, tossing a bag of confetti into the cart. “We’ll be in and out. Easy.”

An hour later, armed with decorations and a cake, the trio let themselves into Y/N’s apartment. Trevor insisted on carrying the cake, while Jack and Luke carried the rest.

“She’s gonna love this,” Trevor said, plopping the cake box onto the kitchen counter.

Jack grinned. “Yeah, if we don’t screw it up.”

The three quickly got to work. Jack wrestled with an oversized banner that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY, trying to hang it over the living room window. Trevor blew up balloons, complaining about the lack of a helium tank, while Luke meticulously set up confetti-filled balloons around the coffee table.

“This is looking pretty good,” Luke said, stepping back to admire their handiwork.

“Where do you want the cake?” Trevor asked, balancing it precariously on one hand.

“Counter,” Jack mumbled, still wrestling with the banner. “Let’s finish before she gets home.”

“She’s not home,” Trevor said confidently, grabbing a balloon to blow up.

But he was wrong.

Y/N was home, and she wasn’t alone.

In her bedroom, she and Matt had spent the morning together, enjoying a rare, quiet day off. They’d slept in, laughed over shared jokes, and gotten caught up in each other in a way that made the rest of the world fade into the background.

Matt leaned back against the headboard, a lazy grin on his face. “So, part one of your birthday present?”

“Can it be presented with people around? Or is this a private one” Y/N replied, running a hand through his tousled hair.

“Definitely just us, might give your dad a heartattack” Matt teased, pulling her closer. “Come here”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling. They leaned in for another kiss creating explicit faint sounds of muffled noises through the apartment.

Out in the living room, Trevor froze mid-step. “Wait. Did you hear that?”

Jack, teetering on a chair, glanced over his shoulder. “Hear what?”

Trevor held up a hand, signaling for silence. All three of them stilled, ears straining. From down the hallway came the faint sound of moans—deep and unmistakably male and female.

Luke’s face turned bright red. “Oh my.”

“No way,” Trevor whispered, a grin spreading across his face.

Jack hopped down from the chair, his expression one of sheer panic. “It’s not what you think. Maybe she left the TV on.”

Another sound—this time softer, followed by an unmistakable thud—left no room for doubt.

“Oh, this is gold,” Trevor whispered, clutching the edge of the couch for support.

Luke groaned, burying his face in his hands. “We have to leave. Right now.”

“Agreed,” Jack said, already gathering their decorations. “Pack it up. Let’s go.”

Trevor, however, lingered. “Guys. We could just—”

“Nope,” Jack snapped, grabbing Trevor by the arm. “We’re leaving. Now.”

As they scrambled for the door, another sound—one that they really didn’t want to identify—echoed from the bedroom.

“Call Quinn,” Luke muttered as they fled into the hallway. “Call Quinn right now.”

Quinn answered on the second ring. “What’s up?”

Trevor’s voice came through in a near-shout. “You’ll never guess what just happened!”

“What did you do now?” Quinn asked, sounding suspicious.

“We didn’t do anything!” Trevor insisted. “But we went to surprise Y/N for her birthday, and, uh…”

Jack snatched the phone. “We heard them! Her and Matt. Going at it like rabbits.”

“What?!” Quinn sounded half-amused, half-horrified.

Luke’s groan was audible in the background. “It was so bad. I don’t think I’ll ever recover.”

Trevor took the phone back, grinning. “Quinn, I’m telling you. I’m traumatized, but it was also hilarious.”

“You guys are idiots,” Quinn said, though there was laughter in his voice. “Please tell me you didn’t say anything.”

“We ran out of there so fast, they probably didn’t even know we were there,” Trevor assured him.

“Good,” Quinn said. “Because if Y/N finds out, she’s going to kill you.”

Later that day, Cole joined the group call, his laugh echoing through the line as they recounted the story.

“She’s going to find out eventually,” Cole said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “You guys are the worst.”

Jack groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

Meanwhile, back in her apartment, Y/N had no idea what had just transpired—or the chaos that her well-meaning friends had unleashed.

Weeks after her birthday, Y/N found herself seated in a sleek studio alongside Jack, Trevor and Jamie Drysdale, appearing on Instagram live. The atmosphere was casual and lighthearted, the kind of energy Trevor thrived on—and the kind that made Y/N suspicious of what he might say.

Jamie leaned forward with a grin. “So, Y/N, how was your birthday? Heard stuff happened but I’ve been so busy can’t believe I missed it.”

Y/N smiled warmly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “It was great, honestly. Very low-key. Just how I like it.”

Trevor, sitting to her left, suddenly perked up, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Not that low-key,” he muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Jack immediately groaned and slumped in his chair. “Trevor, no.”

“What?” Trevor said innocently, spreading his hands. “It’s a funny story!”

Jamie’s grin widened. “Oh, I need to hear this. What happened?”

Y/N shot Trevor a warning glance, but he was already leaning into the phone, fully committed to his role as the ultimate pot-stirrer.

“So,” Trevor began dramatically, “we thought it would be a good idea to surprise Y/N for her birthday. You know, being the amazing friends we are. Balloons, banners, cake—the works. We figured we’d sneak into her apartment and have it all ready for when she got back.”

Y/N shook her head, already sensing where this was going. “Trevor…”

Trevor ignored her. “The thing is, we didn’t realize she was home—and, uh, she wasn’t alone.”

Jamie burst out laughing. “You’re kidding!”

“Oh, yeah,” Trevor continued, grinning ear to ear. “We’re mid-decorating—Luke’s got balloons, Jack’s fighting with a banner—and then we hear…” He paused for dramatic effect, lowering his voice. “Let’s just say we heard things.”

The studio erupted in laughter. Jack buried his face in his hands, muttering, “I told him not to tell this story.”

Trevor was on a roll now. “We froze, completely starstruck. Like, ‘Is that Matt?’ And sure enough…” He trailed off, smirking at Y/N.

Y/N, her face a mix of embarrassment and exasperation, finally spoke up. “Are you serious right now?” She turned to Jamie. “This is Trevor’s favorite pastime—making up ridiculous stories to embarrass me.”

Trevor looked affronted. “Making up? Oh, no, this is 100% real. Ask Luke!”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “I’m telling you, it’s not true. Matt and I would never—” She gestured sarcastically and vaguely, clearly trying to keep the conversation from getting too graphic. “This is pure fabrication.”

Jamie leaned in, still laughing. “So you’re saying you weren’t home?”

“I was home,” Y/N admitted, her voice calm but firm. “But Trevor has a very active imagination. Matt and I were for sure watching a movie in the bedroom.”

Jack, seeing an opportunity to back her up, jumped in. “Yeah, I mean…we didn’t actually see anything. We just heard…stuff. Could’ve been the TV.”

Trevor groaned. “Don’t cover for her! You know what we heard.”

Y/N crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. “Oh, please, Trevor. You probably heard muffled sounds and immediately jumped to conclusions. Matt and I were watching a crime thriller.”

Trevor shrugged, clearly enjoying himself. “Hey, if the shoe fits.”

Jamie laughed so hard he had to wipe his eyes. “This might be my favorite story of all time.”

Y/N sighed, half-laughing despite herself. “I can’t believe I’m defending my perfectly pg 13 relationship on live.”

“You’re welcome,” Trevor said smugly.

Jack chimed in, trying to steer the conversation away from further disaster. “Honestly, the best part is how fast we ran out of there. Luke didn’t even look back. We just left everything—balloons, streamers, the whole setup. It’s probably still there.”

Y/N groaned, burying her face in her hands. “You guys are unbelievable.”

Jamie grinned. “Well, whether it’s true or not, it sounds like Y/N’s birthday was very memorable.”

Trevor gave a mock toast to the phone. “To Y/N and Matt—congrats on keeping things…entertaining.”

Y/N gave him a playful shove, laughing despite her embarrassment. “Next time, maybe knock before you decide to play party planner.”

As the live wrapped, Y/N couldn’t help but shake her head. She might never live this down, but at least life with these guys was never boring.

[kiwi-bitchez]

Double Down, Triple Threat 

Summary: insecure!Eddie x bartender!Reader

Eddie is constantly flirting with you after his Corroded Coffin sets at the Hideout, and you have the bad habit of flirting back. What happens when you overhear a conversation that wasn’t meant for you? Maybe you’ve had the wrong idea about the cocky metalhead who negs you for free drinks. Now you need to take it into your own hands to resolve some built up tension. 

Smut, as always, with a touch of angst but generally fluff/happy ending. 

Word count: 18k (eek! in retrospect I maybe should have split this into multiple parts but...fuck it, brevity has never been my strong suit LOL) Buckle up for a doozy.

Content warnings: smut, afab reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol consumption, smoking, the devil’s lettuce, mention of Eddie's scars and sustained injuries (slightly canon divergent obviously because our boy is ALIVE here, but the events of season 4 generally stand otherwise), also Eddie does some negative self talk where he refers to himself as mutilated but everything is happy in the end I promise, and scars are nothing to be insecure about he's just down in the dumps you feel me?, oral (fem receiving), fingering (fem receiving), unprotected PIV sex (plz use protection irl), pet names, reader and Eddie shower together

A/N: I know it’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted a fic on here, but I hope all y’all who are still riding the Eddie Munson thirst train enjoy this :) I’m trying to regain the motivation to write more, so hopefully more fics to come soon (no promises though lol) (maybe some Steve? Steddie x Reader? Let me know what y’all want to see.) I

"I'll have the usual," his hoarse voice and boisterous presence cut through what few other customers sat at your bar, forcing your attention his way.

"Yeah, and what would that be?" you try to give him your best deadpan voice, unsure yet if you were in the mood for his antics. 

"Come on, like I ever order anything other than a whiskey and coke," his curly dark hair stuck slightly to his damp forehead, not having bothered to wipe the sweat from his brow in between the stage and the bar. If you could even call it a stage. It was more of a sad corner with an extension cable and a few amps that his grunting bandmates were lugging back into their truck while he very helpfully came over and tried to flirt with the bartender. You were the only bartender. On Friday nights anyways. 

"That's because you're unoriginal," his drink was already half made as you flick your eyes up through your lashes at him, knowing he was watching you intently, not that he was particular about how his drink was made by any stretch. "You're actually going to pay for it this time," you slid the glass over to him, "I'm not joking."

"You wound me," he tries his best to give you puppy dog eyes, "but I'm pretty sure Randy mentioned something about drink tickets when we negotiated our new Friday slot."

"That's not a thing," you make up menial tasks behind the bar to keep your hands and eyes busy while he relentlessly chats with you, "never has been. Plus if I keep giving you free drinks you'll get the idea that I like you or something." 

Fuck, you told yourself you should stop flirting back with him. Your first excuse had been professionalism, which didn't make a lick of sense considering you were a bar back at this hole in the wall that paid local bands in drink tickets, apparently. Your second excuse had been that as fun as Eddie was to chat with, you hardly knew anything about him other than his loud band and his drink order. 

Unfortunately he liked to chat and sooner than later you knew more about him than you wanted to. Your newest excuse? If you kept flirting back with him he might get the idea that he could see you outside of this dingy bar, and you liked the comfort and safety of the three feet of wood separating you, it kept you from doing something you might regret. 

"Don't act like you didn't like our set," he threw the rest of his drink back, "I saw you watchin' from over here."

"Yeah, well you're kind of hard to ignore, you know, with the volume and all," your voice had a too-playful tone that you mentally noted to dial back on. 

If you were being honest, Corroded Coffin was one of the weekly acts that you didn't entirely mind. Most were groups of middle aged men trying to relive the glory days by booking a weeknight at the Hideout, instruments barely tuned and a setlist that was decades out of style. While Eddie's band certainly wasn't everyone's cup of tea, you found yourself tapping your foot along with their songs more often than not. At least they were original, you’d give them that. 

He held his glass up to signal a request for another. "Go help your friends carry all your shit," you swiped the cup from his hand, hating that you focused on how your fingers briefly touched his, "and then I'll make you another. And I'm charging you for both."

"Whatever you say, babe" he spun around three or four times on the bar stool before sauntering off and finally assisting with moving the amps and drum kit. You rolled your eyes, not that he was watching you anymore, but more to keep yourself from checking out how his shirt clung to his torso. His black t-shirt was always a size too small, revealing his tattoo covered arms that you never allowed yourself to stare long enough at to make out what any of them were. 

Eddie was nice. As much as you liked to push each other's buttons and joke around, he was a lot more respectful than most patrons that tried their hand at flirting with you. He never said anything gross or disrespectful, not something you could say about most men who've had more than a few beers. 

But you didn't want to risk pushing any boundaries with him, because you work here, and his band plays here weekly, religiously. You didn't want things to get weird, and as much as you learned how to avoid certain patrons, there was only so much space between the 'stage' and your station behind the bar. 

Despite this, you have his second drink made before he finishes putting his stuff away, and you haven't started a tab for either of them. A big smile stretches across his cheeks when he notices his already-made drink set by his stool as he walks over from the back door. You couldn't help but feel a tiny smile creep up on your face as well. 

"Really made me work for this one, huh?" he takes the first sip while still standing before setting back into his seat, "truly amazing service, best I've ever had, really." You glare at him while cleaning some cups absentmindedly with a rag. "Not sure if you can tip on a drink ticket though..."

"Fuck off," you giggle and throw the wet towel at him, "you can't charm your way into TWO free drinks you ass."

"Aww you think I'm charming?" the flirtations between you were always edged with sarcasm, which you both found a lot easier than admitting 'hey you need to stop looking at me like that or else I'm going to keep thinking about pinning you against this countertop.'

"No, I don't, which is why you're PAYING for both those drinks," a lie followed by another lie, and you both knew it. "Where'd your band go?"

"Why? 'm I boring you?" he didn't mind taking up all your attention when the other bar patrons were either too drunk to stand or too old to even notice that a metal band had performed for the past hour. "No one's ever accused Gareth of being more interesting than yours truly. Plus he doesn't drink anyways, so your venture capitalist instincts wont work on him." He raised his drink to punctuate his joke before taking another long swig. 

"Ha ha," you don't give him the satisfaction of a real laugh, "I just wanted to make sure you had a ride home in case you try and swindle me into making you a third drink."

"Oh no, I told them all to scram, that I had a hot date with you and my unsettled tab," he leaned over the bar, trying to eliminate as much space between himself and you, "plus I've got a friend coming by to pick me up in a bit. So if you wanted to make me that third drink in exchange for me keeping you company while you close up, I certainly don't have any reason to turn you down."

"Fine," you point at him with a stern finger, "but this one'll be more coke than whiskey."

"Deal," he pointed his finger back at you, moving carefully in so the tips of your pointers touched. This made you genuinely laugh, unable to keep up a wall for too long around him. 

He finished his second drink while you ordered last call, and settled up with crumpled cash and mumbled thank you’s from the few remaining drunks. After closing up the cash register you make him that more-coke-than-whiskey drink as promised, and get to wiping down every sticky surface. 

"What's your drink?" he asks.

"Hmm?" you glance over from your hunched over position, trying to get the wet rag across the underside of the bar where someone had clearly spilt what appeared to be an entire pint of light beer. 

"You know my drink order, I wanna know yours." you stand up straight and look at him. 

You consider pushing back and demanding why he wanted to know, but it was late and you only had so many quips left in you, "Gin and tonic with extra lime." You get back to soaking up the spilt mess.

"Woooooow," his drink was finished and he took it upon himself to grab the broom from behind the bar and start sweeping up the bottle caps and tracked in dirt, "and you had the nerve to call me unoriginal."

"I'm not some creative rock and roll guitar guy like you, I don't need to be original, I'm just a bartender," you let him keep sweeping and start checking off other tasks from your closing list.

"You aren't just a bartender, give yourself more credit than that babe," he held up the dustpan full of crap, silently asking where to put it and you hold open a mostly full garbage bag for him to dump it into before tying it off, "judging by your drink order I would also guess that you're, hmmmm, an 85 year old man."

"Oh my god," you slap him on the arm with another half dirty hand towel, "in that case, you're doing voluntary manual labor just to flirt with this 85 year old man, so maybe you need to reevaluate your priorities."

He takes a few steps forward, not quite caging you against the bar, but nearly there. "And how am I doing? Is it working?" He's the closest he's ever been to you, jokingly sliding the broom around your feet, pretending to sweep while maintaining searing eye contact.

As the which-one-of-us-is-going-to-learn-in-first question buzzes around you, an irritating light flickers through the big front window, indicating someone had pulled their car right up to the curb with their high beams on. Eddie scrunches his nose up, and your urge to kiss him somehow grows despite his annoyed expression. "That's my ride."

You give him a small nod, turning your head to try and squint to see who could possibly be picking him up at this hour, but not making out much through the foggy glass. "I suppose I can manage the rest without you," you grab the broom from him, fingers touching for the second time tonight, "see you next week, rockstar."

Eddie wants to do something smooth, a wink or a clever line, but instead nervously gives you a nod and is out the front door before he can give it a second thought. The minute the door closes behind him you let out all the air you had been holding in your chest, both frustrated and slightly relieved. Eddie on the other hand- was bursting with regret and frustration, immediately running his hands through his hair and pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. 

"Absolutely not," Steve craned his neck out of his car that always looked like it had just gotten a fresh wax and detail, "at least five feet away from the beemer if you're going to light that." 

Eddie rolled his eyes, considering putting the cigarette back into the carton and getting the fuck away from this bar, but ultimately gave in and pivoted on his heel storming back towards the brick exterior and slumping against it as he flicked his lighter and took an aggressively deep pull. 

"What's your damage?" Steve moved out of the expensive car, keeping a bit of distance from Eddie but close enough that the two could talk, "That bartender you like wasn't on or something?"

"She's inside closing up now, so keep your fuckin' voice down" he gave Steve a glare and then immediately an apologetic look for being so prickly, "I'm just bad at this shit, man."

"You can't be that bad at it, Gareth and Jeff said the two of you eye fuck across the room every Friday night," Steve shrugs, understanding Eddie's drawback but knowing his friend rarely gives himself the benefit of the doubt. 

"Yeah, well, that's not the hard part," Eddie rips his cigarette and presses his wild hair deeper into the brick behind him, exhaling upwards. 

You had taken note that Eddie's ride hadn't left yet, so you busied yourself for a minute before deciding who cares if you had to give him an awkward wave on your way across the parking lot, so you locked up and grabbed the trash to take to the dumpster out back before leaving for the night. 

You really didn't mean to eavesdrop, but as soon as the back door clicked you heard their muffled conversation from around the corner. Rather than give away your presence with the clanging of the trash you gently set it against the wall and moved forward silently, staying out of sight but well within earshot. 

"Flirting is the easy part, she's fuckin' easy to talk to, man" Eddie's voice carried, and you felt guilty but continued to listen, "I don't want to just fuck her though, I want to like, date...her."

"Oh," Steve's voice dropped knowingly, "well that's... good, I guess, that you like her like that."

"Well even if I didn't like her like that and was only looking to fuck her," he sighs out, and you carefully listen while furrowing your eyebrows, trying to make sense of their conversation, "she's gorgeous, and no girl that hot- scratch that no girl at all want's to fuck some mutilated freak."

"Don't call yourself a freak," Steve's voice seems apprehensive. 

"Yeah, sure, but you can't say I'm not mutilated." There was a beat of silence, and you didn't have time to think too much about his words before he went off again, voice laced with thick sarcasm, "Oh hey babe, so glad you were able to look past that I live in a trailer park and all my neighbors think I'm a satan worshiping murderer, but I hope you can be cool with my singular nipple and weird lumpy scar tissue, I know it's super hot, you're gonna have to get in line." His voice carried easily far past your hiding spot. 

"You're not giving her much credit dude," Steve was still apprehensive to respond, knowing how Eddie got when he started to spiral, "Maybe she's not that shallow."

"It's not that," Eddie's voice started to calm, "I'd just rather take my twenty minutes of flirting after our Friday gigs than risk it and have her look at me like she's sorry for me or something." 

With that he snubbed out his cigarette butt with the toe of his combat boots, let out a big sigh, and moved to get into the passenger side of Steve's car. You take a few slow, careful steps back towards the slumped garbage bag and wait until you hear the engine start and see the lights pull out onto the opposite side of the road. 

Fuck. Part of you felt incredibly guilty for listening to what was obviously meant to be a private conversation, especially a private conversation about you. But your gears were turning far too fast to get hung up on guilt. 

You always felt apprehensive about Eddie because you figured he was a flirt, a player, the kind of guy who talks to all bartenders like that, and you just happened to be the one he flirted with after his Corroded Coffin shows. You never wanted to get too invested in making him smile or waiting around for him to chat you up, because you know how most guys are, especially guys who carry themselves with that much confidence. And you were fucking wrong. 

Now fully realizing that the ball is in your court, you need to plan your first move. You decided, Eddie was worth taking the risk. 

It was truly a shot in the dark, but if your intuition ended up being a bust then no one would know about your wasted afternoon other than yourself. The following afternoon you drove aimlessly up and down the unpaved residential streets of the trailer park. There were two in town but you had a pretty good feeling that this was the one. 

You only started to feel stupid when you got some confused and slightly angry looks from people going about their business, hanging laundry or smoking on their porches, scrunching their noses and trying to make out the unfamiliar car driving in circles around their neighborhood. 

Aha! There it was. You knew that your gut could only fail you so many times when it came to Eddie. Exactly what you had been looking for, a big black and blue 1971 Chevrolet van strewn with dents, patches of rust, and, your telltale sign, a homemade Corroded Coffin sticker crookedly placed on the faded chrome of the bumper. 

Step one, complete. Step two was contingent on Eddie even being home. The presence of his van had you feeling hopeful. 

You attempt to rid yourself of lingering nerves with a deep breath and silent pep talk. You park adjacent to his van and hop out before your legs can convince you not to, and suddenly you've rung the doorbell and are standing with your hands clasped nervously in front of his door. 

"Just a minute," you hear him yell from inside, step two, complete, "What're you here for? Cuz I only got weed right now so if you're..." his hollering voice trails off from inside as he catches a glimpse of you through the screen. "Y/n? What the fuck are you doing here?" 

"Jeez, hello to you too," you try to lace your voice with the same flirty edge that you always took with Eddie, but you didn't have the comfortable barrier of the bar or the security of being the person serving him his drinks. 

"How the fuck do you know where I live?" His tone wasn't quite angry, but it was bordering on more pointed than just confused. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to drop by totally unexpected," you suddenly felt vulnerable, regretting this whole stupid plan, "I can go." 

You start to scurry back to your car and hide your face forever, but he cuts you off with, "No, no, just, why are you here?" He softened his voice, and came down the stoop to hover over you on the last step. 

"Well," here goes nothing, "last night I felt like we sort of got interrupted." You pause, trying to gauge his reaction, "And I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I didn’t want to wait a whole week to see you again."

"Oh," his face and reaction didn't give you much of a clue as to what he was thinking. 

"And," you started filling the empty air with words, as you often did out of anxiety, "I know where you live because I've heard you sing 'fuck everyone in the trailer park, I'll play my music and curse your existance' probably a thousand times, it really wasn’t that hard to figure out where you live." 

He let out a chuckle, despite being deep in the throws of processing your earlier statement of feeling cut off. Of course he wanted to see you outside the confines of the musty bar, he just hadn't expected it to be like this, so sudden. "Well that's fair. I’ll give you double points for perception."

"I didn't mean to interrupt your Saturday," you began to reel again, "just wanted to tell you I'd like to hang out with you sometime, preferably not at The Hideout."

"Can sometime be now?" he hopped down from the last step and gave you an inquisitive smile, nose slightly scrunched and giving you butterflies. 

"Yeah, sometime can be now. You promise I'm not interrupting anything?" you felt a wave of relief, his energy had fully shifted from confusion to your comfortable flirty banter.

"Just a packed bong and have some laundry I probably wasn't going to do anyways," he suddenly realized he either had to invite you inside, which would be slightly embarrassing given the current state of his trailer, or suggest a secondary location, "you hungry? We can grab lunch or something?" 

He offered to drive, and you suggested sandwiches and beer to go for a backseat van picnic. He was relieved that you were down with doing something so casual, no stuffy cafes or overpriced food. If you were more than happy to suggest eating deli counter sandwiches in the back of his clunky van then maybe he had less to worry about than he thought. 

The passing moments between you had him realizing he truly didn't know much about you. Your job, how you had no problem snapping back at rude customers, and most recently your favorite drink. He wanted to know more, and quickly did as you had a 'regular' sandwich order and gave him directions to a side street that looked out onto a small lake, explaining that you'd eat lunch out here sometimes when the weather was nice. He parked the van in reverse, letting the back doors swing open, giving you the perfect bench looking out to the scenery to sit back and eat. 

"All my years living 'round here, I've never been to this spot," he noted through bites of sandwich wrapped in white paper.

"Yeah, most people know the spot across the lake with the rope swing and all that," you gesture across to where there was a popular jumping rock littered with empty beer cans, "too crowded for me though, it's more peaceful over here." 

"Sorry if I was a bit rude earlier," he started, but you quickly cut him off before he could finish his apology.

"No, no," you move your hand over to gently grab his mid gesture, "don't apologize, your reaction was incredibly reasonable."

"I just-' he started but you gave his hand a squeeze, "I really am happy you decided to come by, I didn't want you to think otherwise."

"I'm happy you chose lunch with me over a bong and laundry, that was some tough competition I had," he rolled his eyes at you.

"Don't make fun of me," he nudged your side, "I'm usually pretty wiped from Friday's show and trying to think of clever things to keep up with you, so my Saturday's are usually pretty lazy," your shoulders rubbed against each other, "being a washed up wannabe rockstar and flirting with a girl way out of my league can really do a number on me."

You share a soft giggle but reassure him that playing live music, even if it is only for you and a crowd of five drunks is still pretty cool. "Plus I like that you dress like this all the time, it's not just an act, this is just how you are," you gesture to his ripped jeans and ring clad fingers.

"What did you expect, babe? Surprise me at my trailer to find me in a polo and khakis?" the suggestion alone had the two of you laughing, brainstorming an alternate universe where Eddie was an accountant by day and only let his rocker side loose on Friday nights. 

"If you aren't secretly an accountant, what do you do when you're not playing music, if I may ask," you realize this was really one of the first personal questions you'd exchanged, keeping things punchy and surface level until this point.

"Ah, well," he scratches the back of his head, "although I wish the drink tickets we make at The Hideout were enough to cover rent, I work down at the body shop, you know the one down the street from the grocery store? My uncle knew some guys there and hooked me up with a job fixing cars after high school, and it's not too bad, I'm not half bad at it either, so that's where I'm at."

"You just really keep getting better and better, huh?" at first he wonders if your comment is sarcastic, but you continue "So what I'm hearing is you'll look at my rattling engine for free? I know nothing about cars and am always worried the people at the body shop are going to overcharge me."

"I only charge in sandwich dates and drink tickets, so you're in luck," he responds quickly without giving it much of a thought. 

You take a second, "What about dinner dates? Maybe movie dates too? Are those acceptable payments for your mechanic expertise?" 

"Not usually, but I'll make an exception for you," he responds after a few beats, realizing you wanted to see him again, and not just at the bar. 

You both are looking out at the lake, the buzzing energy around you making you nervous to look at each other. So you just tilt your head sideways to rest on his shoulder, "Phew, that's a relief, because I have a lot more of these planned."

"Oh yeah?" he shifts his body towards you, lifting your head from his shoulder and finally meeting his gaze, a stupid grin plastered across his face, he couldn't help it. "Which one of these dates do I finally get to kiss you?" You let out a breathy laugh, half amused by his corny line and half surprised he was being so forward. 

"Hmmm, I'm not sure," you pretend to think it over, stringing this out was killing both of you, but you couldn't help but push his buttons a bit more, "I'd say I'm kind of a third date kind of gal."

"Three? As in three from now or three including this one?" He seemed genuinely concerned, causing a genuine laugh to slip through the act you were putting on. 

You move your hand to his chest, faces closer than they had ever been. You had always been sucked into his big brown eyes, but now you saw flecks of honey and deep browns that bordered on black in them, faded freckles dotted across his cheeks, a chapped patch on his lower lip that had clearly been the victim of some anxious chewing. "I'll make an exception this time, for you."

He let you make the first move, leaning in and gently pressing your lips to his, soft and slow. You could feel his breath catch in his throat, prompting you to pull back and look at him through fluttered lashes, as your mouth parted slightly to ask him if that was okay, his big ring clad hands cupped the sides of your cheeks and pulled you right back into him, kissing you like he was afraid you'd evaporate if he ever stopped. 

The wind was knocked out of you. You couldn't be bothered to breathe when your attention was solely focused on his lips, his tongue, the sharp intake air he sucked in between slotting your top lip down to your swollen bottom one, nipping with teeth and holding your face so close. 

After a minute of soft whimpers and exploring the new intimacy you pull back to finally catch your breath, fully ready to ignore the need for oxygen and lean back in when you see his face, rosy and buzzing with excited energy. 

"Sorry, if that was kind of a lot," he realized you had given the sweetest peck and he proceeded to practically shove his tongue down your throat. 

You however, were already brushing his apology off and leaning in for more, missing the feeling of his big hands cradling your face, sending tingling shockwaves down your body. Before you could lunge back at him and take more of what you wanted, he takes your chin in between his fingers and tilts your head up to his.

"I don't know if you can tell, but I'm sort of crazy about you. And I really don't want to fuck this up, but I've wanted to do that for a really long time.” 

He could tell by your pout that you were begging for another kiss, and he couldn't refuse you. You were completely lost in it. Learning that he let out a little gasp when you ran your fingers up into his hair, that he would catch your bottom lip in between his teeth when you started to pull away and he needed more, that you were already completely wrecked for him. You weren't even conscious of the fact that you were now fully seated in his lap, sandwich wrappers and empty cans long pushed aside. 

Part of you wanted to wait, to let things build up organically over time and get physically intimate when the moment felt right. But fuck it, the moment felt right now. 

Any apprehension or worry of scaring him off dissipated when his thumb ran across your cheekbone, his other strong arm holding you steadily against him, you don't think you could wiggle away if you tried. Swirling in your apprehension you also fought the urge to press your hips down into his and grind against him harder. You wanted to let him take things at his pace and not rush anything, but fuck you could feel his cock getting hard between your legs and it was driving you insane. 

He dragged the knuckle of his middle finger up your neck along the curve of your jaw, speaking softly into your kiss, "can I kiss you here?" pressing his touch into the side of your neck.

"You can do anything you want to me," you pant back, slightly embarrassed at how desperately horny that came out.

"Fuck," he groaned out, cock noticeably twitching against his black jeans and into your thigh, "you can't say shit like that to me."

"Sorry, sorry," you try to gain your composure and lift off him slightly, “I-"

He took a hold of your waist and pulled your back down into his lap, diving into the side of your neck and nipping and sucking until he found the spot that made you squeeze your thighs slightly around him. "Anything I want requires a lot more time and space than we have right now, pretty girl." He mumbled into your neck in between kisses, his words making your back arch slightly more into him. "Plus I need to be a gentleman," you rolled your eyes at this. 

"Since when have you ever worried about that," you tug his hair back to force him to look at you.

"You really want to know what I want, right now?" he quirked an eyebrow.

"Really, really," you let your weight sink down onto his lap a touch more, feeling the stiff length under his jeans slot between your thighs a bit deeper, making his breath hitch before he could respond. 

"I want you to lay back on those blankets up there," he nodded towards the few crumpled up blankets he had shoved behind the driver's seat, "and let me eat your pretty pussy until you're screaming loud enough for the people across the lake to hear."

Whatever you were expecting, it wasn't that. 

This unexpected burst of sexual confidence threw you for a loop, as you were fully prepared to be the one making all the big moves. Your mouth hung open slightly, struggling to form a response when all that was swarming through your mind was holy fuck, holy fuck, that was so hot, what the fuck do I say. 

Rather than respond with words you just roll off his lap and start moving deeper into the back of his van, propping your torso up on bent arms and sending him back a suggestively raised eyebrow. He swung his legs up over the ledge and took one of the doors with him, sliding into the van and quickly shutting the other as well. 

It took a second for your eyes to adjust, the previous sunlight coming in from across the lake was cut off, and the light source now was only coming from the front windows, making things darker but not invisible. You quickly had no trouble making out Eddie's slender form shuffling around and getting situated in between your bent knees, urging you to lay back a bit more and relax as much as your body would allow against the lumpy blanket pile. 

"This is okay?" he asks while leaning down to pick up where you had left off a moment ago. 

"Yes, fuck," you wiggle up into his form, wanting as much contact as he would allow, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him down into your lips. 

It all had moved faster than you were used to but fuck if it didn't feel so right. Why did you feel more comfortable with this person you hardly knew than you had with your past few long term relationships? He just had this way of taking your nerves and throwing them out the nearest window. 

After sucking on your lower lip until it was puffy and slick he dips his chin into the crook of your neck, dragging his perfect nose up your jugular and nestling into the junction of your neck and ear, licking a stripe all the way. You wanted to desperately buck your hips up into his, but only allowed yourself half the satisfaction of lifting your thigh slightly to give him more space to sink deeper into your slumped form. 

When Eddie’s life flashed before his eyes, on more than one occasion- actually- he wasn’t particularly satisfied with what he saw. In the moments before what he assumed was death, his brain searched for the best moments to accumulate and reminisce on before his body succumbed to the untimely demise he was facing. It wasn’t much. 

He wished he had more than smiling moments with his D&D club, a few killer performances at the Hideout, no killer audiences, some nights of revelry with his friends, and a few forgettable hookups in dingy bar bathrooms. That couldn’t be it, right?

In the wake of his life flashing, fading, and flashing again, he made more space for good things. After his shows now he let himself think about you, and how much he liked you, let himself try his hand at flirting. Because if he was going to come anywhere that close to death again, he needed more to show for it than a few trysts with nameless girls and an unnerving amount of scar tissue. 

So he wasn’t about to fuck this up. If someone came at him with an axe tomorrow, at least he’d have the memory of you splayed out beneath him in the back of his van, lips shiny and cheeks rosy. If his life were to flash before his eyes again it wouldn’t be as bad.  

“Do you know how long I’ve thought about this?” he mumbled into your neck, his denim clad thigh pressing perfectly in between your legs. You could only hum back as if to say, “no, tell me.”

“I think you do know,” his teeth grazed upon your earlobe, sending a jolt through your hips and finding solace in the friction between your thighs with his.

“Yeah, I know,” you breathe out, arching your neck down to nudge the tip of his nose with yours, “do you?”

“I didn’t have a clue,” he mumbled into your lips before slipping his tongue against yours, sickly sweet and laced with all the regret of not asking you out sooner. 

You let your ankles hook around one another, locking your hips together and earning a deep rumble of a moan from the man trapped. “I recall you mentioning something about the people across the lake hearing me…” you playfully trail off, equal parts confidently flirty and deeply desperate for him to act on his earlier promise. 

He had nudged his way down into the neckline of your shirt, licking and nipping at as much of your breasts as he could find, fingertips grazing the waistline of your pants. Part of you wanted to just lay here and let him have his way with you, but the conscious part of your brain recognized the insecurities he expressed in that conversation you weren't supposed to hear, and signaled you to be as forward with him as you could be. 

“Fuck,” you struggled to pry your hands between your pressed bodies to reach your jeans button, “Eddie can I take these off, I want to feel you.” 

With your hands moved south, you managed to undo the clasps of your jeans while also running your hands upwards towards his shirt, wanting to feel the skin beneath. 

It was subtle, but impossible for you to miss, when your fingertips grazed his lower stomach and trailed up his t-shirt his body shifted into a tense state for just a moment. You could have easily missed it. It took all of a millisecond for him to subtly jerk away from you and redirect the attention to your now unbuttoned pants. His hands were dragging the material down your thighs before you had a moment to register the way he averted your touch. 

He playfully tossed your bunched up pants over his shoulder, as if they had anywhere else to go other than the three feet of van between him and the doors. After that flashed moment of shyness, you noticed nothing but a playful smirk on his face, smile crinkled at the corners of his cheeks and eyes full of wild mischief. 

His hands spread against your thighs, digging his fingertips into as much skin as the width of his palms would allow. 

“So fucking perfect,” he drank you in, hardly noticing the moment you pulled your shirt and bra over yourself, but dumbstruck as soon as his eyes caught sight of your reveal.

Knowing he had yet to put his money where his mouth was, he adjusted downwards and let his flushed cheek make contact with your thigh. In that moment he vowed to let the sight of the little damp patch in the center of your cotton panties stay forever in his mind. 

He didn’t let a single thought register in his brain before he leaned forward and let his tongue lick a fat strip up the middle of your clothed center, adding dampness to the apparent arousal already there. 

“Jesus,” you were slightly taken aback at his action, letting your head fall back, while still lowering your gaze down to where his hooded lids and pink tongue sat in between your thighs.

He reveled in the feeling of being between your thighs, letting his tongue play around the center of your panties for a few strokes before the twitching in your legs signaled that you had had enough of his teasing. 

Taking a blissful moment to hook his finger through the crotch piece of your underwear and pull it to the side to reveal your slick center, he simply couldn’t help himself. He pulled back and drank the sight of you in, panties wet with your arousal and his spit pulled to the side and your perfect cunt finally in his sights. 

The groan he let out only tripled your level of neediness for him. You let your chest puff up and hips gyrate forward at nothing to signal that you needed him, like, now.

Before you could even think of something snarky to say to get him to get on with it, his entire face was fully buried in you. An involuntary ahhh escaped you as he let his entire tongue press as far into you as space would allow. 

“Ohmygod,” all coming out in one breath, “fuckeddie.” 

He groaned deeply into you at the feeling of your pussy on his mouth, your taste, how your hips twitched slightly when his nose pressed against your clit. He didn’t even think about all those drunken chats with the boys or stupid cosmo articles he couldn't help but read, eating your pussy didn’t require any thought, he could only feel. 

Your sighs were like a song to him, every sharp inhale and subtle whimper, he caught it all and it was the most beautiful music. He let his tongue swirl faster when he heard your breath hitch, gripped your thigh tighter when you let out that beautiful exhale. 

“So fucking good for me,” he mumbled into your inner thigh in between licks, fully pussy drunk and ready to stay here forever, “fucking perfect.”

After some selfish exploration, he settled on a steady rhythm against your clit, making your back arch and whines jump an octave. 

“Eddie, Eddie,” you groaned, feeling embarrassed how needy your voice already sounded, “can you use your fingers too, please.” Desperate. That’s how you felt, and you couldn't help but be self conscious for any more than a moment, as he immediately headed your request. 

Guitar fingers. You fucking knew it. You always found him attractive and charming, but immediately scolded yourself the moment you started speculating about those damn fingers. If he could learn Metallica solos in private, what else could he do?

Curling upwards in that magically delicious motion that had you already seeing stars, he glanced up at you upon entering and was met with the glorious sight of your mouth hanging open and eyes fluttering shut. 

You simply couldn’t be bothered by the rickety van floor beneath you, the sad lumpy pillow propped under your head, or the stagnant, vaguely cigarette scented air around you. Nope. No thoughts other than the tightening knot in your stomach and how those pretty brown eyes peered up through too-perfect lashes at you in between sinful strokes. 

“Making me feel so fucking good,” you hardly recognized your voice as your own, “please don’t stop, Eddie, please…”

And there it was, euphoric bliss found in the back of a pot dealing metalhead’s van. Your thighs quivered and your brain lost all capacity for thought. All you could feel was the sudden wash of pleasure, the pulsing between your legs, and the tongue and fingers fucking into you as if it was the last thing he ever did. 

Writhing, trying to keep your moans down despite his verbalized promise for them to be heard far and wide, you try to control the jerk of your hips and grip on his hair. You rode out your orgasm, far sooner than you would have liked. You wanted to revel in it. 

After months of relentless flirting and suppressing your attraction to him, you wish you could have held your orgasm off a while longer. You simply couldn't allow yourself to bask in the velvet of his tongue or the tickle of his bangs on your thighs. You needed it too badly to hold off. 

Coming down from your orgasm, a broken moan cracked from you and let him know to slow his roll. In between catching your breath you catch a view of him sucking your release off of his slick fingers, and almost throw yourself at him, beg him to jump your bones. But all you can do is let out a breathy laugh and find the strength to prop yourself up on your elbows to get a better look at him. 

“You come?” he asks, slight snark to his voice.

You muster up the energy to bop him upside the head and ruffle his hair along the way. “Fuck off,” you respond, still breathless, “you know I did.”

“I know,” he cocks his head, still admiring your form, your flushed face and rise and fall of every breath, “It’s polite to ask, though.”

“Ah yes, Eddie Munson, most polite man I know,” you flop back onto the mismatched pillows.

“Hey!” he pretends to sound offended but only manages to tug at your heartstrings, “I’ll have you know, that I am a delight.” 

“Can’t argue with that,” you reach down to feel your dripping folds before hunching forward to search for your underwear, which haven't traveled too far from his knees on the van floor.  

You wanted to return the favor, do more than return the favor, but something about his shift in demeanor and the way he angled his body away from yours slightly to adjust his hard cock in his pants and keep up the too-casual post-orgasm conversation had you thinking it was more than him being too polite to accept your advances. 

“Shit, what time is it,” he begins to shuffle towards the front of the van to check the time while you awkwardly gathered your clothes and redressed, fully assessing that whatever fooling around in the back of this van you were doing was officially over. 

“I, uh, have a few errands to run,” he sounded apologetic, not like he was making some excuse to get you out of his hair, “I can drop you off, or you can come along for the ride…”

There is was, your affirmation that he was just as desperate to hang onto this moment together as you were. 

“I actually have a shift starting pretty soon,” you regrettably admit, “and as much as I’d love to ditch it and be your passenger princess, the Saturday tips are usually the bulk of my rent money so…” 

He understood, he hated how much he understood. 

“What time do you get off?” He didn’t even try to hide how eager he was to see you again, again in ten minutes, again later tonight, again tomorrow, again as many times as you’d let him. 

“Get off? Pretty sure I did that like three minutes ago…” you joke and appreciate his huff of a laugh, “Um, I’m closing, so probably not until like two or three. Don’t worry though, I can give you my number and we can do this again when we’re both free.”

“I’m free later… at two,” his expression was dead serious, “or three, or four, or whenever.” He noticed your brows shoot up and words start to form in your mouth, before you could speak he cuts in, “If you won’t be too tired or anything. I can pick you up?”

“It’ll be pretty late Eds,” you were falling into the trap of his puppy dog eyes, “you don’t need to wait up for me like that, I promise we can see each other again, tomorrow even…”

“Tell me to fuck off if I’m being pushy,” he took your hand in his and mindlessly stroked circles into it with his thumb, “but I’m sort of a night owl, not big on the whole sleeping thing anyways, and I’d love to pick you up from work later.”

“Okay,” you agree, the soft earnestness of his voice snared you, and considered the magic he had just worked between your legs, who were you to say no. The glimmer in his eye and quirked smile at your response had you wishing you had said more than ‘okay,’ wondering what kind of look you would have gotten from a ‘yes, please,’ or ‘I’d love that.’

He drove you back to his trailer, not letting go of your hand during the ride, not even to turn up the music at his favorite parts. He offers to follow you back to your place, insisting that waiting for you to shower and change into work clothes and then drop you off at the Hideout was “on the way” to these supposed errands he had to run. 

You roll your eyes but start to accept that this is the kind of guy Eddie is, insincerity undetectable when he makes these offers. You invite him in, but he opts to wait outside with a cigarette, pacing a bit and then forcing his legs and mind to still by waiting in the drivers seat. 

“Hey hot stuff,” he wolf whistles as you exit your apartment, dressed in your usual black shirt and jeans for work, apron balled up in your bag to put on once you arrive. 

He’s sweet, and sincere. As much as you liked the jab banter between the two of you at the bar, you think you might prefer his sarcastic jokes mixed with sweet compliments and longing gazes more. Not that you weren’t getting that from him at the bar before, there were plenty of longing gazes there too, but now the shared glances are heavy with the knowledge of what his tongue feels like on your cunt. 

A sloppy, exaggerated kiss on the cheek and a ‘go get ‘em tiger’ sends you off into the bar, where your hands will be pouring cheap liquor for the next several hours but your mind will be solely occupied with what your post-work date with Eddie entails. 

The drink special of the night was a mix of anxious anticipation and lustful yearning, shaken too aggressively and served with sunsteady hands. Luckily the Saturday rush kept you mostly focused on vodka sodas and Guinness pours, wiping down sticky surfaces and making change for impatient customers. 

You had assistance behind the bar, and that also meant assistance closing up, finally allowing yourself to start peeking through the window to see if Eddie held up on his promise. Of course he had. He’d been waiting in the lot, scoring a few sales from exiting patrons who knew him previous deals, since long before the bar closed. 

You wipe your sweaty palms onto your apron and ball it up into your bag before bounding across the parking lot towards Eddie, who always seems to have this effortless charisma buzzing around him, a cigarette dangled from his pretty lower lip and posture just slouched enough to still be sexy. Maybe you were biased at this point. 

He pulls you in by your waist, angling his chin up to blow the smoke up into the sky rather in your direction. 

“How was work?” Your cheeks were already starting to grow hot at the feeling of his pinky finger landing on the strip of skin between your shirt and jeans, “Miss me?”

“Bartending’s a lot easier when I don’t have your nosy ass pestering me for free drinks,” you cock your head at him, silently asking for a drag of his cigarette, which he immediately understands and complies, “wasn’t too bad though, happy it’s over,” you exhale. 

“If you’e hungry there’s some fries and a milkshake by the passenger’s seat,” he let you slip from his grasp to spin around towards the van door.

“For me?” you peek through the window, realizing he didn’t just mean extras from his dinner earlier, he had gone out of his way to pick you up a post-work snack.

“Unless you aren’t hungry,” he moves to hop in the drivers side, “In which case you can practice tossing fries into my open mouth while I drive.”

You let a few fries fly across the car seat in his general direction, feeding him the occasional one directly, but inhaling most of them shortly after you peeled out of the parking lot. 

“D’you want me to bring you home, or…” you knew where he was headed with this, a nervous edge to his voice. 

“We can hang out back at your trailer if that’s okay,” you say mid-fry, “as long as I can take a quick shower I don’t mind chilling there.”

He grins like a giddy schoolgirl and grips the steering wheel just a touch tighter, and drives just a bit faster back to the trailer park. As anxious as you felt during your shift, you can’t be bothered to overthink with Eddie leaning towards you with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, making googly eyes at the shake you were downing as his way of asking you for a sip. 

He put the van into park before the wheels had even come to a complete stop, hustling around the front to make sure he was the one to open your door. He had spent some of the time you were away straightening up his trailer for the first time in a good long while. Empty beer cans were cleared and he even changed the bed sheets. It still wasn’t the Ritz or anything, but at least he can say he tried.

He tried to busy himself with locking the door behind you after entering, not wanting to see if your eyes drifted over to the mess of records and smoking pariphenelia that cluttered the coffee table, or the chance that the mixture of heavy metal and nerdy posters strewn about would draw a judgmental reaction. 

When he let his gaze drift back to you, you weren’t looking at any of that. You were looking right back at him, already leaning up on your toes and asking, “Can I kiss you again?” 

A mumbled “of course” had you wrapping your arms around his neck and melting into his touch, finding his lips already on yours before you could go in for the kill. 

The kiss started off French-fry-and-strawberry-shake flavored, smiling into his lips as the anticipation of seeing him again after only a few short hours slips away. 

“Thank’s for spending so much time with me today,” you whisper in between sticky sweet kisses, “and for the fries and-“

He took your cheeks in his hands and smushed your lips into his mid-sentence, pulling back to see the puckered fish face he held between his hands. 

“You’re welcome,” his big button eyes bore straight through you, as if he saw all of you and more, “but you don’t have to thank me, I like being with you, and I ended up eating most of the fries anyways,” he trails off, cheeks rosy and lips slick from your claim on them.

“You wanted to shower?” He cuts himself off, and feels stupid for it. He knew he could keep kissing you and kissing you and kissing you, and the only thing holding him back was his anxious brain and big mouth. 

“Oh, yeah,” you were a little surprised that he remembered, and chose to bring it up now, “if you don’t mind. I always feel a little sticky after work, you know, with the Hideout’s C health rating and all.”

With a smile that nearly knocked the air out of you, he took a deep bow like some silly court jester and motioned down the trailer’s only hallway. You took your lead and followed his outstretched arm, figuring there were only so may doors that could possibly lead to a bathroom. 

“Oh, shit, wait,” you hear him scramble behind you, shuffling past into the door you assume to he his bedroom, emerging milliseconds later with a crumpled towel in his balled up hand, “you’re gonna want this.”

“Thank you,” you’re slow with your movements, wondering how he was acting so squirrelly, like a middle school boy around the girl he wanted to take to the dance, even though he had you fully spread out begging for him in the back of his van only hours earlier, “is the shower big enough for two?”

You meant it equally suggestive and genuine, knowing full well that not all showers are built for partner bathing. However, the fear stricken look that washed across his face for a millisecond before scrunching up and setting to neutral had you thinking you had just asked if there was a built in hot tub or something like that. His mouth hung open and for a moment that conversation you weren’t supposed to hear replayed in your mind, maybe you had to take this slower than he was willing to let on. 

“Just looking for someone to massage my scalp, that’s all,” you try to jokingly play it off, keeping your invitation open but concealing it with a joke to double back on just in case.

“Yeah, it’s- uhhh,” Eddie, who was always quick with a comeback was suddenly lost for words, “It’s the size of a normal shower, yeah.” It’s not like he could lie, all you had to do was turn around and size it up for yourself. 

You take the towel from his white knuckled grip and pivoted towards the door that was close to having burn holes from where his laser focused eyes were shot. You give him a wink over your shoulder, figuring that was enough of an invitation and vague enough of an excuse for him to leave depending on what he wanted. You hated this line you were towing, knowing more than you should- yet still feeling so in the dark. 

He was right, it was a normal sized shower. A bathtub with a sliding door and a detachable shower head with only one working setting. There was a rack with three-in-one and a bar of dove soap, which should have annoyed you but made you giggle instead. You let a quarter sized drop of the generic body wash slash shampoo slash conditioner lather into your hands when you heard the bathroom door creek open, purposefully left unlocked. 

“Hey, is it okay I’m in here?” He sounded so genuine in his concern, unknowing you were on the verge of begging him to get in the shower with you. 

“Yeah,” you borderline shout over the running water, “here to help massage my scalp?” You let your tone stay light and joking despite being deadly serious. 

“Wow I didn’t realize your hands were really that delicate and incapable,” he tried to match your energy, but an anxious edge remained present. 

“I mean,” you searched for your words, “I’ve seen you play Metallica, I know those fingers could surely get this pine scented crap deep into my roots.” You let the suggestive comment linger, nervous after a beat of silence passed. 

“If you really need my help,” you heard him shuffling around , “who am I to turn a damsel in distress away?”

You felt your cheeks get rosy and shoulders wiggle with excitement as you caught the shower door jerk open. Your face was towards the shower head, and you only turned a quarter of the way around before Eddie stepped in behind you and those guitar-string-calloused-hands gripped your shoulders and twisted you back towards your view of the water stream. 

“I’m gonna make you a deal,” his voice was coated with as much charisma as he could muster, his worries only poking through enough for you to notice, “I’ll give you the full treatment, but you can’t turn around.”

You were willing to play along with about any game he suggested. If he asked you to bend over backwards you’d extend your spine as far as it could go. 

You stood with your front as straight towards the shower head as you could, only feeling his presence behind you and his gentle hands lay on your shoulders to assure you wouldn’t turn around. 

“Just let me take care of you,” he edged closer, letting you feel his naked body enter your space, his face craning over your shoulder to gauge your reaction, “Just stay like this and let me feel you.”

It was less of a question and more of a plea, the only thing more pathetic sounding was the whimper that slipped out of you when you felt his body press against your back, warm and hesitant to press all the way into you, but close enough for you to feel his skin. 

“Okay,” you let your head lull back onto the space between his collar bone and shoulder, keeping your eyes closed, not that you could see anything from this angle anyways, “I’ll stay just like this, promise.”

“I just-“ you could hear his walls come up, suddenly trying to find the words to explain himself to you, “I’m not-“

“Eddie,” you whisper, eyes fluttering open to glance up at him as much as you could, “it’s okay. I’ll stay just like this, I’m just happy to be here with you.”

You gently found his hands resting at your hips and guided them up to your soapy scalp, “We both know the real reason I called you in here anyways,” you joked, and angled your head straight forward so he could run the pads of his fingers all through your 3-in-1 coated hair.

He let out a light chuckle at your joke, nearly feeling it catch in his throat as all the passed time of insecurity and locking his feelings away welled up and shattered with the intimacy of washing your hair. What did he do to deserve having you like this? For you to understand and want him to stay anyways? 

As much as his emotions clouded his vision and stunted his breathing, the rush of blood in between his legs broke his internal monologue. As overwhelmed as his mind was, his body couldn’t be convinced to focus on anything other than the sudsy girl pressed up against him, letting out little noises of satisfaction as he let his fingers absentmindedly massage away. 

“This’s nice,” you lean back into him a bit, “it’s like masturbating, you know? Always feels better when someone else does it for you.” You didn’t feel too guilty about the sexually charged comment, considering the fat rod that was pushing into your lower back. 

He let out a short chuckle, but his breathing was rapidly turning heavy as the air clouded with steam and your wet body rubbed against him, fully arching into his erection as if you wanted to get a better feel. 

“Can I wash the rest of you?” his request is polite, but his voice is lust filled and bordering on begging. 

You hum in agreement and lift your arms to let him slip his hands around you, one crossing your chest and the other reaching around to get more gel, “It technically is shampoo and body wash, and I was promised the full treatment here.” 

As much as you wanted to keep joking with him, finding silly things to comment on to break the tension, your resolve was quickly going down the drain as his big hands lathered you up. 

“You’re so beautiful,” his voice is just audible over the rushing of the shower water, “I’ve always thought so, but now I fucking know it.” 

His warm breath against your ear manages to cut through the heat of the steam, making you shiver despite it all. “Eddie,” you whine, his hands running up and down your torso, spending more time on your chest than the rest, but surely showering you in as much attention as his hands could reach.

Knowing that tone from earlier, already committing to knowing your body as intimately as you’ll allow him to, he immediately gives in and touches you exactly where you want him most. 

Most of the bubbles had dissipated, and he held you close to him, with one hand splayed across the center of your chest and the other dipping down to run two fingers through your now parting legs. 

He could feel the slick of your folds, standing out from the water cascading down your body, so warm and wet in a different way. 

“Fucking hell,” he groans out, letting his hips roll forwards slightly to find some friction against your backside, sliding his fingers from your hole up to your clit a few experimental times before letting his middle and ring fingers dip into you. 

When he had gone to town on you earlier in his van, which somehow felt like a million light years ago, you had taken a keen interest to the way his metal rings brushed up against your inner thighs and lower lips when he slipped his digits into you. As much as you had reveled in that new sensation, he had taken all his jewelry off along with the rest of his clothes and reservations before joining you in the shower. And now you could grind down onto his hand until he was completely buried to the hilt of his knuckles, no demon heads or upside down crosses in your way.

You wanted to wiggle and writhe around, feeling a bit week in the knees and desperate to buck your hips down against his pumping fingers. He pressed your chest tighter against him, lips pressed up against your ear, “I thought you promised to be good and stay still for me.”

He could feel your pussy clench at that, letting out a satisfied chuckle and  plunging his fingers right back into your cunt, letting the meat of his palm massage your clit in perfect time. 

“S’ this what you wanted,” his voice had the full bodied confidence of a man who didn’t just ask you to not turnaround to see him without a shirt on, “for me to be all sweet and wash your hair, then make you cum on my fingers like the dirty girl I know you are?” 

The smallest fraction of you wanted to be a brat and joke back at his silly use of shower innuendo, but your mind was almost entirely committed to the feeling of his hands on you and his dick rutting Into the meat of your ass.

“Eddie,” you could barely squeak his name out, “Eddie, can I touch you too, please? Please?” While his voice had been pleading before, you were literally begging to get your hands on him. 

“Like this,” you manage to open your eyes, head still resting against his shoulder and your hand snaking back to where his cock pressed into you, not fully grabbing it but motioning towards it with your hand. 

He snatches your wrist up with the hand not occupied with your tightening pussy, and for a second you fear that you had crossed a boundary. 

As much as you were willing to comply with not looking, you were bursting at the seams to touch him, make him feel good, show him how much you wanted to be right here with him and nowhere else. 

Before your mind could race any further, come to a screeching halt and apologize, he guides your hand up underneath your chin and demands “Spit.”

Your short circuiting brain dashes from his fingers, remaining crooked inside of you, his request, and the tone of voice he used to ask. You were fucked. Drool leaks from your lips before you even have the chance to process his words other than the immediate feeling of oh fuck yes. 

He brings your spit coated hand back to reach around, allowing you to wiggle it in between your wet bodies and find his eager cock already arching into your touch. 

He only faltered for a moment, the consistent dizzying pace of his fingers inside you stuttered the moment he felt your slick palm take an experimental stroke. The moan he let out was involuntary, along with a breathy “Oh, shit.”

Obviously you couldn’t size him up visually, but the weight of him in your palm was enough to have your mouth watering and thighs squeezing his wrist a bit tighter. Uncut? Maybe? With a pretty patch of curls to match his mop top? 

“Just like that, please,” you whine out into the steamy air, the two of you finding a joint rhythm between your hands and subtly rolling hips. 

“Your pussy feels so fucking good, so warm and tight for me,” every other word slurred into the curve of your neck. 

“You’re gonna make me cum,” you try and match his increasing speed with your hand, “Eddie, please don’t stop, I’m-“

“Shhhh,” he was getting lost in it too, “I’ve got you.”

Your legs turn to jelly, but he keeps you steadily upright with his support on your chest, focusing entirely on you despite the welling orgasm of his own rapidly approaching. 

It’s the crack in your voice that pushes him forward, the high pitched breathy moans crumbling and releasing the noises of pleasure from deep within your chest. His name  mixed in with ahhhs and uhhhs as if his name is the only word you know in this moment. 

“That’s right,” a sense of confidence welled in him as your limp body twitched against his and your cunt squeezed his relentless fingers, “cum all over my hand, doing so good for me.”

Despite your orgasm wracking your brain and body succumbing completely to whatever Eddie was willing to give you, the thought of collapsing into the shower floor never crossed your mind. He held you so close and steady against his chest, it crosses your mind that you may not be putting any weight onto your feet at all by this point. 

Rather than catch your breath as you come down from your quaking orgasm, you slip deeper into the throws of pleasure, biting your lip and craning your neck backwards so he can see the fucked out expression on your face. A few more steady, enthusiastic pumps mixed with a desperate kiss, wet and at an awkward angle, breathless and needy, perfect and dizzying, sends Eddie over the edge with you.

The deep rumble of his chest against your back as he groans into your open mouth, encourages you to keep your pace as he gently fucks himself into your hand. He’s spilling into your hand and halting his wiggling fingers buried inside you, letting the momentum that the two of you had built up come to a pulsing end. 

The two of you stay tangled in each other for a moment, hands sticky and brows dewy with sweat despite the running water, which had long lost its heat and now settled at a less than comfortable lukewarm. Neither one of you wanted to move. Eddie would have stayed there until his legs cramped and the shower turned ice cold. 

His eyes were screwed shut, head tilted back, still holding you close until you wiggled from his iron grip to bring your cum covered fingers up to your lips to suck two of them clean. 

“Jesus Christ,” he was thankful that he had opened eyes in enough time to witness that, “You’re gonna fuckin’ kill me, you know that?”

You let out a mischievous giggle with his cum coated fingers still in your mouth, glancing over your shoulder to catch the look on his face. Equal parts hungry to pick you up and fuck you against the shower wall right now, and melting down to nothing and slipping away down the drain, unable to even start comprehending what had just transpired between you two. 

You let your fingers go with a pop and turn back around, “Don’t act like you weren’t going to do the same,” you let the chilling water hit your face, focusing on anything other than turning around and lunging at him, wrapping your body around his and letting your skin melt into his. 

He gives into temptation and lets his pruny fingers meet his tongue. He knew what you tasted like from your escapade in his van eaierler, but he’d seize any change he got to take in as much of you as he could. 

“That was,” he started, unsure how to sum how he felt, good, great, perfect, none of those words felt correct, “fuck, yeah- that,”

“Me too,” you press your back into his again, “Thank you Eddie.”

Before he can stumble over his words any more, you ask if he’s okay for you to shut the water off, and you ask if he’d be willing to spare some sleep clothes for you to borrow. You curiously stay in the shower while he takes your excuse for him to leave unseen. 

After toweling off and slipping into the old t-shirt and boxers he left folded up on the counter for you, you found him already dressed and in bed, set criss cross and packing a bong. 

“Post-shower-orgasm smoke, cuddle, then sleep?”

“I’d love nothing more,” you get cozy among the pillows and let the swirling smoke and easy conversation lull you into a comforting half sleep. 

An easy energy settled between the two of you, a silent understanding that you weren’t going to ask him questions, and a building comfort that made him almost ready to show you. 

You slept tucked into his side, and didn’t even mind his snoring or tossing in the night. Every time he rolled over, your sleeping form just found a new way to mold into him. It was the best he had slept in months. 

A steady stream of sunlight blazing directly through the blinds and into your eyes pulled you from your slumber, gorging your groggy eyes to open and crunched up limbs to search for room to stretch. The involuntary fluttering of your eyes and long extension of your libs was far beyond your control. 

“Oh!” You whisper out to yourself once your brain manages to catch up with your waking body, realizing the somewhat compromising position the night had thrown you into, your leg hiked up and clinging to Eddie’s waist, with both your arms scrunching up his t-shirt and leaving a strip of stomach exposed. 

A negligible, unnoticeable few inches between where his sweatpants hung low on his hips and where your gripping arms had balled up his hole-ridden t-shirt stood before your gaze. 

You didn’t mean to stare, and the moment you caught yourself doing so, you quickly and quietly removed your tangled limbs from his and repositioned yourself so that he was half spooning you, eyes facing far away from his unintentionally exposed scar tissue. 

You knew it was probably going to be worse than you were expecting. You hadn’t dedicated much thought to what it could be, or what maybe had happened. You just knew it made him feel like he wasn’t worth your time, and you needed to make him feel seen and safe enough to know that that couldn’t be true. 

Everyone has insecurities, sure. There are surely parts of yourself you weren’t eager to share with the world, let alone someone you’re romantically interested in. You had moved past being astonished that someone who wore gaudy costume jewelry and sang boisterous music for a bar of twelve patrons with the energy of someone who had sold out Madison Square Garden would ever shrink into their shell the way you had seen Eddie. Now, laying in his bed and knowing that whatever it was, the scars were more than what was on his skin.

“Mfffmmm,” he groans and shifts behind you, wiggling beneath the sheets and snaking his arms to wrap around your waist and pull you close into him, “This is nice.”

His morning voice was scratchy and barely above a whisper. 

“I think you just like that my butt is all pressed up on you,” you joke, dodging admiring that you’d rather be here than anywhere in the world in this moment. 

“Yeah, I’m not complaining,” he digs his nose into the side of your neck, “But you smell nice too, ’s nice to wake up to.”

“That 3-in-1’s really doing it for ya?”

“No, you do smell like that a little, but more just like yourself. Girl smell.”

“I’ll get started on that perfume line right away. Girl Smell. Might be a million dollar business venture.”

“I just woke up,” the sleep in his voice melted away and his hands running up and down your sides were more deliberate, “Don’t make fun of me. Plus I’ve got a pretty girl in my bed making me all nervous.”

“Anyone with magic fingers like you has nothing to be worried about,” you keep the conversation playful but allow the unspoken truth, that he truly has nothing to worry about with you, be spoken.

“You just like ‘em cuz I washed your hair so well,” he plays with a strand, letting his finger pads dig into your scalp and scratch away, massaging a bit harder after you let out a satisfied groan.

“You must have lots of practice,” you reach an arm back blindly and half smack the side of his shoulder before finding his messy bedhead, staying resolutely facing the poster-covered wall. 

“You’ve got really pretty hair for a boy,” you let your finger wrap around a curl. 

“For a boy?! Excuse me, I have pretty hair period.”

“Yeah, suppose that’s true” you giggle at his joking defensiveness, “It’s incredible that it’s this nice considering you use the same thing to condition your hair as you do to wash your balls.”

“If you show me what kind of shower products you like I’ll replace the three in one,” he nuzzles his face into the hand playing with your hair, “but maybe the three in one is what’s keeping it so luscious.”

“I wanna wash your hair next time,” you say absentmindedly, meaning it wholeheartedly, with little anxiety after that you had implied a next time. 

“Yeah maybe next time,” his voice trailed off, still soft and flirty but edging on a tone that let you know this conversation was just about over. 

“Eddie,” it came out as hardly more than a whisper. You wait for him to respond but the gravity of the silence between you quickly became unbearable and you needed to break whatever tension this was. 

“I meant it yesterday when I said I wanted to go on more dates with you. You know that right?”

“Mhmm” he mumbles into your shoulder, still holding you against him.

“We have a lot of fun at the bar and stuff,” you search to find your words, “But I want you to know that I don’t just like you cuz you make me laugh and have magic guitar fingers. I like pretty much everything about you so far, and I want to know you more if you’ll let me.”

Your voice wavers, and your message is perhaps more vague than you would have liked, but the deep exhale he lets out conveys that he hears you loud and clear. 

“I know I’ve been…” he starts, “It’s just that I…”

“It’s okay Eddie,” you flip around, rolling so that your chests are pressed together and noses are almost touching, “I don’t want to push it. You can tell me when you’re ready, I just want you to know that I like you a whole lot and I don’t think there’s much that could change that right now.”

His eyelashes flutter shut, forehead touching yours, “Thank you.” 

“Unless you have a huge chest tattoo of something wildly offensive, or like a tramp stamp that says ‘I heart Ronald Regan.” He appreciates your natural ability to make him laugh even in situations like this. 

“Nah,” he pulls back and gives you a serious look, “Fuck Ronald Regan.” 

The two of you burst into a fit of giggles, rolling deeper into the sheets and settling into a comfortable cuddle again, with your head on his chest, face angled up to his and legs all tangled up.

Coming down from the beginnings of the conversation that had been lingering above both of your heads, you place a few reassuring kisses up his jaw and find your way up to his parted lips. 

“Mmmm,” he hums into the deepening kiss to signal you to stop, “I probably have mega morning breath,” he huffs into a cupped hand which makes you laugh and flop your head back into his chest.

“It’s okay, if you do then I do too and didn’t notice,” you peek back up at him, “But if you want to brush teeth and get your day started I won’t stop you.”

“No, no,” he grabs your cheeks and pulls you back up for a smushed kiss, “I wanna stay here all day with you, if you’ll let me. Our second date, we can order a pizza and watch movies here, won’t even have to put pants on.”

“That sounds really nice, I don’t have work today so I’m all yours.”

“All mine,” his grin reaches the apples of his cheeks, “I will go brush my teeth though, cuz I think this second date involves a lot of kissing.”

“Got a spare I could use?” you shuffle out of bed before situating yourself  on the edge of the bed, “Or do you brush with three in one too?”

“Oh my god,” he chuckles, “you with the three in one. After today I promise there will be three separate shower products stocked and ready for your use.”

He manages to find a spare toothbrush in the closet and keeps you wrapped in his arms while both of you take turns spitting into the sink. Looking at the two of you, eyes still crusty from sleep, in the scratched up bathroom mirror, a weird sense of domesticity washes over the two of you. 

Eddie realizes that less than 48 hours ago he was too nervous to make a move to kiss you, and now he was already thinking about making room for your toiletries in his bathroom. 

As comforting and easy it was to do normal everyday things with you at his side, he couldn’t help but notice your nipples poking through his oversized t-shirt you slept in and the way your toothpaste full mouth was framed by your perfect, spit slicked lips. 

“You got a spit kink or something?” You half joke, pressing your ass into the growing rod you could feel nudging against your side.

“Sue me,” he spits and wipes the corners of his mouth, pulling you by the waist into a minty kiss. “Bed? All day?”

“Mhmm,” you agree and lean in to kiss him again, standing on your toes and letting out a shriek of surprise when he scoops you up bridal style and travels the short distance to his bedroom. 

“Eddie!” You yelp out as he gently tosses you back into the pile of sheets. 

“I know I’m no Hulk Hogan, but moving guitar amps is pretty good strength and conditioning.”

“Shut up, you never help your friends carry the equipment.” You think of all the times you watched his poor bandmates lug their equipment after a show while he seamlessly flirted with you. 

“Not when you’re around, you’ve got me there.”

As promised the two of you laze around all morning, bowls of cereal in bed and a bowl of weed to accompany it, switching between fits of giggles and tangled in the sheets while a B horror movie plays on the little TV set propped up near the end of Eddie’s bed. 

He tells you about how he used to live with his Uncle in a trailer down the street until he saved up enough to start renting his own, the three attempts to finish high school and the relief when the local mechanic shop hired him despite his reputation around town as a satan worshiper. He talks a bit about his friends, some who’ve stayed in town and others who’ve long moved away. 

You listen attently, taking in every spared detail. In return he asks you about where you’re from, why the hell you had moved to a bumfuck town in Indiana to be a bartender. He assures you that you wouldn’t have liked him if you had known each other in high school and you laugh and tell him you were far from popular yourself. 

After inhaling a large pizza and running out of VHS tapes you demand a “post pizza bloated cuddle” to which he happily obliges.

“Wish we could do this every day,” he pulls you into him.

“Then we’d need a much bigger movie selection, and maybe body doubles to go do our jobs,” you don’t disagree, although lazy and uneventful the day felt perfect. 

“Don’t wanna go to work tomorrow,” he whines, holding you a little tighter.

“Me either, but we can’t be in this lazy cuddle bubble forever,” his hands came up to massage and scratch your scalp, which he now knew you loved, “but next time we’re both free maybe we can have that third date.”

“If I remember correctly, date three is when I finally get to kiss you,” he jokingly smooches behind your ear and down your neck. 

“Only if you behave,” you reply sarcastically, “you’ve been such a gentleman lately, but you’ve been pushing it mister.” 

“I’ve never been accused of being a gentleman before,” his voice trails off as he buries his nose into your neck, “Will you let me be a gentleman now, make you feel good?” His tone was suddenly dripping with lust, sending a rush of arousal through your already so-relaxed body. 

“Mhmm,” you agree and let your body mold back into his a bit more, pressing yourself against him and letting his hands start to wander.

You arch your neck around from your spooning position and search for his lips, your kiss starting out gentle but not staying that way for very long. 

“You’re just somethin’ else,” he breathes out in between heated kisses, his eyes big and round, earnest, making your heart swell.

“Can I make you feel good too?” you roll your hips into his erection, your breath catching in your throat when you feel it pulsing under his boxers and pressing into the space between your legs. 

You flip around to straddle him, not hiding your intention to grind yourself down onto his covered cock, moans from both of you interrupting the hungry exchange of tongues and lips.

A shaky breath grabs your attention and he finds the air to exhale out, “Can I fuck you?”

You bring your hands to his cheeks to pull him into a deep kiss, continuing to rock your hips against him, giving him words as well you mumble a “Fuck yes, please, please Eddie.”

He finds the hem of your shirt and slips it over your shoulders, the momentary break in kissing makes you whine. He immediately makes it up to you by paying delightful attention to your exposed chest, leaving sloppy wet kisses on every inch of skin he had access to, “fuck”s and “so perfect” breaking them up. 

You instinctively reach down in between the two of you to take his hard cock into your hand, still pressing your core against it, but taking the rest into your hand to stroke him over his boxers, the choked out moan that escapes him is the prettiest sound you’ve ever heard.

You’re losing yourself in the feeling of his weight in your palm, sitting up to see his gorgeous fucked out expression, pinched eyebrows and flushed cheeks.

He swore he’d died and gone to heaven, despite all his sins, with you above him, lip tucked in between your grinning teeth as you rubbed up on him. Fuck, there was no going back after this.

You lean down to resume making out for a moment, missing the feeling of his nose pressed into the side of yours and his too-perfect eyelashes brushing the tops of your cheeks. 

“We can, um-“ you catch your breath, hips stuttering as you find your words, “I can turn around. Or we can make a blindfold or something.” 

His heart swelled at the thought that amidst fucking yourself against his lap you still had the courtesy to think of his comfort, his obvious insecurity, the elephant in the room that he was so desperately trying to shoo away. 

“I want you,” his voice strangely steady, “and I’ll let you have me, no stipulations.” 

You nod with a “Please.”

“Only because, I plan on fucking you every chance I get,” his tone makes you clench your thighs, “So we might as well rip this bandaid off now, because if you’re going to be my girlfriend I don’t want you worrying that I’m hiding something from you.”

He flips you over so you’re now laying beneath him, eyes still glassy with lust and mind swirling with the words he’s just let out.

“I’m gonna take off my shirt now, and I don’t want you to pretend like everything is fine, or that you don’t notice anything, because that’ll be a thousand times worse, okay? I know it’s bad. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but I know it’s not easy to look at.”

With that he pull this black t-shirt off by the back neck collar, and bares his soul to you. You can tell he’s examining your face for a reaction, very carefully managing your facial expressions for his benefit. 

He was right, it wasn’t easy to look at. Only because it made you wonder what horrible thing had happened to leave half of his torso, hip, thigh, and what you could only assume traveled onto his back as well, left entirely torn away and scarred. 

“And-“ he cut off your wandering eyes with his words, “Don’t ask what happened. I’ll tell you eventually I just- We can’t have that discussion if we’re about to have sex.” 

You nodded with understanding, you knew better than to ask. 

You think that your snooping and seed of knowledge helped hide some of your shock, his comment about missing a nipple dampening your realization that he was telling the truth, the scar tissue running so deep that his entire pec was covered in a jagged pink , slightly mishapen scar tissue, and leaving his opposite nipple to stand alone on his chest. 

The one thing that did leave you in a bit of shock was half of a tattoo on his hip that abruptly ended where the scar tissue started. Some sort of zombie head, the black ink lines all coming to a halt when’re his skin had been injured.

You let a tentative hand come up, fearing he’ll flinch away, but he doesn’t. You touch his chest, feeling the textural difference as you let your palm run across his chest and down to his hip. 

“You know, I still think you’re super hot, right?” You try to assure him, but he only lets out a dry chuckle. 

“I mean it,” you sit up a bit, pulling your hand from its exploration of his skin and bringing it to your own chest, using three fingers to cover your left nipple, “you’d still like me, right?” 

The softness in his face almost made you jump up to wrap him into a hug, you wanted him to know that everything was okay and he was safe with you, whatever happened was in the past and he didn’t have to worry. Although the moment was emotionally charged, neither of you could ignore the fact that you were both ravenously horny for each other. 

“I’m sorry you felt like you had to hide this from me,” you pull his face down to yours, “but I’m glad you showed me, because I’m so fucking ready for you to ruin me.”

He lurches forward and lets his body weight collapse down onto you, your legs widening to wrap around his hips, arm and legs locking him against you. 

Feeling his bare chest pressed against yours, lips on your neck and hips rutting into your spread legs, has your head spinning. 

“Please Eddie,” you whine, “let me feel you.”

Without missing a beat he shoves the waistband of his boxers down just enough to reach his thighs, hard dick springing free in the little space in between you, and he snatches your wrist and shoves it in between your bodies without unlatching his lips from your collar bone. 

“Oh fuck,” you couldn’t see what you were grasping, just like in the shower, but you didn’t dare push him off of you to catch a glimpse. He was all over you, hands tangled in your hair, groans and whimpers hardly making their way out in between the wet sloppy kisses he spread across your neck and chest. 

He slips a hand down your body, gracing your ribcage with his fingertips, a stark contrast to how they suddenly part your lips and rub the pool of slick from your hole up to your clit. 

“So wet, this for me?” He quirks and eyebrow and sinks a digit into you, causing your mouth to open and hips to wiggle up to ask for more.

“Yes ’s for you,” you breathe out, wanting to give him some pushback, wipe the smug look off his face, but not finding an ounce of courage to do so. You just let your head lull back and eyelids flutter shut as he curls his fingers perfectly inside you. “All for you.”

You use your free hand to push your underwear as far down your hips as this position will allow, not wanting to shift your focus from the feeling of him on your lips, his pulsing cock in your hand. 

“Need you,” you gasp out, partially at the feeling of his knuckle deep fingers buried inside of you, and equally the fucked out look on his face looming over yours, eyes blown wide and mouth parted on the verge of begging for more, “Eddie, need you to fuck me, please.”

He sits up and removes his fingers from you, earning a wince and a whine. He helps crunch your legs up to remove your panties, leaving your legs raised and crossed over one of his shoulders. He takes a moment to kiss your ankle and tenderly run his hands down the length of your leg. He took the moment to take off his own boxers, leaving you both bare in front of each other for the first time. 

“You’ve got a pretty cock,” you complement him earnestly, it was pretty. He gave you a halfhearted scoff and an eyeball in return. “No Eds, I mean it. It’s big too, good thing you got me ready with your fingers. That and I’ve been soaking wet for you for like 48 hours now, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” you giggle. His shy smile tells you he’s willing to take the compliment. 

You let your legs fall from their perch on his shoulder and fall to either side of his hips, opening yourself up to him. He’s staring, mouth half agape. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but to have you laid out like this before him, fully ready to give yourself over to him and wanting him wholly in return, how couldn’t he stare. 

You let your hand stroke up his cock, bringing his attention back to where the two of you nearly met. You angle him closer to you, you’re slowly pumping fist brushing against your own center. He snaps out of his trance and nudges your hand away, using his own grip to tap his thick cock against your opening. 

Tap, tap tap. His head meets your slick folds, hips jerking slightly with every tap.

“Don’t tease me Eds,” you push your hips forward and are only met with him rubbing his dick into the outside of your pussy, “want you inside, need it so bad.”

He want’s to be a bother and continue his teasing, watching your writhe and squirm, but he can’t find it in him to deny you, so he presses the tip in and gauges your face for a reaction, only finding babbling bliss and pleas for more. 

He’s sinking into you at an agonizing pace, craning down from his kneeling position above you to frame your head with bent arms and his lips on yours as you moan into each other’s mouths, him filling you more and more. 

Your hands are in his hair, keeping your foreheads anchored together, breathing in tandem. He finally sinks all the way down and you can feel it in your lungs. You wrap your ankles around his back and squeeze him into you tighter, not wanting him to move just yet, wanting to just feel how deep he filled you up for the first time. 

He lets out a shaky exhale and squeezes his eyes shut, “You were fuckin’ made for me,” he punctuates this with a subtle roll forward of his hips, lips falling into yours as if they had nowhere else to go. 

You let your legs fall back, unclasping his hips, and move your hands from his wild hair down to his thighs, pushing him to start fucking you. 

“Feel’s so fucking good,” you whisper into his mouth, your hands hardly assisting him anymore as he pumps in and out of your slick cunt, almost knocking the air out of you each time. 

He grabs your chin with the hand that’s not propping himself up, “look at me,” his pace doesn’t falter and your mind nearly turns to mush, “you’re mine now, yeah?”

“Yes Eddie,” it comes out as a broken sob, your eyes barely able to focus on him with how close he was, “all yours, only yours.” Your mind had barely made the decision to say the words before they had escaped your lips, a dumbfounded truth serum setting over you in your cock drunk state. 

You knew it to be true though, there was no going back after this, and you were willing to give yourself over fully, and accept anything he would give you. 

“Ahh, fuck” you let out after a particularly harsh thrust, fists now dripping the sheets beneath you. 

“So fucking good for me,” his hands now found purchase on your hips, setting a rhythm between you that only a musician could. 

Through glassy eyes you admire him. Curly bangs stuck to his forehead, frantically thrusting torso making his tattoos look like stop motion cartoons, and through it all the scars are hardly noticeable. If anything, they’re just another part of him, the person between your legs that you found incredibly sexy, insecurities and all. 

His perfect hands slid from your hips to your shoulders, now using the weight of your torso as leverage to fuck into you harder. His eyes bore into yours, searching for eye contact and finding your reassuring gaze that told him this was everything you wanted and more. 

“Yes, yes, oh fuck,” you babble out. His little grunts and whimpers send volts of electricity to your core and fog your mind with lust and desire.

He moves a hand down to meet your center, palm splaying across your abdomen and keeping you pinned to the bed, thumb methodically catching your clit with each thrust. He didn’t have to ask if it felt good, the rolling back of your eyes and mouth so wide he could see your molars were enough of an indication that he was headed in the right direction.

“Mhmmmm,” you could hardly form words, but smiled up through your fucked out gaze at him, wide beam and lust fulled eyes telling him that he couldn’t possibly be making you feel any better than you do right now. 

He leans back a bit, balancing himself on his thighs keeping his pace, thumb on your clit and eyes locked into yours. Through a groan he brings his unoccupied hand up to his face, biting down on the knuckle of his pointer finger, trying not to blow his load at the feeling of you squeezing around him. 

Of course, this only made him look hotter to you, and thus you flexed around his cock even tighter. 

Unexpectedly, he pulls out of you completely and before you can muster up the breath to complain, he’s dipped his lapping tongue against you. He fully buries himself into your cunt, cutting off the rhythm, of his cock with the somehow perfectly timed pulsing of his hungry tongue. 

You can’t help but cry out, arch your hips, and send a hand flying to his hair to ground yourself. Through frantic panting and wet slurping sounds you think you can make out a “just had to taste you.”

Completely breathless, you can hardly conjure a response before he’s plunging into you again, fucking into you deeply and capturing your parted lips into a passionate kiss.

Something takes over you, and you’re suddenly wrapping your legs around his hips and using some found momentum to flip the two of your over. Suddenly, you’re on top of him, his curls splayed around his pretty face and body laid flat beneath you. 

Before you had a moment to question yourself, you anchor your hands onto his shoulders and try your best to pick up the pace he had set earlier. Hips rolling and wet slapping sounds coming from between you. 

“Jesus- fuck,” he stuttered in his movements, unsure if he wanted his hands on your face or your tits or your hips or… they landed on your ass and he wouldn’t argue with his first instincts. 

“Eddie, I’ve wanted you like this for so long,” your words were breathy and mixed with lustful gasps, “always wanted to have you like this.”

“We could have done this a long time ago, huh?” He tries not to think about all the time wasted, and instead fantasies about all the making up for lost time you’ll do in the near future. 

“You were always giving me those eyes while you played with your band,” you looked angelic to him, face hovering above him, framed only be the poor overhead lighting and flickering VHS menu of the last film you’d finished, “I always wanted you, just wasn’t sure you wanted me like this too.”

Your statement was simple enough, but he knew what you meant. You wanted him more than a fuck, and that’s what he had been worried about all along. Now, to have you sunk down on his cock like this, telling him that you had been scared in the same way as he had, only made him roll his hops up into you and pull your cheeks down for a sloppy kiss to seal the deal. You were finally on the same page. 

Switching from a bounce of your hips, you lean back slowly and shift to more of a roll, keeping his cock buried deep inside of you while you gyrate your hips. Your arm extends back in between his spread legs to keep you stable, your torso finding its own rhythm in the midst of pleasure and fucking yourself onto his cock. 

“So fucking perfect,” he gasps out, hardly able to take in the sight of your body writhing and rolling above him. He manages to find bait of sense in his brain and brings his hand back to your lower stomach, thumb flicking over your clit with every thrust of your hips. 

“Oh,eddieohmygosh,” it came out as one breathy syllable, “pleasedon’tstopthat.”

He gently fucks himself up into you, matching your movements and not throwing you off of the sinful rhythm you’ve set, just managing too punctuate each bounce with the raise of his hips into yours and the increased pressure of his thumb on your clit. 

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he loves the way each breathy word out of your lips is matched with the beautiful bounce of your tits, “Eddie, you’re gonna-“

He doesn’t change a thing, the pressure on your clit, the arch of his hips, he would sooner die than rob you of pleasure or ruin this moment. Every moment he get’s to look at you, he thinks it’s the most beautiful you’ve ever looked, but he knows for sure that this one takes the cake. 

“Ahhh, I’m-“ you don’t  have to finish your statement for him to know you’re cumming on his cock, the pulsing squeeze of your walls and intense concentration from him not to bust on the spot, and rather to focus on the parting of your lips and the twitching of your hips on his. 

“That’s it,” he keeps his thumb on your clit, but lets up on the pressure as soon as he feels you jerk against him, “that’s my girl.”

You lurch down and wrangle him into a kiss, only wanting to feel his lips on yours as you come down from your orgasm. You’re still slowly rolling your hips against his, but focused more on the feeling of his cheeks under your palms and his lips on yours. 

“You okay?” He asks in between tongue tied kisses. 

“Yes, perfect, thank you,” you arch your back into him a bit, “ready for more.” 

Although you were fully prepared to bounce on his cock until he came, you were pleasantly surprised when his large hands surrounded your waist and hoisted you up off the bed. He wanted to try and keep his cock inside you, but accepted defeat as he managed to situate on the edge of the bed.

He shifted around you and situated himself in between your legs. You laid out, everything below the knees hanging off the edge of his hand-me-down mattress. He stood above you and lowered himself to land a few wet kisses on your breasts, his hard cock pressing into your needy center. 

He jerked you up by the underside of your knees, pressing your thighs into your chest and sinking down into your open pussy, causing a deep groan to emit from both of you.

Here he was, scars and all, standing above you and thrusting into you as if it was the last thing he would ever do, and he looked like an angel to you. 

More thoughtful than you may have initially given him credit for, his thumb finds your clit again and he politely, yet breathlessly asks, “Can you come again for me, pretty girl?”

How could you say no to that. You dumbly nod and throw your head back against the sheets, your hands balled up at your sides as he thrusted into you, grunting and moaning your name. 

“So fucking good Eddie,” you manage to squeak out, “You make me feel so fucking good.”

“Ah fuck, yeah, yes,” his voice nearly jumped an octive, signaling his release. “Where should I-“ he began to ask.

“Inside,” it came out as two syllables in-between breaths, “It’s okay you can come-“

“Fuuuuuck,” a strangled moan and a collapse of his arms, along with the delicious pulse of his cock inside you signaled his release. 

Before you could eve catch your breath, regain consciousness of the situation, he was reeling back and replacing his softening cock with two fingers. He latched his lips to your clit and began to suck in time with his finger’s replication of his cock’s earlier movements. 

“Oh my god,” you were truly taken aback, his face buried in your cunt and setting you back on track to your building orgasm. 

It didn’t take more than a minute and a half of him slurping your mixed releases from your cunt and bullying your g-spot with those damn magic fingers to send you hurdling towards orgasm number two, shaking and crying out his name. 

It wasn’t until your legs were truly shaking and your hand was searching for his forehead to push him away from overstimulation that he finally let up and let up of your pussy with a wet pop and a smug look.

“You come?” He asks again, just as he had in the back of his van. 

You don’t have the energy to respond, only roll your eyes and flip him the bird as you flop back down onto his bedsheets. 

He managed to get you a warm rag and a cold glass of water, stroking your har and asking if you felt alright.

“Feel perfect Eddie,” you say after a long gulp, “you took such good care of me, you always do.”

He stroked your hair and positioned the two of you back comfortably beneath his sheets. “Thank you,” he starts, but you cut him off with a kiss. 

“No, thank you,” you kiss him again, “for trusting me.” The look in your eyes could nearly make him melt. “You’re really something special Eddie, I mean it.”

“Special enough for a fourth date?”

You smack his chest and bury your head into his neck. “I don’t think we have to count dates if I’m your girlfriend now…”

Those dimples you adore perk up on his cheeks, and he bear hugs you, scarred chest and all. 

“What time should I set the alarm for tomorrow?” He asks with a sorrow in his voice. 

“How about never,” you roll over to trample him with another kiss, smothering his body in yours, knowing you’d be luck enough to have many moments like this soon to come. 

A/N: I'm sorry I have long lost the tracking of a taglist (crying emoji) don't want to bother anyone who asked to be added the last time I wrote a pic ten thousand years ago, so I hope this reaches everyone it needs to <3

[writerinlearning]

𝐂𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞

plot: henry hart has a crush on his best friend and doesn’t know what to do with his feelings. an unfortunate mishap and a little nudge from team danger might just change that.

pairing: henry hart x fem!reader

show: henry danger

warnings: none that i can think of.

word count: 7,2k

author’s notes: english isn’t my first language, apologies for any mistakes. it's been proof-read, so there shouldn't be many mistakes anyway. it’s heavily inspired by the episode cave the date from season five of henry danger, so most of the dialogues and the story is most likely to be very familiar to y’all. it does go canon-divergent by the end though, and of course it’s reader instead of charlotte. this ended up being longer than i thought it would be. i hope you enjoy!

henry hart masterlist | main masterlist

It’s the perfect day, a quiet one the Danger team hasn’t had in a long time. Between all the petty crimes and the more serious villains who wanted to end Captain Man and Kid Danger, Y/N doesn’t remember the last time they could all just hang out in the Man Cave, undisturbed. She sighs contentedly, flipping a page of the book she’s reading, leaning further into the couch. Schwoz sits next to her, concentrating over a game of chess he’s having against himself, for some reason. Charlotte is nearby too, sitting on the chair at the supercomputer and reading her own book about “nuclear physics for smarties”.

“I will not see that coming.” Schwoz mutters to himself through the silence in the room. “I did not see that coming!” He adds, spitting out the water in his mouth after turning the chess board around.

“Do you ever get bored of playing chess against yourself?” Charlotte asks him, placing her book on the console before her.

“No, I don’t.” A pause. “But sometimes, I do.”

Y/N snorts at Schwoz’s antics. Her text ringtone rips through the silence, followed by a groan rumbling from her chest. She checks her screen, rolling her eyes when she sees the text notification from Jasper, and she looks at Charlotte with brows furrowed in annoyance as she closes her book and puts it down on the table before her.

“The guys are coming back.”

“Give me your book.” Charlotte tells her, extending her hand out.

“Why?” Y/N asks her, raising a brow. “I haven’t finished reading it, and I need to know what happens between Sel and Bree.”

“Just– give me your book.”

“H– hey! hey! hey! Char! Why’d you do that?”

Y/N screams, watching in horror as Charlotte moves from her spot on the chair to grab Y/N’s beloved copy of Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, putting it into a shredding machine and destroying it in the process. Charlotte then does the same thing with her own book.

“Ray gets mad whenever people do ‘smart stuff’ in front of him.” Charlotte explains, putting her hands on her hips. “You should know that, Y/N, you’ve been here the last two years. Schwoz, give me the chess board.”

“But I’ve got myself right where I want me!” The science man protests.

“You’ll get yourself next time.”

Schwoz grumbles, reluctantly handing his chess board and chess pieces to Charlotte who proceeds to throw them into the shredding machine. It makes a strange noise and Y/N winces at the sound, closing her eyes when the grinding noise finally stops.

“Where were they anyway?” Charlotte asks, sitting back on the chair behind the supercomputer.

“They went to throw melons at that abandoned house that people throw melons at.” Y/N shrugs.

“Without me?” Schwoz chirps in. “But I’ve been saving melons for months.” He adds as he glances to his box of rotten melons that’s been laying next to the supercomputer for nearly two months.

“So, they should be back soon, right?” Charlotte wonders.

“Yeah,” Y/N nods. “I just asked them to swing by my house and pick up my phone charger on the way back.”

Schwoz snorts. “You sent Ray, Henry, and Jasper to your house with no adult supervision?”

“Yeah, what’s the problem?”

Just then, the elevator doors ding open and out step the three men they were just talking about, in what seems to be a really serious discussion about Disney movies. All three of them have dishevelled hair, as if they’d just run a marathon, but the ashes smeared across their face and stuck to their clothes and hair give way to an entirely different story.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Y/N interrupts them, standing up from the couch as she takes in their appearance.

“Hey.” Jasper greets her. “What’s up?”

“What have you guys been doing?”

“Hmm?” Henry chimes in.

“What have you guys been doing?” Y/N repeats herself, hands going to her hips as she raises a brow. “Did you go to my house?”

“Sure did.” Henry replies.

“Oh yeah.” Ray continues.

“Walked right in.” Jasper finishes, smiling proudly.

Y/N looks over her shoulder to Charlotte, brows pulled together in a confused frown. They both have the same questions running through their mind. Why were the boys all dirty with dark ashes, and why were they acting so innocent all of the sudden. Innocent, and clueless.

“So… what happened?” Charlotte asks then, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Weee got Y/N’s phone charger.”

Henry trails out, throwing the phone cable in Y/N’s hands but she drops it almost immediately, squealing out in surprise.

“Aaahh! Why is it hot?!”

“Because we pulled it out of the fire.” Jasper answers her.

“You are welcome.” Ray adds. “Hit the showers.” He finishes, out of the blue.

The boys whoop, starting to head for the showers when Y/N stops them again. Charlotte and Schwoz watch in amusement, seeing them rolling their eyes and groaning under their breath.

“Whaaaaaaat?!” Henry drags out.

“I told you she’d be like this.” Ray whines, motioning towards Y/N. “What did I say?”

“Yeah, I owe you ten bucks.” Jasper says, defeated.

“Did you guys light my house on fire?!” Y/N questions, panic in her voice.

“No, no, no, no…” Henry stutters. “ ‘Course not.”

Y/N glares at him, her eyes growing darker than he’s ever seen before. Okay, maybe Henry had underestimated his best friend’s anger, but to be fair, it wasn’t his fault they’d set a fire in her house. Still, he shoves his hands in the front pockets of his pants, casting his gaze to the floor to avoid looking directly into her eyes. He begins to balance himself on his heels, racking his brain for the right words to say as he bites down on the inside of his cheek. He inhales slowly through his nose and finally, he looks up to her. He sees the expectation in her eyes, her eyebrows raised as she waits for an answer. Henry swallows the growing lump in his throat; he hates to see her mad at him, when he knows she rarely ever gets mad at anyone. He knows her anger is not only directed at him, but at Ray and Jasper too, and yet he still takes it personally. He doesn’t know why he does, but his chest tightens when he replays the events from earlier, and the guilt settles in the back of his brain. He lowers his gaze again, his feet suddenly becoming more interesting than anything.

“I– I mean… y– yeah.” Henry admits, stuttering.

“Just the kitchen.” Jasper clarifies.

“The kitchen is part of the house.” Y/N deadpans, crossing her arms over her chest.

“The kitchen’s gone. It’s gone.” Jasper blurts out. 

“The rest of your house… totally fine.” Ray adds, clapping his hands together.

“Y– yeah.” Henry finishes.

“How could you guys light my kitchen on fire?!”

Y/N asks them, throwing her arms up in the air in exasperation before her eyes fall back to the three men, glaring at them. By then, Charlotte has joined Schwoz on the couch in the centre of the Man Cave, as if they were watching the most interesting movie ever made. Charlotte knows her friend, and judging by how fuming she is about the whole situation, she knows it won’t end well for the boys. 

Henry still can’t bring himself to look at Y/N, but he can imagine the hurt and confusion written all over her face. He’s known her for as long as he’s known Charlotte and Jasper; it’s always been the four of them. They can read each other like open books. 

Jasper flinches when Y/N raises her voice. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her raise her voice before, she’s usually calm and composed. He glances at Henry, and when he sees that his friend has suddenly found an interest in his shoes, Jasper knows they messed up big time. 

Ray frowns when he sees Y/N crossing her arms over her chest again. Her cold stare travels from Henry, to Jasper, to him, and by the way she holds her head high, lips flattened into a thin line, he can sense the anger radiating off of her. What Ray doesn’t understand is why.

“Oh, this is gonna be good.” Schwoz chuckles as he gets up. “Let me get some popcorn.”

He returns a minute later with a red bowl filled to the brim with popcorn, setting the food on the table as he sits back on the couch next to Charlotte. Both watch, shoving food in their mouths, as Y/N shifts on her feets, body tense.

“What. Happened?” Y/N asks again, gritting through her teeth.

“Okay, first of all,” Ray begins, holding his hands out in front of him as he takes a step towards the girl. “We couldn’t find a light switch anywhere.”

“It– it was very dark.” Henry chirps in, barely glancing up at her as he tries to justify their actions. “And kinda cold.” His voice falters as he looks back to the floor.

“I happened to have a flare on me.” Ray adds, as if there were nothing wrong with that.

“Which would solve both problems.”

Y/N rolls her eyes at Jasper’s comment, her nostrils flaring as she grows impatient. Without even realizing it, she begins to tap her foot against the tiled floor of the Man Cave, her cold stare directed towards Ray. 

“So, I had a flare… in your kitchen.” Ray begins to explain again, somehow proud of himself.

“And then, we started exploring!” Jasper smiles.

“First thing we uh… found were the curtains.” Henry adds sheepishly. “Well… the flare found ‘em.”

Henry tentatively looks up to his friend, a sheepish smile across his face. It falters when he sees the hurt flashing in her eyes for a brief second. He hates to see her like this, and he never wants to see her like this again. He has to admit it, lighting up a flare in her kitchen had been a bad idea, and he doesn’t know why he and Jasper didn’t try to stop Ray from doing something this stupid. They should be used to it by now; Henry has been dealing with his boss’s antics for the last five years, so has Charlotte, and both Jasper and Y/N have been dealing with it for the last two years. Ray, more often than not, acts without thinking twice about his actions, and perhaps that is because he’s been indestructible since he was eight years old, but he often forgets that the teenagers, and Schwoz, are not him and that they aren’t indestructible. His impulsive actions often bring them into trouble, and Henry has always wondered how they haven’t been badly injured by now, or sent to the hospital for an undetermined amount of time. Lighting up a flare in Y/N’s kitchen should have been an idea that stayed in Ray’s childish brain.

“Those things went up fast.” Ray laughs as Jasper imitates a fire starting.

“Did you guys try to put it out?!” Y/N asks, exasperated.

“Yes! Of course we did.” Jasper tells her.

“But uhm, you know the saying “fight fire with fire”?” Henry asks tentatively, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, that does not work!” Ray snorts.

“Oh my god!”

Y/N groans as she lets her arms fall to her sides, turning on her heels and heading for the elevator. She pounds her fist against the button, letting out a frustrated yell when the elevator doesn’t come right away. Jasper tries to reach for her, but she whips her head over her shoulder, sending him a stare that could have put him to his grave if her eyes held daggers. Jasper raises his hands up in defence, taking a step back to stand in between Ray and Henry. 

“Where are you going?” Henry asks his best friend, voice filled with guilt.

“None of your business.” Y/N grits through her clenched teeth.

She doesn’t mean to speak to Henry that way, but she’s beyond mad that they burned their kitchen, and what pisses her off most is that they don’t even seem to be aware of how bad they messed up.

“Wh– whoa there, Y/N.” Ray exclaims, raising his arms up in defense.

“Yeah, what’s your deal?” Jasper scoffs, nudging Henry.

“My deal–” Y/N speaks through gritted teeth. “–is that I have a date tonight, with Jack Swagger. And I was gonna make him dinner at my house, but you guys blew my kitchen!”

Y/N yells exasperatedly, turning her head back towards the elevator and using one hand to push the up button on the panel on her right. 

Charlotte stands from where she sat on the couch, walking over to the boys. She’s the only one who knows of Y/N’s date night with Jack Swagger, and she’s also the only one who knows Jack Swagger out of his international fame. The two girls had met him at camp, ten years earlier, and he contacted Y/N to let her know he was coming to Swellview for a couple days, and that he wanted to hang out with her. Charlotte also knows the real reason why Y/N had agreed to go on a date with Jack, and it wasn’t because she used to have a crush on him when they’d first met. 

“Wait.” Jasper’s voice cuts through Charlotte’s train of thoughts. “You know Jack Swagger?” He asks, taking a step toward Y/N. “International music superstar Jack Swagger?”

“Youngest person to win a Grammy Jack Swagger?” Schwoz questions, rushing to Y/N.

“You have a date?” 

Henry asks Y/N, a little surprised that his best friend has a date with someone and that she didn’t tell him about it.  

“Yeah, I had a date.” She answers him, coldly.

“With Jack Swagger?” He asks again.

“Yes, with Jack Swagger. Can we not do this? I have to go and see the mess you guys made in my house. See if I can fix anything, or if I have to cancel my date tonight.”

Y/N pounds her fist on the elevator button again, but her movement is less angry and more frustrated. In truth, even if she originally did not want to go on a date with Jack Swagger, she’d warmed up to the idea and she was really looking forward to it. Besides, she’d figured it would help her forget about a certain someone that’s been on her mind twenty-four-seven. 

When the elevator comes to a stop and the doors ding open, Y/N steps inside, pressing the up button without looking at it, and she keeps her death stare on the three men as the doors close again. 

Henry watches as she disappears behind the now-closed elevator doors, but he knows she hasn’t gone up just yet, or they would have heard the loud squeaking noise from the elevator’s mechanical whirring. Perhaps she’s calling Jack Swagger; he did see her reach for her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. For some reason, however, knowing about the possibility of Y/N cancelling her date with Jack makes Henry feel less guilty about his responsibility for being part of the reason why Y/N’s kitchen burned. He knows he shouldn’t feel happy about it, but he does. 

“How does she know Jack Swagger?” Jasper asks, turning towards Charlotte when the elevator doors close.

“Me and Y/N went to camp with him, like ten years ago. He was Jack Swaggowitz back then.”

“Okayyy… How did we not know this until now?”

“We’ve told you like a million times! You guys just never listen to us.”

“Okay, fine! Fine!” Jasper raises his hands up in defeat. “So, why can’t they go to Sotto Voce? Or any other restaurant in Swellview?”

“Yeah! Sotto Voce is a nice place.” Ray chimes into the conversation in agreement, snapping his fingers. “Romantic, and kitchen not burned.”

“That you know of.” Jasper nudges him.

“That I know of.”

“They tried that.” Charlotte explains, sighing. “He’s too famous and gets mobbed wherever he goes.”

That catches Henry’s attention, and he raises a brow as he turns towards Charlotte. What does she mean by “they tried that”? Did Y/N have other dates with Jack Swagger, and she only told Charlotte about it? Why is it bothering him so much that Y/N goes on dates with other boys? She is only his best friend, he has no right to decide who she can date. He shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest as his friends’ voices come back into focus.

“I got it!” Jasper exclaims, snapping his fingers. “We need someplace to turn into a fake restaurant. Okay? Some place nobody knows about; somewhere underground.”

“So?” Charlotte raises a brow.

“I say we make a fake restaurant in Henry’s house!”

“No.” Henry deadpans, letting his arms drop to his sides.

He doesn’t want to get involved in this. He doesn’t want to make up a fake restaurant so that Y/N can enjoy her date with Jack Swagger. And he especially doesn’t want it to happen at his house. Because if it happens at his house, it means he has to be there, and he has to be forced to watch his friend enjoy her date with some stupid international celebrity when she should be enjoying a nice date in a nice, real restaurant with him– Oh.

Henry bites down on his lips. Take a deep breath, he thinks. He inhales deeply and then, he remembers what Piper said when she called earlier today.

“Why not?” Ray asks.

“There’s a hawk in my house.” Henry answers, silently thanking his idiot dad for bringing a hawk to the house.

“There’s a hawk in your house?” Schwoz questions.

“That’s what Piper said.” Henry shrugs. “I may need to crash here ‘til the hawk leaves.” He adds.

Good thing there is a hawk in his house simply because his father had wanted to get rid of a cricket. It doesn’t make any sense, and Henry hadn’t asked his sister for the details, but right now he was glad he wouldn’t be making up a fake restaurant in his house.

“Okay…” Charlotte trails out, thinking. “So we’ll do it in the Man Cave.”

“Do what in the Man Cave?” Ray wonders, looking at her.

“Make it a secret restaurant so Y/N and Jack can have their date.”

“No! We are not turning the Man Cave into a secret restaurant.”

Oh, no. If they turn the Man Cave into a fake restaurant, it means that Henry, and perhaps Charlotte, will have to pretend to be waiters for the night, and Henry isn't sure he can act the part. Well, if it were for anyone else, he’s pretty sure he could, but not for Y/N. Luckily for him, there’s no way Ray would agree to Charlotte’s idea but the elevator doors ding open, and out steps Y/N. She’s got that hopeful look in her eyes, and Henry knows she’d heard them from inside the elevator. He silently curses under his breath. There go his hopes of Y/N cancelling her date with Jack Swagger. 

“You owe me, Ray.” Y/N says, tilting her head. “You burned down my kitchen.”

She raises a brow expectantly, crossing her arms over her chest. Henry shifts on his feet, body tensing as he clenches his jaw. Deep down he hopes that Ray will say no, but Y/N is using her convincing look that none of them can resist, when she’d stare at you intensely until you give up, and she’s backed up by Charlotte, who’s standing next to Y/N and who’s using her famous judgemental look, with her hands on her hips.

“You owe me.” Y/N says again, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

Ray groans, throwing his head back in defeat. “Fine! We’ll turn the Man Cave into a restaurant!”

Y/N squeals out excitedly, turning around to embrace Charlotte in a tight hug, before she goes back inside the elevator, closing the doors behind her and the mechanical whirring activates to indicate that Y/N has gone up to Junk’N’Stuff, the store a half-mile above the Man Cave. 

Henry’s shoulders drop, and he shoves his hands in the pockets of his pants, a million thoughts running haywire in his brain. Charlotte notices it, and a smile begins to grow in the corner of her lips. She shakes her head in disbelief before she nudges Jasper’s side, pointing at Henry with her chin. Jasper raises a brow, and he looks back at Charlotte with a knowing smile of his own. 

—

“Sorry I’m late.” Henry says begrudgingly as he steps out of the elevator. “The hawk grabbed my tie and wouldn’t give it back. Luckily, my dad distracted it with his face.”

“Is he okay?” Jasper asks his friend.

“Yeah, he’s okay. He’s got like… razor talons and like, a knife beak. So.”

“No, no. I meant your dad.”

“Oh! No, he’s in serious pain.” He pauses. “This place looks, uh… great…”

Henry looks around. Silver and pastel purple curtains cover the entirety of the Man Cave, hiding away anything hero-related like the tubes or the sprocket. Three tables are set for two, with silver tablecloths, white plates and silver cutlery, wine glasses and pastel purple napkins to match with the curtains. A grand white piano with fake candles on it stands in the corner, where the couch usually is, and the floor of the Man Cave is covered with a variety of used red carpets to hide the blue and red logo that’s usually visible on the tiled floor. Henry also notices the white peonies and Calla lilies that form one bouquet on the centre of each table, Y/N’s favourite flowers.

There’s a tugging at his heart as he takes in his surroundings. His mind is telling him that this is not right; and he wonders why he is doing all this, but then he remembers. He did participate in burning Y/N’s kitchen, so he owed her this, as much as Ray and Jasper did. He is surprised that they even managed to create a romantic fake restaurant in the Man Cave in the first place, but it doesn’t mean that he cannot loathe the idea of Y/N having a date with someone. 

“Where’s Ray?” Henry eventually asks Jasper to try to forget about his unresolved feelings for Y/N.

“Chef’s in the kitchen.” Jasper answers, shrugging.

“Wh– where’s the kitchen?”

“Behind the soundproof curtain.”

“Whaaaaat?”

Henry trails out dumbfounded as Jasper mouths “I know”. Ray’s voice reaches their ears almost immediately as Henry slightly pulls open the curtain to make sure Jasper’s telling him the truth about it being soundproof.

“Are you kidding me?!” Ray shouts exasperatedly. “I just had it! How could I lose– it was here two seconds ago! I swear on my father’s prepurchased burial plot–”

Henry closes the curtain, then turns back to Jasper. “Hm. Chef sounds mad.”

“Yeah, we should check on him.” Jasper agrees.

The two friends step through the soundproof curtain, and they see Ray frantically looking around for something, flailing his arms around with two lit flares in each of his hands.

“Oh, come on!” Ray yells.

“Woah, whoa, whoa, whoa! What are you doing?” Henry asks, raising a brow. Anything to get his mind off of Y/N.

“I can’t find my fifth flare!” Ray whines. “And if I don’t have all five flares, it’s ruined!”

“Put the flares away man. They’re for emergencies only!”

“Or for playing Truth or Flare!” Jasper adds.

“It’s fine. I just had the thing! Where– it was here a second ago!”

Ray keeps muttering to himself as he searches for his flare inside the made-up kitchen. He pivots on his feet, his back toward the teenagers, and Henry sighs exasperatedly when he spots the flare inside of Ray’s backpocket.

“Found it!” He says. “I found it!” He goes to grab a dish towel. “Stop. Move.”

“Where is it?” Ray asks again, more to himself.

“Dude, you gotta stop lighting flares in kitchens.” Henry deadpans as he grabs the lit flare from Ray’s pocket.

“Why? What’s the worst that could happen?”

Henry and Jasper exchange a look, before they try to pry the flares away from Ray’s hands.

“Okay, hand them over.” Jasper says when Ray tries to resist.

“Give them to me man.” Henry groans. “We’re done. We’re done! We’re done!” 

“Ah! You’re ruining my process! No, don’t put them in there! Don’t put that– Oh…”

Ray whines again as he sees the two teenagers throwing his flares into a steaming pot of water. Henry wipes his hands over the black apron tied around his waist just as Jasper’s phone beeps with an alert. He quickly checks it, and he adjusts the bowtie around his neck.

“Okay. Y/N and Jack Swagger are close.” He says, putting his phone in his pocket. “I gotta go up to Junk’N’Stuff, meet Charlotte, and pretend it’s a fake store.”

“It is a fake store.” Henry snorts, rolling his eyes.

“Exactly. This guy gets it.”

Henry shakes his head in disbelief. So much for trying to forget about his feelings.

—

“I am so sorry, we are fully committed this evening. There are no tables available– Madam President.” Jasper hangs up the phone, raising his head as the shop’s bell dings. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t see you there because I was just on the phone with– Y/N?”

Y/N stands awkwardly in the middle of the shop when Jasper finally acknowledges her presence, but he frowns when he notices she stands there, alone. Charlotte stands behind her, with a sad look on her features and she takes a tentative step towards her friend.

“Are you okay Y/N?” Charlotte asks. “Where’s Jack Swagger?”

“He– he bailed on me.”

Y/N chokes out, trying to keep her tears at bay. She knows how much effort her friends put into creating this fake underground restaurant just for her to have her date with Jack, she can’t cry in front of them. And yet, she did not expect Jack to bail on her when she was inside a taxi and on her way to pick him up from his hotel. She couldn’t call her friends to tell them to cancel everything, she didn’t have the heart to. They did all this for her, so she could have a quiet date with a celebrity she’d known since she was ten; she couldn’t bail out on her friends after what they’ve done for her. And yeah, she only ever agreed to go on a date with Jack to forget about her unresolved feelings for someone else, and she knew it probably wouldn’t have worked out between her and Jack, but it had been nice to know that someone cared enough about her to take her out on a date. She wasn’t even mad that her date wasn’t about to happen, she was upset because her friends had created a fake restaurant for her and Jack, and he’d bailed on her at the last minute.

Y/N shakes her head, wrapping her arms around herself as if to shield herself from the cold, and she hugs herself tightly as Charlotte puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. Jasper gets off from the chair he’s been sitting on, and he walks around the cashier counter to join his two friends.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jasper wonders, genuine concern in his voice.

“H– he texted me. I was already in a taxi on my way here. I was supposed to pick him up on the way, when he texted. Said he couldn’t make it, superstar stuff he said…”

“Y/N… You could have called us.” Charlotte says. “To tell us your date was cancelled.”

“N– no. You guys made up a fake restaurant in the Man Cave so that I could have my date with Jack. It wouldn’t have been fair to you guys if I had cancelled, not after all the effort you must have put into doing whatever’s below us. I– I’m gonna go down there, and I’m gonna have a girl’s dinner by myself.”

Charlotte smiles sadly, before an idea pops in her mind. She lifts her head to look at Jasper, and an understanding passes between them. Charlotte knows what she has to do. 

“Don’t be ridiculous Y/N. I’ll have a girl’s dinner with you.” Charlotte lies, having another idea in mind, but Y/N seems to buy it.

“Dinner for two, then?” Jasper chimes in  as he walks back behind the counter.

“Yeah, okay.” Y/N laughs. “We have a reservation for Y/N. Y/N L/N.”

“Ah! There it is. Right this way, ladies.”

Y/N and Charlotte look at each other before laughing at Jasper’s antics as he leads the way to the elevator in the back shop. 

Down in the Man Cave, Henry waits by the white grand piano as the elevator dings open and out come Y/N, Charlotte, and Jasper. The first thing he notices then, is the absence of Jack Swagger. He frowns, and his grip on the fake menus tightens. His jaw clenches as he grinds his teeth, but his features soften again when his eyes land back on Y/N.

Henry’s breath gets caught up in his throat as he looks at her. She’s breathtakingly beautiful, with her hair cascading down her shoulders and the mesmerized smile hanging on her red, lipstick-covered lips. She spins around on her feet, taking in the sight of the remodelled Man Cave for the occasion, and the long dress she wears twirls as she does so. Her soft chuckle is like music to Henry when it reaches his ears, pulling him out of his reverie just as Jasper and Charlotte walk up to him. But his eyes never leave Y/N, not even when Jasper drags him behind the soundproof curtain until he can’t see her anymore.

“What’s going on?” Schwoz asks, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. “Why’s Henry all lovestruck?”

That seems to pull Henry out of his trance. “No, I’m not!” He says, shaking his head. “Jasper, what’s going on? Why is Y/N on her own?”

“Oh! Jack Swagger bailed on her.” Jasper answers nonchalantly.

“What?!”

“Yeah. He texted her when she was on her way to pick him up in a taxi.”

“So, she came on her own?” Schwoz questions, raising a brow. “Then, what’s the point of a date?”

“She didn’t want to cancel, because she knows how much effort we put in turning the Man Cave into a fake restaurant. She’s going to have a girl’s dinner with Charlotte instead.”

“Well, actually… I lied.”

All four men -including Ray, who’d been eavesdropping on the conversation while stirring a pot- jump on their feet, startled by Charlotte who’s now standing behind Jasper, the soundproof curtain closed behind her. 

“Y– you lied to Y/N?” Jasper asks incredulously. “W– why?”

“I thought we were on the same page!” Charlotte groans, throwing her head back.

“Did you– did you leave Y/N on her own?” Ray asks, pointing an accusatory finger at Charlotte.

“No, Piper’s here!”

“Wh– What? Piper’s here? Wh– why?” Henry questions.

“She thought she’d see Jack Swagger with Y/N, so she came to play the piano.”

“But Piper doesn’t know how to play the piano?”

“That’s what I said! She was gonna use her phone to play slow jams, and she’d just fake playing.”

“Uh, makes sense.” Schwoz shrugs as he nods approvingly.

“Any-Ray…” Ray interrupts. “Why did you lie to Y/N, Charlotte?”

“Come on! I can’t be the only one smart enough to have figured it out, can I?” When no one says anything, Charlotte says, “Henry is going to take Y/N out for dinner here.” 

Henry drops the fake menus he’d been holding onto all this time, and he whips his head towards Charlotte, blinking several times as if she’d grown several heads and he couldn’t believe it.

“Wh– wha– what?” He breathes out in shock. “Wh– wh– why?! I can’t take Y/N out for dinner, have you lost your mind Char?”

“Hen, we know you like her.” Charlotte implies, and her statement is followed by a chorus of hm.

“Wh– what? N– no, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do.” Jasper states. “Now that Char’s said it out loud, we know what she’s talking about. You’re not good at hiding it.”

“Even Ray could tell you like her.” Charlotte adds.

“Hey!” Ray whines. “But it’s true though. You do like her.”

“Yeah! You’ve been doing oogly eyes at Y/N whenever she comes to work.” Schwoz carries on, nodding.

“What does that even mean, Schwoz?!” Henry wonders.

“You can’t take your eyes off her!”

“Schwoz’s right.” Charlotte agrees. “You even started to read her favorite book. And you hate reading.”

Henry sighs, throwing his head back and lifting his arms up in defeat.

“Okay, fine! Fine.” He says. “So, what if I like her? What am I supposed to do?”

“Take her out on a date, Kid.” Ray answers, motioning towards the soundproof curtains.

“But what if she doesn’t like me that way?”

“But, what if she does?” 

Henry glares at Ray, before he glances towards Charlotte. Surely she’d been joking when she suggested he takes Y/N out on a date here in the Man Cave turned restaurant. But she looks at him with a knowing smile, arms crossed over her chest, and she’s backed up by Jasper, who has a smug expression plastered on his face. 

Henry sighs. It’s true that he hasn’t been really excited to play-pretend being a waiter in a fake restaurant, because it meant being forced to watch Y/N enjoy her date with Jack Swagger. It’s true, now that he thinks about it, he’d felt slightly jealous when Y/N first mentioned her date with Jack Swagger earlier today. And it’s true that he’d felt slightly relieved when he found out that Jack Swagger bailed on Y/N. So, what is he so afraid of now? Charlotte’s offering him a chance to take Y/N out on a date, in this fake restaurant they’d spent all afternoon setting up, why doesn’t he want to take it?

He glances at the soundproof curtains, knowing Y/N’s behind with his sister, and Henry can hear the thumping of his heart the more he thinks about how she looks tonight. Her bright smile, the wonder in her eyes as she’d looked around the remodeled Man Cave for the occasion, her H/C cascading down her shoulders, or how her dress fitted her perfectly as she twirled around.

“Earth to Henry. Earth to Henry.”

Henry blinks, pulled out of his thoughts by Ray’s voice, and when he turns his head back towards his friends, he knows what he has to do. He fumbles with the knot around his waist, before handing his apron to Jasper.

“Why are you giving me this?” Jasper asks, raising a brow.

“I’m gonna take Y/N out on a date.” Henry says confidently. “Give me your tux jacket.”

Jasper grumbles and reluctantly gives his jacket to his friend. Lucky for the both of them, they wear the same size so the jacket fits Henry like a glove. 

“Let’s get this date on the road!” Ray shouts as he fist-bumps the air, returning to his cooking.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t blow up another kitchen with those flares.” Charlotte sighs, watching as Ray childishly lights up a flare.

“Thanks.” Henry whispers before he turns to Jasper.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll be the waiter tonight.”

“Thanks man.”

—

Henry steps out of the made-up kitchen, instantly spotting Y/N by the grand white piano, laughing as Piper pretends to be a professional pianist. He nervously adjusts the tie around his neck, wiping his moist hands on his trousers as he walks over to the two teenage girls. Tentatively, he puts a hand on Y/N’s back, and she turns her head around to look at him.

“Oh, hey Hen.” She smiles. “What’s up?”

“Char told me what happened,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Where is Charlotte, by the way?”

“In the kitchen, making sure Ray doesn’t blow it up.”

“Oh.”

Henry can hear the disappointment in her voice, and he instantly feels guilty, dropping his hand from the small of her back. He swallows nervously, and he hears the rustling of the curtain behind him, meaning Jasper’s waiting to settle them at their table.

“Y/N?” Henry calls for her attention.

She lifts her head, eyes looking into his. “Hm?”

“Would you like to go on a date with me?” He asks her, rubbing a hand against his neck out of nervousness.

“Wh– what?”

“This is going to be interesting.” Piper whispers under her breath as she watches.

“I, uh… I’d like to take you out on a date if, uh… that’s okay with you?” Henry tries again, albeit clumsily. 

“Are you– are you asking because Jack Swagger bailed on me?”

“N– no! No!” Henry shakes his head, hands dropping to his sides. “No! I’m– Listen, Y/N, I– I like you. I mean, I like like you, Y/N. And I’d love it if you’d go on a date with me.”

“You– you like me?” Y/N stutters, blinking.

“Yeah, I do.”

Y/N lets out a trembling breath. She doesn’t know what to think; she’s had the longest crush on her best friend that she doesn’t even remember when she’d first caught feelings for him. He’d been the whole reason she agreed to go on a date with Jack Swagger in the first place; to forget about her confusing feelings for Henry. But here he is now, after she’d been bailed on, asking her out on a date in a fake restaurant he’d put up all afternoon with the rest of their friends. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm the rapid beating of her heart as she looks back to Henry. What an interesting night this turns out to be, she thinks.

“I’d love to go on a date with you, Henry Hart.” Y/N says eventually, smiling.

“Shall we?”

Henry asks as he offers her his arm to take, and shivers run down his spine when her hand finds the crook of his elbow. He looks at her with a smile, before he leads her away from the grand piano, where Piper resumes fake-playing a slow tune, and towards Jasper who holds the fake menus in his hands.

“If the two lovebirds would follow me,” Jasper says as he slips into the role of a waiter in a fancy restaurant. “We have your table ready right over here.”

“Thanks.” Henry says as he pulls the chair for Y/N.

Y/N sits down, placing her small purse on her thighs as she waits for Henry to sit across from her. She spots the flowers in the centre, and she smiles. Her favourites. For a minute she wonders whose idea it was for the flowers, and after pondering it she comes to the conclusion that it had either been Charlotte, or Henry. 

“So…” Y/N trails out, a smirk on her lips, as Henry sits down. “What’s this place called?”

“It’s called Food.” Jasper answers proudly.

“That’s dumb.” Y/N snorts.

“Is it? What if I told you it’s ‘food’ spelled with a U with two dots over it.”

“Now, that’s interesting.” She glances at Henry, who smiles sheepishly.

Jasper hands them the menus. “Take your time, I’ll be back for your orders.”

Y/N gives Jasper a grateful smile, watching as he disappears behind the silver curtains. For a short minute, she can even hear Ray yelling there and she cannot suppress a laugh as she shakes her head in disbelief.

“This place is nice.” She says, looking at Henry again. “For a fake restaurant.”

“Right? So private.”

“Henry, we’re the only ones here. Of course, it’s private.”

“Ye– yeah, I know. I just– I like the idea of our first date being private. Y’know, without anyone around.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Maybe that your sister is eying us from the piano, and that everyone else here has poked their head through the curtain to spy on us.”

Y/N finishes explaining with a laugh, and Henry looks over his shoulder to see Ray, Schwoz, Charlotte, and Jasper with their heads poking through the soundproof curtain, one head after the other. He frowns, giving them his best menacing stare, and all of them scurry off back behind the curtains. Then he glances towards his sister, his lips pressed into a thin line when he sees her with her phone in her hand as if she were going to take a picture. He wants to tell her off, but the words get lost in his throat when he feels a hand above his on the table, and he turns his head back around to look at Y/N. She’s smiling that soft smile she always wears around the people she loves, and Henry’s breath gets caught up in his throat again. God, she’s beautiful, he thinks as he flips his hand around so that his palm touches hers. 

“I’m sorry this isn’t the date you had in mind.” He tells her, holding her hand in his. “And I’m sorry Jack Swagger bailed on you. And that you’re stuck with me inst–”

“Henry.” She interrupts him, smiling. “I’m glad it’s you I’m stuck with. And it may be a fake restaurant, with fake chefs, a fake waiter and a fake pianist, but I’m happy it’s you here with me.”

“R– really?”

“Yeah. Honestly, I’m not sure it would have worked out between me and Jack, if something ever were to happen… I don’t think I’m cut out to be the girlfriend of a superstar.” She laughs, rolling her eyes playfully. 

“And what about being the girlfriend of an awesome sidekick to a superhero?” Henry asks with a smug smile on his lips.

“Henry Hart, are you asking me to be your girlfriend at the beginning of our very first date?”

Y/N questions him, letting go of his hand as she leans over the table, resting her elbows on top of the silver table cloth, and she rests her chin atop her linked hands. A playful smirk grows on her lips as she watches him, raising a brow as she waits for his answer.

“And what if I am?” He says then, mimicking her movements. “What then?”

Y/N hums, feigning deeply thinking. “I don’t know. Do you know any awesome sidekicks here in Swellview?”

“I might know of one. Maybe you’ve heard of him. His name is Kid Danger.”

“The name does ring a bell.” She says playfully, leaning further over the table. “Do you know where I might find him?”

“I heard he works in a store called Junk’N’Stuff.” Henry answers, leaning over the table until his forehead touches hers. “And I heard he’s really Henry Hart behind the mask.”

“Well then, Henry Hart,” Y/N says with a smile. “I would love to be your girlfriend.”

ⓒ writerinlearning – 2025

[persephone-writes]

A Diviner's Guide to James Potter: Series Masterlist

(ongoing) - read on ao3

Description: Being friends with Lily Evans was difficult when you were head over heels for her ex-boyfriend, James. Your problems are only made worse when you begin receiving strange omens that point to a less than desirable future.

Genre: Friends to lovers, slow burn (I mean it!), fluff & angst.

Rating: Teen (swearing, alcohol/weed/cigarettes, no smut). More detailed warnings for the whole fic can be found on Chapter One.

Series Word Count (so far): 134.1k

+:｡.｡.｡:+*+:｡.｡.｡:+*+:｡.♡.｡:+*+:｡.｡.｡:+*+:｡.｡.｡+

Chapter One: The Omen

You tell your friends about your odd findings while working on your most recent Divination assignment, all while trying to push away your growing feelings for James

Chapter Two: The Heart Wants What it Wants

Answers to your predicament are few and far between when Sirius gets a letter from his parents and the Gryffindor quidditch team receives some excellent news. 

Chapter Three: Wicked and Wayward

Gryffindor plays Hufflepuff in the fourth match of the season, complete with an eventful after party.

Chapter Four: Paranoid

Hogsmeade is fun, but not when Sirius dangles a dangerous secret right in front of your nose.

Chapter Five: The Blizzard

A late winter storm buries Hogwarts in piles of snow, causing James to grow increasingly restless. It also blows in a much needed answer.

Chapter Six: Portraits Talk

Sirius attempts to quell your anger, though the pressure of acting aloof threatens to topple you.

Chapter Seven: Communing with Nature

You receive another omen which points to nothing good, though James is always there to help ease your mind.

Chapter Eight: The Duel

Mulciber becomes a looming threat to you and your friends, only increasing your existing anxieties. 

Chapter Nine: Red and Gold

Old insecurities are brought to the surface, but James attempts to reassure you with the promise of a fun weekend. 

Chapter Ten: Scurrilous Scoundrel

A night of firewhiskey, dancing, and racing hearts is unfortunately cut short when you stumble across eerie meeting. 

Chapter Eleven: The Hour Struck Nine

Tensions between you and James run high when you, Peter, and Marlene return to the RoR.

Chapter Twelve: Discontent

After nearly seven years, you finally make it into Dumbledore’s office, though this does little to ease your growing nerves, especially when it comes to James.

Chapter Thirteen: A Lovely Shade of Turquoise

James forces you to talk about what happened, opening up a can of worms you wish you could charm back in.  

Chapter Fourteen: The Stars Can Speak

After your fight with James, you're left entirely unsure how to act. However, your friends, and the stars, have some (un)helpful suggestions.

Chapter Fifteen: Repairo

Two diverging paths are presented to you: avoidance or intuition. Which one will you choose?

Chapter Sixteen: The Chaste Moon

The full moon comes just before Easter, fostering a time of rebirth and renewal…among other things. 

Chapter Seventeen: An Invitation

You and the others search for answers regarding the return of your nefarious classmates. 

Chapter Eighteen: Innamorati

Presents, dueling practice, and parties, oh my!

Chapter Nineteen: Yours, James

You and James are forced to deal with the highly eventful nature of Saturday night.

Chapter Twenty: And Then There Was You

You learn more about James's former pining, realizing there is less to fear than you initially thought.

Chapter Twenty-One: Severus' Story

It seems as though the past always has a way of catching up with you (and everyone else around you), even if Quattlebaum has hopes for your future.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Tears

Still reeling with your discoveries, you're left to deal with the aftermath.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Hourglass

You try your best to help Sirius with his brother, even if it means trusting your abilities in Divination more than ever before.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Coming Soon!

•-—✼.o○☆———☆○o.✼.o○☆———☆○o.✼—-•

Antique book cover credits:

The Deer-Parks and Paddocks of England by Joseph Whitaker, Captain Courtesy by Edward Childs Carpenter & Goldfish Varieties and Tropical Aquarium Fishes; a Complete Guide to Aquaria and Related Subjects by William T. Innes

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | January 20th-26th 2025

On time this week, woohoo! And less thsan 40 days until season 8B !!

Special mention to all of @tizniz's drabbles that I've been reblogging, which you can find on her tumblr or on ao3 at E & E: A Buddie Drabble Collection !

Let me know if I'm missing a tag for someone!

Complete

home is where you've called my name by atlasblue85/ @atlasblue85 (Post-S8E8: Wannabes | 3K | General): Buck plays a game with himself. It goes something like this: for every house Eddie outright rejects, he adds an item to his list of why Eddie shouldn't move to El Paso. He doesn't know what the threshold is, that magic number that will make him finally speak up and express his thoughts to Eddie, but until he finds it, this is how he's coping. They're up to nine so far. Nine perfectly good houses, nine reasons Eddie shouldn't go.

you're a dog (i'm your man) by withmeornotatall / @chronicowboy (Dog Shelter AU | 3K | General): "Hey." He turns around, leans against the doorframe, tries to look casual. "Maybe, only if you're free of course, you could come round and let Chris pick out a band aid for you tonight. Don't want you bleeding out before you can get your Spider-Man band aid." Buck lights up like the fucking sun. Oh no. Eddie has one rule: never take a dog home. But he thinks Buck might be worth the risk. (OR: eddie is a dog trainer with patience, buck is a shelter worker with more bark than bite)

🔥 My Mouth Don't Move When I'm In Too Deep by taegyungie (PWP, Semi-Public Sex | 7K | Explicit): But here’s the thing: Eddie’s taken giant mouthfuls of life and chewed every last one of them up. He’s taken enough, he’s still taking enough - he doesn’t want to be the one to ask for it. All he can do is offer himself up, over and over, and hope that Buck will finally get the hint and dig his claws into what’s been his from the very start.

🔥 Five Years by aubrey_writes (Blip AU | 8K | Mature): Buck gets blipped. Eddie's left behind. A love story told through what Eddie did in his absence.

Liminal Space by ameliahart (NDE, Getting Together | 8K | Teen): Eddie Diaz dies on a sunny afternoon in January. It seems fitting, he thinks, that it should happen like this: trapped beneath three floors of a collapsed apartment building, a piece of rebar through his right lung, and his eyes on the love of his life. Because of course Buck is here with him, watching horrified as Eddie’s love and life bleed out around him.

Buck, Bedbugged and Bewildered by writedontfight (Post-S8A AU | 8K | Explicit): Buck gets bedbugs, so he's staying at Eddie's until they're gone.

🔥 everything you need (put all you need in me) by jaekyu (PWP, FWB | 9K | Explicit): Eddie imagines it. The faux-domesticity of grocery shopping with his best friend and full-time fuckbuddy, filled up with come like a jam donut or something. It would be kind of ironic. It would be definitely, wholeheartedly, totally erotic.

My boy only breaks his favorite toys by paleredheadinascifi (Amnesia, Post-S8A | 10K | Teen): Eddie wakes up five years in the future. It turns out five years is all it takes to ruin a friendship and run your life into the ground. Or, Eddie gets hurt and his apparently now ex-best friend Buck hops on a plane to El Paso. They figure out what the fuck happened together.

🔥 Firelight by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergent, Post-S7, Monster Eddie, HOH Buck | 61K | Explicit): When, in the worst of missing Christopher, Eddie suddenly finds himself having literally turned into a monster, Buck - who is also dealing with a newfound hearing loss diagnosis - is willing to do anything to protect him. Even from himself. OR: Eddie is a creature from Swedish folklore, feat. HOH!Buck

WIP

Kiss Me Once Cause You Know I Had A Long Night by I_still_dont_understand_13 / @sherlockcrossing (Prompt collection | 35/? | 23K | Teen): 100 kiss prompts.

35. 44. A goodbye kiss, but neither of you can quite let go 

🔥 An Angry Blade by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-8x05: Masks, Cursed Buck | 1/6 | 8K | Mature): Buck finds out that the curse of Billy Boils is VERY real, and far more complicated and dangerous than he could have expected.

🔥 Gentle On My Mind by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergent, Shannon Lives, Buck/Eddie/Shannon | 12/? | 76K | Explicit): In which Shannon lives, tells a lie, and sends hers, Eddie's, and Buck's lives down a very different path.

🔥 Doe & a Drop of Golden Sun by ohstars/ @oh-stars (Canon Divergent, Dad Buck | 8/? | 37K | Teen): Buck doesn't mean to keep secrets from everyone, but he also can't talk about the pain he experiences on a day to day basis. With his nine-year-old living across the country and his custody limited to one monthly visit, Buck doesn't know how to share this part of himself. How does he tell his team of six years that he's had a kid this whole time? How does he tell his sister? How does he tell his Edd-- best friend? It's fine. The universe isn't going to give him a choice in the matter when the worst thing imaginable becomes his reality.

Podfic

Sunlight is Fire (Burning is a Matter of Degrees) by Favourite_alias // fic by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Incubbi Buck, FWB | 1-1.5h | Explicit): In the wake of Buck's leg injury, Eddie learns that his friend needs some unusual methods to help him recover. Eddie's willing to do whatever it takes to help Buck, and it's not like this could make his quiet pining any worse, right?

Bed Sharing Concerto in Monsterfucking No. 3 by Favourite_alias // fic by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Werewolf Eddie, Human Buck, Only One Bed | 10-20min | Explicit): Buck has the worst fucking luck. His only consolation here is that Eddie’s with him, so at least he’s not alone in a cabin with no Wifi, no central heat, no cell service, and no proper winter gear. The water works, the pipes haven’t frozen (yet) so at least he can get briefly clean. He’s so focused on scrubbing the day away that it’s not until he gets out and heads into the bedroom that he realizes— There’s only one bed.

A Chorus of Howls by Favourite_alias // fic by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Werewolves, PWP | 10-20min | Explicit): Buck is running through the woods. He’s on two feet, four, two again, dodging around trees, kicking up dirt, leaping and landing hard. Behind him, sometimes, he thinks he can hear another set of feet—a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, black on black, shadow on shadow— There. There. He can smell his pursuer’s blood and he runs faster, fast as he can. He’s not going to lose. His blood is up and running and so is he.

Duet for Two Monsters by Favourite_alias // fic by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Werewolf Eddie, Succubus Buck | 20-30min | Explicit): Buck’s been meaning to tell Eddie for a while, now. Especially now that they’re both single again. He needs to tell Eddie, because he’s pretty sure—he thinks he’s sure—that Eddie loves him back. And he won’t be intimate with Eddie without telling him. Of course, it’s a bit hard to start that conversation, on a logistical level. Hey so I have horns and a tail and feed off people’s orgasms, fun, right?

🔥 [Podfic] Buddie, It's Cold Outside by diazaster287 // fic by terranobis (Christmas, Hallmark AU | 1-1.5h | Not Rated): Big City businessman Evan Buckley travels to a small town Christmas Village in an attempt to save his personal and professional life, but when he meets the local father Eddie Diaz, he finds that he just might get the greatest present he could ever ask for.

[solaiced]

CASE 2: HIS HIGHNESS, SUKUNA RYOMEN, DEMANDS AN HEIR!

!content!: breeding, canon typical violence, sukuna being kinda soft, mentions of pregnancy, canon divergence, implied multiple rounds, sukuna and strong language.

wc: 1,7k

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Being close to Sukuna wasn't easy. Being his wife, however, was hell. It's not violent, as everyone thinks. Well, not in that sense. He is demanding. And sometimes, it's hard to come through to his orders. For example, a servant was ordered to bring home mangoes at the end of the year, which was difficult, as it was not the season. Sukuna executed him in front of the whole court, including you and his concubines.

Said concubines' numbers having depleted after that event. They couldn't handle that kind of violence. Having gone from six to three then finally two. You? You stayed. You were quite literally obligated to, but you didn't really want to leave anyways. You were used to the violence, the blood and overall the gore that surrounded Sukuna. As a loyal combatant, you were not better than him, both of your kill counts being very close in numbers.

Anyways, that wasn't the point. First thing's first, kings had heirs. And an idiot from the near village had suggested to bring his daughter as his 'heir-bearer' as she had 'potential' and was a strong woman.

Now, no doubt she had potential, but there was no way he would accept to impregnate some woman. You, however, he would. So, when he randomly picked you up from a conversation, throwing you over his broad shoulder, leaving both ends of your body hanging, you didn't think it would be for this.

Thus, when he throws you on the bed, stares you down as he rips open your junihitoe, which took months to make, by the way, and flips you over.

"Wait, wait, what are you doing?!" You back up, crawling to the bed board before he drags you back by the ankle.

"Impregnating you. Breeding you. Fucking you. Making love to you. I don't care what the word is, I'm going to put my dick inside of you and make an heir for my kingdom." he says it so casually, you thought you misheard and he was actually talking about something inconspicuous.

"No, no, you didn't talk to me about this, why so suddenly? I thought you had, like, another thousand years in you!" You grab the sheets, trying to wrangle your foot out of his hold. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for your kingdom, he was way too strong for you. His lower left hand comes to grab your other ankle and drags you back, ass resting near his half-hard crotch.

"Don't care. You wanna fuck?" He uses his upper left hand to grab your chin and nod for you, "Good, take off your kosode." He releases your chin and helps you out of the tattered pieces of junihitoe, not paying attention to your protests. "Wait!" You yell, digging your manicured nails into his hand. Sukuna looks up, annoyed, but still willing to listen. "Do you know how horrible pregnancy is? I need at least a month to prep-" He cuts you off with a weary sigh, almost groaning. "I'll get you accommodations, don't worry about that. You'll get the best doctors in the nation, I will make sure of that. You won't get any complications, I got doctors to analyse your physical things, whatever they are. It'll be completely safe." He sounds uncharacteristically... soft. You think he probably got drugged, yeah! He got drugged, now he wants a kid, because you know sober Sukuna would never want a brat running around the castle. Right?

"You're drunk, aren't you?" You turn around, sitting on your heels to reach a hand on his cheek. He leans into it lightly before grabbing your hand and pushing you onto the bed, lifting you legs so that they rest on his shoulders while he takes off your kosode. "No, I want an heir. Right here." His clawed (You've always tried to cut them) hand rests on where your womb would be, caressing it. "Sukuna..." You swallow nervously, worried for your cervix, mostly. Sukuna was unnaturally big, always knocking his tip against your womb, but he never forgot to pull out, afraid of having to take care of the consequences. "I'm serious, I want a kid. I can even alleviate the pain, if it hurts that much." He rolls his eyes, your undergarments finally coming off and revealing your most vulnerable form.

"Really? Then... at least be gentle, okay? Nice and slow, like making love." You smile, gaining new-found confidence as you place your hand on his forearm. Said forearm being the size of your thigh and more, maybe, you haven't had the chance to mesure it.

He barks out a laugh and shoves off his hakama, taking out his double cocks (which you could never take at once) and spitting on the upper one to jerk it. "You better get to work, if you don't want to hurt too much." He warns, getting his dick harder.

Instead of arguing back, you heed his words because you know he is serious, right now. Sliding your fingers inside of your own warmth, wincing when Sukuna's nails jabs into the flesh of your thighs as his pupils dilate at the sight of your cunt.

He instantly gets harder, almost painful as it leaks more pre than before. His lower cock, always the one neglected, rests against your ass cheeks, throbbing achingly.

You slide a third finger in, thumb rubbing your clit to help yourself out. Sukuna growls, retracts his claws and takes out your fingers and stabs a finger inside of you, making you cry out and arch your back at an almost unnatural angle.

"So weak. I can't believe you used to fight alongside of me." He snickers mockingly, teeth glinting in the dim light of the bedroom's candles. You open your eyes, narrowing them slightly before grunting out a low, "I can still fight, but if you hinder me with the smallest issue, I might have some trouble."

His laugh is cruel as he adds in a second one, those fingers totaling fours of yours, which was already hard to take in, but considering the sheer size of his erection, you didn't really mind, prep was still prep at the end of the day.

"The battlefield is empty... without you." He admits, spitting a glob of spit on your clit to rub it sloppily. You moan, clenching your hand in his hair, pink like the insides of your cunt.

''Rea-Really? I wonder why." Your mouth shapes an 'o' when he hits a particularly smooth surface in the depths of your pussy. Sukuna straightens, letting his abdominal mouth's tongue loll out to taste the delicacy that your slit produces, it moans lowly and he removes the digit stroking your clit as the appendage replaces it.

Your moans pitch higher, hands going behind his head to bring him closer. "What is it?" He raises an eyebrow at your open mouth.

You lift your head just a bit, sharing breaths with Sukuna, "Kiss." You demand, left hand coming to swipe across his spit-slicked lower lip.

He chuckles, shaking his head. "Kiss my hand, slut."

Lifting his hand, a slit opening on his palm as a tongue sprawls out of it, he places it on your mouth and immediately shuts you up, the tongue shoving itself down your throat. His stomach's tongue was big, but this one was long, almost reaching the uvula at the back of your larynx.

A squeak manages to slide past the appendage down your throat, making him bark out a laugh and rip his hand away. You whine almost pathetically, no sign of the past feared warrior, only a pitiful human in her place

He croons, pecking your lips demeaningly, but everyone knows Sukuna wouldn't do that wholeheartedly. It was mocking. Like every loving action he did to rile you up. You were friends, maybe. Probably. Okay, maybe not, but-

A mind shattering thrust breaks you out of your already messy thoughts, a loud scream, you didn't even register it as yours, echoes throughout the chamber, making him clasp his hand on your mouth to avoid waking every palace servant who were napping right now. He had hit your cervix, spot on. The mini orgasm you had wasn't even prepared, but now that he located it, he was determined to break it open and stuff his spunk inside.

Each thrust now reached your womb, little squeals and keens slipping through Sukuna's fingers. The King of Curses himself couldn't contain your mewls, so he did what he did. Kissed you, sloppily, yes but, still. The monster that everyone feared so much, pressed his lips to yours, tilting his head so that his nose wouldn't bump into yours. His lower right hand lifted your left leg so that he could press your knee against your chest, reaching impossibly deeper.

You sigh through your nose, wrapping your free leg around his hips, which were moving wildly, almost moving in sync with yours as both of your bodies strive to finally procreate.

Your orgasm builds up at the base of your spine, tingles, head to toe, which were curled to their maximum. Sukuna shudders, and you even hear him sniffling, but it's hard to hear over your ears ringing, and wet flesh hitting wet flesh. You listen to him mutter about how good of a mother you'd be, brats running away from you as you try to dress them, your round belly and dripping tits when it was feeding time.

Fuck, he was going to cum before you, that was completely unacceptable, he thought as he slid a hand down your body to pinch your clit maliciously, smirking against your lips as you gift him another sharp inhale. A few more thrusts and you would definitely cum.

Is what he thought before his eyes shoot open, widening as he climaxes, a muffled moan against your lips. His hips stutter as his mind blanks, eyes rolling to the back of his skull whilst he fills you up until your belly almost bulges with the amount of semen he just plugged you with. And that triggers you, back arching, toes curling, eyes rolling to the back of your head just like his did, hands clenching in his hair as the world feels like it stilled.

When you both finally come down from the high, Sukuna pulls away, panting heavily. But not as much as you, who was almost heaving. He stares at your tummy, said tummy slightly distended from the fluid inside.

"S'kuna..." You mumble, turning your head away in shame.

"One more." All four of his hands roaming the soft and coarse parts of your skin, making you shudder. "Once more, it didn't take. Trust me, I'd know." He snarks, that smug smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

Well, good luck!

[i-only-ever-asked-questions]

Map of Soho Good Omens Season 2 - Part 1 (Location and general map)

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Update: Map now identifies Lucky Snake and the coffee shop listed in Aziraphale's clipboard may indeed be Give Me Coffee I think we all have wondered how the GO Soho looks like and where it would be in real London. So using all the screenshots, BTS pictures and videos I could find I did my best to map out where things are. It is not to scale but everything I could see is there. I originally had all the pictures and explanations in this post but soon it became obvious it was going to be too long and impractical so I had to split it in different posts and I hope I got it right. The map has five reference points (circle with two diverging lines); imagine the circle is you, standing in the set, and the lines are your viewpoint if you were taking a picture from there. The left side of Whickber Street (#1 and #2) is in Part 2, the intersecting street (#3 and #4) is in Part 3 and the right half of Whickber Street (#5) is in Part 4.

As to where the bookshop would be in real London. We know that Whickber Street is supposed to be Berwick Street so let's start there. The intersecting street is not obvious from the show. In this post Neil said he imagines the bookshop to be where Gosh! Comics is (Peter Street) while Michael Ralph and Douglas McKinnon probably put it at The Week (on Broadwick Street). Because it is ambiguous and really you can do whatever you want, I just left it as "intersecting street". We know from the book that Crowley takes Wardour Street after the bookshop fire. Wardour is behind Berwick so in our map it would be where the Chinese Buffet Restaurant is, considering they run more or less parallel. On the other side, we have the Windmill Theatre located on Great Windmill Street. From Berwick St. and Peter St. it takes three minutes to walk to the theatre, it is that close! (yes, I know, Crowley was conducting business two blocks from the bookshop while not talking to Aziraphale for 80 years). I have never been in that part of London so I used Google Maps streetview and based only on that, I like the corner of Berwick St. and Broadwick St. better. It has the crooked intersection but the proximity of the theatre matches Peter St. better, so whatever works better for you!

There is one place missing from the set map though: Brown's World of Carpets! It is nowhere to be found, we simply don't know where it is My very personal headcanon is that it is nothing but a desk inside the furniture store. I find that idea of the guy most worried about storefront looks being the one without a storefront very amusing, but don't mind me, it is just my very silly hc XD Now, we know Aziraphale has a list for the shops he needs to visit. And we know he wrote it in alphabetical order which begs the question: Where is the Dirty Donkey?! Are they not invited? And what about the fabric shop? And Bilton Scaggs? Battye and Palm? The News Agency? Is "Mo Coffee? No Coffee?" supposed to be Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death? Or is there another coffee shop somewhere? @crow-bee23 suggested it could be "Me Coffee" which it is entirely possible, the full name is kind of long. So many questions to ask Mr. Brown.

Anyway, I put pictures and details on the shops in parts 2, 3 and 4. Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for...

Dec 16th

~*~

1. Itmf fics for good!wen xu (or as good as he can be in his circumstances). We don't know much about him, which gives his character a lot of wiggle room potential. I've seen some interesting takes where he kinda parallels interpretations of zuko's cousin Lu Ten in avatar the last airbendee fics. Be interesting to see more of those

🔒 Contrapuntal by WithBroomBefore (T, 35k, WQ & WWX, WangXian, LQR/WQ, Canon Divergence, Time Travel, Fix-It, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV WQ, Everyone Lives, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Sickfic, Trans LWJ, Trans Male LWJ, Arranged Marriage, Minor Character Death, Murder)

these all have Wei Ying joining the Wens and oftentimes, being a positive influence on Wen Xu:

All Things Belong by kuroi_atropos (M, 92k, WWX & WRH, WangXian, WWX is a Wen, Abuse, Whipping, Manipulations, Warning: WRH, Smart WWX, Possessive Behavior, Warning: JGS, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Rape/Non-con, Society Level Victim Blaming, Victim Blaming)

Scars of Lightning by The_peregrine_falcon (T, 6k, YZY & WWX, WWX & WRH, WangXian, YZY’s A+ Parenting, Canon Divergence, Not Canon Compliant, Wen WWX, zidian, YZY is a bitch, Canon-Typical Violence, Blood and Injury, Major Character Injury, Heavy Angst, Lotus Pier, Nightless City, Young WWX, Muteness, Hurt kind of comfort)

Sunset, Sunrise by Ariana Deralte (ArianaDeralte) (T, 59k, WWX & WRH, WangXian, WIP, Time Travel Fix-It, Crack, Temporary Character Death, sorry I killed a-Yuan for a few paragraphs before the time travel, WWX is a Wen, Genius WWX, WRH gets to rewatch the series as a treat, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, in this house we acknowledge that all the sects have flaws, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, WWX Has ADHD, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Autistic LWJ)

Train Rides Change Everything by Seriana (E, 508k, WangXian, SangXu, ChengJue, ChenLi, Modern AU, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics, Mpreg, Abusive Jiang Family, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Slut Shaming, Fluff and Angst, Unplanned Pregnancy, Abusive YZY, Bad Parents JFM and YZY, Beta JC, Omega JYL, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Beta NHS, WC Being an Asshole, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Misunderstandings, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Scenting, Scent Marking, Slow Burn, Forced Marriage, First Time, Forced Bitching - Omegaverse, Alpha WX, Minor Character Death, Murder, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kidnapping, drug overdose, Sexual Tension, Omega JC) has a good (ish) Wen Cu. He's no boy scout, but he's far from the unredeemable person he is often seen as

Where The Arrow Points by Nillegible (G, 4k, WIP, WN & WQ, WN & WWX, JC & WWX, Time Travel Fix-It, Fix-It, No Sunshot Campaign, Because Um. WN murders WRH, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, really) this fic seems to have been abandoned after only one chapter, unfortunately, but about half of that is from Wen Xu's POV and I found him interesting! He's still an antagonist (I think??? the fic died so early it's hard to tell) but he some complexity and positive qualities.

The Oriole Behind You by mercyandmagic (M, 97k, WangXian, LXC/JGY, JC/MM, CP/XY, MXY/NHS, NMJ/WQ, WN/QS, JYL/JZX, JZN/SS, SL/XXC, WX/WZL, LQR/Sisi, Arranged Marriage, Things are not as they appear, alternative title - WRH is the world's greatest matchmaker, Lan Family Feels, Jiang Family Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone Lives) I remember this one having good!WX

🔒 Three Little Things by Netrixie (M, 39k, NHS/WX, LXC/NMJ, No Yin Iron, Crack Treated Seriously, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics, Canon-Typical Violence, Background Character Death, Patricide, four people get beheaded, Enemies to lovers speedrun edition, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Typical Angst) it could be this one too, where WenXu goes against his father (I haven't finished reading it yet though)

~*~

2. Hello! I hope you are all well this winter festive season! I have an ITMF request - do you know any recs that have a a whole humiliating spectacle comeuppance for Madam Yu, a la the trials in Dispersing Clouds and Truth Will Out (When Caught on Video). I’m JC ambivalent tbh but if you know of any where Madam Yu gets her just desserts for her abuse of WWX and JC stands with him, that would be great!! Thank you <3

🔒 The Second Hand Unwinds by trulywicked (E, 75k, WangXian, JYL/JZX, WIP, Time Travel Fix-It, Not JC Friendly, Not Yunmeng Jiang Sect Friendly, Not Jiāng Family Friendly, Not YZY Friendly, Time Travelling LWJ, Protective LWJ, Fluff, Minor Angst, Minor Character Death, JGS is his own warning, Wooing, LWJ is romantic af, Inventor WWX, Genius WWX, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective Gusu Lan Sect, Supportive LXC, Good Uncle LQR, WWX Protection Squad)

My heart knows (you’re the missing piece) by makexianxianhappytoday (T, 73k, WangXian, Jiang Family Bashing, Canon Divergence, Rogue cultivator!wwx, JYL Bashing, WWX leaves Jiang sect, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, JC Bashing, Protective! LWJ, Butterfly Effect, No Golden Core Transfer, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Mastermind!NHS, JZX is WWX's friend, Good brother!LXC, Lan Yi is ALIVE, BAMF!WWX, a lil OOC ngl)

so i cut the shackles and changed my name by MichelleFeather (T, 34k, WangXian, WWX Leaves the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, WWX is a Lan, Good Uncle LQR, Supportive LQR, Protective LQR, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, JFM and YZY Bashing, Jiang Family Bashing, Abusive Jiang Family, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Hurt WWX, Genius WWX, No Sunshot Campaign, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Cultivation Sect Politics, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon Divergence, Protective Gusu Lan Sect, WRH isn't a power hungry tyrant, mostly, BSSR is WWX's Grandparent) an investigation into Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian is ongoing in so i cut the shackles and changed my name

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3. Hey hey!! I wanted to submit an Im in the Mood For ask, for any fic where WWX and LWJ have a rocky relationship at the start, due to political circumstance or LWJ acting rude, and LWJ then reaching out to fix the relationship! Thank you very much! We all appreciate the work you guys do immensely :]

💖🔒 love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, YLLZ WWX, Arranged Marriage, political scheming, Gratuitous Domesticity, Mutual Pining, EXTREME SLOWBURN, the inherent eroticism of the forehead ribbon, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, neither wwx nor lwj want to be Perceived, but sorry kids! it’s gonna happen!, rated E but the the NSFW stuff doesn’t begin until chapter 19!, bottom LWJ in chapter 20 and 27, Mojo’s post)

🧡 a stone to break your soul, a song to save it by rikke ( M, 180k, WangXian, Arranged marriage, Canon Divergence)

the river and the sea by sasamelons (T, 7k, WangXian, Soulmates, Arranged Marriage, Misunderstandings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Falling In Love, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Mutual Pining)

我的皇后是農民 | sowing seeds in the cold palace by sweetlolixo (E, 84k, WangXian, Imperial Palace, Emperor LWJ, Imperial Consort WWX, Farmer WWX, Angst, Romance, Wingman LJY, Wife-chasing-LWJ, Arranged Marriage, Best Boy A-Yuan)

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4. Hiii thank you all so much for your help and recommendations ❤️

ITMF fics where Wei Wuxian is really harmed by the resentful energy / war/abuse injuries /starvation from surviving and then returning to live in the BM, and he and the Wens know: he is hurt, weak, slowly dying. Something with sad and depressed Wei Ying and the Wens, who try to take care of him while he still has some time and A-Yuan cheering him up. Maybe the whole cultivation world problem is a factor in Wei Ying giving up on his health and putting his all into protecting the Wens, who see and try to help however possible. Maybe Lan Zhan sees/thinks something is off and comes to them to help or at least spend time with them.

Maybe the siege happens anyway, maybe the plot changes (e.g. someone saves the Wens and helps Wei Ying, or they leave somewhere else, or they are left alone and become a village/sect), maybe Wei Ying dies/comes to the brink of death from poor health before someone can kill him, maybe he decides to accept and speed the process and break the Seal while sacrificing himself, maybe he slowly gets better. Overall, I really crave hurt and sick Wei Ying knowing the inevitable consequence of his poor health and getting comfort and love from the Wens (and any other people).

Thank you everyone ❤️ @shellennium

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5. for the next mood post: in the mood for a fic where jin guangyao is the vilain/antagonist! (Please do not include fics in the jgy bashing/not jgy friendly/evil jgy tags, I've already searched those).

Game Night by Hobbsy3 (T, 46k, WangXian, XuanLi, NieLan, Kidnapping, Implied/Referenced Torture, Witness Protection, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Dark Comedy, Modern AU, Protective LWJ, Protective JYL, Protective JC, Fusion with the movie ‘Game Night’, Mentioned Junior Quartet, TGCF cameos if you squint)

Starlight by KouriArashi (T, 38k, wangxian, Stardust Fusion, Action/Adventure, Developing Relationship, Mutual Pining, Murder, Ghosts, Magic, Child Abuse) Stardust AU with JGY as the evilest prince

the problem with authority by isabilightwood (M, 139k, WangXian, QingLi, Canon Divergence, Sacrifice Summon, only the summoner sticks around, slightly dark!JYL, WQ lives, Slow Burn for yanqing, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chronic Pain, Mild Sexual Content, Versatile | Switch WangXian)

i told you when i came i was a stranger by Caramelized (M, 50k, OFC/LXC, minor WangXian, Isekai, Transmigration, Fix-It, Canon Divergence, Amateur cartography, Butterfly Effect, Sunshot Campaign, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, No Golden Core Transfer, Dimension Travel, Politics, LXC the politician, Self-Insert, Foreknowledge, Angst with a Happy Ending)

i’ll take a secondhand monster by Stratisphyre (T, 24k, MXY & WWX, MXY & JGY, LWJ & LSZ & MXY, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Bullying, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, Minor canonical character death, Injured WWX, Earn Your Happy Ending)

in this place where we don’t have a prayer by Cerusee, Mikkeneko (T, 42k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WWX dies at Qiongqi path, Demonic Cultivation)

🔒💖 Everyanything by deliciousblizzardshark & lingeringdust (E, 46k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Gender Identity, Gender Dysphoria, Trans WWX, Protective LWJ, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Is it bad parenting to bring a baby on a nighthunt, Canon-Typical Misogyny, Fluff and Angst, Vaginal Sex, Canon-Typical Major Character Death) has a JGY as the ultimate antagonist and a big showdown vs. him at the end

Your love gives me Wings by SaiaiSaiko (M, 27k, WangXian, WWX Lives, MXY Lives, Winx Club Fusion, Enchantix Form, Sirenix From Winx Club, Believix From Winx Club, Fairy WWX, Witch WWX, Curses, Bad Health through Curses, Spiritual Tools are Pixies, Accelerated Aging, older looking WWX, Fairy NHS, BAMF WWX, BAMF NHS, WWX in WWX's Body, JZX Lives, NMJ Lives, JYL Lives, The following tags contain spoilers, Evil JGS, Trans MXY, Self-Discovery, Misgendering, Victim JGY, Curse Breaking) although it is in a wierd way

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6. Itmf: people sometimes liken Golden cores to being part of someone's soul. What if, ripping it out and putting it in jc, created a harry potter type horcrux situation? And that's why wwx didn't perish in the burial mounds, despite all odds? That maybe so long as jc lives, wwx can't die?

in this place where we don’t have a prayer by Cerusee, Mikkeneko (T, 42k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WWX dies at Qiongqi path, Demonic Cultivation) link in #5 not exactly the scenario requested, but a fic where JC having WWX's core means people are able to bring him back to life earlier

forget the shade from this other tree by VagabondDawn (T, 11k, Canon Divergence, JZX Lives, No Qiongqi Path Ambush, Vague gesturing towards WWX forming a sect, canon-typical WangXian) And another one where a spell meant to target WWX affects JC instead (pretty minor plot point though)

Also idk if mikkeneko turned it into a full fic, but this plotbunny

Death of a Ghost by Gotcocomilk (E, 107k, WangXian, WWX & JL, Canon Divergence, Ghost WWX, Hurt/comfort, Family bonding, Fluff, Angst) ghost on the lotus peir by gotcocomilk , i dont remember exactly it was the condition but wwx was trapped in life because his core was in jc and it allowed him to use spiritual energy of some sorts (do you mean this fic? If not let me know 😊 - Mod C)

The Core Issue by Hauntcats (T, 21k, WangXian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Not JC Friendly, Canon Divergence)

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7. Hi! This is for ITMF. A modern cultivation au where a basic cultivation (like meditating, recognizing the difference of monster, etc) is teached in school but for more deeper learning have to go to sect affliated school. I want wwx as a teacher but anything alright. Or just a story where cultivation is normal is okay too. Thanks! / Hi! A few days ago i think i sent an ITMF ask about modern cultivation au? I dont remember if i mentioned it but if not can you add that it doesnt have to in school setting as long as cultivation is normal. Thanks! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

Roadside Attractions by Bodldops (T, 10k, WangXian, Teacher WWX, Teacher LWJ, The power of organized aunties)

🔒 Song of Divination by LittleSummary (M, 28k, WangXian, LXC/NMJ, WIP, Single Parent WWX, Modern with Magic, Demonic Cultivation, Amnesiac WWX, Curses, Past Abuse, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Bad Parent YZY, Bad Parent JFM, Canon JC, No JC & WWX Reconciliation, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, LSZ is a Wei, MXY is a Wei)

Documented Fact by Scrippio (T, 7k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, College/University, Professors, Minor Injuries, Misunderstandings, Fluff, Zizhen POV, Humor)

Back to Bite One by diamondbruise (E, 21k, wangxian, modern w cultivation, past sex pollen, case fic, forced marriage technically, misunderstandings, happy ending) This last one isn't school-based but portrays the same cultivation practices as canon times in a modern setting.

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8. hello!! i'm ITMF a fic where JC and WWX reconcile by just beating the shit out of each other. Just a very cathartic brawl where they scream at each other and clear a lot of stuff up. @silas-octapisseron

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9. Is this the rec page? I'm new to this, so I'm not sure but I'm going to shoot my shot😅 are there any Wangxian fics where they're dating in their early teens and canon still happens while they're dating. Like, they don't even ever officially break up when Wei Wuxian turns to demonic cultivation and helps the wens in the burial mounds. Are there fics like that? Please let me know, please and thank you and I hope you have a nice day or night😁 @yasssbassss

seldom all they seem by Fahye (E, 25k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, or rather Arranged Betrothal, followed by Weapons-Grade Thirst) Wei Ying and Lan Zhan have an early arranged betrothal before canon events happen in seldom all they seem so close, but not quite what the requested wanted.

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10. ITMF: WangXian de-aging or age play. Preferably nonsexual. Thank you 💖 @br0therw1ves

Glimpses Of The Past by A_simple_Cookie, GoschateWabn (G, 54k, WangXian, JC & WWX, LWJ & WWX, WIP, Age Regression/De-Aging, Good Sibling JC, YLLZ WWX, Young WWX, Childhood Memories, Fluff and Angst, Fluff, Twin Prides of Yunmeng Feels, Twin Prides of Yunmeng Dynamics, LWJ Has a YLLZ Kink, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Humor, Family Bonding, Post-Canon, WWX Needs a Hug, Gremlin WWX, Hijinks & Shenanigans, beware WWX shenanigans inside) De aged to all different ages on different days

A Child’s Wish by Hauntcats (Not rated, 13k, wangxian, WWX & Wen remnants, Celestial meddling, Not JC Friendly, Fix-It, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone gets what they deserve, Age Regression/De-Aging, Child LWJ)

found your writing on my wall by howodd5ever (T, 25k, WangXian, JC & LWJ, JC & WWX, Accidental Baby Acquisition, De-aged WWX, in which JC and LWJ have to learn to deal with each other, Post-Canon, Getting Together, JL makes an appearance, LSZ best boy, Referenced Child Neglect, discussion of parental loss, child food insecurity, Case Fic, Kind Of, Nightmares)

little a-ying by byeollie (Not Rated, 16k, WangXian, JL & LSZ & LJY, JC & WWX, LQR & WWX, Curses, Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff, Babysitting, everyone has to look after a mischievous WWX, Yunmeng Bros, LQR has a heart, Established Relationship, Junior Trio Dynamics, Unreliable Narrator, Family Feels, Found Family, yunmeng bros reconciliation, Post-Canon, Mild Hurt/Comfort)

Rewritten by yamadori (Katsumi27) (G, 6k, WangXian, JC & WWX, Age Regression/De-Aging, Emotional Hurt/Comfort)

Silver & Gold by beeswaxing (E, 198k, wangxian, JL/LSZ, LJY/OYZZ, Post-Canon, Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Age Regression/De-Aging, Fix-It of Sorts, Family Bonding, Established Relationship, Cuddling & Snuggling, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Literal Sleeping Together, Romance, BAMF WWX, Mutual Pining, Horny Teenagers, Underage Kissing, Protective WWX, Fluff)

sugar stains by lanjingyeet (T, 18k, WangXian, Kid Fic, (kind of), General Shenanigans, WWX gets turned into a child and it is exactly as chaotic as you'd expect, also the answer to the riddle was love all along, Spirits, questionable parenting, junior trio on babysitting duty, everyone is doing their best ok, Age Regression/De-Aging, Child WWX)

tiny gentians by humancorn (G, 1k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, )Location: Cloud Recesses, Age Regression/De-Aging, De-Aged WWX, Fluff, Pre-Slash)

grow by cafecliche (T, 14k, WangXian, Age Regression/De-Aging, Character Study, Post-Canon, [Podfic] Grow by jellyfishfire) translations into multiple languages available

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11. Hi! Its been a long time since my last ask. But I am hungry for some good fox wei wuxian and dragon lan wangji. And this is the best place for this. Kindly recommend me some fics that are Dragon lwj and fox wwx themed and

- Multi story fic / not oneshot or two shot

- Angst/historical/royal au 's are preferred.

Thank you @lostsoul234

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12. Hello, I am in the mood of fic where Lan Zhan dies (preferable temporarily) at Nightless city battle. Where he either jump after Wei Wuxian from the cliff or he is killed in the battle. I think you might have similar request fic recs somewhere but I forgot to save it. Thank you.

🔒 Blossoming flowers in a full moon - 花好月圆 by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens (T, 64k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, make LWJ happy agenda, wangxian cuddle to Immortality)

coax our vineyard through by Shializaro (G, 8k, JFM/YZY, WangXian, POV JFM, Time Travel, POV Outsider, Letters, Rumors, BAMF YZY, Off-screen BAMF WWX)

If I Could Go Back in Time by Runningbarefoot (M, 122k, WangXian, NieLan, Canon Divergence, Role Reversal, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, YLLZ WWX, Eventual Happy Ending, The Twin Jade Brotherhood, Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Twin Prides of Yúnmèng Dynamics, Slow Burn)

Blood from a Stone by muchlessvermillion (M, 47k, WangXianCheng, Time Loop, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Canon Divergence, Pining, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Cultivation Sect Politics, Sect Leader JC, Politics, Temporary Character, Death Suicide, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, Getting Together, Polyamory, Love Confessions) it's offscreen but it impacts the narrative, if that makes sense?

~*~

13. Hi, I'm in the mood for as many dom/sub Wangxian fics as you can share. No bottom Lan Zhan please. Huge bonus points if it's a lengthy fic with a darkji tag, or has some elements of darklanzhan. Thanks! @thehappyyellow

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14. Hi! This is for ITMF. I want to read a fic where LWJ is the one who left WWX. Like, i read too much of a story where WWX left LWJ. So i want to read the opposite.

Bonus if JYL/JWY/WN/WQ is protective of WWX @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

estuaries by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 34k, wangixan, modern, breakup/makeup, pining while fucking, single dad WWX, angst w/ happy ending)

🧡 Life as a House by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (T, 55k, WangXian, Modern AU, Corporate Espionage, Post-Divorce, Father-Son Relationship, Reconciliation, Angst with a Happy Ending, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, LWJ Needs A Hug, lsz is a good boy, recovery from abuse, Therapy, Abusive Relationships, lwj pov, No Powers)

~*~

15. Hello! I hope all of you beautiful people are well! I was hoping for ITMF that keep bothering me.

Does anyone has a wangxian fic fic ACCURATE canon Lan Xichen. By that, I mean, in which he is just a Himbo like MXTX explained to us. Not some knowledgeble and intelligent one who somehow got tricked.

Also, if possible, if it exist, maybe some dark Lan Zhan that figures out that manipulating his brother is not that hard and may fix more of his problems than he expected.

Thank you! @lostandmessedup

~*~

16. Do you have any mobility aid user wwx 👀

Thank you so much for your hard work mods 🙏🙏

No jc bashing or a/b/o please

Elder, an Aesthetic by MarbleGlove (G, 8k, JC & WWX, Fix-It, Post-Sunshot Campaign)

Like a Water-Worn Stone by meyari (T, 41k, wangxian, major character death, Hurt/Comfort, very little hurt, lots of comfort, Chronic Illness, Serious Injuries, Self-Medication, Disability, PTSD, Depression, Self-Worth Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, aftermath of war, Aftermath of Violence, Prisoner of War, Identity Issues, Warning: Jīn Guāngshàn, enslavement (discussion of), abuse (discussion of), actually very fluffy despite the warnings)

Work in Tandem by MimiSpearmint (E, 23k, WangXian, LWJ & LSZ, Modern with Magic, Single Parent LWJ, when you just want disability-led sword lessons for your child, swordflight instructor WWX, swordflight instructor LWJ, Fluff, give LWJ friends agenda, Protective LWJ, Getting Together, Intercrural Sex, Choking, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, a lil bit slut-shamey but in a hot consensual way, imma say we lean into canon sex dynamics in this one, Implied off-screen D/s negotiations, Work in Tandem [Podfic] by GinevraReads (GinevraFangirl))

Black Sun by thelastdboy (E, 51k, WangXian, WIP, POV WWX, POV LWJ, Canon Divergence, Fall of Lotus Pier, Modern with Magic, No Sunshot Campaign, Hurt WWX, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Not Cultivation World Friendly, WZL Redemption, Wen Remnants Live, WWX Lives, Amputation, Hurt LWJ, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Burial Mounds Ensemble as Family, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cultivation Sect Politics, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Disability, Classism)

we’re starting at the end by Miss_Enthusiasimal (M, 92k, WangXian, JC & WWX, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Golden Core Reveal, Burial Mounds, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Starvation, emaciation, Cannibalism, Self-Harm, Amputation, Suicidal Thoughts, Sunshot Campaign, let JZX and WWX be friends club)

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17. Hi! Thank you for everything you do.

I am in the mood for a fic where there is a confrontation between Lan Qiren and Wei Wuxian. The most important part is that during the confrontation is that Wei Wuxian says that he does not respect Lan Qiren and does not believe he is worthy of respect. Lan Qiren is an awful teacher who never taught him anything. He is not a good disciple of the Lan sect as he breaks rules all the time. He is not a good uncle because he seems to put his own wants and needs before his nephews wants and needs. He is not a good person because he treats people unfairly and is prejudiced. Lan Qiren was disrespectful towards Wei Wuxian’s mother, a dead woman, for something she did years ago.

I just want a fic that addresses these points and shows that Wei Wuxian really doesn’t care about Lan Qiren and in fact really dislikes him. I would also like to see some karma visited upon Lan Qiren and for him to be shocked that Wei Wuxian, and maybe even most his or the younger generation, see him as a joke.

I don’t know if there is anything out there like this but I would love to read it! @kjwaikiki

For 17, Wei Ying is a disciple of Baoshan Sanren in this one but it otherwise fits the request

Going on charmingly by scribbet (T, 21k, WangXian, Teenage LWJ, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, WWX is BSSR's Disciple, Genius WWX, Petty LWJ, Meddling LXC, What if LWJ didn't have an excuse to instantly write WWX off?, Canon Divergence, JFM Doesn't Adopt WWX, POV LWJ)

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If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[heathsuii]

Senior Year

「 Suna Rintaro x Reader 」

₊˚ෆ synopsis. you reflect on how quickly autumn had arrived, mirroring the swift changes in your own life as you enter senior year of high school.

cw. fem reader, fluff, slight angst, highschool!au, seatmate!suna, best friends to lovers, mutual pining, reader is emotional, not proofread !

words. 975

a/n. happy belated four years to this blog! the urge to write caught up to me. i'm thinking of actually making a masterlist for this. let me know your thoughts and i hope y'all have a great day <333

autumn air and hues of orange leaves work alongside to guide the new season. fall had snuck in like a shadow at sundown, and while you hadn't noticed it until now, everything seemed to have change over night.

yesterday, the trees were still holding on to their green, hesitant to let go. today, there were amber streaks, and the wind carried a definite feel that you hadn't felt in months. it seemed to be moving too quickly.

it felt like it was just yesterday when he made the decision to sit next to you. becoming one of many interactions you'll share. you let out a quiet sigh, thinking back to those days that felt like they would last forever. alas, life never seemed to work that way. now, here you are—senior year. the last one. the year you had been waiting for, yet now that it was here, you weren't sure where the time had gone.

you're sitting on a bench outside the inarizaki school gymnasium. waiting for a certain someone to finish volleyball practice. this was your routine for who knows how long almost three years.

what started out as a punishment for losing to a game of rock, paper, scissors gradually turned into a habit of waiting just to walk home together. life was silly that way.

"our streak is not streaking anymore."

a familiar voice entered your mind. you then remembered hearing his voice for the first time, back in freshman year, where everything felt new and exciting, with years ahead of you. presently, there was a bittersweet edge to it. each golden leaf that fell to the ground seemed to whisper that things were changing, and not just the seasons. college applications, farewells, the uncertainty of what would come next. it all hung in the cool autumn air.

"is this subtle foreshadowing? don't tell me.. you streak with someone else..."

your heart ached. not from what he said, but because this would be the last year you'd spend together like this, walking the same halls, sharing late-night study sessions, the same jokes. after graduation, your paths would diverge. it's inevitable, really.

suna brushed away a strand of hair stuck on your forehead. successfully snapping you out of your thoughts. successfully making the butterflies in your stomach flutter.

he took out a 500 yen coin from his pocket, and held it infront of you. "a penny for your thoughts?"

wanting to rid of the worry, you sighed. "it's nothing, i just started dwelling over the fact that we'll be graduating."

"if you're scared of graduating you could be a repeater." suna answers, trying to lighten the mood.

you gently hit his arm before proceeding to knock on the wooden bench. "that is so not a funny thing to say, rin!"

"alright, alright. jokes aside, there's nothing for you to be afraid of. you don't have to be alone, you know? i'm here for you." he proclaims while simultaneously soothing your back in a circular motion.

"how can you be so sure?" you mumbled, your forehead crinkling in the process.

"i know so," suna replies. giving you an assuring smile, pressing his thumb on your forehead. "trust me."

a smile spread across his face, and for a moment, everything else faded away. feeling a warmth spread through you, like the sun breaking through the clouds. you felt the warmth on your face.

it was in those smiles you saw the promise of what could be, the warmth of a friendship that felt so much deeper than just friendship.

"you're my best friend, what choice do i have?" you winced internally at your choice of words.

"what if i want more than that?"

your breathe hitched. words seemed to be stuck inside your throat. were you hearing him correctly? was this another faux flirtation? maybe this was your mind playing yet again its awful tricks on you—

"i really really like you. i like you a lot... for the longest time." suna adds, cradling your face ever so gently.

or maybe not. maybe it was never casual. maybe he does likes you.

"i like you too." you exclaim, your mouth had a mind of its own. then again, you were never one to hesitate when you're with him.

suna rintaro gave you a boyish grin. a grin that spread across his face like a ray of sunshine piercing through the gray clouds of your thoughts.

in that moment, it felt as if the world had stopped; everything faded into the background, and it was just him, glowing with pride and happiness. it was infectious, drawing you in, and you found yourself unable to resist smiling back.

he always had that effect on you, even on days when you felt heavy with unspoken fears. that grin had the power to chase away the clouds that hovered over you, if only for a moment.

each time he smiled or grinned at you, it was as if he were speaking a language only you could understand. a soft whisper of reassurance that told you everything would be okay, even when you felt like your world was crumbling.

in those fleeting moments, the weight of everything—college applications, impending goodbyes, and the uncertainty of your futures—seemed to lift. it was as if his smile casted a spell that made everything else go away.

a soft breeze rustled the leaves above you both, showering you with a sprinkle of gold.

the future is uncertain. yet, you chose to brace the unknown.

you laughed, caught off guard by the sudden flurry. “it’s like nature agrees!” you exclaimed, your heart dancing in tune with the fluttering leaves.

you made the decision to stop thinking of the uncertainties ahead. it comes soon enough.

“nature definitely approves of us,” suna said with a lovesick grin, shifting closer to you. your hands intertwined, fingers lacing perfectly together.

[leafnyx]

I definitely need a part 2 of the Nam-Gyu x male reader you posted! It was subtly cute asf

Death Games and Attachments # 2 (Nam-gyu x male reader)

Word count: 5.5k

Warnings: American reader ‼️, gunshots, betrayal, canon divergence, no forks 🍴, no use of y/n, dead characters in canon don’t die, probably ooc, Nam-gyu & reader aren’t together but have feelings for eachother, not proof read

Setting: Season 2 Episode 6

A/n: omg my first fic ask!!! I was thinking about writing a part 2 anyways but this gave me the push to do it :]

Faint music plays over the speakers in the room as you slowly begin to wake up. You open your eyes, your sight still a bit fuzzy, and see the blank ceiling of the game’s sleeping room.

The music is now louder as you realize you aren’t at home but at this game. You do somewhat wish you were back home but you push that thought to the back of your mind, you have more important things to worry about, with the man who is sleeping next you you and who you are hugging.

You quickly untangle yourself from Nam-gyu, your bodies craving the warmth of the other while you were sleeping.

Nam-gyu still seems to be sound asleep, snoring quietly, but you decide to wake him up. The next game will probably be staring soon.

You shake Nam-gyu softly, then a bit more rough when the first doesn’t wake him up.

His snoring stops and he lets out an irritated groan as he pushes your hands away.

“Fuck off bitch, let me sleep” He says towards you, probably trying to sound intimidating but he doesn’t at all because of how much he slurs his words, still half asleep.

“The next games starting soon, come on” You say, tapping him on the shoulder for emphasis.

He opens his eyes, blinking away the tiredness, more willing to get up after hearing your voice. He seemed to not realize the fact that he was in the games previously as now a look of dread somewhat crosses his face. You question that, since you haven’t seen him with that expression yet. It’s probably the lack of drugs.

“Why do they make us do these games so early” Nam-gyu groans and pushes himself up into a sitting position beside you.

You shrug. Nam-gyu quickly scans around the room, his eyes landing on Thanos and probably his drugs.

“Let’s get with the rest of the group” Nam-gyu says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and onto the stairs. He puts the white shoes on and quickly rushes towards where Thanos has gathered with Se-mi and Min-su.

You quickly follow suit, putting your shoes on and tailing behind him.

“Nam-su, [name], good morning!” Thanos says excitedly, in English. Nam-gyu doesn’t bother correcting the name as he sits down beside Thanos and whispers something to him.

You sit down beside Nam-gyu and Se-mi gives you a deadpan, knowing, look. Most likely referring to Nam-gyu.

Thanos pulls out his cross and opens it, handing one of the brightly colored pills to Nam-gyu who quickly pops it into his mouth.

Thanos tucks the cross back under his collar.

The drugs seem to kick in quickly, a minute or so later Nam-gyu is already looking more up beat.

Right on time too, the masked guards walk into the room and announce that the next game is starting.

“No matter what game is next we’ll kick ass” Nam-gyu says, practically bouncing from where he’s standing. He goes up beside you, now directly talking to you. “I’ll help you through the next game if you don’t know what to do, ok?” He’s close enough to you that your arms are practically rubbing against each other.

“Alright” You reply, glad for the assured help.

You and your team get into a line, following one of the guards through the maze of stairs. You have to admit, as weird and terrible as the games are, the sets are pretty cool looking.

You reach the end of the stairs and walk into a large room with a bunch of doors on the walls, too many to count at first glance. There’s also a circular platform in the middle of the room with three statues of horses in the middle, it looks like a merry-go-round.

“Your next game will be mingle” The almost robotic sounding woman’s voice rings out through the room.

“Mingle?” Nam-gyu says.

“Mingle!” Thanos yells suddenly, making the people around him, including you, flinch. “I remember this game! They call out a random number and you have to get into groups with that number.” Thanos says.

“Oh yeah!” Nam-gyu says. “I remember this game! We’ll be fine as long as they don’t call out a number less than 5.”

“They definitely will” Se-mi says.

Nam-gyu doesn’t pay her any attention as he hops along beside Thanos who is now sprinting towards the circle.

You follow behind the two of them with Se-mi and Min-su.

The 5 of you huddle up on the circle as the lights turn off and the circle suddenly starts rotating.

You get pushes off balance slightly, holding onto Nam-guy’s shoulder so you don’t fall over. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Lights turn on in the middle of the circle and music starts up. Thanos begins beating his fist upwards to the beat of the music, Nam-gyu grinning and nodding his head beside him.

You feel nervous, worried that they’re gonna make you split up the first round. Suddenly the platform stops and the woman’s voice calls out a number. “10”

You look around frantically. You need five more people.

“We need five more!” Se-mi calls out, taking initiative.

“Five!” Nam-gyu yells.

A person bumps into you in all the chaos but you don’t fall over.

“How many” She quickly says.

“Five” You reply.

“We’re five too! Come with us!”

“I found a group!” You yell towards your team as the girl rounds up her group.

“Let’s go!” Thanos yells out in English, running towards a door labeled 47. Everyone follows him, dashing into the room. 10 seconds left.

You run into the room, being the second to enter after Thanos. You’re not able to slow down in time and slam into the back wall. Quickly, you turn around to see the rest of the group.

Nam-gyu runs in with Se-mi and Min-su, the other group of five following suit, all running in. The last person in shuts the door as the timer hits zero.

You let out a sigh of relief as Thanos cheers. Nam-gyu begins cheering as well, seeming to do everything Thanos does now. The other group with you looks uncomfortable, you see that all of them have red X patches.

“Let’s go team!” Thanos yells out in English again. No one seems to fully understand what he’s saying but they get the message.

“Woo!” Nam-gyu yells.

After yelling towards their hearts content the two go quiet, the room now silent. You can hear the gunshots outside. People from the other team flinch slightly at the sound. You begin to wonder how many people just died but you push that thought to the back of your mind.

Nam-gyu goes to stand beside you, nudging his shoulder against you, grinning. You do your best to replicate and smile back.

Thanos raps under his breath, hoping his head almost violently. You can hear the sound of machinery outside. They’re most likely bringing coffins in for the bodies.

You hate how the coffins look like gift boxes, it feels disrespectful but you suppose it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The game is horrible itself, what does it matter what coffins the brutalized bodies are put in.

The lock on the door clicks open and Thanos immediately rushes out. You follow after him, walking, with Nam-gyu beside you. You step into something sticky, blood. Your face twists into a look of disgust as you look at the sole of your shoe.

Nam-gyu stood infront of you and looks back. You quickly walk forward towards him and the two of you step onto the circle where the rest of the group already is.

The room goes dark again, the circle moving. You now expect the jolt do you don’t move as much, your feet planted on the ground. The middle of the circle lights up and music starts.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Thanos nudge Nam-gyu and say something to him, though you can’t hear it over the music. Nam-gyu looks confused but Thanos links arms with him and begins dancing in a circle. Nam-gyu quickly catches on, grinning and shaking his hand as he skips around.

You’re somewhat jealous of how carefree the two of them are. You know it’s the drugs working but still. You now somewhat wish you’d asked Thanos for drugs. Before you can finish your thought process the circle jolts to a stop and the number is called out. “Four.”

You panic, there are five of you. All of you look around at each other, one has to leave. You want to sacrifice yourself, say you can go and find a group, but you’re frozen in place out of fear.

“Min-su” Se-me says. “Come with me, we can find a group.”

Min-su glances around quickly before grabbing Se-mi by the hand. The two of them run off leaving you as a group of three.

“That fucking bitch! I knew we couldn’t trust her!” Nam-gyu yells out at the same time as Thanos yells, “Min-su! My boy!”

You quickly glance around and your eyes catch on to a man yelling that he needs a group of three, his patch reads 001. You quickly rush over to him. You look back for a second and you see a look of betrayal on Nam-guy’s face. You quickly look back forward as you come to a stop before 001.

“We’re a group of three!” You yell above the chaos. His head quickly turns to you and he nods, following you as you run back to Nam-gyu and Thanos. Nam-gyu looks relieved as you run back.

“Come on!” You yell, running towards the first room you see with an open door. You don’t look back, knowing the three will follow you.

You run into the room and Thanos, Nam-gyu, and 001 follow in quickly. 001 shuts the door as you look towards the timer, 2 seconds left.

As the door clicks shut Nam-gyu begins to speak.

“I knew those pussies would betray us! You can’t trust women, man, and Min-su basically a woman.”

001 looks irritated. You now remember on the first day where 001 broke up a fight between Thanos, Nam-gyu, and that crypto bro. He was probably the worst person you could have brought but at least you’re all alive.

Thanos pushes up against the door, looking through the crack.

“Min-su!” He yells, acting like he actually cared for him.

Nam-gyu lets out a huff and leans against the wall beside you. His arm touching yours again. You only now realize how touchy he’s been. With anyone else you’d assume they might like you but you think this is just how Nam-gyu is. After all you saw how clingy he is with Thanos.

“Fucking bitch..” He mumbles, still not over the betrayal. You sigh.

“It doesn’t matter,” You tell him. “We’re alive and her and Min-su are off somewhere else. We can survive with just the three of us, we don’t need them.”

He looks over at you and lights up slightly. “You’re right, we don’t need those fuckers.”

“Hell yeah! Thanos team!” Thanos barges into the conversation, not caring about Min-su anymore.

He puts his hand face down in the air, after a second you realize what he’s doing and place your hand onto of his. Nam-gyu puts his hand over yours.

Thanos counts from three and the three of you lift your hands up and Thanos yells “let’s go!” In English.

Somehow, that made you feel a bit better. Just barely, as you can hear the fading gun shots in the background.

001 stands off to the side, not talking, just observing.

“We don’t need any girls!” Thanos says, bringing your attention back to him.

“Yeah, girls are weak anyways” Nam-gyu continues.

You don’t add onto what they’re saying, Se-mi seemed fairly strong but that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just the three of you.

The door unblocks and once again thanos is the first to rush out. Nam-gyu bouncing along behind him. You follow Nam-gyu with 001 behind you.

Before you can say anything to him, 001 rushes off, probably back to his own group.

“What do you think the next number is gonna be?” Nam-gyu asks you, putting his arm around your shoulders.

“Hopefully three, then we wouldn’t need any more or less.” You reply.

Nam-gyu hums as a response as you glance around, unconsciously looking for Se-mi and Min-su. Your eyes lock onto them, walking out from a room with a random player. Min-su locks eyes with you but immediately looks away, probably for the best.

It starts up again, this time though Nam-gyu and Thanos don’t dance along to the music, the just stand there.

“3”

“Let’s go team Thanos!” Thanos calls out, making a sprint toward the door. Nam-gyu grins at you, your prediction correct. The two of you follow behind Thanos. You enter the room with 20 seconds left to spare.

“You were right!” Nam-gyu says, paying your shoulder.

“We got lucky.” You smile, somewhat genuinely for the first time since you joined these games, relieved that you don’t need to give anyone up.

20 second pass, the door locks, and gunshots ring out. To your shock, and slight disgust, you’ve gotten used to the gunshots and screams.

Your smile fades from the sound.

“We’re good at this.” Nam-gyu says.

“It’s cause we’re fast, and young, we can get to the rooms in time.” Thanos replies, shifting from foot to foot, unable to stand still.

“Hell yeah, it’s good that the weaklings got left behind, we don’t have to get dragged down by them. They’re probably dead by now anyways.”

“Do you think mg coin is dead?” Thanos asks.

“God I hope so”

“Why do you guys hate him so much?” You ask.

“He scammed us man!” Nam-gyu exclaims.

“That piece of shit scammed me out of all the money I got by busting my ass rapping!” Thanos says.

“You both bought the crypto?”

“He said we’d get more money.” Nam-gyu says.

“Huh, alright” You refrain yourself from making a comment about how stupid it is to trust some random guy on the internet with your money, especially when it comes to crypto.

The door clicks open and all of you walk out, Thanos first. As he steps out of the door he says “welcome back, my friends” in English, followed by Nam-gyu saying “skrrt!” You hold back a laugh.

You’re shocked with how quickly you’ve gotten attached to Nam-gyu, a warm dealing spreading through your body. You suspect it’s because you’re stuck here in this horrible place with him. Your mind latched on to the first person you got somewhat close with.

But you don’t feel nearly as close to Thanos as you do with him. You push this thought off, deciding to deal with it after the game.

The the of you reach the circle again and the process repeats.

“6”

Three more.

“We need three!” Nam-gyu yells out.

“Three people!” You yell alongside him.

Your eyes look frantically around and you spot three people. Se-mi, Min-su, and one other. You have no other choice.

“Come on!” You grab Nam-gyu and Thanos and run towards them. Se-mi spots you and begins running with Min-su and the other guy towards an open door. You run in behind her with Thanos and Nam-gyu, shutting the door once the six of you are in.

The awkwardness is immediately palpable, everyone seems uncomfortable. Except for Thanos, of course.

“Min-su! My boy! I was so scared you died!” He goes over and hugs Min-so, who tries to wiggle away from him.

Nam-gyu scowls.

“This means nothing.” Se-mi says. “We split up again after this round.”

“Yeah, I’m not being with these pussies again. They’re just being us down.”

“Calm down” Thanos says, putting his arms out.

“We weren’t-“ Nam-gyu gets cut off by Thanos again.

“Se-mi is right, we don’t talk about this, the Thanos team doesn’t include Se-mi, Min-su and the random.” Thanos says, suddenly sounding serious, but you know that he isn’t actually.

Nam-gyu seems disappointed that Thanos remembers Se-mi and Min-su’s names but not his. Se-mi seems disappointed that she’s agreeing with an idiot like Thanos.

The room goes quiet again, Thanos nodding his head a beat only he can hear and everyone else feeling too weird to talk.

The door clicks open and the six of you walk out.

“Final round” The voice calls out. You let out a sigh of relief, glad that you have to only deal with one more of these rounds.

You step onto the platform, Thanos and Nam-gyu beside you. Se-mi and Min-su walk to the other side of the circle.

The lights shut off and the platform begins to move. The light in the middle turns on along with the music.

You begin to zone out, the bright colors all blurring I your vision and the music getting quiet.

The music stops.

“2”

You quickly snap back, two. There’s three of you. One has to go.

You look wide eyed at the two men beside you.

Thanos quickly shakes his head from side to side, between you and Nam-gyu. He’s still not taking any of this seriously and it’s beginning to piss you off.

Thanos quickly stops and grabs Nam-gyu by the arm, running off. You freeze in place as Nam-gyu looks back at you. He looks regretful, being dragged along more than actually following.

But his survival instinct is stronger than any bond you thought both of you had.

A wave of betrayal goes through you, more than you’ve ever felt before, more than when Se-mi and Min-su left you.

You thought maybe Nam-gyu was as attached you you as you were to him but you were wrong. All he cares about is survival, not you. You suppose you can’t blame him though.

Suddenly, snapping you out of your thoughts, someone grabs you and drags you towards the one empty room, pushing you in and closing the door before the timer stops and the door locks.

The man lets out a sigh, you recognize him as the person with Se-mi and Min-su.

You don’t care all that much, though. Emotions crashing down onto you, all the adrenaline leaving your body leaving you feeling deflated.

You lean up against the wall, exhausted even though it probably hasn’t been more than an hour. You just want to go back to sleep, you want to go home.

You don’t think about the fact that you won’t even have a home if you don’t get enough money. But that doesn’t matter now.

The minute or so you spend in the room feels both like an eternity and lite it was over in a second. The lock clicks open and you walk out, not bothering to speak to the guy who saved you.

You don’t look around the room, not wanting to see Nam-gyu or Thanos now. You keep your head down and follow the pink guard out and back into the stairwell.

After a minute of walking you enter back into the ‘bedroom’, you’re one of the last people in. The mood is somber, theres not many people left.

“[Name]!” You hear someone rushing towards you, you recognize the voice as Thanos, the last person you want to see right now.

He hugs you, a feeling that makes you want to crawl out of your own skin, and of course Nam-gyu is behind him. Though Nam-gyu doesn’t look very happy.

“I’m so happy to see you again bro!” Thanos says in English, smothering you in a hug. You give up trying to escape as he unwraps from you, still holding on to your shoulders.

“”I thought I was running with you the I looked back and saw I was with this idiot” He points to Nam-gyu who tries his best to smile and laugh.

“Come on, let’s play just one more game, alright?” Thanos says, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and walking you towards you guys’ spot on the stairs. Nam-gyu follows.

Right when you guys reach the spot, guards enter through the front and announce that it’s time to vote. It’s from last number to first.

The voting starts with 456 who votes X, from then the votes seem fairly split.

Thanks goes up to vote and kisses the blue button. The thought of how many dirty hands had touched that before him makes you grossed out.

Nam-gyu goes up, but not before telling you once more to vote blue, sounding less convincing than he was before.

“Just one more game”

It’s your turn to vote now, you walk up to the podium and stare at the two brightly colored buttons before you.

Even though Thanos and Nam-gyu had just betrayed you, leaving you for dead, their words keep repeating in your head. ‘Just one more game’. The button lights up blue under your hand and you walk over to your side.

Even if you did go home now, you have no money. The amount that they’re offering now is good, but it’s not enough. You’ll soon be back to where you were before this game.

Either way you’ll probably end up dead, if not literally then figuratively. But still, you can’t help that part of your mind that yearns for home, even if that home is a shitty studio apartment that you can barely pay for.

You don’t pay attention to Thanos patting you on the back, saying that ‘he knew you would make the right choice’ and ‘he’s proud of you’.

Nam-gyu continues to stay unusually silent, almost like he feels bad for leaving you. You remember the look on his face as he ran off with Thanos.

The drugs are probably just wearing off.

The last person goes up to vote, 001. He stands there for a second, like he’s contemplating which button to push, but in the end he pushes red.

You look up at the board and it’s 50/50. A tie.

The guards say that you will all be able to vote again tomorrow for a tie breaker. You don’t mind this all that much, it gives you some time to get your shit together and hopefully even if you do say there will be a break from the games for the day.

The voting buttons are taken out and food is brought in. You, Thanos, and Nam-gyu are some for the first few people getting food so it’s not soon before you walk off with it to your spot on the stairs.

You do want to split off from these two, but it’s probably better to stay in a team, just in case. And now atleast you know that you can’t fully trust them, so if you get too suspicious you can break off and find someone else, maybe Se-mi and Min-su if they’re willing to let you back in.

You don’t acknowledge another part of the reason you want to stay with them. You’re still attached to Nam-gyu, you don’t want to leave him. Even though you’re pissed at him, you still want to stay for whatever reason.

You unwrap the food you were given and see sushi inside, atleast it looks good.

Only now do you realize how hungry you are. You haven’t eaten since yesterday and even then it was just some bread. You quickly eat one of the pieces of sushi. It isn’t amazing but it’s food. You scarf down the rest of it.

Once you finish your food you wish there was more, you’re still hungry, but there’s nothing you can do.

You drink the soda that you had forgotten about the second you saw the sushi.

“This soda tasted like shit” Nam-gyu says, breaking the silence.

“It’s like knock-off coke” You reply.

“Yeah! They tried to make coke but it just tastes like dirt.”

“I think dirt would taste better than this.”

Nam-gyu snickers and you smile faintly. You hate how easily you’re talking to him, like none of the last hour happened. You wish you could hate Nam-gyu, but you know that you don’t. Well maybe you do a little bit but not enough. Thanos, though, you do hate. But there’s nothing you can do about that, the two of them are basically a package. Buy one get one free.

As if on cue Thanos speaks up. “Those fuckers voted red”

You look to where Thanos is pointing and see Se-mi and Min-su.

“I knew that bitch was bad news from the beginning, we should kill her.” Nam-gyu says.

“Let’s just talk to her and Min-su first” Thanos replies.

You know that ‘talk’ will probably lead to a fight so you bud into the conversation.

“Let’s not, we should just leave them be, they aren’t worth our time” Both Nam-gyu and Thanos look over at you. “They’ll probably die in the next game with how weak they are, let’s just let nature take her course.”

You say the last part to save face, trying to not seem like the odd-one-out of the three of you.

Nam-gyu gives in easily, agreeing with you. It takes Thanos a bit more time though, but be eventually agrees.

The peace doesn’t last for long though. A group of O’s and X’s begin arguing in the middle of the room.

Thanos seems too eager to join the argument. Before you can stop him he jumps up and runs forward.

You lean back, giving up trying to stop him from being stupid, it seems like it’s just part of him.

To your shock Nam-gyu doesn’t follow Thanos and stays put in his seat.

“You’re not going with him? That’s a first” You say, jokingly bashing Nam-gyu.

“I don’t feel like arguing right now, I’m too tired.”

“That’s fair. You just usually follow along behind Thanos like a lost puppy.”

“No I don’t, I’m more like a guard dog. People see Thanos and they’re like ‘okay this guy looks stupid and weak’ but then they see me and they’re like ‘oh shit I can’t mess with him!’ Ya know?”

You barely hold your laugh in until Nam-gyu finishes his spiel, then you can’t help how you laugh in his face.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” You say, gasping between breaths before laughing again.

“Oh come on! It’s not that funny.” Nam-gyu looks embarrassed, that makes you laugh even more, until your stomach hurts.

“Oh my god, I haven’t laughed that hard in so long.”

“Asshole”

A feeling of disgust passes through your brain, you’re having this much fun with some asshole who just left you for dead, but you don’t dwell on it, preferring to focus on the good mood.

“You’re not an attack dog, look at you!”

“What do you mean look at me?!”

“You’re more like a tamed hyena, you follow behind Thanos and snicker and taunt along to his comments.”

“I’m the leader of the group, not him.”

“As if”

Nam-gyu rolls his eyes.

“Then you’re like a ratty street cat, we picked you up and you just stuck with us”

Before you can think of a comeback Thanos sits back down.

“Those asshole X’s” He says, practically pouting. “Who do they think they are.”

The fight looks fully broke up, everyone back in their previous spots with their groups.

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu says suddenly, having just remembered something. “Can I have another, you know”

“Yeah yeah, a reward for getting through the game.”

Nam-gyu grins.

Your stomach twists at the mention of the game but you ignore it.

Nam-gyu looks over at you and motions towards the cross Thanos is taking out of his jacket, as if to offer you one again.

But your mind hasn’t changed since yesterday so you shake your head.

“Hey man you can’t just go offering up my pills, we’re running low on stock.”

“I know I know, just gimme”

Thanos hands Nam-gyu a pink pill and Nam-gyu immediately puts it in his mouth and swallows it. Thanos grabbing another for himself and doing the same thing.

It feels a bit odd being the only sober one here but you’re not gonna give in to your fomo.

“After this game I should have enough to pay off my debts.” Nam-gyu says. But you know in reality it’ll never be enough, it’ll always be ‘just one more game’.

You’re gonna click X after the next game. Probably.

“Yeah bro, and then mg coin can pay us back” Nam-gyu eagerly nods along to Thanos’ words. You don’t bother to comment on the fact that they said, earlier today, that they hoped he was dead.

The woman voice on the speaker says you have 30 minutes until bed and the screen lights up with the timer.

It hasn’t felt like a whole day has passed, maybe the game took more than the hour you thought it did. Or maybe you just don’t have a good internal clock.

Thanos lets out a loud, dramatic, yawn.

“I’m tired man, that game took too much out of me.”

“Yeah, I’m ready pass out.” Nam-gyu says, agreeing with Thanos as per usual.

“Mhm” You hum, but you’re not all that tired, similarly to last night.

“Do you think any of the X’s are gonna switch sides?” Nam-gyu asks Thanos.

“Nah man, they’re all stubborn as hell, they won’t listen to reason.”

“Shit, well we can’t have another tie, it’ll drag this on longer. I just wanna be out of here with my money.”

“Yeah bro, I miss my vape” Thanos says, speaking like this vape is his child.

“I’m craving a cigarette so bad” Nam-gyu says.

You still don’t fully know how you got caught up in this group of junkies but it doesn’t matter now.

“I need to piss” Thanos says suddenly, not holding back with how he speaks.

You realize that you haven’t peed all day so you decide to go along. Nam-gyu follows the both of you.

The three of you enter the bathroom and piss, you finishing first.

You go up to the sink and wash your hands before getting some water and splashing it on your face, getting a bit into your hair too but not drenching it. You grab a paper towel and wipe your face as well as your hands.

You look back to the other two to see if they’re done and you catch Nam-gyu staring at you. Once he realizes you saw him he looks away, pretending like he wasn’t ogling at you.

The three of you walk out of the door, through the hallway, and back into the main room.

You look up at the screen which says 20 minutes.

“I’m gonna head to bed early” You say even though you aren’t too tired, you just don’t want to sit around for another 20 minutes.

“Goodnight bro” Thanos says in English. Why does he speak in English so much?

“Night” Nam-gyu says.

You nod towards them and walk up to your bead, taking your shoes off and climbing in.

You get yourself under the covers and just lay there, staring at the ceiling. You can hear the noise of 99 people talking around you but you’re not close enough to any conversation to hear what exactly they’re saying.

Soon enough the timer says 10 minutes, the chatter dying down, then it hits 0 and the lights go out. Everything is now quiet, almost eerily so.

You hear footsteps walking up the stairs and you think you already know who it is if yesterday was any indication. You look over and see Nam-gyu who says nothing this time but you scoot over in the bed and he quickly gets in.

He isn’t even trying to make an excuse this time, and you don’t fully know why you’re letting him sleep beside you. You think part of you craves the closeness, especially in this situation.

Nam-gyu gets under the sheets and turns away, lying on his side and looking towards the other beds.

You move your arm over and lay it over Nam-gyu’s body. You immediately regret it, feeling somewhat embarrassed at the thought that he might not reciprocate, and try to pull your arm back but Nam-gyu grabs it. He hold your arm to his chest. You don’t try to move it away anymore.

You don’t know why you decided to hug him in the first place. Could you have developed feelings for him in the span of a day? Maybe, and It seems like he might have caught feelings for you as well.

Like yesterday you begin to get tired with Nam-gyu there with you.

After a few minutes you give in and fall asleep.

——

A/n 2 - I don’t plan on writing a third part because if I did it would probably be them out of the games (majority voted X) but if anyone would want to read that lmk

[avasem]

Hi everyone, I've been brainstorming a Arcane season 2 AU. I loved season 2 but these past three years I was impatient to know what would have happened so I looked a bit into the game lore and came up with some theories.

In my mind, I assumed that they would have gone over the machine herald story line. They did do it in the end, but i imagined there would have been more time for Viktor to be the machine herald of Zaun before his come to Jesus moment.

So here is my concept.

1. The hexcore and the council attack

The Au diverges after the explosion at the end of season one: Viktor is heavily injured but it’s not fetal. His body reacted with Mel magic so that in the explosion is losses his left arm and leg (his right arm and leg were transformed by the hexcore so they are intact) .

The hexcore has expanded his presence on Viktor (transforming his flesh purple up to his neck) and while healing Viktor, the hexcore attracted various metal pieces in the laboratory and fused to him (like the hex claw ) and fuses his back brace to his torso.

2. The memorial

Viktor is still recovering and decide to not partecipate at the memorial. The attack happens and he decides to intervene after Vi run to the lab in search for the gauntlets.

When Jayce is being fatally attacked by Renni with her chainsaws , Viktor uses the hexclaw to laser her. It works but the beam is too strong and laser thought the memorial statue in the back and damage the ceiling.

The ceiling starts crumbling done but Vi come to the rescue and use the gauntlets force fields to protect her and Jayce.

Here a short rough animatics of how I imagined the scene to turn out.

3. Salo’s accusations.

In the aftermath of the attack , salo is talking with Ambessa how that attack could have happened.

Salo: “ how did those animals even got in , I thought we checked every person who got in”

Ambessa: “ we did have guards at every entrance , they must have had someone inside letting them in “

Salo: “ a mole …?

Ambessa nods.

Salo: “ was there anyone unaccounted for after the attack “

Ambessa: “ of the people present after the attack , Viktor didn’t appear on any entrance’s registry”

Just like at the end of ep 1 the council reunite to discuss what to do with under city.

In the original Mel , the councilor with the gold gears on her neck, salo and Ambessa are present. In this one Jayce and Viktor are present too because hextech and weapons are to be discussed .

Salo accuses Viktor of being the mole . The other councilors aren’t 100% with salo but take in the possibility .

Jayce takes Viktor defense ( saying something along the lines “ he was injusted too in the attack “)

In the end they all agree to take away the gem Viktor is using to power up his leg prosthetic .

Jayce : “ it’s until we prove you have nothing to do with that attack”

Viktor :” I don’t have anything to prove “

After the exchange they go back to discusse what to do with the underciy and Caitlyn comes in with her idea of using a specialized squad with hextech weapons to find jinx.

Viktor tries to oppose the idea .

Salo : "What? Seems like you wants us unprepared “

Viktor leaves outraged . Jayce goes after him and they have a fight .

[On a narrative level]:

I like the idea of having this interaction between Salo and Viktor because I like how this would contrast how viktor and salo treat each other in the commune.

In my mind this au is inbetween season 1 and the time skip of season 2.

So it would be even more weird to see how different Salo treat Viktor, from seeing his as an enemy to view him as a saviour.

And Jayce would be even more weirded out by Salo when the meet at the rune accelerator.

Viktor is done with Piltover.

All his problems were in one way or another caused by this city:

- his illness/disability was cause by the pollution of the undercity (caused by piltover)

- his technology has been weaponised (by the piltovian council)

- not even his death was granted to him as he intended ( jayce, a piltovian, took his body autonomy from him)

So he leaves for the undercity.

4. Zaun and Shimmer.

First thing he does once arrived in Zaun, he visit him old home. Inhabited and run down, he goes back to his house in Emberflit alley.

Just like the rest of the undercity the building is a shell of what it used to be. Most widows are broken, part of the walls have crumble the the bricks inside are open to the air. The roof let in more air, sunlight, and rain than it keeps out.

PART 2 WILL BE POSTED SOON.

Here some anticipations