#so it just has this weird dry feeling to it. tbh my throat being like this is a result of drinking cold orange juice

[aria0fgold]

I slept at like 8: 30 am and that resulted in me feeling somewhat sick right now in this fine 3 o'clock afternoon. 'Tis what I get for sleeping so late...

[eddiethehunted]

i want you to touch it softly (ao3)

believe it or not, this one isn't a wip, it's COMPLETE! rated: m (to be safe, tbh could probably be rated t) | cw: drug use, horny discussion, eddie has a thing for his hair getting pulled (implied) | wc: 1.6k | robin/vickie mentioned, platonic stobin, mutual pining, steve being into hair care and skincare, idiot4idiot, the usual <3 title from ariana grande 'my hair'

—————

Steve’s curled into a corner of the couch, watching the movie with glazed eyes, his knees drawn up to his chest. Robin’s feeling a little buzzed herself, laying on her side on the other end of the couch, with Eddie sat cross legged on the floor in front of her, scribbling away in a notebook.

Without really thinking much about it, she reaches forward and starts playing with Eddie’s hair. He startles at first, glancing over his shoulder, but she just smiles at him and twirls a curl around her finger and he relaxes, so she doesn’t stop.

“Okay, I have to know,” she says, because really, Eddie’s curls are beautiful, just really dry and frizzy and she’s stoned and nosy and curious. “Is this a perm? Or is it natural?”

Eddie looks offended, shooting her a reproachful look over his shoulder and saying, “It’s natural.”

She nods, twirling a piece around her finger again. She can see Steve on the other end of the couch looking over sulkily. Jealous. She thinks it’s adorable, the way Steve quickly looks away when she glances over at him.

“It’s so crunchy,” Robin says, “how much hairspray do you have in here?”

Another affronted look. “None! I just washed my hair before I came here.”

It’s still a bit damp around the roots, so she knows he’s not lying. She gets her fingers really in it, pulls his head back a little bit, and he makes this weird sound in the back of his throat. It’s something between pleased and irritated, like when you pet a cat that can’t decide if it wants to purr or claw at your hand.

Steve huffs and pretends he’s still watching the movie, but Robin bets he’s jealous as hell right now. He has expressed to Robin several times how badly he wants to be allowed to play with Eddie’s hair but he can’t because that’s weird and guy friends don’t do that and he doesn’t want to make Eddie uncomfortable.

As if Eddie doesn’t melt into a puddle of horny lovesick goo the second Steve so much as brushes against him.

It’s not really her place to tell him how many times Eddie has complained to her about his own pathetic crush, though, so she never does. Just lets them both lament and pine and complain to her about how badly they want each other, and how sad and tragic and woeful their lives are that it’ll never be requited love. Pats Eddie’s shoulder when he covers his face and whisper screams into his hands when Steve walks by wearing those stupid jock shorts and lets Steve lay his head in her lap and whine about Eddie’s arms and his hands and his mouth and—kinda just everything.

(It’s only fair, though. They’ve both heard enough of her salivating over the short skirts Vickie always wears on their dates. And that one low cut shirt she wears that shows off her cute tits. The least she can do is listen, even if it kinda makes her want to bash her head into the wall sometimes.)

Steve likes hair, she knows. Skincare too. He likes products and he understands skin types and hair textures pretty well, considering she’s sure he’s never learnt anything cosmetic-related, at least not formally. He put her on some new shampoo a few months ago and her hair’s never been so soft and healthy and wavy before.

Eddie’s hair is dry. It’s kinda fried, even. It’s brittle and tangled and not really rough to the touch, but definitely not as soft as it could be, and she knows it drives Steve insane. Like, Steve likes Eddie’s hair like it is—she’s sat through way too many sexually frustrated rants about how badly he wants to mess it up—but he knows how to help it, and he wants to, because it’s like, his love language or something.

“Damn. Your hair is dry.” Robin glances sidelong at Steve again, trying to project her thoughts into his mind. “You should use a hair mask or something.”

“Some of us are poor,” Eddie says indignantly, jerking his head away. He scoots closer to Steve’s side of the couch, out of her reach, and glowers at her as he pulls his notes to the other side of the coffee table. “My hair’s fine, thank you very fucking much.”

“I’m poor too, dumbass,” Robin points out. “I just steal Steve’s stuff.”

Steve snorts, letting his head loll back against the back of the couch, his eyelids heavy. He’s been quiet all night—he gets that way sometime when he’s high, just stops talking and sits there, quietly listening to whatever’s going on around him—but he speaks up for the first time in over an hour to mumble, “Not stealing if I’m givin’ it to you.”

“Whatever,” Robin says, waving a hand. “Touch Eddie‘s hair, dude. It’s crispy.”

Eddie shoots a desperate, betrayed look at her, then says to Steve, “I will bite your hand off, Steve.”

“Mhm, bet you will,” Steve says, ignoring the warning, because Eddie is all cozy in his plaid PJ pants and Steve’s old hoodie and therefore about as threatening as a small gerbil, “lemme see.”

He reaches out to touch with only the faintest flush on his cheeks. It could easily be blamed on his high, but Robin knows him as well as she knows the back of her own hand. Steve is absolutely losing his shit right now. He’s just really good at hiding it.

“Dry,” he confirms. His hand lingers in Eddie’s hair and Robin notices that Eddie doesn’t bristle nearly as much when Steve’s the one with his hand all wrapped up in it.

Rude. But understandable.

“What the hell,” Eddie complains, but he sounds decidedly less irritated and a whole lot more flustered now. He’s nowhere near as good at hiding it as Steve.

Robin hides a smile when she notices how he’s not doodling in the margins of his paper anymore, but instead twisting a ring around his finger and staring hard at the wall.

Okay, she's more than aware of the fact that she started this, but she’s starting to think that maybe she should, like, go. Give them some privacy or whatever. Save herself of having to experience this.

“Th’s’not a bad thing,” Steve murmurs in his soupy, slow, stoned voice. Robin might not be into guys at all—especially not Steve, he’s like, Steve—but she’s not an idiot, she can tell in a purely observational way how the gravely sound of it could be sexy. She’s not completely oblivious.

Neither is Eddie, apparently, because there’s a strange glazed look in his eyes that Robin is sure has nothing to do with the weed in his system. His adam’s apple bobs as Steve runs his fingers through his hair, tugging a bit near the roots to pull Eddie’s head closer.

Eddie goes willingly. Quietly. Steve looks delighted, a big stupid smile on his face.

She is seriously such a genius. Steve owes her, seriously.

“Not a bad thing,” Eddie echoes.

“No, s’nice like this anyway.” Steve gathers it all into one hand, like a ponytail, before letting it fall slowly, playing with it like that over and over as goosebumps break out over Eddie’s neck.

“How do I—” Eddie sounds like he’s choking, the back of his ears and neck bright red. “Uh—make it better?”

“A hair mask might help,” Steve says, rolling onto his side so he can get both hands in Eddie’s hair. He’s too out of it to notice the violent shudder that tears through Eddie’s body. “You should do a porosity test.”

“Uh huh,” Eddie says blankly. Robin nearly cackles. Eddie has no fucking clue what’s going on. He checked out the second Steve got his hands in his hair.

“That’s the one where you see if your hair floats?” she prompts, when it’s clear Eddie isn’t going to say anything else, too dumbfounded to process anything that Steve’s saying to him.

“Mmmhm.” Steve gives a little smile, pleased that she remembers, and of course she does.

Eddie’s eyes shut and he presses his lips into a firm line at the sound of Steve’s agreement, like he’s fighting some kind of demons inside. Steve’s still got his hands buried in Eddie’s hair, eyes glassy as he watches the frizzy strands run through his fingers.

“Maybe high porosity. Feels rough.” He tugs a little, maybe on accident, or maybe he’s too stoned to think better of it. “Wanna try a hair mask?”

“Uh,” Eddie says.

Robin kicks him, not at all subtly, and he coughs, straightening up a little bit.

“Uh, yeah,” he chokes out. “Um… if you think it’ll help, I guess. Why not.”

God, Eddie owes her too. She’s such a good friend.

Steve’s hands fall from Eddie’s hair as he pushes himself up to a sitting position, somewhat clumsily. He catches Robin’s eye, biting his lip in an excited smile, and she grins back, giving him a thumbs up.

“If the pizza shows up there’s cash in my wallet,” Steve tells her, getting to his feet and offering his hand to an absolutely flustered-looking Eddie. “C’mon, gonna show you how to take care of those pretty curls.”

Eddie’s mouth falls open, gaping like a fish out of water. Robin can’t help but snicker, grinning wider when he shoots her a bewildered, panicked look over his shoulder as Steve tugs him towards the stairs.

She curls into her corner of the couch, pulling the blanket closer to her chin and putting her focus back onto the movie as she waits for the doorbell to ring. Grease is always a classic, and, well, whatever happens between her two favourite idiots next is really none of her business.

She does turns up the volume, though. Just in case.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Zenyatta and heartbeats (and ram too ig)

Saw something that gave me ideas for this, so I'm deciding to dip my feet into overwatch again for a moment; totally not trying to totally reignite the rot because my brain is a dry sponge rn

Post is mostly zenyatta centric since hes my number 1 bbg, and Rams part is mostly just last minute thoughts that I got right as I opened this up to write

Obviously, reader is human

Cw cuz rams has like. A CRUMB of nsfw but like other nsfw stuff I post its incredibly vague so yeah

I hope this isn't too cringe bc admittedly I'm not at all confident with how I write for OVW characters (mostly due to me STILL being behind on the lore (the rot died and got replaced by something else, made it impossible to consume media outside the current rot)) so

Yeah

This is likely going to be VERY OOC, cringe, and probably just

Not good

<\3

Ramattra;

Writing his part before Zenyattas, before I forget the ideas I had! So yall get this lil bonus at the beginning

He's oddly fascinated with heartbeats, I'd think! But not just in a cute or intimate way? If that makes sense? At least in the beginning

He likes the rise it gets whenever it picks up; be it from passion, anger, fear, happiness, he just finds it

Interesting

Not just your heartbeat, though, just beats in general

Bro probably gets a thrill when he gets someone heart to work overtime in a sadistic way tbh

That's really the idea, just "ram is kinda fucked up like that"

But in a romantic setting? I guess in a weird way he'd compare it to the humming of his systems; ironic since I doubt he'd ever want to compare omnics to humans and find similarities

Do NOT!!! Let this man touch or otherwise have his hand on your throat, he will go nuts at your pulse

Anywahs

Yeah that's it for him

Zenyatta;

Now to the boy

My favorite boy

My main and comfort character

Okay enough of that, but his is sweeter I think

Before I dive into that I like to hc that Zen (and perhaps most omnics? I'm still debating) has heat sensors, and then I got another idea where like

He can pick up on heart rates and stuff, idk the logistics of that because I'm not smart like that but

Yeah

I like to hc that that's how he can read people + his general zenyatta ways

So I feel like him being able to see your beat makes it intimate, in a way? Everytime he manages to fluster you he sees it flutter for a moment along with catching your body temperature rising

That's cute, I think

If you're both in a relationship and have gotten there, I like to think he'd rest his hand on your chest, and just. Feel the beat against his palm, almost entranced by it

He takes note of how it slows when you fall asleep, and how it picks back up when you wake up; or how it speeds up when you have a nightmare, and so on

Some days he'll rest his head on your chest and listen

Just the two of you, holding each other in silence

Idk

I really don't know where I was going with this post and really I'm just spitting out ideas as they come but

Yeah!!

[revasserium]

rain what are the best books you’ve read since you’ve been away?

*cracks knuckles* oh my sweetest of baby jesuses nonnie, from wheremst do i even stART LOL. well -- i read about 99 books in the calendar year of 2022 alone (some were re-reads, but most weren't), though to be fair, i'd set that goal for myself at the beginning of the year. so i'm gonna pick from that subset + the about 20ish books i've read this year, sound good? alrighty, let's go.

fantasy - wayward children series by seanan mcguire

this is probably my new favorite book series. period. like. i'm trying to think of other series that i've read that i want to shove down other ppls throats as vehemently as i do this series and... it doesn't exist. the lyricism in the prose is just *chefs kiss*!!! they're novellas (about 150pages each!), and there are a ton of them, so i just devoured like the entire series in a single week. pls PLS give this a try!

fiction - a secret history by donna tart

not that i need to tout this book any more than it already has been on tumblr but. it created the entire dark academia movement and is still one of the cornerstones of my personal literary canon; like oH bOY can tart write a fuCKING SENTENCE. this was a re-read, cause i originally read it in like 2015, loved it, and then didn't re-read it again, but i did last year and i want to tattoo this entire book into my bones. this is the kind of writing to which i aspire on the DAILY

short stories - her body and other parties by carmen maria machado

again, i feel like this book has been talked about by everyone and their mother and pLEASE DEAR GOD read the trigger warnings!!! they are there for a REASON! but again, gorgeous writing, INSANE exploration of the female body (and the shit that owners of said bodies have to deal with), gender, sexuality, queerness, and general mind-boggling weirdness.

nonfiction - on writers and writing by margaret attwood

one of the greatest writers of our age, writing about her favorite writers and their favorite writings. what more could you ask for??? not much TBH. and add to that atwood's signature like dry humor and voice and just sldkfjaosidj also, this expanded my tbr by like 30 books cause she quotes SUCH GOOD STUFF at the beginning of each chapter!! and it's a short read - it just puts the art and tedium and magic and mundane of writing into such good perspective??? amazing 100/10, 5 stars on yelp, 3 michelin stars.

poetry - i'll fly away by rudy francisco

ppl who have been here since 3 years ago know that i am a rudy stan. i stan his slam poetry, his written poetry, him as a human being. this is def a more "political" collection than helium (also a fucking bANGER), but i still savored every single word. i love it. i love him.

honorary mentions:

the night circus by erin morgenstern

ninth house & hell bent by leigh bardugo

the house on the cerulean sea by tj klune

red winter series by annette marie

mythos, heros, and troy by stephen fry

if we were villains by ml rio

where the crawdads sing by deliah owens

a lesson in vengeance by victoria lee

evelyn hugo & daisy jones & carrie soto by taylor jenkins reid

grief is the thing with feathers by max porter

rebecca by daphne du maurier

bunny by mona awad

[sluts4shigaraki]

BACK TO SCHOOL!

CW ♡ none really for this chapter. mild creepiness from shiggy but what’s new tbh

Pairing ♡ shigaraki/fem!reader

Word count ♡ 2,100

minors/ageless blogs DNI ♡ you will be blocked

A/N ♡ as of right now i’ve got around 7 chapters for this but i’ll be scattering posting them, i’m trying to get back into writing again so this blog will be semi active ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡ also it’s under a read more bc all these chapters are kinda fat. so obv reader is chubby in this, but you can assume that all of my reader fics are chubby reader tbh

DAY ONE

———————————————————————————

Calculus was your worst class. Not just because you were bad at it, or because Mr. Byrne was rude to you, but because of him. Tomura was a part of an exchange student program. Most of the students adjusted well and made friends, but it seemed like Tomura didn’t even want to be here. He constantly had his hood up and never spoke to anyone as he moved across campus. He sat directly behind you, never contributing to any discussions. All he did was stare at you so hard you could feel his eyes burning a hole in your head. This semester felt like it would last forever thanks to this class. You tried to take notes and listen to the lecture but none of it made sense. As the lecture came to a close, your professor called your name, and Tomura’s. Your heart dropped to your stomach.

“Can you two stay for a moment?” Oh good lord. Holding your breath, you stepped up to your professors desk. “Your test scores have been… inadequate lately. So I’ve asked Tomura to tutor you. He’s already agreed, and I’m willing to bump your grade up. As long as you’re willing to meet up for an hour or two every day till the test next week,” he presented a sheet, dates, times and a place for a signature. “You two fill these out and we’ll see what we can do,” why, why of all people, this guy? Surely there has to be someone else just as smart. Maybe it wasn’t even that. Maybe no one else would tutor you.

“Mr. Byrne I don’t…” before you even finished, he held up a hand.

“If you fail this class, your GPA will drop and you’ll have to retake it. I know you don’t want to be here. Give it a chance,” as he spoke, Tomura was rocking on his feet, anxiously picking at his fingers. He wanted you to say yes. Needed you to say yes. This was his in. He never knew how to speak to you. You were out of his league, and he’d never even spoken to someone he was attracted to extensively, especially not one he wanted as badly as he wanted you.

Tomura had been watching you since you started this class with him. Of course, he’d seen you around campus. You stuck out to him, because you were just his type. Soft hips, chubby, a beautiful smile, and a sunny aura that he didn’t have. Obviously he didn’t know you that well, but he knew you enough. Hopefully you didn’t notice that he found out where you frequented, coffee shops and parks on campus. He definitely hoped you didn’t notice how much attention he paid you, listening in when you spoke to someone, watching your secret little habits you don’t even think about. Tomura wanted to know everything. He knew he was weird, so he’d have to find out how to attract you despite that. That scared him. How could he attract someone like you to someone like him? It didn’t matter. Even if being near you made him nauseous and sweaty, he’d do it. You would be his before the week was out.

“That’s.. fine I guess. I’ll do it,” turning to him, you noticed he wouldn’t even meet your eyes.“So, are you free right now, or do you have a class or somethin’?” Tomura’s throat went dry. All he had to say was that he’s free, and wants to tutor you now, but so many questions and worries bobbed around in his head. Would you want to go to your dorm or his? God, not his dorm. It’s disgusting. There’s a picture he took of you on his computer. You weren’t aware he took it, but it was sticky and he knew you’d be grossed out. Maybe even enough to drop the class and take the failing grade. Finally he managed to sputter out some words, knowing he’d took a weird amount of time to respond.

“We can do it right now. Wherever, i-is fine,” instantly you recoiled. You didn’t want him to know how much you dreaded this so he’d at least do a good job and help you pass.

“There’s some tables in the park if that’s okay. It’s usually pretty quiet,” but public enough to not be totally alone with him, you thought. Tomura nodded, following you out of the building. He always loved how you looked, the way your thighs spread when you sat, how soft your tummy looked. You were confident, and it showed in the way you dressed. He could only imagine how it would feel to touch you, your stomach, your thighs. Being behind you was like a godsend, he got to watch you walk. He could’ve easily outpaced you with his height, but he made sure to keep a slow pace just to stay where he was.

Trying to fill the silence on the way to the park was awkward, but you had to say something. Anything.

“This class makes me feel kinda stupid. It’s not a part of my major but it’s a required class, so I feel like it shouldn’t be as hard as it is, you know?”

Tomura doesn’t know how to respond. The only thing he wants to do is hold your hand. Be yours, so you can be his. His palms are soaked with sweat at the very thought. He wiped them on his hoodie, not knowing what to do with them. Why did merely existing around you make him feel so out of place? All he wanted to do was impress you and he had no idea if he was even capable of that. Instinctively, his hands flew to his neck to scratch at the scarred skin there. You flick your eyes back to him, all you see is his head down, hands digging at his neck.

When you get to the park, it was more empty then you’d hoped. You dropped your backpack at the nearest table and sat down with your notebook full of a few notes and lots of doodles and scribbling. Just like before, it took Tomura way too long to speak.

“What part is uh.. confusing you?” Clicking his pen over and over again, like a nervous tick, he still refused to make eye contact.

“Um, well, I guess the calculus part,” trying to make a lighthearted joke to ease the tension. It was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“Well, I think we should start with what the basics and… go from there?” Once he got started it was hard to get him to shut up. Turns out if you wanted him to speak, you just needed to ask a distressing amount of questions about math, probably video games too. Tomura was smart, which probably shouldn’t have surprised you. You shouldn’t even be in the same class as him. Your teacher couldn’t teach you half the things Tomura could. Eventually the lights in the park had come on.

“Wow, has it really been, like, two hours? I didn’t even notice. You’re actually a really good teacher,” the compliment made Tomura’s head swim. You tore off a scrap of paper, scribbling your number on it. “Text me, ‘kay? This helped a lot but, I think I need a lot more to pass that test. Thanks for that, Tomura,” you beamed at him, and he finally met your eyes. You were a little hesitant to give it to him, or even give him that wide of a smile. Then he gave his best attempt at a smile back to you. It was crooked and a little unnerving.

With visibly quivering hands, either due to nervousness or tremors, he took the paper. Tomura cleared his throat, and added it to his phone. He pushed the paper into his pocket and sent you a text. Regret sinks in just a touch, but you needed to be able to communicate with him when you didn’t have a class together.

“There, so you’ll know it’s me and not some.. weirdo,” in your head you burst out laughing but you kept an innocent smile on your face. Did he not realize he was some weirdo? Even though he was incredibly helpful with tutoring, he still did weird things that made you a little scared of him. Things on and off campus that made others avoid him. Tomura had long, greasy, unkempt hair. It somehow still held some volume, so you couldn’t imagine what it looked like clean. The bags under his eyes were deep, like he never slept, not a singular time since he was born. His lips were always dry, his voice raspy. You were pretty sure he survived on Monster and take-out. Girls would talk about how they caught him staring. Or walking behind them, quite a distance away, but still following. The talk died down when he started calculus, all because of you. You were the one he wanted. The other girls were pretty, a little stupid, probably easy to manipulate. Getting you though, that would be like the boss battle at the end of a game. Incredibly difficult, it might take a few tries, but the satisfaction it’d bring would be worth it.

“I’m free th-the same time tomorrow. We can meet here if you want,” he was scratching his neck, and you could see his sharp, uneven fingernails digging in and blood getting underneath them. You felt like you had to be nice. Tutoring you was at least worth a little bit of kindness, considering he did it for free. The reason why he did it was so obvious and so obscure. Plus, you were taught manners, and no matter how much you disliked someone, you should help if they’re hurt.

“Oh, you’re uh, bleeding. Here, let me see,” digging through your backpack, you found your first aid kit. You cleaned his wounds, and put some neosporin and a bandaid on his neck. Tomura could cry. The feeling of your fingers on his neck made his dick twitch. He wouldn’t say that, and he’s hoping he didn’t show it. You both went your separate ways, you went back to your dorm and didn’t think much more about it. It was much different for Tomura.

On the walk back, the only thing keeping him from digging the skin fully off his neck was the bandage you put on him. Gently grazing his fingers across it, it made him blush. It also made him incredibly angry. He could’ve said something. Kissed you, even. You were so close, your soft hands making him light headed. Yet just looking at you, feeling your breath on his neck, paralyzed him. The walk gave him time to think, and that gave him time to get angry at himself.

When he stepped in his dorm room, he threw his backpack against the wall, slamming the door shut behind him. His roommate, Touya, sat on the bed opposite Tomura’s. Unfazed by one of his frequent tantrums, he tapped on his phone. Probably trying to figure out what party to be at so he can get his dick wet. Tomura despised him. He could get nearly anyone he wanted but Tomura couldn’t even get the one person he wanted. Everything about you was all he wanted.

The room was dirty on both sides, but his side was worse. Tomura had empty energy drink cans everywhere, figures of lewd anime girls, dirty clothes covering whatever else was there. Sometimes it was clean, when the RA decided to come by. That rarely happened so Tomura rarely cleaned.

“Wha’ happened? Someone mildly inconvenience you again?” Smirk decorating Touya’s scarred face. He looked like a freak too, but he didn’t get the same judgement Tomura faced. Touya had girls lining up to even talk to him. Tomura had girls crossing the street if he passed by.

“I was... an idiot! She was right there. So close I could’ve touched her anywhere or anyway I wanted to. And I didn’t,” aggressively pulling his gaming chair closer and sat with his elbows on the computer desk. Scratching at his neck, he felt the bandaid you placed, running his finger along it. “She…she really took care of me. And I’m practically a stranger.”

“Yeah, yeah. Maybe, for once, you should try not stalking them and being a freak. Act like you don’t want ‘em, they come runnin’,” what he said was maybe right, as much as Tomura hated to admit it. When he meets you again, he’ll test this theory.

[toiletwipes]

simpbur's college roommate

tw: obsession, possessiveness? not really tbh, simpbur is caught, overstim, vibrator, afab body, vaginal penetration, pretty boy is thrown around and so is good boy, praise, maybe a tiny bit degrading, im just a little bit scared to look through this to check for anything else. its not bad but im just scared i'll delete this if i dont post it now.

1.7k words, so not that long but I promised you guys content so here it is!

-----

it was the smaller things, really.

you wouldn’t notice them, if you weren’t looking for them, type of deal. a shirt that fits you just a little bit too snug so it sits in the back of your closet, or did. an old polaroid with an older friend, faces smiling into the flash of light, it had sat in the bottom of your old memory box, said box gone untouched by you for months. an oversized, raggedy hoodie that you had ditched for a newer, softer coat.

you didn’t want to believe it but at the moment you had bigger fish to fry with schoolwork.

the coat from before sat in your lap at the moment, you parked yourself in the library as you studied with a close friend for some government essay, and you were just nearly finished with the second to last page, when your friend spoke up.

she taps on your arm, pulling out your earbud, “hey, your roommate is will, er, wilbur, right?” you stopped in the middle of a word, lifting your head to meet her eyesight.

“yeah, why? he being creepy or something?” you ask, hoping for a no, he wasn’t bad, but you knew that if anybody else had been his roommate, he would've found himself in trouble during the first week alone.

“no, actually, it’s just- it’s just that, um, are you guys dating?” you snorted, really? you and him? dating?

“he’s cute, but no, why d’ya ask?” you laugh to yourself as you look into your notes as you start typing again.

“well, he’s just been wearing your hoodie, like a lot.” you still, eyebrows furrowing. your hoodie?

“how do you know it's my hoodie?” you look her in her eyes, folding your arms together as you lean back.

“i know for sure its your hoodie because it has that one bleach stain on the front and on the shoulder from when you said you could wear a hoodie and bleach your hair, and the time that you spilt bleach directly onto your hoodie and panicked for five minutes before doing something about it. i know it's yours so why is he wearing it?” your mind is blank as you stuff your things back into your backpack, her sputtering with questions and your lack of answers leaving much to be desired.

but as you exit the building, you shrug your coat as it starts to pour and the dark sky flashes for a moment. you rush in your walking to get to the dorms as soon as possible. just your luck that your dorm is on the other side of the campus. its still about five minutes before you bang on your dorm room. the music blasting on the other side silences as your roommate opens the door, his mouth drops into a round circle and you stare at his chest as you push past him.

“where the hell have you been? it’s barely been pouring!” he sounds off like a rattled hen but you head straight to your room, dumping your backpack and coat on your bed. without an answer, he follows you but any questions he has dries in his mouth as he watches you dig in your closet. pulling a ratty tee shirt and shorts you shrug your soaked shirt over your head.

will has to force himself out of the room but it's not a second later when you come out, hair wet and skin damp when you grab onto his head of hair and pull as you drag him to his room.

throwing him onto the bed, you barely glanced at his face, seeing it already being covered in tears, hands grasping for yours as it leaves him.

you glance around his room before you see the one clean area, his nightstand and dig through that. you found not only items you knew were missing but more, underwear you thought you'd thrown away, a vibrator that you'd thought had gotten stolen by a petty friend, not an obsessive roommate.

and then throwing his closet open, you saw it balled up and thrown in the corner, your hoodie.

taking it out, you push it into will's chest. "dude, literally, what the fuck?" you go to shout at him more but he moves onto his knees, tears dripping and pouring down his cheeks, begging for you to not leave.

"i know i'm a creep, a disgusting one at that, but please don't- please don't leave me, no one's been this nice and stayed with me for this long," he begs and continues to beg as you stand at the foot of his bed, watching as he took a hold of your forearms, rubbing circles into them.

you clasp a hand over his mouth as you coo, shushing him and smoothing over his hair with your other hand.

"my dirty, little stalker doesn't want me to go, but who said i was going to let you leave?" you then pull back on his hair, relishing in the guttural moan that is ripped from his throat, attaching your lips to his neck and climbing into lap, grinding down into the growing bulge in his sweats.

he moans out your name, hands finding purchase wherever he can, gripping your hip and your shoulder, trying to thrust up and meet your hips but you move your hands to hold his hips down.

"no, no, no, good boys take what they're given, that much you've proven, will," you murmur in his ear, slowing the rolls in your hips and watching him writhe beneath you.

"be a good boy for me, huh? are you my pretty boy?" he sobs out a yes as you grind down hard on his cock, the praise going straight to his dick as you mouth bruises into his neck. sucking particularly hard his hands come and circle around your waist, his head hanging onto your shoulder.

"please, please let me-"

"oh no, baby, tonight, it's all about you," you pause, standing up and hearing that beautiful whine pulled from his throat, "your punishment for being a dirty, little whore who wanted all my things for yourself, all of me without me." he shook his head, eyes barely opening as he reaches for you, but you've gone to his nightstand and pulled out the vibrator, turning it on and off and finding it surprisingly still working. well, not that surprising.

"now, you're gonna be a good boy and let me take care of you, or you can be alone," he reaches for you, begging you not to leave him and you can't say you weren't that affected.

something about this tall, greasy simp of a man, who stole your things and wears your old hoodie, begging for you not to go, it just settled nicely in the bottom of your stomach.

you weren't denying you were absolutely soaked by now, shoving your shorts off.

"please, i'll- your good boy, be so good for you-" he cuts himself off as you climb back to straddle his lap, this time rolling your hips once before you turn your vibrator on.

"good, so good for me," you hum as you place the vibrator between your panty-clad folds and his sweatpants-covered-cock. the vibrations sent you to a different plane as you grind into him, listening to the way he cried and the way his legs trembled.

you could tell the next moment, he was about to cum and well, you can't have that, not so soon. "ah, ah, ah," you breathe out, taking the vibe away as you lean back and away from his dick.

he lurched forward and his legs shake again as he's denied an orgasm, he cries out and into your neck.

"is my baby ready for ten more of these?" you ask him and his eyes snap wide open, meeting yours and when a moment passes and you press the vibe back against his dick, he whines.

you weren't kidding about before, it's been about an hour, you think, and he's buried his face in a pillow, crying from the over-stimulation and from not cumming.

you, yourself, have occupied your time with stretching yourself out, three fingers buried deep into your pussy and the sounds coming from it has will peeking out from the pillow, eyes sparkling with that crying glow.

taking your fingers out, and sticking them into his mouth, you move yourself over his lap, taking his cock in your hand as you rub it in between your folds. moaning, you move away as his hips jerk upwards, him biting and crying into his fist.

"my pretty baby, doing so well for me, gonna let me make you feel good? you gonna let me make you cum?" will nods his head and lets out the loudest moan you heard that day when you sink down on his cock.

buried to the hilt, he twitches inside you, and he's begging to cum, "'m gonna, 'm gonna cum, please, plea- need to, i need to cum in you," he begs and who are you to deny your pretty boy that?

"cum for me baby," you say, out of breath as you bounce on his cock, reveling in the slick sounds coming from between y'all. he does cum, hips thrusting upwards to bury himself in you, and you let him. but when you know he's all spent, you start to bounce on his cock, him crying from the over-sensitivity.

"just- just let me cum," you breathe out, balancing yourself with his shoulder and one hand rubbing circles into your clit, moans coming from your mouth as sobs leaves will's.

"oh- oh fuck, fuck, fuck!" you cry out, squeezing around will and falling on top of his chest.

breathing together, you let yourself have this moment before you get up and moves towards the bathroom. you hear him calling out for you as you grab a damp towel, some water, and a dry towel.

"did you think i was going to leave you, baby?" you ask, mostly not expecting an answer but turning to him as you run the damp cloth over his face and neck, he bit his lip.

"a little bit, yeah."

"well, don't think about that again, because as much as you're weird and steal my shit, you're still important to me," you tell me, "you're my pretty boy and you're going to stay that way."

when you finished cleaning him up and then cleaned yourself, you take the spot next to him and pull the covers over you two.

he leans into your side, pulling you into him, trying to get closer than close.

"you promise?"

you smile to yourself, thinking about having him all to yourself, "i promise."

[spencers-renaissance]

you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy

Summary: Spencer's gay. He joins the BAU and befriends the team, but it is 2003. It's a secret he has to keep. He just didn't expect it to be this hard.

Tags: gay!spencer, coming out, hurt/comfort, insecure!spencer, misunderstandings, angst with a happy ending, dad hotch, protective!hotch, protective!derek, childhood trauma TW: one instance of explicit homophobia, but it is referenced a lot, as is Spencer's internalised homophobia at the start of this fic. A shit ton of heteronormativity but tbh that's just canon lol

Pairing: Spencer Reid/OMC, Spencer Reid & Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid & Aaron Hotchner, The BAU Team & Spencer Reid

Word Count: 6k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

Consider this my contribution to pride month 😌 I've waited so long to post it and I'm so glad I'm finally doing it because it's definitely one of my all time favourites <3 Gideon is here somewhere but just like with all my early season fics he's not really part of the plot I combined my moreid and gen taglists bc it was hard to know the audience for this, but just ignore it if you're not interested!

you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn’t do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn’t matter anymore. — richard siken, a primer for the small weird loves

Spencer has only told one person in his whole life.

His mother guessed. For as long as he can remember, she’s used gender neutral pronouns when talking about his future partner, read him all the gay literature she could find, promised him that he’s perfect just the way he is.

The trouble is that Spencer only believes her until the first grade, when Ryan Sampson shoves him over in the playground and calls him gay. His mom had only ever used that term in a sweet, loving way, taking care to associate such words with positivity, as long as his dad wasn’t around to hear. When that word comes out of Ryan Sampson’s mouth, it is not said with sweetness and love; it is said with venom, and Spencer learns quickly that his mom is wrong. He is not perfect just the way he is.

And so, he keeps it a secret. When his mom notices him getting uncomfortable at the mention of future partners, she stops bringing it up, though she refuses to give up the diverse education she provides for him outside of school. His dad tells him that one day he’ll be a strapping young man and marry a nice girl in a church, and Spencer nods along. He ignores the way his stomach turns with anxiety at the thought. Ignores the screaming match his parents have that night. Ignores the fact that it started because Diana chipped in with ‘or boy’.

He’s in high school by the time he’s twelve, and the only part he’s grateful for is the absence of pressure to get a girlfriend. His dad’s out of the picture now, and Spencer tries not to let himself think that maybe if he wasn’t like this he might have stayed. Diana’s so out of it most days that she doesn’t remember what she noticed about him when he was a child, only recalling the last few years of shoving himself so far back in the closet he can hardly see the door anymore.

It feels like he’s lost his last ally.

(He hates that a small part of him feels relieved she doesn’t remember; that he almost feels assured by the fact that the last person to know who he really is has forgotten. There is only this version of Spencer Reid now. No other exists.)

He makes the mistake during his second undergraduate degree. He’s just turned eighteen but he is already a doctor and, fortunately, this alienates him from most of his peers, but someone manages to slide past his defences. Ethan Miller is twenty, in the second year of his (first) undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering, and he’s nice. Spencer doesn’t have a lot of experience with friendship, but they get on well and Ethan makes him laugh. For the first time, he feels comfortable in the presence of anyone other than his mother.

They slip into an easy friendship: waiting for each other after class — Spencer back in the undergraduate buildings now he has his first PhD under his belt — and going out for ice cream and pizza and Thai food. Ethan goes to parties while Spencer studies, and then they reconvene to watch Doctor Who and play cards.

For almost a year, Spencer keeps his secret carefully locked up, hidden behind the mask he’s perfected after so many years. Even though he’s eighteen, nearly nineteen now, he doesn’t try and explore that side of himself. No, that’s far too risky. He doesn’t try and pretend any other way either, he just stays silent and lets people’s assumptions lie for him, but he can’t help the longing that claws up his throat when he locks eyes with a passing guy on campus. One time, he’d seen two men kiss on a bench in the city, and he’d run back to his dorm and had a panic attack. Why couldn’t he have that?

The feelings don’t stop, and he doesn’t know how to make them. He hates that he isn’t normal, but still longs for the touch of a man, the feeling of being wrapped up in strong arms, of being kissed by dry, chapped lips, and falling asleep to a heartbeat approximately 11% slower than that of a woman’s.

It’s a constant battle inside him, emotions raging, and he struggles to control it, suppress it, tame it.

He pays a sorry price.

Ethan makes him feel comfortable, and that turns out to be a detriment. He relaxes around the other boy: he tells him about growing up as a pre-teen in a high school, about how a child feels living 260 miles away from home, even about his mother’s illness.

And one day, it slips out. They’re on the beach, lying on towels as they look up at the blue sky, talking about what their futures will look like: Ethan will be a successful chemical engineer in Berlin, and Spencer will work for the FBI, profiling serial killers.

“You’ll have to marry a German girl,” he tells Ethan. “It’ll be tough to convince an American girl to move all the way to Germany as soon as you graduate.”

“Yeah, and what about you? You’ll be off fighting crime around the country, not much of a life for a family.”

“Oh, I imagine my husband will be the type to—”

“Husband?”

Spencer freezes. It shocks him as much as it shocks Ethan. He doesn’t even pay much attention to Ethan’s disgusted face and his outraged tirade. He hears slurs and insults, hears him say that he can’t believe Spencer tricked him like this, that he was probably waiting to make a move on him, that he was never to look in Ethan’s direction again, but Spencer is frozen in time.

He’s never allowed him to think much about what his personal life might look like in the future, but he’d said ‘husband’ on instinct, without thinking, and it’s clearly something he actually wants. Ethan’s words sting, but the moment brings about a realisation Spencer is thankful for; it instigates a journey of self-discovery and self-expression, of the joy of living as your true self.

He loses his first and only friend, but he gains something much more valuable. He visits gay bars — nervously sipping a non-alcoholic drink in the corner at first, before soon becoming confident enough to respond to the men who sidle up to him and ask for his name. He lets go and dances the night away, sometimes going home with one of the many dance partners he acquires during the night, sometimes heading back to his own dorm happily alone.

Makeup and dresses and skirts and heels make their way into his wardrobe, and he befriends girls and drag queens and other gay men who encourage him to be exactly the way he is. And the best part is, he never has to come out to any of them. All of them know, and that’s good enough for everyone.

The fun comes to a sad sort of slow, however, when he joins the BAU. Everyone knows law enforcement’s relationship with the LGBT community is less than adequate — Spencer’s seen it with his own eyes: butch lesbians and men in dresses getting roughed up by angry police officers for ‘lewd behaviour’ or ‘drunkenness’ when they’re just being themselves. It’s not safe for him to tell anyone, so he doesn’t.

He still goes out with his friends when he’s in town and wears makeup and dresses and crop tops when he’s at home, but presents as rigidly straight Dr Spencer Reid to his team at the BAU.

The hardest part about it is that he loves his team. He’s known Gideon for years — and he wouldn’t be surprised if he suspects something after coming over to his house unannounced one night, only to have a man other than Spencer open the door — but he settles into a comforting dynamic with Hotch. He can’t help but see him as something of a father figure, and he knows Hotch has a soft spot for him, always looking out for him and taking him under his wing without a moment’s hesitation.

Elle, JJ, and Penelope all take a shine to him, too, teasing him without a hint of malice in their tones, only the kind of playful kindness that reminds him of his mother. He forms a special bond with Penelope and they spend hours watching Doctor Who together and geeking out on all the areas their interests overlap, and the comfort he feels with her matches the comfort he’s found with his new group of queer friends.

(She doesn’t hold a candle to Ethan, he decides one night, after he’d cried at a movie she’d made him watch and she felt so bad she made him hot chocolate and jam toast and cuddled him until he felt better.)

Derek becomes a brother to him. He puts him in a headlock at least once a day — which Spencer has been reliably informed by multiple sources is a very brotherly thing to do — and teases him relentlessly, while simultaneously being fiercely protective of him. Enough so, that Spencer sometimes wonders if he even has Hotch beat in that department.

He loves his team and his team loves him. It should be simple. It is still 2003.

He comes in one morning late for a briefing, his shirt buttoned wrong and his hair is a mess, and he’s fairly sure that his attempt to cover the hickey at the base of his neck with concealer has been ultimately unsuccessful. It’s obvious why he’s late. Gideon is too engrossed in the case file to notice, but Hotch raises an eyebrow, an amused look on his face as everyone else immediately takes to teasing him.

“Who’s the lucky lady, pretty boy?”

Elle raises an eyebrow to match Derek’s shit-eating grin, “Someone definitely got some strange last night.”

“When do we get to meet her, Spence?” JJ asks, smirking as he takes a seat.

He’s bright red — as if he needed to look any more debauched — and Spencer tries to ignore the hurt that seizes his chest at the reminder of his need to stay quiet. This team respects him, and he can’t throw that away just because Spencer gets too comfortable.

God, he wishes Penelope was here.

“None of your business,” he mutters, trying to keep his tone light. He fails.

Naturally, Hotch notices and swiftly moves the briefing on, and Spencer keeps his gaze locked on the case file, not missing the absence of a reprimand from his superior. He’s constantly thankful for the older man, but in this moment, he wishes he could hug him.

(A voice that sounds dangerously close to Ethan’s rises up and taunts him in his ear: he wouldn’t want a dirty homo like you anywhere near him—)

Derek doesn’t let up on the case, continuing to bug him about the special lady in his life. He does concede that it could’ve been a one night stand, which is one front he’s right on, but a couple more concessions are necessary before Derek comes close to the truth of last night.

Eventually, Derek stops, and Spencer notes that the cessation of comments comes suspiciously close to the last time Derek and Hotch were alone together. He doesn’t have it in him to feel angry at Hotch for stepping in when he had it handled; doesn’t have the energy to act as though his pride is wounded, because really, neither of those things are true, and he doesn’t need to add another item to ‘Spencer Reid’s List of Things He Pretends to Be.’

The situation is forgotten, and time moves on.

Things change when he finds his first proper boyfriend. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the giddying rush of emotions it turns out to be, and Spencer spends his days smiling as he daydreams his time away.

His name is Oscar Wilkins, a History professor at Georgetown University, and Spencer falls quickly in love with him. Ever since their mutual friend had introduced them at a gay bar one evening, they’d spent all their free time together. He’s kind and gentle and understanding of Spencer’s hectic and unpredictable job, and he finally has the chance to experience everything he quietly and shamefully longed for as a teenager.

The only downside is the silent breaking of Spencer’s heart that the most important people in his life can’t meet his boyfriend. He longs to show Oscar off, to hold hands in front of his team, lean up to press a tender kiss to Oscar’s lips. He wants to put a framed picture of the two of them at the Washington Monument on his desk to remind him of why he needs to get through the hard days; he doesn’t want to have to sneak out of the hotel room he shares with Derek to whisper hushed, loving goodnights over the phone.

But he’s too scared. Too cowardly.

It’s different being who he is with his gay group of friends littered with wlws and drag queens and other gay and bisexual guys. They understand.

But Derek and Hotch are two extremely masculine, alpha men: Derek’s a ladies’ man and Hotch is married to a woman he met in college with a baby on the way and both have a strong and dominant energy that still sometimes manages to intimidate Spencer even after all these years. And Elle and JJ are lovely — some of his closest friends, really — but sometimes they remind him a little too much of the mean girls he went to high school with.

The hardest person to keep his secret from, though, is Penelope. She’s his best friend and he desperately wants to give her all of him, but he’s so scared. He’s lost a best friend to this secret before, and even though he’s certain she’d be fine with it, what if she accidentally let it slip to Derek? What if Hotch found out and didn’t see him in the same light anymore? What if the girls started teasing him? What if Gideon didn’t want to mentor him anymore?

The fear paralyses him. And it’s a cycle he doesn’t know how to break.

Fear, though, doesn't stop everyone from noticing his daydreaming, his dopey smile when he checks his messages, his urgency to get home where he would’ve stayed until the small hours of the morning before. As excellent as he is at hiding his sexuality, he’s fucking terrible at hiding the fact that he’s in love: it was easy enough to pretend he was straight, but hiding something this all-consuming is an impossible ask.

Derek comes over to perch on the edge of his desk one afternoon, sighing as he sits down. “Pretty boy, this is getting ridiculous,” he says, snatching Spencer’s attention away from his phone. “You’ve been grinning like an idiot for the last twenty minutes as you’ve texted Future Mrs Reid. When are we going to meet her?”

(He hates the new nickname the team has given his mystery significant other, although Oscar had found it hilarious. “It’s funny because when we get married, we’ll hardly be able to tell,” he’d argued through his laughter. “Neither of us will change our name because of our academic profiles, and we’ll both still be ‘Dr’. Our wedding rings will be the only indicator.”

Spencer hadn’t argued back, because he’d been too tongue-tied and flushed pink at Oscar’s use of ‘when’ in regards to their hypothetical nuptials. It was only made bearable by Oscar kissing him gently and tucking him under his arm, not embarrassing him any further as Spencer had sort of anticipated, warmth settling over his chest at the thought of their future together.)

“You won’t,” he replies, perhaps a little too curtly.

Derek starts at that, clearly not expecting it. He definitely should’ve tried to play it off as a joke. “What— should I be offended, pretty boy?”

You wouldn’t call me that if you knew who I really am.

“That’s up to you, Derek,” he says calmly, although he still can’t meet his eyes, “but you won’t meet the ‘Future Mrs Reid, so I think it would probably be best if you left it alone.”

“Damn,” Derek mutters under his breath, clearly pissed off and probably more hurt than Spencer ever intended. “Suit yourself.”

And with that, he gets up and leaves his desk. Spencer’s only solace is the text message he sees on his phone when he picks it back up: I love you so much. You know that, right?

The light-hearted ridicule comes to an abrupt halt after the incident with Derek, and it’s clear that he had been the biggest contributor to the teasing. He’s thankful that the jokes have stopped, but he wishes desperately that it didn’t come with the growing distance between him and his team. Loneliness takes the place of his previous irritated anxiety, and he isn’t sure what’s worse.

It all comes to a head at the end of a case in Michigan. They’re stuck in the lounge of the small inn they’d stayed in the last few days, a snowstorm having blocked them in and grounded the jet, although Gideon had long since retreated to his room. The fire’s going and they’re the only guests around, so it’s cosy enough, but Spencer can’t help but feel sick at the idea of another night away from home.

It’s only been two weeks since he’d snapped at Derek, but the chasm between him and the team is only widening with each passing day. He knows it’s not a case of ‘pick a side’, but the team’s morale relies on light-hearted banter and teasing, and him not being a part of that anymore has only brewed awkwardness. Everyone’s trying to give him space when space is the last thing he wants.

Oscar’s keeping him company over the phone at least, but it’s not quite enough to quell the loneliness swimming around his stomach, and the 'discrete' sideways looks he gets from the team only make him feel worse.

“At least it’s nice and toasty in here,” JJ sighs as she takes a sip of the hot chocolate the kindly inn owner had made for them all.

Elle hums in agreement. “There are worse places to be grounded.”

“I dunno, man, I just wanna get home,” Derek says, not taking his eyes off the fire. Spencer can’t help but agree.

“Oh, come on,” Hotch muses, considerably more jovial now the case is over, “we’re here, and that’s not going to change any time soon. We should make the most of it.”

“It’s at least nice to be somewhere sort-of Christmassy now it’s December,” Elle points out. “We could be stuck in a dingy police station like we probably will be next week.”

“Ooh, I noticed that Jemimah and Kiran started planning the Christmas party last week,” JJ says, smiling at them. “I offered my help, but they seem to have it covered.”

Hotch raises an eyebrow“That’s probably a good thing. You don’t need more work on your plate.”

“Not gonna argue with that,” she murmurs, smiling as she brings her mug to her lips again.

Spencer doesn’t miss that Derek is still stewing on the opposite side of the room.

“Are you looking forward to the Christmas party, Spencer? Will you come?” Hotch asks, clearly trying to rope him into the conversation, which he appreciates. He’s been making a lot of effort with him the past few weeks, and it’s just about the only thing that’s getting him through each day.

Before he can reply, though, Derek erupts from the other side of the room; an already pissed-off man being pushed over the edge. “He won’t even let us meet his fucking girlfriend, Hotch, he’s not gonna want to come to the Christmas party!” he yells, throwing his hands in the air as he glares at Spencer with a stormy expression raging across his face.

Suddenly, Spencer can’t stay silent anymore, and his retort shocks himself just as much as it does everyone else. “I don’t have a girlfriend!”

It might be the loudest he’s ever shouted in his whole life. He’s always been quiet and restrained, the type to state his feelings as calmly as possible no matter how he’s feeling on the inside. Even in the biggest fight he’s had with Oscar, his voice was barely loud enough to qualify as a shout.

There’s a brief stunned silence, but Derek quickly slices his way through it, voice raising to meet Spencer’s fiery emotion, fierce and loud. “Oh, don’t even go there, Reid, you’re really gonna try and argue that? You’re gonna lie about her as well as not let us meet her? What a boyfriend you are.”

“I don’t! I don’t have a girlfriend!” he repeats, voice catching this time as tears rise unbidden to the backs of his eyes and all the emotions of the journey he’s taken with his sexuality over the years flood him in a wave of intensity he’s not prepared for.

“You’re fucking lying—!”

“I have a boyfriend!” he yells. “Alright? I have a boyfriend. I’m gay.”

The anger and emotion quickly dissipates, and he’s left standing alone in front of the team he’s put so much effort into hiding this from, watching shock spell out across everyone’s expressions. He’s never felt smaller than he does in that moment, and he quickly grabs his phone before running upstairs to his room, locking the door behind him.

“Oh God, Oscar, I fucked up so bad,” he cries over the phone as soon as his boyfriend picks up.

“Hey, hey, breathe, baby,” Oscar says gently, but Spencer can hear the anxious concern in his voice, “it’s gonna be okay, I promise. I’m here. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I just— Oh God, I just told the team.” A new wave of horror rolls over him as he realises what he’s done. Times might be changing, but it’s still only 2006, and he doesn’t know each and every nuance of his team members’ political positions and, fuck, he hates that his existence is a fucking political position.

Oscar’s been so understanding of his reluctance to not tell the team, even though Spencer’s met pretty much everyone in his life. He isn’t sure what he’s done to earn such a gracious and understanding boyfriend, but he’s not about to question it.

“Baby, I know it’s scary, and I know you’re really worked up right now,” he counsels, voice soft and reassuring, using the nickname he knows Spencer loves the most to make him feel as safe as he can from 700 miles away, “but it’s probably not as bad as you think. From what you’ve told me about the team, they love you so much, and even in the case that in the past they've had some issue with gay people, I can't imagine they’d ever actually think of you any differently when it comes down to it, Spencer.”

He’s crying too hard to reply, and Oscar understands immediately, gently transitioning into a story about his day that slowly starts to calm him down, and by the time he’s wrapping it up, his tears are starting to subside.

“Thank you, Ozzy,” he whispers into the phone, lifting himself up off the floor and making his way to sit on the bed instead.

“You know I’d do anything for you, sweetheart,” he murmurs warmly. “Do you want me to stay on the phone for a bit?”

“Yes please,” he whispers again, holding it as close to himself as possible, drawing all the comfort he can from his boyfriend’s voice.

He lies there listening to Oscar’s voice and trying not to think about the disaster downstairs for a good ten minutes before there’s a tap at the door.

“Oz, there’s someone here,” he says, voice panicked.

“I think you should probably speak to them, baby,” he urges. “I’ll stay on the phone with you while you do, if you like?”

“Please.” He gets up from the bed gingerly, keeping his phone tightly gripped in his right hand as he slowly unlocks the door with his left, revealing Hotch on the other side.

“Hey, Spencer. Do you mind if I come in?”

He’s riddled with nerves, but Hotch is smiling warmly, and he’s never said a harsh word to Spencer, so he steps aside and lets him into his room.

Hotch quickly notices the phone in his hand, visibly still on a call. “Is that your boyfriend?”

Spencer nods.

“Do you mind if I talk to him?”

His brows knit in confusion and his lips part slightly in surprise, but it’s all he can do to hand the phone over, watching Hotch carefully.

“Hi, Spencer tells me this is his boyfriend?” Hotch inquires politely into the phone, his tone still warm. “I’m Hotch, Spencer’s boss.”

He can vaguely hear Oscar speaking on the other end of the line, and he worries slightly that Oscar will somehow give away the familial feelings he holds for Hotch, but the conversation doesn’t last long enough for the anxiety to really take over.

“Everything’s fine here, I just want to have a conversation with Spencer, so is it alright if we hang up and I talk to him alone for a minute? He can call you straight back afterwards.” After a brief pause in which Oscar says something, Hotch looks back up at him. “Are you okay with that, Spencer?”

He nods hesitantly, and Hotch says a quick goodbye to Oscar before surging forwards and wrapping Spencer in a hug. It catches him off guard, but he doesn’t waste any time in burying his face into Hotch’s neck and soaking in the comfort and warmth that always radiates from his father figure.

“Come on,” Hotch says softly as they pull away a good minute or so later, “let’s sit down, shall we?”

“You’re not mad?” Spencer can’t help but ask, the question burning his tongue as anxiety — however quietened from Hotch’s hug — still swims around in his stomach.

“There are many things that could make me mad, Spencer,” he says earnestly, “but this is not one of them. I would never be angry at you for being who you are, okay? I might… I might be overstepping here, and if I am, then tell me and I’ll back off, but I’ve always seen you as a mentee, and over the years that’s developed— well, I see you more as a son these days. And part of that is wanting to protect and support you no matter what you do or say or who you are.”

Spencer wastes no time in diving back in for a hug, clinging onto Hotch for dear life as he hugs back, rubbing his back gently.

“I’m so sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us sooner, Spencer,” he says in a voice soft with affection and regret. “But I’m so glad you’ve told us now.”

He only presses closer at that, tears springing back to his eyes. “I didn’t want to lose you.” He knows what he’s implying, and even in a roundabout way, he’s glad he’s telling Hotch.

“Oh, Spence,” he sighs sadly, “you couldn’t do a single thing to lose me. I’m in it for the long haul.”

“Really?” he asks, hating how insecure he sounds.

“Really,” Hotch promises, pulling away as Spencer does. “Now, you have a whole team of agents downstairs who are feeling very sorry for themselves and really want to see you.”

Nausea rolls in his stomach and panic springs back up as he looks at Hotch, desperate for some sort of grounding. “Are they angry at me? Do they hate me now?”

“No one hates you, Spencer,” he says firmly. “I promise you that. Everyone just wishes that they’d made you feel more welcome and comfortable. We all hate that you felt you had to lock up something so integral to who you are, and we can’t help but feel we played a part in it.”

“No,” he protests — the last thing he wants is family blaming themselves when it has nothing to do with them, “it’s not your fault, it’s just…”

Hotch nods. “I understand, it’s okay. Now, do you want to go down and see them? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but it might help ease your mind to see that they really don’t hate you.”

Spencer pauses, taking a moment to think. “Can I see Derek first?”

“Of course,” Hotch says understandingly, and the comforting smile that crosses his face makes Spencer feel safe and taken care of. “I’ll send him up?”

Spencer nods and Hotch hugs him once more before leaving the room almost reluctantly. He wastes no time in picking up his phone and sending a text to Oscar. You were right. Hotch is fine. He’s just sending Derek up before I go and see the team but he says that no one’s angry and I think I believe him. Thank you, Oscar. I love you.

Not even half a minute goes past before his phone lights up with a text back. I’m so glad, baby. Call me later, okay? I want to make sure you’re okay before I go to bed. I love you more.

Before Spencer can argue that actually, he is the one more in love with the other, a hesitant knock sounds on his door. Nerves suddenly flip his stomach, and he clenches and unclenches his fists a couple of times before forcing himself to cross the room, revealing a very worried and regretful-looking Derek.

“Oh, pretty boy,” he says sadly, before crushing Spencer in a warm and tender hug. Immediately, he relaxes into the arms of one of his best friends, and relief courses through his blood at Derek’s reaction. “I am so sorry that I ever made you feel like you couldn’t tell me that you were gay or had a boyfriend. That’s completely on me. I don’t care who you love, Spencer, I just want you to be happy, okay? And if this guy makes you happy, then that’s fine by me. But if he ever lays a hand on you or—”

“Derek, Derek,” he laughs, “it’s fine I get it. Thank you, though, I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier and for snapping at you in the bullpen that time…”

“I understand, Spence,” he promises. “It’s in the past, okay? And I’m sorry for pushing so hard. I mean, I’d love to meet him but if you don’t feel comfortable or you don’t want to, that’s fine, too. It’s your life, man.”

“No, I… I think I want you guys to meet him. It’s been so hard to keep him away from the people I consider my family, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Maybe after Christmas, we can all have dinner or something.”

Spencer smiles shyly. “Well, Oscar’s a great cook, so I reckon we could work something out.”

Derek grins, throwing an arm around his shoulders as he immediately jumps back into teasing him as they make their way to the door to go downstairs and see the rest of the team. “Ooh, lover boy’s got him a chef, hey? What else does this Oscar have going for him?”

Spencer chatters eagerly about his boyfriend to Derek, barely skipping a beat when he joins everyone downstairs, his friends taking his cues and joining in with the conversation seamlessly. He’s had enough fuss for one night, and the warmth and understanding on everyone’s faces tells him everything he needs to know.

“Do you have any pictures of him?” JJ asks, raising an eyebrow with eager expectancy as they all settle back into their seats by the fire, a warm and unbelievably happy feeling settling in Spencer’s stomach.

He blushes, digging out his phone from his pocket and unlocking it. “More than a few, I think.”

He finds the most recent picture of his boyfriend — a candid shot of him cooking in the kitchen, spatula aloft, and a huge grin on his face — and hands the phone around.

“Oh wow, you like them buff, huh, pretty boy?” Derek teases as soon as he gets his hands on it, and Spencer’s stomach twists in a sudden bout of fear, expecting to see some hesitancy or even disgust on his friend’s face. What if he thinks that Spencer has a crush on him? What if he’s uncomfortable around him now?

But if Derek’s having any of those thoughts, they don’t show on his face. He’s smiling widely and openly, all the pent-up anxiety and frustration borne from hurt gone from his body language, and he looks completely comfortable sat next to Spencer, his arm stretched out behind him on the back of the sofa.

They sit happily around the fire for a couple of hours, settling into a happy, intimate familiarity Spencer hadn’t realised was missing when he was hiding something so integral to his being from his family, and he’s still smiling when they finally part ways to head to bed, the clock ticking closer and closer to 1 am.

He gets ready for bed quickly, brushing his teeth and throwing on the top he’d stolen from Oscar the first time he’d stayed at his place; a welcome change from his worn and wrinkled suit. As soon as his teeth are brushed and the lights are all off except for his bedside lamp, he pulls out his phone, knowing there’s one more thing he has to do before he goes to sleep.

“Spencer?” Penelope’s voice sounds down the line, clearly concerned. “It’s almost 2 am here, are you okay?”

“I’m gay,” he says, getting straight to the point. The main reason he ever kept it from her was because of his fear of it accidentally getting out to the team rather than fear over her reaction. After all, multiple of his drag queen friends are also hers.

“Oh my God,” she says in that small voice she uses when she’s not actually talking to you, before finally actually replying to me. “Spencer, I’m so happy you told me!”

He doesn’t miss her choice of words, or the way she says them and he tilts his head suspiciously. “You already knew, didn’t you?”

She sighs. “Yeah. I’m sorry, a couple of months ago I saw a text from Oscar on your phone when you went to the bathroom during one of our Doctor Who marathons, and it wasn’t hard to figure out the relationship.”

“And… wait, you’re not mad at me for not telling you sooner?”

“Spencer! Of course not. I was waiting for you to be comfortable enough to share it with me. I felt awful that I knew without your consent but I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to catch you off guard or make you feel uncomfortable. It’s fine that you waited, baby genius, I’m just so happy you told me now. What finally gave you the courage?”

“Well, it might have slipped out in front of the team this evening,” he admits sheepishly, “and the only reason I never told you was because I was scared that it would slip out somehow — accidentally, of course, I didn’t think you’d tell anyone on purpose — and now everyone knows. It’s been killing me not to tell you, Penelope, it really has because I love you so much and you’re my best friend and I trust you with my life, it’s just…”

“Whoa, slow down, Spence,” she laughs fondly, “you don’t have to explain yourself to me, I understand. But I’m glad you finally told everyone and you can be yourself completely with us, now. We all love you no matter what, you know that right?”

“I do now.”

“Good. You should get some sleep, baby boy, it’s late and you’ve had an emotional evening.”

Spencer smiles. “Yeah, I know. You should, too, Pen. I’ll see you when we can finally make it home, okay? Love you.”

“Love you, too, 187,” she says softly, and Spencer can hear the smile in her voice. “Goodnight.”

As soon as he hangs up, he settles down into the bed, turning off the light and pulling the duvet up over his shoulders before dialling one more number.

“Hey, baby,” Oscar says, voice as gentle and caring as it always is, although thicker with tiredness now. “I take it everything went okay?”

“Yeah,” Spencer murmurs, already feeling tired as the safety he always feels at the sound of Oscar’s voice settles into the fibres of his being. “It went so well. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone.”

“I can’t wait either, sweetheart. Are you in bed now?”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Can you talk to me as I fall asleep?”

“Anything for you, Spence,” he says softly, before transitioning seamlessly into a story about the professors on campus, and his gentle comfort and the knowledge of the unconditional love his family has for him finally lulls Spencer into the best sleep he’s had in weeks.

taglist : @criminalmindsvibez @moreidstrobed @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @reidology @i-like-buttons @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @oliverbrnch @physics-magic @sbeno22 @temily @enbyspencer @im-autistic @anxious-enby @kuolonsyoja @reidreids (add yourself to my taglist via this form!!)

[dastardlydandelion]

So...what kind of horror movie would you write featuring the Hargrove/ Mayfield family? (That you haven't written already lol)

oh boy, u may regret asking me this bc i am indecisive af and i can’t pick just one!

two that i'm actually writing are max as (g is for) ghostface killer in the abcs of neil’s death and also the max + tory nichols werewolf movie fic outlined here. also some more misc gorror junk bc i’m a demon and esp horny for susan wearing blood splatter. but more ideas commence below:

horror movie #1: another creature feature! awhile back @lucdarling sent me an ask abt max + billy hiding smth from susan and her like, playing along, pretending she doesn't know, and one of the scenarios that popped in my head was them keeping a baby bat as a pet. max finds it and she’s only like six or seven, and she thinks it’s going to turn into a vampire. so here is that scenario except horror edition: baby bat is actually a vampire type creature. not rly a vampire like, what’s prolly popping into ur head, like an undead human like dracula or smth, but like a bat monster that sucks blood.

billy being a lil older doesn’t actually think the bat is going to turn into a vampire. he makes fun of max for believing this, but he helps her take care of it anyway bc he thinks it’s cool. susan, like in the non-horror version, knows abt the bat but plays dumb bc she’s feeling a lot of guilt abt max’s difficulty adjusting to the blended fam (as of rn tho, neil has yet to reveal his abusive nature. the red flags are not yet red, more of a brownish maroon, and he is on his best behavior almost all the time, showering susan + max with affection and keeping the swears out of his mouth when he scolds billy in front of them) and knows the lil furry baby makes her happy. she tacitly cleans up after the bat whenever the kids miss a spot (bats poop a lot, dude) and distracts neil, deterring him from discovering it whenever he gets close.

baby bat gets rly big rly fast. and the older it gets, the more it starts to look monstrous. it still has bat features but it’s just like, different. its fangs grow suspiciously long, its hooks grow suspiciously long. its feet are elongated. a dorsal ridge emerges from its spine, spikes at first just flesh but soft fur rather like peach fuzz eventually sprouting. billy catches on that smth is strange abt this animal when it's as long as his forearm after two wks and still growing. he nearly shits a brick when the bat is clinging to his sweater one day and he steps in front of a mirror and only his reflection looks back at him— no bat.

max laughs at him all like, “stupid brother, ofc there’s no reflection. nosferatu is a vampire, vampires don’t have reflections.” 😂

susan catches a glimpse of the thing when nosferatu crawls out of the home max built it in her closet the same wk billy realizes it doesn’t have a reflection, and also almost shits a brick. she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s NOT a fucking bat. not a normal one, anyway! cue a comedy scene where she’s chasing it around the house with a butterfly net and it’s always one flap *ba dum tss* ahead of her, flying just out of reach. she suddenly regrets not getting rid of it sooner, scolding herself for ever allowing her daughter to keep a wild animal.

she can’t catch it. max comes home, susan tells her she needs to get rid of it. max cries, flips her the bird, refuses. billy tho…billy has mixed feelings. he loves nosferatu but he’s worried it’s going to get dangerous. he loves his dad and his dad is dangerous too. he’s stressed out enough, always on edge, knowing that one way or the other, neil is going to hurt him again. he’s already waiting for his dad to hurt him, he doesn’t need the added stress of waiting for nosferatu to hurt him too. and while max is 100% nosferatu’s favorite, it likes billy too. billy’s been handling it since it could fit in the palm of his hand, it trusts him much more than it trusts susan and doesn’t know any different when billy takes it out of the closet when max isn’t around.

billy frees nosferatu at an abandoned farm. there are always bats flying out of the old silo adjacent to the dilapidated barn. while he knows nosferatu isn’t a *normal* bat, it’s still bat like enough that he thinks it might make friends and be happy here…

yeah, that doesn’t stick. before long, nosferatu is feasting on that colony. leeches the blood out of a couple bats nightly. the number of bats increases with nosferatu’s size. meanwhile, max mourns her missing friend. she’s sullen af and won’t speak to susan at all. she thinks susan is the one who got rid of nosferatu. billy never fesses up and susan doesn’t contradict max’s assumption bc she wants the step-siblings to get along.

neil, meanwhile, is getting more comfortable. those maroon flags are slowly but surely brightening to scarlet. he starts sabotaging susan’s plans with her friends, trying to keep her around the house more and more, quietly but steadily eroding her relationships with other people. he’s getting more visibly aggressive when he disciplines billy. he curses him out with a virulent venom that dunks susan’s stomach in ice water and scares max so badly, she runs to susan and hides behind her even though she’s still so mad that susan got rid of her beloved baby vampire.

nosferatu’s appetite surpasses what the bat colony can offer. it’s like the size of a ten yr old human child now. fucker’s big. it doesn’t just have fangs on top, but tusks on bottom. it can’t go out in the sunlight anymore, the sun sears its flesh. it misses max a lot and before, it wasn’t strong enough to fly back to her house. but now it is. it’s extremely strong, actually.

so bc it's hungry, nosferatu grabs a snack along the way. some nameless rando, it swoops down and sucks dry. nourished and much happier, nosferatu makes its way back home. patiently waits outside of max’s bedroom in the moonlight, tapping its hook against the window until she wakes up. initially max is a lil startled— nosferatu looks so different, there’s a beat before she recognizes it— him?? yk, ig it’s male, the og nosferatu was a guy. sure, why not, nosferatu is a boy now.

once she realizes who it is, she is so! happy! max opens the window and embraces her friend. she isn’t freaked out by the blood on its fangs. she’s always known nosferatu is a vampire, albeit, she was thinking he’d look more like dracula than this bat-monster-thingy.

nosferatu moves back into max’s closet. it hangs upside-down from her rod by its weird, elongated feet. we get more shots of nosferatu sucking rando ppl dry at night, tho he remains gentle with max. when max drags billy in to show her he came back, nosferatu is less friendly with him. he’s not aggressive with billy, but he is standoffish. nosferatu’s thought process is somewhere between human and animal. he doesn’t quite cognitively understand that billy took him to the farm with the intent of getting rid of him, but he does understand that the last time he clung to billy, billy left him alone and never came back. max puts two and two together, and realizes it was billy who “stole” her friend. she yells at him a lot, he yells back, she then ices him out.

billy acts out bc he’s upset. runs away, thinks he’s going to find his mom…the cops find him first and call neil. neil is rly embarrassed and pissed abt the whole thing. he breaks down and beats billy in front of the mayfields for the first time. nosferatu smells the blood and it’s time for the main event! we love dead!neil, yes, we do.

nosferatu flies out the closet and right into the living room where billy’s bleeding and teary but biting his lip so they don’t actually fall. susan’s covering max’s eyes but so shocked and tbh, FRIGHTENED, she doesn’t move a muscle beyond that. neil’s got the belt raised, preparing to bring it down again, and nosferatu smashes right into him. neil stumbles, turns back to see this freaky monster looking thing. proceeds to whip the belt at nosferatu. tries to fight him off with the belt and it doesn’t accomplish much beyond pissing him off more— nosferatu, like most classic vampire types, has a healing factor!

max rips her mom’s hands off her face in time to see her pet sink its fangs into her stepdad’s throat. nosferatu sucks neil dry. billy’s a little dazed, not quite frightened. susan is just dead ass frozen, too scared to scream, even. nosferatu crawls over to billy and nudges at him, making sure he’s in once piece and forgiving him in the same go. max darts over and that snaps susan out of her stupor, but she isn’t as fast as our blood-sucking bat monster.

nosferatu stretches his wings out and with a truly impressive wingspan, hugs both of the kids. <3

horror movie #2: a haunting! this one opens with a bang. it’s a tragic horror, beware. we’re in hawkins post s3. billy died at starcourt mall. neil’s obvi had a longstanding abusive mindset and abusive behavior, but he rly takes his grief out on susan and max. mostly susan. she does her best to protect max however she can, whether that means shielding her w her body, sending her out of the house, getting neil’s goat to inspire his ire in max’s place, etc. but sue simply isn’t around all the time and when she isn’t, but max is, well. yk.

one day neil comes home early (bc he lost his job for a violent outburst, tbh) and discovers susan packing a suitcase.

sue fights hard. she rly does. but neil is bigger, heavier, crueler, and to boot, he caught her completely unawares. he kills her. and no, no it’s not some accidental thing where neil makes one bad move rage-blind. he strangles her with his belt. she’s clawing at his arms and making these horrible choked, trapped animal noises. thrashes and twists her body with everything she has trying to get him off but he’s so strong, his grip is unrelenting, and she's growing weaker, lightheaded with the lack of oxygen. strangulation can induce incontinence and when susan blacks out, her piss streams to the hardwood— neil hears that as much as he felt the clawing and heard the noises, even now he could stop, but he doesn’t. he just. doesn’t think his wife has the right to leave him, esp not after his son just did.

neil burns the body and the suitcase in the woods while max is at school. max has been spending as much time as she can (and often with sue’s prompting) outside of the house, so it actually takes her about two days to realize her mother isn’t around. neil tells a pretty convincing story about how susan abandoned them, voice saturated with apology and sorrow. he takes her out for a fancy dinner and promises he’s going to be a better father-- that being a better father is the least he can do now that her mother abandoned her and they are alone in their grief.

max doesn’t know what to think. she’s been preoccupied with her own grief and pain. she finds it hard to believe her mother would just leave her to neil’s wrath. she has a lot of hangups with susan and anger toward her for marrying neil and not getting them out sooner, but she’s also old enough to realize there would be risks involved with that. it’s hard to reconcile the memory of her mother just last wk pinning max to the wall to protect her from neil’s blows with her own bod just abruptly taking off without a word in the middle of the night. but hey, maybe that’s why susan left. maybe she got sick of protecting her, maybe the pain got to be too much and she turned tail.

but also…it’s early october now, abt three months after billy’s death but still fairly warm outside. yet neil is wearing long sleeves. neil never used to button his collared shirts all the way up, and yet. every collar is buttoned. also, mom’s car is still here. why would mom leave without her car?

that ceramic pelican she loved so much is still here too, on the mantle in the living room. it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she would leave behind, she's had it since max was a baby.

max almost wants to believe neil because she’d rather her mother abandoned her than be dead somewhere, rotting in a storage locker or a hole in the ground. under the earth with the worms, just like billy. max has the worst feeling low in the pit of her gut. she thinks she knows the truth. she thinks abt going to hopper and hesitates bc she’s not sure she could handle it if he actually found smth. or what would happen to her if he did, where she would be sent, who she would end up with.

this movie would be more on the ambiguous end of things. an arthouse horror, if u will.

the days turn into wks and neil is crawling in his skin. the viewer isn’t sure if the shadows he’s seeing, always, always susan-shaped shadows, are of a ghostly nature or if he’s just hallucinating out of guilt. but the signs gradually point to the former— that smth paranormal is indeed going on. bc those scratches and bite marks susan left in his skin?

they do not heal. they do not get infected. they do not become necrotic. but they do not heal, either. days turn into wks and the wounds still look fresh, like she just left them moments ago. neil can’t wear light colors anymore because his wounds weep red into the fabric. he isn’t just seeing susan’s shadows either, he’s smelling her.

he washes his sheets and pillowcases a dozen times and the scent of her shampoo, her lotion, it’s like it’s woven into the fibers. he walks into the hallway and chokes on the aroma of susan’s perfume. he wonders if max is screwing with him, if max figured it out and she’s trying to torture him into a confession. one day he stomps off to max's bedroom, furious, adamant on confronting her. he grabs her doorknob, prepared to yank it open and then lets out a yelp, jerking his hand back with a sudden sharp pain.

it feels like a bee sting (which would be esp bad for this fucker in anything i write, bc i headcanon him as being allergic). but there’s no stinger. no injury. nothing. neil is freaked out enough that he backs down.

max, on the other hand, is getting gentler signs. when she turns the radio dial in the camaro, it’s somehow always her mom’s favorite songs that come thru the speakers. when she goes to pull clothes out of her drawers in the morning, she discovers that the things she’d just shoved inside in wrinkled balls are perfectly folded, neat as a pin, exactly like how susan always folded. susan was always fond of cardinals and suddenly max is seeing cardinals, pretty red cardinals, in just abt erry tree and shrub.

neil wakes up one night to his wife’s voice whispering “boo” right in his ear. he throws the covers off and discovers ashes in the bed. he doesn’t smell susan’s shampoo or lotion anymore, he smells the kerosine he’d poured all over her body.

his wounds still won’t heal. whenever he looks in the mirror, he catches a glimpse of susan walking past behind him, peering at him from her peripheral. he whips around, heart hammering, but there’s never any tangible person there.

max is almost certain her mother is dead at this point. neil’s been so bizarrely nice to her lately. she never believed in ghosts but her experiences with the upside-down broadened her perception of reality. she doesn’t know how else to explain the songs, the cardinals, the folded clothes. the way that these days, whenever she does feel fear toward neil, it just fades away. her fear melts like popsicles in the sun, immediately replaced by the sensation of a warm, maternal hug, as if arms she can’t see are trying to reassure her she truly doesn’t need to be afraid of him anymore.

in fact, max feels so unafraid of neil and brave, that one night she calls him out on it. he’s grizzled and unshaven in his recliner, beer in hand. she steps in front of the television he’s vacantly fixated on and folds her arms across her chest.

“you killed my mom, didn’t you?”

quick as a flash, neil leaps to his feet. he brings his arm back like he’s going to strike her and susan’s ceramic pelican on the mantle explodes into shards. the lights flicker, the television program cuts to snow with a static roar. every other knickknack on the mantle rattles and framed photos tumble off the wall.

neil very wisely lowers his hand. he slumps, boneless. he doesn’t say a word. max sees the answer in his eyes. it’s the dead of night and she snatches the camaro keys off the hook, marching out of the house, slamming the door behind her. it’s the dead of night and she doesn’t care. she’s going to blow past every stop sign and pound on the chief’s door until he opens up. and fuck, i just realized if this is post s3 he’s supposed to be in russia. shit. i don’t watch this show, but i know abt russia bc i DID watch the clips of that demogorgon that i rly hope isn’t stuck in captivity!! okay, but let’s pretend that didn’t happen?

it’s an au?? i mean, errything i write is always technically an au anyway, bc when i write stuff susan has an actual personality and billy isn’t *completely* abhorrent. okay, so it’s an au and mr. hopper didn’t blow up and un-blow up in russia. he’s still here. so max drives to his house.

she pounds on the door so hard this guy snaps outta bed, thinking someone’s trying to bust it down. she tells him neil confessed to killing her mom. it isn’t true, exactly, but he didn’t have to. so it’s a helluva grim drive back to cherry lane, this time in the cop car.

but when they go inside, chief prepared to arrest neil, no need. neil’s hanging from the belt he strangled susan with, shirtless for the first time since that night, erry seemingly fresh furrow and bite mark on full display. below his dangling feet is a map, the area he burned susan’s corpse in circled in red marker. did he kill himself or did the ghost do it?

up to u, we soundlessly cut to credits without a concrete answer to that question.

horror movie #3: crossover special! stranger things meets the chilling adventures of sabrina. sequel to that fic i wrote where susan makes out with lilith, queen of hell, and lilith kills neil for her. sue officially joins the church of lilith. bc in this ‘verse the church of lilith actually happens after caos s2 instead of the nonsense that was s3 and the inconceivably godawful migraine-inducing shit-fest that was s4.

killing neil was lilith’s only freebee. susan isn’t a witch, she’s a mortal, so in order to reap the other rewards of worshipping the one and only mother of demons, she has to fornicate with the witches and participate in the sacrifices!!!

this is, uh, well. it’s p much a porno, dude, sorry. 😅

this is just an excuse for susan to have sex with lilith, zelda, marie, hilda, big witch orgies + susan. witches bathing in the blood of their sacrifices, susan so nervous and timid but unable to deny her desire. the witch’s dressing her in their gothic garb.

how does the rest of the fam get it on this?

max joins the church too. she has more age-appropriate conduct with sabrina and the weird sisters, and what have you. just smooches and over-the-clothes groping, and whatnot, even tho the weird sisters, at least, would be interested in going further if given the opportunity.

billy dies in starcourt again, so he gets revived in the cain pit! hilda is the one who goes to him after bc she’s been in the cain pit many a time (i am still BIG side-eyeing zelda for repeatedly murdering her sister since childhood). hilda understands how jarring it can be to come back. suddenly alive!billy is freaking tf out but she brings him inside the mortuary, wraps him up in a big blanket burrito and they have a talk. hilda explains that he’s going to be okay and rubs his back while he tentatively sips the hot chocolate she made.

after billy’s calmed down, she brings max and susan in. max and susan can’t do as much magic as the caos witches— they’re mortals, after all, it’s not in their nature —but they’ve gained some abilities thru being in the church, following the rituals, and being carnally involved with the immortal witches. max happily shows him some of her new magic tricks.

horror movie #4: another crossover with caos. heavily inspired by creepshow episode s2e1, model kid (which i already v blatantly referenced in the last axe snafu update and i’m not ashamed, bc it’s a good series i love v much).

billy picks max up from the byers’ place rly late one night. it’s dark and the weather is bad and okay, yeh, he might be a little high. and a little concussed. he pissed neil off pretty bad the other day and okay, actually he’s defo concussed bc he doesn’t even remember what he did wrong!

needless to say, they take a wrong turn somewhere. they end up in greendale. at first max is pissed. she yells at him a lot! yells so loud hilda can hear them thru the walls of dr. cerberus’s comic shop/diner. she goes outside to see what all the fuss is abt, hilda never rly ignores youth in need. we love hilda, she deserved so much better…i’m getting distracted, okay, back to the story.

hilda ushers them inside. max is like, “ooh, comics? horror junk and comics? nvm, i’m not mad anymore.” she pats billy’s arm and wanders away to go check stuff out! hilda makes billy sit down. caos canon established that she’s psychic, at least when she wants to be. she smells the weed but she also sees his life, his trauma. billy doesn’t remember what he did to piss neil off or the abuse that followed, but hilda sees it clear as day.

he’s rude and cranky w her when she probes a little too much for his liking. hilda gently but firmly reprimands him and gets him a milkshake on this house. then she goes to check on max. she steers max to a v particular section of the shop, the one that sells model kits. now, max isn’t *huge* into model kits BUT they are p neat and she enjoys them well enough. more so when the weather is nasty and she can’t go outside. or when she needs smth to do with her hands (a trait she shares w susan) to distract herself and ease some of the anxiety when she hears her brother being beaten or her mother being shouted at.

max is actually rly impressed by the array of models. vintage ones and newer ones. monsters, slashers, final girls, tiny accessories like knives and bloodied heads. but when she gets to the paint-your-own shelf, her jaw drops to the floor.

there’s one that looks just like neil. unpainted, plain gray vinyl, but undoubtedly her stepdad. the expression on the five inch figurine is one frozen in fear.

“i think that one’s calling to you,” hilda prompts her, with the softest smile.

max blinks away her bewilderment altho she still can’t speak. she turns to hilda and turns her empty pockets inside out. hilda just waves her hand. she tells her it’s on the house. that it wouldn’t be fair if she gave billy smth on the house, but not max.

speaking of billy, when he finishes his milkshake, he’s suddenly totally sober and healed!! no more high buzzing in his blood. no more pounding headache or concussion fogging his mind. he doesn’t feel his bruises anymore, rolls his sleeve up, and realizes they simply aren’t there anymore. like they dissolved off his skin.

albeit it’s muttered under his breath, but billy does thank hilda. then he and max are on their way. max shows him the suspiciously familiar figurine in the box. this night cannot get weirder.

max knows what to do with the model kit. she does. she isn’t sure how she knows, but she does. she grapples with it for a long time. neil’s the closest thing she has to a dad these days. and things aren’t bad all the time, ofc.

sometimes neil gives max a ride when mom and billy aren’t available. sometimes he brings her ice cream entirely unprompted. neil’s the one who picks max up off the sidewalk when she wipes out super bad on her skateboard, carries her inside and then later to the car when her cut doesn’t stop bleeding and she ends up needing stitches.

but most of the time he sucks. she can’t rly be herself around him. he's indifferent to her interest at best, scornful at worst. he would hate all her friends. he scares the shit out of her when he’s angry. he doesn’t have a problem belittling her mother in front of her, tearing susan to shreds and making her out like she’s lower than dirt, the most worthless person on the planet. doesn’t have a problem beating billy in front of her or glaring at her with the promise that she’ll be next if she dares to voice her dissent.

max doesn’t always want to do what she knows she’s meant to do with the model. bc she's kind at heart and bc on the good days, she genuinely does have mixed feelings toward neil. never enough to hope he'll be better, he's proven he won't...but maybe enough to hope he won't get worse, either.

then comes the night neil breaks ribs. bad, like we’re talking, a-sharp-spear-of-broken-rib-punctures-billy’s-lung-and-he’s-coughing-up-blood-bad. that’s a trip to the emergency room. in the days that follow, at her next dnd meeting w the party, max places the fully and attentively painted model of her stepdad on the table. normally her pals would protest her derailing the intended game, but they can sense it, yk, that smth is different.

max takes over as dungeon master to the protest of no one, all other mouths sealed as if bewitched and spellbound. she narrators a scene where the demogorgon devours neil and uses the demogorgon piece and the model for demonstration.

when max returns home, neil is strewn across the house in gory chunks and torn wallpaper curls around massive claw marks.

[dirtyrottenraskel]

my take on yueki's personalities

yue 

notes / personality

cocky (but also like understated confidence - r e g a l af) 

kind of a nerd

maybe a little entitled, and a little bratty and suki loves to indulge her or to rile her up depending on her mood

books

seems soft but made of steel

strong sense of duty

socially intelligent - can be manipulative and suki (the dork) thinks it is so hot 

aloof queen bee typa beat

supportive, both in ur day to day and in going after your big moral life goals 

deep water - steady and powerful, often underestimated

untold depths, private yet surprisingly nurturing - master of deflecting away from herself

political nerd - well read, and when she has someone she trusts not to take advantage of her, she goes OFF 

distrusting of most people, has been used and ignored and underestimated her whole life

patient - homegirl knows how to play the long game

excellent at pai sho / chess 

she and suki have epic battles of wits - dif types of strategy but both are really into it and get a little too competitive (multiple board games have had to be replaced over the years)

loves travel bc wasn’t allowed to much, esp when she was sick 

was super repressed growing up - never let her be herself or really have any sort of independence

used to sneak out and wander around in rebellion and casually sabotage plans and decisions she didn’t agree with 

introverted, many opinions but keeps them to herself, discreet but well spoken

weaponizes secrets and information - doesn’t often use it but...she could

definitlyyyyy worries and overthinks and re-evaluates - worries ab social politics a lot

obsessive about picking things - wants it to be perfect

shes growing into her confidence as a leader

prefers quite intimate places

incredibly romantic

classic lit

planner for the future - visionary

kind / sweet / gentle - yes, but that’s also her “front” to a degree (seriously, i feel like she gets painted as so sweet and submissive and one dimensional by the fandom a lot of times and it freakin kills me)

INFJ-T (The Advocate) ((yes this is from 16p which i know is not super accurate but u can still catch her overall vibes from it ya know)

Creative/insightful/principled/compassionate/altruistic

sensitive/reluctant to open up/perfectionist/prone to burnout/not a fan of the ordinary

friendships / relationships

(<> indicates that they’re one of her best friends)

sokka - puppy love crushes, laugh ab it now, get into deep late night talks about responsibilities and leading, water tribe culture, prank wars (no one believes sokka when he says yue is a mean prank master (expect suki comes to see it in action lol))

katara - <> badass women friendship, totally would go to matches and protests together, tough girl shit, waterbending practice/duels - start of cautious, but then get rough in a good way bc they trust each other, they do water tribe food adventures together

toph - indulges her chaos, bonding over stupid royal upbringings, odd yet weirdly endearing pair

zuko - both sort of standoffish gay royals, but once they come to see that they are friends - take up similar spaces though, so only hang out in a group or rarely by themselves, they do hang out at like political parties and stuff when they get more comfortable together

aang - <> he has an impressive world view, yue is super studied and well read, so she and aang nerd out over past cultures together, and also their peace keeping nature, they have tea together often - usually after she and katara wipe the floor w/ each other

clothing / aesthetic:

blues and pale colors

classy and understated wealth

like those cute feminine button down shirts

dresses

like cold weather classy

complicated braids

sort of soft girl aesthetic?

pleated skirts !!!

i feel like she would wear ethically sourced fur (i don’t wear fur but idk how to get it in an ethical way - maybe it’s just fake??)

knit sweaters and skinny jeans and heeled ankle boots

light academia !!!

hella funky earrings - to mark her native pride and also cuz gay

from my readings, tattoos have a lot of cultural significance for Inuit women, and so i feel like yue would totally have some (when she comes of age ofc) 

suki

notes / personality 

extroverted 

also very strategic 

more spontaneous tho - will totally calculate the odds in a spilt second in her head and then just go for it

like still a careful planner, but willing to say fuck it, yolo if it seems right 

reflects on her mistakes, but more in like a healthy way - unless it was a leadership mistake, then it eats her up inside - worries more ab keeping her girls safe and making the right call

likes lively places

total bashful romantic

manages the present and the short term - realist

loves to do lists 

a little punch happy - loves to make violent threats, but also does it out of excitement and she’s just a really physical person tbh

steady, can come off as stubborn and abrasive but she really just wants what’s best for everyone she loves

harsh on herself and worries about her girls a lot 

always ends up in the oddest situations 

totally would kick someone’s ass for being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc 

dedicated to her training and her regime 

not a great cook, but she can manage 

would drink monsters 

has a weird relationship with femininity - took her awhile to reconcile strength and toughness and being assertive and aggressive with also wanting to feel pretty and feminine and embracing being a girl and how those things can coincide and amplify each other

abandonment issues - parents absent/dead 

was imprisoned - obvi she had several almost successful escape attempts, but she got really close to breaking 

was incredibly independent really early, grew up really fast and tries to make up for that now by sometimes being reckless 

tough/assertive/woman of action 

dry sense of humor/sarcastic - not good at nickname/pun humor tho

practical/dedicated/strong-willed/direct/honest/reliable/loyal/patient

stubborn/judgmental/difficult to relax/difficulty expressing emotions/too selfless 

friendships / relationships

(<> indicates that they’re one of her best friends)

sokka - <>  man they’re like platonic soulmates - she beat him up, and now they spar all the time, totally funny and crack jokes all the time, go skating together, they do shitty art together, and then show their lovers after zuko and yue come back from their high society mixers, broke her out of prison, m/f friendship !!! 

katara - also sparring buddies (suki will throw down at any literally moment (and tbh so will katara)), not close but will hang in a group - go to each other for advice 

toph - <> listen these two wreak havoc together, they help each other out a lot, i feel like they’re shopping buddies (similar enough style to frequent the same shops) toph knows suki won’t judge her for wanting to feel pretty and suki knows toph will be honest, they are both blunt sarcastic assholes and get along like a house on fire 

zuko - <> shows zuko how to like,,,enjoy things (and how to let go of some of that pressure to be always right and the adult and in charge bc they were raised with so much responsibility on their shoulders even tho they were just kids)? she is also super protective of him (once she trusts him), one of the only ppl who can match suki fully in hand to hand combat, both do the Disappointed Parent Look when the group falls into chaos, but by themselves, the two of them end up in hijinks

aang- suki enjoys his optimism and they’re just chill bros, they love exploring abandoned placed together 

clothing / aesthetic

sporty and skater mixed 

ripped jeans, crewnecks, vans 

green and yellow and dark red 

gym clothes/athleisure - lifting style gym clothes - cut off t-shirts and bike shorts

skirts too, likes to play into femininity

she’s a gold jewelry kinda girl - but stuff that won’t hinder her movements 

necklaces that end in the hollow of her throat & occasionally rings

definitely cuffs all of her jeans (it’s just bisexual culture ya know)

so many crop tops - some came like that, some were more of a diy project

yueki’s relationship!!!

nerd/jock solidarity 

feel the burden of responsibility and the weight on their shoulders 

they create a safe space between them, full of trust and warmth and vulnerability 

yue will read suki sappy passages from poetry books while suki polishes her fans 

they slow dance in the kitchen a lot 

they get good at ordering takeout - and they have some weird decision making process that only they understand - bc neither of them are great cooks 

yue would feel jealous of suki and sokka, if it weren’t for how stupid in love sokka was with zuko and yue can see that suki really only has eyes for her 

yue is taller than suki and it amuses her to no end to pick suki up and carry her away from a fight (we all know suki could get away if she wanted to, but when ur hot tall sexy gf throws u over her shoulder,,,,,,u don’t complain)

joke they’ve adopted kataang and zukka, bc they’re all dummies, but in reality every last one of them is stupid LMAO 

they love to do each other’s hair and it’s like super intimate and really cute 

sometimes it’s these epic elaborate hairstyles and then at other times, they try to see how many ponytails they can fit on suki’s head and how many little braid yue can do 

they travel EVERYWHERE 

since yue is royalty and suki is her body guard,,,, well i mean, they totally have to see these kingdoms they are doing trade deals with in person 

it helps that they're friends with a lot of them 

they stay over in everything from camping so they can stargaze to ritzy hotels with hot tubs in the bathroom 

yue gives suki rocks she finds on all their travels and suki lines them up on their mantle around the pictures of them in increasingly weird locations 

suki loves guarding yue’s meetings bc she gets to watch her absolutely rip a new one into misogynistic old men and it never fails to bring her joy 

While yue doesn’t love getting attacked, the ruthless efficiency suki defends her with is like,,,,,stupid attractive 

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 11 reactions; the ‘the sea is a harsh mistress’ edition

- on first watch this wasn’t really one of my favorite episodes. I think it’s something to do with... one of the many things I love about the mandalorian is how it made the star wars universe feel HUGE. big and surprising and unknowable, there could be fucking anything out there man we don’t know. so having first bo katan show up and then ahsoka being set up right after (quite aside from who’s rumoured to play her, which is an entirely different can of wormy beans) in additon to opening the season on tatooine... eh. I’m not that into it, it feels like shrinking the world. we haven’t even gotten to see any other type of force user yet. it is only early/mid season tho so they’re probably going to pull some unexpected twists on us 

my opinion might change with rewatches too, that happens quite a bit with this show!

- 

🎶I’VE COME TO TALK WITH YOU AGAIN🎶

honestly I had kind of a hard day yesterday and watched this the next morning and kept pointing tiredly to the crest like ‘it me tho’ 

- I was unreasonably happy about seeing the calamari flan again hahaha he’s been keeping that shit in his pockets for a season and a half now (didn’t he pay with some at one other point too?)! also the sound effects for them are SO EXCELLENT, I keep thinking about how well this show does texture which is wild considering how it’s filmed 

- the warm pat din gave frog lady’s arm when he thanked her and said goodbye 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I love the small ways he’s thawing 

-

my heart ached so much for him at this point, he just looks so small and tense and lost, like a kid who’s lost his parents in a supermarket

(he keeps his hand on the blaster the whole time too so he knows this is a bad scene but now they’re right out in the middle of the ocean already soooo) 

- din’s very very very dry sense of humour is so blessed. ‘a bowl of chowder for my friend’ faklhfsadkjlfhsadkjhfsd

the baby’s look when he poked the squid thing with his knife too -- yodito’s like ‘dad is a wizard??’ haha. some good baby & dad stuff in this one 

- oh din... side quest boy, side quest booooooyyy

- the shot when bo katan helped him out of the water is perfectly mirroring the scene of bb!din being pulled up to safety by the mandalorian in the flashback, which seems Very Intentional

I Extremely Do Not Trust Her in the larger scale tho. I think it’s important that din knows now that he was raised in a very specific offshoot of the mandalorians ant that there’s some Stuff he hasn’t been told, but I also think it’s crucial to remember that her pov is not unbiased either and she, in fact, already has an established tendency to selectively share information with him to manipulate him into fulfilling her goals. (which he realizes because he keeps saying ‘that is not my mission, my mission is the child’ and I could not love him more). hell, I’m not sure exactly how ‘the children of the watch’ were positioned within death watch, but she was fucking death watch too for the longest time! and she hardly left for particularly noble reasons, she just didn’t like maul! she already lost mandalore like twice, do we just have to trust that third time’s the charm or what! 

she lied to him about the scope of the mission to force him into a position to do what she wanted (fully knowing he’s responsible for a child!!) and she called that ‘the way’ just as easily as the thing about not letting his bravery be forgotten! big red warning lights, NO! I think the thing is that din is having to find his own ‘way’ of being mandalorian (/how does one be a person exactly help?? relatable content, and he’ll get there in the end I’m sure he’s so good), but her way is no less fucked up to me than the children of the watch from what we’ve seen so far. she’s good at killing imperials though which is of course a mark in her favour

(considering that the episode gives her the epithet ‘the heiress’... yeah that’s probably a hint that she’s loyal first and foremost to her entitlement, getting the position she considers hers by right of inheritance. guess we’ll see if the text agrees with her)  

- ‘mandalorians are stronger together’ yeah that’s probably why the cosmic balance makes sure they’re mostly engaged in being at each other’s throats lol 

- so I might be feeling kind of sketch about these guys but on the other hand... when that one lady saved the baby and then promptly took off her helmet to reveal she looks like t h i s ?

you better BELIEVE I was ready to fall down on one knee and propose right then and there holy shit

- ...wow if he didn’t have the jet pack din probably would have just sunk like a rock and drowned there huh 😨 that armour’s pretty heavy, turns out

- in happier news: din has become so good at reading what the child is expressing and responding/labeling the feeling for him! that’s so important to his development! ‘I know you’re hungry’ and both telling and showing him there’s a solution! still a bit of an issue that he thinks he can inform the baby of things like it’s a reasoned adult and have it understand, but we’re getting there we’re getting there lol

- that poor lady guiding them in for landing and sounding more and more worried fhkasjdlhfkjsdlahf (and he fucking TURNS OFF THE RADIO or whatever he’s using to talk to her through sdkfhaksdfhjs he takes a precious split second just to cut her off asfdjhaslkdfsdfhsda I love my salty dad) 

- when the fisherman asshole tells mando he knows where to find more of his people there’s the tinkling bell sound in the background music, I think it’s meant to convey almost childlike longing for belonging and connection, for finding someone who’ll know what to do? 

- when they took off their helmets and baby looked up at din like ‘???dad what the fuck? can you do that???’. (or like he just sensed his father taking a shitload of psychic damage all in one go)

- the way din didn’t start breathing again until they got the baby up from the water and he had him in his arms... the way he held him... sladfhasdklfhsjakdhfjsakldhfsakjldhfsjkadhfjaskdhfskajdhfjsdakhfslakhfskladhfsakljdhfjskadlhfkjsld

that whole scene was like a nightmare, so desperately unpleasant, in a way it mirrors the way the mandalorians have been hunted down and pummeled these last few generations, this must sort of be what it feels like to him subconsciously 

- din isn’t particularly inflexible as a person, after the initial kneejerk rejection he did listen to what they said and is carefully considering it (he did say ‘this is the way’ back at the end!)   

- the baby’s babbling when he wakes up and looks around in the beginning sounds half like ‘baba?’ and I almost had a heart attack

- loved how greasy and awful and dumb all the empire dudes were (and the comedy on board the ship too it was good for me) 

- the boob plates huh. shit they’ve shown with the armorer that they don’t have to do that in any way shape or form and they still brought the boob plates back :/ I guess it’s so they match up with the rebels/clone wars look, evoking that ~*era*~ and everything, but I don’t have to like it lol  

- I feel so validated in my theory that the razor crest is symbolic of din’s sense of self  (now with beautifully added commentary!) after this haha (and also so so scared now they might be ditching it for a new ship eventually). it’s in pieces, his world view is going to pieces and can’t be patched together the way it was before, from what he knows he’s about to deliver the baby to someone else who’ll understand/love/deserve him better (I do think that feeling is still in him) and he doesn’t even have the certainty of the code anymore to fill the void. oh buddy. 

the discomfort I felt when we got back into the cockpit -- into where it’s supposed to be familiar and safe! -- and saw all the ocean junk lying around, making it feel weird and changed and dirty (it probably smells like rotten seaweed in there now :( no likey)... I mean it was also very funny to see the pilot’s chair held together with a literal fishing net, but please favreau leave my dad’s car/ego alooooone 

- baby laughing his little bum off at din catching the small sea monster before it got him and then munching it......... the ‘there’s nothing in this world my dad can’t fix’ safe energy.......... I’m so scared we’re coming up on something din can’t fix 

- knitwear in star wars: I didn’t know I wanted it, but I am ELATED with having been given it

- moff gideon’s amazing evil voice... back in our ears, in our hearts, I gleefully hate him 

- at least din’s armour is clean again after that (awful) swim? one must appreciate some silver linings along the way I suppose

- din goes straight for the main pilot’s seat once they get the imperial out of it, so he must feel really secure that he’s probably the best man for the job; he is genuinely a good pilot! (and after this I am wondering even MORE who taught him. who raised you within the mandos din??)

- even while everything is new and scary and falling apart we can live safe in the knowledge that at least frog lady and frog husband had a good day and will have a good and happy frog life together with their frog children

couple goals tbh 

(I don’t necessarily know how it works for frog people but I uh. guess they got busy quickly huh hahaha good thing mando didn’t turn up again until later)

[mego42]

I 100% agree about wanting more fanfic lists! I honestly think it's the best way to get a variety. Everybody has personal preferences, if someone, who mostly reads long, fluffy au Brio fic, is making recs, they're not likely to mention short, angsty, canon Brio (which is understandable and fair!) so ideally someone else, who does like those, would also do recs. I'm pretty sure I've read or at least tried the vast majority of Brio fics, but the recs often make me re-read the fic and author.

YAAASSSS!!! I mean like, okay, I v much get why people have issues with rec lists, and I def do not by any stretch endorse the idea that recs/rec lists should be considered anything other than one person sharing a think they liked, but to me a lot of the issues (the same fics/authors getting recced, feeling like awesome fics/authors are going unrecognized) can be solved by more reccing, not less. everyone’s got different taste and different stuff they look/read for and I am extremely pro sharing that.

Idk, I think about it like this: in a previous internet life I was a YA book blogger and I lived and died by recs from other bloggers whose taste and preferences I knew. I mean, you know, I’d check out a book bc the premise sounded interesting but literally the first thing I would do was go to Goodreads and look for a handful of people who tended to like the same books I did and see what they were saying about it bc that was the best way to get a good idea of if I wanted to give it a shot. Or, on the flip side, there were some people whose reviews I followed bc I knew we v much did not read for the same things so if they hated a book for X, Y and Z reasons, I was probs going to like it (one thing about book blogging is if you want to keep current, you do not have a lot of time to mess around, snap judgements are key but that’s a whole other thing and idk if it’s even relevant anymore bc that landscape has changed so much). 

ANYWAY, the point is, I got in the habit and now I do the same thing with fic bc, tbh, I don’t have a ton of time to read, esp not when I’m actively writing which, with the exception of the last week or two, I’ve been doing p non-stop since I got here. All of which to say is, I am desperately in favor of fic recs for purely selfish reasons, I need them! Give them to me!!! Please!!!!!

That said, I uh, am v bad at returning the favor and I recognize that (I think I’ve made what? two rec lists for this fandom?) so I will try to do better to live by my own, idek what this is, moving on and here are 10 recs not really thematically linked by anything other than I’ve read them and loved them and don’t think I’ve put any of them on one of my rec lists yet (and if I have, my blog is a trainwreck I cannot be expected to remember what’s on it LET ME LIVE):

The Goodest Boy by EnsignDisaster

There’s a key turning in the lock and Buddy rushes over to greet his Master excited for her to meet his new friends. The door opens and he dances around Master’s feet rejoicing on the fact that she’s made it home. It's been literally forever.

“Hey Buddy what’s wrong? Need to go potty? Need to pee-pee?”

“Nah he’s good we took him out.”

Master does something very unMasterlike, she drops all the food she’d brought in on the ground and screams. It’s a non traditional avant garde type of hello…Buddy loves it. Mostly because while Master taps furiously on her small light box and sits tense in the corner opposite his new friend Buddy can lick up the egg smashed on the hardwood floor.

Buddy! The! Dog! POV! no further explanation necessary. Technically WIP, but it covers the whole pilot in a way that could be read as standalone (THOUGH THAT WOULD V MUCH GIVE ME A SAD though, when did the show forget the Bolands had a dog? so maybe that’s a tragic casualty of canon, idk)

May The Moon’s Silvery Beams by @pynkhues

Emma hums in agreement, and Rio turns her around to sit her on the counter, grabbing one of the older looking boxes of muesli while she kicks her legs out, heels bumping back against the counter, watching him. He gropes around the inside of the box, finally just opting to pull the plastic cereal bag out and peering inside. He can’t quite keep the grin off his face when he sees the wad of cash lining the bottom. This woman kills him, she really does.

Then there’s a little face peering up beside him, trying to peek into the box.

“What is it?” she asks, and he tilts the box sideways so she can see inside.

The upside to not getting here until s3 is that old fic is new to me! Huzzah!! Idk how many of y’all have already read this on but if you haven’t I highkey recommend. Extremely cute take on what if Emma woke up when Rio and came by to collect his/Beth’s/whoever's money during the shutdown. Cannot believe I’m reccing kidfic. Witchcraft!!!!!!

Maybe You’re My Fantasy by ohmisterjapan

He fucking loves the involuntary. It speaks to how he likes to unlock chaos and walk away. He's been called a control freak before and it felt like such a misunderstanding of him - he's all about self control but he doesn't want to control others. It's more that he enjoys revealing to them how little they can control themselves. It's more that he likes to stand still in the eye of someone else's storm and pick coldly through the wreckage.

Another oldie but a goodie. This fic is more like an extended character study (first chapter Rio POV, second chapter Beth) and I LIVE FOR THIS KIND OF SHIT. I really really really love the take on both characters, it really digs in and pulls out some nuances that made me sit and think about my own read of them and I love it.

A Shock Of Blue by mintletters16

“You don’t look very well. Would you… like me to get you a glass of water or something?”

Her voice is low but smooth, laced with a softness that cuts straight though to his core. Strawberry blonde locks fall gently just above the pair of magnets freezing him in place.

He can still feel the chaos tearing through his veins - emanating from the gold plated gun stuffed in his waistband - and suddenly he can’t be here anymore. Can’t meet this wide-eyed gaze that’s been locked on his for the past God-knows-how-long anymore.

Can’t see blue alive and concerned when he just left it cold and void somewhere in oblivion.

She’s looking at him like he’s on the brink of madness. He thinks maybe he is.

Apparently, it’s backlist rec day over here and I’m not sorry. This one is another technical WIP but the chapter works as a standalone (BUT if the author decided to return to it I WOULD NOT BE MAD). It’s a what if Beth and Rio met pre-canon and it works so!!! well!!!! The tension and fascination and build are all *chef’s kiss* plus the writing is gorgeous and lyrical and ugh, I love it.

for a moment we were strangers by openhearts

“We got stuff,” Rio motions with a nod to the backpack Beth hadn’t noticed when they arrived hanging on the back of one of the chairs at the island.

She swallows and turns back to the dishes, realizing Rio apparently means to sleep there , assuming the place isn’t bugged.  Or for some kind of cover story if it is.  She turns and fixes Rio with a narrow-eyed stare, studying his face, the corner of his jaw especially prominent from the angle she’s looking up at him.  He’s methodical about drying each dish and setting it back on the rack, maddeningly ignoring her hard stare, so when he goes to take the next plate from her hands she grips it tightly and gets his attention.

“Hey.”

“What you on about now?” he asks, irritated.

It gets her gut uneasy, how he’s just . . . there, settling in, in ways he never had before, no matter how nonchalantly he would let himself in through her locked doors.  

“This is,” Beth tries, failing, to find words for it, “. . . it’s weird .”

This one takes place post 204 and Rio and Marcus end up spending a long weekend staying with Beth and Emma for reasons (that work, for the record, I’m just not trying to summarize rn) and it’s domestic and cute but honestly my fav part of it is how weirded out Beth is by how easily they slip into sync. The story does an excellent job balancing where they are in canon (uneasy post-sex truce) with a snapshot of what they could be if they got over themselves (HA! as if) and Beth is DEEPLY FREAKED which makes her slow slide into realizing she could maybe sort of kind of oh shit like it/him??? that much more satisfying.

Not So Careful by @bensonstablers

When he doesn’t answer, her eyes go to his but he’s too busy watching the letter opener which is still pressed against the back of his hand. Curiously, Beth runs it up his arm, careful not to press too hard, and smiles a little as he shivers. Pulling her leg up onto the bed, she shuffles closer to him before pressing the tip of the sword to his chest and slowly circling his left nipple with it, being sure not to get too close.

“You ain’t gotta be that careful.”

And when she lifts her eyes to meet his, he’s got that look. The one that always makes a lump form in her throat and for her to fall back into bed with him without a single thought of what they have to do that day. Only thing is, this time they’ve got nothing to do for the rest of the weekend and well, staying in bed the entire time had seemed like an appealing idea so she allows herself to give in a little to that look.

It makes me EXTREMELY SAD that knifeplay ranked so low on the kink survey so I’m gonna need y’all to check out this V V V EXCELLENT example of it and come back and tell me you’re sorry and you voted wrong. I am v reasonable what are you talking about.

love (where it wasn’t supposed to be) by @lilliloves

"You know what I can't stand?" Rio asks, stepping closer. It's a rhetorical question but he pauses for a second and watches Dean sniff, watches a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, watches him shift on both his feet as he contemplates making a run for it.

"A guy who don’t realize how good he's got it." Rio continues, looking Dean up and down in disgust. "A guy that will literally fuck up a good thing just to get his dick wet."

"Yeah, well I can't stand a guy who can have anyone he wants but chooses the married woman he's not entitled to.” Dean shoots back. "And I really can't stand the fact that you're always in the room with us even when you aren't there."

And who brings him into the room Dean hmmmmm????? Jk, jk (or am I). In this one Rio catches Dean out on the town with another woman (bc of course he is) and tries to call him out but whoops! gets called out himself. I really love the like, idk, undercurrent of wistful regret in this fic. I love Dean straight up calling Rio out on his feelings (spoilers but there’s an exchange right after this one that made me straight up holler), and, you know, obvs I am here for Rio making Dean feel like an ass. 

Hell Is Other People by makemanybraver

Rio: We're in Hell, Elizabeth! If you don't think you belong here, then repent! Don't fuck everyone in the room in hopes that you get to go out!

Beth: Why do I have to repent?!

Rio: Because you did some fucked up shit in your life, Elizabeth! You keep doing fucked up shit here, too! And you think you don't belong here!

Beth [screaming at the top of her lungs]: Because I don't!

This fic is existentially bonkers and I love it. It’s the kind of experimental format/homage/what have you kind of thing that I L O V E. Based on No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Beth, Rio, and Fitzpatrick are stuck together in a room in hell for all eternity. What more do you need, honestly.

Working On Things by odenkirk

Unknown Hold up, Elizabeth. I'm really thinkin about you here.

Beth turned her face into the pillow, effectively suffocating herself for a moment, but thinking it was a good trade off for the way the cool silk of her pillowcase chilled her skin.

She lifted her head to glance at the still sleeping Dean before replying.

Beth I'm thinking about you too. But this can't happen.

She wanted him to know she wanted him, but she also thought that admitting she was already there would save Rio from trying to convince her. She wanted him, but morals had to win just once in a while.

YES this is technically Beth/Dean while also being Beth/Rio BUT it’s also sort of Rio/Dean and I am HERE FOR THE DIVERSITY OF SHIPPING leave me alone who asked you.

Five Times He Knew What She Was Thinking, and One Time He Didn't by JoeyLee

Aight, so tell ‘em I was hittin’ it. Said deliberately blunt, eyes locked on her face the whole time, just to see those blue eyes widen. She looked so shocked that he almost laughed, so he softened it teasingly just to keep her going. Oh, I’m sorry, sweetheart, tell ‘em we were makin’ love.

Then he just watched her, just watched her face, just fucking fascinated. Her lips were parted and her eyes were big as saucers, and…there it was. Before she could look away flustered, he watched the thought go through her mind. Him and her together.

He wondered what she was picturing or where. Them in the back seat, her bed, a motel?  Her on top or him from behind or his face between her legs?

Whatever it was, the blush started immediately, and he watched it bloom out from her cheeks to her hair. Then she was tearing her eyes away to gulp a little.  But it didn’t knock her down for long before she was looking back. And then, wait, was she actually asking him how to go about telling a fed they were fucking?

Okay this is another technical WIP but works as a standalone. I am absolutely fucking feral for character POV takes of canon scenes and this is a supremely excellent take on Rio POV of some notable scenes from the pilot through 204. Imo it brilliantly captures Rio’s voice and I love it a lot. 

HEADS UP I am absolute shite at tracking ao3 to tumblr unless people have specifically told me someone’s ao3/tumblr name SO if you recognize any of the non-tumblr authors on please lmk so I can tag them and YES I recognize that I am asking y’all to do things for me throughout this entire post and I’M SORRY OKAY I’M A WHOLE ASS MESS LOVE YOU BYE

[yikesharringrove]

Could I possibly request something if you’re taking nsfw prompts? I’d love to see Billy and Steve in the Hawkins High locker room, with fighting as foreplay, and some degrading but loving dirty talk from Billy? If that’s not up your alley, I understand!

sMuT

Steve as a BIG degradation kink, don’t even LOOK at me. Tbh this dirty talk ended up being, NOT loving, but there’s v sweet aftercare.

aye-oh-three

Steve slammed his locker shut.

Practice had been a fucking nightmare.

Billy had really doubled down on him, being antagonistic and just a fucking menace. He would jeer at him, grind up against him.

He would grin and tell Steve he’s a bitch, that he’s soft. He’d mutter that he’s whipped.

The most fucking frustrating part of it was that Steve,

Well he kinda, liked it.

Billy was pushy, and bossy, and sometimes he thought about him, would be jerking his cock, trying to picture a girl, his mind wandering to be being pushed down, Billy standing over him, telling him he’s a pussy.

So after practice he would wait until everyone left, wait until Billy left, not wanting to even risk getting hard while Billy laughed at him in the shower.

But today, today was a new low.

Billy had been pressed up against him, some weird versions of defense that mainly consisted of Billy grinding against his ass. He was going ham, plastered to Steve’s back. Steve was pushing back, was throwing elbows, and telling Billy to fuck off. So he had leaned around him to get the ball, had leaned to rasp in Steve’s ear, and fucking said, you’re bein’ a real BITCH today, Pretty Boy. Maybe you need to be put in your PLACE and Steve had actually gotten fucking hard.

Steve ran a few laps after practice, waiting out the other boys, trying yo get his dick to chill.

He was going to take a cold shower, had stripped off his shirt, was about to ditch his shorts and then-

“You were in fine form today. What’s got your little panties in a twist?” Billy had come from the showers, was dripping wet, in just his jeans.

“You. You’re such an asshole.”

“Oh, Baby. You talk so sweetly.” Steve rolled his eyes. trying to shoulder past Billy.

He was slammed against the lockers, dropping his towel, his soap in the process. Billy was pressed against him, one thigh between Steve’s legs. Steve’s face was warm, trying to will his dick to stay soft in his shorts.

“You’re a little bitch, Harrington. And I don’t like little bitches.” He slapped Steve, right across the fucking face.

And then Steve fucking moaned.

Billy gave him an odd look. Steve’s face was bright fucking red. He was hard, his chest absolutely heaving.

“Are you, are you getting off on this?” Billy rutted his hips into Steve, pulling another choked off noise outta him. “You are! What a little slut.” He reached up to pull Steve’s hair, making him moan out again. Billy bit at his throat.

“I was right. Someone needs to put you in your place. You want me to fuck you? Bend you over right here?” He was grinding his hips into Steve. He could feel how hard he was in his gym shorts. He pulled them down his hips, leaving him against the lockers, naked and hard.

Billy took him in, his shorts around his ankles, face flushed red as he panted. He had a mark on his face from the slap, was rutting against Billy’s thigh, gasping at the feeling of the denim. Billy admired the dark bruise on his neck, the one that matched Billy’s teeth.

“On your knees, slut.” Steve whimpered, dropping down in front of Billy. His fingers fluttered at Billy’s jeans. He was looking up at him, his eyes big.

Billy threaded his hands into Steve’s hair, sighing as Steve wrapped thin fingers around him, pulling his cock out of his jeans. Steve was staring at it, didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

“Isn’t this a surprise. The little whore has never had a cock in that pretty mouth. Just open up, Baby. You’ll figure it out.” Steve did as he was told, gave Billy a look through his lashes as he took Billy into his mouth. He took him as far as he could, getting overzealous and diving to the root, choking and spluttering as he pulled off. “Gentle, slut. Just take what you can.” Steve’s eyes watered. He had spit all over his chin. He kept giving Billy insecure looks, like he had no fucking clue what he was supposed to be doing.

He bobbed his head, his rhythm was sloppy. He was making obscene noises, was moaning around Billy’s cock, the spit running down him making slick sounds. Billy pushed his shoulders, sending him sprawling back against the lockers.

“That’s enough.” Steve gave a little whimper. He hauled him up, turning him against the lockers. “I wanna cum in this little ass.” He started grinding his cock against Steve’s ass, spreading Steve’s spit over him. “You ever taken anything up your ass before? Ever fingered yourself like a girl?” Billy slapped his ass, left a red mark.

“No, never.”

“You never even touched yourself here?” He punctuated it by pushing a finger inside Steve, making him yelp at the dry feeling. “Somehow, I don’t believe that.”

“You’re, you’re my first.”

“Can’t wait to be in this little virgin pussy. Gonna ruin you for anyone else.” Steve whimpered when he pulled his dry finger out, shoving three into Steve’s mouth. He kept grinding against Steve, rutting his cock on him. Steve sucked on his fingers, licked over them sloppily.

Billy pulled them back out, pushing two fingers into Steve, making him cry out at the sudden stretch of it. His other hand was in Steve’s hair, yanking his head back. He was slamming his hand into Steve, pulling his fingers almost all the way out before pushing them back in, his hand Slapping against Steve.

Steve was making breathy little sounds, was looking at Billy with one big eye over his shoulder.

“You want me to fuck you? That what you want, Slut? You want this thick cock?” Steve closed his eyes, whining as he pushed back on Billy’s fingers. Billy pulled them out harshly. “Use your words. Tell me what you want.”

“I want, want you.”

“Want me to what?”

“To fuck me.”

“Not quite, Princess.” Steve took a breath, opening his eyes to look back at Billy.

“I want you to fuck me like the dirty whore I am.” Billy groaned, spitting on his hand to run it over his cock, forcing himself inside Steve.

“You’re the best little slut, Stevie. You’d do anything for this cock. You love being split open like this.”

“Yeah, I love it.” Billy grinned pulling Steve’s hair to make him yelp started fucking him shallowly.

“You sure you’ve never taken a cock before? You’re just sucking me in.”

“I-I promise, you’re, you’re the first, only.” Billy bit at his neck, adding even more marks.

“You’re just letting me. Letting me claim your ass like this. You gonna bend over for me? Let me fuck you whenever I want?”

“Yeah, yeah. Any, whenever you want me.” Billy was really fucking him now, slamming their hips together, taking.

“That’s a good girl.” He pressed a soft kiss behind Steve’s ear, made him melt. “You want me to cum inside you? Fill your pussy nice and full.” Steve closed his eyes again, moaning.

“Jesus, Harrington. You’re really getting off on being my little bitch.” He reached up, the hand that was clawed into Steve’s hip coming to wrap around his jaw, two fingers shoved in his mouth.

Steve mewled around them, was braced against the lockers, just taking the pounding. Billy was warm behind him, his body solid.

“I’m, I’m gonna cum. Tell me where you want it. Tell me or you don’t get to.”

“In-inside. Want you, make me full.”

“God-” Billy sunk his teeth into Steve’s shoulder as he came, spilling inside of Steve. He pulled out abruptly, turning Steve and slamming him against the lockers again. He slid two fingers inside of Steve, fished out his own cum to use to jerk Steve off.

He had one arm over Steve’s head, caging Steve against the lockers, made Steve feel trapped. His mind was racing as Billy’s hand flew over him. Billy’s face was close to his, he was staring darkly into Steve’s eyes.

“Cum.” The way he growled made Steve go hot all over, made him whimper as he came, spilling over Billy’s hand. His head slumped onto Billy’s shoulder as he pulled him into him.

“You okay? Was that what you wanted?”

“Yeah that was, that was so hot.” He looked back at Billy, his eyes hazy and soft. “Thanks for indulging.” Billy smiled at him warmly, brushing the hair off his face.

“Let’s get you cleaned up. We can watch a movie at home.” Billy pushed him into a warm shower, washed his hair tenderly for him. His hands were soft as they brushed over his body, over the red marks he had left. He dried Steve off, getting him dressed slowly.

“You still have a mark on your face.” He brushed his fingers over it softly, his brows furrowed.

“Bill, I asked you to. I wanted you to get rough with me. It’s okay.” Billy just looked sheepish. “Bill, I’m okay.” He moved forward to kiss him softly. “It was exactly what I wanted.”

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

The Icing On the Cake Part 2

Title: A Sweet Reprise

Summary: Maybe things aren’t as hopeless as Virgil has first presumed.

Pairings: platonic moxiety (background platonic analogical)

Word-Count: 764

Warnings: anxiety, self-deprecation, I think that’s it?? it ends happy. 

Part 1

This is a part of my Follower Milestone Celebration, requested by @lonelyanxiousbean. This is a conclusion of a ficlet I wrote a year ago. Tbh, I’ve always meant to do a follow-up. The original fic was a bit of a ventfic and now that I’m where I am at today, in a job I’m pretty happy to have, I finally feel comfortable writing a happy conclusion to this :)

-

“Hiya, this is Patton from Patty-Cakes! I’m calling in regards to the online application you sent in over a week ago. If you’re still interested, feel free to come in for an interview anytime Monday through Thursday, alright? Ok, bye, I hope your day’s going well either way!”

The words from the voicemail rang in Virgil’s mind. Again and again on an endless loop as his sneakers took him to the front steps of Patty-Cakes. The owner Patton had called him yesterday. He couldn’t believe it. The employer being the one to call him first? And not the other way around?

With that disbelief came a different concoction of fears and trepidations. He’d already showed his face. How could he explain not introducing himself? That he was too chicken to do it? Yeah, that’d go over well to a potential employer. He’d probably reject him right then and there.

“I think you may be jumping to a conclusion,” Logan told him over the phone, “You do not know if Patton will react that way. He might be understanding of how nerve-inducing job hunting is.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then you accept it and move onto the next potential job opportunity.” Logan responded, saying so matter-of-factly. Virgil wished he’d possessed even just an ounce of Logan’s cool, calm rationality. In theory, he understood Logan’s words. But in practice, it was much easier to fall into the pitfalls of anxiety.

Logan couldn’t come with him today. He was not likely to be available until Thursday. Virgil couldn’t put it off until then. Not when the dread and doubts inside of him would continue to fester and grow to gigantic proportions. He had to come in today. He needed to know for certain the outcome of this job interview.

A cute little bell jingled as he pulled open the door. There was an employee helping out a customer with a cake order. No Patton in sight. Okay, okay, okay cool. He stuck his hands in his jean pockets, scanning the cake displays listlessly. He’d just wait to tell the employee why he was here. This was fine.

He fought the itch to hide behind his phone screen. Worse yet, just walking out of the store and never showing his face ever again. The door behind the counter swung open but Virgil was hardly paying attention. He stared at a frog-themed birthday cake display. Have A Hopping Good Birthday!

“Oh hi!” 

Virgil’s head jerked up, meeting the crinkly blue eyes of one Patton Baker.  “You came in yesterday, right? Was the cake okay? Was it too your sweetisfaction?”

Whoa, okay, way too many questions. It takes his mind a second to process it all, including the pun at the end. He let out a startled laugh.

“Um, yeah, the cake was good,” Virgil said. He had it for breakfast, figuring it was just as bad consuming donuts. “But uh, I came for a different reason…”

He trailed off, his throat feeling incredibly dry as if he swallowed a sack of flour. Patton gave a small nod, a gentle smile gracing his features. He didn’t seem annoyed, but Virgil couldn’t tell if again, that was just an act. Surely he was groaning internally that Virgil, a frustratingly incoherent customer, had showed up again.

“My name is—I’m Virgil, I’m here about the job interview?” Virgil asked, his voice cracking like an egg, “I actually came by yesterday to introduce myself but I, um, kinda got nervous?”

Virgil held his breath, his hands curling into fists inside his hoodie packet. He wanted to flip his hoodie over his face like a turtle yanking itself into its shell. He forced himself to keep his head up and his eyes free of tears.

Patton blinked behind his glasses. “Oh, oh. No wonder you looked so nervous! I promise you, kiddo, I’m all bake and no bite!”

“R-really?” He couldn’t be serious, right?

“Of course!” Patton beamed, stepping to unlatch the small gate door that separated the employee space from the customers area, “Now, if you follow me, we’ll do the interview in the back, alright?”

Patton was serious. He still wanted to conduct an interview with Virgil, who hadn’t expected to get this far, wow. What the fudge was he supposed to do? Was he really about to possibly get a job?

“Okay,” Virgil said, ignoring the way his insides jiggled like jelly. As he took a step closer, a weird warmth fell over him. For the first time in a long while, Virgil felt confident things would turn out favorably for him.

[fictionalrambles]

Shadowhunters Fandom Story - Part Fifteen

Submitted by jwrites_

Five Favourite Fics:

1. What's It Gonna Be by @lemonoclefox

Why I love this fic: I'm a sucker for Pride & Prejudice. San was able to take that dynamic and put it all in a modern day telling of it. I can't count how many times I've read this. Sometimes I read it all the way through, other times I go and find my favorite parts just to get that rush of emotions it never fails to give. The enemies to lovers is done perfectly, the dialogue is great and flows seamlessly, the way she tied in the storyline between Simon, Isabelle, Valentine, and Alec together was genius. I truly love every word of this story.

Favorite scene: Awkward - love - confession - in -  the -  rain

Favorite quote(s):

(Yes. Love confessions are great but have you ever overheard someone say something rude about you and then have the opportunity later that same night to be able to casually call that person out for their comment?)

"Her friend is..." He trails off, as though searching for the word, and Magnus can imagine him gesturing in the meantime. "Interesting," Jace eventually settles on, pointedly.

"Who, that Bane guy?" Alec says, and as he does, Magnus is hit with a wave of intrigued surprise. Does Alec like men? Interesting. The assumption could be wrong, of course, but Jace's tone implies that that's why he's mentioning it. "He's a bit over the top, don't you think?"

He sounds almost disdainful as he says it, as though Jace's mere suggestion is laughable, and Magnus's intrigue immediately shifts to offended annoyance. He straightens a little where he stands, reluctantly affected by it.

--

"I mean, love songs are great," Magnus admits lightly. "But stringing a few pretty words together does seem a bit unoriginal when everyone does it."

Simon shoves him lightly in offense, and Magnus can't help but laugh.

"Then what do you suggest?" Magnus is taken completely by surprise when he realizes that it's Alec who's speaking, and he turns to him. The guy's expression is neutral, but seems genuinely curious.

"Oh, I don't know," Magnus says, swirling his drink around in his glass. He shrugs. "I suppose I'm more a fan of showing and not telling. I'd much prefer someone showing interest in what I like and who I am, than comparing my eyes to the night sky, and whatnot." He gestures airily, then hesitates. He suddenly can't seem to stop himself, the memory of the Lightwoods' overheard conversation bubbling to the surface. "I think most people can appreciate that. Even if some of us are a bit over the top."

--Okay...I'm gonna go ahead and throw in a love confession~

"Look, I don't expect anything from you," he says, as though the words are hard to say. "You've made your feelings pretty clear, and I respect that. But I heard you talked to my mom, and with the stuff you said to her... I guess it just kind of made me a bit hopeful, or something. A bit." He clears his throat, while Magnus just listens. He turns to watch Alec's profile as the young man struggles to find the words, eyes on the view in front of him. "Either way, I'll admit that how I feel hasn't really changed. Maybe it should have, but..."

Alec shakes his head, and Magnus feels his throat go dry. He wants to interrupt Alec, wants to say and show everything that's bursting out of his chest, but he waits. Alec takes a deep breath then, turns to him. He looks determined.

"If you want me to," he says steadily, "I'll go. I'll leave you alone, I promise. You won't hear from me again." He pauses, licks his lips. "But if you don't want me to, if something has changed since last time, somehow... I'd really like to know. Because that would be pretty great."

2. 42 North 71 West by @lecrit​

Why I love this fic: I was blessed with the opportunity to witness Lu working on this fic from its conception to its end. I was there and still I am blown away at the way she was able to work the time jumps. I remember thinking with every chapter I read, 'Wow. The way she is telling this story is amazing. She is amazing.' Lu has a way of presenting so much honesty in her characters. She writes them in a way that feels so real, that you can't help but understand their fears and hesitations even though it hurts. The story is a back and forth told through scenes set in the past and present. You get to see what they were and where they are. The story is beautifully heartbreaking. And she was able to make me enjoy a story that dealt with politics? What? Sorcery, I tell you. -- also, the bench.

Favorite scene: This was almost impossible to choose and I took way too long trying to pinpoint just one. But I'm going to go with one that I hold very dear. When Magnus goes to visit Alec on his birthday and he finds Alec playing the song he only plays when he's sad. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to spoil~

Favorite quote(s):

“Magnus,” Alec breathes out.

The name feels almost foreign, as if he hadn’t uttered it in too long and now his mind is troubling to catch up with his mouth. Still, it manages to make Alec’s heart stutter.

--

“We should’ve stayed on that bench in Boston,” he murmurs.

--

The good thing is, he knows where to go to find his way back. It is inked on his body, engraved into his soul, sealed into his heart.

3. Lead The Way by Clockworkswan

Why I love this fic: Because it takes the wonderful adventure of Doctor Who and packs it in with Malec. This is the ultimate fun and feel good but you will also cry at one point fic. I always go back to it if I want a wonderfully written Doctor Magnus and his adorable companion Alec. Seriously, even if you're not into Doctor Who, give this fic a shot. It's written in a way that you will get so caught up in the adventure that you won't even realize it's based on something else. And if you're a Doctor Who fan, you're in luck with all the little Easter Eggs Heather left throughout.

Favorite scene: I really don't want to spoil anything. The planet of Ablorix. This will mean nothing if you don't read the fic (so you should ;])

Favorite quote(s):

Magnus extends a hand. It’s just like before, when they were in the hallway a couple of weeks ago. It’s just as inviting as it was the first time.

“How about it, pretty boy? Name a star. Any one will do. Or a date,” Magnus says. The double meaning is evident when he winks. He pauses then, and his expression shifts, growing solemn.

A clear shift in his demeanour happens. Magnus turns from playful to sincere in the blink of an eye. Although, there was also a serious tone to it. Magnus looks at him, and understanding eyes meet Alec’s hesitant ones. “Alexander, you seem like a man in need of a break, and I am very much a man in need of a friend. Adventures are always a quick way in figuring out what you want. What do you say?”

What does he say?

He says yes.

Of course Alec does.

--

Before Magnus can think of a good retort, he tries to ignore the clenching ache his stomach gives at the sight of a confident, smirking Alec Lightwood watching him so openly. He settles for pointing in a random direction. “I have to go and see a dog about a man. Meet back here in five?”

“Uh, isn’t the expression, ‘see a man about a dog’?”

“Not when the dog ran off with the man’s wife. A rather big scandal, it seems. The president wants me to try and step in. Smooth things over, so to speak.”

At that, Alec just stares blankly.

Magnus holds up a finger. “Yes, this is normal for me. No, you may not come along. Go.”

4. Love & Other Drugs prequel of Our Love Is A Harsh Chord in the Semi-charmed Kind Life series by @la-muerta​

Why I love this fic: I'm kind of cheating here by listing two fics but they're a package deal. Love & Other Drugs was a smutty one-shot that left me wanting

more...

backstory. Let me tell you the pining and 'unrequited' love between those two demanded a story to be written. Which is why when la_muerta ran a poll on whether or not she should start it or another series first, I campaigned for this one like it was my job (I lost but I still got the series eventually so did I really lose?) The writing in this and with all of la_muerta's fics will hook you. The sadness over the back and forth between them is done so well. It's angst that will grip you and hold onto you until you eventually finish. Just go on the twitter hashtag of #OLIAHCfic and see my screaming.

Favorite scene: Probably the LSD scene.

Favorite quote(s):

Alec was still here, in bed with him.

How many times had Magnus wished that he could wake up with Alec in his arms? He didn't dare to move, wanting the dream to last a little longer, but Alec was already stirring.

--

he'll wonder if life would be a little easier if he wasn't hopelessly in love with Magnus, but it is a fact of who he is now: Alec Lightwood is 6'3, has dark hair, is gay, and is in love with Magnus Bane.

--

They are lying next to each other now, turned on their sides and face to face. The world is no longer warped and weird, but glowing and perfect. Magnus is tracing a path of lightning down Alec's body with his fingertips, and in a moment of clarity Alec understands that in Magnus' eyes he is as beautiful as he thinks Magnus is (it is the first thing Alec forgets when he wakes up sober later).

--

Words aren't enough to express how he feels, but they've always understood each other better when clumsy words don't get in the way.

5. The Lonely Hearts Hotline by @unrestrainedlyexcessive​

Why I love this fic: It's funny, it's endearing, it's heart wrenching, it's sexy, etc. The way Alec is written in this fic is one of my favorite characterizations. The way his situation can resonate with so many young adults today. That feeling when you're an adult and you feel like you should know what to do with your life and who you should be but the truth is, you're still just as lost as always. Being an adult sucks tbh and even when you're an adult, sometimes life doesn't quite feel like it. Alec's character and growth in this fic is beautiful. (I also really loved Jace in this fic)

Favorite scene: A tough choice. Probably the office party and follow up scene in Magnus' office.

Favorite quote(s):

The problem with being a new grad, in general, is that the world and job force demands you have experience, but you have to live a certain number of productive years on the planet to gain that experience.

Early adulthood is no man's land. You don’t have the experience to matter and no one wants to pay you to gain it, hence how he ended up in the precarious situation he’s in: dodgy sex work by night, an even dodgier roommate, and desperately hoping an internship eventually turns into an actual paying job.

--

Magnus runs his tongue down the knobs of Alec's spine. "You're so beautiful," he says, pausing.

"I'm really not," Alec insists, eyes fluttering closed.

"Why are you so kind to everyone except yourself?"

"I'm a work in progress."

"Aren't we all?"

[waywardfacegarden]

Hey there! I saw that "ask me about my fic" post and thought I'd ask some questions!! Specifically regarding your "The sun is too bright, it hurts" one; questions 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8? 👀

Hello there!!! First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING, YOU’RE SO NICE!!!!! ;---; Honestly, I love you so much.

Second of all, AAAAAH, THAT FIC. I really love that one, is one of the first works I did for my boys!!!! I have a soft spot for it. (That said, I actually reread it to answer this LOL, because as much as I remembered a lot of it, I also didn’t remember a lot of specifc dialog/narration of it, haha.)

Answers under the cut because I, somehow, managed to do this unnecessarily long, LOL. I’m sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you don’t mind me babbling a lot about my own fic, haha.

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Well, I was inspired to write that AU because I’m weak for the idea of Sasuke and Naruto being childhood friends!! Haha. And I just easily pictured them growing up together with their families being friends. It’s something that I think would happen in a modern au, and I really wanted to explore the relationship of two people growing up together, being there in all of their different phases (and the challenge of having to write them at different ages, because as much as the essence of who they are is the same, they don’t act exactly the same, you know?), knowing each other better than anyone else. They would come to love every single one of the aspects that makes them them; like, even if something must be annoying, it’s endearing for the other at this point, and I find that very tender and soft.

As for the way that it’s written, I find it easier to guide myself while writing if I divide the story in “short stories/scenes”, so that’s why it’s like that (if you look at my fics, I always “divide” my stories, haha). I also really like the narrative that goes, for example, “October. 1990. 15 years old.”, because, (for me at least), it’s so much easier to imagine the environment/context/scene like that? It also gives me off movie vibes, tbh😂😂

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

I apologize in advance because I’m going to make this reply excessively long, even when the ask is so simple😂😂 While I was re-reading, I found a lot of quotes/parts that I liked a lot, so please indulge myself and look at all my word vomit, lol (the parts in bold letters are what I especially love about that specific excerpt):

[[AH! AND ALSO! I realized I made a LOT of grammar mistakes in the fic when I was re-reading today, it’s kind of embarrassing ahhh, haha. It needs heavy editing, huh. But anyways, so, in some lines here, I changed some words for what I actually wanted to write/what’s grammatically correct, now that I know more about english, haha. So in some lines they’re a bit different from the actual fic.]]

My favorite, favorite line, for reason, is this one:

Sasuke’s heart flutters on his chest, like flower’s petals in the wind, like a butterfly flapping its wings.

I don’t know, I really, really, REALLY love metaphors and I like the way it was phrased here?? Like, the words I chose sound so pretty for me, haha.

My second favorite line is this one, simply because I’m a cheesy dork:

Sasuke does not know when he fell in love with Naruto; he probably was always a bit in love with him.

Another lines of narration I really, really love:

His love for Naruto reminds him of that. Destruction. Storms, tornadoes. Because it’s brutal, too intense, too strong. It is inexhaustible. It’s unexpected and unpredictable and it makes his stomach ache.

^^ That one is just. Really what I think Sasuke feels like about falling in love, and more than anything, falling in love with Naruto, so I really love it. I have an obsession on making love sound messy and chaotic, too, tbh, haha. Guilty.

[…] and his voice sounds tired, because he’s tired, he can’t stand it anymore, and he’s stupid, stupid, stupid, because Sasuke wants to cry, and because Sasuke wants to kiss Naruto while he cries because Sasuke is a damn tragedy walking, but he can’t, he can’t and that’s hard.

I really like this one because I honest to God think Sasuke is a damn tragedy walking (and I’m saying this like a good thing, he’s my favorite disaster, haha). He’s just, idk, really a disaster, and I can easily picture him having a meltdown because he loves Naruto so much that he can’t even stand it, and he’s tired of hiding it, and he’s tired of everything, and he just wants to fucking cry but he also wants to kiss Naruto AND kiss Naruto while he cries, even if that’s weird. Idk, Sasuke just strikes me as the kind of guy who would want to kiss the love of his life while crying, LOL.

[…] he’s so close that, for a moment, the only thing he can see is blue. Blue, blue, eternal, endless, inexhaustible, precious blue; that swallows him, that overwhelms him, that suffocates him.

I remember being so proud of this part because, as you can see, I’m obsessed with Naruto’s eyes😂😂 And then when I showed the story to my sister she laughed her ass off here LMAO. She gave me A Look. LOL. She saw through me like a book, she knows I just tried to sound poetic but I suck LOL. But I still really like this part.

And Naruto is smiling, and Naruto is there and everywhere and Sasuke wants to drown in him.

So he does. 

ASDJLFJLSDFKDL. The idea of Sasuke wanting to drown in Naruto is just. I love it, lol.

He kisses him as he should be kissed. […] He kisses him and Naruto kisses him back and Sasuke almost sighs. Because it feels so good to be real; because it feels like falling into bed after a long and tiring day. It feels like a hot shower against your aching body and like the emotion you feel when climbing a roller coaster.

For some reason, I love writing kisses, LOL, and I wanted to convey so much through this one. Like both of them have been wanting to kiss the other for years, now, but you could feel Sasuke’s desperation especially, and I really wanted the kiss to feel like “God, finally, finally” but also “this is it. This is what home feels like”. I feel like it probably still lacks something, but I still like how I put it into words.

[Now, I really hope you don’t hate me for this LOL, but I’ll add the complete parts I like, even when they have dialogue. It’s this case where bold letters are the lines that I especially love about the part.]

Naruto takes a step forward, a long one, and cuts the distance between them. Sasuke’s heart flutters on his chest, like flower’s petals in the wind, like a butterfly flapping its wings. Naruto is so close that Sasuke can see the three soft freckles on his cheekbones. He can distinguish each one of his golden eyelashes shining against his eyelids. He can see the way the iris in his eyes is darker on the edge; the shape of his lips, cracked, that make Sasuke’s mouth become very dry. And heck, they are moving, so Naruto is talking.

-

“Sasuke,” Naruto says, and his voice is soft and soothing in the loneliness of the hallway. His fingers are like burning embers when he places them on his shoulder. “Look at me, Sasuke.”

And Sasuke obeys. He turns around and looks at him, and Naruto has a storm inside those pretty eyes, and Sasuke just wants… he just wants… “Honestly, I would kill myself if I had that face.”

God fucking dammit.

“He was talking about you.” He answers, finally, and his voice gets stuck and tightens in his throat.

Naruto blinks, surprise flooding the light blue of his eyes. “Oh,” he says, so low that if they were not four inches away in a desolate corridor, Sasuke would not have heard it.

“Itachi is waiting for me.” He says, because he really wants to leave; he wants Naruto to stop looking at him like that.

“Itachi asked me to check up your injuries, Sasuke. Itachi is not angry. I guess he deduced what happened, he’s smart, so…”

“I’m not hurt, Naruto. Now let me go.”

Naruto stops pressing the cold gauze on the torn skin of his knuckles. The soft fabric burns and itches on his skin, but not as much as the way Naruto keeps looking at him, hell.

-

They are 15 years old and Naruto is the most beautiful boy he has ever seen. Naruto has grown up and he’s taller now, almost as tall as Sasuke is, and has the most beautiful blue, cerulean eyes (beautiful as the clear water of the lakes, beautiful as the sky on summer mornings), and long, blond eyelashes and cute lips and messy hair kissed by the sun. He’s gorgeous. And maybe Sasuke is paying too much attention, but hell, it’s hard not to.

They are 15 years old and Sasuke would hit a three-meter bully for that boy. Sasuke would do anything for that boy.

-

He says, with a smile that covers half of his face. His hair is messier than usual and several blond strands fall on his forehead. His blue eyes sparkle in the darkness. His blue shirt sticks to him in all the right angles and Sasuke thinks if you were not so damn attractive, I would surely kill you right now, you idiot. But he doesn’t say it, because of course, that’s not something you would say to your best friend.

-

“Naruto, I’m not going to get into your father’s van in the middle of the night and drive to a Waffle House at twelve in the morning.”

Naruto seems confused. He keeps his balance on the window frame and raises his hand to show him the set of keys. “No problem, Sas. I have the keys.”

- [I really like this one because just, the idea of them going to a Waffle House in the middle of the night is a favorite of mine, and the dialogue of Sasuke being like “i’m not going to drive to a waffle house at fucking 12am” and Naruto being just like “no worries, i have the keys” because he thinks the problem is that Sasuke doesn’t want to steal the car is so funny LMAO. Also, I live for Naruto calling him “Sas”.]

Damn fucking Naruto. Fuck his stupid heart. Fuck the one who decided up there that it would be a good idea to give him a nice smile and a beautiful personality and the eyes of Gods. Fuck the one who decided it would be good for Sasuke to fall in love with a stupid blonde with a heart of gold, stubborn as hell. Fuck the one who thought it would be a good idea for Sasuke to like his best friend. Fuck the one who decided that Waffle Houses could open for 24 hours. Fuck Naruto with his beautiful eyes; damn, damn, damn and fucking dammit.

- [I LAUGH SO HARD AT THIS PART. Like poor dude, he’s just so Done about having a crush and being in love with his Best Friend LMAO. I love how he curses the Gods and Everyone and Naruto Especially while also changing and going downstairs to go out with said crush.]

It’s strange that he’s so quiet, but at least Sasuke can look at him out of the corner of his eye from time to time. And when the light from the headlights on the side of the street hits him right in the face, and Sasuke can admire how beautiful he is, how stunning his eyes are and how bright they look and how his hair is gleaming and the so pretty and alluring that is the whole him, all of him… is those moments when Sasuke thinks that, maybe, it was not such a bad idea that Naruto woke him up in the middle of the night to drive to a Waffle House. Maybe, it’s not so bad that Naruto is crazy. Maybe, it’s not so bad that Sasuke is in love with him.

-

You know how in that tragic movie where the girl has cancer she says something in the beginning like “I fell in love with him like falling asleep, suddenly and without realizing it”? Yes, well. Sasuke used to make fun of that, even if Naruto thought it was very romantic. But now, as he sees his best friend smiling in a damn suit that fits his body in all the right places, now that he sees him laughing with the gym lights doing wonders on his tanned skin, now that he is listening to him talk and laugh and just being him, being happy… now he understands it. Sasuke does not know when he fell in love with Naruto; he probably was always a bit in love with him. He does not know when it happened or why, the only thing he knows now is that he is completely, totally, utterly, head-over-heels in love with him, so much so that it is ridiculous.

The realization hits him. Hard and strong against his stomach, like the thousands of stones and heaps of earth in an avalanche. Destroying cliffs, roads.

His love for Naruto reminds him of that. Destruction. Storms, tornadoes. Because it’s brutal, too intense, too strong. It is inexhaustible. It’s unexpected and unpredictable and it makes his stomach ache.

It’s like when you have a leak in your house and you do not fix it and you probably don’t realize the damage it is doing until after weeks the hole on the cement floor is too big to ignore. It’s like the snowball that is falling and growing on the steep hill that you don’t notice until it’s too late.

It’s just like that.

And the realization is so big and so brutal that it terrifies him, because Sasuke not only loves Naruto, Sasuke is in love with him. He loves every damn part of him in the rawest and realest way possible and it scares him so much that he can’t stand it.

-

“Naruto. I’m not in the mood,” he says, and his voice sounds tired, because he’s tired, he can’t stand it anymore, and he’s stupid, stupid, stupid, because Sasuke wants to cry, and because Sasuke wants to kiss Naruto while he cries because Sasuke is a damn tragedy walking, but he can’t, he can’t and that’s hard.

-

[…] he’s so close that, for a moment, the only thing he can see is blue. Blue, blue, eternal, endless, inexhaustible, precious blue; that swallows him, that overwhelms him, that suffocates him.

He’s as close as that time when they…

“Sasuke, you’re a fucking idiot.” He says, his breath warm against his own lips.

[…]

He’s as close as that time when they kissed.

Naruto is kissing him, Holy…

It’s abrupt and so sudden and Sasuke has not closed his eyes, (Sasuke can’t even believe it to begin with, because they’re kissing), but Naruto does, so he can see the thin, long golden lashes that flutter softly against his own cheekbones. They tickle him. He can see the cascade of hair on his forehead and the mess of color on his skin and everything is so familiar. The cracked feeling of his lips, the blue so close, the hair that tickles Sasuke… It’s making him dizzy. Everything is so familiar, and yet so different at the same time. It’s coarser, stronger.

Naruto doesn’t seem to know what he is doing though; he just keeps pressing his lips so hard against his that Sasuke thinks he might knock a tooth out of him. His fingers continue to cling to his tie, crumpling it between his fingernails, and it’s…

Sasuke doesn’t care. Because Naruto is kissing him, and even if he’s clumsy, Naruto is kissing him, and his heartbeat thunders into his ears, the blood rushes in his veins and everything is chaos.

With Naruto everything is chaos.

Like the storms.

Like hurricanes.

Everything is too intense and strong and…

-

“You know what?” He says, and he continues laughing, but not so much anymore. “Ino said you would make exactly that face.”

Sasuke blinks. What?

“Did you tell Ino about—” Sasuke doesn’t quite know how to define it, even if he’s supposed to be good with words, so he just manages to move his hand between them in a movement that Naruto would do, and adds, “—this?”

Naruto gives him a sideways little smile. “Actually, I told Shikamaru, Ino was just there.”

Once again. What?

“What?”

Naruto grins. Bright and toothy, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “Sasuke, teme. You’re easier to read than you think.”

Sasuke is about to yell at him because what? But then Naruto’s smile softens, and it’s sweet and tender and intimate. And the words that come out of his lips moments later roll off his tongue and roll up through the air and dance and spin and hit Sasuke with such force that he practically staggers.

“I love you too, you bastard.”

It’s too much.

And Naruto is smiling, and Naruto is there and everywhere and Sasuke wants to drown in him.

So he does. He takes a step and closes the distance between them and drowns in him.

One of his hands takes him from the suit and brings him closer while the other slips behind him and mixes with the strands of hair that are too soft against his skin. And then he kisses him again. He kisses him as he should be kissed. He kisses the brain out of him and leans against his personal space and enters his bubble of warmth, the warmth that radiates from every pore of his being. He kisses him and gets drunk with his smell and his skin and all of him.

He kisses him and Naruto kisses him back and Sasuke almost sighs. Because it feels so good to be real; because it feels like falling into bed after a long and tiring day. It feels like a hot shower against your aching body and like the emotion you feel when climbing a roller coaster.

It’s all at once.

Rawly intense and gently soothing.

It’s chaos.

And he kisses him again and again and again and again and again and again and again until he loses the count.

“You know what?” Naruto says in a moment. His voice is agitated and his breathing is uneven and unsteady and he is trying to pull more air inside of him. And his lips are a little swollen and Sasuke kisses him again, short and fast, before he speaks again, because Sasuke can’t help it and stop now. “Now that I think about it, I’m much better at expressing myself than you are.”

“Shut up, usuratonkachi.”

Naruto laughs. And it’s the most beautiful thing Sasuke has ever heard before.

ALSO. I absolutely ADORE the part where they’re 15. Like, how Sasuke keeps thinking “Naruto’s too much” because his sole presence overwhelms him, the fact that he keeps thinking about kissing him, the fact that he can’t take his eyes off him, the fact that he hit someone so freaking hard because they said they would “kill themselves if they had that [Naruto’s] face”, the fact that he was jealous of girls noticing Naruto because of his looks, because “yeah, Naruto was so goddamn attractive (he keeps thinking about touching him, wondering about how his skin would feel against his fingers, wanting to touch his face, his hair, daydreaming about his eyes. Dude is just Gone LOL), but ALSO, would yOU DUMB GIRLS HEAR ABOUT HIS STORIES ABOUT RAMEN??? WOULD YOU HEAR HIM BABBLE ABOUT HIS FAVORITE DUMB MOVIES AND POP MUSIC??? WOULD YOU??? WELL, I DO!!!! SO FUCK OFF!!!!!!” LMAO. I LIVE for Sasuke’s Gay Crisis and him realizing he finds his best friend criminally attractive and endearing. 

(I’M SO SORRY FOR MAKING THIS ANSWER SO LONG, OMG).

4. What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Because I’m predictable and also because, like I said, I’m a cheesy dork, my favorite line is: “I love you too, you bastard.” It just has so much power, for me. It’s so intimate and I love how Naruto says “too” even when Sasuke doesn’t say it out loud before, because Naruto just knows. It’s so gentle, even when he’s calling him “bastard” (that at this point is actually a pet name rather than an insult LMAO).

Bonus to:

“Sasuke, you’re a fucking idiot.” 

I really love it LMAO. I like it because I find it funny that it’s what Naruto says just before he kisses him, but also because it’s actually so tender, too??? Like Sasuke was all “MAYBE I DON’T LIKE YOU ANYMORE, HUH?!?! MAYBE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS I FINALLY GOT TIRED OF YOU”; he’s throwing all this drama but he’s actually spilling his heart out and Naruto can see all through it, he can literally see what he’s actually thinking, and it just. Hits. Hard. So he’s just like, “I’m gonna cut this bullshit right here” and goes “Sasuke, you’re a fucking idiot”, with a tone that basically means actually that, like “sasuke, you fucking IDIOT. i KNOW. i KNOW. stop hurting yourself”, and it just gets me, haha.

“Do you want to go to the prom with me?” […] “I’m serious, Sas. I want you to go with me.”

I was so excited when I wrote those two lines. Again, I’m weak for Naruto calling him “Sas”, and I wanted so bad Naruto asking him to prom. Even if it’s not with a big gesture, it FEELS like so much for both of them. And I wanted to make sure that it sounded like he wasn’t joking around, even if he made the proposal “easier to digest” by phrasing it later like he was asking Sasuke just because he was his best friend and he wanted him to have fun with him (which, yeah, but he also knew about Sasuke being in love with him, and Naruto was, too, so he was just being assertive in the situation, trying to make it easier for Sasuke because he knows him, and he knows how big it already feels like for him just being asked as a friend).

“Because I want you to take your head out of your ass for a moment and have fun with your best friend?”

Naruto telling Sasuke to take his head out of his ass is my favorite thing ever LMAO.

7. Where did the title come from?

To be honest, I’m TERRIBLE to put titles. I always forget to name my fics, because I focus on the story itself first, haha. I always save the docs in word like “childhood friends au sns” or “christmas au” or things like that, planning to actually name them later, but I ALWAYS forget to do it. I always remember when I actually have to put a name to it because I’m about to post it on AO3 and it asks me for a title first, LOL. So, basically, this one (and all my other titles) came up last minute. I have always liked when Naruto is compared to the Sun (I do it at the end of the fic, too, haha), and I thought the fic itself revolves around Sasuke’s love for Naruto, Sasuke’s journey to get to know Naruto and fall for him, and Sasuke realizing his feelings and being constantly overwhelmed by them because of they’re so strong and so deep and because Naruto just feels like Too Much sometimes (in a good, messy way) to him. So I thought it was accurate to call it “The Sun is too bright, it hurts”, because for me, it basically encompasses what the fic is about: Naruto is too much sometimes that it actually hurts Sasuke, because he Can’t Handle Feelings and it’s Suffocating and Overwhelming and Scary, but it’s okay at the end, because Naruto feels just as much as him. (I actually wanted to add “but it’s okay” at the end, but I felt like it was too long already LOL).

8. Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

It’s not actually real people or real events, but I actually based the scene where Sasuke saves Naruto from getting run over by a car from one of my favorite, favorite scenes in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. It’s a lot like the one there in the book, but I found it a very Sasuke Thing to do, and I also liked how it lined up with the fact that “Sasuke’s feet moved on its own” in actual canon. Boy is willing to give his life for Naruto in any universe and I respect that, LOL.

The scene where people were talking shit about Naruto’s face is based from a scene I watched on the movie Wonder. I always cry with the movie and I had just watched it before writing the fic, so I wanted to write something based on that scene because it got me hard.

It’s also pretty obvious, but the accidental kiss is there because I absolutely Love it and I have mad respect for Kishimoto for that, so if I can, I’m going to make that accidental kiss happen in every single fic I write for them LOL.

Anyways, that would be all!!!!! I’m so sorry for making this hella long, lol, but I’m honestly so happy you were curious about this fic!!!! Like I said, I have a soft spot for this one, just as much as I have a soft spot for SNS. They will always be my favorite boys and my favorite ship ever. And I really enjoyed re-reading my own stuff and remembering my feelings while writing it years ago. AND IT JUST. MEANS A LOT TO ME???? This fic is from YEARS ago, and the fact that you ask about it just means more than I can express with words. SO, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING, HONESTLY.

I HOPE YOU’RE HAVING AN AMAZING DAY/NIGHT. I LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BEYOND. HOPE YOU’RE SAFE, OKAY AND HAPPY. <333333333333333 LOTS OF LOVE FOR YOU!!!!!

[lgbtqstuff-va4]

Vu's HRT Journey (7 months, November 26 2020)

CW: Libido/sex drive mention, acne mention, blood, menstruation, slightly TMI near the end (I briefly mention sexual stuff in the "vaginal atrophy" section)

Hi... Sorry I haven't updated in like, three months.  Life happened and I just.. Haven't had the energy to make these posts.  But I decided that I should do an update while I'm feeling motivated.

One important thing I'm gonna note though, is that I recently changed my dosage.  Between 4-21-2020 and 11-3-2020, I was doing 50 mg (.25mL) T (Cypionate) every two weeks (IM).  As of 11-3-2020 I'm now doing that same dosage, except I'm doing it every week instead of every two weeks.

Anyways, let's get into my experiences

Body hair

My body hair has been doing the usual, I guess.  Um... One thing I noticed recently, is that I now have like, one singular, long black strand of hair growing slightly under my chin.  Which is weird-looking, but exciting!  I'm at the very start of having.. A beard.  Which is weird, but again, it's super exciting!!  Um, I also noticed that like... Just above where my chin starts, like between my lower lip and my chin, there's some short, black hairs growing in.  They're pretty hard to see right now, but yeah.  I also shaved my face for the first time(!!) a couple weeks ago.  I only shaved my upper lip since that was the only like, actually noticeable facial hair I had at the time, but it was a neat experience anyways... And then I immediately regretted the choice lmaO.  I HATE HOW IT LOOKS AND FEELS TO NOT HAVE THAT BBY MOUSTACHE THERE... but it's actually growing back in at a nice pace.

Throat/voice

My voice has definitely been getting gradually lower.  Emphasis on gradually.  But yeah.  I've noticed that there are like, certain songs I like, and there are certain parts that were too low-pitched for me to hit three, two, and sometimes even one month ago... But now I'm actually able to hit them?  Or at least sort of hit them?  Which is like... Really cool, tbh.  My voice has obviously been cracking often, and I've had like three times of note where it happened at work when I was talking to a co-worker... Oofers.

Sex drive

It could just be due to stress (caused by things in my personal life), but for a good two to three weeks this month, my sex drive just... Took a nosedive.  Idk why.  It seems like it's getting back up there again, but yeah.

Acne/sweat

I've... Been breaking out so bad over the last month or two 😩 (weary emoji) I've obviously been having a lot of acne since I started T, but my god.  My jawline specifically has been breaking out a lot, but also?  My back... I can't do anything to get rid of it 😔 (pensive emoji)

Bottom growth/general feelings "down there"

I'm over half a year into T, and honestly?  I don't think I've had like, any bottom growth.  At all.  It's pretty annoying tbh

Body fat redistribution

Also haven't noticed any changes with this yet :/ my mom's pointed out that my face apparently looks kinda different, and I think I see what she means?  Or maybe I'm just imagining it, idk.  I still have this stupid hourglass shape though, and I hate it.

Mood/emotions

Ehhhhh idk.  I've had a really stressful month, and it's also been a very weird month for everyone, so it's hard to really pinpoint what's being caused by T, and what's being caused by other things.  Idk... I'm sorry I can't describe how my emotions have been lately to y'all :/

The gross thing (i.e. menstrual bs)

Unfortunately, I've been having the gross thing... And generally speaking, it hasn't gotten any lighter/less frequent. I went from the beginning of August to late October without one, but since late October I've been having them happen about once a month. Which, honestly sucks :/

Vaginal atrophy

Haven't noticed too much here. I mean yeah, there's slight dryness, but it's not bone-dry in there, yknow? I also noticed recently that I drew bl**d while doing.. Sexual stuff?? It was only a little bit, but still. I was kind of being too rough that time though... Sjdjjdjcjjcjf (Also... Me? Feeling kind of flustered by talking about this? It's more likely than you think)

So... Yeah. I'm gonna try getting back to doing these updates, but I might do them every two months instead of every month now. Idk. I guess we'll see what happens. Thanks for reading!