#seriously give her the canon scar back

[kelsochronicles]

Someday I’ll fight the compulsory urge to color every half decent sketch of her, but today is not that day

[camilledlc]

I think Wade Wilson is way more intelligent than people give him credit for. Or, another character essay no one asked for :

This will be based both on comics and movies. Also, spoilers for Deadpool and Wolverine.

I think it's often said that Wade doesn't know how to read situations, as he often acts inappropriately during them. He doesn't seem to sense the mood of the person he's talking to, angering them more often than not, and he doesn't really care about watching his mouth around children, etc. There are tons of examples of Wade being 'stupid', and 'immature', blah blah blah. But I don't think that's quite true.

Wade has also numerous moments where he perfectly reads a situation. He is extremely aware of how others may perceive his scars, he figured Negasonic Teenage Warhead pretty easily during the first movie (when talking about sarcastic comments or whatever, if I remember correctly). He knows how people act and think, and he definitely knows how to assess a situation. When he got Johnny Storm killed, he knew what he was doing. He was into a dangerous situations, just having been kidnapped and he couldn't fight, not even knowing how strong and what powers Cassandra Nova had. But by turning her against Johnny, not only was he able to assess her, but also prove that he wasn't here to cause her trouble. It was a cruel and ruthless action, but it was smart nonetheless.

Besides, people often forgets very important facts about his skills. Wade is an extremely good fighter, and that's partially due to the fact that he's a master at almost every martial arts. He knows a bunch of them, and he is capable of practicing them with impeccable form. He's also a master at espionage, infiltrations, cover missions, etc. He knows how to handle a lot of different weapons, and he is canonically one of the best fighters in the entire Marvel Universe. All of those skills require a certain level of intelligence. Fighting demands to remember the different styles and techniques, as well as enough practice to switch between them easily. Espionage, infiltration, and cover missions demand someone who is capable of discretion and and ability to judge a situation, notice details that no one else would and invent on the spot creative ways to do things. All in all, he has to be extremely smart to be able to do all of that. That's also without counting the fact that he knows how to speak fluently five different languages.

With all of these proofs, it's impossible to say that Wade is dumb. But why does he acts like it?

There is no official answer as to why Wade is this way. The most you can get is that he is extremely mentally unstable. This is the result of both a bad childhood and very traumatizing experiences as a superhero. It is said he was already mentally unstable during his childhood, so I'm inclined to believe that it also has something to do with his brain in general.

What I personally believe is that Wade is someone who gets bored extremely easily. He has ADHD (not really official in the movies, but canon in the comics), and he always seems to jump from one topic to the other. His mind is often considered a mess, and he himself sometimes has trouble keeping up with it. I think that someone like him has to be stimulated at all times, because boredom is definitely the worst thing that could happen to him. Even in the last movie, he seemed to hate his job because of how boring it was, not hesitating to go back into action and becoming more and more himself again as he just do exciting things. He has always been like this, even before he got his regenerating factor. When he did his job, he wasn't always careful and often loud-mouthed. It didn't interest him to just kill people, he wanted a fight. He wanted a back and forth, a sort of game. He needs to feel in danger, needs the thrill of it.

But then he gets his mutation. Suddenly, he can't die, he can't be seriously hurt, nothing has any real consequences. And so the games became boring. What is the point of putting himself in dangerous situations if he's never really in danger? How boring it is to do a job where you're perfectly safe? The only kind of thrill he can find anymore is by having the back and forth verbally. That's when it has consequences, and people actually able to surprise him, to beat him even. Attacking by talking his is one way to not feel bored. He surprises, he shocks, he annoys, but it's always different. Even during the last movie, when he was with Logan, he clearly said they didn't need to fight, yet he couldn't stop edging him verbally, always finding ways to push his buttons.

Wade is a very bored person, with a great understanding of where the limits are. And because he's so good at finding the limits, he's even better at crossing them willingly, sometimes at the expanse of the people he loves, because he can't be bored.

(I also like the interpretation of him just needing to be at the centre of attention, but I think it's a bit more classical and has already been done and re-done. So, this one is a bit trickier and way funnier for me.)

[ravenlikesbooks]

hmmm ok. life series Gem thoughts. Gem doesn't take things seriously, right? even now, with her rivalry with Pearl, she's more putting up a front than anything. she'll be acting buddy-buddy with Pearl and then suddenly remember she's supposed to hate her and play back into the role.

it's like what I was saying back during secret life. this is a game to Gem. she's the newbie, she doesn't know the stakes. except now she has a season of experience, and is trying to copy what the others are doing.

now, why is Gem not affected like the others? well, it's quite simple really.

that ship sailed long ago

Gem, canonically, although I don't know if the life series is exempt from this like empires s1, is the same person across all the series. she's done this song and dance before. she's done the grieving. she's done the anger.

after x-life, Gem buried herself in the graveyard with all of her friends. she was there for who knows how long, until she realized she wasn't going to die as well. she forced herself to get back up and keep living.

since then, she's lived through many tragedies. she watched the world end and walked out the other side with nothing to show for it except mental scars.

so, I'd like to offer an explanation for the apparent lack of character development: Gem is tired. So tired. it's not worth it to make a big deal out of everything, to form emotional attachments. not in any world, and certainly not in one designed for war. giving herself an emotional stake is just asking to get hurt, and she's so, so, so tired.

so Gem doesn't! she dances and taunts and runs around and plays the game as a game. it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. and maybe one day she'll believe it.

these are just my thoughts! please be nice

[thelastofhyde]

the likeability paradox.

pairing. joel miller x fem!reader

synopsis. joel miller is not a man who strives to be liked, with a chip on his shoulder and a scowl on his face, until his world is flipped on its axis when the pretty young thing living under bill and frank's roof, with an irritatingly unwavering smile and the literal sun shinning out her ass, says those five damned words: i don't like you, joel.

warnings. no use of y/n, enemies to lovers, slow burn ( i have several oneshots planned for this couple ), unrequited love ( except you will never catch joel miller admitting he feels anything beyond grief, hunger and exhaustion ), pining, poor communication no communication, no seriously joel is down bad it's actually disgusting and highkey 🚩toxic🚩 but luckily red is your favourite colour, sunshine!reader, grumpy!joel aka canon joel, kinda perv!joel ( if you squint ), implied queer!tess, undefined age gap ( reader implied late-20s ), descriptions of canon-typical violence, smut ( oral- f receiving, fingering, degradation, panty stealing, hair pulling, dirty talk, dubcon due to intoxication, joel kinda gives her a wedgie at some point and honestly i don’t know what i was hoping to achieve with that, discussions of a lacklustre sex-life pre-apocalypse ). reader is a) hinted at being shorter than joel but it’s not central to the plot and b) described as lithe but the meaning intended is graceful, not thin!

word count. 12.9k

hyde’s input. half-way through, the regret of choosing to write this from joel's pov started to settle in but lmao i was too far in to not commit to the bit. don't come at me for the fact the timeline or events may not seem plausible with canon, i just wanna write this silly little depraved fic about joel in peace :( anyway, enjoy my first attempt at writing for tlou, forming a prayer circle rn in hopes that this doesn't flop because i will cry and you will hear about it

read on ao3. series masterlist. next chapter.

Distaste is not new in the life of Joel Miller.

In particular, one that is loaded, aimed and fired directly at him. He is not a likeable guy, often by choice and rarely by accident. The years of pain from a bleeding wound have now scarred over into nothing but an empty shell of the man that once was, from a world that no longer is, and he’s tried little to fill himself back up.

If anything, he’s made himself more empty.

Rid himself of feelings, that which saves him the weakness of appearing sympathetic. Discarded the need for luxuries, for which he’d scarcely cared for prior to his world ending. Lay to rest what was left of the optimist inside him, leaving behind the danger of hope for it to rot with the rest of the infected.

An apocalyptic world brings out all sides of man that one would never dare to engage with in normal civilisation. Joel learned swiftly that he was built to endure, quick to evolve and adapt to the new world order. The man who once worked his hardest to keep the peace among his neighbours, smiling that little bit wider on days he’d catch them scowling to themselves in hopes of brightening one part of their day for even a simple moment, would be at odds with the man who wears a heavy layer of enjoyment when met with the scowling glances and the hushed voices, all the watch out for that Miller guys passed between cowardly members of FEDRA and the keep away from Mr Miller's lawns spoken harshly from mother to child becoming music to his failing ears.

This plague of fear-driven dislike keeps him alone, how he likes to be, no one to lose and nothing to be taken. Somewhere along the years the idea of safety in numbers has morphed into an illusion, something people say and never truly mean, to distract themselves from a reality more bitter than a snowstorm: in times of survival, people become deadweight.

“So that’s all I am to ya, huh? Dead-fucking-weight?” His brother’s voice still echoes in that damned space he calls a home, weeks or months or years since the day he’d departed for something else, somewhere else, leaving Joel to do what Joel does best: endure.

Somehow, silence was easier than telling the man he’d taught to tie a shoelace, to shave his beard, to tune a guitar that he was the deadweight, doomed to drag all those who remained too close down into his pit of despair.

She was an exception, his Tess, buried 5-feet-under in her own swell of darkness, nothing but the tips of her fingers stretched out above her head to feel the sun upon her skin and keep her from going that last foot deeper. They’d made a home for themselves in one another, one where he keeps them fed, and she keeps them safe, and neither of them keeps the place clean.

She never asks for more, and he never offers it, both content to survive without the weight of affection smothering them. Contrary to the belief of any misfortunate soul who’s encountered the pair within the quarantine zone, she is the one who holds the leash, tugging Joel along close by her heel and keeping him from wandering off into the wild to surrender himself to a feral lifestyle.

Which lands him here, sat at a table playing happy family, each time he dares to snark out a few words being met with the sharp kick of Tess’ foot against his shin.

“... And then,” Frank struggles over a cough, so excited in his story-telling that he fails to separate taking a breath from taking a sip of his wine. With a roll of eyes and a disapproving grunt, Bill’s no more than two seconds away from clapping down on his back, urging the other man’s wind-pipes to unblock and welcome back airflow. “Otis dragged his muddied self over the whole house. We were finding paw-prints for days!”

Joel's unamused, too keen to think of what a nuisance that would be. As if incapable of feeling the buzzing energy of disinterest, the German Shepherd drops its head further up his lap, begging for a morsel of anything that sits atop the table.

“Which means I was cleaning paw-prints for days.” Bill, the only one at the table besides himself who wears the looks of a cynic, grumbles out before shovelling what remains on his plate into his mouth.

Frank is quick to shush him.

“I’m sorry, again, Bill,” he doesn’t mean to break eye-contact from the mutt at his thigh, but the voice calls to him like a siren calls to a ship in the night, like a flame dances and seduces a moth into its brightly burning touch of death, a spotlight in the dark which promises- or threatens- more light to come. “I’d no clue there was a storm coming till we were already a good few miles away, and there was nowhere to take cover to wait it out.”

There you sit, parallel to him.

The sun rests lower in the sky as time carries you all into the late noon, its rays a beacon of light bursting out just behind your head, painting you in the glow of the golden hour and staining a mockery of a halo above you. It hurts his eyes, this brightness that you so easily bask in, forcing him to squint and deepen the frown on his face.

You catch him with his sights on you, at some point, and the smile you meet his scowl with has him cursing at the sun, and the moon, and every star that sits between.

The threat of a great war looms in the air as you rush to rise up and help clear the table of the remnants left behind- none of which Joel can account for, mouth too keen and body too starved to skip out on enjoying the mundane luxury of a fresh, home-cooked meal. The battle ends swiftly as you surrender to Bill’s hardened stare, and Frank’s disapproving head-shakes, and Tess’ own plan of action to simply force you down back into the seat you’d been sat in- the one you always sit in.

“You, sit. No one should have to clean up the food they made.”

They get no fight out of him when they insist he’d done enough catching the so-called food.

Silence casts its shadow over the table, dampening the light and smothering you both in a mockery of greyed tones- truthfully, it is the disappearance of the sun behind a large cloud that causes such a thing.

Being alone, with you, is something Joel’s never mastered. The affliction of your presence is so much greater when there’s no one else to balance out your natural shine- the kind that has his head spinning and his cock aching-, no one but him.

Were he not a sick bastard, he’d try harder to not make you sad.

Something bumps his hands, ripping him out of his moral self-condemnation. The dog meets his gaze, eyes a widened mess of puppy-dog pleading that punctuates its existence with an impatient whine.

Just like your owner, he finds himself thinking and not saying- never saying-, yet to find your bark.

The ball’s a sticky mess of slobber and dirt, and Joel touches it all the same, throwing it up in the air once, then twice, before tossing it across the yard. He’s slumped back in his chair by the time he registers the dog’s departure, a ball of dark fluff bouncing its way across the garden, and all the man can think is fuck, he’ll be feeling the effect of that throw on his shoulder come the morning.

The pain is not enough to stop him from tossing the ball again, and once more, and then yet again, sending the dog in a never-ending loop of chase, grab, retrieve- a parallel to his life of wake, survive, sleep.

“He likes you,” you never leave things the way he wishes them to be, bursting his bubble with the vocal reminder of your presence.

As if on queue, prompted by your addressing of it, the dog drops its interest in Joel, and the ball, and the chasing, tail wagging uncontrollably by the time it reaches your side. Standing on its hind legs, it collapses the front of itself into your waiting lap, and Joel watches how you wrap your arms so easily around something that could cause you harm.

To envy a creature that licks its own shit off its ass is a new low for Joel.

“Thinkin’ he might like ya more, Sol.” The nickname rolls off his tongue with ease, the safer option than uttering your name, a vice and virtue he’s only permitted himself in idealistic fantasies that play out in his own troubled thoughts.

“Most people do,” whether you mean to make it seem like you’re degrading his very existence or not, he’s unsure, but it rouses a chuckle out of him.

He takes note of how you don’t protest the name he’s branded you with, not like how you’d fought tooth and nail against it every other visit he and Tess have made.

“You’ve got a whole load in common, you know? I think that’s got something to do with his fascination-”

“How the hell’s a man like me got somethin’ in common with a four-legged mutt?” There he goes again, making that smile slip down your cheeks with a simple use of his voice. It helps as much as it hurts, frown loosening up and eyes no longer strained beneath the bright shine of your visceral optimism.

“Well, you’re both... hairy,” he restrains himself from reacting, washing down a laugh with the help of the dregs of wine that lay collecting at the bottom of his glass. He’s let his appearance grow more rugged over the past few months and your noticing of this brings an unwanted warmth to his aching bones. “And have the most kickass women in your lives to stop you from dying.”

He’s interested to know what life would be like under your protection.

Discovering the answer brings the threat of pain, and loss, and an openness to vulnerability he can not afford himself, so he takes the safer option: “‘S easy stayin’ safe when you live in this fantasy land. Doubt your mutt’d last any longer than a day out in reality.”

With you as its protector.

He doesn’t say it and, still, it somehow hovers in the space between you both, a heavy, syrupy implication that slips down your throats and threatens to suffocate you. He watches you choke on it, coughing on his cruelty and feigning it to be a simple clearing of your throat. Your eyes glue themselves on the dog, delicate fingers smoothing over the well-groomed hairs down its back.

Survival has turned him into a man who knows when to seize an opportunity, and this is one he takes with both hands, basking in the simplicity of staring, watching, observing you without the crime of being caught.

But I could keep you safe.

He toys with the danger of uttering such a thing aloud. It’s not the first time he’s thought it. Truthfully, he’s unsure when it first nestled its way into his mind.

His memory, which ails him more than it aids him these past years, would have him believe it was way before the dog had even appeared, back when it was just Bill, Frank and you. A few whiskeys in and a campfire lit for you all to gather for warmth around- why you’d all chosen to sit out in the gardens on a winter’s night Joel remains unsure of to this day-, it was Frank who’d prompted the question. “Where were you all when... this started?” Tess went first, braver than most people he knows, sharing stories of a version of herself he’d never meet.

He never imagined her working in a bank.

Bill, with reluctance, took the next step, keeping his account factual and to the point. “Was shit-faced drunk and getting my stomach pumped.” He’d been quick to skim over the story of the young nurse who’d guided him to safety out the hospital, losing her own life in exchange for his survival. She was barely out of school. “I knew her dad, bit of an asshole, but boy, was he proud of his baby for graduating.” Frank couldn’t let him swim too deep in his thoughts, afraid a current of guilt would trap him and drown him in the depths of it, and so he raised his own voice and began his tale.

Joel had always been a good listener. Being a single parent to a teenage girl required him to be, or so... she would have had him believe, nights at the table set for two spent listening to the playground he-said-she-said gossip. Years later and he at last prefers things this way, a rare gem of safety found in the act of saying nothing and hearing everything- that his hearing will allow. All this to say, he’d tried his best to pay attention to Frank’s impassioned retelling of his heroic misadventures that had lead him to the unintentional arms of Bill.

But you weren’t smiling.

He watched you, you watched the dancing flames, face stoic and drained of that natural shine his eyes had only just started to be able to gaze upon without the threat of being blinded by such light.

The desire crept up on him like a tiger to it’s prey, hiding in the far off bushes until the opportunity to strike presented itself and the feeling lunged for Joel’s back, gripping him in its claws and piercing his ribcage with its gnashing teeth. With each bite, it plagued him with the delusions of a wandering mind, imagination left free to run laps around his head with visions of you from another life, another time, another set of people gathered round a dining table. He’d wanted to hear about the ones you’d lost, and comfort you with all the things he hated hearing (“You’ll keep ‘em alive, in spirit and memory!” “Those we remember never truly die!”). He’d needed to bend a knee and swear a vow to be the one to stand between you and death, to fight for your survival on your behalf. ‘Could keep you safe. There, then, the thought did cross his mind.

He’d washed it down with a swig of lukewarm, flat beer.

“-Could fix it, you know. I’m good with my hands.”

He almost chokes on his own breath.

I'm good with my hands, it swims in circles round his mind, replaying and echoing off the walls of his skull. And he knows- oh, how he knows- that he’ll be replaying it in those moments of solitude for the next few nights, weeks, months- however long it may take till he forgets the way such thought-provoking words sound on your lips.

“What?” The question leaves him harsher than he intends, drawing an enemy line between you both with the foul sound of it. In the corner of his eye, he swears he sees you flinch backwards, physically recoiling from the disdain-filled bullet he fires in your direction.

The mutt in your lap retreats, hackles rising as it turns to face Joel once more.

He sees it, in the dog’s brutal protectiveness over you, this similarity you claim exists.

“Your watch, it’s broken.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” he’s retreating into his own space now, mentally and physically, scraping the legs of his chair against the ground as his mind works to strengthen those walls that threaten to crumble so often in your presence. “Don’t need ya to fix it.”

You pull a face, brows furrowing and lips pouting. Confusion.

“Don’t you want to know the time?” You ask, as if time could ever be relevant in a rotten world where down is up, and up is down, and Joel Miller is not the overprotective father to the most delicate creature the god he’d stopped believing in had gifted him, just to force him to watch as life snatched her away.

“I don’t keep it for the time.”

You smile, and this one’s a killer, piercing straight through the cages of his ribs to carve itself into his withered heart.

The German Shepherd relaxes with the rebrightening of your aura, shaking out the tension from its body before sauntering its way back over to Joel, ball in mouth and tail wagging excitedly, as if it hadn’t just contemplated having its first taste of human flesh.

He’s throwing the toy in a matter of minutes, enjoying the repeated run and retrieve game, and the renewed silence that comes along with it. Nature sings its tune with rustling leaves, cawing crows, and pounding paws. It’s almost so easy to leave your offer, your words, his broken watch in the rearview mirror of this otherwise pleasant afterno-

“Ooh, so there’s a story to tell!” You’re blinding him with your excitement, lithe limbs leaning forward in your own chair in an attempt to reach closer, table between you be damned. “I’ve never heard any of the Joel Miller backstory, this should be-”

“I get that likin’ everyone is your thing, but would’ya give it a rest?”

Nature falls silent.

Skies grow dull.

You juggle sadness.

There’s a crash that comes from within the house, followed by the unmistakable sound of Tess’ sailor mouth, cursing whichever delicate dish she’s broken into smithereens with the help of her accident prone hands. The dog’s lain itself down upon the grass, ball between it’s paws as it begins to bite, and chew, and break it under the pressure of its canines.

Joel wonders what the mutt’s practicing for.

“Sure,” then, with the return of your voice, all sounds resume, harmony upon planet earth once more. Only, the gates have been shut in his face and Joel finds himself forced to watch as everything unfolds from the outside, an unwelcome visitor forced out into exile with the fungal freaks and the inhumane. “But you’re wrong. I don’t like everyone.”

“‘S that so.” His eyes roll. The hole he’s dug for himself sinks deeper, casting you higher up on the pedestal Joel will always be wiling to place you on.

“Yeah,” you’ve risen out your chair, gifting him the view of how the fabric of your dress dances above your knee, a final twist of the knife in his heart that he lets you pierce his flesh with each time he surrenders himself to your existence. “I don’t like you, Joel.”

The hours come and go, but your words linger like a bad tattoo, shamefully engraved into his skin and banning him to a life of noticing the horrendous thing each time he passes by his own reflection.

We’re staying, for tonight. Tess had called the shots, and he’s been learning not to argue when she gives him one of her stern looks, biting down on the comments he’d wanted to make of the dangers of being out of the QZ for too long, which would likely earn him nothing but a shrug and the reminder that they both were off duty the following day

The nights are beginning to grow darker as winter grows nearer, leading Bill and Frank- mostly Frank- to excuse themselves to bed, bidding the two visitors with a final reminder to make themselves comfortable in whichever room they can find. If only Joel could remember which door leads to yours.

The two women in his life remain awakened, passing a bottle of wine between each other as you both converse back and forth, catching each other up on one another’s life, satiating that craving for mundane gossip.

Tess recounts the scandal of the poor boy who’d been caught sleeping with a FEDRA agent’s wife, you whisper that Frank and Bill had been fighting again recently. The memory of being ambushed by raiders- now dead raiders- comes to life once more with the help of Tess’ voice, while the promise to uncover what exactly Bill and Frank were hiding from you as of late is sealed in your words.

At some point, he lays himself to rest atop the couch, legs stretched out and arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the squeeze of the fabric over his forearms as the too-small flannel struggles to contain the muscles forged by the need to survive. At another point, he’s lulled to sleep by the lullaby of your mingling voices, a safety blanket draping itself over his tired body and enveloping him in the comforts of having that which he struggles to care so little for, so near him once more.

-N’t tell me you’re a virgin.

The words are muffled as the man slips back into consciousness, a frown coming to rest on his forehead as he battles against the demons urging him awake, the nightmarish memories of car crashes, and soldiers, and so much red chasing him away from the sleep he longs for so badly.

A protest rings true in his head and his ears.

Was gonna say. Knew you were young, but not that young.

It’s the sound of your laughter that awakens him fully, saving him from the tortures of his own mind.

“God, no! me and my ex, we... a few times. It was alright, I guess. I just, yeah, there’s not much to miss.”

He’s unwilling, unable to reopen his eyes, curling in on himself as he rolls over onto his side. A groan slips past his lips, one he’s hoping Tess and you will dismiss as nothing more than the sleep-filled rambles of a dreaming man.

Neither of you make any acknowledgement of him.

“Not much to miss?! Sweet Christ, you’re breaking my fuckin’ heart.” He’s learnt over time the common traits of a drunken Tess. Each word becoming an exclamation, curses becoming more frequent, and that irritating habit she’s picked up of imitating his own accent. There’s no need to bother opening his eyes, Joel’s already sure he’ll find his companion with flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. “I’d give up a hand for some head!”

You must do something, pull a face or shake your head, for the sound of Tess’ renewed shock fills the room. He wonders, as the sound bounces off the walls, how late into the night it’s grown.

Late enough that the cicadas singing outside the window are now accompanied by the hoots of an owl.

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me.”

“It bores me!”

“It bores you!?”

The couch beneath Joel creaks as he shifts once more, turning his back on you both as the ability to contain his laughter grows harder with each word you exchange and each gasp Tess gives. The last thing he needs is to be caught eavesdropping on your sex life like some dirty old pervert.

The crueler part of his mind replays your voice, I don’t like you, and the knife twists in his guts this time.

You like Tess. Love her, even. It’s been that way since the first time you’d met the duo, eyes giving one look over the woman before the smile on your face grew even wider, voice as sweet as honey sighing out Finally someone with a pair of boobs, I’m bored of the sight of my own. Joel’d gotten caught up in the thought of how he’d never tire of such a sight that he’d failed to acknowledge your greeting towards him, catching just the moment you drew your outstretched hand back to your side and offered him an understanding smile.

Maybe that was the moment you decided you didn’t like him.

“Must not have been doin’ ya right,” The bottle of southern comfort is working its wonders on the older woman, accent growing further and further from its true nature with each glass she nurses. Joel hears the faint sound of ice smacking against glass and knows it must be yours. You’ve always struggled with liquors, slipping as many ice cubes as you can manage into a glass in hopes that they’ll eventually melt and water the alcohol down. It’s oddly endearing that you think no one has noticed. Because he has, he always notices the little details that surround you. “This fella of yours.”

Joel has no right to despise the idea of you and some fella.

He does so, regardless.

“Well,” he imagines the shape of your meek smile and the way you shrug your shoulders. “We were each others firsts.”

“That’s no excuse! Trust I left mine cryin’ into her pillow the first time I went down.” Tess and he have a silent agreement to never speak of the nights Joel would take refuge on their beaten-up couch while Tess indulges herself between someone’s thighs in the bedroom. No discussing the sounds she pulls from her concubines, no addressing the wet patches left behind to stain their shared sheets, and definitely no speaking on how his hand winds up stained in his own cum.

You scoff and follow it up with a saccharine laced giggle, so sweet its bound to rot your teeth if you even attempt to hold it in. “What, are you offering your services?”

tThis he likes less than the image of you with some fella, the thought of having to lay upon a mattress on which Tess has raised you to heaven on while he once again remained locked out in the dark leaving his skin crawling with unwarranted rage.

“‘As sure as I am that you’re sweet all over, ‘fraid to tell you I like my women a little older than you.”

He knows he should do the same, should lust after those women his own age who shoot him carnal looks in the streets of the QZ. It should be skin his own age that he longs to taste, and eyes who’ve seen as much as his own he wants to stare into, and lips as cruel as the ones he owns that he fights off the urges to kiss. But he can’t, and he won’t.

And you’re the one to blame.

You, with the glow of a thousand suns. You, with the hands that tend to flowers instead of corpses. You, with the gentle nature he’d have to spend the rest of his days fighting off every other living thing just to protect.

His own self being the first he’d need fight.

Joel wonders what he’d missed in his hours- if it had even been so long- of rest, how the playground gossiping dissipated into reminiscing the pleasures of supple flesh and the sins of unfulfilling lovers. Sleep steals him away once more before he can find the answers.

The next time he awakens, he’s drowning in a plight of cruel memories, a cold and brutal ocean of faces, places, and traces of the ephemeral sentiment of happiness he’d possessed once upon a time, back when the price of letting one’s guard down was not so high.

He’s learnt, with time, that losing her comes in waves. Some small, meaningless little things, that ripple Joel’s surface and coast gently over his dirt ridden skin. Others, tsunamis. Big, angry, all imposing. They’re born in ground-shaking explosions of grief, building speed, and height, and weight the closer they grow to crashing over him.

Amidst the passing of time, he’s tried to keep himself busy in his awakened hours, to keep his mind occupied and avoid thinking about her too much. But the waves always come back, no matter how hard he tries to fight them or swim away from them. They catch him off guard, crashing over him when he least expects it. In the middle of a raid, lost in thought and standing ten inches deep in grime, blood, infected, and suddenly the weight of her absence will hit him like a ton of bricks.

The currents grow more violent whenever he closes his eyes.

This evening, it had been a minuscule wave, yet it’s damage still leaves him with sweat slicked skin. He reenters the land of the living choking on his own fear and shooting up-right, hardly registering his surroundings till his feet hit solid ground. The gentle, barely-there croon of a Sinatra record punctuates the room alongside the dim glow of a lightbulb which flickers with the threat of expiring and leaving naught but the moonlight to wash over the dark of the night. Across from him is Tess, nursing a half-emptied cup against her chest and wearing tired eyes. Snoring comes from below him, where Joel finds he’s a mere foot away from having stepped upon the sleeping dog, curled in on itself and laying soundly by his side.

You take up no space of this room.

Neither the dog nor the drunk pay him any mind as he pushes up onto his creaking knees, stretching out his limbs in a fight to undo the tension in his aching bod. Languid steps carry him out into the hall, where he freezes under the self-questioning of where he’s going.

There are three answer to this: where he should, where he could, and where he would.

He should find himself a bedroom, perhaps be ostentatious enough to rid himself of those stale clothes and let the warmth of running water wash away the sins he’d committed throughout the day. A good night’s sleep, atop a mattress where springs do not dig into his back and the sheets are clean as could be, it would do him good.

He could head towards the kitchen, quench that thirst that he’s awoken with, cottonmouth and a headache to go with it too. Perhaps he’ll find himself something to eat, indulge in the luxury of readily available food just this once, he’s sure Frank wouldn’t mind. Bill definitely would, but that’s not something he’ll need care about when he’s miles out and heading back to the QZ.

He would try find you, open whichever door it is that leads into the haven that must be your bedroom. He imagines its clean, and organised, and smells of some syrupy lavender that is bound to nauseate him as he smothers his face into your bedsheets, eyes shut, and mind relaxed, the threat of those violent waves no concern to him as he anchors himself with an arm around your warm skin. Skin he’s never felt, yet he stands firm in his belief it must be the most soothing thing to touch, as gentle and inviting as the heart it keeps safe within it.

I don’t like you, Joel.

Those words stop him from trying.

He tells himself it’s for the best.

With a mind of their own, his legs have made the choice for him and deliver him outside the opening to the kitchen. He swallows down a gulp of his own saliva at the prospect of a glass of water. The door’s already half-opened, and Joel nearly thanks Christ for it as the fear of waking anyone with the squeaking of the handle is eliminated. The darkness of the night encompasses the room, even with the moon’s shine reflecting off every surface it touches: the counters, the knife stand, the metal drawer handles, the refrigerator.

The refrigerator.

It’s open, a blue light shining out of it and illuminating anything it its proximity. A subtle beeping noise rings from it, and suddenly Joel’s back in his thirties, dead-beat yet well-intentioned brother stealing the food off his own plate as he beckons his pre-teen daughter back into the kitchen.

Keep leavin’ this open and it’s a job you’ll be gettin’ this summer, not a dog.

She never lived long enough to get either.

He catches something move beneath the artificial light. Cautious at first, it’s all the more startling to find the object of his ire and the embodiment of his desire stood leaning back against the countertop, a glass full of orange liquid pressed to a mouth that parts and welcomes in the sugary sweet delight.

“Why aren’t ya sleepin’?” The words rasp out his throat, catching and scratching on the parts of him that still yearn for something to wet his tongue with.

Beneath the light, you shrug. “Could ask you the same thing, Texas.”

He curses Tess for teaching you such a nickname.

He curses himself more for the way you saying it twists up his insides.

You’re teasing him, smile a little looser and eyes less focused than he’s used to seeing. Whether you’re tipsy or simply delirious with exhaustion, Joel remains unaware.

He grunts, daring to take a few steps further into the kitchen. The door behind him closes over and gives the illusion of the space becoming smaller, tighter, more compact.

“I asked first.” You laugh, at him. Full on chest-rumbling, hand over your belly, head thrown back- so abruptly it nearly crashes against the corner of the opened cabinet door. The corner of his mouth is curling upwards before he can catch himself. He hopes the refrigerator light shows less of him than it shows of you. Bare legs, and messed hair, and pointed nipples all on display for his undeserving eyes. “‘S so funny, huh?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he successfully fights off the urge to follow the drop of orange juice that spills down the side of your mouth, over your chin, down your neck, disappearing beneath the collar of your dress. Perhaps he is not as successful as he believes. “Just never heard the Joel Miller say something so childish. You’ve usually got your panties all in a bunch if someone so much as looks at you for too long.”

You make way as he inches closer, sliding yourself over to rest against the island counter. A fragrance of things he can’t quite pinpoint, but enjoys nonetheless, wafts in his face as he travels down the path to the sink. Uncouth and unbothered, Joel opens the tap and cups his hands beneath the stream of water.

“You know there’s a cupboard full of glasses right next to you, right?” You call out behind him as the man brings water to his dry lips, splashing and just about guiding his head beneath the stream. The thirst does not budge. He hums an acknowledgement of you, yet continues with his method.

By the time he switches the water off, you’ve made yourself busy, back facing him while you work at something atop the counter, a consistent chop-chop-chop filling the silence that settles between you both.

“iIm making soup,” you state, like there’s nothing quite more logical you could be doing at whatever-o’clock in the morning it is. “Make sure you take some with you when you leave. Tess said she’s been fighting off a cold the past few days, need you to keep her warm and fed for me.”

Would you do the same for him, if you knew he’d been the one to catch that damned cold in the first place? Four days of just about coughing up his lungs, and not a single soul- not even his Tess- had offered soup, nor warmth, nor sympathy. He’d not needed it, until now, when he hears you gifting it to someone else.

I don’t like you, Joel.

Of course you would do the same. Not because you care, nor because doing otherwise would way heavy on your conscious, but because you’re nice. Nice in a way he’ll never be, has never been. Patient, welcoming, comforting, warm. All words that spring to mind when one thinks of you. They violently oppose the closed-off, angry, dark cloud that had rolled in years ago and casted it’s shadow over Joel’s entire persona.

He straightens his back, weight shifting from one foot to another as he contemplates you from behind. The sway of your dress as you move has him in a trance, beckoning him closer before he can even realise he’s taken a step. His hands drip water onto the floor in a rhythm, the record player sings in the distance as a reminder of Tess and your sweet out-of-tune humming fills the empty kitchen with a brightness greater than the moon, but that’s not what Joel hears.

I don’t like you, Joel.

I don’t like you, Joel.

I don’t like you, Joel.

I don’t like you, Joel.

Over and over, you taunt him without even trying, nailing the words into his head and heart, impaling him with your sweet condemnation. You’re not the first to say it, to his face or otherwise, yet you’re the first to evoke such a reaction out of him, to leave a lasting impression hours after you’d declared such a thing.

And, suddenly, Joel’s angry. At you, at himself, at the sound of that damned knife in your hand slicing down onto the chopping board. The fog of his ire blurs his vision, rendering him to move blindly through the night.

Only when he finds himself looming over you from behind does his vision clear.

A hand meets the curve of your hip and you gasp, leaving Joel to wonder if it’s because the shock of his cold, damp touch or, simply, because it’s his touch. Without a thought spared, he firms his grip, fingers squeezing tight enough he feels your flesh bulge between each one, a bruising promise Joel gifts you.

You may leave your marks emotionally, but Joel’s will always be physical.

“Why,” he pulls in a breath, loading up the will to keep his voice a low rumble, a quiet disturbance in the night for no ears but your own to hear. “Don’t ya like me?”

If not for the pause in your practiced movements, knife stilling midway through slicing a carrot, he’d believe you’re unaffected by his proximity. “Why do you care?”

He scoffs, “I don’t.”

“Hmm,” this hum is far less delightful than the way you’d been following along to whatever melody Tess was playing in the living room. “Sure sounds like you do.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t,” he insists, and he swears he almost feels the way it only digs deeper the hole he’s created for himself.

Joel knows he cares. It’s been burning at his skin and itching on his mind since the moment you’d welcomed yourself to a little bit of unfiltered honesty, dropping the perfectly poised and eternally polite mask you’d worn since the moment he’d first met you, an attitude he loathes as much as he anticipates surrounding himself with it each time he’s tugged along for the trek to Bill and Frank’s.

What Joel doesn’t know is why he cares. There’s nothing to be desired about him, no traits to respect and certainly no looks to admire. He’s near crafted his entire being in a way that makes sure of this, the more undesirable his presence is, the less likely he is to be approached, be it by other people or fate itself.

Maybe there was a part of him that had wrongfully imagined you being the exception.

Instead, you’re stood barefoot in the latest of hours, knife working away the vegetables in front of you, dress sticking to skin beneath his damp hand, and you don’t like him.

Not one bit.

Joel grabs at your hips harder, his free hand curling round the shape of your left forearm. His feet shuffle forwards, until there comes a point where one would struggle to make out where you end and he begins. His chest pressed to your back, his muscular legs trapping your soft thighs, his forehead digging into the side of your head so intensely it threatens to shatter both your craniums and leave nothing but dust made by bones blown into smithereens.

He inhales, and finds you don’t smell of lavender.

“For the record,” he watches your movements over your shoulder, entranced with the back and forth sawing of the knife through unidentified vegetables. ‘S just like how I sliced that raider’s throat, he thinks, and instantly regrets it. No part of him should ever be compared to you. “I don’t like ya either.”

He’s lying through his teeth, hoping you don’t notice.

The knife never ceases its movement. Back and forth, back and forth. Chop, chop, chop. Blurs of greens, and oranges, and more greens cover the counter before you. It’s oddly soothing, this repeated and unbroken pattern, reminding Joel of times he’d found comfort in the mundaneness of cooking a meal after an emotionally exhausting day. Perhaps, this has the same affect on you, a momentary lifejacket to keep yourself afloat amongst the waves that haunt you awake.

The hand on your forearm travels, mind of its own, drawing up the shape of your shoulder with featherlight touches that contradict the way his nails dig deeper into the the skin you hide beneath the waistline of your dress.

“That’s not news,” you must think he’s blind to the hitch in your breath when his fingers slip over your pulse-point.

It’s his turn to respond with a hum.

“You only like yourself,” words more untrue have never been spoken before the man who’s every moment is spent drowning in his loses. His wandering touch halts. “A little selfish, if you ask me. but, that’s just what I think.”

This strikes a nerve. Fury commands his hand into a fist and fingers find themselves tangled in the tresses of your hair. The realisation of how surprisingly soft it feels barely finishes registering when he’s pulling on it, dragging your head along with, till it lays flat on his puffing chest and your eyes stare up at him. “D’ya know what I think?”

Even upside down, your beauty is striking.

“No, unlike you I don’t care what you think about-” Joel tugs on your hair once more.

“I think you’re a brat. A silly little girl who thinks she can smile and get away with murder.” You could. He’d forgive you as you soak your hands in the blood you draw from him. Knife in the heart, bullet through the brain, bat to the face, he’d slip away easily from this life if only to have you smile as he goes.

“You’re hurting me,” you whine, Joel growls.

Animalistic, beastly, a rabid animal sinking its claws into its defenceless prey. His gaze dances over your features, catching himself before he can sink deep into your captivating eyes, tracing the shape of your mouth, slipping down the peaks of your collarbones.

Your dress- red, a colour Joel Miller will no longer associate with bleeding wounds and stained weapons- sits tight on your chest, squeezing the swell of your chest beneath the fabric, and gives away all your secrets.

“You like it,” he speaks in awe, unable to pull his eyes off the two stiff buds that poke against the red fabric.

“No, I don’-” Dampness follows wherever his hand goes, fleeting as he makes the journey around your waist and up your side, crawling higher and higher to where he can feel your heart beating from within your chest. “Joel.”

He retightens his grip on your hair, aiding you with the way your curve your spine and force yourself deeper into his uncaring, ungentle, enamoured touch. Whoever Joel had been in a past life must have moved mountains or performed miracles to grant him the luck to be holding you this way, the fingers he’d gifted with nothing but the cocking of guns and the feel of his own pulsating lust now expertly tweaking at one of your stiff nipples, all thoughts of the fabric scratching at your sensitive skin dissipating into the abyss as he realises you’re enjoying the pain.

“Heard ya, earlier, in the living room,” at the time, he’d been mortified to be overhearing such intimate words between you and Tess. The blood that insists on rushing to his crotch now wants you to know, to hear the admission of guilt be spoken from his own mouth. “ Talkin’ bout your past.”

He doesn’t specify.

He doesn’t need to.

You give away your shock with parted lips, widened eyes, frozen eyelashes, pupils staring up at him like a wounded fawn he’s about to take his first bite out of and, hopefully, it won’t be the last one.

“Tess turned you down,” the hand on your chest switches sides, donning your other breast with some much needed attention. His hand must still carry residue of the water, for you gasp and shut your eyes in the shock of his touch, your own fingers shooting up to scratch at his wrist. Near convinced you mean to push him away, the pressure against his hand that pushes deeper into his unholy affection has him realising otherwise. “I wouldn’t.”

You say nothing. Joel pulls harder.

“Too bad I’m-” You cut yourself off as he presses himself closer to you, your poor hips bound to awaken with bruises from the counter he’s got you pressed against. With a distance so small he can hear your teeth grind, Joel watches you like a hawk. The twitch in your brow, the flutter of your eyelids, the bobbing of your throat as you silence what he imagines would be an otherworldly kind of moan, a whine he’d let kiss his ears and wind up poisoning himself with the torture of it replaying in his head each waking moment till he kicks the bucket, once and for all. The want to see you fall apart evolves into a need. “Too bad I’m not offering you the chance.”

Joel Miller is a hot blooded man, at his core, weak to emotions and vulnerable to the warmths of flesh. With notches on his bedpost and a tally of lives beneath his belt, he sees little wrong with taking what he needs.

“Who said anything about an offer?”

The descent to the floor is far from graceful, with bitten back groans of pain as clicking noises resound throughout the room while his joints bend and break in an effort to get him where he needs to be, where he’s needed to be for far longer than merely this exchange on kitchen grounds: on his knees for you.

A part of him would prefer it if you weren’t wielding a butchers knife.

The other part wishes you were facing him, eyes full of that repressed anger, hatred and discontent you likely harbour for him as you point the blade down at him and threaten to paint the floors with his blood. You’ve yet to do that, and so he takes it as his queue to progress.

Smoothing his hands up your legs, he admires the landscapes of your body from this angle, with legs that seem longer than any tree in the Amazonian jungle and curves with peaks that resemble the mountains of the Himalayas. Arriving at the top of your knees, the hem of your dress both welcomes and conceals his touch, inviting him into the wonderful world it hides beneath it yet denying him the privilege of feasting his eyes on your paradise, an island of safety amongst the open ocean of his mind.

Your breathing is measured, precise, too rhythmical to be natural, the subconscious action now turned into a practiced routine you mean to maintain nonchalance with. Perhaps you’re yet to realise that, while he may remain indifferent to those that surround him, Joel knows how to read people. And, right now, you’re a whole novel of lust, awaiting for someone to open up your pages and drink in every lyrical prose you promise to tell.

Joel finds purchase mid-way up your thighs, hands sliding around to the front of them to grip the buttery smooth skin and ground himself in the reality he kneels before.

You breathe in, you breathe out.

One knee buckles, ever so slightly, the weight of you collapsing into his welcoming hold. He revels in the feeling of supporting you, in every meaning of the word, thumbs not even waiting on a command from his consciousness to begin soothing your tingling skin with a gentle back and forth movement to match the knife in your hand.

Inhale, exhale.

Your legs straighten once more, a hand of his winds its way back out from under your skirt and shoots up to grab your free one, dragging it down his pits of desire.

“Hold,” he’s parched all over again, mouth drier than the Texan wastelands on a hot summer’s day. All he can do to survive is peel up that infuriatingly soft, red fabric of your dress, skin unveiling itself to his hunger struck eyes. With the skirt bunched up, he shoves it into your awaiting palms, pinning your hand against your own waist. “Don’t move.”

Where he expects protest, he receives more breathing.

Lace covers your skin, a delicate shade of a colour his eyes can’t quite distinguish in the dark of the night. One flicker of his sight to the very core of your body and he notices it, that tell-tale sign that you’re enjoying this little display of attention, despite what your measured breaths may have him believe. A wet patch, your wetness. The stickiest, sweetest of honeys that only a woman like you can possess, and a man like him should never bare himself witness to.

Curiosity gets the better of him- one day, Joel hopes, this will get him killed- and his touch is reaching for the lacy fabric, fingers digging themselves into the waistband of your panties and around the fabric that covers your right asscheek before curling his hand into a fist, tugging upwards.

In and out, shaky breathing comes from above.

The lace pulls tight on your delicate skin, no choice but to nestle itself in the slit of your cunt as two pretty soaked lips peak out from each side. A heady smell he can only begin to describe as stiflingly sweet, tongue-tingling tanginess hits his nose. He makes sure to take a deep breath, letting the blood rush straight to his head- the one that sits packed uncomfortably in his tightened trousers.

Delectable as sin, you keen back into his fist, back curving ever so slightly. There’s a tremor in the hold you have on the fabric of your dress. Joel basks in the visual affect he’s beginning to have on you, no need to doubt if the fabric of your underwear rubs at your likely aching clit. He wonders if the sting of the lace digging into your skin hurts. He thinks it must hurt.

His fist curls tighter, pulls higher.

“Ah,” at last, a ripple in your surface. Though you still wield a knife, the carrot you’d been failing to chop rolls off the counter and onto the floor, lost somewhere in Joel’s peripheral vision.

“Shut up,” he grunts, like it doesn’t make his balls throb to hear you whine. “People are tryin’ to sleep.”

You scoff, and for a moment you seem to have rediscovered your composure. “Tess is drunk as a sailor, and the old men could sleep through nuclear warfare.”

“‘S that an invitation to see how loud I can get ya,” he’s still caught in the way you mold against the lace, slickened skin carrying a reflection of the moonlight. This, he thinks, is what all them poets were writing about in their prose of love and beauty. “Or a challenge?”

“It’s an invitation to stop lecturing me on volume control,-” you catch yourself, he realises, right before you can gift him some nickname a sweet girl like you would never use. Asshole, dickhead, bastard, he’s heard them all and, still, he wants them on your tongue, in his mouth, condemning him for all the brutish, oafish ways he masks his obsession for you.

As coquettish as it may be, painting a picture worthy of a front-page on some Playboy magazine, the sight of lace becomes a nuisance he no longer holds the patience for. So he strips you of it, hand moving to pull the garment down, down, down the length of you, till it hits your ankles. He awaits no movement of your own, taking it upon himself to lift each of your feet individually out the leg-holes.

It’s merely impulse that has him shoving the soiled lace into his back pocket, though he’s sure he’ll make use of them on lonely nights.

“You’re drippin’,” his proclamation is ego-driven, pride swelling in his chest as he takes in the full sight of your bare heat. The view is a little obscured from behind you, but with the right amount of tilting of your hips at a certain angle and the widening of your legs, he’s bound to sit front row and centre for your private show. “‘S actually a little pathetic, sweetheart. Is it 'cause ya like it when men get mean wit’ ya?”

He can imagine the way you’d roll your eyes at his words, and it has him thinking about how you’d look with your eyes rolling back for different reasons, reasons he’s about to gift you.

But first, he curls one hand around your ankle and tugs the limb along as far as he wants it. Much better, he now faces no blockage in the path up to your slit, freely letting his wandering hands ascend to his newfound heaven. Perhaps he’ll revisit the life of gospel, if you promise to be the altar he prays before.

Cool fingers to warm skin, you swallow a gasp a little too late for Joel to not notice as he drags the tips of his middle finger up the length of your slit. Soft, puffy lips part for him, until he presses against that special button that’s bound to turn on your engines.

Rolling his finger over your clit a few times, he refamiliarises himself with the female anatomy, with your anatomy, memorising each soft bump and meaty lump he finds along the way.

It happens so suddenly, and unwillingly, the way his mind switches to thinking of Tess. He wonders what exactly it is she does to those poor things she sends home on shaky legs, where she even begins to touch them. Joel imagines she makes use of what she has and starts with her fingers.

So he does the same.

Working over your slippery wetness, he coats the tip of his middle finger with it, till he finds what he’s been searching for: the gateways to your heaven, your entrance. He breaches your walls with that single digit and somehow that’s enough to have you squeezing around him so tightly he wonders if blood still manages to flow to his digit.

Two, three, four pumps of his hand and he’s introducing his pointer finger too, pressing them both into you to witness the ways you mould around this wider stretch, the lips of your cunt a pair of cushions his knuckles collide against each time he fucks his fingers in.

“So now you shut up. ‘S the matter, huh?” He’s contradicting himself and he doesn’t even care, too busy focusing on curling his fingers inside you, delighting in the feel of that spongy tissue they press against. “Am I too borin’ for ya?”

“You’re the most infuriating man I’ve ever- Oh!”

A tongue meets skin.

The knife clatters onto the counter.

You lurch forward.

His hand pulls you back.

“Tess was right, ya know?” He can still taste you on his tongue, nothing more than a simple lick over your slit and your salty pleasure already seeps deep into his veins, staining his very being with the memory of his new favourite flavour. He pulls his fingers out, slipping them up to your clit. Three little taps to the pulsing bud- tap, tap, tap- and he’s slipping them into his mouth, tongue working overtime to clean up every last drop of you that coats him. “That boy of yours wasn’t doin’ ya right.”

The common sense that screams at him to not feel envy over some ex-lover, someone who was likely barely even an adult at the time and no longer appears to be around, is no match for the green eyed beast that commands him to tell you, without using words, that he can do better- touch you better, protect you better, fuck you better-, if you’d just let him.

‘Could keep ya satisfied.

That’s a new thought, one he’s never needed before yet never wanted more, a burning ache to be worthy of your trust, affection, lust. He’ll never forget the first time he thinks it, mouth salivating at the sight of you.

“Is this the part you say some cheesy line straight out a porno? What ya need is a man, a man like me!” The softness of your giggle is still sharp enough to cut through the tension. God, it’s never sounded sweet, and Joel finds himself freely smiling into the darkness, yet still too stubborn to laugh at the deep voice you attempt to imitate him with.

“Well, was you who said it,” his mouth finds it’s way back onto your soaked heat, taking his time to work his tongue up the length of it, his saliva mixing itself in a nasty cocktail with your wetness. He imagines the air is cold against your skin, and that you like it, memory of those hardened nipples hidden beneath the fabric of your dress. “But if ya insist.”

Diving in head first had always been his style, from his first lover to his last, and to now, knees aching on the kitchen floor. The tip of his tongue dances round your clit, tantalising you to grind your hips to the rhythm of his sinful touches.

Licking into you, he’s reminded how much he enjoys that swelling in the chest that only comes from bringing another pleasure.

He’d not been a perfect lover, far from it, but he’d liked to believe at one point he’d been trained by experience that only comes with age, years of touching wrong and kissing badly to learn the right ways to make those he shared a bed- or a counter, or a backseat, or a club bathroom- with see angelic white as they writhed and squirmed under his touch. You’re lucky to have him now, matured by past lovers and broadened by age, with all the knowledge he needs to open your eyes to how a man pleasures, kisses, loves.

He’s out of practice, sure, with recent years adding notches to his belt that were merely frantic, unexpected, barely undressed run-ins with strangers, in strange places, cock barely getting a moments affection before he’d be spilling his seed and tucking it, limp, back into the confines of his trousers and locking it away beneath a zip.

What a perfect excuse you are, for Joel to remaster the arts of lust.

It’s messy, wet dripping down his chin and staining itself into the stubble of his growing facial hair. It’s noisy, his mouth openly groaning depraved joy into your warmth as you sing him a song of sweet euphoria, slowly building towards that crescendo on the horizon. It’s animalistic, barely human as he revokes all earthly needs such as rest, and food, and socialising, his mind, and soul, and heart, and cock all screaming in unison to spend whatever remaining days he shall possess on his knees before you.

And all the while you writhe and wriggle, some times running away from him touch, other times rutting so far back into him that you threaten to suffocate him somewhere between your warm thighs, and sugar-sweet cunt, and the two well-rounded globes of your ass.

His only saving grace is that he can’t see you.

Hearing your pretty whines, and hand-muffled moans, and heavy intakes of breath is enough to curse him for the rest of his waking days, condemned to wander the wastelands of earth knowing the noises you make on the brinks of pleasure, with a touch-starved man satiating his hunger for flesh and blood with the sugary sins of your soaked cunt.

Burrowing deeper into you, his consciousness rips through the fog of his lust to curse out his perversions as the tip of his hooked nose bumps against the puckered entrance of your ass. It does nothing to stop him tearing his tongue away from your clit, flattened as he drags it over the expanse of your cunt, and over your taint, and up the crack of your behind.

“N- Ah,” You can’t deny him while sounding so eager for more, the tip of his tongue now circling your back entrance, mimicking the treatment previously given to your little pearl. “No, don’t, not there.”

Next time, he thinks, we’ll try that next time.

Sights returned to his previous desires, he works to rip out every sigh, and every whine, and every dirty little song you’ll grace him with. The sound of whatever record Tess has put on in the other room becomes a safety blanket, dousing you both in the warm protection of not being overheard.

And, then, he does it, he makes the ultimate mistake.

His eyes flicker to the left and he finds himself faced with the stove that sits within Bill and Frank’s- and, by an extension he does not enjoy to remember, your- kitchen. There’s little that’s remarkable about the appliance, just your standard, everyday oven that he’s sure you’ve spent countless hours cooking up those comforting meals he’s come to anticipate each time Tess tells him they’re due a visit.

Except, the oven door is made of glass.

Glass which now paints the most pornographic masterpiece for no eyes but his own. You, with a hand gripping the island’s counter like your life depends on it, and the skirt of that goddamn dress he’s envied all evening for the way it got to rest against the warmth of your thighs now bunched up in your tight grip, and your head thrown back, curving your spine in a way that has him wondering about the other ways he’d be able to bend and break you beneath his touch.

And then there’s him, down on his knees like a devotee laying himself down to worship his goddess, face burrowed in the space between your legs, mouth devouring you from behind with the help of his hands, the same ones that had strangled a man less than a day before and reigned fire down on countless others for years, that now grip the meat of your thighs to pull you back onto him, fucking his tongue into your sopping heat.

The image will haunt him more than the face of any man he’s killed.

“D’ya touch yourself, Sol?” You don’t answer him, but that’s okay. In a sweet change of pace, Joel Miller’s perfectly fine with talking enough for the both of you. “Yeah, bet ya do. Late at night, right? Once you’re all alone in bed. Ya seem like the kind who can make herself scream.”

You back into him, smothering him under the weigh of your body. Becoming his holy grail, he drinks from you like it’s the key to eternal life, and what a way of living this would be, time disregarded as nothing but meaningless while your bodies melt together in the heat of passion.

Fucking his fingers back inside, he becomes frantic beneath the need to make you cry, fall completely apart with only his hands to hold you together. “Let me do the honours this time though.”

You don’t scream, can’t scream, hand over mouth muffling whatever profanities and theatrical proclamations he rips from within you with the stroke of his agile tongue, the only muscle of his that’s yet to develop aches and pains. He imagines that will no longer ring true once he awakens past sunrise.

He’s unsure how much longer he works his tongue over you, slipping and sliding through the liquid pleasure, but it ends with fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him away and tilting his head up.

You’ve never looked more holy, moon casting it’s shine around you, eyes glossed with unshed tears, lips parted and swollen from the pressure your own teeth had bitten down on them with. Your expression, he can’t quite read. Not sad, not happy, not mad.

Your eyes catch on something, abandoning his own for something closer to the floor, to which he follows and finds exactly what you’re staring at: the evidently dark patch that now stains the front of his jeans.

The discomfort of trekking back to the QZ will now be tenfolds worse in the stains of his own pleasure.

“Joel...” his name is nearly a beg, a prayer, an invitation. Hand still in his hair, you tug, pulling him upwards off the ground. Legs open wider and back arches deeper, a seductive sight that your body pleas for him with.

He swallows a groan, knees alleviated at last from the floor, and presses himself against you once more. Strong arms crush you in an embrace, pulling you back into him as his head slips to rest against your shoulder. He’s capricious with the way he lets himself litter a few wet kisses over your neck, breathing in the smell of you.

“That,” you grind back into him, a torturer who takes his aged body as her victim and toys with his barely recovered cock, the cum in his trousers sticking uncomfortably to his skin. He pulls tighter on your body, grounding himself in the weight of it against his own to find the sanity to finish his sentence. “Shouldn’t have happened.”

Joel hopes no one awakens as he slams the door on the way out of the kitchen.

People once spoke of how the only certainties in life were death and taxes but, nowadays, the words don’t ring as true and the guarantee of life with taxes has morphed into something else entirely; a reality where death and time go hand in hand. As sure as tomorrow will arrive, death will come too, eventually. Not today, however, and Joel Miller finds himself stood throwing a ball back and forth for a dog.

It chases and retrieves, trailing it’s happy self all the way back to him only to spit the ball down at his feet, siting and waiting to repeat the process once more. There’d been a time where this is all he’d wanted: white picket fence, dog in the yard, home-cooked meals filling a house with warmth.

That dream seems so far away now, even as he stands within it.

He cracks his back, huffing out a groan. “No, not again. My back’s fucked as it is, buddy,” with no one around to witness, Joel lets himself crouch down onto his knees- both popping obnoxiously as he does so- and rakes his hand over the German Shepherd’s head. It whines and makes an attempt to nudge the ball against him, protesting in the only way it can. A scratch to the ear does the trick to distract the animal, to which it tilts its head and forces itself deeper into his blunt nails. “Not so bad, are ya? Huh?” Never in a million years did Joel think he’d be talking to a dog when him and Tess had set out for their routinely visit to the Bill and Frank’s. Never would he have thought that would be the least shocking event to unfold on this trip.

He hears you before he sees you.

“You planning to make your knees familiar with every surface of this place, Texas?”

He tries to rise, he truly does, but the four-legged foe he’d been petting mere seconds ago betrays him the instant it catches sight of you, charging past him and knocking him over in the process, ass to floor and head to sky.

The world above is a storm of greys, clouds swallowing one another with a looming threat of danger on the horizon and not a lick of the sun’s warmth seems to make its way through.

So instead, it sends you.

Peering over him from above, hair a tangled mess, eyes a wreck of under-bags and sleepless tears, the collar of your jumper lowered just enough at this angle that he can see a tease of cleavage, you radiate a brightness like no other, more dangerous to his naked eyes than UV rays could ever be. He’s squinting again, frown etching itself on his forehead with the threat of becoming permanent soon. A few more years and his face will be nothing but frown lines and crows feet. At the very least, he considers, I’ve survived long enough to wrinkle.

The smile above him is worth a million laugh lines, a kindness laced within it that matches perfectly with the hand you hold out. When he does nothing but stare at it, you wriggle your fingers, enticing him to take a hold. He does most of the work, truthfully, but you play a part in pulling him back to his feet. Upright once more, he can’t help but bask in the way he’s able to physically look down on you.

“Thanks for tiring him out,” you’re the first to talk. You’re always the first to talk, and he curses you for it. “Won’t need to walk him as far tonight.”

A queasy feeling overtakes him at the thought of you walking the dog alone at night, nothing but the moon to light your way. He’ll need to remember to tire the dog out next time he visits. “No problem, thanks... for feeding Tess and I.”

“No worries!” You’re so kind, so good, smiling at him with a cheerful chirp in your voice. He can’t wrap his head around how you can bring yourself to treat him this way. “Oh, actually, that’s why I came out here, I was looking for Tess-” Of course you were, when would you ever be looking for him? “Hold on!”

You shoot off back inside so quickly that Otis just reaches the doorway by the time you return. With an idle pet to his head as you pass by, Joel once again sees, in the way such little affection can have the dog so elated, that resemblance between them you’d spoke of. In your hands, you carry an array of containers full of food- soup- each filled to the brim.

“I wanted to give you these, before you guys leave,” you’re explaining yourself, and Joel wonders if it’s nerves that bring you to need constant babbling to fill any gaps of silence. He can’t imagine how he could make you nervous and therefore that thought is quick to be discarded. “I know the journey up here and back can be long, consider them a token of my appreciation towards you both for-”

“Why don’t ya like me?” he cuts you off.

Pathetic, he knows, but he can not stop himself, a deer caught in the headlights of your brightly burning, too-good-to-be-true, too-pure-to-be-fake personality.

You show no signs of hearing him, smile unwavering as you continue to hold out the boxes to him. “There should be enough to last you a few days, if you watch your proportions.”

It’s too much for him to handle- the food, the smiles, the sweetly glistening eyes-, and Joel just has to know, needs an answer before the heat of his confusion consumes him entirely in its flames and leaves nothing but his smoking remains.

So he tries again, louder.

“Why don’t ya like me?”

“And I’d probably say you’re best to heat it up, especially for Tess,” you ignore him, again, lips stretching what can only be described as uncomfortably wider. “Winter is sure coming in faster than last year, isn’t it?”

He grabs at your arm, fingers curling round the swell of your bicep as he speaks through gritted teeth, "Answer me." Like a frightened dog backed into a corner, he bares his teeth and yells his bark.

"For someone who doesn't care,” you try his patience, knowingly or not, and his grip tightens. You don’t flinch, welcoming the sting of his blunt and bitten nails against your flesh. “You sure do talk about my opinion a lot."

"Answer the damn question, girl.”

“Or, what?” You’ve got him there, he’ll admit, holding no real plan as to how to punish your silence. “You gonna give me the same treatment as last night?”

Had he known you’d be so unabashed to mention the events on the kitchen floor so flippantly, as casually as one would speak about the weather, he’d never have dared to get on his knees. Truthfully, he’d not given things a second thought, disregarding the later for the now, living in the moment with caution thrown to the wind over what the morning would bring. Perhaps he’d hoped you’d been intoxicated enough to dismiss the memory as a nightmare, maybe he’d wished you’d keep away from him to free him of the volatile grip you have on his soul.

Instead, you stand tall, proud, eyes fiercely staring back at his own as you challenge him to retaliate, mock you with none of those saccharine smiles you hide harsh tones behind.

Joel says nothing.

“How about this, let’s make a deal, like the ones you and Bill make.” Inching closer, crowding in on his space and forcing him to take note of the smell of freshly cleaned clothes mixed in with your own fragrance. Clean, warm, inviting, scents he’d never given meaning to before now. “You get me something, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

He grunts out a response, hands meeting his hips as he juts out one knee, the shifting of weight between feet a perfect distraction to the rising tension in his worn-out jeans. “What d’ya want? ‘Cause if it’s somethin’ like a gun, think again. I ain’t messing with none of Bill’s strange politics on you havin’-”

“A dress.”

“A dress?” The statement has him quirking his brow, burning questions swimming in the depths of his eyes as he stares back at you.

“Yes, and don’t look at me like that!” It’s hypocritical, he believes, for you to berate him for the looks he sends you when all you do is cast stones his way with your gaze yet shake him to his very core each time you smile. “I need a new one, my favourite one got ruined whilst making soup.”

Unaware he’d even began to lean closer, Joel’s quick to recoil, as if your words are bullets and his skin the target you hit on the bullseye every time.

“Joel!” his name resonates from somewhere in the house.

Neither of you dare to break eye contact. Again, his name is yelled. This time, he manages to identify Tess as the owner of the voice. Habits have him used to running to her whenever she calls, but habits have never been caught between the choice of Tess or you.

His feet remain glued to the ground.

Tess yells once more and, though you speak up, you don’t dare look away. “Think you might be needed inside, macho man. Your missus is calling.”

“She ain’t my-”

“You two just gonna stand and stare at each other all day, or will you help a woman out already?” Tess enters the scene somewhere behind you, a blur of her familiar shape standing out the front door.

Only when your head spins and he no longer finds himself lost in the black of your eyes does Joel take her in completely, hair clearly damp and complexion a little paled by her hungover body. In her arms, she struggles with the weight of a folded table. You approach first, he follows, his two hands aiding in carrying it out into the front yard as you retighten your grip on the boxes of soup in your arms.

“I should probably,” laying the containers down on the now unfolded table, you fidget with the sleeves in your hands, eyes downcast with something he can only read as guilt. He decides he much prefers the fire they hold when you berate him. “Go check on the food, before it burns.”

You’re in the door and out his sight before he can so much as ask you to stay.

Tess and him hit the road by noon. Earlier than predicted, later than he’d wished for. The bite of cold already marks the air, despite the sun breaking through the clouds and heating the world with its rays. He walks a little ahead, feigning ignorance to the repeated coughing coming from Tess and wracking his brain for answers.

Answers to why he’d never noticed how hoarse she’d been sounding till you pointed it out. Answers to what awaited them both upon returning to the QZ. Answers to when will be their next chance to visit the safe haven Bill’s created. Answers to why you don’t like him.

I don’t like you, Joel.

It motivates him to walk quicker, faster, racing to put as much distance between himself and that damn kitchen floor, miles upon miles not enough to rid him of the dull ache in his knees that goes hand in hand with the throb within his too-tight-jeans. If he were alone, he’d break out in a sprint. but Tess is here, he’s not alone, and home will simply have to wait on the passing of time to drag him back to it.

Till then, he needs to find a dress.

[cjskribblez]

>Inverse Theory<

The theory that the entire life series is being viewed in reverse.

The games end when Grian finally wins that which he created in 3rd Life, freeing the players.

Ok. So hear me out. There is alot of it that doesn't make sense, mostly character wise, but let's put all of that to the side for one moment to entertain this.

-Cleo and Etho have a divorce arc in limited life. Funny, but they barely interacted in double life. Now, at the time of this writing, they have a wonderful duo going on in secret life.... hmm. Interesting

-Martyn has said his canon reasoning behind Lizzie and Mumbo not being in double life was because the previous season was too traumatic for them and they needed more time to recover. If we apply this logic going from Last life to 3rd, the logic still applies.

-This also would mean Skizz wasn't in double because limited life was painful for him... yeah. Ouch.

-Now I haven't seen Lizzie's last life pov all the way through, but she was a fairy queen, correct? And Ren was her bodyguard. Her second in command. I like the idea of Ren becoming a king in 3rd because of that.

-This also makes Pearl's descent into madness in double life a bit sadder, but with a happy ending of her and Scott teaming next season (last life)

-Bdubs kills Impulse the one time he forgets to give him a clock.... oof

-There is also very funny things with this theory, like Grian throwing an axe into Scar's back and then waking up as his soulmate. (Which would also explain why he didn't want to team with him in last life)

Ok that's all in my brain rn, don't take this too seriously as it's not a theory I think is canon or should be, but its a fun idea to spin around I think. Feel free to add stuff !

[cemetery-sunset]

🍖How the Sawyer Family Self Destructs

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Trigger warnings: self harm, cutting, eating problems, drugs, drinking, verbal and physical abuse, mentions of murder, canon-typical violence

Word count: 2k

☮️Chop-Top

Chop is a messy one. He mostly ignores his own problems, mental and physical, and makes jokes about all of them, he takes nothing seriously and just decides not to fix any problem he has. He never talks seriously about his time in the army, he only ever drops hints about what happened through jokes. The only thing he will be slightly serious about is the plate in his head. He’s only slightly serious about it when he needs help with something like cleaning it or trying to get a dent out. Even when that’s happening, he’s being stupid and making jests about the situation.

Sometimes he genuinely forgets to eat, he gets too distracted or too focused on some project… and sometimes he just decides not to. The food problems come from his time in the military. He got little food, much less any good food, when he was in Vietnam and it changed his relationship with eating. He usually gets forced to sit down and eat with the family. If he doesn’t eat with the family, he’s not going to eat for one reason or another.

He spends quite a lot of time smoking weed and trying to forget everything. Sometimes when he gets too high, he ends up blacking out and when he comes down, he doesn’t really know what he’s said or done. He thinks that’s funny.

Bobby always has his lighter on him, for smoking and for scratching his plate. Sometimes Chop uses his lighter and burns himself. He likes feeling the heat on his hand and seeing the wounds that he can inflict. He just likes playing with the flames and ends up burning himself, whether by accident or not.

He burns himself more than he cuts himself, but he still loves doing both. Sometimes he will make patterns or designs on his skin, sometimes he just gets too into it and ends up slicing up his whole arm or leg. It starts out just wanting to feel something and then his brain switches into a tunnel vision and he just keeps going, getting too excited about the look and the feeling. It’s usually not deep, they’re just on the surface; just enough to bleed and leave small scars.

📷Nubbins

Nubbins is the most pathetic one in the most dictionary sense. The biggest thing he does is constantly seek out abuse from his family. It’s mostly Drayton that gives it to him, but Nancy and Johnny are not the nicest to him either. Drayton constantly hits him and degrades him and yet Nubbins always comes back for more. There’s no way he can stop, he always ends up seeking out his brother and expecting a different result. He just ends up with more bruises and cuts.

He really neglects any type of self care. He never bathes, he only actually cleans himself when somebody forces him too and even then it’s a huge chore for him so they usually just clean him up themselves. Nubbins is just overall really bad at taking care of himself. Sometimes it’s a simple mistake of forgetting but a lot of times he just doesn’t care enough about himself to take care of his body, much less his brain or heart.

The most obvious one is that he cuts. It’s not crazy and frenzied like how Bobby does it. Nubbins is more for quality over quantity. He does them deep and slow; he makes sure that they hurt and will leave a scar for him to fond over. It doesn’t happen super often, just when he’s specifically feeling a little frantic that day. It’s like the world gets too much and he needs something to focus on. He loves how the wounds look and prods at them and plays with his blood. He never cleans the wounds or wraps them up on purpose, he likes when things get messy and he gets blood stains on his clothes.

🌼Sissy

Most of Sissy’s self destruction is the way he just plainly ignores all of her needs. She will eat very little, barely bathe, forget to drink until she’s nearly sick, she is just reckless and apathetic about literally everything. She has to be dragged into the bath and she will throw hands over it, she only ever eats at the specific mealtimes and always has small portions. With her constant bare feet, she never cares about how dirty she is or if she gets any injuries while she works. If she does get a cut or bruise while working, she pokes it and makes it worse on purpose. It’s not necessarily to force a scar or make the blood spill, she just likes the feeling and gets caught up in causing herself that pain.

She is similar to Bubba in terms of recklessness. Sissy is very rash and not necessarily elegant in her movements or practices. She’s accidently hurt herself with all manner of tools and weapons around the property. It could be tripping from running too fast, smashing her finger with a hammer or slicing her own hand with her straight razor while sharpening it. It’s not that she has no regard for herself because she is a servant, like Bubba. Sissy is just so confident in herself that she forgets how fragile human beings are. She remembers how fragile they are when she’s got victims in front of her, and she constantly reminds them of this fact. She just forgets that her own body is also just as fragile. It’s like she holds herself on a different level than normal human beings.

Another similarity to Bubba is the effect that the constant verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse has on her. Sissy is a punching bag for Drayton, Nancy, and even Johnny sometimes. Nubbins and Chop sometimes make jokes at her expense, and she has a lot of trouble taking them as jokes. All of the negative comments and horrible things said to her really stick with her and bother her. She struggles with her identity as she flips back and forth between the holy cult confident mentality and the poor abuse victim who can’t do anything right. She tries her best to act like it never bothers her but unlike Johnny, Sissy is terrible at poker and struggles with staying calm and collected. Her emotions always get the best of her and she ends up blowing up and having a fit over it all, which never ends well for her. She usually ends up with a few more new bruises to poke at.

When Bobby is having one of his smoke sessions, Sissy likes to join in. She likes feeling that blacked out, fuzzy-brained giddy attitude. She also brings some of her own drugs to the party though. The plants she grows for her poison clouds have many different uses and she’s studied them well. Sissy will smoke them and end up tripping bad, she never feels good afterward, but that out of body experience that she feels is so otherworldly that she could never just give that up. Part of her love comes from when she ran with multiple different cults on her adventures. Some taught her that she would see god if she smoked, some taught her that she would be god if she smoked. The habit started there and then just kept going. She doesn’t do it all the time, it’s like a special thing that is reserved for either a certain day or when she’s really struggling. She does get the normal high with Chop more often than she uses her own special supply.

🐔Bubba

Bubba’s is pretty straight forward. He doesn’t cut or burn himself (on purpose, he struggles with being careful). He will actively hit himself though. Sometimes it’s his fists pounding at his head, sometimes he hits his head on a wall, or something of that sort. He’s grown so used to Drayton’s abuse that at this point in his life, it almost brings him a sort of comfort. Bubba knows that no matter how much Drayton hits him and yells at him that Drayton will always be there to look out for him. Whenever he hits himself, it is his way of punishing himself, like he did something wrong and he knows it. But it’s also a type of comfort to him. When things get too overwhelming, he needs something to bring him down a few notches, and that just so happens to be forceful punches to his own head.

Bubba does the same thing that Nubbins does, they both always run back to Drayton’s abuse. No matter how big the bruises are, or how much the words hurt Bubba, the big boy will always bow down and serve his big brother. All he wants is a tiny taste of praise but Drayton will never give him any. Even when he does a good job, Drayton will make up random things to be mad at. Bubba believes himself to just be a toy, a puppet for everybody else to use for whatever reason. He’s been conditioned to always listen to Drayton, help chase down and kill victims and always be ready to jump at anybody’s beck and call. He was told so many times that that is all he will ever be, so now he believes it.

Bubba is a very large and strong man. Sometimes he is clumsy with his tools and weapons, but more often than not, he is just simply reckless. He throws all caution into the wind and takes no regard for his own safety and wellbeing. If he’s worried about anybody’s safety it’s his family’s, never his own. He runs around with his chain saw, cuts meat up too fast and doesn’t pay attention when he’s sewing a project together. He hurts himself constantly and never takes care of the injuries. They’re usually not very big wounds, but they add up after a while. Bubba is always covered in scars, cuts and bruises from many different sources.

🔪Johnny

Besides working on the cars or mechanics around the property, Johnny’s favorite pastime is having a drink at the local bar. He gets very indulgent with his drinks and has at least a few beers daily. When he’s having a particularly hard day, he indulges in the harder stuff, but he doesn’t allow himself to ever blackout or get so drunk that he makes a fool of himself in public, he has an image to uphold. He doesn’t even let his guard down enough to get black out drunk in the safety of his own home, he would rather just have a constant buzz throughout a normal day.

As strong and important as Johnny is to the family, he gets a lot of verbal and sometimes physical abuse from Drayton and Nancy in particular. Drayton only ever yells horrible things at him, the old man fears what would happen if he ever tried to hit the much larger and stronger man. Nancy is a different story. She only ever speaks highly of her son to other people, but she holds him at an impossible standard and always reminds him of that. She hits him too. Nancy is the only person who ever gets away with hitting The Johnny Sawyer. He’s gotten more than a few bruises from her. Johnny tries to hold up the facade that nothing bothers him and he is super confident, but that’s not entirely true. The negative comments and constant berating really does wear him down and he believes what they all say about him. He makes sure not to show his weakness to any of them, but it just cuts open his insides and leaves invisible scars that hurt just as much as his real scars.

Johnny has a huge love for his knives. He loves the action of cutting people or animals open and seeing the damage it, and he, can do. It gives him this crazy power trip and gets him really excited. Sometimes Johnny takes his knife and cuts himself. It’s nothing crazy and it doesn’t happen too often, he likes the pain of it and how it makes him look. He thinks the battle scars make him look stronger and tougher. He would never admit it to anybody that a fair number of the many scars littering his body are self inflicted. It helps his facade that he naturally gets a ton of cuts and wounds from fighting victims and his general blue collar working.

[abbyandersonslove]

♡ May Her Love Guide Me ♡

Plot Summary: You’re a Seraphite and you catch Abby’s eye one day while she’s out on patrol

Warnings: Kidnapping, canon typical violence, not so canon typical Abby, mention of gunshots, mild religious undertones, loss of consciousness and slight angst

Word Count: 1.7k

 

Abby Anderson was madly and indisputably in love with the enemy. Every negative feeling, every Scar she had killed suddenly left her mind when she laid eyes on this girl. It was supposed to be just another patrol. Clear out the area Issac was having problems with, and leave. No big deal. That’s what Abby had thought when she left the stadium, and what she continued to think until she saw you.

When she first laid eyes on you, she had just removed her foot from a Scar’s smashed in head. She had turned to see where Manny was and locked eyes with you. Her heart dropped. Fuck, you were beautiful, she could never bring herself to kill you. Your hair was done in intricately woven braids that she had no clue how to even attempt, but she would learn them in an instant if it meant getting close to you. Your brown leather robe shone in the dim light from Seattle’s constant onslaught of rain. For once, Abby thought the traditional scars marking all Seraphites were endearing, not a hideous proclamation of stupidity. You trembled slightly, holding your drawn bow. Blood splattered your clothing and face, you looked deeply frightened. You, Manny and Abby were the only people left here.

“What should we do with this señora?” Manny asks Abby cockily, knowing they had the upper hand here. Abby is conflicted on how to answer. On one hand, she wants to do her job as Issac’s right-hand woman and get the job done but on the other hand, she wants to spend the rest of her life with you, protecting and loving you. Wait what? Abby’s lost her fucking mind. She can’t want this. Maybe she should just kill you right here, right now and absolve any feelings she has. But the thought of killing you makes her sick. She should let you go back to your village. Maybe that would stop the Scars from invading on territory that isn’t theirs. But then she might never see you again. “Abs? Hello? Have you suddenly been surrounded by overwhelming guilt for all your actions? Joking. I know you’d never feel remorse for these pendejos. Seriously though, she we take her into custody?” Abby didn’t think about that. They could take you back to the FOB. That way, she’d be able to see you every day, but you’d be tortured for information. Possibly until death. Abby doesn’t want that either.

Abby’s head was swimming with anxiety and guilt, but her mouth speaks before she can make up her mind. “Let’s take her back to the FOB, she’ll have information Issac can use” Abby says, adjusting her backpack straps. Abby points her gun in your direction. “If you move or resist, I will shoot you” Abby says. The words demand confidence, but her voice betrays her. If they can take you back to the FOB, at least Abby can keep an eye on you. “Please, I have a little sister I have to take care of” you say, shaking. “Haven’t you taken enough precious lives?” “Shut up Scar, we don’t need your whole life story” Manny says, sneering in your direction. Abby regrets that she gives you a small sympathetic smile. She knew this wouldn’t work out, so why was she entertaining the idea? She needed a good sleep and some time with Alice and that would shake her out of things.

For now, Abby tries to push you out of her mind. You were encroaching on WLF territory after all. Gun still pointed in your direction; she advances towards you slowly. Manny follows suit and closes in behind you. He swiftly grabs you by the shoulders, causing you to lose the tension on your bow and drop it. You had been holding it drawn the entire time but never struck. Why was that? You started to cry, saying something unintelligible. Abby had to look away and step behind Manny. “If she tries anything I’ll shoot her” Abby says flourishing her gun. “Truck should still be parked where we left from. It’s a bit of a walk though.” Manny begins walking down the road, shoving you along in front. You try to look behind you, but Manny takes a hand off your shoulders and grabs your head. “Eyes in front señora. I am not against putting a bullet through your head,” he says shoving you a bit harder down the road.

Abby has checked out mentally, she’s cold, tired and covered in muck. She wants more than anything to be back in her room, freshly showered, watching one of Manny’s anime movies. But no, she’s here in the piss pouring rain, kidnapping the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen. She thinks about her dad. He wouldn’t want this for his girl. She wishes things had turned out differently. If her dad hadn’t died, she’d still live in Salt Lake City, still be in her boring but stable relationship with Owen, Mel wouldn’t completely hate her and most of all, she would’ve never met you. She can’t dwell on this other life for too long. It made her want scream and cry.

By the time Abby has clocked back into reality, they’re approaching the truck. Manny has been talking for God knows how long about his latest fling. “Yeah man, that’s great,” Abby says non-convincingly, having very little clue who he was actually talking about. “I might actually see this one again,” Manny says excitedly. “You say that about a lot of people Manny, be real with yourself here,” Abby says, going ahead of you and Manny to grab some rope off the truck. She jumps off the back of the truck and lands in front of you, Manny moves to your side, holding your arms to your side so that Abby can tie you up.

While tying you up, Abby can look anywhere but your face. Usually, this part gives her a massive power trip but now, all Abby can feel is regret. Your cheeks are stained in tears, and your choked out sobs barely come out with how much you’ve been crying. She looks you in the eyes, for a second, she thinks she sees your expression change briefly, but as soon as it’s there, it’s gone. She kneels down on one knee to finish her work with a knot and flicks her head towards Manny. He lets go of you. “You’re not going to get away with this, her love will come and save me,” you say, wiggling around in your binds. “If you keep moving around like that, you’re gonna get rope burn,” Abby says partially because she doesn’t want to see you get hurt, but on the other hand, she wants you to know that it’s stupid to try and escape this.

“We better get going Abs, Issac wanted us back a while ago,” Manny says climbing into the back of the truck. Abby grabs you bridal style and steps onto the back of the truck. She places you down on the floor of the truck and sits behind you, legs caging you from getting up. “All clear,” Manny yells to driver and the truck starts moving. Abby tries to make small talk with Manny, but your whispered prayers distract her. You look up from the floor, first at Manny, then at Abby. She tries to look anywhere but you. Craning your neck to try and get eye contact with Abby, you say, “I see how you look at me. Is it regret? Is it longing? You feel remorse about what you’re doing to me, so why not let me go?” Abby looks down at you frustratedly. She hates that you’ve clocked her already. “Just shut up Scar, you’re already in a hole, don’t dig yourself deeper,” Abby says. She thinks about your words, she does long for you, and she regrets coming here today. Fuck, right now she regrets even joining the WLF. Maybe in another life, Abby thinks. Maybe in another life the two of us aren’t so different.

Back at the FOB, things are pretty quiet. It’s around 7 and most of the evening patrols left an hour ago. Issac is in one of the nearby medical tents, talking to Nora. When he sees you, Abby and Manny, he quickly excuses himself. “You two should have been back an hour ago. What the fuck happened out there?” Issac asks, annoyance laced in his tone. “There were a lot more Scars than you had told us about. And this señora was providing a bit of difficulty,” Manny says matter of factly. “We think she may have some information to give you,” he adds.

You struggle in your binds of rope. “If you think I’m going to willingly give up information, you’re mistaken,” you spit in Issac’s direction, punctuated with a glare. He looks down at you with general disinterest in his eyes. “We’ll see about that, Scar,” he says, applying pressure to several points on your neck. You try and escape his grasp but you quickly fall unconscious. He picks you up and talks over his shoulder to Abby and Manny. “You two are dismissed, you may go back to the stadium.”

Abby feels numb, she wants to turn around and grab you from Issac, never looking back once but she knows better. “We missed the shuttle truck from here to the stadium. We’ll have to walk home,” Manny says, stretching out his arms and legs. What a great way to end a great day, Abby thinks.

As the pair walk out the gate, Abby looks back one more time. Maybe by tomorrow you’ll be dead, beaten to death by Issac. But that won’t stop her from at least coming to check on you. She knows this whole idea is crazy, but just for a while, she wants to savour it as if it could happen. So tomorrow she’ll come back, but until then, you’ll occupy her thoughts and dreams.

Authors note: My first real post on this blog! Reblogs and notes are super appreciated <3

[toxinoire]

More Mean Girls Headcanons

• Regina definitely got bangs (The Reneé Rapp bangs💖) post canon

• She has a faint scar under it from the bus, because while her back is her main thing, she did gash her face.

• Karen can quite literally guess your entire personality with the sweetest and kindest smile in existence

• She'll just end up giving you an existential crisis while being all :D

• Janis has a stash of candy everywhere she goes

• She's a fucking sweet tooth

• Damian has to make sure she brushes her teeth

• Gretchen actually has the best immune system out of all of them

• And then when she does get sick, she cannot get out of bed

• Cady is feral as hell

• Don't be fooled by the height and the charm

• Seriously if you even think of being a dick to her friends she will punch you, no hesitation

• Damian and Gretchen became besties immediately

• After everyone made up, Cady's first initial reaction "AW YISS A REAL FRIEND GROUP"

• And then Janis painted everyone

• Gretchen cried

• And then Cady cried

• And then everyone cried

• "What's so great about literature-" And then Regina emerges from the shadows like "Sit your ass down and listen to me go off"

• Janis and Regina once got into a debate with five people about the nuances of the Iliad and The Odyssey

• Damian is sure someone pissed their pants

• Karen's just happy and generally just excited about fluffy blankets

• Sometimes, Regina and Cady take turns calling Gretchen at around 8 at night to gently remind her to sleep

• Gretchen forgets to sleep because she overthinks what she should do the next day

• "Gretch, I know you're anxious, but we're here and we'll help you. Now go to sleep so you have energy tomorrow."

• "Please go to sleep. Nothing is predictable. Things will go off the rails. On the bright side, we're stuck with you and we are now automatically going with you when it does."

• Both of those actually help

• Janis and Damian once made everyone mini pride shoelaces with their respective flags

• So every pride month, you see six teens in white shoes with shoelaces have whole ass gradients of different pride flags

• It's iconic really.

• Regina's vocabulary is either "Fuck off" or "Your presence is like a fucking housefly circling all the food on the table, leave me be" depending on her mood

• The first time they ever saw Karen be so utterly terrifying at someone was when someone catcalled them.

• The boy cried

• Cady likes to literally poke people for fun

• She also has a collection of dinosour figures

• "What if I-" "No."

• Janis collects FNAF plushies like they're pokemon

• She has multiple plushies of the same animatronics

• Her favorite is Lolbit

• She has six animatronic plushies in particular standing on her highest shelf sitting next to each other with handmade nametags of her and her friends on each one on who she thinks could be who

• She's Lolbit, Damian's Bonnie, Cady's Funtime Freddy, Gretchen's Glamrock Freddy, Karen's Chica, and Regina's Roxy

• Gretchen and Karen are everyone's hypewomen

• They'll be screaming like soccer moms whenever someone in the group has an achievement

• Cady normally sucks at history but she loves medieval history

• She got so into it so much that she got into weaponry

• This child can very much use a bow and arrow

• And a sword

• She got Regina into swordsmanship

• They duel. A lot.

• It scares the others sometimes

• Gretchen's way of threatening Janis is "I'll use your favorite paint to make the worst color gradient in existence."

• It works

• Damian has a love/hate relationship with the insanity in this friend group

[stevesworld96]

look at me now (part two)

--- steve harrington x fem!reader

steve visits you before the vecna fight.

childhood friends to strangers to lovers. this is a more realistic look at developing a relationship with steve, set in canon while you know nothing about the monsters, or the nightmares, or all of his scars.

a fic about knowing steve before, during, and after the events of the upside down. including all the ways your friendship with him grows, wilts, then grows again - to blossom into something he probably doesn’t deserve. 

tags: fem reader, no use of y/n, childhood friends, kissing, cliches, a lot of emotions, depression and suffering etc, mentions of death and injuries, steve retells canon events and deaths, codependent steve and robin, steve is so so so so so so so sad. hawkins doesn't get destroyed after the vecna fight - everything else follows canon

please read both parts, i worked so hard on this fic and i'm really proud of it :)

part one!!!

word count: 9280

-

Steve didn't call you the next morning.

You waited until noon. By that time morning was officially over, and your phone still hadn’t rang. 

It was hard not to be upset about it after what happened the night before. You were just about to kiss him, and he knew it. Maybe after a night of sleep, he woke up regretting it. 

Maybe that’s why he didn’t call. 

If you didn’t talk to him, you would go mad with assumptions. If you thought about it long enough, you’d break your own heart. 

It wasn’t that big of a deal. Steve could be forgetful. It’s possible that it slipped his mind, or Robin was still feeling unwell. 

But if there was some other reason, you needed to hear it as soon as possible. 

Before your evening shift at Roses you stopped by Family Video. You visited him there often, so he wouldn’t be amiss seeing you - hopefully. 

When you walked into the video store, the sound of the bell had four heads snapping in your direction. You searched for the eyes you came here to see, and you didn’t notice the rogue tape on the floor that caught your foot. Robin, Dustin, Max, and Steve watched you trip, and you stuttered back to steady feet. 

The two kids were behind the counter at the computer. There was a mess on the floor. Everyone was staring at you like you had turned into something terrifying after walking inside. 

The three of them started whispering to Steve, Robin being the loudest. You caught, “go make her leave,” and, “why is she here?” 

And you didn’t understand, and Steve was shuffling toward you like a fast-paced robot, and something felt seriously off. 

Still, you smiled at him, something forced. “Hey.” 

“Hey. Look - we - we’re closing early today, so…” 

He was trying to walk you toward the door. You wanted to know why. 

“Oh, well - I just wanted to come see you before work. You didn’t call like you said you would.” 

“I know, I know.” He looked over his shoulder at the group behind him. They all made different faces and shooing motions. “You need to go, alright? You can’t be here right now.” 

“Steve?” 

You had made it to the door and he opened it for you. And he was giving you no sympathy in the way he looked at you, his features hard as stone. 

“Did I - is this about last night?” 

“No. It’s nothing to do with you, okay?” You didn’t believe him, and he didn’t try convincing you. Instead he pushed you through the threshold. “Just go. Go to work, I’ll see you later, okay?” 

“Why are you doing this? Just tell me, Steve, seriously. I can handle it.” 

The way he sighed was dramatic, closing his eyes and hanging his head, but it was real. Annoyance and frustration, that’s what it was - two things he never directed at you. At least, not anymore. 

“Please. Just listen to me, for once. Please just go. I can’t talk to you right now.” 

You didn’t have a choice, really. The other option was standing there and arguing with him, and you had a feeling he didn’t have a fight in him. 

So you left. You heard the door close as soon as you turned your back. 

He didn’t even watch you go. 

The closer you got to your car, the more your throat burned. It was all a literal blur, with tears creating clouds in your vision. 

Visiting him had done the exact opposite of your goal. It made things worse, somehow, even though everything was fine five minutes ago. 

What the hell had happened between last night and right now? What could you have done?

Did Steve change his mind that fast? 

You thought about last night and the way that you felt. Your hands shaking, heart beating, mind racing - it was the same now, but with a pit in your stomach and tear tracks on your face. 

It didn’t seem fair. He didn’t have to be so cold. 

Why were they all being so cold? 

Maybe you had walked in on some important meeting. Max could have been telling them a secret, or Dustin could have been indulging an embarrassing story - or Steve could have been telling them what you had done last night. 

That’s what he meant when he said he didn’t want to fuck things up. Because he knew how you felt - because you weren’t hiding it at all - and he didn’t feel the same. 

And that’s why he didn’t call - because he was afraid to tell you. 

Because everything would change. Again. 

You felt it already in the way he looked at you. It wasn’t the same as it used to be. 

And maybe it would only get worse. 

...

Sundays were always the same. That was the only thought that got you through the mess of the day before. 

No matter what happened throughout the week, there was always a reliable refuge on Sunday. 

But Dustin’s bike wasn’t in its usual place on the edge of Steve’s yard. And Steve’s car wasn’t in his driveway. 

You were too shy to call, even though you knew he wasn’t home to pick up. Part of you wanted to call Family Video in case he’d taken a shift - just to hear his voice - but you couldn’t bear it. If you embarrassed yourself in front of him again, you’d never live it down. 

The worst part was knowing this could be all in your head. You could be putting yourself through emotional hell for nothing. 

But you had a feeling that wasn’t the case. 

Monday morning there was still no sign of Steve. 

It was like there was something pent up inside of you that you could never get out - is this how he felt when you spent a week avoiding him? Confused, and lonely, and hurt? 

All you wanted to do was go back in time and stop yourself from ruining everything. 

Tuesday night brought a simmering heat that you wanted to boil over. The sadness ebbed, giving you a break from your self loathing and doubt, making room for a burning anger. One so hot it brought you to tears. 

It was all so unfair. He spent so long convincing you he cared, only to show you unequivocally that he didn’t. 

And you never should have let him back in, and you definitely shouldn’t have gotten close enough for your heart to break. 

You tossed and turned for days, blaming yourself then him, never able to make up your mind. 

More and more, it seemed like nothing mattered. There had to be something he wasn’t telling you. You couldn’t change anything, even if you kept crying or hoping or overthinking. You had given up hope that he would simply turn up at your door. 

Of course, you still wished he would. 

It was Wednesday evening when you finally got what you wanted. 

The sun had just barely set, bathing that spring day in a light navy that was destined to get darker. That’s when a knock echoed from your door and you found Steve’s apologetic eyes behind it. 

As you looked at him, the emotions you felt through the week rewinded. Acceptance, dread, anger - denial, shame, sadness - it all ran through like rushing water, leaving you with a pounding heart and unsteady hands. 

Your lips parted for no words to pass through them. He was getting uncomfortable under your stare so you dropped it to the floor and rebuilt your resolve. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I really needed to see you.” 

His voice wasn’t soft. It was almost demanding, the way he said it. Urgent. 

“Can I come in?” 

You didn’t reply; you turned and walked inside, expecting him to follow. Heavy footfall echoed in your hallway stalking you to your kitchen. 

You kept your back to him because you didn’t have the energy for a face-off. You’d rather pretend to look interested in the newspaper that sat on the counter in front of you. 

“What’s up?” you asked, playing nonchalant. 

“I really don’t have a lot of time,” he said. You heard him tapping the marble kitchen island countertop. 

“Okay…” 

“I know you’re mad. I know I forgot to call, and I’ve been gone, but I can’t explain anything. Not right now, maybe… not ever.” 

“Then… why are you here?” A genuine question.

“Because -” 

A crack in his voice brought silence that was louder than a crowded room; one where you could hear his deep breathing stutter. 

He was probably trying to find the right thing to say. Something that would make you forgive him instantly - words sweeter than a bouquet of flowers and an apology letter. You already decided you weren’t going to fall for it. 

“Because I needed to see you. That’s it.” 

“Steve.” 

“Can you look at me? Please?” And it wasn’t urgency this time, but desperation. 

You turned to face him but your gaze stuck to the floor. He planted himself on steel toed combat boots that you had never seen him wear before. 

“I know you’re pissed off and I know it’s unfair, but can you pretend to not be? For two minutes? Because I - I didn’t come here to fix it. But I had to see you while I had time.” 

It had you sneaking up his frame, curiosity taking the place of boldness as you put together the pieces of what he was wearing. 

He looked dressed for war, or to go play pretend army man. 

Dark green cargo pants that would have been too big without the tight belt tying them to his waist. 

Some kind of kevlar vest was over the brown leather of a jacket with patches all down the arms, all of them representing something American militaristic. 

Dirt coated fists, up to his wrists and you were sure passed. On his face from his ears to under his eyes, his forehead down to his neck. 

His neck, a nasty welt wrapped all the way around it twice. Dark red in its obvious freshness, splotchy in a need to be cared for, cleaned, disinfected. It looked like he had gotten into something bad, and there were no clues for who had given him such an ugly injury.

You stared, and your nails cut your palms, and you spoke too loud when you said, “What did you do?” 

He knew what you were referring to, looking down as if he could see it. You watched as his lips tried to form words of defense that never came. 

“Did you - did you -”

“No.” 

“Steve.” 

“If I told you what happened, you wouldn’t believe me.” 

“Tell me.” 

“Next time I’m here, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.” 

You hadn’t noticed you had stepped closer to him until you had his eyes in yours, looking at you like he meant every word. 

“You’re scaring me, Steve.” 

“I know. I know, I’m sorry.” 

He checked his watch, then sighed. 

He stuttered over his words like he didn’t know what he was saying. “We - Robin and some others, we’re - we’re - we’re going out of town tonight. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll let you know, okay? I’ll call you.” 

“I don’t understand -” 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, honey, I’m sorry.” He rubbed at his eyes for a second, like he could buff out the stress in them. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. 

Your concern only grew as he took a small step backwards. 

“Steve, you - can’t you just stay here with me? Why do you have to go?” 

“I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry, okay?” It sounded like he was trying to soothe himself rather than you. “I’ll be back.”

You called his name, trying to stop him, but he turned from you. 

“I won’t forget to call you this time, okay?” 

You took those steps toward him, you reached out to grab him, but he walked out of your reach. When he got to the doorway, he stopped. He stood still for just a moment, and then he was turning again. 

He looked like he had made a decision, and then he was coming back to you. 

And when he was in reach, you took hold of him. You pulled him in and he was all around you, hugging the life out of you, trying to squeeze all the worry out of you.

You pulled away just enough to look at him. His jaw fit in the palm of your hand like you were his mold. You held him as gently as you could, and you pulled him in, and you didn’t stop pulling until his lips hit yours. 

It was a kiss that should have happened days ago - maybe a long time before that. One that was brand new but still familiar; you could smell his cologne underneath leather, you felt his hands on your waist squeezing tight. 

You kissed him only just, and you felt overwhelmed with how much emotion you were trying to pour into it. 

When you pulled away, big hands held the sides of your face and brought you back. Your neck craned so he could kiss you how he wanted to for a second time; a messy mesh that made things feel okay, just for that moment. 

And it didn’t last long enough, because nothing so good ever did. When he broke it off he dropped his hold on you and walked away, slowly and then too fast. And that was it, and he was gone, and you wanted to chase after him but you were stuck where you stood. 

+

It wasn’t fair. 

I needed to see you, he had said, but he couldn’t even give a reason. You had no idea how selfish he was being. 

You wouldn’t even look at him. And when you did, it was like you were scared of him. And you were angry, and he couldn’t fix a fucking thing - not when the weight of this town was on his shoulders. 

He wiped the taste of you off his lips and pulled on the winnebago’s door until it creaked open. 

Because I may never see you again, is what he wanted to say. He wanted to give you a reason. He wanted to rip himself apart, there in your kitchen; show you the fresh wounds and the healed scars and the blood stains. He wanted to fall and cry and forget, without feeling bad for hoping you’d catch him. 

He walked into that god awful RV, sat in the driver’s seat, and started driving without so much as a second thought. 

And he was scared even though he couldn’t be. It was like his heart skipped a beat - he felt it falling out of his chest, into his stomach. A flash of cold crept up his spine until his hands were ice. Open wounds on his back, chest, arms all throbbed, drumming a beat that was fiercely alive. A reminder he appreciated. 

A deep breath was all it took, and every punch he had ever thrown played in his mind. Every swing, strike, and scream. All of them landing back on him.

He’d do it all again, tonight, because he had to. He didn’t sign up for it. And it wasn’t fucking fair. But he made his choice, and this was it. 

And this time, Steve didn’t know who would come out of it alive. 

So maybe it was selfish to ask the group if he could make a pitstop at your house when there was something bigger looming. And maybe it was unfair, because nobody else got to say their just in case goodbyes. 

But he wouldn’t feel bad. He couldn’t, because every time he closed his eyes he was being dragged underwater, he felt that bat’s tail tightening around his throat, he heard the sound of teeth digging into his own flesh. 

It was that jolt of helplessness, all over again, ten times worse. 

It was nobody coming to help him. 

It was being left for dead, to rot in the stomach of monsters he couldn’t fight off. 

He could hear his own last words. 

And he saw Robin at your front door telling you what happened with no explanation. You asking questions that would never be answered - being angry at him forever, because he didn’t call like he said he would. He saw you living without him - himself dying without you. 

But he opens his eyes, and he’s still here. Driving down a winding road to some place that might be the death of him and all his friends. And he’s still breathing, and he feels you holding him like he’s worth more than the dirt and blood he’s covered in, and it’s enough. It has to be.

… 

You wondered if your lips would ever stop buzzing - if the butterflies in your stomach would finally die. Neither happened by morning, and you were sure you were cursed to feel them forever. 

There was no sense to be made out of the conversation you had with Steve the night before. The army gear he wore was confusing enough - the wounds he had and the words he spoke had your mind going haywire. 

And you could do nothing but wait, and ask yourself the same questions. You spent your time finding distractions and not thinking too hard. 

One day turned into two, and missing him never got comfortable. Concern sat in your chest like a rock. You couldn’t even look in the direction of his house without a chill going up your spine, and you had to sleep with the radio on to keep your mind from racing. 

You couldn’t think. You didn’t want to. 

Because - what if he wasn’t coming back? 

You didn’t know, but you really wished he would have taken you with him to wherever he was going. If he was running away, he should have known you’d want to go, too. 

Two days turned into four.

You weren’t okay until you saw him again. 

It was his car pulling up in front of your house. You were out checking the mailbox when you heard the sound of an engine; you glanced over your shoulder, not expecting it to be his car, but when you realized, it felt like you had been run over by it. 

Mail landed on the grass as your slipper caught the curb. His door opened and you were there, already on him, bouncing on your toes to wrap yourself around his neck. He caught you. 

“Where the fuck have you been?” You breathed the words out. “Oh my god.” 

“I’m sorry,” but he didn’t sound it. He sounded happier than ever. 

It was purely opposite to how he spoke to you days ago. The grim in his words was gone, as was the grime. He was clean, and he had slept, and he was right there in your arms. 

“Sorry doesn’t fix it,” you said. You didn’t notice you were crying until you saw tears dripping into his sweater. “You aren’t leaving again.” 

He wobbled around until you were pressed up against his car door, your hug becoming even tighter. 

“I’m sorry. I’m not leaving, I promise.” 

“Never,” you said, and he laughed. “What happened, Steve? Are you going to tell me?” 

You pulled back just enough to look at him, and you found him with his eyes shut tight. 

“No.”

The wound on his neck was more of a bruise, now, dark reds and purples painting his skin like a necklace. You wondered how long it would be there - if there’d always be a scar. Time would tell. 

He continued, “No - not right now. I don’t want to talk about it,” and you pulled him back into you, hugging him tight. “Not yet.” 

“Whenever you’re ready,” you said, offering the patience he was asking you for. “I don’t care. Just don’t scare me like that again.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “God, I’m so sorry. I’m so happy. Missed you so fucking much, you have no idea.” 

You wondered if you could stand right there in the street hugging him forever. In his arms, til the end of time, letting cars drive by and the seasons change around you, nothing ever pulling you apart. Never having anything between you again. 

“Stay with me tonight,” you said. It was quiet, and it was a desperate beg. “Please. Can you?” 

“I don’t know...” 

He was pulling back and you didn’t want him to, but the way his big hand held your face had you reeling. 

“I’ll stay as long as I can.”

“Just one night?” 

He was pushing your hair back like he wanted it out of the way - like he needed it out of your face so he could get a better look at you. And his eyes roamed over you like it was the first time he’d ever seen you. 

“I want to. I have to check on Dustin, later, and Nance - and Max, in the morning.” 

You shoved your face back into his shoulder. He was here, but he wasn’t here to stay. And he had no answers for your questions. And, maybe, he wasn’t going to kiss you again. 

Is that why you had a funny feeling in the pit of your stomach? Is that what you were so afraid of? 

You didn’t understand what he was going through, and he wasn’t helping you to. 

Maybe you didn’t have to know, or it wasn’t your place, but you ached with a need to help him. Curiosity ate at you, and the weary way he spoke kept feeding it. 

But there was nothing you could do. You had started getting used to that feeling.

So, “Okay,” you said. Because you couldn’t push, you couldn’t ask. It was easier for him if you didn’t argue, and that’s what he needed. Something easy. 

“Don’t say it like that.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like you’re pouting.” 

“I’m not.” 

He laughed, something real and cute, and it had a smile starting to stretch on your face. 

“I know you are. I know you.” He was speaking right into your ear; his quiet voice was the only thing you could hear. His voice was the same as always, stoking the flames in your heart and smothering the ones in your stomach. “Let me see.” 

“I’m not pouting,” and you pulled your smiling face from where it was hidden. You pulled out of his hold, catching both his hands in yours. “Are you gonna come in?” 

“I was thinking about it,” he said. So you led him inside. 

… 

And you hoped beyond it all that the week would be nothing but a blip in time, but it didn’t seem like things would go back to normal any time soon. 

If Steve was distant before, he was miles away now. 

He was trying, but there was always something he wasn’t saying. You had no idea how to get it out of him even after spending every day with him. 

You didn’t see Robin again until you had already gotten used to the April showers, and she offered nothing more than meek smiles and one word answers during your hang out. 

You hadn’t seen Dustin at all. Erica, either. Sundays had become like any other day. 

Steve hadn’t mentioned the girl, but he talked about Dustin sometimes. Every few days he’d say he was going to check on him - for a reason you didn’t know. 

Max was in the hospital. Steve didn’t say the reason or how she was doing. But you knew that on the days he visited her, he left home early and got back real late. You gave him his space on those days. 

And then it was May, and nothing had changed, and you had gotten used to it. 

...

The nights were starting to get warmer, and Steve was grateful for it. He could sit out on his patio all night, with nothing but a hoodie and half a pack to get him to too late. 

He’d made a habit out of it without noticing. Out of staying up until three every night. Out of losing count of the stars in the sky. Out of chain smoking until he couldn’t hold his eyes open. 

He used to be scared of the dark. When he was a kid, it was the only fear he could fathom. And, recently, it terrified him. 

Now, he looked over his backyard, into the stretch of forest beyond it, and he didn’t feel a thing. If there was something hiding in the shadows, something he should be afraid of, it’d have to show itself first. 

He wasn’t wasting any more time being afraid of story book monsters that might exist, because he knows what fear is now. He’s looked it in its eye, and he’s felt it punching him in the face, and he’s heard it screaming his name for help. 

If it was dark all the time, Steve wouldn’t mind one bit. 

And then his patio door was sliding open, and he felt his heart in his throat. 

Maybe he wasn’t as tough as he thought. 

“Hey.” 

Your voice cut through the pounding. 

“I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in.” 

“No, it’s okay.” He grabbed his pack of cigarettes and shoved it up his sleeve, feeling a need to hide them from you - even though he had one tucked behind his ear that he was sure you could see. 

“What are you doing out here?” 

You sat with him, crouching down and getting as comfortable as you could on the wooden porch. He watched you fold your arms into yourself. 

“Getting some peace and quiet,” he said. “No jacket?” 

“Didn’t think you’d be outside,” you said. “Should I go get one?” 

He was already getting up before you could finish asking. He brought you a jacket and a blanket, and got himself a Coke. Better than beer, he figured. 

You grabbed all three from him. “How’d you know I was thirsty?” 

All he did was grin at you. He slid the door shut behind him, and then sat down against it, across from you. You were sitting too close for him to stretch his legs out; he kept them bent, his arms slung over his knees. 

Now that you were here, his thoughts weren’t the loudest thing in his head. You had always been like that - too noisy to let the quiet smother him. Most times, he appreciated that. 

It wasn’t helping now, though. Your tapping on the ground and the tune you hummed weren’t drowning out a thing. 

He couldn’t stop fucking thinking. 

You passed him the soda can, and he held it lazily between his bent knees. 

He didn’t even want it. He wasn’t thirsty. Really, he only wanted to light the cigarette you hadn’t spotted yet. 

“Are you okay?” you asked. 

He stared at the chipped paint under his feet. His teeth gnawed at the inside of his cheek, over and over at the same spot until it was bleeding. And, god, it was a familiar taste. One that made him sick. 

He tossed his head back and it hit the glass with a thud. He looked at you, once, and then passed you. At the rippling water in the pool. 

He stared at it. Stared and stared and stared, until he had to say something. 

“Do you remember when Will Byers went missing?” 

He wanted to see the reaction on your face, but he couldn’t look away from the water. He could see that night, the party, and what happened afterward. 

“Yeah… our junior year, right?” 

He gave a barely there nod. 

“It was Will, and then it was Barb.” 

He looked to his lap, but he was still seeing that fucking night. He saw the blood in Barb’s hand, and he heard the hurt in her voice, and he remembered not caring at all. 

“Fuck. It’s all so fucked up.” 

He didn’t care when he should’ve, and now it’s useless. It doesn’t matter if he cares or not, but he wants to rip his fucking heart out, anyway. He wants to go back in time and do it all over again, even if it would lead to a disaster. Even if it would change everything or nothing. 

And he shouldn’t be so upset about it, because it doesn’t make a difference. Not anymore. He could be as careless as he wants, now, because no one is around to be hurt by it. 

“Why are you thinking about that, Steve?” 

“Because that’s when all this shit started.” 

He spoke without thinking, words falling out of his mouth like a running faucet, because he didn’t have the energy to keep a secret anymore. 

It started with Barb, but it didn’t end with her. Or with Billy. Or Hopper, or Chrissy - and, maybe, not with Eddie. 

And how many others had been taken in between? 

His throat felt tight; he coughed through it. He sat the Coke between his feet, and realized his lighter was there, too. 

He brought a palm to his eyes. “You wouldn’t even believe me if I told you. It’s - it’s fucking unbelievable, but it’s all true.” 

“Steve.” 

“It’s stupid.” 

“You can tell me.”

He was getting overwhelmed. His breaths started to stagger on top of each other, making it hard to catch even one. Tears welled in his eyes as he squeezed them shut. It was all too much - he needed to get it out. 

Because nothing between you and him would ever be normal if he never stopped hiding this from you. What, was he going to hide his scars from you forever? Or never explain why he didn’t sleep at night? Would all of his weapons be excused away as decorations?

No - he wanted to let you in. 

“It’s all so fucking stupid.” 

He was laughing, and you must have thought he was fucking crazy. 

“Barb - she was here that night.” 

“What?” 

“This is the last place she was seen. And I just acted like it wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t care, even when I found out she was missing.” 

And he felt like an open fucking wound; the still healing rips on his torso leaking blood, too much for his shirt to absorb. His head throbbing, his eye swollen shut. Iron in his mouth, on his fists, pooling around him. Something wrapped around his throat. Bile filling it. He hadn’t healed. His injuries were all still there. 

“And I show up to Jonathan Byers’ house, and I knock on his door, and I knew - I fucking knew something was wrong. Like, seriously wrong. And I forced Nancy to let me in, and I didn’t run when they told me to. And I should have just fucking listened.” 

He thought about Barb, Billy, Chrissy, Jason, Eddie. All of them, victims to the thing he’s had nightmares about for years, and he can’t stop his first thought: I’m just glad it wasn’t me. 

But it’s the thought that comes after that he keeps getting hung up on: Should it have been?

“I don’t know what they said about Will. I don’t know what excuse they made up, or what you think happened - if he was lost in the forest, or - or if he ran away, but none of it is true. He disappeared. He wasn’t here anymore. He was gone - literally, gone. In another dimension. Literally.” 

Steve couldn’t know if you were understanding - if you were even capable of believing something so unreal. But you had to. You had to know. He’d been carrying around this secret, and it was the biggest thing in his life. 

Because he wanted to. Because he loved you. He wants you to love him - to understand who you’re loving. 

“Whatever you think about all the shit that happens in Hawkins… they say it’s a curse, or whatever, but - you don’t know the half of it. You don’t know any of it. It’s not a curse. It’s just a coincidence. If it didn’t happen in Hawkins, it would have happened somewhere else.” 

You still hadn’t said anything. You just sat there, staring at your hands in your lap. Steve wasn’t sure if he appreciated the silence or not, but he wasn’t used to it. 

“Will went missing. And a girl showed up. Eleven. El. You’ve seen her with Mike, or Max. You know her. You know Hawkins Lab? That’s where she grew up. She’s not just some girl, she’s - she’s someone’s science experiment. She’s got psychic powers. I’m not kidding.” 

“What?” 

There it was - the tilt in your voice that told him you didn’t believe a damn thing, and he didn’t blame you. 

And he laughed. 

“I swear.” 

“Psychic powers, like…?” 

He grabbed the Coke and took a long drink over a smile. He was looking at you like this was something casual. 

“I’ve seen her lift a car with her mind,” and he shrugged with it. The can rang on the floor; you picked it up and took a drink. 

You said nothing, and Steve felt like he was retelling a movie plot rather than his own life. It wasn’t a good feeling. 

“I don’t know what they were doing in the lab, but they - I don’t know. They opened a gate into another dimension. One just like Hawkins, but fucked up beyond belief. The Upside Down. That’s where Will went. It’s where Barb died. It’s where all your nightmares go to turn into spit soaked monsters, probably.” 

He pulled down his cigarette and rolled it back and forth between his fingers, digging his thumb’s nail into the filter. It was some old menthol crush, the last of its pack that he’d bummed at a party a few weeks back. He hated the way it stung the back of his throat, hated the taste it left in his mouth even more. The Marlboro Reds burned a hole in his hoodie sleeve where they were still hidden. Those smoked better - they were fresher, smoother. 

“Dustin comes up with these insane sounding names for all the shit that comes out of that place. Demogorgans. Demodogs.” He had to chuckle and roll his eyes at himself. “The Mind Flayer. That’s what wrecked Starcourt.” 

“The mall?” 

Steve nodded. 

“You said it was a fire.” 

“I lied.” 

“Then what was it?” 

He put the menthol between his lips. He hated the mint, but he always cracked the capsule, anyway. Someone told him it was bad luck not to.

He stared at you, and he wrapped his teeth around the cigarette filter. His jaw tensed with a bite. It popped, and he grabbed his lighter, and he didn’t look away from you. 

And then he got into it. He told you about Dustin hearing Russian being spoken over his radio. And how he learned how smart Robin really is, when she translated the words and then understood the secret message they were relaying. He explained how they’d gotten Erica to sneak into the air vents, and how that led to all four of them sneaking into a storage room that turned into a sinking elevator. 

He told you about the Russians, about how they were opening their own gate. He told you about getting kidnapped by them, and all the ways they had made those few hours hell. 

He didn’t spare the details, because he was tired of downplaying it all. And in that bunker, he thought he was dead. He shouldn’t have to tiptoe around that. 

And he told you about the drug they’d given him and Robin, and how he would be dead if it wasn’t for Dustin and Erica, and how fucking scared he was even after he got out. 

And they got out, and then he was driving a car straight into Billy fucking Hargrove, and then all of them were fighting something that looked bigger than the entire sky. 

And he doesn’t know how he remembers it all so clearly. 

“And then it was over… and I called you.” He still hadn’t lit his smoke - it’d been hanging from his lips the whole time he spoke. 

You stared at him like you were trying to find his missing pieces. Glass coated your eyes and worry wormed its way between your brows, and Steve hated it. He wasn’t telling you any of this so you’d feel bad. He didn’t want you crying for him, or at all. 

He laughed only just. “And you had no idea what you were picking me up from.” 

You breathed in a loose sniffle. “No shit.” 

Scratch, rip, hit -

Scratch, rip, hit - 

Scratch, rip, hiss.

A flame lit up his face as tobacco started to burn. Nasty numbing mint chilled his throat as he puffed out his chest, and he held in a cough on the exhale. 

He held the lighter loose in the air, between his raised knees. 

“Do you believe me?” 

“I don’t believe you could make any of that up.” 

“I’m sorry I never told you.” Mumbled words were barely heard over the scratch, rip, hit as he played with the Bic like a toy. And he didn’t sound all too sorry - he sounded tired. 

Wind ripped through the night and carried smoke and ash with it. 

“What about spring break?” 

He looked up at you. “What?” 

“Spring break,” you said again. You looked down from his eyes to his neck, where shadows of a bruised scar remained. “Something else happened, didn’t it?” 

Somehow, in the reminiscing of fights past, he’d forgotten about everything most recent. That was the only way he could forget about it - by thinking about all the shit that came before. 

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, redundant answers easier to give than an explanation. Listening to the scratch, rip, hiss, watching a flickering flame, breathing in more smoke. 

He let go of fidgeting with the lighter to pull the cigarette from his mouth. He exhaled smoke then hit it again; he held the hit so long that what he breathed out was thin. 

And as he ashed his cigarette, he decided he didn’t want to get into it. He didn’t want to replay those events like a story. So, again, he said, “Yeah.” 

“What happened?” It wasn’t a push - Steve appreciated the concern you had. 

“Same as always. It was a fight. It’s… it’s supposed to be over now. Really over.” 

He remembered it like it was yesterday: setting Vecna aflame that caught all of The Upside Down with it. The whole place burned, from its vines to its crumbled buildings to the monsters in the sky. The gates closed themselves like they had never been open. 

And it was over, even if it was too late. 

“The Upside Down is gone. It should be. Hopefully. But… I was lucky to get out. Some of us didn’t.” He shrugged, like it was casual. He stared at the cherry on the cigarette, burning bright orange. 

And he couldn’t keep talking, even though he knew what part came next. He knew what words he had to say. But he couldn’t. 

It seemed you caught on enough, because you said them for him. “Max?”

He clenched his jaw so hard it hurt, holding back tears he’d already cried before. 

“She’s been in a coma since,” he said. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” 

“But you’ve seen her?” 

His response came hesitant. “I’ve tried,” and he wanted to leave it at that, so no cries came after, but his mouth kept talking. “Robin goes in. I can’t even make myself get out of the damn car.” 

All he felt was shame, but he swallowed it. 

“You heard about Chrissy Cunningham?” 

“Yeah.” 

“It wasn’t Eddie Munson who killed her.” You nodded - Steve figured you understood what he meant enough to spare the details. “Eddie - god, Eddie would’ve died for her. He would’ve died for anybody. He died for this fucking town.” 

Another pull from the smoke that was almost gone. Breathe in, breathe out. 

“He was a dumbass. A freak - a fucking idiot.” He wished Eddie was listening to him - Steve wanted him to hear all the insults he was throwing his way, because they were all true. It was stupid the way Eddie died. He shouldn’t have. 

“And Dustin’s been a mess ever since, and there’s nothing I can do. Robin’s a bigger wreck than she used to be. No one’s handling it.” 

“How are you handling it?” 

And Steve didn’t know how to answer. He wasn’t sure he had one. 

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t lying - he was fine. Somewhere between good and bad, coping through flashbacks and nightmares. He wasn’t lost in it. He was dealing. 

“Steve…” 

The last drag from his barely there cigarette burned hot, and he savored the pull until his lungs were full. He didn’t empty them until he stood up, and he looked around for the ashtray. 

His words were smoke. “Do you want to go in? It’s late.” 

He found it on the table, stubbed out the cigarette, and then he stuffed the hidden pack into his pocket. 

You repeated his name behind him, and he ignored you. And then your hand was on his back, and you were pulling him in before he could hear you coming. 

It was a tight hug he had to fight out of just so he could turn and reciprocate. His arms around your shoulders were just as tight as yours around his waist.

“I’m sorry.” It was a whisper he didn’t even know he was breathing out, until he was repeating it into your hairline. “I had to tell you. I needed you to know. I’m sorry.” 

Your response was muddy, spoken into his shoulder. He laughed and pulled back enough to look at you. 

“What?” 

“Don’t say sorry.” You wore a grumpy look, your words were demanding, and Steve laughed some more. “Why are you laughing? Stop.” 

“Because you’re funny.” His thumb smoothed out the worry between your brows and put them back where they belonged. “And really cute.” 

You pressed your cheek into his chest. “I’m being serious. I’m just glad you’re okay.” 

“Yeah. Me too, believe me.”

A kiss on your forehead had you squeezing him tighter, and he ignored how tender the injuries on his back and stomach were. They were just barely forming scars, but the way you hugged him had him feeling like they weren’t even there. It made him feel special. He felt better. 

So he kissed your skin again and willed himself to tamper the thoughts of when he was kissing your lips instead. “Let’s go in, honey.” He pulled you loose from him. 

It seemed like you had a realization, then; your eyes went wide and you looked at him like you couldn’t stop. “That’s why you came to see me that night - because…” 

You trailed off, maybe not knowing what to say, and Steve wasn’t sure where to pick up. He could tell you the suffocating truth, or a less embarrassing lie. 

Something in between, “Because I needed to.” 

“I didn’t know it was that serious,” you said. “I mean - I knew there was something really wrong, but… I didn’t know - I didn’t think that could be our first and last kiss - I didn’t know you could’ve died.” 

“I wasn’t trying to scare you. You weren’t supposed to think that.” He felt bad, but he didn’t regret the visit. “And, technically - it was our first and second kiss.” 

You breathed a laugh as your forehead fell into the crook of his neck. “I hate your technicalities.” 

He laughed, too, and the joy helped distract him from the anxiety running through him. 

He thought about that kiss every day - about how he made sure to do it twice, all because he wasn’t going to die without getting to kiss you a second time. Once wasn’t enough, so he took the second without any time passing. 

But he wouldn’t tell you any of that. He was scared to know how you’d feel about it. 

That’s why he hasn’t brought it up until now. Until you said something first. 

He pulled away from you again, really meaning to bring you inside this time because he hated having you out so late. But he froze when he saw tears on your lash line, looking like crystals clinging to your eyelashes. 

He swore he felt his heart break. “Sweetheart.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t cry - hey, don’t cry for me, alright? I’m right here, honey, hey.” 

He crouched down to be eye level with you and he sat on the table behind him. He cradled your face - you tried pulling away, but he wouldn’t let you. 

“If you would’ve told me the truth, I never would have let you go.” You spoke so sadly. 

“I know. I know, honey, but you don’t have to think about it anymore - it’s okay. There’s nothing to cry about.” 

Tears were still falling, and you were still mumbling through them. “I would’ve kissed you more if I knew you might not come back.” 

And he needed you to stop crying. He’d do anything - he’d confess all his feelings right there, if that’s what it took. 

“I was always coming back. I’m right here, you got me, look at me.” 

You shook your head but did what he said; he was wiping your tears with his sleeve, chuckling through the ache in his chest. 

“You think I was gonna kiss you then go get myself killed? No shot. What’d you think I was living for, huh?”

“That’s not funny, Steve.” But you were smiling. 

“I’m not trying to be.” He was smiling, too. “I mean it. Nothing would keep me from coming back to you, alright? I’m right here - you can keep me forever, I’ll kiss you as much as you want, just stop crying.” 

“I can’t help it.” You wiped your nose and squeezed your eyes closed, and it looked like your breathing was steadier. “Do you mean it?” 

“Which part?” 

“I can keep you forever?” 

“Of course.”

And he watched your cheeks swell into a smile you tried to hide. “And you’ll kiss me?” 

He had no idea how to be charming or sly underneath your gaze, so he wasn’t. Instead, he was a stuttering, shy, lovesick fool. 

“I - I mean, yeah - yeah, if you… want me to, I guess - I mean, I definitely want to, so - it’s up to you?” 

He didn’t even care if he sounded like an idiot, because that’s exactly what he was. And you knew it. 

“Obviously I want you to, Steve.” 

His thumb pressed into your cheek. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“Obviously, huh?” 

He was obsessed with your smile, addicted to feeling it grow into his palm. 

“I’ve only been sending signals for months, but you haven’t caught any of them.” 

“Oh, I’ve caught them, alright - was just waiting for the right moment.” 

“Like right now?” 

And, just like the first time, you kissed him. It was as soft as it could possibly be. Two smiles meeting after too long apart, his hands on your face, yours on his chest. 

He pulled away, then brought you back to him, tilting your chin so he could kiss you for real. He moved his lips and yours followed his lead. 

Your fingers crawled up and up until they were sneaking behind his neck, getting lost in his hair. He tugged you closer - your body was flush against his. 

He felt you everywhere; you stood between his legs, your chest and his were rising and falling with each other. 

Behind his closed eyes, he was in another world. He saw you pulling him in close, he felt your hand tightening around his, he heard your voice calling out his name.

He heard himself telling you every secret he’d ever kept. He saw the house he’d build for you, and the bed he’d sleep in with you, and the ring he’d give you. He saw it all.

It was heart racing. 

It was wanting to be with you forever. 

It was you wanting to be with him, too. 

And then you pulled away. 

And he opened his eyes. 

And you were right there in front of him, smiling just for him to see, and he felt like melting into a puddle. 

“You’ll kiss me as much as I want, right? Is that what you said?” 

God, he wanted to squeeze you like a stuffed animal - you drove him crazy. Absolutely batshit insane. 

He pulled you back in with both hands on your face and kissed you something awful - pressing against you hard, making sure to leave your lips glossy when he pulled back to laugh. 

“Just like that, as much as you want.” 

“Never again.” 

It was funny when you tugged away from him. Both of you were laughing, but he couldn’t take it. You weren’t getting far. 

“Don’t leave, it’s what you wanted!” 

He chased behind and it was quick when he caught you, right at the patio door. He turned you around and pressed you into the glass, and he kissed you again like he couldn’t help it - because he couldn’t. 

The way you kissed was new, and he already loved it, but he ached to know you. To know just how to get you to open up for him, to learn how to kiss you exactly as you liked. 

He would figure it out - he wouldn’t stop until he did. And he’d make do for the moment, leading the way through your shyness, not letting anything stop him. 

Your lips parted after enough convincing, and with your open mouth against his it was impossible for him to hold back the noise he made. A groan, or a growl, he wasn’t sure - but it had you whining back to him as he tasted your tongue. 

It was hot but it was slow, and there was nothing Steve wouldn’t give for it to last forever. Despite that, he broke first. 

“As much as you want,” he told you, speaking low, words scratched with something rough. “God, I’d kiss you forever if you let me, baby - however you wanted me to.” 

“Forever?” 

“As long as you’ll let me,” he grinned. “As long as you’ll keep me.” 

“I’ve already had you around for a while…” 

“Not like this,” he insisted. “At least let me get good at kissing you before you throw me out on the curb.” 

“You’re already good,” you said, kissing his jaw. 

He hummed, teasing. “Let me get better, then. Gotta get up to par with you, honey.” 

“What can I say? I’ve had a lot of kissing practice, babe.” 

He rolled his eyes, acting dramatic. “Oh, I bet you have, babe.” 

“Like you haven’t had your practice, too, honey.” 

“Okay - let’s stop bringing up the past, alright?” He tugged the glass door open behind you, then pushed you through it. Laughter filled his house as the door shut behind him. 

“You started it!” 

“I literally didn’t! You brought up your hours of practice!” 

“I never said it was hours!” 

“I’m filling in the blanks!” 

“Oh my god.” You were making quick steps to the stairs - he followed like a lost dog. 

“Is this our first fight?” 

You were halfway up the staircase when you turned and looked down to him, still stood at the bottom. The lighting around you was dim and your grin was blinding him. “Only if you don’t let me sleep over tonight.” Your hands were on your hips, your eyes were drawing him in. “And this isn’t our first fight. Our first fight was over a Snickers bar.” 

“And I don’t think we ever made up, now that I think about it.” 

He took the stairs two at a time to get to you, and he gave you his smuggest grin. 

“Really? We’re still fighting over it?” 

“Til the end of time,” he stated. “But I can look past our differences just for tonight.” 

“That gives me time to make it up to you.” 

...

Did you know everything about Steve Harrington?

You thought you did. You spent years believing it. 

You knew more about him than the average person, sure - but how could you have been so smug? How could you act like such a know it all? 

You learn new things about him every day, now. Even when you thought there was nothing left that you didn’t know. 

As it turns out, you knew next to nothing about him. And you liked it that way. It made doing life with him that much more exciting. 

You sat with him now in the passenger seat of his car. The morning sun cast everything in gold, making the day feel brand new. You watched as he tapped his finger on the steering wheel, making a terrible beat. 

He kept shaking his head back and forth, and you only just realized that you had noticed him doing it before. It was a nervous tick. It never stood out to you until now - something new.

“Are you okay?” 

He seemed to freeze at the sound of your voice, as if he had forgotten you were even there. 

“Yeah, I’m alright.” 

You took his hand and brought it up to your lips. 

He continued, “I don’t know if I can do this,” and he looked out the window rather than at you.

You squeezed his hand tight. “I know you can, baby. You did it last week.” 

“It was fucking hard.” 

“It’ll be easier this time. Why won’t you look at me, babe?” 

He did; his eyes were down turned and sad. 

You kissed his hand again. “You don’t have to force yourself, Steve. If it’s really too hard -”

“I have to. I know I do.” 

You gave him a sad smile, then sat up and across the console to kiss his cheek. He leaned into it, and you lingered there. “You’ll be proud of yourself. I’ll be proud of you.” 

“I know.” 

You turned his face toward yours, and he was nothing but stressed. “Are you sure you’re okay, Steve? It’s okay if you can’t push yourself today.”

He sighed loud, and you knew he was trying to be overdramatic. “I’m okay, honey. I just… get like this.” 

You giggled, “I know.” 

“I can’t help it.”

“I know, babe,” and you pressed your lips against his quick. “You’re okay. I’ll be out here the whole time waiting, okay?” 

“Okay. Thank you.” 

You handed him the bouquet of flowers and bag of snacks from your lap. “Lucas is expecting you.” You passed him a stack of old books, ones Steve had picked from your collection that he thought Lucas and Max would enjoy.

He took them, and then he kissed you again, just for the sake of it. “Thank you.” 

He opened his door, and as he stepped out of the car, you found three words on the tip of your tongue threatening to fall out of your mouth - and you slapped a hand over your lips when you realized what they were. 

When he shut the door and you were out of the danger zone, you breathed a deep sigh of relief. 

You were nervous because of him. 

That was new, too. 

You watched through the windshield as he walked toward the hospital doors, and you said those three words to yourself, and tucked that new discovery into your back pocket. 

It was all new horizons with Steve, from there on out. 

He was brand new to you, and you absolutely loved him for it.  

-

part one!

thank u for reading. kiss

[bohemian-nights]

If Rhaena claims sheepstealer I’m telling you know that the ratings and fandom is going to go downhill just like season 7 and 8 of Games of Thrones. Like I honestly don’t understand who thought that was a good idea like Rhaena has a dragon her name is morning

Morning definitely would fit in the show especially when you consider that they made Rhaena into this sad unfortunate girl who is rejected by her Valyrian supremacy-obsessed father since she doesn’t have a dragon.

She’s the last Targaryen dragonrider before Dany. Having her hatch a dragon(something even her father could not or did not do) is a million times more powerful than having her claim Sheepstealer.

If they wanted to give her something else to do(this is the absolute worst excuse I’ve seen for hijacking Nettles dragon; these people could care less about Rhaena) on top of her canonical story arc have it be something political in nature or write a Romeo and Juliet romance between her and one of the #teamgreen men(Gwayne, Daeron, or bring in my beloved Garmund).

I’d also like to point out that Rhaena is only getting a part of Nettles story(claiming Sheepstealer).

Other characters like Addam(a Black black haired dragonseed), Mysaria(the scar), and Ulf White(non-Valyrian dragonseed), whoever they have fucking Daemon at Maidenpool, and whoever Daemon is willing to risk his life and turn his back on his wife and queen to save (if they even keep that plot) are getting the other parts of her.

This is what makes this all the more hilarious when you consider how people keep saying Nettles is a character who can simply just be cut and replaced.

I can’t reiterate this enough, if Nettles was as irrelevant and unimportant as these people say she was they wouldn’t be trying to cipher off her story to multiple characters and hoping by some miracle that it will all come together.

This show is really just Ryan Condal’s love letter to the worst Targaryen queen fanfiction at this point. Anybody taking it seriously or saying that it trumps the actual book canon…

[yarpharp]

Dragon Age Veilguard ramble (with some spoilers about the ending of the whole thing)

I... I know there are plenty of people defending this game. But on a story level, I am kinda confused. And frustrated. So The Veil is powered by the Evanuris who are immortal and trapped in a special alternate space veil prison thing where they serve as batteries until somebody cracks open the Veil.

So First Question: how the fuck didn't they (the Evanuris) escape from their prisons during Inquisition? I'm... I'm really confused how that didn't happen. I mean, Solas/Corypheus bungled it so bad it cracked a huge hole in the sky! TWICE! Once in the beginning of the game and then again at the climax! And what about the small rifts? I mean, Solas' knife ritual cracked open a hole in the Veil that WASNT MUCH BIGGER THAN A RIFT. Why didn't one of the Gods escape then? And you can't tell me those dumb little devices we helped hunt down for Solas were somehow keeping the Gods back. Most players didn't even find them all!

Second Question: did they seriously retcon Morrigan and her fucking son? And what is the deal with the Mythal lore? I mean, I ain't SHOCKED Solas probably once fucked Mythal or had feelings for her. That seemed obvious to me. But what the fuck about Mythal/Flemeth's scary warnings in Inquisition and DA2 about "reckonings" and "finally getting her vengeance"? ONE OF THE DA4 ENDINGS IS MYTHAL SOMEHOW REACHING OUT FROM MORRIGAN (oh and apparently Morrigan, she who feared her mom and feared becoming her mom's new meat suit for extending her life, decided to become Mythal's next host I guess???? Seriously???) TO TELL SOLAS TO LET GO OF HIS MISSION AND GRIEF? Are... Are you serious? What happened to all that fucking anger and plotting? Was that the ultimate plot of hers? Make Solas become a battery with the remainder of her killers? I... What. And what happened with the Old God Soul? Seriously, what about that? Is that supposed to be how Solas transforms into a fucked up hyena dog? (Sorry the design for the dread wolf is kinda disappointing to me.)

Third Question: Why is there a path option where somehow the Inquisitor Lover actually finally manages to persuade him to do the right thing? BRO, WHAT WAS TRESPASSER FOR THEN??? IF SOLAS IS WILLING TO DOUBLE-CROSS HIS LOVER AND ROOK TO GET HIS WAY, WHY WRITE THAT ENDING SCENARIO?

Fourth Question: Did the developers forget that Solas is actually pretty neutral about Blood Magic? Because there was a whole scene in the game where he claimed he abhorred blood magic and then proceeds to reveal the Veil is definitely partially a blood magic ritual. Or was it supposed to be a really lame "oh look he lies!" moment?

Fifth Question: Does this mean we retconned all those codex entries and Cole ramblings about how Solas was a spirit of Wisdom once and he LITERALLY HAS THAT SCAR ON HIS FACE BECAUSE HE BURNED MYTHAL'S VALLASLIN OFF WITH MAGIC? Because this makes the whole "Mythal and Solas are lovers and Solas did this all for her, blah blah" feel far more fucking malicious if that's still canon. I mean... Isn't it a bit weird to have at one point opposed the woman/god who quite literally owned you as an advisor/agent of her will, and then you burn her slave markings off your face, and somehow you became lovers somewhere in all of that? What kinda toxic bullshit is that? WHY TRY TO DESTROY THE WORLD FOR A TOXIC EX? Wanting to kill the Evanuris? Valid. Wanting to tear down the Veil to restore the elven people after seeing what happened to them? Fucked up but strangely valid. But arguing that he went through all that bullshit for his ex-lover because he "wanted to honor their promise and memory" feels really fucking janky and sloppy as a plot point.

And Sixth Final Question: Did bioware really not give me the ultimate bad ending of "Tear Down the Veil"? Because that's just plain disappointing.

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 19

Emily has really been going full villain mode these past couple of episodes, huh? while I'm overall not a huge fan of how many women have been portrayed as rude/unreasonable as compared to their male counterparts, i do love an evil queen. i support women's wrongs.

oh, Gabby. how many people wish that were true. (very cute gabellie content as usual)

i wonder if this is a soft confirmation that we'll never see Gabby or Ellie compete again.

this is so important. also, Hunter, the heart is on Ally's pajamas, not her casual look with the jacket. unless he just drew that there because he loves Ally so much :D

glad that Tom can finally admit that he is a terrible liar. truly, the person Tom and Jake should blame is the hiring manager who hired Tom in the first place.

if you loved him this whole time then why did you lie to him about having another boyfriend, Tom? ,':/ (/lh) (i know that he was explaining in this scene that it's because he was afraid, i'm just saying that the extent of his fears is something that shouldn't be swept under the rug, and that i feel it wasn't properly set up enough in s1 or DCAS as a replacement. yes it was showcased in DCAS but we never got an explanation as to Tom's thought process between seasons that would change his mind to make him more fearful.)

*several people are typing*

we NEED to see jaiden teaching Miriam a tiktok dance.

this is your daily reminder to not take anything that's said in a greeting too seriously.

c'mon, Fiore, a true gen Alpha-er would know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell without having to look it up. unless, oh god, is that too much of a gen-Z reference for gen Alpha to understand...?

HE'S SUCH A DAD I LOVE THEM

this was probably my favorite line of the episode.

this was a really cute detail! even though they were both the archetypal "old person" of their season, Connor is still, like, 20 years younger than Miriam. it totally make sense that she'd still call him kiddo! just, not grandkiddo.

literally even Ellie is rooting for them to finish this plotline already. or maybe she's just feeling guilty for separating them in the first place, and she's lowkey hoping that the damage wasn't that severe.

that's... that's a crime? you can't just burn people, even if they're terrible??? i guess that, given Riya attempting to kill Aiden and directly breaking Connor's leg further, the definition of what counts as a crime is pretty lax in this universe. unless it's about destroying the environment. thanks, Tom! (/j)

also, why is Yul's scar so damn low res?

MCDONALD'S ELLIE ISN'T CANON??? D:

i wonder if this season is going to end with Grett giving Ellie a job/helping Ellie get a job. i could see fitness influencer and fashion designer working together well, as long as Ellie is okay designing athleticwear.

on one hand, i don't like that we don't get to have the finalists pick the people that they're closest with help them in the finale. this feels rather random, and in terms of real-world fairness, having a finalist get stuck with terrible help isn't very fair (i cite Top Chef season 4 as my example). however, i do appreciate how Disventure Camp always mixes the endgame up. it's not very fair in a real-world perspective, but given that it isn't a real game i appreciate the variety.

i also think that this is a nice fix to really incentivize whoever is helping the finalist after (in-universe) we had two really unpopular finalists, Fiore and James, who struggled to get any help. it feels like a reasonable decision that the in-universe showrunners would make.

don't distract him during the finale, you fool!

the Romber strategy!!! wow, and it's even in the first All Stars season, too :D

THE YUL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS BACK ON?!?!?!?!

FIORE FINALE CONTENT! FIORE FINALE CONTENT!

ain't no way she's actually winning and of that $100K though, lol.

y'know, this might as well happen.

Riya and Yul really are perfect for each other (platonic) because every time that either of them gets a chance to either repent and be a good person or double down and keep relentlessly chasing their goals, they both always choose the latter. they're gonna get punished in the finale big time for sure... to the extent that Yul hasn't already been punished by getting that scar(?) to the face. like, seriously, that could be even more damage to his career.

once again, i missed the real Hunter so much :,)

while i love the roast here, does Fiore actually have anyone's respect...?

that's a wrap, folks! the most important character arc of the season is over!

[ladymarlin]

Total Drama Headcanons 🤯🤯🤯

Mostly Heather tbh

Heather cuddles w ppl by like, laying on them. Like if Alejandro's sitting down she'll lay on him

Like these cats

After Heather has dance practice ESPECIALLY rlly long ones, Alejandro gives her massages so she's less sore

Lindsay and Justin matching Juicy track suits (they're besties)

Heather gets VERY jealous and she's rlly sensitive abt stuff like that bc she's so used to being hated so whenever someone loves her and does ANYTHING that makes her jealous she's like "ok u hate me?"

Heather is a middle child with 2 older siblings and 2 younger siblings (one of which is her "evil younger brother" Damien)

Heather is Japanese and can speak almost fluently in Japanese

Heather has beef w/ her parents

-her relationship w her mom is complicated. She spent more time w than her dad bc he's just a lot but really her and her mom didn't rlly get along

Heather kinda hates her culture bc it reminds her of her mom

-She'd end up more immersed in Alejandro's culture than her own

Courtney either still has her tattoo or has a scar from getting it removed

Duncan and Courtney's tattoos were tramo stamps (@m7nd3w's hc)

-Courtney wanted it to be somewhere her parents wouldn't notice, so Duncan suggested lower back (my hc)

Alejandro cooks but like Heather can also cook he just INSISTS he does all the cooking

Sometimes Alejandro and Heather dance together like on their living room. Mostly when Heather's upset abt something and he's trying to calm her down

Heather has really strong legs (and arms but mostly legs) because of dance

Alejandro insists on getting the nesquik with the "authentic Latin flavor" bc it's better. Nobody knows if he's joking or not

Courtney and Heather besties fr

Courtney is mixed (South Asian and Hispanic)

Heather hasn't been able to eat jelly since tdi and even the sight of it freaks her out

Heather is bad at genuinely flirting w ppl she's ACTUALLY interested in bc she's never actually had to flirt she's such a babe ppl always flirt w her

Courtney's parents are strict.

Heather is high achiever (kinda canon) but her parents barely acknowledge her achievements

Heather kept her gold tooth in

Heather was rlly mean in elementary school. In middle school she was quiet most of the time

Alejandro carries Heather a lot. By choice.

Anne Maria gets duck feet nails sometimes

Anne Maria has an Ed Hardy tracksuit

Heather doesn't like storms

Anne Maria's tan isn't completely fake

Courtney felt really bad about herself after the show

Heather is very independent and hates having to rely on others

-she's also very protective of herself

Alejandro is always warm, Heather is always cold (to the touch)

Heather sometimes does things as reassurance that she doesn't need other ppl (like cooking)

Heather was really close with the family cat. She's a major cat person, she loves them

Heather and Alejandro moved in together asap.

- Alejandro only really keeps in contact with his mom, but Heather has minimal contact with her family only going over during parties/holidays.

-Alejandro got Heather a cat bc she missed hers.

-Heather's family throws a lot of big parties and stuff like that bc they're rich and that's just what they do. They have Heather show up for appearances because it's all only really to make the family look good. She hates these parties and usually ends up talking to Alejandro away from everyone else. He does most of the socializing.

-When Heather moved out her room got turned into a storage room. She still hangs out in there sometimes, anyway, if she goes over and wants to get away from everyone.

Courtney's the lactose intolerant person who actually takes it seriously, with few exceptions

Heather really likes movies with deeper meanings, especially horror movies

[rowlight]

read this post for more context if you'd like, then come back here

lawmane in canon timeline is genuinely abhorrent, so let's talk about it (and as an aside, yeah, toxic ships can be fine. that's not the problem. the fact is that this seems like it's well over the line being a passably toxic ship in fiction. because this ship is almost never treated as even remotely toxic, and instead, any negative elements are swept under the rug to make way for silly emo funtime adventures, almost never bothering to even so much as ACKNOWLEDGE any of this. it's treated like nothing at all happened, and in so doing, is condoning some really disturbing shit, especially in a setting with a power imbalance this horrendously steep.)

L's torture of misa was fucking life ruining. let us get that straight. what he did was beyond anything light has ever done to traumatize misa. in any world where misa is not objectified to the point of being legitimately brainless, that is permanently and irrevocably scarring for life. at most, only 48 hours of sensory deprivation can have lasting, permanent influences on your cognitive ability and mental health. and those are usually in situations where the participants can actually, you know, fucking move! can see! but 52 motherfucking days? with how misa was held? fucking 52? oh fucking boy. the brain damage from that would be obscene.

and hell, even if he hadn't tortured her in such a way, even if he just put her in the same confinement as light, even if that time was somehow reduced to just a few weeks or a few days or whatever, that's still absurd. in what world is a man who locks you up, when you have zero control or influence or power over him whatsoever to combat this, when you feel nothing from this incarceration but fear and a longing for death, someone you could ever be in a relationship with? in what world is that okay? unless we're doing a full rewrite of death note here, unless you objectify misa so thoroughly that she becomes nothing more than an item to be placed into a seriously horrifying dynamic, when is that ever okay?

not to mention that she already had preexisting trauma from past stalkers, almost being murdered herself. (and her parents being murdered! gosh!) that would have made this all the more terrifying. L was no more than a fucking stalker to her, and even in the hell he placed her in, would he appeal a single of her pleas to move, to just fucking feel anything, to have even a second's release from being devoid of all stimuli? would he allow her fucking anything, any comfort at all, from being forced to stand and hold her head up high as a metal blindfold braced her head tight, as belts pulled taught to draw up the rags around her crotch? no. he's a fucking genius, right? could he not have figured out something harmless that could have been of literally any consolation to the fact that she was nothing but literal scum of the earth to him, of absolutely no interest beyond what she could offer the investigation, and that he was nothing but the devil himself to her? lol no, his ass could not give less of a shit.

oh yeah, sure, he had his reasons! the investigation, "duhhhh!" he's the world's greatest detective, after all, and "sacrifices must be made!" but none of that changes that he still fucking did the shit that he did, he still tortured her for an excruciating amount of time in one of the worst ways fucking conceivable, and that cannot be changed. that is not something that can be moved past. him having reasons to deprive her of her of her very will to live, once so rich and filled with her hope in a future with light that she gave up half her once-increased lifespan for him, are not excuses!—and, even then, could he have simply said one kind word to her that wasn't barking for her to reveal information that, for a good deal of time, was completely outside of her knowledge? that wasn't fucking forcing her to stay alive after an active suicide attempt?

get that in your head. she tried to fucking kill herself. and L had to get someone in there to manhandle her so she physically could not end her own life. and without the sweet relief of death, what hope even fucking was there?

did L give a shit about any of this? no, he's an immature bitch, just like light. and sure, he has arguable reasons for being that way, but does that mean he's gonna change at the drop of a hat, that he's suddenly going to just adore her and be a great boyfriend or whatever, and that you should be defending him at every opportunity just to somehow make this pairing okay? also no. did he ever give a shit about her? fuck no. even in whatever baffling universe where he somehow decided to try his goddamn best to be a good partner, any relationship those two could ever have would be irrevocably scarred and toxic.

remember that misa has literally zero fucking power over him; she is in his absolute control at every single point, and he will torture her to the brink of suicide only to toy with her life in his hands, even as she begs and please for him to just put her out of her misery. she is genuinely nothing but a doll to him, completely devoid of any dignity or respect or fucking anything that would give her a thread of autonomy in even a platonic relationship. and even if that utterly obscene and disgusting power imbalance shifted, what's done is fucking done, and what was done was fucking horrific. sure, light traumatized her. L ruined her fucking existence. and to both of them, she is absolutely nothing beyond an object, a plaything to be tossed around and manipulated and fucking tortured until she breaks—but oh, she's not allowed to break! she was written by vapid misogynist, legendary piece of shit, and overall horrendous writer tsugumi ohba, whose work we should be thinking critically about at every turn!

the only way she is even ever friendly with L in canon is because she is indeed dehumanized to the point of being nothing but an object for the male gaze, and for ohba to project his stupid "endearing perv" trope onto L that he uses for his self-insert character in bakuman!

so should you give a shit about any of this? the fact that misa must be turned into nothing but an objectively brainless entity—to do nothing but serve the whims of the men around her—for lawmane to ever be "feasible" within any timeline where this shit happens? is justification of absolutely horrific torture, being driven to suicide and being forcibly kept alive, one of the most egregious + constant power imbalances conceivable, and necessary female objectification worth the silly emo x goth model ship headcanons? answer that one yourself.

larger post on this coming soon maybe???? thank you for your help @niightniines and @undergoing-mitosis featured in the screenshots here and others in my server

ending this post w the fact that i don't hold personal animosity for anybody who ships this, ESPECIALLY if you're a minor. understand that we (me and nines) are speaking to the fandom as a whole when we discuss these issues. this is not a personal attack on any one lawmane shipper.

[whineandcheese24]

so @erch0maii said in a post that i didn’t want to hijack that the reason that both screen adaptations of tmi didn’t feel quite right is because they were these dark gritty adaptations while the books are, at heart, campy and silly and comical. and i was thinking about this and how it relates to the other series in the tsc canon. when i first read tsc i thought that the reason they felt tmi felt different from tid, tda, and tlh is because they were her first books but it really all comes down to the character’s sense of humor and genre awareness. because all the other tsc series (and i’m betting twp too) take themselves so seriously, but timi doesn’t do that. 

with genre awareness, the characters are put in this dark edgy fantasy war series but they act like their in a satire or a comedy. my favorite parts of qoaad were when jace and clary were in these dangerous situations and were acting so nonchalant about it. and it wasn’t even like a fake confidence or something, they genuinely just are Like That. like at the war council they walked in casually with normal clothes and people didn’t even notice them until lily called them out. like, they could have changed, they could have made a big entrance, but no, why bother. and later in brocelind when manuel rips out the tent and they’re playing tic tac toe. they don’t acknowledge him at all, not even to make a joke about him ruining the tents they borrowed. they just sit there playing tic tac toe. and again on the imperishable fields, jace has a knife to manuel’s back and clary is holding the stanchion but emma describes them as walking as if they’re out for a morning stroll.

and like look at the parallels between the series. the tlh crew met one and a half princes of hell and barely made it out with their sanity. the tmi gang has collectively met 3 princes of hell and in literally every situation they’re on the same level. when emma and julian went to thule it was this dark scary traumatizing thing, this actual hell that wasn’t quite hell. and when james, matthew, lucie, and cordelia went to edom it was this terrible experience that both lucie and matthew spent literally dying. but when the tmi gang went to hell, what ever. yeah it was serious and traumatic and scarring but not in the same way. izzy and simon hooked up. clary and jace had sex. and alec made fun of all four of them for it after. jace got caught by a demon and clary scolded him like he left the fridge open. they literally snuck into sebastian’s elite fortress with a plan from simon’s dnd campaign. and diyu?  even when simon was having a mental breakdown he managed to flirt with izzy it took the tlh gang 3 long-ass books to defeat belial and christopher died in the process. the tmi gang beat sammael in a f*cking side book. if you go to the shadowhunter wiki and go to azazel’s history he’s said as being a part of team good. imagine how casual you have to be to get a prince of hell to join ‘team good’

and then there’s the angels. tessa’s contact with ithuriel almost killed her. emma and julian’s whole nephilim thing also almost killed them. and yeah, clary’s first encounter with raziel was very somber and serious. but in cols simon literally blackmailed raziel into giving him a magical sword. and with faerie, every encounter that the tda gang have with faeries or in faerie is this dangerous quest that could get everybody killed. the tmi gang don’t hesitaste to insult the seelie queen to her face

the thing that sets tmi apart from the rest of tsc is the characters’ refusal to take anything, themselves and everyone around them, seriously for very long

[alollinglaughingcat]

i... accidentally discovered 100% Wolf and im absolutely going insane

something i like to do for fun is to watch kinda of shitty animated wolf/dog/animal movies like, yknow, like Pets United or Underdog, or, famously, the Alpha & Omega series, mostly cause i see some YT review about how bad/goofy they are and it's something to waste an hour or two

and i saw a 100% Wolf bad review and was like "ha another bad wolf furry movie! i'll watch that. oh it has a sequel movie coming out soon? cool. oh, it has a series? with two 20+ episode seasons? oof the series probably butchers the quality/integrity of the movie... i'll watch the movie but the series will probably be to bad to watch---"

AND THEN I WATCHED THE SERIES AND IT. IT WASN'T BAD.

granted im only up to like episode 14 or smthn before i HAD to take a break (literally i watched the movie this morning and i havent taken a break for ANYTHING) (except feeding my foster kittens)

BUT LIKE???? it's not GOOD quality necessarily, either in animation or plot or character development, like I'd say it's kind of like Miraculous Ladybug quality, but a little worse? but i just LOVE it. i LIKE the characters. i ENJOY the silly little plot. i LOVE that it just fucking??? does things??? and never gives you answers to them???

like hello??? Batty the 100% DOG gained the ability to go were-human and NOBODY QUESTIONED IT OR INVESTIGATED IT FURTHER??? (but i love Batty's character and i love how she got voted the pack leader instead of the main character or his rival even if it didn't stick and i love how she wanted to return to being a normal dog at first but then grew to love her werewolf pack and she doesn't wanna go back and the episode where she was like 'what is my future after the academy if i cant join the night patrol? what do i want from this new life?' was MUAH CHEF'S KISS even though that ALSO did not technically get an answer/resolve)

and what happened to Cherry????? is she on the good guys side now or is she still on the bad guys???? hello???? she was evil for like TWO episodes and then got redeemed and rejoined the good guys again except HELLO REMEMBER that she was probably in cahoots with the OTHER secretly-bad-guy-pretending-to-be-a-good-guy and said guy (Ric) just??? never confronts Cherry for abandoning the bad guys???? even though he SHOULD??? unless Cherry is secretly still on the bad guys side???? WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH CHERRY??? I NEED ANSWERS (and i hope there IS answers in the future but knowing this show its just gonna forgor about it XDD)

AND WHY IS RIC SO SIMULTANEOUSLY STUPID AND SMART??? one episode he's literally evil mastermind and it's so expertly written and i LOVED the foreshadowing for him being the secret evil guy except now that he's revealed to be the evil bad guy he's so stupid sometimes???? why'd they butcher you bro 😭😭😭

SPEAKING OF THE BAD GUYS JUST. FUCKING CHILLING ONCE THEYRE REVEALED TO BE EVIL. what's up with Hotspur??? he was literally the movie villain big baddie who like tried to literally MURDER all dogs and also imprisoned his brother and basically tried to murder his brother and his nephew (LITERALLY Scar-Mufasa-Simba style lmaoo they didnt even try to hide it and its so fuckin funny to me) and then we enter the series and he's just???? allowed to continue being a respected werewolf elder and also running his evil dog shelter??? i get that the series is almost sort of a 'separate/alternate canon' but technically at the end of the movie they also showed him just like?? doing community service?? i literally find it so fucking funny that when someone tries to commit an Evil (see: Cherry, Ric, Hotspur, etc.) the rest of the characters are all like "hey i know you tried to murder me but just do some community service and you can join the pack again kay? 🥰"

but despite the little plot holes the series still seems to run so smoothly and i just love how it knows the right amount of seriousness to take itself, and i love how all of the characters work together... like they could have just had Ivan be a stuuuupid bully forever but within the first few episodes they were already showing him being a better person and being a good member of the pack, all while still keeping his personality... like he even tried to protect Batty's secret!!! even though he was being dog racist you KNOW he would still protect Batty and Freddy with his life even though they're dogs because THEY'RE HIS PACK!!!

also i just love how Freddy LIKES being a dog! like obviously in the movie he reached the conclusion that dogs weren't bad/inferior and he was fine being a pink poodle instead of a big scary werewolf like the rest of his family, but i was afraid the series would revert him and make him all "oooo im just a stupid dog i want to be a powerful wolf!!! no one takes me serious!!" but nah, in the series he's literally like "being a dog is the fucking best and if you disagree you can fucking suck it 😎" AND in 200% Wolf the whole plot is going to be that he DOES get transformed into a wolf and he WANTS TO GO BACK TO BEING A POODLE!! i love that!!

i also love Batty, did i already mention that? i love that she is literally a dog. she is a DOG, who happened to end up being able to turn into a human because of unexplained magical shenanigans, and she still acts primarily like a dog even when human, and she's just so fucking awesome, and my only wish is that she actually got to be the pack leader instead of that being a one-off thing lol. i also love Scarlet too, and i really really really hope that as like the opposite to Batty, Scarlet ends up getting turned into a dog/werewolf lmao. let the wolf hunter become the wolf!!!! if it can magically happen to Batty, it can magically happen to Scarlet XD

also more Cherry please wtf is going on with her i love her

anyway i just needed to ramble because this is my new obsession and i am not going to be able to shut up about it 😭