#someone help that old man out of a coffin

[pretend-theres-a-name-here]

Little thing I wrote while procrastinating writing part 5 of Hide Your Heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Steve Harrington who knows his kid brother is obsessed with some niche, up and coming metal band. Steve Harrington who groans and grumbles and carries on about having to drive him around to shows and listen to him nerding out but does it anyway. Steve Harrington who doesn’t really pay attention because the lights on the stage are too bright and drown out whoever’s playing. Steve Harrington who is currently wading through a crowd making their way to the door, going against the current and stumbling as he searches for the mop of hair he promised to get home.

“Henderson!” He cups his hands around his mouth, “Where is that kid?” 

He finds himself pushed to the outskirts of the mass of bodies, plastered to a wall but he still pitches forward when a particularly rowdy young woman rams into him. He thinks he’s going to go all the way to the floor when a hand snags his elbow, holding him up. He turns to rush out an apology, a few thanks for the save, but stops before he can get the words out because holy shit the guy is gorgeous.

And Steve—well Steve has been doing some thinking about himself. About how most guys don’t have to mentally prepare themselves to go into the locker room after pe class. About how most guys don’t let their friends paint their nails pretty colors. Robin told him that there was this thing called being bisexual and he thought some things were clicking into place. So he’s gotten used to going out and noticing more than just girls, it’s not uncommon, but this guy is hot, like really hot. 

He’s dressed in leather pants and a cut off tank top that hangs around his sides. Tattoos, more doodles than actual designs, on full display for the world to see, running up his arms and peeking out from his ribs. His hair is in curly tangles, sweat sticking it to his forehead but he’s grinning. He has a jacket, leather, in his other hand. 

He’s also still holding on to Steve’s arm. Warm rings press into the inside of his elbow as he rights himself.

“First time?” The man asks.

“Y-yeah.” Steve gets out, “I’m supposed to be here with my brother, he’s a huge fan of some band playing here. Molded Coffin or something.”

The guy’s face breaks out into a full on smile, humor sparking in his eyes but Steve doesn’t know if what he said was that funny.

“Yeah? Where’s he at?” The guy still hasn’t let go, leading Steve away from the crowd and further into the room where there were less people.

“I’m actually looking for him now. Left him alone for five minutes to get a drink and he disappears.”

“You need help? These things can get a little crazy.” The man offers.

“You do this a lot?” Steve asks, immediately mentally face palming. He practically asked the guy if he came here often, he was going to think he was flirting. Was he?

The man just smiled, “You could say that. Eddie.” He finally released Steve’s arm in favor of holding out his hand. They shook hands and Steve told the man—Eddie—his name.

They talked for a while, Eddie got them drinks and Steve told himself that Dustin was old enough to behave himself for 15 minutes. Eddie kept an arm around his shoulders the whole time, shielding him from the chaos of the dwindling crowd was his excuse. Steve would have told him he didn’t need an excuse if that didn’t seem too forward.

 Eddie was just asking for his number when someone behind them called, “Ed! Quite flirting and get your ass over here! You’re helping us tear down this time!”

Eddie sighed, “Duty calls.” He scribbled something on to a napkin, patting it against Steve’s chest and backing away, “I’ll be waiting for yours, sweetheart.”

And Steve was either drunk or insane because he actually laughed at that. Laughed again when he looked at the napkin and saw numbers almost unreadable, a winking face below them.

“Steve! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you—What’s that?” Dustin’s tone went from annoyed to prying as soon as he saw the napkin.

“None of your business.” He stuffed the napkin in his pocket, “Are you ready to go or what, kid, I’ve been waiting forever.” He poked Dustin’s shoulder until he got moving and then he poked it again when Dustin scowled at him.

In the car he was once again subjected to Dustin’s after show rant about how cool it was. The guitarist apparently broke two strings and flipped the crowd off with his bloody fingers—which they went wild for, which Dustin screeched along with them for. They played a new song, but it all sounded the same to Steve. That was as much as he heard, though, his mind kept wandering back to the man after the show. To the number in his pocket. He debated putting it to use, was the next day too soon? How long was too long until Eddie forgot about him? A guy like that probably had a mountain of napkins with numbers thrown at him every day. He decided to get over himself and call late the next day. 

“Hi, this is Steve.” He suddenly felt very silly for calling but it was too late now.

“Steve, pretty boy from the show last night Steve?” And just like that he forgot why he hesitated to call.

“That would be me.” He cringed, “No, wait, that sounds so self centered.”

“Not self centered if it’s a compliment.” Eddie argued.

“If you say so.”

They talked, got 10 whole minutes of random conversations Steve never wanted to end before Eddie cursed.

“I’m sorry, I promised my uncle I’d help at the shop.” He muttered, “I’m gonna be late.”

“That’s fine, you should go help him.”

“I’ll call you later?” Eddie asked, and if Steve didn’t know any better he’d say it sounded hopeful.

“I’ll be here later.” He responded. 

They called all the time after that, whenever they were both free. They even met up in person, it was just to the park because Eddie found out Steve had never fed ducks before, but it ended with another day scheduled to spend together and then another and then a month had passed and he could say they were officially dating. It was the best time Steve had had in a long time and he really didn’t want it to end. The realization came to him one night, after another day with Eddie, and it wasn’t as shocking as he thought it would be. It was a Friday night, Eddie was busy most Saturdays—something about going to shows with the guys—so a lot of their slow nights were Fridays. They were watching TV on the couch in Eddie’s trailer, which was quickly becoming Steve’s favorite place, when he found himself watching the way Eddie laughed and even jumped at whatever horror movie was on more than he was watching the movie itself. 

“I love you.” He whispered. 

Eddie’s head whipped around, eyes wide, movie forgotten, “I love you too!” And then Steve couldn’t be blamed for not watching the movie anymore when he was practically tackled to the couch, laughing the whole way down.

It was a month after that night that he was steeling himself outside of his front door.

“It’ll be fine.” He said to himself, “They’re going to love you.” He said to Eddie who was gripping his hand.

“It’ll be fine.” Eddie agreed and he almost sounded convinced.

Today was the one day that everyone could gather at Steve’s. The whole party had shown up, everyone he had folded into his makeshift family was in his living room waiting for him to get back with the new partner he told them he was introducing. Today was the day they decided to tell people about them.

Steve pushed the door open, taking a deep breath before leading Eddie to the living room. All of his friends sat scattered around the room. On the couch and floor and coffee table. He could do this.

“Uh. Hey.” He cleared his throat, “I’m back.” All eyes snapped to him, eager to know who this mystery person was.

Eddie tried for an awkward wave but their hands were still connected so they just shook between them.

The silence was getting unbearable until finally Robin shot up from the floor and tackled him in a hug, subsequently dragging Eddie along into it.

“I’m so happy for you, dingus.” She laughed as she pulled away, “Robin.” She stuck her hand out to Eddie who visibly relaxed, “Best friend, platonic soulmate, hurt him and I swear to god you’ll wake up with no kneecaps.”

“Eddie.” Eddie squeaked, shaking her hand hastily.

“Bobbin.” Steve only called her that when she was being particularly over the top because it annoyed her to no end and she knew this, “Tone it down, would you?”

The rest of the group chorused their hellos and introductions and a weight lifted off of Steve’s shoulders at the sight of all of his friends accepting the news without comment. Until he realized there was only one person who hadn’t spoken a word, standing in the middle of the room with a strange look on his face.

“Dustin?” Steve prompted, voice strained.

“Oh my God.” Dustin mumbles in disbelief.

“Dustin…” Steve shot him a warning glance, “If you’ve got a problem with it—”

But Dustin ignores him, he’s staring at Eddie in shock, “Oh my God!” He practically shouts, coming to life to jump and screech, “That’s—! You’re—! You’re Eddie Munson!” 

Eddie grins, seemingly unfazed by this bizarre reaction to meeting your brother’s boyfriend, “I take it you’re a fan?”

“A fan of what?” Steve asks, pulling his hand out of Eddie’s to turn to him face to face.

At the same time, Dustin starts babbling hysterically, “A fan? Only the biggest CC fan in all of Hawkins! I have every song on vinyl, like three posters and—oh my god this is so embarrassing. Eddie Munson is in my house and I’m telling him I have his face on my wall.” 

He keeps talking but it’s more to himself than anyone else in the room so Steve raises an eyebrow at Eddie, “What’s he talking about? Why are you on posters and why does he have them?”

Eddie, for the first time since Steve has known him, looks almost sheepish, “Oh…I guess I’m kind of, maybe the frontman of Corroded Coffin.” He might be blushing.

“You’re that nerd Dustin’s always going on about?!” Steve exclaims.

[ghouldump]

hiii, i just wanted to say i LOVE your iwtv fic, the characterization is just perfect *🤌*

If your requests are open I would like to request a loustat x fem!reader + claudia

reader is a vampire slightly older vampire than louis, turned in the 1860s by a 700 year old vampire, she was his first and only fledgling, they did not know eachother before he turned her (his wasing bleeding to death after being robbed in an alley), they had a close friendly/platonic relationship like siblings, and she met loustat in 1925, and joined their relationship, she like the odd one out as she's the calm/sensible one and a mediator between them. She acts like Claudia's fun aunt.

Sorry if it's long 😅, the rest is totally up you, just something where they get jealous/possessive over her please!!

Forever Young | Lestat x Reader x Louis

ෆ you meet someone who reminds you of your maker, and naturally gravitate to them, but your family isn’t as welcoming to the idea of the man.

it’s definitely not too long, it’s perfect, i love it 🩷

“Aleron, brother, please, open this door,” you beat on the door, no matter how much force you put in your hands, the door wouldn’t budge.

You could see the sun rising, from under the door, his painful screams, following. The blood poured from your eyes, as you pleaded with him. You could still save him, you could nurse him back to life.

Finally, you could open the door, crying out as the sun graced your face. As you began to burn, you noticed the pile of ashes. You were too late, he was gone. Grabbing his coat, you backed into the house, shutting the door, before dropping to your knees, weeping loudly.

“Aleron-

“Y/n, are you alright?” your eyes opened, staring into Claudia’s worried eyes. Sitting up, the familiar faces surrounded your coffin, Louis wiped your face with a soft handkerchief.

“It was only a dream,” you smiled at them.

“Are you sure, you had us worried,” Claudia said, pulling you into a hug.

“I’m fine, really, we should get dressed,” you told her, watching as she nodded, getting up, and going to her room.

Lestat hadn't said a word, watching you, trying to see what it was that you weren't sharing. Turning to face him, you shook your head, climbing out of the coffin.

“I’m okay”

“What was your dream?” he asked you.

“It was a silly-

“That left you crying,” he said, sternly.

“Don't push her to tell you”

“It's okay, Louis, I know he just wants to help,” you smiled.

“If I have another, you'll be the first one to know, come on, get dressed,” you reassured him.

“Do we all have to go?” Claudia whined as you all got into the car.

“It will only be for a little while,” Louis said, as Lestat started to drive.

Louis couldn't seem to fully let go of his family, randomly showing up with gifts. They already had their assumptions about him, yet he wouldn't stop trying. Lestat found it pointless, but you understood that he loved them still. Even when they blamed him for the passing of his brother, he still loved them all greatly.

“You can sit in the car with me if you want,” you told her, smiling as she nodded in agreement.

While Lestat tried to be cordial with the family, you never made an effort. They'd stare at you, as you sat in the car, but you never looked their way. Yes, you thought Louis’ love for them was admirable, it didn't change what they thought of you all. They found your relationship weird and concerning, they questioned why none of you were ever seen during the day if you were seeing both Lestat and Louis. Their questioning was nevertheless exacerbating, so you kept a distance from them.

Your mind began to drift off, thinking back to your dream, to him. Aleron, your maker, your teacher, your companion, your brother, your father, your friend. It had been nearly 40 years since his departure, and yet when you thought of him, the wounds felt fresh.

He was your everything, the reason you were the way you were today. He exuded remarkable beauty, turned at only 14 years of age, by a follower of Akasha. With the queen of vampires' blood running through his veins, he quickly discovered the power and strength he possessed, compared to others. For centuries, he lived, killing hundreds upon hundreds of humans in his lifetime, and then he met you.

He had been hunting, when he came across the men, who, after robbing you, conceived the plan, their minds filled with corruption, sought to kill you as well. Taking turns they beat you, before stabbing you, taking all of your possessions, and that was very few things.

He could see into your thoughts, an orphan, who had recently come of age, trying to make it in a world that wasn't built for women to strive without the help of a man. You were alone, like him, and having compassion, he killed them, brutally for your name's sake. Turning you in that very dark alley.

Taking you in, he taught you companionship, the history of vampires, and advice on how to live, after being on earth for over 700 years. He loved you and you loved him, and there wasn't a love as strong, that either of you had ever witnessed.

Then it happened, somewhere within his teachings he regained his humanity. He didn't want to kill anymore, didn't want to be a child of the night, to be trapped in this forever youthful body. And so, 30 years into your life of vampirism, he used his power to keep the doors shut. He longed to die, accepting his fate while he stepped into the sun, becoming nothing more than dust.

“We’ll be right back,” Louis said, as the car stopped.

“Ok,” you nodded.

After over three lonely decades of wandering, your heart ached at the thought of Aleron’s centuries on earth. He was but a child, when he was turned, making it impossible to build any nonplatonic relationships. Perhaps that is what made you love Claudia, Lestat, and Louis so much. In a way, you could see fragments of you and your maker in them.

“Why do you think Daddy Lou keeps coming here, even though he’s not welcome”

“Because they were once his family, it's hard to just stop loving someone who was once important to you, but it looks like they are coming back,” you pointed, seeing Louis and Lestat walking out of the house, visibly aggravated.

“You and that white devil stay away from this house,” his sister’s husband yelled.

“I own this house,” Louis reminded him. As they approached the car, he looked back at them once more.

“And he ain't white, he's French,” he corrected them.

Looking over at Claudia, you both covered your mouths, holding back the laughter.

“It's alright, they can't say you didn't try to be there for them,” you told him, leaning up, kissing his cheek.

Sighing, he nodded in agreement, before he and Lestat began to talk about business ventures. You were relieved when the car finally parked, stretching, you smiled, seeing Claudia clap in excitement. She enjoyed hunting, surprisingly with Lestat, he wasn't as restrictive as Louis.

“We’ll meet back here, in twenty minutes?” Lestat announced, everyone nodded, before going their separate ways.

You didn't have much of an appetite tonight, after your dream. How real it felt, how vivid the memory was, it ruined any hunger that could've been there. Walking down the French Quarter, you stopped seeing the large nutria rat. You hadn't been introduced to drinking from rodents, until Louis and Lestat. No, it wasn't nearly as good as a person, but it managed to get the job done.

Quickly killing and draining the rat, you wiped your mouth, as you tossed it into the garbage. Walking along the sidewalk, you looked at the different stores, a few new ones, some closing down, others busy as always. As you passed by a shop, your eyes widened, before you backed up to stare at the cashier.

You couldn't believe your eyes, going into the fragrance store, he spoke, before looking at you. It couldn't be him, but here he was, looking the very same, only older.

“Welcome to Aromaessence, let me know if you need any…thing,” he paused a little, as he stared at you. Nodding, you walked around the store, looking around, picking up random sprays, occasionally glancing at him.

Grabbing a floral bottle, you walked to the counter, slowly sitting it in front of him.

“Is that all for you, Miss?” he asked.

“Yes,” you smiled, softly.

“Ah, Lavender, this one smells so good,” he said, you could feel your eyes tingling.

“What are you doing?” you asked, watching Aleron pick the flowers from his neighbor's garden. She would lose her mind if she caught you both here, but he couldn't help himself.

“Getting some lavender, put some in your bathwater, or just rub it on your skin, it smells wonderful,” he beamed, while you quietly laughed.

“It does,” you agreed, your eyes traveling to his name tag. Aaron.

“Are you the new shop owner? I haven’t seen the other man in a while,” you asked.

“No, it's my cousin's store, his wife just had their first child and he asked me to come down and help out a bit, I'm from Chicago,” he explained.

“Well that was very kind of you,” you told him.

“Uh, 30 cents is the total,” he said, chewing his bottom lip.

Handing him the coins, your eyes widened as his fingers brushed against your hand, as he accepted the money. You felt a spark.

“Would you like this in a bag, miss?”

“Yes please,” you nodded, watching as he placed it into a small bag for you.

Walking behind you, you noticed as he closed both of the windows.

“Closing?” you asked him.

“Ah, yes ma'am, you were the last customer of the night,” he nodded.

“I see, well, goodnight,” you told him, turning to leave.

“Wait, I-um, have we met before? You look so familiar,” he said.

“I don't think so, goodnight Aaron,” you said.

“May I have your name?”

“Y/n”

“Goodnight, Y/n, I hope to see you again,” he told you, before shutting the door.

You couldn't contain the smile on your lips, as you walked away. However, your eyebrows quickly furrowed, seeing the troubled expressions on Lestat and Louis’ face.

“What's wrong-

“You know the boy at the fragrance store?” Louis started.

“And what could he have possibly said for you to keep smiling and laughing, I'm sure he wasn't that funny,” Lestat said with an attitude.

“You were gone for more than twenty minutes, so we went to look for you,” Claudia told you. You couldn't believe they were acting jealous, riding in silence until he parked in front of the house.

“I don't know him, I was only being nice, he's practically a tourist,” you finally spoke up.

“Seemed like you thought he was cute,” Louis said.

“He is cute, like when you look at kittens and puppies, you wouldn't get jealous if I was giving my attention to an animal,” you told them.

“Actually-

“I’m yours and yours and yours, I don't have any room in my heart for any others,” you said, pulling Claudia into a hug, swirling her around, before placing her on the ground.

As she ran into the house, Louis and Lestat still stood outside, both of them pouted like a wounded animal.

“I just bought some perfume, no need to be jealous,” you spoke to Louis, as you pecked his lips.

“Either of you,” you said, as Lestat circled you, before accepting your kiss.

“You two have to try to keep quiet tonight,” you moaned, as Louis kissed along your neck.

“No promises, ma chérie,” Lestat groaned. Holding each of their hands, pulling into the house.

“Claudia, where’s Y/n,” Louis asked, as he came down the stairs.

“No idea, she left a note,” she said, pointing at the small note on the counter.

“I'll be back before sunrise, love you - Y/n”

“And she expects us to believe nothing happened,” Lestat said, as he came down the stairs.

“Why would she lie about that?”

“I can feel when I am being lied to, she's keeping something to herself,” Lestat said, as he went to sit on the sofa.

“Maybe she knows him, but didn't want to say anything,” Louis said.

“She said she doesn't know him, and he wasn't a vampire, I would've known”

“He probably doesn't know that she's a vampire, he could be a distant relative or an old friend-

“Or an old boyfriend, she said he was cute,” Claudia laughed but quickly stopped when the two stared at her with glances of horror.

“I’m going find her,” Lestat stood up.

“I was only messing around-

“You do realize this affects you too, your aunt, mommy, sister Y/n, riding off into the sun with some mortal, or how about this, she turns him, he becomes her companion, and we wake to all of her belongings gone, so tell me, does any of this seem like a laughing matter?” he asked her, clarity washed over her face as she shook her head, realizing how serious the situation actually was.

Standing outside of the shop, you nervously played with your fingers. Unsure what you were even doing, or why you were doing this. He wasn't Aleron, yet he looked like him, could it be reincarnation, perhaps Aaron happened to be a part of the same bloodline somehow. You didn't know, but being around him, seeing him, in your heart you felt like he was still alive.

“Miss Y/n, did you want to buy another perfume, I could open back up?” Aaron said, as he stepped outside.

“Oh no, I'm sorry, I was passing by and I changed my mind,” you said.

“Then perhaps, you'd like to go for a drive? I can't seem to get you out of my head, we could chat a bit, and become familiar with each other,” he offered, hesitantly.

“Sure,” you agreed, following him to his car, getting in as he opened the door for you. Controlling his mind, with the spell gift, you sat quietly, while he spoke, during the ride, driving to the outskirts of Chalmette.

“Y/n, where are you?” you could hear Claudia, but didn't say anything.

“You need to come home, or at least tell us where you're at,” Louis followed.

“If you're with him, I'll tear off his fucking he-

You blocked them out completely, even in his thoughts, Lestat managed to scream. They wouldn't understand, they had their maker, and Lestat seemed fine without Magnus. You never talked about Aleron, not sure where to even start, without a proper goodbye, part of you was left uncertain about so many things.

As he parked amid trees and darkness, you pulled the locket from your pocket.

“Sorry, I figured we could use some privacy,” he said, leaning towards you when you pushed his face.

“I don't want to kiss you, Aaron, I have something for you,” you laughed.

“I-oh my god, this is so embarrassing”

“Don't go yet, we don't know what they're doing, and we don't want to lose her trust,” Louis said, trying to be rational, despite struggling. It was usually you, who was being rational, the mediator, giving them the benefit of the doubt, and he was trying to do the same for you.

“Trust went out of the window when she got into the car with another man,” Lestat was seething, his eyes already red. He was sure that he would be in tears in a few minutes.

“Maybe she's feeding on him,” Claudia said hopeful, a worried expression on her face. Lestat’s words left her sad and anxious. You were a part of the family, a part of all of their lives individually, she wasn't sure how things would be if you decided to leave.

“I hope so”

“Does this look familiar to you?” you asked, holding up the locket.

“I don't know, I feel like I've seen it somewhere,” he furrowed his eyebrows. As he looked into your eyes, you began to glamour him.

“It's yours, you dropped it, but you promised you would pass it down to any future children you had,” you said, handing it over to him.

“I did?”

“Yes, try not to lose it,” you told him.

“I will, thank you for returning it,” he smiled.

“It was my pleasure,” you said, reaching to touch his face, a bloody tear slipping from your eye.

“I wish you didn't leave me, I was so lonely,” you cried, as you held his face, keeping eye contact.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you,” he spoke.

“It’s okay, you have to go, after closing the shop, you went to get some food, and now you're going home, you didn't talk to or see anyone”

“I didn't talk to anyone”

“And tell your cousin you can't stay anymore you had to get back to Chicago”

“You're right,” he nodded.

“I love you”

“I love you, Y/n,” he repeated.

Moving in an instant, he snapped out of the hypothesis, furrowing his eyebrows, as he looked around the car. Shoving the locket into his pocket, he started the car and drove off. High in the sky, you looked down at him, the tears pouring down, a smile on your face.

Flying towards the city, you shook your head, lowering to the ground, stopping in front of the car.

“Y/n,” Claudia gasped, getting out of the car, wrapping her arms around you.

“Why did you all follow me?” you questioned, surprised to see they were so close.

“Why did you lie to us? You said you didn't know him, he wasn't this, he wasn't that, he's like a puppy, we don't have to worry,” Lestat began to swear up a storm in French. Smashing your lips into his, you grinned at him.

“You're too cute when you're jealous, I told you, I only have room for three vamps in my life, and I don't intend to make room for more”

“You had us worried, we tried contacting you-” you interrupted Louis kissing his lips.

“I could hear you, trying to be reasonable, I'm so proud of you,” you told him.

“So what was it? Why did you bring him out here, just to not kill him?” Claudia asked.

“He looks like my maker, we were companions, he was a brother, and when he died, I felt lost. I know it seems dumb, but I glamoured him, so I could say a proper goodbye, I didn't mean to make you all worry and be jealous,” you said, kicking the dirt.

“That's all? how could I stay mad at that?” Louis asked, picking you up, and spinning you around. As he placed you down, Lestat slowly approached, pulling you closer.

“No more secrets,” he said, you could see past his calm demeanor, how stressed he was at the idea of you leaving.

“No more secrets,” you nodded, before grabbing Claudia’s hand, and climbing into the backseat.

During the drive back, you looked up at the sky, as Claudia’s lustrous nails lightly dragged against your hand.

“Why are you giving this to me,” you asked, as Aleron stood behind you, placing the necklace on your neck.

“This was a family heirloom, my father gave it to me, to pass down our bloodline, you are the closest thing I have to a child,” he explained.

“But aren't heirlooms passed down, once the person dies”

“One day, I will die,” he told you, but you shook your head.

“Stop talking like that, you said you have to want to die for you to be able to, do you want to die?” you asked him, worried.

“No, my child, but if I did, you could find love, a companion, or even a coven”

“But then who would be there, with you”

“I've been alone a long time, Y/n, I think I could manage,” he laughed.

“As long as you're alive, I won't leave your side,” you smiled.

“Sounds like I am holding you back”

“I didn't say that”

“If I did, maybe I'd be reincarnated-

“Do you really believe in that, or have you been reading a lot lately”

“A little bit of both, could you imagine that I came back, and we met again”

“I guess it sounds cool in theory, but I wouldn't know how to feel if I saw you all old and wrinkled,” you laughed.

“Then I'll make sure every time we meet I am still young, maybe older than this body, but forever young, in your eyes,” he said.

“You wouldn't want to be a vampire again?”

“I don't think so, eternal life but no family, no children, no physical aging, no sun. When I was a child, I'd play in the sun for hours,” he thought back fondly.

“You have me, I am your family,” you told him.

“That, you are, and I am grateful to say that in my final moments, I have been loved, and I will always find my way back to you, my precious fledgling, until we meet again,” he said, his hand brushing against your cheek before he stood up.

“What?” you frowned, standing up.

“Sit, you must prepare for rest,” he commanded, using his powers to make you sit down.

You tried fighting, tried standing, but couldn't move, only able to watch him walk towards the door. Blood was already trickling down your face, realizing his plan. It wasn't until he was outside, that you were able to stand, rushing to the door, that wouldn't open.

"Aleron, brother, please, open this door," you beat on the door, no matter how much force you put in your hands, the door wouldn't budge.

You could see the sun rising, from under the door, his painful screams, following. The blood poured from your eyes, as you pleaded with him. You could still save him, you could nurse him back to life.

Finally, you could open the door, crying out as the sun graced your face. As you began to burn, you noticed the pile of ashes. You were too late, he was gone.

Grabbing his coat, you backed into the house, shutting the door, before dropping to your knees, weeping loudly.

"Aleron, oh god,” you screamed, clutching the coat.

Driving past a small gas station, you could Aaron, leaning against his car, as the worker pumped the gas.

“Goodbye, Aleron,” you spoke to his mind, smiling as he looked around, his hand going to the locket that he had put around his neck already.

“Until we meet again, my beloved, maker”

“So I know we're all made up, but could you three wait until I'm out hunting for the makeup sex, I don't think I can take another night of Uncle Les being all loud and whatnot,” Claudia said, making you and Louis both laugh, while Lestat groaned loudly at her already back getting on his nerves.

Maybe he was right, losing him, who, at the time was your everything, made a way for you to have what he never got to experience, your own little family.

[londonfog-chan]

I Will Not Keep My Mouth Shut About this High School Romance Between Eddie Munson x Reader (Headcanons)

Why lord? Why are we not talking about this?

I’ve dated metalhead guys in the past, and believe in me when I say these fuckers move fast.

Eddie is no exception to this rule. He loves hard and quickly, especially if you’re into the same things he’s into as well.

I’m talking balls to the wall insanity like: the day won’t even be over and he’ll have already asked you out, kissed you, offered you weed, and secretly be planning the names of the four kids he wants with you.

Mans is delulu as fuck for you.

As much as he has his passions there’s just something about the fact that you actually gave the town freak unconditional love that makes him desperate. Corroded Coffin, Hellfire Club, he’d pick you over them any day if it meant he got to keep you.

Guarantee, you’ll already have gone all the way before the weekend is up of that first week of the relationship.

Cherry boy cherry boy cherry boy.

But he knows what he’s doing. It will have been awkward but the best part is now “Rainbow in the Dark” makes you feel all hot under the collar and “Shame on the Night” makes you laugh and reminds you of the awkward panic cleaning up after.

The epitome of live fast die young. He will throw his life away if you ask him to, so make sure you use your powers wisely.

At some point Eddie will ask you to run away with him. He doesn’t give a shit where, so long as it’s with you.

Shared interests are probably how the two of you met in the first place, especially if you’re like me and unable to beat the weird kid allegations. You drifted towards his club because you for whatever reason were an outcast too.

Eddie would probably crush on those who are conventionally pretty, popular, the epitome of the 80’s beauty standards. That’s just human nature. But with you… it’s so much more different.

You’re like his nerdy fantasies come to life, like the princesses he writes about in his campaigns that are a mix of dark, dangerous, able to hold their own and fight for him and with him. Think of if you will a sexy bombshell rotoscoped into those old metal music videos. Facing the world wearing only red lipstick and a cocksure expression.

He would get along so well with someone who wasn’t afraid to let their wild side show, or to express it. But at the same time if you’re more shy and reserved, he is determined to help you come out of that shell and be the best possible version of yourself.

It’s impossible not to match his excitable energy, it’s just so goddamn contagious. It might scare you how far you’re willing to go for Eddie and how quickly you might find yourself changing. Because believe me, you will change, and it will be for the better.

Eddie will always be your number one hype man.

He will literally be so excited about everything you do because it’s you! The person he loves more than anyone in this whole entire world.

Eddie will literally put up with so much for you. Even if you guys fight he will struggle to maintain his composure because he does not want to fuck this beautiful thing up.

Drives himself up the wall with anxiety about it too. But that’s the thing about Eddie’s dynamic with you: is that he will do what it takes to keep his fucking cool around you.

Your fights are infrequent but can get explosive if there are unsaid insecurities. So to avoid this: keep honest with him. About everything. Don’t lie to him, because as fast as he fell for you, lying is the quickest way to break his trust and send him packing.

One of his flaws in the relationship is that his insecurity that this will all go away will make him all that more prepared to leave if you have a massive blow up fight.

Like he’s already preplanned his exit strategy and everything.

But the longer you’re together, the more comfortable he gets and eventually he settles down from jumping the gun into taking things one day at a time.

He’s a fucking keeper. And all I’m gonna say is you better start training with swinging a blunt weapon because once you have him, you’re going to be right there in the Upside Down fucking up some monsters keeping them away from your man.

[porkcutletbowl44]

Gothic muse

John Price x F!reader

(I'm turning the goth gf into a series not sorry) just fluff for Halloween!!!

༄˖°.🍂.ೃ࿔*:･𓃠����

Price thinks he's starting to get too old to understand the younger generations, not particularly liking the new music going on mainstream, new styles and sayings that go straight over his head. As long as he can keep up with the technology, everything is fine and there's no issues (no matter how badly it pisses him off when Apple comes out with a new phone every month for no reason).

Price felt that the music got worse and worse as the newer generations appeared. It was just... Noise. There was no rhythm, no actual beat. It was just someone wailing into a microphone with a bunch of random noise in the background. Not to mention the fashion trends... Dear lord. He thought back to his youth when people dressed like real people and not like this. He never made a fuss over it; that person has their own life and choices, could do whatever they wanted. It didn't mean he had to understand why the fuck this random kid was walking around in basketball shorts in freezing weather. 

But who is he kidding? He's just starting to sound like a grumpy old man. Though, it doesn't help that he is growing into a grumpy old man.

Price groaned, feeling his knees and his back crack and ache as he came down a set of stairs. The last mission really did a number on him. He passed by some younger people, dressed in all black and white makeup, bright death hawks and all the works. 

"Bloody kids these days."

He stopped for a moment, realizing he was starting to sound more and more like a old old man, which he was far from. He was still in shape, still in the army, he wasn't that old...

But that didn't stop him from whining about the 'youths'.

"What happened to real music."

But when he sees little ol' you, standing behind a gothic-style taste test stand under a big spooky awning, he stops. You are dressed like the others, makeup, skulls and bat jewelry, flashing customers a happy smile.

Price's eyes scanned the area, pausing on the little stand with the bright gothic decorations. It was different from his normal type in women, but he wasn't complaining.

You looked cute, charming.

The thought put a smile on his face. Price watched for a moment, before deciding to approach the stand, pretending that he wanted to try whatever you were selling.

Price made his way up to the stand, leaning on the counter as he examined you.

You looked far off from 18, which was a but surprising. Most goths were teenagers, or in their early 20s. It was rare to see one who is in her more mature adulthood stage in life. 

"So what's all this then?" He almost cringed at the roughness of his voice, sounding a little too hostile.

"I'm promoting my new drink for my good friends' restaurant opening soon, I'm a learning bartender and I want to get feedback." You smiled nervously, being polite and understanding.

Price's rough demeanor almost immediately softens at the sweet smile and sweet voice. You were just too damn adorable, he couldn't help it.

"Really? So what's the drink called then?" He asks, looking down at the dark purple drink in front of him, examining it closely. "An' the restaurant? Or is it some kind o' pub?"

Your face lights up, you happily gush about your new mix. "I'm calling it Vampire Blood, it's a blackberry-flavored scotch. And the restaurant across the street— It's the Leaky Coffin. It's got a bar, yes, but I hear the food is delicious!"

It was so adorable how excited and happy you were, it almost made his heart melt.

"Vampire Blood," he repeated with a soft chuckle, shaking his head. "Clever name." He pauses, looking at the drink again before looking up at you.

"You make this yourself?" He questions, gesturing to the drink again.

"Yeah! You're welcome to try it, I'd appreciate the feedback!" You happily nodded.

Price gave in, reaching his hand out to take the drink. Bringing it up to his lips, he took a sip. The second the taste hit his tongue, he froze. It was... Actually really good. He took a bigger drink, finishing the rest of the cup.

"Bloody hell this is good." He said, a small smile on his face as he turns the glass on the table, "It's amazing."

"Really? I'm glad you like it," you beamed kindly.

Price gave you a friendly close lipped smile as he watched you practically melt in happiness at his reaction. His heart felt all warm and fuzzy seeing you so happy, it made him forget about the aching in his body.

"'S delicious." He said again. "You 'ave a real talent for this."

"Thank you! I start a week after the restaurant opens, I'll be mixing up more drinks soon," you play with your bat necklace, smiling up at him.

He's never really paid much attention to women who dressed like you or anything like that- normally he was more into the girl next door type, or a more casual, homey style- but you were so adorable and unique. 

Price nods, his eyes locking onto the way you were fidgeting with your necklace.

"Yeah?" He questions, the smile on his face growing a little wider as he continues to watch you, admiring every little thing you did. "When does it open?" He asks, giving you a smile behind his mustache.

"Just a few days! I have some pictures of the interior-" you pull out your phone, tapping on the screen and showing him some pictures. "It's all real gothic architecture, real antiques, a real wine cellar in the basement too-"

The gothic architecture, the antiques, the basement winery- it all looked spectacular. It was unlike any bar or restaurant he'd ever been to.

"That's bloody phenomenal." Price said, looking at the pictures closely. "You're friends have great taste."

He looks up at you again, meeting your eyes with a soft and affectionate smile.

"Thanks! This is a dream come true for us, I'm so excited." You grinned.

Price felt incredibly lucky to have stumbled upon this sweet, kind woman. The fact that you weren't his type at first, but now that he's spoken to you he was already falling for your charm.

"I can tell." He chuckled, still smiling. "What's your name?" He asks suddenly. He should have asked earlier, hell- he should have asked since the moment he walked up to the stand.

You outstretch your hand, politely giving your name. Price smiles as you extend your hand out to him, and he takes it in his own, shaking it gently.

Your name was so pretty.

He wanted to hear it again, but this time in his own voice.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." His hand swallows yours in warmth, "I'm John," he gives you a small smile. "John Price."

"Nice to meet you too, John." You giggle softly. 

Price had never been one to seek out goths or women like you- he had usually stuck with more "normal" people. But something about you was different. The kindness, the politeness, the gentle nature. And the fact that you dressed in black, decorated with skulls and bats didn't make you any less attractive to him. In fact, it made you even more attractive.

He didn't think he'd ever been this attracted to someone before. And god, he could stare into your eyes for hours.

He wanted to ask for your number, or invite you out on a date right then and there, but he held himself back. He didn't want to be too forward and scare you away. But he couldn't stop the thoughts of taking you out on a date, getting to know you. Price cleared his throat, trying to snap himself out of his own thoughts. He had just met you. You weren't his yet. He shouldn't be thinking like this.

He gave you a soft smile, his eyes still gazing into yours.

"Uh— sorry," he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, "what... do you do when your not at your little stand 'ere?"

"Mostly help out with getting the restaurant ready. We have a lot of decorations and painting that has to be done. But on the weekends we attend Sirens Cave." You answered, flashing him a kind smile. 

Price was fascinated by your answers, and the way you spoke. There was something about you that just made him want to pick your brain, and learn everything he could about you.

"Sirens Cave." He repeated, a little familiar with the name. "That's a bar, right?"

"It has a bar, yes, but it's mostly a Goth Club." You giggle.

That made a lot more sense, and it explained the bat and skull attire. Price smiles slightly, amused by the cuteness of your giggle.

"A 'Goth Club'." He repeated softly. "An' you frequent there a lot?"

"Not all the time, I can enjoy the peace and quiet at home. A book, TV show, baking..." You trail off.

Price was practically melting on the inside. You were such a sweetheart.

"You bake?" He questions, his tone almost turning into a cooing.

So you were kind, polite, and you like to read and bake, too?

He was definitely in trouble.

"Yeah, when I was in college I had a little baking business to help with loans." You nodded enthusiastically.

Price’s heart was almost bursting inside his chest. You just kept getting cuter and cuter. Not just that, but you were ambitious and smart.

Bloody hell.

He had never fallen so hard before.

Price couldn't help the little flutter in his chest at the thought of you baking. The fact that you were making money with baking was really impressive. He wanted to know every little thing about you; past, present, future. He would be lying if he said he wasn't already a little obsessed.

"College, huh?" He asks, leaning against the counter. "What'd you study?"

"I did mixology for a little bit, and then I switched over to architecture to help get the building structure what we wanted." You used hand gestures out of excitement, happy to talk about you and your friend's dreams.

He smiled, admiring your excitement. "Architecture." He repeated, nodding. "That's impressive."

Architecture wasn't easy, especially not trying to make a building how you wanted. He could tell how passionate you were about this.

"Did you graduate?" He asks.

"I did! A few years ago,"

You were literally perfect.

"So this little gothic restaurant you're gonna work at- you designed it too, yeah?" He questions, wanting to know everything.

"Most of the design was by me, yes," you answered proudly. 

You had studied architecture, then gone on to design a full restaurant, one that you and your friend were opening soon. He was seriously falling for you. Hard.

"That's incredible." He said, admiring you, maybe even buttering you up in the chances of you saying yes to a date, "Must feel good, seein' your design come alive, yeah?"

"I'm so happy, it's a dream come true!" You couldn't suppress your bright grin, all teeth and eyes crinkling. 

Price was in love. It wasn't even funny. Seeing that bright grin made his heart leap in his chest. If he wasn't falling before, he most definitely was now. He was practically swooning. No one had made him fall for someone this fast. 

"I can tell." He smiles back, that soft, fond smile.

"One of my friends will be the head chef, she does a lot of culinary and her food is delicious! Definitely something I'd recommend to try out- she's trying new dishes for the opening too!" You mentioned. 

Price listened to you enthusiastically rant about your work, your friends, everything. It was the cutest thing imaginable hearing how excited you got talking about everything. He loved the way you'd light up when talking about your new restaurant.

He listens intently as you gushed about your passion, talking about anything and everything about it. It sounded like it would be a good place to eat; good food, good drinks, good atmosphere. He could see you being a very talented bartender, if your little potion is anything to go by.

"You'll be the bartender then?" He questions, raising a brow.

"A week after it opens." You reminded sweetly. 

"Right, a week after it opens." He repeated, a small smile on his face.

He wanted to know if you were single or not. But there's no way someone as perfect as you could be single, you were probably taken...

"Got any... special someone you wanna celebrate it with?" He asks softly.

"No, me and the group might have a celebration together at some point." You shook your head.

He had the chance.

He gave you a small smile, the thought of you being single had him practically dizzy.

"Oh yeah?" He muses, he was calm, but his mind was going crazy with excitement. "When you you think you'll have that celebration?"

"Maybe during the weekend, it's best to not come to run a restaurant hung over," you giggled, tucking hair behind your ear.

The way you smiled and giggled and talked, it sent butterflies through his stomach. This was new; he was normally the one doing the flirting. But you had him swooning. He wanted to just take you in his arms and never let you go.

"Guess that's a good idea." He said, smiling playfully at you. "The weekend then hm?"

"Likely, I'm free the rest of the week." You mentioned casually. 

Price's insides practically melted as you said that. You were free the rest of the week? That meant he had a chance to take you out on a date. A smile spread across his lips, his heart beating a little faster in his chest.

"Are you now?" He teased lightly, raising a brow. "Would you fancy trying your new restaurant on opening day?" He insinuates.

"Oh would I?" You almost squeal in excitement, over joyed at the offer.

It was so cute. You were so cute.

"Yeah," He says, still smiling that big, soft, and fond smile. "Would you? With me?" he adds with a coo in the undertone.

"I'd love too!" You nodded enthusiastically.

You said yes. You said yes to the date. The butterflies in his stomach felt more like fireworks as he looked at your excited face. 

"Great." He affirms, pleased, "I'll pick ya up then yeah?"

"Yeah! Here's my number-" you pull a card over, scribbling on it and handing it to him, the light glints on your nail polish spider web design

He flipped the card over, looking at the number. He was committing it to memory. He looked back up at you, smiling.

"I'll make sure to use it." He said, slipping the card into his pocket.

"See you then, John." You smile all giddy and excited. 

No one had made him smile this much in a while, he was normally the one doing the swooning. Your smile and the way you giggled made his heart flutter like crazy.

"I'll see you then, love."

You were so...different. You knew what you wanted. You knew your passion and executed it.

It was impressive, really. Most people just work with what they have, take what's dealt to them. But you? You went beyond. You decided to make a dream a reality, and by the look of things, it would be a success. You were determined and hardworking and ambitious, and you went after your dream no matter what.

Everything about you was different from women Price was used to. You were a go getter, a dream chaser. You had ambition, creativity, a spark.

But you were also kind, and sweet, and soft.

You liked history, that much was given. You had a interest in gothic architecture and strived to keep it alive.

And that mysterious aura—

Price would admit it; when he first walked up to your booth he had some prejudices. But you proved him wrong. He was completely fascinated by you. He wanted to learn everything about you.

He could tell you had secrets, things hidden beneath that sweet appearance. He was very interested to see how many secrets you had, and what they were.

He liked that about you; the air of mystery.

And the fact that you were just generally so attractive.

When opening day arrives, you are waiting outside the restaurant. You've went a little easy on the gathering make up, allowing John to see more of your natural features for the date.

Price pulled up to the restaurant, parking his car to the side. When he stepped out, he felt his jaw drop. You looked absolutely beautiful. The dress was simple but elegant, and your jewelry completed the look.

You were gorgeous.

Price just stared at you for a moment, his heart doing somersaults in his chest. He couldn't believe how lucky he was to be able to see you like this. He walked over to you, his smile bright.

"You look stunning, love."

You twirled your dress a little, preening and blushing, "Thank you,"

He gave you a wide, fond smile, admiring the way the dress looked on you.

"Of course." He tilts his head. "Absolutely beautiful."

He offered you his arm. "Should we go in then, love?"

You wrapped your hand around his thick bicep, walking in to the restaurant. The sight is beautiful, people at tables, the smell of wood and rich timbre fills the air, warm lights everywhere to make the atmosphere moody and relaxing.

He was blown away; it was like he had stepped into a whole other world. It was relaxed yet elegant, like the people at the tables. The low lights gave it a moody, romantic feel, and Price couldn't help but think how beautiful it was. And you were responsible for it all.

He was definitely taking you home at the end of the night.

"Hi, table for two," you held up two fingers, smiling at the host.

The host smiled back and nodded, grabbing two menus. She lead you too your booth, setting the menus down for you. The table was near a large window that revealed the beautiful view outside, and the low mood lighting was just bright enough to read the menu. Price sat down in the seat across from you, picking up one of the menus. He scanned the menu, eyes practically going wide upon realizing how good everything sounded. He had a hard time trying to pick what to get.

You picked up your own coffin shaped menu, smiling in recognition.

The food names were odd, and a bit blunt to say the least, it was a complete vampire type of vibe in the building.

Price read through the different meals, eyes widening further as he realized it was all vampire themed. A "Bloody Mary" was a type of pizza, a "Count Garlic" was the appetizers. He was even more impressed with what he was seeing. He looked at the drink menu, and saw "Holy Communion", which was their cocktail list. He was thoroughly enjoying this. It was cool that you had turned the menu names into a theme. He set the menu down, smiling at you.

"This is interesting."

"That was the fun part about this, coming up with funny names." You giggled.

Price's heart skipped a beat as you giggled. It was so cute how  excited you were. You were practically glowing with happiness and pride. He was so gone for you.  He leaned forward on the table, propping his chin up with his hand, smiling at you.

"I love the names." He remarked. "Creative."

"I feel like you would really like the 'Dead Cow'." You inquired playfully

Price grinned, raising his eyebrows in interest. Dead Cow? That was an interesting name for a meal. He leaned back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest.

"The 'Dead Cow', eh?" He hums, "That sounds promising."

He scans the menu, eyes landing on the dish.

'A 311 gram steak; typically cooked rare to sink your fangs into! Paired with roasted potatoes, deadly asparagus, and a fresh dead cow on top! Medium rare is fine... If you ask well-done we will ask you to leave.'

Price almost choked on his spit when he saw the description. It was so blunt, and darkly humorous. He couldn't help but bark out a laugh when he read the last part.

"Oh my god," He said in between his laughter. "This is fantastic."

You laughed with him, turning on the back of the menu.

"There's dessert too, if you'd be interested."

God, everything about this place was amazing.  He glanced back down at the menu, turning to the dessert page. He read through it, his mouth almost watering. They all sounded great. He looked back up at you, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh, I'm interested." He chuckled.

"Is it the lava cakes?" You grinned. 

He smiled back at you, impressed. "Yes, it is the lava cakes." He admitted, leaning back in his seat. "'ow'd you know?"

"Lucky guess?" You shrugged, closing your menu when the waitress comes

Price chuckled, shutting his menu as well as the waitress came over. He watched you closely, admiring you as you told her your order. He ordered the Rare Cow, because how could he not? When the waitress left to go put in the order, he looked back to you, resting his chin on his folded hands.

"You did really good with this place."

"I'm so happy it turned out like this," you sighed dreamily. 

You looked so happy, so content. He leaned forward on the table, resting his chin on his hands as he continued to admire you.

"You should be proud o' yourself," he said sincerely. "You did that." He gestured around to the restaurant. "You really did that."

"With help," you added.

It was true that you had gotten help. But most of this was your idea. Your passion. Your creativity. Your hard work and determination. It was all you. 

"Still." He said, his tone gentle and earnest. "It's all you, love."

"Ah! You're here!" A woman squeals, walking over with her arm outstretched for a hug to you.

You gladly accepted, hugging her tight. "The day has finally come!" You said into her neck. 

Obviously a friend of yours.

"I know," the women smiled, pulling back from the hug. "We did it!"

"Oh, sorry—this is John, my...date for tonight." You introduced sheepishly, "And this is Charlotte, the owner of the restaurant."

He smiled, he was getting bits and pieces of your life and friendships. He held his hand out to shake hers.

"Pleasure to meet you, Charlotte." He said, his tone polite.

Charlotte smiled, shaking his hand. "The pleasure is all mine." She said cheerfully, then she gave you a wide grin, wiggling her eyebrows. "You kept this one a secret."

You sputter, trying to keep her voice down, "I did not!"

"You so did!" She teased. She turned her attention to Price. "This girl has never brought a date around us before."

You slap at her shoulder, mumbling something under your breath. Price grinned, watching you get a bit flustered as Charlotte teased you. So, you talked about him. That made him feel warm. Charlotte laughed, letting go of his hand.

"You never told me he was HOT!" She said cheerfully.

"Charlotte!" You whined.

Charlotte shrugged innocently. "What? He is!" She exclaims. 

"Go do your business stuff," you shooed, completely mortified and flustered.

He had his mouth covered with his hand, his shoulders shaking from how hard he was holding it in. Charlotte just laughed, clapping  you on the shoulder.

"Alright, alright, I'll leave you two be." She said with fake disappointment. "I'll have a bottle of wine taken to you guys, on the house." She winks.

"Thanks, now- get, go, shoo," you grumbled, completely embarrassed. 

Charlotte just smiled widely, throwing her hands up in surrender. "Fine, I'll leave you two, lovebirds alone." She teased.

You tucked your hair back, clearing your throat. "Sorry...she gets very loud when she's happy,"

Price finally let out the laugh he had been holding in. He leaned back in his seat, his face absolutely shining with amusement. Charlotte seemed nice. He smiled at you, his heart melting at the way you were.

"It's fine, love."

"I think she's great, actually." He chuckled.

Charlotte was just a little nosy, but it was all in good fun. Besides, he wanted to get to know more about you and your life.

"'ow do y'know 'er?" He asked curiously.

"College. We had a couple classes together, met our other friends and boom, we had a little goth friend group." You smiled wide at the memory.

It was sweet how all of your goth friends stuck together from college. He couldn't really connect with that; he never really made friends in the military. He had colleagues he tolerated, and that was about it besides his team. But you, you had friends you loved and who loved you. It was sweet.

"So...is Goth just the style?"

You shook your head politely, folding your hands on the table. "It's a subculture, the music genre is the classification."

A waitress comes up, dropping off a bottle of wine, "From the owner."

He loved the way you knew so much about this. He knew very little about the subculture, but he wanted to know as much as he could. He could listen to you talk about this all night.

"What genre is it exactly?" He asked, his tone curious and eager to learn more.

You proceed to kindly explain as you poured yourself some wine. The genre of goth has branching styles; there were many. Dark wave, cyber, steam punk, regular old punk goth, metal goth, the goth traditions and having a open mind. He learned about the music, about the traditions, the aesthetics, and everything he could about it. He loved hearing you talk about it. You were so knowledgeable and excited as you spoke. The waitress drops off your orders as you explain, giving her a kind nod of appreciation.

"Damn." He said when you finally finished explaining. "You're a scholar."

"It's just the basics for those who first get into it," you brush off politely. 

Price smiled, finding it cute how modest you were. The basics, yeah right. He bet you could tell people a lot more than just the basics.

"Hm, maybe I should start listening to goth music." He muses, half joking and half serious.

"Maybe you might find something you like," you comment, taking a sip of your wine.

He definitely found something he liked- you. The food on the table looks fantastic, it smells amazing, everything is going perfectly.

"I'm sure I will."

Price finished his first glass, setting it down on the table. The alcohol instantly warmed his body, relaxing him. He looked at all the different food on the table, not sure where to start.

"Everythin' looks great."

"Taste good too," you agree, cutting off another piece of chicken parmesan. 

Price took a bite of his steak. Perfectly cooked. Bloody, but not too bloody, the flavor burst into his mouth. He hummed in satisfaction.

"Holy..." He muttered between bites. "It's delicious."

"So John, what do you do for work?" You grabbed your wine glass, looking over at him with a curious expression.

He took time considering the question. He couldn't tell you everything, of course. But he didn't want to lie to you either.

"I work in private military." He settled on saying.

"Ohhh, that's cool!" You nodded along, interested in the new direction the conversation was going. 

Price smiled. Thank god you didn't ask more. Most people would. They'd ask what kind of private military, what missions he's been on, what his job was specifically. But you didn't ask, you just accepted that and moved on. He was very grateful for that. It was the downside of his job. He was pretty much forced to lie to people, even his loved ones.

"Yeah." He continued, "it's an interesting job."

"So I take it you're off for the time being?" You asked. 

Price smiled again. You really didn't ask probing questions, did you? It was a much better change of pace then what he was used too. Most people wanted all the info, wanted to know everything. It was refreshing that you just accepted what he said without being pushy.

"I am." He replied.

Price couldn't believe it. He wasn't one to believe in luck, but damn, he was feeling lucky. This date really was perfect. The restaurant was amazing, the food was so good, and the company was absolutely out of this world. Talking to you was so easy, he found himself constantly smiling, laughing, and just having a great time.

He never wanted this night to end.

Price insist for you to wear his jacket before you went out into the chilly London night air, that dress wouldn't do much to keep you warm.

You tried to refuse, saying you were fine and that you didn't need it. But he was persistent, and honestly, the way you looked in his jacket was something he couldn't resist.

"Please." He insisted, slipping his jacket around your shoulders, "you'll freeze."

You smiled sheepishly, tugging it around your shoulders as his lingering warmth soothed your skin.

"You smell good," you remarked softly as you looped your arm with his.

He made a mental note to wear that cologne more often. He kept your arm tucked close to his, walking close so you could absorb more of his warmth.

"Yeah?" He asked, looking down at you. "What's it like?"

"I can't really place it, but it's nice." You replied all bashful and giddy. 

His jacket was much too big for you, but you looked great in it.

You were holding his arm with both of your hands, like couples do. He smiled down at you, his eyes absolutely lighting up with joy. No one's ever held onto his arm like that before. None of his ex's, none of his flings.

It was something special that only you did.

Everything was just perfect right now. The weather, the night air, the city lights. And most of all, you.

He loved that, he loved the feeling of being wanted. Being needed. To be touched and held close by someone he wanted so bad. He moved his other hand to cover your hands, his fingers running over yours.

Price slowed to a stop as you reached the parking lot, his heart starting to race a bit. You had an entire parking lot to yourselves. No one to bother you, no one to interrupt. He looked down at you, staring into your eyes. He didn't know if it was appropriate to kiss you right now.

He didn't know where things stood between you two now that he thinks about it.  Did you want him to walk you to your front door? Did you want him to drive you home? This was the moment where decisions had to be made.

"I...had a lot of fun, thank you for tonight," You smiled nervously, teeth shining past your lipstick.

Price couldn't take his eyes off of you. The way the street lights hit you, the way the air blew your hair, everything about you in this moment was just perfect.

"Me too." He replied, his fingers moving to rest against your chin, tilting your head upwards to look him in the eyes.

He loved how those big, shiny eyes of yours looked when you smiled.

"Do you want me to walk you 'ome?"

Where was your head at? Is it okay to pursue?

"I don't live too far, and you drove all the way out here..." You declined politely. 

He could see the want in your eyes as you denied him. It was driving him insane. He knew he should let you go, walk you to the door, like a proper date should.

He needed more time with you.

"Could I see you again?" You both asked in unison, the action makes you snort and truly laugh. 

Price was a little startled, not expecting you to ask the same exact question. But the awkwardness was quickly brushed off as the two of you started laughing. His heart was racing from that. You wanted to see him again. His smile grew wider, his hand falling from your chin to your hip, pulling you in.

"Yeah." He agreed, breathlessly. "Yeah, 'course."

"I would like to see you again, I mean." You clarified with the last shred of shy tension gone, growing bold. 

"Yeah? You'd like that?" He questioned in a low, soft voice, looking down at you intently.

You nodded wordlessly, smile dropping into something less cheery into... Sly.

"Your jacket...?" You tugged on the collar.

Price's smile shifted into something more darker, more hungry. You wanted a bit more then just a goodbye. He let out a hum, his eyes raking over your body, pausing at how you looked in his jacket.

He absolutely did not want his jacket back.

"I think it looks better on you." He replied.

He slouches, his body pressing against you as his head hovered a few inches above yours.

His heart was racing, all the blood in his body pumping south. You smiled wide, making your eyes crinkle. Your hands cupped his bearded jaw, leaning up and— planting a kiss on his cheek. Price's brain short-circuited when he felt your lips touch his skin, and then immediately rerouted all of his brain function to his core. The feel of your soft, plump lips on his skin drove him nuts.

Pulling back, your blush is across your nose, a giggle bubbling in your throat.

"I was hoping you'd let me keep it... Gives a reason for us to see each other."

His eyes were glued to your lips as he let out a low rumble, practically growling in the back of his throat with a knowing smirk at your actions. You were being cheeky, and your little smile tells him you know it too.

"Call me?" You asked, backing away a few steps.

"I absolutely will." He replied, rougher than usual, almost in a trance. 

"I'll be waiting." You nodded, turning and walking down the street.

Price watched you walk away for a minute, his eyes glued to your frame walking down the street. His mind replayed the feel of your lips on his skin, the heat of your body pressed up against his, the sound of your soft, breathy giggles.

He could see the sway of your hips, the way you looked completely wrapped up in his jacket- your sweet, beautiful, innocent face, turned back to him with the promise of a second date- all drove him insane. He swallowed heavily and pulled his car keys out.

But he made a promise to himself, he was going to take this slow, and not scare you away. But god was that going to be a test of his self-restraint.

....It's a wonder how he didn't notice your fangs, though. 

[mjso-soupp]

Subaru Headcanons

shitty headcanons for my fav vampire bcs i haven’t updated my fic 😍

Around you: Now I don't think he would necessarily be shy, but more afraid to embarrass himself around you. He’d check himself more than usual, making sure his face wasn’t bright red whenever you held onto him tightly around his brothers, or make sure he didn’t stutter when your eyes looked more doe than usual.

Belly: He probably eats a lot, like a real teenage boy. He doesn’t have a favorite food so he just eats whatever he finds in the kitchen, and that includes lots of snacking since he doesn’t feel the need to make a meal that would actually fill him. He’d rather just wait til some food pops up to eat it.

Clothes: His wardrobe consists mainly of black, white or some other dark color. I like to think he wears one of those compression shirts to bed or under his jackets. He definitely keeps old clothes too because he thinks it ‘matches his vibe’. Due to his strength, if he was late for school one day, he probably tore a hole in his shirt from pulling it violently over his head in a hurry.

Dating: I dont think it’s him that has much trouble snagging a girl— definitely not. It’s what he does AFTER snagging a girl that confuses him, because, what now? He’s awkward because of his self destructive self image so all he can really think about is, “Will she really stay with me?” Or “When will this be over?” But I don’t think he’s much of a dater, more like hoping to just pop up on the ‘one’ some day (Which seems inevitable because he never leaves his coffin).

Excess: It’s a good thing he’s an albino because this man probably grows so much hair, like peach fuzz all along his body. His character design obviously shows he’s an albino but his eyebrows probably have a thin shape made up of long hairs he doesn’t care to pluck because they don’t really show. He also has a long full head of hair that in the art shows red undertones.

Eye contact (Bonus): Since he’s an albino, his eyes twitch and that leaves more reason for him not being able to hold eye contact. He subconsciously looks away and focuses on inanimate objects rather than the person directly in front him.

Fangs: This man was blessed with a strong pair of fangs. They show the most out of the other brothers when he speaks or eats. He wouldn’t so much as take pride in this but focuses on why having such sharp canines is much more of a nuisance to him, like accidentally biting his cheek while chewing.

Grooming: He doesn’t smell bad, everyone has their own scent and his is strong with musk and soap. Probably uses a bar of soap for his body and face, then follows up with whatever shampoo appeared in his shower that day. Whenever he brushes his hair with no care whatsoever, he just brushes til he can’t feel a tug on his hair from the brissels. Doesn’t matter if he brushed it out of place, it’ll fall back later.

Health: I guess in the long run this doesn’t matter since he’s a vampire, but he probably has some unhealthy habits. He definitely smokes or has smoked cigarettes. His relationship with drugs is inconclusive. But I like to think that his relationship with Kou has something to do with Kou’s potential past addiction(?) They probably bonded over that.

Intelligence: Being alive for years means something has stuck to him. He’s more street smart than book smart though, he doesn’t really pay attention in school (RIP Subaru you would’ve loved chat gpt). He forgets how to find the circumference of a circle but knows how to kill someone in one swift motion(?)

Jaded: Subaru’s probably tired of the whole madonna or mistress dynamic. Why can’t he have both? He wouldn’t necessarily want someone to dominate him but more so have someone who can keep up with him, less work for him you know? He already has a bad relationship with the idea of a woman on his side. Why does he have to choose between a woman to accompany him in his dreams (Madonna) or a woman who helps him fulfill his desires(Mistress)?

Kinks: Definitely into some sort of knife play, choking or really anything that exerts his dominance over you.

Laugh: He doesn’t really laugh but when he does it’s mostly a scoff or a chuckle. Maybe if something really is funny to him he might laugh for more than a second but that’s really it. His laugh isn’t loud but it’s more like really low and deep so it comes out louder than he wants it too so he’ll get embarrassed.

Mature: Subaru’s definitely one of the more mature brothers. Dealing with his mother’s mental illness and instability at a young age really rocked him, he grew up way too fast. This is genuinely the reason as to why he doesn’t like children or doesn’t like to associate himself with them. He truly believes he’ll ‘ruin’ them and ruin their childhood like he had his ruined.

Nature: He loves it. He doesn’t admit it though because he tries to be hard. (These are misogynistic vampires after all..) In anger he likes to rip and tear petals off flowers but feels bad after, just another thing to add onto his list of things he’s corrupted. He takes care of the rose garden in his free time.

Open-minded: Considering his personality (Edgy, angsty, rule breaker) I think he’s in the middle. He’s definitely more open then Reiji, Carla and other more superior brothers, but he’s not as open as Laito. Maybe to societal norms he’s more open but to sexual topics he’s closed and private about.

Personality: He’s rude, like, really rude. How he acts with you depends on your relationship though: If you’re more well acquainted (in terms of Subaru acquainted) he’s probably rude and likes to insult you through jokes, but if you’re more romantically involved it’s less subtle (He’s still throwing insults, just at a less) He’s probably really funny without meaning to be. More so if he says something and his brothers turn it into a whole different embarrassing topic making him turn red and everyone laughing at him. He’s of course, the definition of ultraviolence, and probably wants to get into being a gym rat but isn’t that motivated.

Quirks: Has so many. He likes to cover his left eye with his hair, but brushes it out of his face over and over again. His pale hands that are bruised and beaten make him stand out also, he likes to pick at his nails too. When he’s in a bad mood, his legs bounce annoyingly, making his boots click repeatedly. When a shirt is a little too tight, he stretches it out but rips it in the process (He’ll still wear it.)

Romantic: Well he’s not materialistic.. he doesn’t lay rose petals everywhere, open a bottle of champagne while sharing a five-star hotel with you. He’s more likely to stay in and just spend time with you one to one. He definitely tries to be more affectionate at times but it just seems awkward to him.

Smells: Probably doesn’t enjoy super sugary smells like vanilla or caramel. He likes to smell lightweight floral or mature scents on a woman, sweet smells don’t taste good on your skin. For a man, he likes to smell very strong cologne, it’s just satisfying to him for some reason.

Touch: Is a hugger. He loves hugging you from the back and wrapping his arms around your shoulders. Also is a kisser(?) He’s always kissing you DEEPLY. It’s a shocker lol, but he definitely enjoys some sort of connection with you.

Unique: His appearance, overall that’s pretty much what everyone notices at first. Considering his mom was a ‘white rose’, his way of standing out from the other brothers is his soft color palette clashing with dark fabrics that are ripped. I really do believe his eyes are the next thing that are unique because of how much they tremble.

Vocal: Maybe, in the chance you get him to open up to you, he would talk for hours. He would talk about what he thinks about his life, his brothers and why he feels the way about himself. He would speak about his mother in a soft delicate manner but go bitter right after and go quiet.

Water: He didn’t have exactly the best time in the pacific ocean after destroying that statue, so it’s a no. He’s obviously very clean but prefers quick showers and doesn’t like waiting for the bath to fill up with water.

Xanax: He def needs a xanny.

Yucks: He doesn’t like seafood, (although he would eat ayato’s takoyakis in the blink of an eye) Doesn’t like school, at all. Doesn’t like hyper pop music, or just like pop in general. Likes shoes that are easy to slip on, his boots are molded to his feet. So church shoes that require you to wear nice socks and tie them are a no for him.

Zzz: He loves to sleep, he genuinely enjoys sleeping in his tight coffin every night. He goes to sleep late on school days so he can easily sleep through lectures and such, but loves going to sleep early on weekends so he can rest for a couple more hours.

[rogueddie]

On and On / Figure You Out

Corroded Coffin are at the peak of their popularity. They're not mainstream, or in any way big, but they're known enough that they're kept busy. Touring as an opening act, special appearences in little underground places...

Eddie hasn't been home for months. He'd known that he'd most likely be kept away when their manager started talking to them excitedly about all the opportunities.

He hadn't expected it to take such a toll on his and Steves relationship.

It had taken him a while to notice the problems too. He's always so tired after gigs... it takes him two weeks to notice how tired Steve sounds.

"Are you ok?" He blurts, as soon as he notices.

"I'm fine," Steve says.

Eddie can hear the lie.

"Are you tired?" He pushes. "Long day?"

"No. You don't need to worry about me. What were you saying about Jeff? Something about a solo, right?"

No, Eddie wants to scream. I was talking about us!

He doesn't say that though. He rattles off the things that happened in their last show- the things that are interesting, anyway. He doesn't mention how hard it had hit him, after the show, how lonely he is.

It's the same sort of conversation they always have. There isn't really anything different.

It feels different.

After saying their goodbyes, hanging up, Eddie hovers by the phone for a few minutes. Long enough for the others, who had been waiting nearby, to worry.

"Eddie?" Jeff is the one to walk over, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You ok, man?"

"Yeah," Eddie replies, automatically. But, frowning, he starts shaking his head. "No. I don't know. It's..."

"Hey, stay calm, it's ok. Did something happen? Is Steve ok?"

"Yeah, it... no. No. Nothing happened, but... I just have this feeling, man, like something really bad is happened and I'm seeing it too late and now-"

"Hey, hey, Eddie, breathe. Whatever it is, we'll help you out, ok? We can fix this, right?"

"Right," Eddie says. He looks to Gareth and Grant, then back to Jeff. "I need to go home. I need..."

"It's that big? Are you sure you're not overreacitng?"

"I don't know. I don't want to risk it. Like, it feels like something is about to break. I can't fix it from here- if I wait, it'll be too late, and-"

"Ok," Jeff cuts in, turning to gesture the other two over. "You go home, we'll find someone to cover for a few dates."

"I know someone who could cover for Chicago," Gareth offers.

"Thank you," Eddie manages to choke out. He knows it's not enough but, by their expressions, they at least understand some of what he can't bring himself to say.

"Go get your man," Grant encourages. "We'll be fine."

"Thank you," Eddie repeats. "So much, it-"

"Jesus, man!" Gareth cuts in, nudging him. "We know. We love you too. Now, go!"

"Go," Jeff says, nodding, when Eddie looks to him. "He won't wait forever, right?"

It takes too long to get a flight back to Indiana, and even longer to find a taxi willing to take him all the way to Hawkins. It ends up taking him 36 hours to get home, to get to Steve, after the phone call.

Steve is sleeping on the couch when he gets in, curled up in one of Eddies old sweaters.

"Sweetheart," Eddie whispers, brushing his hair back, gentle and soft.

Steve mumbles, nose scrunching in annoyance as he wakes up. He blinks at Eddie a few times, confused. "Eds? What- how are you here?"

"I missed you." Eddie isn't sure why he's whispering. The moment feels so fragile. "I needed to see you."

"But your tour-"

"Can wait. You're more important."

"What about that, uh... upward swing?" Steve pulls his hand off his hair, holding in both his own. "Once in a lifetime opportunity, right?"

"I don't care about that. On the phone, you... I had to come home, Stevie. You sounded so... I don't know. Tired?"

Steve is quiet for a moment, before admitting; "I missed you. Doesn't feel like home when you're gone."

"Good job I'm back then, huh?"

"For how long? One night and then you're gone again?"

"Forever, if you want. Or I can drag you out with us. Whatever it takes. Whatever you need."

"Just... don't leave me for so long."

"I won't. I promise."

"Ok," Steve finally smiles. It's a small, frail thing, but it's a smile. "Thank you, Eds. For coming here."

"Anytime." Eddie kisses the back of his hand. "Seriously, anytime. Call me and I'll come running. Whenever and whatever. I love you, so much. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I love you, too."

[trashmouth-richie]

hi, ziggy! ahhh i missed hih ❤️ could you pretty please do something for jealous!eddie where maybe somebody flirts with tooty because she got that milf glow after she had the babies lmao ily ❤️

anon���💕 thank you for the req! this took a little spin and has an open ending, but!!! the twins are in this and some other familiar faces ❤️ might get a part 2? who knows!

a night out without the kids. almost an unheard of event. but tonight corroded coffin were performing their annual concert the night before halloween.

sissy & oz toted their overnight bags up the paved sidewalk to grandma and grandpa’s house— the same house you had once called home when the wheeler’s took you in as a teen.

reaching the front door eddie squats to eye level with the twin three year olds. “okay you two,” he says in his fatherly tone, “last time you stayed the night grandpa said you terrorized the cat.”

“i no do it daddy,” sissy speaks her little voice high pitched and tattling, “ows chaseded hims.”

a frown spreads on her brothers face his brown eyes pleading, “i did not! sissy made tinky swim in the potty!”

eddie bites his lip to hide a laugh and you take a deep breath, “that’s another thing, the cat’s name is bruce, not stinky.”

“but mama,” sissy complains, head held high in a defiant pose— one eddie recognizes as a mini version of his wife, “boose 's hard to say.”

eddie ruffles her hair and stands up, talking out of the side of his mouth, “always arguing like someone else i know,”

his large hand slides down the curve of your ass pinching the leather fabric snug on your skin, giving it a tight little squeeze.

“eddie!” you scold, swatting his hand away, “not in front of the babies.”

he grabs your waist and pulls you back into him before you can rap your knuckles on the front door. his mouth is hot in your ear, “sorry mama,” he purrs, dancing his tongue on the shell of your ear, “you just look so fucking hot tonight.”

sissy and oz are both slapping the door with both palms as it swings inward. “who’s makin’ all that racket?!”

“gwampa! it’s us!”

“issy and ows!”

wayne smiles as big as he always did when his grandbabies visited, “are you sure y’all ain’t no robbers are ya?”

“gwampa’s silly, daddy!” oz squeaks, squeezing wayne tight around his leg.

eddie grins and chuckles, “aww nah buddy that word is ‘senile’”

you smack eddie in the chest and usher the kids inside to play with their cousin, alex. “thanks for watching them tonight, we really appreciate it,” you say to wayne reaching through the threshold and giving him a hug.

“ah, ain’t no problem,” wayne says flipping eddie the bird behind your back, “karen and i love these little turds.”

“u too oh two be good for grandpa and grandma okay? eddie hollers, “be nice to the cat, sissy… i’m talkin’ to you.”

her little nose wrinkles into a pout and her brows furrow together.

“swear to christ himself, that kid is the spittin’ image of you, tooty.”

“god help me.” eddie pouts, “i’m gonna go gray before i’m forty.”

—

you kiss the kids goodbye and wave from the windows of your jeep before heading to the hideout. eddie looked particularly good tonight, leather pants, a cut off shirt, he even let you smear some eyeliner on his eyelids before tonight’s gig.

“nervous?” you ask, carrying some cords from eddie’s old van that now belonged to big d.

gareth walks past you with an amp, “not really, the hideouts like home away from home, makes me feel 18 again.”

you smile and ruffle his still thick curls, “will coming tonight?”

a sad look replaces his smile, “haven’t talked to him in a week… last i heard from jonathan he was staying with joyce and hopper.”

“he’ll come around man,” eddie says coming through the back door, “he loves you.”

“yeah, i hope.”

—

the boys— men now— rocked a killer show, fans still screaming for the band even though half of them were married and the lead singer had two kids.

you were front in center, in your designated spot that you always stood after the first show where eddie sang ‘lady evil’ just for you.

now you were sporting a new homemade shirt, ‘sitter’ crossed out with ‘mama’ his old leather jacket on your shoulders.

a hand sits on your lower back you giggle, “jeez nance, how drunk are you?”

only it wasn’t nancy, but a random guy. burly and tall, a thick beard on his face matching the short hair on his head, balancing a cowboy. you didn’t recognize him from anywhere and you pull back with a shocked face,

he smiles and you can smell liquor on his breath as he leans in real close, “been watchin’ you all night little darlin’ looks like you need a drink.”

you scowl and turn away from him, looking for jonathan and nancy but they’re nowhere to be found.

“hey,” he blunders stumbling towards you, “you like cowboys?”

you don’t want to give him the time of day or even the satisfaction of a tasteful retort so you do your best to ignore him, looking at eddie as he turns to thrash the guitar riff with jeff.

eddie turns back around to continue the song and shoots you a wink, the same time a big sloppy pair of lips press on your cheek, hard and unwelcoming.

you didn’t see eddie’s eyes turn to black or the way he dropped the neck of his guitar hands balled into fist, you were seeing your own scarlet red, turning and slapping the face of the drunk asphalt “cowboy”.

eddie cuts the band and grabs the mic, “hey fucker!” he pushes his lips in a smooch and whistles like a dog, “here boy, up here.. yeah you— the guy who just got slapped.”

cowboy slap face looked up to the band, “what?”

“you must be new to town, huh? a drifter maybe?”

he lifts his head and spits on the ground, “what’s it to you?”

eddie laughs a little crazy-like, “… that,” he says pointing to you, “is my wife… and i’m sure you don’t know this or maybe your marbles are a little rattled up there with the cobwebs, but..” he jumps from the stage in a dramatic flare, wet hair bouncing behind him, skin slicked in sweat.

he tossing the mic behind him, standing tall and flicking the brim of the guys hat, toe to toe. “i’m not afraid to kill a man.”

“you’re bluffin’,”

“wouldn’t be my first, and for her,” he says moving you behind him, “won’t be my last,”

….

[vickyvicarious]

Ooh any thoughts on the pairs chosen and their tasks, for the final hunt?

I actually think I have a half-written post about exactly this lurking in my drafts from last year, though I will warn you that it contains spoilers for the journeys. Let me see if I can find it and finish it/clean it up a smidge... Ah. Yes. Here it is:

So, let's take a look at our travel arrangements. The team almost (but not quite) split up into the exact three options Mina listed for Dracula to follow. The only difference being that instead of "by road" we have "along the river." But still it's pretty close.

Each group has a sort of designated scribe who has historically been one of the main writers of the novel (more a meta necessity this, but given the heroes making such use of records it is still helpful to them if they wish to compile an account afterwards as well) as well as someone who will probably take the lead on vampire hunting, though where they can everyone will surely assist. They also have at least one person per group who can presumably make themselves understood by locals. I also added a 'caretaker' category because they're all running low on steam and it is an important consideration character-wise.

Basically this is just me taking a look at how each team is divvied up and why/what meta we could get out of it.

By Rail: Van Helsing and Mina

Scribe: Mina

Fighter: Van Helsing

Languages: Van Helsing

Caretaker: alternating

The two leaders. The brains if you will. They are heading straight to the castle. Van Helsing wants to kill the vampire women, and if he can get the jump on them/ambush them in their coffins it makes sense for him to do so rather than the younger men, whose strength is better saved for a possible direct confrontation with Dracula. And if anyone dies doing this, Van Helsing basically says better the old man who has already lived a long life. Keeping Mina further away from Dracula for as long as possible makes sense too in order to minimize what influence he can have upon her. Having her along to help find the castle as well will be useful, though it does mean she'll be brought in closer contact with his seat of operations and other vampires. But they've planned not to bring her into the castle itself.

The mode of transport is fitting for both of them. Mina of course IS the train fiend and so it's perfect for her to ride a train there. But Van Helsing too has spent a lot of time riding trains back and forth in the book to acquire information that can save a woman from becoming a vampire. Now his last train journey is in an effort to put that information into practice as he tries to save Mina from becoming a vampire/stop the spread by killing the other vampires. Not to mention of course Mina isn't really well and he is older so letting them take the relatively less taxing forms of transportation (train then carriage) makes sense. They both express concern for one another and work together to make sure the other is doing as well as they can throughout the journey as well.

Mina specifically traveling this way makes for a really cool transition from her utilizing the ultra-modern method to then traveling into the past almost as she echoes Jonathan's journey from the beginning of the book and also becomes more and more connected to vampirism/the vampire ladies (and by extent the ancient opposite of the modern civilization that the train represents). This rush to get there first also could reflect the two of them, but especially Mina, outthinking Dracula as they are ready to ambush him upon arrival.

Finally, Van Helsing was the most concerned over Mina's fate and was the one she put most in charge of deciding when she be killed... but he was meant to ensure Jonathan did the deed. So it makes for a really interesting pairing to put him there to make that final judgement but his own promise inclines him to put off action even if he thinks she's passed the point of no return. That said he still is trying really hard to have faith in her despite his doubts and fears, not just because of the promise.

By Land: Quincey and Jack

Scribe: Jack

Fighter: Quincey

Languages: Jack

Caretaker: none

Quincey volunteers early for this job. And Jack speaks up to join him because they work well together and have done things like this before. This actually makes them the only team to both do that, as Van Helsing argued for where Jonathan and Mina should both go. They are also the only pair who already know one another well pre-vampire hunting together.

While this is perhaps the least likely route to meet vampires (second-likeliest route to encounter Dracula, but the other group will almost certainly meet the vampire ladies) it is probably the most physically taxing. They're riding all day. Jack could theoretically be the caretaker here, as he is the doctor, but in reality they both are pressing on really hard and neither one is shown to be making sure the other gets enough rest or whatever. It kind of seems like they're setting a pace where they're both tired enough to just drop off when they get a chance.

Quincey is the leader among the two of them. He's the first to volunteer, and he seems very comfortable with horses and leading a hunt. However, in the larger context of his role in the group as a whole, he is very much the support, and while Jack has had a much larger role, when in the group he's generally support as well (though his trust with Van Helsing means he is usually more involved in discussions than Quincey). So it is fitting that these two are taking the "just in case" route - especially Quincey, who often does this sort of filling in where needed. Also fitting that they are bringing along horses for the others should they be needed. They're being the support team.

One more kind of interesting detail... this is the only group to actually travel with other people for a while, but also the group who talks to locals least. No meta point to this, just noticed it.

By Water: Arthur and Jonathan

Scribe: Jonathan

Fighter: Jonathan

Languages: Jonathan

Caretaker: Arthur

This list of roles makes it sound like Arthur isn't doing much. But that's far from true. It's quite possible he can communicate with locals as well (I just put Jonathan down as we know for a fact he can, though stiltedly) and he's proven himself in defeating a vampire in the past. Jonathan however is the main fighter, shown multiple times not to hesitate to attack Dracula. In fact though, Arthur's most important role here is as the caretaker and transport. He ensures that Jonathan gets the rest he needs, and he's the one not only to acquire the boat but the one who knows how to operate it. Not flawlessly, as we are told when there's a crash, but he's still essential in getting them up the river.

These two men following what seems to be the specific route Dracula took makes for some really interesting continuation of Jonathan's book-long acquisition/mimicry of Dracula's traits. The boat in the first place and then their impersonation of Romanian officials also is another instance of the repeated contrast of Arthur as the good (vis)count using his money and status to help, as opposed to Count Dracula or his alias De Ville using his status and money for evil.

It also is really fitting to pair Jonathan and Arthur together as the two husbands of the women Dracula has attacked. Arthur's reality could become Jonathan's future if they don't succeed here. There's some psychopomp imagery that got talked about a few years ago which can add another fun layer. The linked post there is focused mostly on Greek mythology, and talks more about this, but these two being the ones to travel up a river into a symbolic land of the dead (Dracula's land) is fitting in a couple ways too.

When convincing him to go with Arthur, Van Helsing invokes Jonathan's right to revenge as well. Mina aside, both of these two are the ones who have the most 'right' in that sense, as they've been most personally harmed by the Count. Arthur has gotten some measure of closure when staking Lucy at least, but Jonathan hasn't had anything of the sort. They're both "young and strong" and highly motivated.

.

Not to be reductive, but there's kind of a fun thing going on with head/hand/heart here if you want. Mina and Van Helsing are the new/old brains and each leaders in their own right. Quincey and Jack are both more supportive characters at least by this point in the book and one is shown to be a protector physically while the other is literally a doctor. Jonathan and Arthur are the lovers of the women attacked by Dracula, and also represent two different approaches to the idea of said love becoming a vampire (though again it's never fully realized in Jonathan's case, so presumably he could have gone either way should he be forced to actually make the choice).

Another fun detail when comparing all three... In each case, one person or another takes the lead at least some of the time. Mina and Van Helsing are the ones who alternate that role most. They both take turns looking after one another, driving the horses, and we even get written accounts from both of them. Jonathan and Arthur both take turns on watch but Arthur is the one who knows what he's doing on the ship and looking after Jonathan who is totally focused on leading the hunt. We don't hear much from the other two on their journey, but presumably Quincey is mostly in the lead - I say this because he historically has been in such circumstances (which Jack specifically mentioned when agreeing to go with him).

[corroded-hellfire]

Prompt Day 29: Behind the Music

Words: 938

Rating: T

Pairing: None

CW: None

Summary: Wayne is interviewed for an upcoming documentary on Corroded Coffin

@corrodedcoffinfest

“Now, what the hell am I supposed to say?” Wayne asks.

Eddie can’t help but laugh as his uncle is mic’d up by a crew member. Others are setting things up around Wayne’s living room—much to his dismay. The older man has never had this many people in his home before.

Lights are being put up, cameras are getting tested, microphones are being checked, and a lot of furniture has been pushed to the side.

“You’re just going to answer the questions that the interviewer is going to ask you,” Eddie says, patting his uncle’s shoulder.

“Feel like I’m back in school,” Wayne mumbles. He fiddles with the collar of his black and red flannel, doing his best to avoid the mic on the white t-shirt beneath.

“It’s not a test,” Eddie assures him. “They’re just going to ask you about me, probably. Or how you felt when you first heard one of our songs on the radio or the first time you saw us play at a stadium.”

A production company had approached Corroded Coffin a few months ago and informed them that they were interested in making a documentary about the band. The guys were quick to say yes and found it amusing that their families would be interviewed as well.

“So, I get to tell them what a pain in the ass you were growing up?” Wayne teases, unable to keep a small smile off his face.

Eddie scoffs and presses a hand to his chest.

“I was an angel.”

“Hell’s angel,” Wayne retorts.

His nephew doesn’t get a chance to respond because a producer of the documentary comes over and guides Wayne to his old favorite chair, where he’ll be sitting for the interview.

Eddie takes a seat on a barstool at the kitchen counter and watches his uncle get comfortable in his old recliner, adjusting to the heat and brightness of the lights shining down on him.

A pretty woman with dark hair collected in a ponytail sits on the couch, out of sight of the camera, and faces Wayne. She gives him a kind smile as she places a small stack of papers in her lap.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Munson,” she greets. “I’m Christina, one of the producers. How are you?”

“Doin’ well,” Wayne says with a nod. “How about you, darling?”

Christina looks charmed by Wayne’s accent and manners, Eddie notices with a smile. He’s yet to meet someone who doesn’t like the man—he’s just got something special about him.

“I’m great, thanks,” Christina replies. “Are you ready to get going with the interview?”

“Sure, let’s get going.”

The cameraman takes that as his cue to start filming and Wayne watches as other various crew members take on their roles; some with the lights, some with the mics, and one who claps the film slate in front of the camera.

“Okay, Mr. Munson,” Christina says, “just talk to me like we’re having a conversation. I’m going to ask you a few questions about Eddie. Can you tell me about Eddie’s early childhood? What was he like as a child?”

“Eddie was a hyper kid,” Wayne answers with a chuckle. “Always jumping from one thing to another. Thought maybe putting him in sports would get his energy out. Ha! Kid never looked so bored as when he was in the outfield at a handful of Little League games. Music was the first thing he stuck with. Knew it was something special then.”

“How old was he when discovered music?” Christina asks.

“Oh, I’d say eleven or so. He was always listening to something, so one day I got him a guitar from the pawn shop. Acoustic one. Had to make the boy put the damn thing down to go to school.”

Eddie leans against the counter as he watches his uncle go on about how he grew up and how he became involved in music. He’s never heard Wayne talk about him so much and he didn’t expect so much emotion in the older man’s voice.

“Can you share any memorable stories or anecdotes where you knew Eddie was going places with his music?” Christina asks.

Wayne thinks for a moment before he chuckles to himself. It makes Eddie a little worried about what may have popped into his head.

“I remember when he was twelve,” Wayne starts, “Halloween was coming up.”

Oh God, Eddie thinks, burying his head in his hands.

“Ed decides he was going as Freddie Mercury. But he says he’s gotta learn how to play the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody on the guitar before he does.” Wayne laughs, shaking his head as he recalls the memory. “He did it. Learned the whole damn song. Practiced day in and day out for a month. Every time I hear that song I still get annoyed. ‘Bout two weeks after Halloween, Ed learns that Freddie Mercury don’t play the guitar on that, Brian May does. I thought this boy was gonna smash his guitar for a good minute. But, later on in high school he liked a girl who loved Queen so he was happy he knew how to play it then. Worked out, I guess.”

Eddie has his head down on the counter now, arms wrapped tightly around it. He can practically hear his bandmates laughing at him when they see this footage.

With a soft groan, Eddie lifts his head from the counter. He sighs and props his head up on his fist as he watches his uncle finish up the interview.

Well, at least he got to go out with that girl in high school.

[poorlyyy]

Love Thy Body (Comm)

Adrian Tepes x Female!Reader (smut)

Summary: Adrian Tepes is in dire need of some good ol’ fashion loving.

Word Count: 1.9k

The dhampir of Wallachia was a man known by the name Alucard. 

The opposite of the evil Dracula, he’s seen as the people's savior. The one who will destroy the mad vampire and seal him to rest in his coffin for all eternity. 

But the old stories were just that: stories. Nothing but old wise tales passed around village to village. 

The real Alucard wasn’t the opposition to anyone. He was simply a man. A man who had lost those dear to him in the span of one long nightmare. One that could only end once he drove a stake into his own fathers heart. 

When you looked at this strong hero, you didn’t see a man. No- you saw a crying child longing for his mother and father. 

Adrian wore his scars with great sadness.

From the slice across his chest- given to him from his own father. To the burns around his wrists- given to him by those he entrusted with his body and soul. 

There was no savior, only a wounded child. 

Adrian Tepes was a beautiful man. No one could deny it. 

Even when he spoke with pure arrogance and sass, his golden eyes and sharp jawline were bound to make even the strongest of wills shatter at his looks. 

Upon your first meeting, you were very close to clocking him in his perfect nose. His sharp tongue and know-it-all attitude, made it impossible to not seethe with rage. 

But as you spoke with the man, you began to see past the beauty of his face. Looking into the eyes of a broken creature, longing for someone to hold him- but to scared to open himself to others. Fear of betrayal outweighed his need for compassion. 

The first time you kissed was quite a surprise for both of you. Tension was high after a fierce battle with a few night creatures. One moment your locking eyes, the next your pressed against him in a heated embrace. 

You both swore it was from the heat of battle, even when you can't help thinking about how soft his lips were. 

One broken promise later, you find each other stripped down and in each other’s embrace. No- not quite actually. 

You’re stripped naked, Adrian is only missing his cloak. 

As unfair as you think it is, the orgasms that Adrian delivers are enough to keep your complaints to yourself. 

You thought nothing of his tendency to remain mostly clothed during your heated exchanges. Usually your mind is to busy being blown to care. But tonight would be different. 

“Strip.”

Adrian simply freezes, suddenly unsure where to put his hands on your exposed body. 

“I beg your pardon?” Ever the linguistic, but still playing dumb. 

“Ya’ speak English or not? I said strip.” Your legs shut, blocking his hands or wandering eyes from your privates. 

“I’ve never had to-“

“Aye, I’m naked as the day I was born, yet you’re still in your fancy boots. It’s not fair!” Arms folded like your scolding him, you pick up a pillow to block your chest from his view. “No more fucking until I get to see your bits!”

It’s his turn to scowl now, sitting back on his knees, on the mattress. 

“Language.”

“Stop changing the subject, strip or no more fun time!”

“Fun time?” His lips twitch slightly, a smirk forming on his face. 

Not liking his blatant disregard for his request, you tug a spare sheet around your shoulders to cover your bare body. 

“Fine.” Dragging yourself to your feet, you turn from him, “Good night.”

It doesn’t take him long to call you back, not even two seconds in fact. 

“Don’t leave.” His tone is new, almost fragile. Like if you raised your voice he’d shatter. “Please.”

Clasping your sheet dress, you turn towards him, but wait for him to continue. He doesn’t speak, only reaches a hand out, a proverbial olive branch. 

Who are you to deny this beauty of a man. 

Adrian cups your hand so gently, tugging you towards him. He’s sitting at the foot of the bed, spreading his legs to fit you between them. His eyes level with your chest. 

He’s peering up at you with a look that you can’t quite pinpoint. Definitely lust, but with a twinge of something else. 

Pulling your hand downward, he leads you to his button up. Your fingers follow his to the first button, his hands slip away, but the invitation remains. 

Uncertainty weighs your fingers down, slowly unbuttoning the first one. Only when he nods do you pick up the pace, eager to see more of him. Even the small sliver of visible pale flesh has you excited. 

But that excitement is quickly dashed once you catch sight of the large scar branding his near perfect skin. He must regard your sadness as disgust because he pulls back. 

The look on his face of pure disdain- but you know it’s not directed towards you. 

“Satisfied?” Is all he spits at you, eyes glaring at the wall behind you. 

Lifting a hand, your fingers dance along the scar tissue. Only able to journey so far before his hand grips your wrist and halts your motion. 

“Don’t-“ His grasp weakens, shoulders slumping, “-don’t pity me.”

Allowing your hand to pull free, you begin your conquest once again. This time planting both hands firmly against his chest, before leaning down planting a chaste kiss against his lips.

It’s soft. Softer than either of you’ve ever been with one another. 

Adrian takes a moment but returns the sweet gesture. Lips working against yours, like two puzzle pieces. 

You don’t give him a chance to think before pushing your body weight onto him, successfully landing him on his back. 

Despite being caught off guard, he’s still quick enough to land on his elbows. 

“Bloody vampire speed.” You grumble, but refuse to let him stump this small victory. 

Latching your lips on his jaw, you revel in the gasp that leaves him. Adventure further down the column of his throat, leaving small bites and kisses in your wake. 

The subtle pleasures must be enough for him to lower his guard once again, slowly laying flat on his back. His hands fist the sheets beneath him, claws unconsciously ripping the fabric. 

Noticing this loss of control you take the opportunity to lighten the mood. “Tsk. That’s silk, Mr. Tepes.”

Moving back to lock eyes with him, you’re relieved to see him roll his eyes. 

“I can always buy new ones.”

“Oh? Trying to impress me with your riches?” Hands spread on his chest, you push yourself into an upright position, straddling his waist. 

Adrian’s hands move from the sheets, securing themselves onto your hips. 

“Are you only straddling me because of my possible riches?” The grip on your hip gives him leverage to grind against your bare crotch, drawing a low moan from you. 

“Trust me, it’s not just your money that keeps me here.” You trail a hand down his chest, raking your nails a little harsher as you reach the sharp v-line, leading to the tent in his pants. 

“Y-your- ahhh…vile creature.” His moans only add to the heat between your legs, making you unconsciously rub against his bulge. 

“An’ you’re too sexy for your own good.” Your eyes admire the sight of him beneath you. 

Pale skin, ripped muscles, beautiful face, all for you. 

“Quiet.” Is all he can muster in a weak defense, but the pink tint on his cheeks is a dead give away. 

“Not until I make up for all the times you hid this work of art from me.”

Hands run down his bare chest, fingers trying to memorize every crack and crevice. His breathing hitches when you trace his scar, skin more sensitive than the rest. 

Leaning down you catch a pink nipple between your lips, giving a half hearted suck. His reaction is a mixture of surprise and pleasure, back arching a fraction and fingers twitching. 

“Heathen…” he manages to groan with faux anger, not convincing due to the pink still tinting his cheeks. 

“Whore.” You grin back up at him, rolling his nipple between your teeth now. 

“Hng-” It’s adorable really- watching him struggle to keep his cool demeanor up. 

Your mouth remains latched to his nipple, hand wandering down his arm, pausing at his wrist. Even with your soft grip around it has tension rushing through his muscles. Pulling his wrist a bit, you feel slight resistance before he allows you to drag his hand towards your face. Still hovering over his chest, you place a soft kiss on the dark scar that resembles a bracelet. 

“You’re beautiful,” you sit up to straddle him once again, while hoisting his other wrist to your lips. “So beautiful it’s nearly scary.”

He’s breathless as he lays back and watches you plant kiss after kiss along his scars. 

The grinding of your hips against his catches him by surprise. 

“Oh!” The half vampire gasps, mouth opening revealing two razor sharp fangs. 

His hands are led down your neck, past your chest, landing on your hips. Hot friction burns between your arousal and his, successfully leaving a wet spot on his pants. 

“Please let me show you how badly I need you…” your voice loses any confidence, taking on a breathy, whiny tone. 

Your eyes lock, his half lidded golden orbs staring at you with a near predatory gaze. One hand drops from your hip and slides between your legs.

“Ah! Adrian-” Your cries only make his fingers move more, direct contact making your thighs clench. 

Moving up a bit, unconsciously giving his long, attentive, fingers better access. His fingers are slightly sticky with your arousal, taking said juices and rubbing it around your hole. 

“This- mmm… I wanna be in c-control!” As angry as you try to sound, you can’t help the noises leaving you, screwing your eyes shut to focus on the pleasure. 

“You want me to stop?” He questions, his fingertip pushes into your eager cunt, giving only a hint of relief before pulling out. “Fine.”

The whimper that leaves you has him growing hard- well, harder. 

“Please…more.”

There’s no time to try and deny your body's needs, not when he allows his finger to push into you, all the way in. Thrusting the finger slowly, the sounds of wetness get louder. He pulls them out completely, only for two to push back in. 

“Y-yes- need more…” Your hips move on their own, fucking yourself on his fingers. 

He doesn’t press another in though, instead keeps his eyes locked on the place where you wrap tightly around his fingers. Even the slightest crook of his finger inside of you has you toppling over, bare chests rubbing each other. At this awkward angle you can’t really fuck yourself onto him, leaving you at the mercy of his slow and shallow fingerfucking. 

That need for release grows as his long fingers strike sparks against your inner walls. The sounds coming from your lower half would be embarrassing if you weren’t going mad with unholy needs. 

“I can’t come like this, p-please…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you can’t walk. Okay, my love?”

My love. A title too romantic for your intimate relationship, words failing you.

Your lack of response is substituted by your tightness clenching around his digits, making his chest rumble with an evil chuckle. 

“Good girl.”

[rayveneyed]

cw: mentions + depictions of death, crime, alcohol.

it's difficult for nanami kento to leave behind the life of a cowboy -- but, truth be told, he's only ever wanted to live a quiet life.

god as his witness, he’s seen his fair share of trouble — train heists and bank robberies and turning sheriffs topsy-turvy, mostly at the behest of his more excitable companions. he's seen blood and guts and bullet wounds the size of his fist, and he’s damn sure seen too many good people bite the dust far too soon. the adrenaline and the money weren’t ever worth it -- but haibara had wanted to stay, and so he did.

haibara dies. it's no glamorous death. it's shitty, and dull, and it happens in the blink of an eye -- shot from his horse as he galloped down the side of a train, hitting the sand with a sickening crack. they hadn't even been able to recover his body, and it ruins kento beyond anything. haibara was his brother. they'd known each other since they were old enough to know what knowing someone meant.

his heart was never fully in it, but that was the nail in the coffin. he couldn't smile. couldn't find the will to continue on as he had before, like nothing had happened. what was it that made him survive, when so many died? why did haibara die -- good haibara, ditsy, smiling haibara -- while nanami lived? why was he seemingly deserving of life, when others weren't?

he didn't know. he doesn't know, but here he is, with a beating heart and a furrowed brow and a pistol that doesn't fit all too well in his hands anymore.

it's all enough to have him yearning for a home and a bed and the country, with it's silence, with it's peace. the country, like he lived in when he was a boy. the country, where haibara had run through the grass and caught cicadas and geckos.

if he can't swap places with haibara, he thinks, then surely he can try to repent for all he's done. turn his life around. live as an honest man.

so — with a heart as light as a lump of stone — he retires from the outlaw life. says goodbye to the crew. sets himself up in a quaint town with a little cottage to himself, some land to farm on and some cattle to wrangle. it’s far away from the big cities, but there’s a train station the next town over and everything he needs a short horse-ride away: a general store, a saloon, a doctor. he can live simply. he can live honestly.

and so it starts. no use in making a name for himself as some sorta recluse, he reckons, so he forces himself to get to know the town, settle in. he’s a quiet man by nature, but they’re kind as most small-town folk are; the doctor is a weathered old man whose daughter is married to the town sheriff, and their niece helps out at the general store. the sheriff himself is stout and balding, with little experience in shooting a gun, but he's a good man. there’s a group of old, weathered farmers that seem to take him under their wing, though he tells them time and time again that he’s no spring-chicken when it comes to tending the farm — that was his father’s work, after all, before he died. and there’s families and kids and men his age, mostly farmers or sheriff’s deputies or soldiers. girls just barely women, tittering and blushing when he nods a good day to them.

life is good. he can live like this, he thinks. he milks the cows and sheers the sheep, hoists lambs over his shoulders and sweats, sweats, sweats. gorges himself on whisky and beer and hearty food, spares some money for a little piece of toffee if he has it. walks himself home from the rowdy saloon with his jacket over his arm and his cheeks flushed, eyes counting fireflies in the evening sun. it’s all hard work -- he's left aching and sore each day -- and it’s good work, anyways. at least out here no-one’s hankering to put a bullet between his eyes.

and yes — he gets lonely sometimes. he’s so used to running with a pack of seven or eight, staying up ‘til dawn, trading stories ‘round the fire. laughing more than he knows how to, hiding smiles around the rim of a cup of moonshine. now, his nights are filled only with the calls of cicadas, the sound of dried grass brushing against itself in the wind. the days are long and hard and he has little to return to by its end.

probably why he spends all his time at the saloon, drowning out the quiet with the noise of it all.

probably why he spends all his time glancing at you out the corner of his eyes.

now, look here: kento doesn’t consider himself the kinda man deserving a wife — but you’re… you’re kind. kind and pretty, serving up drinks and putting the town drunkard out on his ass when he gets too riled up (if kento doesn’t get to him first). slipping the kids sugar cubes when they sneak in past their bedtime.

his first day in town, you never made strange; you remind him of his old crew, in some ways, with your open brightness, your ability to welcome him so easily. you’d told him that his first drink was free of charge, a smile on your lips like a secret. and you walk past his home on your way to work, your dress swaying ‘round your hips, your face all dewy and plump — you're a summer evening, strawberries sweet and syrupy, and he can't help himself: he glances over sometimes, and you always call his name in greeting, like you were expecting it.

(in the back of his bad, no-good mind, he wonders if you talk about him the way the other town girls do — if you giggle over the size of his arms, or the colour of his hair, or his voice. he shakes the thoughts away with a disapproving grunt.)

but it doesn’t matter — it doesn’t matter that sometimes you end up late for work, stuck standing at his fence and talking for far too long; doesn't matter that you bake him loaves of bread, using the excuse that there's too much at home. it doesn't matter that he fixes the porch of your house and you make him lemonade, batting away your younger siblings with a tea-towel and scolding them for bothering him -- doesn't matter that, for a second, he imagines a life like that.

and it sure as hell doesn't matter that, when the old doctor swings an arm around his neck and teases him something terrible, drunk off his head and slurring — “i reckon you’ll be wantin’ a wife soon, big man like yourself!” — that his eyes cut to you. and it doesn’t matter that you’re already looking at him, knowing.

men like him don’t deserve lemonade or apple pie or sweet summer strawberries. not now, not ever.

[hellfirenacht]

Plus One Chapter 1

Summary: Once upon a time, you made a deal with the school freak that if he ever got famous then he'd invite you to be his plus one at a red carpet event. Now a decade later an invite shows up at your house asking you to be the +1 to Eddie Munson, front man of Corroded Coffin.

Tags: modern!au, Eddie and Reader are in their late 20's/early 30's after the deal is made. Rockstar!Eddie. Friends to strangers to friends to lovers, references to Flight of Icarus characters eventually

The squeak of desks being pushed across linoleum flooring made you wince as everyone adjusted the classroom for partner work. It was too early for this, you hadn’t slept the night before and had almost been late to this class, taking your seat at the last second just as the bell rang. 

First period science wasn’t your hardest class, but it wasn’t exactly your best subject either. You’d been floating along with a solid C and that was as good as you were hoping to get. As long as you graduated by this point, you’d be happy. It was near the end of your senior year, and senioritis was hitting you hard. It was your hope that you could just coast these last few weeks, pass your finals and get the hell out of the public school system. 

There would be no coasting this morning though as you were all assigned partners. No one was thrilled about this development aside from a few peers who had been partnered with their friends. You weren’t exactly unpopular but you didn’t have anyone in this class that you would consider a friend or even an acquaintance. You’d borrowed a pencil once from Randy who sat in front of you, but other than that you kept to yourself first thing in the morning. 

Which is why when the name ‘Munson’ was called out along with your own surname you’d barely registered who that was. A few people snickered and you caught one girl giving you a pitying look as you tried to connect the name to a face. It took your partner sitting down across from you for you to realize who you’d been paired with. 

Munson. Eddie Munson. Eddie ‘the Freak’ Munson. 

Ah. That Munson. 

“Uh, hi.” he said, with a wave and you desperately tried to reconnect the tired wires in your brain to say hi back. 

“Mornin’” you managed to spit out. He sat in the back of the class on the opposite side of the room. You rarely even saw him in class because you were usually here before him, and he was the first to get out the door when class ended. You never said a word to him the whole semester, but again, you didn’t talk to anyone in this class. 

Worksheets were passed around and you stared at the different questions and equations. You might as well be sitting in Latin class with as much as this made sense to you. 

“I know this is a higher level than what you all are used to, but this is what is going to be expected of you in college next year.” Your teacher explained, followed by a chorus of groans which included yours as well as Eddie’s. 

The two of you stared at the worksheet for a moment before making eye contact. You felt a little nervous under his gaze; you’d seen him around school and had heard the rumors about the leader of the Dungeons and Dragons club. He’d been seen pushing around freshmen wearing the same shirt as him, and was often regarded as a loudmouth and a danger to everyone in school. 

It didn’t help his case that he looked older than you. His broad shoulders were only accentuated by the heavy leather jacket and denim vest giving him the appearance of someone who absolutely should not be in high school. How old was he anyway? 

“Eddie.” 

You blinked, surprised he was the first to speak. You offered your name as well with a nod, neither of you going for the handshake. 

“So... does any of this make sense to you?” he asked, looking back down at the worksheet. 

You glanced down with a small laugh. “Not even a little.” 

“Shit.”

“Shit.”

He looked up at you with a sheepish grin, and you swear it took at least five years off his appearance. You found yourself relaxing just a bit, if he was as dangerous as everyone made him out to be, at least he wouldn’t do something stupid in the middle of class. Hopefully. 

You grabbed your textbook and opened it up and Eddie leaned over the desk to read with you. 

“Sorry, forgot mine.” He said and you adjusted the book so it sat between the two of you. 

The next half hour was a testament of will as the two of you tried your best to work out the formulas put in front of you. The ancient calculators that the teacher had provided only caused more confusion between the two of you and you tried to figure out buttons that you had never had to press before. 

“I’m sure someone, somewhere is using this on a daily basis.” you said as you jotted down a string of numbers that you were positive were wildly incorrect. “I understand that this is important to someone, but outside of a trivia game there’s no way I’m ever going to even think about this ever again.” 

You were mostly talking to yourself, not expecting a response from your partner. He was looking at the calculator, and your string of numbers with equal confusion. 

“Music is as advanced as my math skills go.” Eddie said. He’d removed his jacket at some point where you were staring at your textbook with a blank expression trying to understand how to apply the formulas. You couldn’t stop your eyes from occasionally flicking towards the tattoos that covered his right arm. So he was at least old enough to get tattoos... or to have a parent or guardian agree to let him get tattoos. 

You weren’t sure why you were so hung up on his age. Maybe it was easier to focus on that mystery than the jumble of letters and numbers that was making your brain more numb than it already felt. 

“What kind of music?” The question was out of your mouth without thinking. You didn’t think you’d seen him hang out with the band or orchestra kids before. 

“Metal and rock music mostly.” Eddie said, erasing one of the numbers. His pencil was a cheap one, and only managed to make a huge smudge on his paper rather than clear his answer. You handed over your own pencil on instinct and he took it with a thanks. 

“Do you play an instrument or something?” you asked, already checked out of the worksheet. Fuck it. It’s not like it was going to count for much anyway. 

“Yeah I, uh, I’ve been playing guitar since I was a kid.” There was a light in his eyes that made you wonder why anyone would ever think he was dangerous or scary. In the half hour that the two of you had been struggling with this busy work the two of you had been making small talk that you’d found way more engaging. 

“Electric or guitar?” you asked, and it was when Eddie let out a laugh that you realized what you had asked. You pressed your hands to your face with an embarrassed chuckle. “I didn’t sleep last night.” 

“I play electric and guitar.” came the teasing response. “But I lean more towards electric unless my uncle is home or I need to keep it down.”

“Are you any good?” 

“Good enough to have a steady gig at the Hideout.” he shrugged. “It’s not much, but it’s a stage. Sort of.” 

Eddie had also given up on the worksheet and was using your pencil to absently doodle in the margins of the paper. 

“I have no idea where that is.” 

“Shady dive bar in the warehouse district. My band and I play on Tuesdays, you should come see us sometime. It’s a shithole, but it’s safe.” The last part was added hastily as he saw your weary expression. 

A shady dive bar on a school night? Not a great chance of that. 

“What’s your band called?” 

“Corroded Coffin.” he dug around his pockets in his jeans and jacket before he pulled out a bent cut out piece of flashcard and handed it to you. It had the band’s name scribbled on it in sharpie and a list of socials on the back. It screamed home made and there was a charm to it that made you smile. 

“I’ll check you out.” you said, tucking it into the book you had been reading for the past week knowing damn well that you were probably going to forget about it the second it was out of sight. 

“Don’t worry about the worksheet being perfect.” the teacher piped up from their desk. “Just do your best, and it’s only being counted as pass/fail. I’m just trying to see that you’re all able to use your critical thinking skills to look up information.”

“I’m about to use my critical thinking skills to bullshit the rest of the worksheet.” Eddie muttered and you laughed. 

You grabbed his worksheet and scribbled down a formula and some numbers and handed it back. “Long as there’s something written down she doesn’t care.” 

That was good enough for the both of you as you set the papers aside. There was still a good fifteen minutes left in class, and you expected that the two of you would just sit awkwardly in your grouped desk facing each other until the bell rang. You almost laid your head down on the desk and try and get a power nap in, but curiosity was getting the better of you. 

“So, you wanna do music for a living?” you asked, looking at him again. 

“Ideally.” Eddie said, fidgeting with your pencil still. You decided that it was his pencil now, you had others in your bag. “I know it’s a long shot and most of my band is still gonna be in school when I graduate this year but we’ve got a few songs that we’ve been working on.”

“So you’re gonna be famous one day?” It wasn’t a sarcastic question, but a genuine one. Maybe this guy could be famous one day, you didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t even want to be famous. 

Eddie shook his head and laughed. “I’ll be lucky to keep the lights on with my music, but I’m gonna try.”

“You’re going to be famous.” you told him with a firm nod. The lack of sleep was catching up to you. It’s not like anything in this class was going to matter in the future anyway. “I’ve decided it.”

“You decided that I’m going to be famous?” he asked slowly, as if trying to decide if you were fucking with him or not. 

“Yeah, why not?” You replied. 

He stared at you and his gaze turned intense as he sat up straighter. Eddie’s gaze swept over your face, looking for any sign that you were speaking with ill intent, when he found none, he gave you a smile. 

“I’ll hold you to it then.” he said. “If I don’t get famous I’m holding you personally responsible.” 

“Alright, but there’s a catch.” your smile widened. 

“A catch? You won’t let me get famous on my charm and talent alone?” He tilted his head with a grin. 

“Nope. I need payment. Deciding things isn’t cheap, you know.” you were delusional from lack of sleep, and you probably sounded crazy to him.

“Alright, what’s your fee?” Eddie leaned back in his chair, looking as if he were trying to start a business deal. His demeanor change starkly contrasted the long dark hair, band t shirt, and heavy metal rings he wore and you had to stop yourself from laughing. 

You thought about it for a moment. “I want to be your plus one to at least one of your red carpet events.” you said. “I think that’s payment enough.”

He rubbed his chin in thought, as if carefully considering your offer. “And if I don’t.”

“If you forget to come back for Madame Zeroni, you and your family will be cursed for always and eternity.” you couldn’t stop yourself from laughing now at how ridiculous you sounded. 

“Holes? Really?” Eddie snorted. “Alright, I know how that story ends. You have a deal.” 

He offered you his hand and you two shook on it. 

And because you two had at least ten minutes to kill, Eddie took out a beat up notebook and started drawing up a contract to make it official. The two of you debated on the wording, and how it should be drawn out. In the end, it was decided that Eddie would have at least five years after his first red carpet to invite you to an event (your idea) or else he’d be cursed and he’d end up on TMZ in a scandal involving a goat and a runaway parade float (his idea).

You each signed the fake contract, dated it, and had the teacher notarize it. 

“Did you two even try to do the worksheet?” they asked, signing and stamping the notebook with a ‘GOOD JOB!’ stamp.

“We tried.” Eddie smiled at the teacher, taking the notebook back and trading it for the worksheets.

The bell rang and you two shook hands one last time. The last few weeks flew by in a whirlwind of spring break, prom season, and graduation. You barely talked to Eddie after that class, occasionally saying hi to him in the hallway, or the odd small chat during class. You’d managed to get him to sign your yearbook, but he hadn’t asked you to sign his. You felt a little sad about it, looking back. He’d been nice to talk to, and his reputation hadn’t lived up to that hour that you’d been forced to spend with him. 

Graduation was the last time you’d seen him, when he’d run across the stage, flipped off Principal Higgins and ran off like a bat out of hell. You had looked for him passively in the chaos and sea of graduates and their families taking photos and congratulating each other. Okay, maybe you’d looked for him a bit more deliberately than you’d let on. 

Maybe you had developed a small crush on Eddie in that hour that you’d spent working on that stupid worksheet. Maybe you had hoped that when you gave him your email in that contract he’d reach out to you to say hi. Maybe, yes, you did eventually remember the handmade business card for Corroded Coffin and had looked up their information a month into summer to find them as dead and dry as the Sahara desert, with only a muffled .mp3 of one of their songs to go off of. 

There were a lot of maybe’s that came with being in high school. 

But life moves on. You forget about the man with the long dark hair and boyish smile. Your yearbook gets tucked away in a box, out of site and out of mind. The homemade business card gets lost under the bed and eventually tossed in a deep clean as you get ready to move to college and move out. The muffled .mp3 sits in your computer for years until you get a smartphone and stuff a ton of your old music on it, shuffling it into your streaming playlists. 

The song gets skipped over more often than you’d ever admit. 

And now there you were in your new apartment a year after graduating college, living on your own for the first time. No dorm, no family, no roommates, no partner. 

It was the middle of your work week, and you were outside checking the mail. You flipped through the envelopes of junk and bills for anything that would have been worth the walk from your apartment to the community mailbox. 

A thick envelope with your name and address was in the middle of the pile. Your name was hand lettered in fancy script and you glanced at where the return address should be. 

WR RECORDS 

Who?

You pulled the envelope out and glanced at the rest of the mail to make sure there was nothing important there before tossing it into your neighbors recycling bin. You ripped open the envelope. 

Inside was a thick black card, and your name was once again written in beautiful red ink that reflected off the dark card stock. 

WR Records would like to invite you to be the +1 to Mr. Eddie Munson of Corroded Coffin to this year's annual Hellfire Awards.

And below that in chicken scratch handwriting that wildly contrasted the careful lettering of the rest of the card: 

A deal’s a deal.

You stared at the words and read them over and over and over again, trying to make sense of them and only one question passed your mind. 

“Who the fuck is Eddie Munson?” 

---

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Tag List: @hellfiredarling @crocwork-clockodile @hitoshislut @kurdtbean @kennedy-brooke @daisyridleyyyy

[abrandnewshadow]

upset 10/2017

"WHEN I WAS 13, THAT WAS MY PLAN GOING TO MAKE A RECORD WITH STEVE ALBINI"

FRANK IERO'S NEW EP SEES HIM TEAM UP WITH STEVE ALBINI, AND AN UNEXPECTED 4 GUEST - HIS FIVE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, LILY. WORDS: HEATHER MCDAID.

FRANK IERO & THE PATIENCE

KEEP THE COFFINS COMING EP

'Keep The Coffins Coming' is a glimpse at the time between 'stomachaches' and 'Parachutes',

where Frank lero and the cellabration- x-Patience worked out where they were going next. As the band now approach the post-Parachutes crossroads of 'Where next?, it feels the fitting time to release this snapshot. 'I'm A Mess' is rougher and raw around the edges, a fledgeling version of the song that would be streamlined for the upcoming album. It's got the Steve Albini touch of capturing the vibe of a room - like the basement jam version, the live version. 'Best Friends Forever' came to life years ago with Frank's kids in tow, helping with the writing and dare we say stealing the show in

the video, and here it evolves into the full band version. 'No Fun Club' leaps off with some of the 'Danger Days' swagger and Frank yells and shifts gears into the punk revelry he excels in. 'You Are My Sunshine' is sickeningly chirpy at the best of times, but put the lero twist on it, and it becomes a mellow, stripped back version of itself to close proceedings.

The EP saw Frank and co. pondering their future; it was never about perfection, but capturing a snapshot in the band's lives and a rare opportunity to work with their idols. Rarely do you see the middle step between albums, you just see the endgame transformation. But here it is - the unapologetic, raw and eclectic bridge of Frank lero's solo work, the bones of what the band moved on to be.

Heather McDaid

Frank lero knows one or two things about ticking items off the ol' bucket list. In his time with My Chemical Romance, he played a sold out Madison Square Gardens, appeared on Saturday Night Live, and headlined Reading & Leeds. He has more plaques than he knows what to do with, and that's just for starters.

"I've been extremely fortunate in the things that I've gotten to do and the bands I've gotten to play with," says Frank. "We crossed off quite a few of those bucket list opportunities with My Chem and now to be able to do that too with my solo career is unbelievable."

This latest item to be scored off the list is to work with the iconic producer Steve Albini, who produced Nirvana's final album 'In Utero, on his EP 'Keep The Coffins Coming: The obvious place to start is, how exactly do you react when you get a call saying that you're off to work with someone like Steve? "It's weird, man" laughs Frank. "I was in the middle of writing and trying to figure out the next record. My manager Paul asked for bucket list stuff, people I'd always wanted to work with. Steve was always at the top of that list."

"When I got the call that he wanted to work with us and we were booked it was like-" he bursts out laughing "-I don't think I was able to wipe the smile off my face. I'd been wanting to work with him from, jeez, like '94. When I was 13, that was my plan, I'm going to make a record with Steve Albini, I don't care how it happens, but that was the dream record to make.

"His records sound so visceral. Never before did I put on a record where I felt like I was in the room. He really is hands off in that he wants to capture the band's sound. It's a special thing, like visiting a museum and getting to be in a room with some of your favourite bands and listening to some of your favourite records. Take 'In Utero' for example, those sounds and performances are straight up what was played in that room, there's no bells and whistles or crazy magic behind the scenes. It's all about the way he likes it and the way he records it."

That was the magic Frank was excited to capture. "I kept thinking on the trip out to Chicago as I'm driving, 'Oh, man, I'm going to get the call any moment that this was a hoax and it's not going to happen!"

But it did happen, and at an interesting

FRANK IERO & THE PATIENCE

time too. Sitting between albums, Steve captured the time in Frank's career between his first solo record and the second, when he was still unsure what it was going to become. video features their vocals and adorable balaclava-clad appearances, and now it's a full-band song produced by the legendary Albini.

"They are adorable," he laughs. "Lily is the one that actually wrote the chorus to that song. Whenever she and any of the other kids would fight, she would passive aggressively stick this thing in their face, this best friends forever song and it really started with 'Best friends forever but not now. She was just like screaming at them to let them know that she was very, very upset with them." The EP is made up of four songs, one of which made the cut for the subsequent album. "I had written a couple of songs that I knew I wanted to be on the album, but I didn't know exactly what 'Parachutes' was just yet," he explains. "One of the songs was 'I'm A Mess. It might have ended up just being a standalone track, but I wanted to bring that in regardless. I knew I wanted to bring in a whole band version of the song 'Best Friends Forever' and also 'No Fun Club. I had been toying with that, and I really needed to get it out of my head. When that started to take shape, I knew that it could work as a standalone release.

"I DIDN'T KNOW IF THESE SONGS WERE EVER GOING TO SEE

THE LIGHT OF DAY." FRANK IERO

"My way of dealing with that was to take this song and make it into something. We all sat down in a circle with my guitar one day and figured out what the chording would be, wrote the rest of the song and recorded it in my basement.

I thought it would be really fun to release it and whatever profits came in can go into their college funds. I started to really listen to the structure of the song and realised, man, I can play this live, and they would get a kick out of it whenever they saw I played the song and kids sang along. I put together a full band version and thought it'd be cool to have the original version - like I did with 'Mess' - with the kids on it, and now you have this full band Steve Albini version.

That's the other thing too, a bucket list: I'm going to go in the studio with Steve Albini, someone I've wanted to record with ever since I was a young kid getting into music and punk rock and playing in bands. That mirrors my kids being young, writing songs. How cool is that? She released her first single and video at five, and I took that song and recorded it with a legendary engineer and producer. That's crazy. I knew that song needed to be done that day.

Basically what you're hearing is a stop gap where the band transforms from where we were at the end of touring 'stomachaches' and right before we really fully realised the 'Parachutes' record. That time for me is almost like this lost in translation moment. There was definitely this bridging gap between those two records - this is that hidden step. It's interesting because as a listener, you never see that step. You hear album one. wait while your favourite bands are in the studio, then hear the final step in the evolution to album two.

Exactly! Here's the thing, when we went in the studio, I didn't know I was going to record an EP. I just wanted to record these songs, whether it was just for me or not I'd be happy with it. I didn't know if these were ever going to see the light of day, it was something I needed to do."

'Keep The Coffins Coming' is a snapshot in time. It captures an opportunity beyond

Frank's wildest dreams, a crossroads where he pondered the next step, and a gift to his kids in various forms. Right now, he sits between album two and three. The question is, where next? Whether or not there'll be the chance to see the next stop gap for this particular era, we sure are excited about the upcoming ride.

An interesting side-effect of the process was double-recording songs. Frank wrestled for a while comparing the two versions of 'I'm A Mess' but ultimately grew to see they fit perfectly in their own respective worlds as two different versions. Seeing that evolution in songs is something he was also able to gift his children by including their collaborative song 'Best Friends Forever.

Frank lero And The Patience's EP 'Keep The Coffins Coming' is out 22nd September.

[adeptustemptations]

THE WAY I LOVED YOU - KAMISATO AYATO.

SYNOPSIS: life has been good. You've found yourself finally securing a stable paying job after searching for a while, finding a new place to stay, and reconnecting with old friends. you even met the love of your life, Thoma. being in a relationship with him was like a teenage girl's dream - he was affectionate, supportive, and respectful. A man like him was hard to get by, and he was one of a kind. so why do you find yourself longing for your ex-boyfriend, ayato? 

pairings: ayatokamisato x fem!reader, thoma x reader

warnings: mentions of break-ups, cheating, implied sex, heartbreak, crying, angstangstangst

It has been 5 years since you and Ayato broke up.

It was sad, how love holds on to the hope that the heart can transform what the mind knows it cannot. No matter how much you tried to change him, it just simply wasn't the case for him.

In the middle of another petty fight, his voice echoes, cutting into the tension-filled room - "Let's break up," the words hang in the air, sharp and final, cutting through the silence that had settled between them. Your heart sinks as you watch him, his eyes clouded with a storm of conflicting emotions.

You had hoped, in some corner of your heart, that you could weather the storm together. But the constant arguments, the screaming matches that had become the norm, and the cold, empty nights had worn you down. Each fight felt like another nail in the coffin of your relationship, and now Ayato’s declaration felt like the inevitable conclusion of a love that had long since soured.

The apartment, once a sanctuary of shared dreams and whispered promises, now feels like a battleground scarred by your unrelenting conflicts. The familiar echoes of your arguments seem to reverberate through the walls, amplifying the silence that follows Ayato's words.

"No," you reply, shaking your head vigorously, trying to ignore the lump forming in your throat. "You don’t mean that. This is just another fight. We can work this out, please."

It was funny, how you begged for him not to leave you.

But how cruel fate truly was, especially when you looked into his eyes at that moment. He made up his mind, there was no point in fighting for it, and there was no turning back. All you can do is let out a shaky breath as you nod, trying to make sense of something - anything.

That night was also the same night Thoma found you, soaked from the rain, crying at a park bench.

-

He is sensible and so incredible And all my single friends are jealous He says everything I need to hear, and it's like I couldn't ask for anything better

You’d poured your heart into moving on, and over time, you found solace and love in Thoma. From the moment you met him, it was clear he was everything you’d dreamed of: kind, supportive, and steadfast. Thoma’s sensible nature and unwavering support brought you a sense of peace and joy that had seemed unreachable for so long.

Your friends often marveled at how lucky you were to have someone like Thoma. They’d gush about how perfect he was, how he seemed to understand you in ways you’d never thought possible. And they were right. Thoma was incredible. His small gestures of affection and thoughtful acts made every day feel special. You couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude for having him in your life.

The room is enveloped in a serene, intimate quiet as you and Thoma bask in the afterglow of your shared moment. The soft glow of the bedside lamp casts a warm light across the room.

"You love me, right?" you ask, your voice slightly breathless as you try to steady your breathing. Thoma chuckles softly, his gaze filled with adoration as he brushes a stray strand of hair from your face.

"Of course I do, Y/N." His voice is tender and reassuring as he presses a gentle peck to your lips, his hand resting on your cheek, his thumb gently caressing your skin. "My, was my performance not up to your standards? Have I not shown you enough today?"

You giggle at his playful teasing, running your fingers through his soft blond hair. Your eyes sparkle with affection. "No, you did so good," you whisper, your voice filled with genuine warmth. "So, so good to me."

Thoma's smile widens at your praise, and he nods with satisfaction. "Good. Because if it wasn't, I'd be more than willing to show you more of my love today." His voice is a soft murmur, and you can’t help but let out a soft chuckle in response.

In this moment, wrapped in each other’s arms, the world outside seems to fade away. You both relish the peace and intimacy that surrounds you, feeling as if you could stay like this forever.

"I love you, Thoma."

His eyes meet yours, and he smiles with a tenderness that touches your soul. "I love you more, Y/N."

As you snuggle closer, the warmth of his embrace and the depth of your connection feels like the perfect end to a beautiful day. The love you share fills the space around you, creating a haven of contentment and happiness that you both cherish deeply.

-

But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain And it's 2 a.m. and I'm cursing your name So in love that you act insane And that's the way I loved you

The past has a way of sneaking back into our lives when we least expect it.

You stare at your phone, watching the news cycle through the latest headlines, your heart heavy with a mix of nostalgia and confusion. Ayato's face is everywhere—his light blue hair and lilac eyes unchanged, but the world has shifted around him. The headlines scream his name, a reminder of a life you thought you'd left behind.

AYATO KAMISATO - INAZUMA'S TOP CEO?

The sight of him stirs up memories that seem to have been lying dormant, just waiting for this moment to resurface.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just trust me!” Ayato’s voice had been sharp, his anger palpable. “I’m doing everything I can to make this work.”

The sting of his words had been immediate and deep. “It’s not about trust, Ayato. It’s about you being so distant. You’re always buried in work, and when you are here, it feels like you’re not really here. You’re checked out!”

His hands had clenched into fists, the frustration in his eyes mirrored by his rigid posture. “I’m trying to build something for us. Everything I do is for our future, and you’re just attacking me for it!”

“You think I don’t see that?” Your voice had cracked, emotion flooding every word. “But I need you here now. I need you to be present, not just physically, but emotionally. It feels like you’re slipping away from me.”

The argument had reached its peak, the room thick with unresolved tension. Ayato’s frustration had turned to anger, his words cutting like a knife.

“Maybe you just don’t understand the pressures I’m under!” he’d snapped, his voice laden with an edge of desperation. “This isn’t just for our relationship. It’s for me, too. I want to make a name for myself, Y/N. Don’t be selfish now.”

The finality of his declaration had left you feeling hollow, the room suddenly cold and silent. The love you’d fought so hard to nurture seemed to be unraveling before your eyes, and the future you’d once envisioned together felt impossibly out of reach.

As tears began to escape your eyes, Ayato had softened, his anger giving way to regret. “I’m sorry. You’re not selfish. I was just… stressed. I didn’t mean it.” He had wrapped his arms around you, his touch gentle as he pressed a kiss to your forehead, his fingers brushing away your tears. “I’m sorry.”

You chuckle bitterly as the memory fades, a lump forming in your throat. You press the sleep button on your phone and turn to look at Thoma, who is sleeping peacefully beside you. His steady breathing and the warmth of his presence offer a stark contrast to the storm of emotions swirling within you.

You remember the sense of security and contentment you’ve built with Thoma. His love and support have created a stable, fulfilling relationship that seems like everything you could have hoped for. The life you’ve built together feels real and comforting, a safe space from the pain of your past.

And yet, despite that, the pull of those memories, the echo of Ayato’s words, and the intensity of your past connection still linger in the back of your mind. It’s as if a part of you is struggling to come into terms with the excitement of what once was with the peace of what is now.

You reach out, gently brushing a strand of hair from Thoma’s face, your heart aching with the weight of unresolved feelings. You know you should be content, that the life you’ve created with him is everything you could want.

But why do you feel so.. empty?

You slip out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Thoma. In the kitchen, you make yourself a cup of tea, the comforting aroma helping to calm your racing thoughts. As the steam rises from the mug, you wonder what you should do. The past is a tricky thing, always lingering at the edges of your present, but this feels different—like a force pulling at your heartstrings.

Sipping the warm tea, you pull out your phone and search for more about Ayato. The news articles are filled with accomplishments and achievements, but they only seem to highlight a version of him you don’t fully recognize anymore. The Ayato from the past was driven and ambitious, but he was also deeply flawed. The man on the screen seems like a stranger, someone who has moved far beyond the person you knew.

Your thoughts drift back to the day he left you, the hurtful words exchanged, and the finality of his decision. The pain you felt then was raw and intense, a sharp contrast to the calm and steady love you have now with Thoma. But the question lingers—why does Ayato’s return stir something up in you?

As you contemplate this, the phone buzzes with a message. It’s from a mutual friend who still keeps in touch with Ayato. The message is brief but to the point: “Ayato’s in town for a charity event tonight. It might be a good chance for closure if you’re interested.”

You stare at the screen, your heart pounding in your chest. The idea of seeing Ayato again is both terrifying and intriguing. A part of you feels the need to confront the past, to find some sort of resolution. But another part is afraid that reopening old wounds could ruin the happiness you’ve found with Thoma.

"Okay, I'll come." I reply.

-

He can't see the smile I'm faking And my heart's not breaking 'Cause I'm not feeling anything at all

"Where are you going, love?" Thoma asks, watching you make your way to the front of your door, his emerald eyes looking in curiosity.

You take a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves as you face Thoma. His presence is grounding, but you can’t deny the heaviness in your heart. The decision to go to Ayato’s charity event feels like stepping into unknown territory, but it’s something you need to do for yourself.

“I’ve got an event to attend tonight,” you say, your voice steady but lacking the usual warmth. “A mutual friend of ours mentioned it. A charity event." You explain, Thoma raises his eyebrow but nods anyway. "I see, in that case, please take care. Do you want me to come with you?" He asks, offering a helping hand.

"No, I'll be fine."

Thoma’s gaze softens, and he crosses the room to stand beside you, placing a gentle hand on your arm. “I understand, but I want you to know that I’m here for you, no matter what. Just promise me that if things get overwhelming, you’ll reach out to me.”

Your heart swells with gratitude for his unwavering support. “I promise. I’ll keep you updated.”

Thoma leans in and kisses your forehead, his touch tender and reassuring. “Alright. Just be careful, and remember that I love you.”

"Love you too,” you reply, giving him a warm smile before slipping out the door.

The drive to the charity event is quiet, the city lights blurring past as you focus on the road ahead. Your thoughts are a whirlwind of memories and emotions, each one flooding your mind. You park your car and take a deep breath before stepping out, the cool evening air helping to clear your head.

The venue is a grand, upscale hotel, its opulence a stark contrast to the turmoil you feel inside. You walk inside, greeted by the hum of conversations and the clinking of glasses. The event is in full swing, and you scan the room for familiar faces.

Your gaze lands on Ayato, standing near the center of the room. He’s dressed impeccably in a tailored white suit, his demeanor confident and polished. He seems to be in his element, effortlessly engaging with the guests around him. For a moment, you hesitate, the weight of the past pressing heavily on your shoulders.

But then, as if sensing your presence, Ayato’s eyes meet yours from across the room. His expression shifts from surprise to a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. He excuses himself from the group he is talking to and makes his way toward you.

You take a few hurried steps, trying to distance yourself from Ayato, your heart racing with anxiety. The chaotic mix of emotions inside you makes it hard to think clearly. As you push through the crowd, hoping to escape, you hear his voice behind you, filled with urgency.

“Y/N, wait—please,” Ayato calls out, his voice carrying a pleading tone.

Despite your instinct to flee, you find yourself stopping near the edge of the room. You turn around slowly, forcing yourself to face him. Ayato’s approach is slower now, his expression a blend of concern and regret.

When he reaches you, there’s a moment of silence, the bustling noise of the event creating a stark contrast to the tension between you. Ayato’s eyes search yours, trying to gauge your reaction.

And you were wild and crazy Just so frustrating, intoxicating, complicated Got away by some mistake and now

Ayato’s gaze is intense, filled with a depth of emotion that seems to echo the storm you felt years ago. He takes a deep breath, as if gathering the strength to say something he’s been holding back.

“Y/N,” he begins, his voice a mix of vulnerability and determination, “I know it’s been a long time, and I understand if you’re angry or confused. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I need to tell you something.”

He pauses, searching for the right words, and you can see the struggle in his eyes. The memories of your time together seem to weigh heavily on him.

“I miss you,” he says finally, his voice cracking slightly with the force of his emotions. “Archons, I miss everything we had—the good times, the way we used to laugh and talk about our future. I know that my work and my ambitions took me away from you, and I’m so sorry for that.”

Ayato steps closer, his gaze steady and earnest. “Everything I’ve been working for, all the success and the achievements… I thought it would make things better, that it would be enough to secure our future. But I was wrong. I was so focused on building something for us that I lost sight of what really mattered. I lost you.”

His eyes are filled with regret and longing. “I thought that by becoming successful, I could provide everything you needed. But in doing so, I neglected the most important part of our relationship—you. I didn’t realize how much I needed you until you were gone.”

There’s a brief, painful silence as Ayato’s words hang in the air. You can see the sincerity in his eyes, the remorse that has been simmering beneath the surface all these years.

“I’ve made mistakes,” he continues, his voice soft but resolute. “I know that now. But seeing you here, after all this time, has made me realize just how much I regret letting you go. I want you to know that every step I’ve taken since then has been with the hope that maybe one day, I could find a way to make things right.”

"Ayato-"

He takes another deep breath, his gaze never leaving yours. “I understand if you can’t forgive me or if you’ve moved on completely. But I needed you to know that I’ve missed you, and I’ve never stopped thinking about what we had. I’m sorry, Y/N. I really am.”

At that moment, despite the loud music enveloping the place, it only seems as if you and Ayato are the only ones in that place together.

“Ayato…” you start, your voice trembling with a mixture of emotions. You want to say so much, to express the whirlwind of feelings that have been stirred up, but the words catch in your throat.

Ayato reaches out tentatively, his hand brushing against yours. The contact sends a jolt through you, reigniting the connection you once shared. His touch is tentative, almost pleading as if he’s afraid that reaching for you will only drive you away.

“I’ve missed you too,” you whisper, the admission slipping out before you can fully process it. The ache in your heart that you’ve tried so hard to ignore now feels like a gaping wound, laid bare by Ayato’s presence.

His eyes widen slightly at your response, and he takes a cautious step closer. The intensity of his gaze seems to pull you in, and before you can fully grasp the gravity of the moment, Ayato leans in, closing the distance between you.

The kiss is gentle at first, as your lips meet, there’s a surge of old emotions—passion, longing, and familiarity that makes your head spin. It’s as if the years apart have melted away, leaving only the intensity of the feelings that once defined your relationship.

The kiss deepens, fueled by a mix of desperation and hope. Your hands find their way to Ayato’s face, pulling him closer as you lose yourself in the moment.

However, as you both indulge in the kiss, you fail to notice the green-eyed blonde watching over you two from the door.

a/n: this is my first time publishing something I wrote c: hope you guys liked it!

[passivenovember]

Night Shift (for @catharrington )

--

The first thing he sees when he comes to is Max. 

She’s crying in her sleep, the liquid timbre of it slipping loosely in time with a heart monitor, somewhere to the left, fading in and out of view as the steady drip of morphine fights to drag Billy under.

He realizes, that. The heart monitor is his. He’s plugged into it and he hurts. More than Neil. More than anything.

What’s left of his mind is liquified, sloshing around in a body strapped to a bed. It turns the memory of Maxine over in his hands like a rubber duck in an ocean of guilt.

She’s alive. Billy made sure of it, so. She’s alright. She’s okay–

It aches to breathe, burns so bad that his vision blacks out and Billy thinks, eyes glued to the grounding shock of red hair on his sister’s head, that he’s too young to die. 

–

The first time Billy’s strong enough to crash awake and stay there, he wishes for death. 

Fuck being too young. 

Everything burns, and then he’s gasping around a pain unlike any he’s ever felt as warm amber light filters through his eyelashes. He’s bleeding, from the very center of his chest, watercolor seeping through a cloth. He watches red bloom, bloom, bloom over white gauze and thinks. He should call for help. 

But then someone snuffles, deep in sleep and Billy flinches toward the sound, teeth on edge. 

Maxine looks like she hasn’t moved or showered or eaten in days, and Billy grunts. Her angry, cave-man big brother even knocking on death’s door. He tries to sit but something else escapes him, a fucking. Whine. 

More blood.

He’s crying. He doesn't know when he starts crying, but he’s fighting to get to Max, he’s wading through shit and fire and and then someone says, “Don’t move, Hargrove, you’ll rip yourself open again.”

Steve Harrington looks like he went three rounds with a meat grinder. Like someone tried to kill him. Like Billy–

“Shh, it’s alright,” Steve’s fingers are soft, through the searing pain, gentle as butterfly wings on the caps of Billy’s shoulders. “Lay back,” Steve tells him, blue and black and purple, like spilled paint, “Lay down, okay?”

Billy gets lost in the fat bulge of Steve’s bottom lip. Thinks. 

He probably did that to Steve. Everything’s fuzzy, he doesn’t remember anything but he remembers wanting. Steve. Everyone dead. Everyone and then himself. 

He didn’t think everyone included Steve Harrington.

“It’s alright,” Steve cards those soft, sweet fingers through Billy’s hair. “Lay down,” He says, “Rest.”

Billy does.

–

The next time he wakes it’s because Maxine is throwing a temper tantrum. 

Billy would know the sound of her voice in death. The shrill, ear-splitting soprano of Max’s screams could yank him out of hell and catapult his body through the lid of his coffin, startled lips gathering earth between his gums until he’s awake, again. 

Alive.

A man in a white lab coat tells Max to calm down. 

She spits, instead, phlegmy and gross and just like Billy taught her, in the Doc’s face, “You’re not moving him.”

It’s half-way unintelligible. Billy squints, like there’s sunlight streaming bright and relentless from his sister’s throat and he’ll go blind if he doesn’t protect himself. 

“Kid,” The Doctor says, “He’s not awake. He’s not getting any better–”

“If you take him to Chicago I’ll kill myself,” Maxine declares. Stubborn bitch. “If you take him, I’ll. I’ll chain myself to the bottom of the helicopter. I’ll stop eating. I’ll starve myself–”

She will. She’s a man of her word, the fuckin’ loser. 

“A hunger strike?” The Doc frowns, regretful. “You can try, kid. Won’t bring your brother back.”

Billy smirks. Almost. It hurts and his head splits open and across the room, on his feet and ready to restrain Billy’s very own red-headed tornado from punching a hole through the Doctor’s sternum, Steve Harrington watches Billy. 

His face looks normal now. 

Almost. 

He’s yellowing, sort of, like an old photograph, but. He’s beautiful. 

Billy’s chest aches. 

“--His entire life is here,” Maxine says, voice wobbling dangerously. Billy knows she’s about two seconds from decapitating this Doctor with her bare hands, “His family. I’m his family, you’re not just going to take him away from–”

“--Kid–”

“--Don’t call me kid, you fucking asshole,” Max says, “Don’t–”

“--If we can’t get him somewhere he’ll wake up, he’ll die.” The Doctor says. Not a teensy bit regretful.

Billy doesn’t exactly blame him. 

But you’d think a bomb has gone off. You’d think society’s on the brink of collapse, by the way Maxine goes shocked still, and then.

She moves. 

Or, She tries to move, screaming and screaming as Steve holds her back, never once taking his eyes off of Billy. “Max,” Steve says. His lip’s not bulging anymore. 

Maxine wails against the Doctor, anyway, her tiny fists not packing much force because the fucker just looks sad, about it. For her. Max will break her thumb, doing that. 

Billy tries to call her a dumb fucker and fails.

Tries to sit up and fails.  

“Max,” Steve tells her, putting himself in front of the Doc, “Look.”

Her eyes are blue, like his.

Somehow Billy forgot about that while he was treading water in the sea of everything else. Billy and Max stare at each other for ten long, breathless seconds. 

And.

All Billy can think is that he should’ve stayed dead. He should’ve followed his mother’s voice into the pits of hell, like she wanted him to, he should’ve stopped fighting and in that stretch of breathless anticipation, he knows. 

Maxine is going to open her mouth and tell him that he fucked it up. Again. Die, she’s thinking. If you’re not going to do it, I’ll kill you myself.

Max blinks and then she opens her mouth. Makes a terrible noise. It’s the worst fuckin’ thing Billy’s ever heard, and turns out he was right, her fists don’t pack much force but she knocks him one across the jaw, anyway. Maybe an accident, but then again. Maybe not.

“You fucking asshole,” She says, scratching and clawing until Steve Harrinton grabs her around the chest in a barrel hug, lifting her off the hospital bed like she weighs nothing. 

It’s alright, Billy wants to say, I deserve it. It’s the least of what I deserve. And besides. It’s the only place on Billy’s entire body that isn’t screaming in pain, so. 

Small victories.

“Let me go,” Max shouts, but Steve doesn’t. He holds her tight, watching Billy. 

The Doctor stares, too, like he’s witnessing a miracle. Like he isn’t sure what to make of all this. Like he’s going to run screaming into the halls and take all the credit even though he was ready to ship a corpse off to Chicago this morning.

Immediately, Billy hates him. 

Max elbows Steve Harrington in the gut. He drops to the floor, groaning, and Billy has the nerve to feel proud as his sister climbs over the lip of the bed with a fire in her eyes, unlike anything Billy’s ever seen, and.

He was standing at the mouth of hell, once. 

Billy notes, distantly, that he shouldn’t have worried so much about her. Shouldn’t have risen from the dead to make sure she’d be, not. Alright, but. Something. Maxine can take care of herself and Billy never should’e doubted it. She’s gearing up to take care of him, now, let the trash out to roost, but.

But.

Maxine collapses on top of him, instead. Billy thinks, distantly, that she might be trying to suffocate him because she’s laying flat across his oxygen tube. 

But. 

She’s crying. Her body shakes hard enough to rumble the bed and the linoleum floor and the entire building beneath that. It hurts. Billy wants to lift his arms and hold her to him, but he can’t. He can’t feel his arms, he can’t–

“I’m sorry,” Maxine says, clutching at his neck, “I’m so sorry, Billy.”

Steve Harrington and the Doctor are gone before Billy thinks to ask about the hole in his chest. When the door slams shut behind them, Maxine sits up and O2 hisses through the plastic around his nose. 

Billy can breathe, again.

–

“What did it feel like?”

Billy’s grateful that his room has a window. The trees have been good to him.

Maxine knocks her sneaker into the hospital bed, shooting pain up Billy’s left side. He ignores it, biting against the fleshy patch of his cheek until blood drips on his tongue. “Billy.”

Billy shakes his head.

Steve Harrington stands watching, backlit with bright September skies. He’s been perched under the window for hours with his arms across his chest, holding vitriol in the birdcage of his ribs, just. Watching. Billy and Max together.

“Dipshit,” Max says, “I know you can hear me. You’re mute, not deaf,” Max kicks him, ignoring his wince of pain, “What the fuck happened to you while you were–”

“Max,” Steve tells her, coming to life, “He can’t talk.”

Or think, Or move. 

“I know.”

“You’re stressing him out.”

“How the fuck do you know, Harrington?”

Billy smirks, a little, watching the roll of Steve’s neck muscles. Irritated, like Billy. Like a brother. “Look at him,” Steve says, “He’s begging me with those big blue eyes, Harrington, she’s stressing me out, make her stop.”

Billy wants to smile. He tries to, but.

“I can’t stress him out,” Maxine says, kicking at him again. “He’s not even doing anything.”

It’s lighthearted. As bright as things can be when Billy’s still on a respirator, but he knows she’s pissed. Out of everything, he knows that. The shape of Maxine’s rage. 

“Jesus Christ, Mayfield,” Steve exhales, exhausted, and every tree branch outside the window moves with him. “You have to give him time.”

Maxine kicks the bed again, hard and insistent until Billy has to look at her otherwise his lungs will explode with the pain. He doesn’t want to. He manages, anyway, and. Maxine deflates. A wilted red balloon.

She’s crying. Suddenly. 

He frowns at her, like. What, shitbird? 

Max seems to hear him. “What happened to you?”

Blue eyes, blue like his. Their anger falls the same way, like a sledgehammer against tempered glass. Pain spiderwebs out from him, varicose veins devouring all the light and warmth from the room with guilt.

Max’s face wrinkles, a raisin in the September glow, and Billy forces air through his lips. I’m sorry, he wants to say, I’m sorry I can’t put words to it right now. I’m sorry I can’t make sense of it for you. I’m sorry you have to carry it on your shoulders like a backpack full of algebra homework. I’m sorry–

Her fingers are cold when they curl into the palm of Billy’s hand. He’s sorry this is happening to them. To her, so.

“See,” Harrington says, “You stop flapping your gums for five seconds and he’ll give you what you want.”

Billy rolls his eyes and holds her fingers tightly, trying to press every syllable into Max’s thundering pulse. Billy hopes she understands, knows she does, and when he turns back to the window Steve Harrington is there. 

Watching Billy with pink cheeks, a pink nose. Not sepia at all anymore. 

Healed. 

–

“We have to change your linens,” The nurse says. 

Billy doesn’t know what a fucking linen is. He wrinkles his nose, waiting for Maxine or Steve Harrington to jump in and gather context clues, but they’re useless. Basically wallpaper, anytime the nurses come in. 

He’s never seen two storybook heroes more squeamish at the sight of blood or the sound of discomfort.

The nurse raises her eyebrows at them, already pissed off. “Bedsheets,” She says. “We need to change them so he doesn’t get sores.”

“Sores?” Maxine says, finally serving as Billy’s voice box.

“Yes, he hasn’t learned to walk yet–”

“--What if he never learns to walk again?” Max wonders, “Will he get sores from laying around all the time–”

“--He’ll learn,” The nurse says, done deal. She’s a bitch. Billy’s favorite, so.

He knows right away that it’s going to hurt. Makes a noise like a fork caught in a garbage disposal, completely involuntary, and his backup helper snaps out of it. “How do we change his bedsheets?” Steve asks. Which. 

Douses Billy in cold water. 

He would rather die than let Steve see that. And he has. He almost stayed dead, too, and now–

“Little girl,” The nurse says to Maxine, “Wait in the hall.”

“No way,” Max says, crossing her arms, “No fucking way I’m leaving you in here with my brother, alone–”

“--I’m here–” Steve says.

“--Little girl, do you want to watch your brother thrash in agony and wet himself?”

The nurse waits, her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline while Max comes to terms with losing the bitch-off in a hospital room, of all places.

“No ma’am,” Maxine says finally.

“Perfect. do as I say.”

Max nods, pinning Billy with a flat stare. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

He nods.

The second the door shuts behind her, the nurse tears the blanket from Billy’s legs, “You hold him still while I jimmy the sheet out from under him.”

Steve Harrington looks nervous. Comical. “Isn’t there another nurse who can help–”

Billy’s torso lights on fire when the nurse yanks on his bed sheet and one of the elastic corners snaps around his foot like a claw. She’s not gentle but she’s fast. The linen drags him into a sea of pain, Billy’s arms move independent of the rest of his body, yanking the I.V. out of his arm, and he’s embarrassed but he can’t stop. 

Humiliated when the nurse says, “Lay still, sweetheart,” Like his chest isn’t a gaping wound. “You’ll just make it worse for yourself.” 

Billy screams as best he can. Thrashes. Tries to center himself in the reality that Steve Harrington is watching him, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Billy’s asshole nurse shouts, “Come hold him down, alright?”

Harrington has the nerve to look terrified.

“Alright,” Steve says. “Okay. Yeah.” His jaw squares with determination and then he’s leaning over Billy, palms white-hot and stubborn against Billy’s shoulder caps. 

He smells good, like pine needles.

“Hey,” Steve says, smiling softly, “You’re alright–”

Billy’s nurse yanks the sheets out from under him, jostling Billy up and back down again on the lumpy fucking horrible mattress.

He must scream. 

It must be awful, because Steve rubs his palms up and down, up and down, trying to soothe him, “There we go, Malibu, doing so fuckin’ fantastic,” He says, “Just a little bit longer, right nurse?”

Malibu.

Malibumalibumalibu–

“We still have to sit him up to put the new sheet on the bed,” Billy’s nurse says, just to spite him.

He won’t survive it. He’s being torn apart. Billy thrashes in Steve’s hold. Can’t take it. Won’t–

“Hey. Look at me, Hargrove.”

Billy. Gets lost in the expression on Steve’s face. It reminds him of the court, of a time when Billy wasn’t this pathetic, whimpering mess of torn skin and bones. 

Steve rubs his thumbs, gently, over Billy’s jawline, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here with you, yeah?”

Billy nods, blinking against tears. 

“Good,” Steve says. He turns to the nurse, “Alright, when do we–”

Billy bends at the waist, sitting heavily in Steve’s arms. 

And.

Death smells like pine. Feels like warm hands, rubbing circles into his back.

–

He lives.

–

It’s like the flood gates open. Steve touches Billy whenever he wants, after that, and when Billy goes into surgery to replace the tattered skin on his ribcage, Steve’s there.

Holding Billy’s hand when he falls asleep. Holding Billy’s hand when he wakes up.

–

Eventually, Steve starts talking.

He brings up high school, which has disappeared into the rear-view of where they are now. Rivalries and broken plates and bloody knuckles don’t matter, anymore, in retro-spect. 

Maybe they never did.

Steve helps him learn to use his vocal cords, again. He waits with patient, sparkling brown eyes, stubbornly insisting Billy can answer small questions.

When it finally happens, Steve calls him a hero.

They share stories, dreams, pudding cups and cold lasagna from the hospital cafeteria. 

Steve Harrington is funny. 

Billy never gave the possibility much thought. Steve’s earnest and loyal and beautiful, but Billy never considered that Steve would say and do things that make Billy laugh so hard his stitches nearly pop. 

The hospital staff hate Steve as much as they adore him, and when Billy learns to sit again, Steve Harrington is right there, holding Billy’s hand. Rubbing circles into his wrist that Billy senses like lightning in the heartland. 

Steve. Has tears clinging to his lashes, looks like he’s never been more proud of anything in all his life, and Billy thinks. He could be worth something, again. Someday.

Worth Steve.

–

“I’m so fucking proud of you,” Steve says that night, when they’re alone, in the dark. “You’re not what I thought you’d be, you’re. Billy; you’re amazing.”

Billy can talk, again. He thinks he should say something, but the words won’t come.

–

Maxine has to go home at the end of the day. That’s the deal. 

The hospital Billy’s staying in may know about monsters and dimensional tears but they still make preteens go home to sleep in their own bed once their brothers are out of the woods. It’s the worst part of Billy’s recovery. The dark.

Max fights it, tooth and nail. They both do. 

Round and round she goes with the Doc. She’s his sister. She can’t leave him alone because she doesn’t want to leave him alone, blah-blah-blah, and. 

Maxine screams and cries so much that, eventually, Owens and his goons make an exception. Steve Harrington volunteers to serve as Billy’s discount little sister because he doesn’t have school or a job or a girlfriend. No one to miss his body like Billy does, so.

He's always at the hospital. 

Not much changes, in retrospect, because Steve was there on that first afternoon and he’s there always, day and night and back again, Billy blinks and then suddenly he can’t remember a time when Steve Harrington wasn’t two feet away from him, complaining about whatever cassette tape Max brings from home that week. 

Steve’s only ever gone for an hour at a time. He disappears in the early morning to go home and shower, change his clothes, and then he’s back, again, to keep Max’s cot warm for her while she’s playing Only Child.

Neil never comes to the hospital. Like Billy said. Small victories.

–

Will Byers is the first to notice that Billy’s a faggot.

Well.

He’s not the first but he’s definitely the most gentle. 

Billy clocks that about him the first time someone knocks on his hospital door and he has to do a double take because Maxine is doing her calculus homework on the cot next to him, and Steve’s the one that pulls himself away from Billy’s dinner long enough to swallow a hunk of cold lasagna to open the door.

Everyone in the entire world who cares about him is already here, but Will Byers leads a group of doe-eyed, worried looking people behind him, all bundled up in winter coats because it’s February. Somehow. 

Billy slept through most of 1985 so he’s shocked when Little Boy Byers is tall enough that his mom looks like a munchkin when she bullies her way into the room. Joyce, Billy thinks she’s called. 

Mrs. Byers introduces herself while she drapes a blanket over the foot of Billy’s hospital bed and scolds Steve Harrington for picking at Billy’s dinner. Freak Byers stands next to his brother looking high and uncomfortable.

Mostly high.

“Waa?” Steve demands, Bambi through and through with a roll sticking out of his mouth, “But. Joyce, Billy said–”

“It’s alright, Mrs. Byers,” Billy tells her, wary when the Chief of Police lumbers over to clap a huge, concerned paw onto Max’s shoulder, “I don’t like the hospital food, anyway–”

“You have to eat, honey,” Joyce says.

Honey. 

Honey feels like Malibu but tastes so, so different.

When Bill doesn’t say anything, Mrs. Byers nods. “I’ll bring you something. And. It’s Joyce.”

“No, that’s alright,” Billy tries to sit, wincing when his chest bandage tugs at the tender, curling pieces of raw across his pecks. Steve leans forward with the lip of a putting cup in his mouth and helps him settle against the pillows, hands warm where they stay, sleeping against his stomach. 

Like he’s worried Billy might stand up and run away.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs. Byers says, piling another blanket onto the foot of Billy’s bed, “If you’re going to get out of here, you need your strength. You need your food,” Mrs. Byers says, yanking the pudding cup from Steve’s teeth.

She tosses it to him and Steve grabs it from the air.

“Alright, open up, hero,” Steve tears it pop tab loose with his teeth and feeds it to Billy, one spoon full at a time. A little gets on Billy’s nose and Steve uses his thumb to wipe it away, lingering.

“Your nose,” Steve says quietly, voice thick with vanilla, “You’ve got a cute nose. Like a goddamn rabbit.”

Billy smiles. They smile at each other, big and dumb like always, only.

Across the room, Little Boy Byers watches them. 

Billy thinks he might catch on fire.

–

“I want to take you out of here,” Steve says in the dark. 

It’s late. So late the sky has started to turn silver. 

Steve’s thumb rubs circles into Billy’s wrist, where they’re stuck like paper dolls. It’s the only way Billy can sleep, but. He’s awake, streaming with consciousness when Steve says, “You have to get strong. You have to get better, for me.”

Billy. Feels the press of lips against his hand. Thinks.

He’d crawl if he had to.

Wherever Steve wanted to go, he’d crawl.

–

He learns to walk. Has to get out of here, someday.

—

Steve Harrington asks what Billy’s going to do when he gets out of here. 

Doesn’t know that Billy was awake, that night.

Doesn’t realize–

Billy just got the clear to ditch his oxygen tube and it’s got them both giddy. Smiling at each other and the Doc when he says, “Almost home free, son.”

It’s the closest Billy’s felt to joy in longer than he can remember. Steve’s laugh soothes a part of Billy that’s been aching since before the monster made a home inside of him, and the question fills him with an unfamiliar kind of hope.

Steve’s eyes sparkle when he says it. “What are you doing after this?” Like they’re finishing up an afternoon of basketball practice and Steve’s been trying to work up the nerve to ask Billy. Not on a date, but. Something. 

Billy feels naked without his oxygen tube. Exposed. “What do you mean?”

“When you’re strong enough to go home,” Steve says, sinking lower onto Maxine’s cot. She’s at school, and they’re both graduated, so. Steve takes up residence in the daytime, eating Billy’s hospital food and listening to him read whatever books Max leaves behind. 

Usually, they sit close together, thighs pressed close together, but.

Not today.

Billy without an oxygen tube is unstoppable. Free. He almost misses it. Thinks. Can’t be worth it if Steve’s not holding him together.

“I dunno. Maybe I’ll go back to California.”

“Can’t do that,” Steve says, like. Done deal.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Steve says, searching for the words. His nose scrunches like it does when he’s deep in thought and Billy fills in the blanks for him. You can’t leave because we’re friends now, Ghost Steve says, even though they’ll never admit it. You can’t leave because I want to play basketball with you, again, even though Billy’s still about an inch from blowing a fuse when his legs pick up speed. You can’t leave because. 

I love you.

Steve hums, still searching for the words. Billy sits on his hospital bed and waits for him to sort through, heart pounding, until Steve grins at him. “You can’t leave because I need a roommate, Malibu.” Steve decides.

It’s a relief and it’s not. It’s death. 

Billy’s dying. “What?”

“My parents never use the house,” Steve tells him, sitting forward so his elbows leave little indents on his thighs. Billy’s always thinking about Steve’s thighs. “I have a million empty rooms. Empty beds.”

“Plural,” Billy teases.

“Yeah. I was born with a silver fuckin’ spoon in my mouth, sue me.”

“I’m not a charity case.”

“You’re not a charity case,” Steve says, grinning, “You’re my roommate.”

Billy imagines it, as those brown eyes pin him to the hospital bed. Steve Harrington in his space, or Billy in his, always. Forever. 

Billy shrugs. Nothing hurts so much he can’t breathe, anymore. Not in the physical sense. “I can’t.”

“Why not? Better offer?”

“No. I’m an invalid.”

“So am I,” Steve says, “Mentally.”

“You’re not, you’re–” Perfect. Billy ignores Steve’s eyes as the go soft and gooey, cookies fresh from the oven. “I can’t make you take care of me.”

“I want to,” Steve says loudly. Stubborn like Billy. Like Max. “I like taking care of you–”

“We weren’t friends before.”

“That doesn’t matter, I didn’t know you before.”

Billy smirks, “And you know me now?”

“Yeah,” Steve pokes at him with one cold index finger and leaves it there, “Yeah, I. C’mon. Move in with me. Let take you out of here.”

–

In the middle of night sometime just after May Day, 1986, Steve Harrington has a nightmare. Maybe he was always having them.

Billy wakes slowly and then all at once, surprised that the pain doesn’t knock him out cold, anymore. Apparently. Steve is a shaking meld of blanket on the cot next to the hospital bed. Billy can just make out the pad of Steve’s foot where it vibrates, toes flexing the cotton expanse of his sock like he’s climbing something, in never-never land.

Billy lies awake and counts the steady beep-beep-beep of his heart monitor, too afraid to get up because Steve’s monsters might eat his head and crawl out of the mass of him, plopping wet and slimy onto the hospital floor.

But.

Steve thrashes violently, and Billy can’t take it anymore.

“Harrington—”

Steve huddles away from the sound of Billy’s voice and it’s a war, not to take it personally, to harness his bravery and toss his blanket to the side, to shuffle off of his lumpy and uncomfortable mattress and stand over the cot, thinking he’s not afraid of me. We’re friends now. Steve–

“Steve,” Billy tries again, teeth clenched against the sound Harrington makes in the throes of his nightmare. Like he’s being chased. Hunted. He twists under the blanket, and the dull, eerie light from Billy’s health monitor catches the sweat on Steve’s forehead, and. The fuckin’ look on his face–

“Please,” Billy says thickly, “Please, Harrington, wake up–” 

Steve jolts, ripped out of dreaming by Billy’s hand on his shoulder. The usual calm, sugary warmth of his eyes has disappeared and he zero’s in on Billy, face contorted with rage and fear. 

Steve swings wildly, shoving until Billy falls back onto the hospital bed. Harrington watches the fall, coming back to himself just as the air knocks loose from Billy’s lungs.

He hurts, again. Like last summer. Like he always has, the beautiful boy in front of him flashing like lightning, and. 

For just a moment. Looks like Billy’s father.

“Billy,” Steve says, cheeks dripping with emotion, “Billy, I’m so–”

Billy flinches away from him on impulse, and.

Steve cracks. Breaks. Before Billy can tell him that it’s okay, it was accident, Billy’s stronger than he used to be–

Harrington bolts from the room, door slamming shut behind him.

–

Freak Byers starts driving Max to the hospital.

–

Billy can’t say he’s surprised when the only people who come to see him are his sister and her stupid little friends, riding their bikes to spend all day at the hospital when the weather is nice enough. 

They’re loud and annoying but Billy likes them. Will, at least. 

Steve vanishes, so.

It hurts and it doesn’t. They were on to something good, before that night, something Billy wants with the same intensity that he needs air and water. He’s grateful, in a way, that the possibility of roommates has died before it ever began. 

Less he can fuck up. Less that can make him bleed.

Bygones. All that.

–

On July 20th, a year after death, Billy moves into Joyce Byers’ house because he has nowhere else to go.

It’s as simple as Will Byers helping Billy into the clothes he brings from Jonathan’s closet, clutching Billy’s elbow until Joyce’s tiny brown car swings into view. “Let’s go home,” Will says.

So they do.

Steve never comes to visit.

–

Two months after moving into the Byers’, his Camaro appears in the driveway good as fuckin’ new. On the windshield they’ve taped a check for five hundred thousand dollars and a note that says, sorry for your loss.

Billy watched a monster tear his only friend in half, dozens of people in half, and all of them were carted around in this fuckin’ car like lambs to the slaughter. 

He had to learn to walk again.

It’s good to know what their lives are worth, Billy guesses. What Big Brother is willing do to keep him quiet.

–

“I saw you, once,” Will says, not long after Billy settles onto the couch. 

The Byers’ place smells like pancakes and cigarettes all the time and it’s fuckin’ weird. Joyce is trying to quit for Billy and so is Hopper even though they don’t know that Freak Byers rolls joints for him, and the whole thing is huge and uncomfortable. Like how kids hide things from their parents to protect them.

Billy’s starts to think of the living room as his. 

All that time he hid on Cherry Lane in that fuckin’ room and all it takes is the soft care of Joyce Byers and a beer from Jim Hopper and Billy’s home. The safest he’s ever felt even though he’s out in the open and vulnerable to Will Byers’ soft declarations. Eleven’s wide, staring eyes.

Billy looks up from the book he was reading, startled, “Huh?”

Will fidgets in the doorway, dressed and ready for the first day of school. Billy resists the urge to snap at him, spit it the fuck out. Will’s not tough like Maxine. He’d melt, probably. Keel over, and. Billy likes the kid. 

Sue him. 

So he waits, fiddling with the worn edge of his library book, until Will exhales everything all at once. “I saw Steve Harrington feed you pudding at the hospital that day, when you were just learning to talk and walk again–”

The book falls shut.

“--He said you were cute. That you have a nose like a rabbit. And. I was just wondering,” Will says, choking on his words, “I was just thinking. That.”

“Don’t think about it,” Billy says. “Steve and I–”

“--I just–”

“Will,” He says softly. Thinks he should probably be afraid. Hopper’s in the kitchen. Joyce is at work, and. She won’t be able to stop him if Hop gets the wrong idea about Billy. Or the right one. 

But.

He knows he’s safe. In the pit of his stomach, curling like warmth through his bones, Billy knows it.

They’re safe, here.

Will shakes his head. Afraid of other things, himself maybe, so. He shakes his whole body. “Billy, I think I might. I might be–”

“I’m driving you to school,” Billy stands up, his blanket falling to the ground. 

–

It’s hot enough now that Billy’s arms stick to the leather in the Camaro. 

He doesn’t let anyone ride with him, but not for the reasons he used to pull out of his ass pre-’85. Now it’s wrapped in bodies, the skin of dozens and dozens of people who will never make it home because–

Will is silent most of the way, fingers white-knuckle on his knee caps.

Billy loosens his hands on the wheel and it feels like his knuckles are breaking. He itches for a cigarette. Plays Eagles instead. Waits for the other shoe to drop.

They’re parked in front of the high school, watching the excitement of everyone’s first day, when Will says, “I think I like boys,” and. 

His voice cracks under a pressure unlike anything Billy’s ever heard.

He gets it. And he doesn’t. 

In his own life it was never news. Neil let him know what was happening right away. Three letters thrown back at him, sharp enough to leave scars in their wake.

This is supposed to be news, for Will Byers. The end of the world. Billy’s supposed to look over at the kid and call him a faggot, tell him he’s an abomination, fuckin’. Whatever. He won’t, though. Pot calling the kettle, right?

Billy watches hundreds of teenagers on their path toward a higher education. “Me too,” He says. Life goes on.

Will turns to him, shocked. “You do?”

Billy’s closet is glass. Always was. “Thought you saw me and Steve.”

“I didn’t know Steve likes–”

“He doesn’t,” Billy replies, not. Swallowing. His throat might click with unshed tears. Break and split open, so. “He’s just. Good. A good person, to me.”

“I understand,” Will tells him, “My friend, Mike, is. He’s like that, too. Not like us.”

Us. 

Billy breaks for him. Didn’t think he was capable of it, but. 

He breaks, anyway.

–

In November, Billy opens the door to his bedroom and Steve Harrington is sitting on the couch right where Billy sets his pillow every night. He jumps to his feet, hands balled at his sides as if caught. Guilty of something else, and all Billy can think about is burning his hand-me-down pillow and sleepin’ with his nose pressed to the place Harrington was sat, watching the front door.

“Billy–”

“I’ve been calling all day,” Maxine says, steamrolling him. She grins at Billy, planted firmly in Hopper’s chair. Queen of the castle. 

Neil doesn’t like them to see each other, so. 

Billy’s chest expands like a springtime rose at the sound of her voice. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Steve, “I don’t sit around waiting for you to call me, Max, I’m not glued to the phone.”

Steve flushes red. Spilled paint.

“You should be, it’s the only way I can ever get a hold of you,” Steve’s bright yellow sweater is eclipsed by red when Max pulls Billy into a hug, crushing him. “How are you?”

He doesn’t take his eyes off of Steve, “I’m fine.”

“Good, is Will home?”

Billy looks at her, then. “I thought you were here to see me?”

“No. We’re starting a new campaign and you happen to live here, now, I figured,” Maxine pinches him, “Two birds one stone.”

“Great, thanks,” Billy rolls his eyes, padding toward the kitchen, “He’s probably over at the Wheeler’s. Did you check there?”

“No,” Max says, “Steve–”

“Fuck Steve,” Billy says, not caring. Caring so, so much. “They’ll be back soon. If the station wagon’s gone that means Joyce went to grab him.”

Max hovers in the doorway, frowning when Billy digs through the refrigerator for a beer. 

Her eyes are blue like his, judgmental like his. “You’re not supposed to drink that shit,” Max tells him, wrinkling her nose.

Billy cracks the pop top. “And you’re not supposed to play DND on a school night.”

“Things are different, now.”

They watch each other, silent, until the front door swings open and a hundred teenagers swarm the living room. Max hugs him once, right around the middle, before following their voices to Will's room. The door slams shut and all the fuckin’ racket gives way to muffled silence.

Different.

Things are different now.

Billy leans against the sink and sips his beer. Waits for Joyce or Freak Byers to round the corner into the kitchen until he remembers that they’ve both got work tonight and Hop’s at the cabin.

Joyce does that. Carts teenagers around in between shifts at the general store because she’s a good mom. Good person. 

Steve Harrington appears, arms crossed over his chest. “Fuck Steve, huh?”

Billy’s heart thunders in his chest. It’s been months, and. 

He shrugs.

The air rushes from Steve’s lungs. “Don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

“That’s just what I am,” Billy says, “An asshole.”

“Maybe.”

Billy holds his can out, “Want a beer?”

Steve stares at him. Then the slick rim of the can. Then at Billy. “No.”

“Suit yourself,” Billy says. “Where’ve you been?”

“Playing chauffeur, I guess.”

“Couldn’t stop to say hi in between shifts?”

Steve flushes. “Billy–”

“You never came to see me again,” Billy says, “You disappeared. I made it out of the hospital and–”

“I shoved you, Billy.”

“It was a nightmare.”

“Right. Exactly,” Steve shakes his head, like. It doesn’t matter. But the thing is, Billy knows shoving with intent. He knows men who plot to draw blood, and he knows monsters and Steve, just. 

Isn’t that.

He is an asshole, though. “Maxine couldn’t ride her bike over?” 

And Steve folds like a house of cards. “C’mon, you know Neil doesn’t let her ride that thing around, especially when it’s cold like this.”

“I know Neil. He was my dad.”

Steve looks ready for a fight. Poised to run at any second. 

Billy’s never been more exhausted in his entire life. “Glad you can be her big brother, now.”

“Billy–”

“No, they’re some huge fuckin’ shoes to fill. I’m dead, anyway.”

“You’re not dead–”

Billy tosses the can into Joyce’s recycling bin. It clatters and causes a scene and Billy wants to take it back. Steve deflates like a balloon. “Shouldn't you rinse that before you throw it away?”

“Yeah well. I make a shitty roommate.”

Steve watches, spooked, as Billy shoves past him and disappears.

–

Christmas 1986 and January, 1987 come and go. 

Joyce gets him a sweater. 

Billy wonders if he’ll ever feel alive again.

–

In April, he starts to miss the sea. 

Conscious enough to think of home.

–

“I think–”

Max stares at him, a cigarette pinched between two fingers. 

“--I think I want to see California.”

She cut her hair over spring break so it twists, too lazy to be called a curl, under the determined jut over her chin. It’s what girls are doing, in 1987. Cutting all their hair off. Max looks older, all of a sudden, and Billy doesn’t know when he missed it. 

She hands him the cigarette because he’s comin’ up on two years post recovery and, dramatics aside, he could shave a couple years off the impending decades. The smoke burns through his lungs pleasantly, paints the sky purple when he lets it go. 

“You want to see California,” Max repeats, staring out across the quarry as the words settle on her tongue, “Like–”

“--I think I could stand a change of scenery.”

She takes the cigarette from him. “That’s not a change, you’ve lived there for most of your life.”

“I’m not looking for LBC, I want–”

“--Mountains?”

Billy thinks about it. Really, he wants two-thousand miles between him and everything, but. “Yeah,” he says, because it’s simple. Low stakes. “Mountains could be good, like. A cure.”

“Like tuberculosis victims?”

“Sure. Claws aren’t that different.”

Maxine snorts. They smoke for an eternity in silence, basking in the sunset, and Billy thinks she’s on board. She’s okay with it, because she’s older now, but then she throws the lit cherry at him and it scathes his jaw. Sears him to the bone. 

“Ow, Maxine, what the fuck–”

“You’re pathetic,” She says, full of venom.

“Probably.”

“Why are you always running away?” Max slides off the car hood and gets in his face, and Billy.

Two years ago he would’ve–

He can’t think that way anymore. 

“Max–”

“So, what? You save everyone and become the hero and fuckin’. Sulk around for two years like a dickbag and now you want to run away? Just when everyone’s starting to love–”

“No one fuckin’ loves me,” Billy says. A non answer. Tastes like a lie, but. It’s the truth. He clears his throat. “I don’t want to run away.”

Max shoves him, “I love you. Asshole.”

“I know. Love you too.”

“Don’t I count?”

Billy grabs her hand, “Of course you do, dipshit. The most.” Maxine’s crying for real, now. Billy hates it so fuckin’ much. 

“Can I come?”

“Your a minor,” Billy supplies. Regrets it more than anything that he’s got to leave her behind, but. “Don’t worry. Not about anything, alright? Steve’ll–”

Max shoves him again, “This is about Steve Harrington, isn’t it?”

“No.” Billy lies.

“Steve’s going to–”

“--He’s not gonna do anything,” Billy snarls, “He’s not. We haven’t spoken in months.”

“He always asks about you,” Max says simply, and. 

Billy’s got a flat tire. It lets all the air out of the sky. It shouldn’t matter, shouldn’t put his brakes on, but. 

He blinks. “Okay.”

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Max says. “He’s not going to let you leave, Billy. Not without–”

“--He doesn’t get a say, in this.”

Maxine stares at him, eyes polished like Riverstone. “Are you going to say goodbye to him? At least?” 

“No.”

“Alright,” Max says. She shoves him again, “Dumbass. I hate you. I hate you so much–”

Billy hugs her. 

Loves her, just. So much his chest aches and burns like he’s back in the hospital, day one, July 20th, 1985, and. 

He thinks.

Worries about how many people he knows he can’t say goodbye to.

–

Will takes it the hardest. June just makes the pain turn raspberry on his cheeks and Billy hates to see him cry, so. He isn’t surprised when Little William locks himself in his bedroom to make shit easier on the both of them.

Freak Byers hugs Billy, slips a joint in his pocket, ruffles his hair.

Hopper gives him a beer. The last they’ll share in all the world. Maxine tells him to call. El tells him to write, and.

Joyce Byers slips a sheet of paper in his glove compartment. 

It sits funny, in retrospect. He took his hush-money and ran off to the sea and she left him something to remember her by, and that’s death. Burial. It’s her fault and it’s not. It’s the thing that breaks the dam. The last straw and suddenly the weight of everything is too much. 

Really, it starts before that. With the rumble of truck tires into the cracked driveway of a new home, thousands of miles from the sea. It begins with the pier, months before that. A boy with beautiful brown eyes that could only ever raise suspicion in Neil’s gut because he was right about this. Everything. Billy. 

Truthfully, it starts with a phone call and a shitty, half-baked apology from a woman Billy would never see again. 

He isn’t smart enough to keep track, though. 

So he almost dies and then doesn’t, and decides pretty quickly that it's Joyce. It starts and ends with summer air licking at the tender, still-healing pink of a hole punched through his chest 630 days ago. It begins with the glove box, and a note that’s gotta weigh less than an ounce.

It starts with Joyce Fuckin’ Byers.

Billy figures maybe Hop did the dirty work for her. That he took a rolled-down window as an invitation, once Billy caved on the beer he was always offering and let it spill that he was leaving so they thought. Now is the time for action. Hop slipped the thing in between Billy’s vehicle registration and insurance proof when he wasn’t looking. He played his part.

The paper is definitely from Joyce, though. 

He’s seen her handwriting, before, all over the fuckin’ place, swooping, swirling cursive that reminds her to get milk the next time she’s at Melvalds. Billy’s seen it pinned to the fridge in sappy, sweet-sick notes that she leaves for Hop and Freak Byers and Byers’ little brother, telling them to eat something while she’s gone, to remember to take out the trash, fuckin’. Whatever.

Point is, Billy knows it was her. And when he finally digs it out of the glove box, when he runs into it looking for an old pack of smokes somewhere outside of Nebraska, it’s folded in half three times and stamped with his name and feels like an attack.

Billy. 

Only, Joyce calls him William when it’s something heavy and important, so. William. Might as well be, as far as Billy’s concerned. 

Billy, she starts. Good a place as any, sparking a fuse she isn’t equipped to monitor. He doesn’t deserve shared beers and hidden notes.

Billy, Joyce says, with all the weight of William. I know that you’re having a hard time adjusting. I should’ve checked on you but I wasn’t sure what to say and now you’re gone. I wasn’t always the best mother to my own kids, and sometimes old habits die hard. I know you’ve had a hard life, even though you never talk about it, and I know all of this shit must hurt like hell, but you have to know that I’m proud of you for everything. Making it out of the hospital in one piece. Especially that–

His palms sweat, smearing the page when he flattens it against the wheel, smoothing its surface in the moonlight so he can read it, and can’t, because Hop insisted they have one more beer before Billy took off for the coast, and now–

We should’ve checked on you before. That’s all I want to say. You’re a good kid, Billy. You pretend not to be, but you are, and seeing you with Hop, how he loves you like a son…I’m here for you. We all are. I’ve included a list of phone numbers you can call any time. We’re here to help–

Phone numbers for both Wheeler kids. And Lucas Sinclair. And Dustin Henderson. And the Byers’ place. 

Call anytime, Joyce says. 

Anyone. Anytime.

Seeing you with Hop, how he loves you like a son–

Billy sniffs and chokes on a sudden, violent wave of emotion. Joyce Byers doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.

–

He should’ve said goodbye to the one person that came second to mattering the most.

It eats at him, tearing away chunks of his flesh with small, sharp teeth. He moves into his new apartment by the sea and thinks about drowning himself in it.

–

A month after landing in California things are different.

Worse.

–

He tries not to think about Steve Harrington, who he hasn’t spoken to since that cold, shitty night in November when they shed each other’s apologies like old winter coats.

Everyone else came to say goodbye, but. 

Not Steve. Should be a clear enough answer that what they had was nothing but that doesn’t matter to Billy. Could never matter. Steve’s memory comes up like gray water in the bathroom sink. Not there one day, and then. 

There.

Sits like a ghost in the corner in the same outfit he wore the last time Billy saw him, delivering Maxine to a brand new campaign. Soft yellow sweater like swallowing canyons in the morning light.

“You look like shit,” Billy tells him. The Doctors said it could happen, off and on, for the rest of his life. Seeing the dead and the left behind, it’s the cruel result of playing bitch to an interdimensional monster. Taking a claw through the chest and surviving an IV drip of internal bleeding that still acts up when Billy takes a fist to the head.

It never happened, when he was in Hawkins, but. 

That’s just Bill’s luck. It’s a punishment. He’s in hell. No two ways about it, because.

Ghost Steve Harrington shrugs his yellow shoulders and everything looks worse, here. Drab. Billy thinks California wasn’t made for gray weather but since it’s November, the sea foam has scrubbed the color from everything until only acid remains.

Ghost Steve’s sweater looks brown in Billy’s bedroom. 

Billy gets used to him, more or less. Ghost Steve never says anything, but he watches Billy fall into bed every night and his eyes spell judgment. Why don’t you unpack these boxes? Why haven’t you used any of that green to buy a half-decent setup? Why don’t you call Joyce, you know she worries–

Once, Billy throws a pillow at Ghost Steve Harrington’s head. “Go away, already.”

Billy wonders if the real Steve, alive Steve, is as pretty as his memory makes out for him. 

He is. Always was.

Billy hates himself. “You’re not real, you know. You’re alive. Most of you is alive, back in Hawkins.”

Ghost Steve just smiles at him, slow and terrible as if to say I’m dead here and so are you. 

It fucking sucks. Billy tugs the blanket over his head and ignores Steve Harrington the Ghost. He ignores everything until it starts coming up like sludge in the bathroom sink.

–

Billy writes a letter to the only person in the world who understands what it feels like to harbor shit for a man who never once noticed him, until they had each other’s blood under their nails. 

So.

As soon as the landline is installed, Billy breaks his rule and scribbles the number down, addressing the envelope to Little William Byers, Who Can Always Hold His Water.

415. 667. 8224. For Emergencies only.

From, Big William Hargrove. 

Will can be trusted. Billy worries about him and it’s a roiling, sore-spot weakness. He’s terrified that Will’s made up his mind to never speak to Billy again.

He sends the letter, anyway. 

–

Billy starts seeing other people, too. In his house. On the street. 

Ghost Steve Harrington isn’t too thrilled with all the extra company, but the only other memory in the world brave enough to stand in his bedroom used to tuck him into his He-Man pajamas at night, so. Nothing Martha Hargrove hasn’t seen before. 

Billy starts to wonder if he’s going crazy.

Heather’s got dominion over the bathroom. Looks exactly like the last time Billy saw her, in that dumb-fucker Lifeguard uniform, except her arm is gone. Torn away. Little bits of her blood get on Billy’s cheek when she turns from her reflection in the mirror, eyes brimming with vitriol and lost potential as if to say, you fed me to that thing. We were friends, Billy, I was your only friend–

“You’re not real,” Billy tells her. Pisses in the toilet bowl, as if to prove his point. 

Heather’s not real. 

None of it’s real. 

–

A week before Thanksgiving Billy calls to tell Joyce he’s suffocating. To tell her that he misses Freak Byers and his little brother so much that Billy can’t breathe sometimes, and it’s Joyce’s fuckin’ fault. She’s a bitch, and Hop’s a loser, and he misses them both so much that he’s packed and unpacked and repacked his apartment four times because California doesn’t feel like home anymore. 

He misses the couch. He wants the dead to stay buried. He wants to go home.

So Billy drinks a bottle of schnapps and calls to say that Joyce can go fuck herself hard, Billy hates her for turning him into this, but Steve Harrington answers the phone.

It’s two o’clock in the morning Hawkins time, so Billy hangs up.

Steve calls back immediately, “Everyone’s asleep,” He says, voice rough with unuse. “Make it quick.”

Billy’s killed himself thinking about Steve, like this. Fresh from sleep. Warm. “Uh,” He says intelligently, “Sorry.”

“Who is this?”

He wonders if Ghost Steve is still in the bedroom, or if he went back to Hawkins. Floating on the clouds. “This is, uh. This is Billy.”

“Billy Hargrove?” Like he didn’t spend months in Billy’s hospital room. Didn’t cry when Billy learned to walk again.

“Yes.”

“Hi,” Steve says, soft. 

So warm and fleece-lined with emotion that Billy wants to curl up inside of it and never, ever leave. Something ruffles as Steve shifts his weight, waking up a little bit. “Hold on, Bill, let me–”

“No,” Billy says, “She’s asleep. You don’t need to wake her up.”

“You called.”

“I know.”

“She won’t want to miss you, you never call.”

“I know, alright? I just. I don’t want to wake her up,” Billy says, swallowing against the threat of tears. He hates Joyce but he doesn’t want to make anything worse than he already has by just. Living.

“Are you serious?” Steve snorts like Billy’s the most ridiculous, stupid fucker on the planet. “You called at two o’clock in the morning and you don’t want to wake her up?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s so weird.”

Billy sniffs, exhausted, “Who asked you?”

“Nobody,” Steve tells him easily, “No one, I just think–”

“Why the fuck do you care enough to think about it or me or Joyce?” Billy snaps. The receiver groans a little in his fist, “It’s not any of your business–”

“--You know I care about you, Billy.”

“Do I?” Billy sips at his bottle, angry enough to see red, “You say shit in the dark. When you’re tired. When–”

“Hey, dickshit, you woke me up.”

“It’s not dickshit, it’s dip shit–”

“--Okay–”

“Fuckin’ Einstein.”

Steve doesn’t hang up. Billy considers it, seething until he takes another swig, and then Steve asks, “Are you alright?” 

The world comes to a sudden, screeching halt. The tender pink and still-healing parts of himself inflate with vulnerability, which only makes him angry. “I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes, asshole.” 

“You’re drunk and it’s two in the morning–”

“--It’s only midnight where I am–”

“--Well, people who are actually fine don’t drink schnapps at midnight on a fuckin’ Tuesday.”

Billy freezes, back going ram-rod straight against the drywall. “How. How’d you know–”

“Only schnapps gets you slurring like that,” Steve says. Then, catching himself, “I mean ‘you,’ as in. The royal you.”

They partied in high school. Never together, but near. Billy–

It feels like a lie. He lets it go.

“I don’t know what schnapps does to you, as in. Billy Hargrove.”

I miss the way you say my name, Billy doesn’t tell him. He tosses the bottle back, swallowing fire as it bubbles up the lining of his throat. “Kay, well. Tell Joyce I called.”

“You could call back tomorrow and tell her yourself.”

“No,” Billy says, fiddling with the hole in his jeans. 

“Why not?”

“Because it’s none of your fucking business, Harrington, that’s why.”

“She worries about you,” Steve says, fully awake now. Sitting, probably. 

Billy tries not to get caught up in the mental image of Steve Harrington with bed-head and pillow lines on his cheeks and blankets pooling around his hips. 

Fails. 

Steve says, “Joyce loves–”

“--Why are you sleeping at her house?” Billy demands. Remembering himself. Remembering that the couch used to be his, before he ran away. 

“I get nightmares,” Steve says. Billy knows that. Billy knows– 

“Bullshit,” He’s angry about it. What tore them apart. “What’s there to be afraid of, anymore?”

“I saw you get punched through the chest,” Steve says, “On July Fourth. I was up there in the rafters, and I just. Saw. Does something to a nineteen year old, you know?”

He was there after, too. Until he wasn’t.

Billy’s palms grow wet and clammy against the bottle.

He has the sudden and familiar urge to apologize. Sorry Steve had to see that. Sorry the image of it meant nothing, in the long run. Nickels and dimes. He lived and, really, what was the trauma for?

Billy opens his mouth, chin wobbling and–

“Is that why you. The hospital. Why you–”

“Shit, it’s late,” Steve yawns. “I’ll tell her you called.”

“Sure,” Billy says, scrubbing the wet on his cheeks. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

–

Max sends him letters. Another thing he caves into, later on.

For Emergencies only. 

From, Billy Hargrove. 

She writes immediately. The envelopes are always crinkled by fingertips and nails, the ink always smudged with tears and grief. He has to imagine that they get that way, dilapidated because a journey across six states can’t be easy on them.

He can’t imagine Max crying as she writes to him. Can’t imagine her crying at all. 

He thinks about her in that house, sometimes. 

He hopes. Prays. The guilt swallows him whole.

– 

Billy develops a system for determining if the person he’s talking to is real. 

“You’re a beach bum,” The guy says. All tanned skin and small, curved lips. No black sludge leaks from his eyes, so. 

Real. Things have gotten worse on the coast.

Billy stares up at him from the sand, counting the seconds. He doesn’t have a towel. Joyce tried to get him to take some, one, but Billy is the spitting image of his father. Old habits die hard, so. He’s got minerals seeping through the holes in his pants and his hands feel grimy, covered in sea stuff for his pride.

“I see you here,” The guy says, “Every day.”

“Sure.”

“Ain’t you got a job, man?”

Billy turns his attention back to the waves. The foam.

“Guess not,” The guy shifts his weight, blocking dull gray sunlight. “You from around here?”

“LBC, originally,” Billy says, surprising himself. He pulls his knees to his chest with a burst of salty, stinging wind off the shore. Somewhere, about a mile into the deep past Manila landing, something massive is rotting in the waves. Feeding the ecosystem. Circle of life, and all that.

The guy nods, “What brings you to Arcata?”

“Just moved back from the midwest.”

“Mm, Chicago?”

“No, Indiana.” Billy says, not in the mood for conversation.

“Got used to small and shitty, then?”

Billy laughs, surprising himself. It's the first noise he’s made in weeks with a person who’s not caught in a ten-second delay over his landline. Feels okay. Weird. “Yeah,” Billy determines, “I like that Arcata’s on the bay and not wide open. Out there, you know?” Billy gestures to the ocean with his sleeve cuff.

Can’t see the other side of it. Landlocked or not.

The guy seems to understand. He watches the shoreline for a long while and then he says, “What’s in Indiana?”

Monsters. My sister. Shadows. “Nothing,” Billy says. “That’s why I’m on the beach.”

“Nothing here either, amigo,” The guy says, grinning slow and easy, “Looks like you traded shit for shit.”

“Alright. Thanks.”

“I’m Argyle,” Argyle says. 

“Billy,” He lifts his hand toward the sky for a shake, just like his daddy taught him. 

Argyle just nods at him, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Billy’s palm falls, dejected, to the sand. 

They watch the shoreline. They watch a seagull try and swallow a crab and then laugh when its throat is nearly torn open from the inside. It’s good to laugh. Weird. Dark thing to find humor in.

“I own a surf place,” Argyle says when the seagull takes flight. “Ever heard of it?”

There are a million out here. “Sure.”

“Not really a surf place, in the conventional sense. I do longboards too. And Mary Jane. Pizza, for Miss Mary’s lovers.”

Billy nods, pulling his knees close again, watching sand tumble from the grip of his leg hair. 

Argyle sparks something that looks like a cigarette and smells like a joint. “You need a job?”

“What kinda job is it?”

“Selling surf supplies. Longboards and weed and pizza–”

“Is that legal?”

“Not yet. Legalize gluten,” Argyle says, with a triumphant fist.

Billy shrugs so Argyle shrugs, casting shadows. Teasing. “If you ain’t got a job, how’d you afford to leave LBC for Indiana, and then bum-fuck for Arcata?”

“Big Brother hush-money,” Billy says, serious as a heart attack but Argyle laughs, and like. 

The skies, fuckin’. Break. Open and pour. 

It’s the best thing Billy’s ever heard. The timbre of it licks at the pink, still-healing skin on Billy’s chest through his jumper. Argyle’s lilting, chaotic beat lights him up and magically casts itself out of Billy’s lungs until they’re laughing at each other. Laughing together. 

It’s weird. Good.

“You’re a bizarre fuckin’ guy, beach bum.”

Billy shrugs, again, self-conscious. “Where’s your shop?”

Argyle points over Billy’s shoulder at a small, driftwood shack he hadn’t noticed today, or yesterday, or last week. The sign looks brand new. Says, Surfer Boy Pizza, In bright, shining letters.

“That’s her,” Argyle says, in love.

Billy stares at the shoreline. “That’s a dump.”

“Hey, I’ve had to hoard money from the Government. We’re not all as lucky as you,” Argyle grins, slow and easy, “You want the job or not? Could use a little silence in the shop. The other guy I work with, Eddie, he’ll talk your fuckin’ ear off about nothing if you give him the chance. Look to me like you won’t give anyone a chance.”

Billy feels like he’s been doused in cold water. 

He rocks back and forth, breathing in and out until the feeling passes, “Maybe,” He says. The best he can do. A non-answer. A remedy.

“Alright, well. Stop in sometime, if you get bored staring at the ocean,” Argyle grins at him, beaming itself onto Billy’s face until they’re mirror images. “Freak.”

–

Billy watches a lot of T.V. 

His living room is cast in a permanent silver hue, painting his hair gray and his lips purple. All that money rotting in his bank account and he’s only pitched together enough to buy a standard television box, and a place for her to sit, and a place for him to sit. 

His apartment is functional, like a prison. His kitchen is made of one bowl, one cup, one spoon (because he can saw into things with its blunt edge, should anything ever come to that), and a hot plate. He doesn’t have a skillet or a soup pot or anything so the shit is practically useless.

He eats dollar tacos from the hut. 

He starves. 

He drinks enough water and beer to send fluid leaking from his pores, and he watches T.V. 

Always. Blue.

This close to Christmas, all three stations are swamped with targeted Ads. Can’t go half a beer without enduring another fuckin’ commercial, selling sneakers and Atari game consoles and brand new VW station wagons. 

Billy chugs another PBR and thinks he could buy a hundred VW station wagons, thanks to Big Brother. He could buy a private plane, and an eight-bedroom house on the coast, and if he ever runs out of green there’ll be more where that came from. That’s the perk of getting possessed by a monster, so. 

Billy finds a scrap of newspaper border and jots down the number that flashes across the screen. Thinks, he could probably visit VW tomorrow. Could pay for the entire thing in cash. Could pack a bag and drive back to the Midwest–

Hallway through an ad for hair plugs, the phone starts to ring. Billy ignores the shrill ding of the bell until it stops. Starts up again. Stops. Starts.

Eventually he yanks his telephone off the hook, swallowing a mouthful of beer. “What.”

“That’s not how you’re supposed to answer the phone.”

Billy pulls away, staring at the receiver. “Who is this?”

“Steve.”

“Steve Harrington?” Billy asks, a mockery of their first phone call. Like Steve didn’t take care of him in the hospital. Wasn’t there when Billy learned to walk again. When Steve doesn’t say anything back, Billy swallows. “It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

“You were kind enough to call at two my time, thought I’d return the favor.”

His stomach swoops, low and dangerous. “That was weeks ago, now.”

“You never called Joyce.”

“So?”

“So, I promised I’d do a wellness check.” 

Billy mutes the T.V., his arms breaking out in goose pimples with Steve’s next inhale. Feeling warm breath against his cheek from two thousand miles away. 

“Well. I’m alive.”

“Barely. Tell Joyce that.” Steve Harrington exhales into the phone. Billy imagines cigarette smoke and fire. 

Wishes it could burn him to the ground. “Look, I appreciate you reaching out or whatever, looking me up in the phone book so I can apologize to Joyce for being the shittiest of all her adopted children–”

“--I didn’t look for you in the phone book–”

Billy’s mouth dries up, tacky and uncomfortable. 

“--No one could look for you in the phone book. Way you run your life, you don’t exist, Hargrove.”

Billy stands. His knees crack. “How’d you get this number?” Sounds like a shitty, drunken cop in a shitty, dark thriller/drama about his shitty, shitty life.

“I asked Joyce.” Steve says easily. The hero.

“Where did she get this number?”

“From Max.”

Billy’s stomach swoops. “That’s bullshit. Max knows my address, not my phone number.”

“Maybe Joyce got it from someone else, maybe she didn’t, maybe she found it on a crumpled piece of paper that was thrown into the trash,” Steve says, “Does it really matter?”

“Yes. You had no right to do that,” Billy says, voice shaking. He wonders if Will threw his note away. If he’s angry. “None of you have any right to do this to me–”

“Totally,” Steve says, “Your sister has no right to know where you are. Joyce, who put a roof over your head for a year after you left the hospital, is supposed to stop worrying and missing you because you want it. Screwed that we care about you, the asshole who saved the town and all our lives and the fuckin’ world, on top of that.” 

We. 

Screwed that we care about you.

Billy’s stomach is full of rocks, roiling and knocking into one another. They throw him off balance and send river water pulsing up his throat. He’s drowning, he–

“You can’t save everyone and then disappear.”

Billy swallows. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t even say goodbye, Billy.”

“Neither did you,” Billy says, furious. “Before that. At the hospital–”

“I don’t want to hurt you, okay? I. When I pushed–”

“Stop,” Billy says, “Please. Stop.”

“Sure,” Steve Harrington scoffs, full of rage. “My bad. Forgot you can’t accept that you’re a regular fuckin’ hometown hero and I’m a piece of shit.”

Billy hates this. He left Hawkins, to. To get away from this, and. He ran.

Might as well admit that, now.

Billy must make a noise, must fall apart, because. Steve’s stubble scrapes against the phone. “Billy. Look, I–”

“What do you want?” Billy’s voice shakes. Sounds weak. 

Harrington doesn’t seem to hear. “I just called to check on you.”

“Feels more like you’re beating me over the head with a rock.”

“Funny,” Steve says, “Cain and Abel, right?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Not really,” Steve tells him. An awkward silence yawns between them, stretching on until Billy thinks the call must’ve dropped, and then; “I didn’t call to check on you.”

Billy snorts. “And after all the steam you put into that speech?” He’s grateful that they’re even, now. Neither looking down their nose at the other. Liars and crooks, two of a kind. “Jesus Christ, what will Joyce say?” 

“I haven’t slept in two days. I’ve tried everything, but. I keep thinking about Starcourt.”

It takes the air out of Billy’s lungs. 

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Steve mumbles. Soft enough that Billy isn’t sure he heard it right, but then, “Billy. I just. I needed to hear your voice. Are you okay?”

Billy can’t say anything back. He’s learning to speak, again, he can’t walk, he’s on the brink of death–

“Malibu? You there?”

Not a damn thing can be funny, anymore. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

“It’s alright.”

“If I hadn’t been at Starcourt, you’d be asleep right now.”

Steve snorts, “Don’t be stupid.”

“It’s true,” Billy mutters, sick, “In a roundabout way, if I hadn’t been on the road that night, if that. Thing had never crawled inside of me–”

“If that hadn’t happened we wouldn’t be together now,” Steve says. 

The weight of the world, on their shoulders.

Billy cracks. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You. Hargrove, you’re the only person left who doesn’t have to apologize,” Steve Harrington breathes deeply, into the receiver, and Billy swallows it. Fills his own lungs to taste cigarette smoke. “I called because I knew you’d be up. I just. Knew you would be. Cain and Abel, right?”

“Brothers’ keeper,” Billy says. The television screen flickers. The world is blue, and Billy is. Cast in its light.

“Can you sit with me? Just until I fall asleep.” Steve sounds like he’s drowning.

Billy can’t help but to jump in and save him.

–

Surfer Boy Pizza is even uglier on the inside. 

Argyle wasn’t kidding about the surf supplies plus description. From the moment the door shuts behind him, Billy’s at a loss trying to figure out what anyone would stop in here to buy since it seems like the kind of place people are exiled to.

The air is stale. Beach salt and sweat permeate the air as the result of a broken cooling unit, leaking onto the ground that hasn’t been scrubbed clean in months.

“Hello?” Billy asks, barely above a mumble, “Anyone home?”

“Back here!”

Billy tugs his flannel closer, cherry-picking his way through piles of useless shit and garbage. Surfer Boy’s walls are messy with knickknacks and shitty wire shelves pushed haphazardly against white and red checkered tile. Piles of fishing nets, lead-bellied life preservers, and vintage scuba gear mark the landing of the main desk, which has to be a repurposed McDonald’s check-out counter.

Behind it, covered in swirling, snaking tattoos, a man stares at him. 

He’s cute. His fist turns white around a water-spotted glass jar that says, Eddie’s Homemade Fishing Bait. The H has been drawn to look like the devil. 

“Uh,” The guy says smartly. 

“I’m Billy,” He puts his hand out but the guy doesn’t take it, he just stares. Stares and Stares.

“Okay. I’m here to see Argyle,” Billy points to the jar, “I’m guessing you’re Eddie?”

“I’m Eddie,” He says, cheeks turning bright pink. 

Great.

“Okay, uh,” Billy fiddles with the cuffs of his flannel. “I sit on the beach, sometimes.”

“Every day,” Eddie tells him, still not moving, “I see you out there sometimes.”

“Every day, uh. Yeah. Is Argyle–”

“Are you here for a job?” Eddie asks, tacking his jar behind a sign that says the exact same thing. Eddie’s Homemade Fishing Bait, like maybe he’ll lose one or the other if he doesn’t keep track. “If you’re sniffing around for a job–”

“--Look, man, Argyle asked me to come and work for him.”

“Right, yeah, but I’m his partner,” Eddie says, scrubbing his hands on his jeans. “I’m his silent partner. Do you know anything about crabbing?”

Billy frowns, “Crabbing? I thought this was a surf shack.”

“And a fishing place, we sell longboards, too. Contraband t-shirts, homemade banana bread and vintage earrings, bait–”

“--And weed–”

Eddie jumps over the counter, slapping a damp, smelly hand over Billy’s mouth, “Dude, what the fuck? That’s private. That’s a private–”

Billy shoves him off, chest heaving like he’s just been chased. He’s been caught.

Eddie tracks him, eyes wide and afraid. Big eyes. Brown. Pretty.

“Don’t touch me.” Billy says, moving away.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Your fingers taste like fishing bait,” Billy spits, scrubbing his own hand over his mouth. 

“Sorry, I was making–”

“--Sure–”

“--Weed brownies,” Eddie says, wagging his eyebrows. 

“Weed brownies,” Billy repeats, tasting fish on his tongue. “Why the fuck do they taste like pond scum?”

“That’s my special ingredient,” Eddie says, and. He cackles. High and bright and frightening, like a man brandishing a knife who knows something Billy doesn’t. 

It’s strange.

It startles a laugh out of Billy, anyway. Weird and good but terrifying. Argyle in another font, scribbled in the shape of swirling tattoos and pretty brown eyes. 

Eddie watches him. 

“What?” Billy says. He rubs a palm over his face, suddenly self-conscious.

“Nothing,” When Billy stares at him, wide-eyed and confused, Eddie grins. “When you laugh, you’re just. You’re beautiful. Know that?”

Billy scoffs, “You’re a fuckin’ weirdo.” He says, but his stomach swoops. The Bastard.

“Yeah. When can you start?”

–

“I got a job,” Billy says, instead of hello when Steve calls on Friday. It’s warm, for late January, California finally giving up her quest toward the unfamiliar.

Steve chuckles. “Got a job as, what, a government spy?” 

“No.”

“Supermodel, then. Undercover CIA ops, government supermodel–”

“--Like Nixon?”

“No, what the fuck? Have you seen yourself in the mirror, Malibu? You’re more JFK,” Steve says, sleepy and warm.

“I’m working at a surf place,” Billy tells him. It’s no fun to make Harrington guess when he sounds a minute from sleep.

“No shit? Didn’t know you surfed.”

“Used to,” Billy says, grinning when Steve makes a low, impressed noise. “Don’t get excited, I stopped when Neil moved us to corncob hell.”

“Maybe you’ll get back into it. Being around that stuff all the time, y’know.”

“Maybe,” Billy says. His belly flutters with possibility. He’s strong enough to run now. Hopeful enough to work. “It’s more than just surf stuff, actually. We do fishing bait, and crabbing and long boards–”

“--They sell hand blown Christmas ornaments too?” 

“Probably,” Billy can hear the smile in Steve’s voice, dawning over his perfect pink lips. “High people love interior design.”

“What’s high got to do with it?”

“We sell Miss Mary.”

“Criminal,” Steve says, “I leave you alone for two minutes–”

“Eight months,” Billy tells him. A pin drops. “Not that I’ve been counting.”

Billy prepares himself for something, though he can’t put a finger on what’s got him ready to pace the fuckin’ floor, geared up for the deafening click! Of Harrington’s receiver as it hits the cradle. 

They’ve never hung up on each other, but. Then again, they’ve never held a conversation this long either. Usually Steve just calls so he can fall asleep to the sounds of Billy swishing beer around in a can, pissing into the toilet bowl, blowing his nose when the weather’s cold enough.

But.

There’s a first time for everything. 

“Has it been that long?” Steve wonders, surprising him. 

“Yeah,” Billy says. Lying, because it’s more than that. Two Novembers and a New year, a cut and dry four-hundred days trying to acclimate to all of the rot they’ve been dealt. But who’s counting? 

“When do you start your new job?”

“Sunday,”

“Got the whole weekend to, fuckin’. Skinny dip, rollerblade on the pier, and hike in the mountains.”

“I don’t live in the mountains.”

“Huh. Maxine said–”

“Jesus. Girl runs her fuckin’ mouth too much.”

“She’s just excited,” Steve tells him. Sounds like a big brother, a proud mom. “She talks all the time about joining you out there.”

“She’d hate it.”

Steve snorts. “Kid was born for the ocean. Like you, you know? Your eyes.” When Bilyl doesn’t say anything back, Steve yawns. “I’m sure you’ve got your reasons. Bay Watch not her scene anymore?”

Billy shrugs, “Not as beachy, where I am. LBC was quintessential California.”

“Where are you?” Steve asks, voice full of wonder. “Hold on, lemme get a pen and paper–”

“Not falling for that, Harrington.”

“Why not?” Steve demands, pouting. “I’m not gonna show up at your apartment door one day, y’know–”

“You might. With your pen and fuckin’ paper.”

“You’re right, I might,” Steve sing-songs, “I was able to bully your phone number out of the Byers’.”

“Hah!” Billy says, leaning forward. His beer’s almost gone so it doesn’t slosh when he jabs an accusatory finger at Steve from two thousand miles away, “I knew Will was the one who gave you my phone number. Little shit.”

“It’s not his fault, I wasn’t eating or sleeping, after you left, so. Joyce took pity on me.”

Billy almost cracks with the weight of his heart battering against his ribs. “Joyce?”

“She. Gave it to me.”

Billy swallows, throat clicking with emotion. “She had it the whole time?”

“They all did. Do, I guess,” Steve tells him. Then, after a beat, “You’re not mad, are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please don’t change your fuckin’ number because of this.”

“Dunno. Might,” Billy lifts the can to his lips, sad to find it empty. “Should probably move, too, before Maxine tells everyone where my apartment is and you’re all pissed to find that the beach here sucks and we can’t even climb a fuckin’ mountain.”

Steve laughs. “But the other stuff?”

“Totally,” Billy says. He stands, pulling the phone as far as it will go until he gets his hand around the refrigerator door.

Steve lights a cigarette, inhaling sweetly into the phone. “Why didn’t you move to the mountains, anyway?”

“Room and board is expensive up there.”

“Didn’t the government shell out some money for your trouble?”

“Yeah,” Billy says, “Not enough.”

“We could combine our shit,” Steve says suddenly, “Y’know. Merge our assets and get someplace real nice.”

Billy drops his beer can. It gushes over kitchen linoleum like an unleashed tidal wave and he swears, stooping to mop it up with a dish rag. “Shit—”

“--Did I say something–”

“--No it’s. Nothing more stupid than the shit you usually say,” Billy tells him. Because. Combine our shit and merge our assets feels like something else. Grows teeth to chew and lips to say remember what tore you apart?

“Billy? You there?”

“I’m here,” Billy says. He dumps the dishrag into the sink, throat drier than it’s ever been in his life. 

He clears it. 

Says, “You want me to be your roommate,” and the words taste like lead. Burn like poison. 

“I want you to be my roommate,” Steve admits. 

It’s dark, through the kitchen window. Arcata sleeps and dreams outward, in every direction, and it makes Billy brave. Stupid. 

“Alright,” He says, playing along.

“Done deal,” Steve says, grinning, “Pack your bag, baby. I’m coming to get you.”

Billy’s heart swells, ignorant to the pain that will come in the morning when he comes to. “You work at Family Video, now?” Can’t. Stand the pressure of the moment.

“Yeah,” Steve says, “The mall burned down, so. Not a ton of other options unless I want to work at the General Store.”

“And you’re gonna come get me on a Disk Jockey’s salary?” Billy leans forward, fingers scrambling for his pack of smokes. “You could open your own ice cream parlor.”

“I don’t have–that’s not what I want to do with my life.”

“Really? Being a lifeguard is what I want to do with mine.” Billy quips. Steve laughs suddenly, smooth as marmalade on fresh toast. Warm. Billy wants to make him do it again. “Rescuing screaming brats from themselves as they run around the edge of the pool and stub their toes and crack chins on wet cement–”

“--Jesus Christ–”

“--Sunburns,” Billy admits. “The lis goes on.”

“That’s bullshit,” Steve says, ruffling the couch face as he sits straighter. “The chicks never shut up about you, that summer. You tanned.”

“Yeah, over my burns.”

“Is that even possible?”

Billy exhales a cloud of pale purple smoke, basking in the light from the television. “Sure, if you know the right elixir of sunscreen, tanning oil, and bomb-pops. Anything’s possible.”

“Another load of bullshit,” Steve tsks lightly, “Y’know, I was held prisoner in that fuckin’ sailor uniform all summer and I never saw you come through. Not once.” He says. Regretful, like it’s a goddamn shame Steve never got to see him in his slutty little shorts.

“Yeah,” Billy grumbles, “Never saw me once and now I’m damaged goods.”

“You’re Clark Kent,” Steve tells him, “You’ve got, like. Superhero good looks.”

Billy chuckles, “Thought I was a CIA Government Plant, Spy–”

“You’re beautiful,” Steve says suddenly. 

Billy stalls. The air escapes from his tires and he’s, fuckin’. Trapped. Stranded in this endless, horrible moment where all the shit he never thinks about lathers like soap suds, tasting bitter on the back of his tongue.

“Needa get your eyes checked, Bambi Boy.”

“Eyes are fine,” Steve grumbles. “How’d you get a bomb pop if you never–”

“--Max would get them for me.”

“Oh! Makes sense, I guess. She was always pink-cheeked and pissed off. Buying two of whatever she wanted that day. Guess I always assumed it was for Sinclair and not–”

“--Her bull-dog brother?”

“Her lifeguard,” Silence yawns again but doesn’t get to settle as Steve lights his cigarette. “Why’d you never come in yourself? Why send the kid?”

“You really gotta ask that?” Billy demands, grinning, “C’mon. Wouldn’t be caught dead in an ice cream parlor before work, pretty boy.”

“Not even for a bomb pop?”

“Not a chance,” Billy says easily, not. Wanting to tell the truth. 

Steve seems to understand, anyway. “I lied.”

“--Yeah?”

“I saw you around. That summer, before. Everything,” Steve says. He’s out there alone, making these swooping declarations, and he always has been, if Billy thinks back on it. If he’s honest with himself, so. 

“I was carryin’ a torch for you, before that summer,” Billy says. Figures. He probably owes Steve the truth after. Everything. 

Harrington sucks in a breath, “Billy–”

“I was scared. Always was.” Steve doesn’t say anything so Billy exhales everything, “Look, you don’t. It’s not–”

“--I didn’t know,” Steve says thickly. “I had a feeling, maybe, sometimes, but. Billy, if I had known–”

“--Then, what, you would’ve dumped your girlfriend sooner? Sucked me off after basketball practice?”

“Maybe.”

Billy’s vision blacks out for a second. Like a hard reset to make room for this new information. Whole machine’s fucked so they’ve gotta restructure, figure something else out. 

It’s whiplash. 

“I wound't have let you,” Billy’s skin is pink and tender, at his core. Not for monsters, for once. “My dad, and. Everything. I wasn’t a good guy, Steve.”

“Neither was I.”

“No, you don’t get it. I deserved what I got, Steve. Everything I did to my sister, and. To all those people–”

“--That wasn’t you.”

“Maybe,” Billy spits, “The shit in the summertime was fueled by a monster, but. Before? Steve, I–”

“--You’ve only ever been around monsters,” Harrington tells him. It sits for a moment, on Billy’s sternum. Weight. Eventually, Steve clears his throat, “I know more than I probably should, but. Max and I have talked.”

“Yeah, she fuckin’. She told me, right before I left Hawkins. Said that you ask about me. All the time.”

“You’re interesting,” Steve says, like, “Even before Starcourt I was interested in you. Understanding you.”

“There was nothing to understand. You didn’t know me, before–”

“Yeah, but I know you now,” Steve tells him. Because it’s enough. In his world, good’s always going to win out in the end, “And, like. I’m just thinking if there are monsters and Russians under the mall and little girls who can throw shit with their minds, it just. Doesn’t matter. I’m thinking it shouldn’t fuckin’ matter that I didn’t know you before you almost died because I was there for the bad shit. I saw you, Billy. I know you taught yourself to walk again, and I know you make me laugh, and I know that I can’t sleep unless I hear your voice, and I know that they night I pushed you down I ruined something. Good.”

Billy scrubs at his cheek. I comes away wet. 

“I’m serious about combining our shit,” Steve tells him, “Merging our assets, or whatever.”

“No you’re not. You haven’t really thought about it–”

“Fuck you, baby, all I do is sit here and fuckin. Think.” 

About you. All I fuckin’ do is sit here and think about you, Billy fills in the blanks for him. Figures, they shouldn’t have to spell everything out after everything they’ve barely lived through–

Billy clears his throat. It scrapes and burns. “What about Hawkins?”

“What about it.”

“I dunno, wouldn’t. Everyone miss you? Max and that curly haired, freaky little boy genius, and–”

“--I can’t sleep without you, Billy,” Steve says. Sounds like he’s drowning, like that first night, when he said– “Everything that’s happened, and it’s like. We’re just animals, you know? Caught up in trying to stand on two feet and we get so fuckin’ consumed by the specifics of everything. What you had to do to survive, the shit I don’t know about, the kids, the mosnters, just. Everything.” 

Speeches. Billy had to sit through so many speeches, when he wouldn’t fuckin’ die already, and. 

Never thought he’d want to listen. 

Never thought Steve–

“All I know is I want to be with you, Billy.”

Outside the window, the sky is turning silver. 

“Let me be with you. Any way I can.”

–

It’s nice to be around people who don’t know where Billy came from. To the boys at the Surf Ship, he is a ghost, born in some long ego era. 

Whoever he was before doesn’t matter.

Argyle and Eddie bring him back to life.

–

Neil Hargrove tries to kill him.

Just after Valentine’s Day, just after we’re animals, let me be with you, all i know is I want to be with you–

Maxine calls to tell Billy that Neil shot himself. 

Yeah. Calls, like. The telephone. Billy can’t find it in himself to be angry about that, because he’s missed her and then she says, something happened.

She says, Dad ate a bullet for his first meal of 1988. And then she says, Your dad. Neil did, like Billy would ever forget. Would ever need reminding. Then she says, he didn’t survive.  

Billy. 

He’s got all sorts of fucked up feelings about it, right away. He folds in half three times until he’s on the floor, marking the way his legs throw shadows on the carpet, large enough to cast doubt over everything Billy thought was true.

He cries. 

Neil is dead and Billy cries, already forgetting the sound of his voice.

–

At two o’clock in the morning the phone rings, again.

His neck hurts from laying on the carpet. The frayed edges of Maxine’s notebook paper plant like tiny, insignificant seeds. They catch and take hold and Billy thinks, distantly, that he should do something before grief roots itself in the apartment, where it was never really allowed to before.

The phone stops ringing. Starts. Stops. 

Another letter has taken control of his life, and that makes him angry. He cries about it, and the phone starts to ring again.

Billy holds the receiver to his face, watching the note flutter when he says, “My dad died.”

“I know,” Steve tells him. “I meant to call sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I wanted Max to be the one to tell you. And she doesn’t have your landline–”

“--I know you gave it to her,” Billy says. Thinks, if Maxine had sent him a goddamn letter through the fuckin’ mail to tell him the last monster is dead, he would’ve lost what’s left of his marbles, he would’ve–

“--Neil ate a bullet,” Billy says. He sounds like himself, but. He doesn’t. Steve holds his breath on the other end of the line, so Billy says, “I’ve never seen someone get shot, before. I’ve seen them get ripped apart.”

“Billy–”

“I shouldn’t have left,” He tells the ceiling. 

Steve goes quiet. It’s terrible, not hearing the cigarette smoke leave his lungs, not sensing his laugh where it blooms and grows like springtime flowers. They don’t deserve this. They’ve never deserved any of this, but. Who fuckin’ cares.

“You had to get out of here,” Steve tells him. The real Steve, alive and unwell in Hawkins, Indiana. “Billy, this place is–”

“Neil’s dead.”

“Maybe he deserved it.”

“And maybe I should be there for Maxine, for once,” Billy says. Aches to see her. Burns to hold her close. 

Steve snorts, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I just. I think that if anyone here was supposed to die–”

“--Stop–”

“--There’s a hole in my chest,” Billy admits. He can feel it, sometimes, rising like tree bark to scrape and tear at the air around him. A monster aiming to carve a place on him.

It’s so late. It’s so goddamn early–

“I’ll patch it up,” Steve says valiantly. The hero. The prince. 

Everything’s so easy for him. Simple.

“Maybe you’re right,” Billy says after a minute. After catching his breath.

“Maybe I’m right about what?”

“None of it matters,” Billy tells him. “Nothing matters so much that I can’t just. Tell you–”

But that’s a half-truth, funny in retrospect. Because almost three years ago, Billy died. Nearly. And he never expected that anything would matter to him ever again, but things happen all the time that have nothing to do with anything. That’s the beauty. They help him live. Will and Joyce and Freak Byers and Maxine and–

“Steve. I,” Billy swallows, throat clicking, “I lo–”

“--I want to see you,” Steve says in a rush, “Just. Tell me where you are. I can be there in a few days.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Maybe but that’s what I want. You. I want you–”

“You’re insane,” Billy scrambles, trying to grasp whatever excuses keep eluding him. “Like you don’t already know my address. Like Max didn’t fuckin’ tell you.”

“You’re right. I still need you to say the word, though,” Steve sounds like he’s moving, on the other end of the line. Bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation. “I’m serious. Tell me you want me and I’ll leave right now. If I drive through the night I can be there in a day.”

Billy’s heart soars, emotion flapping like wings in his chest. 

But.

“You can’t leave Maxine. Not with all this shit happening in Hawkins with Neil, and–”

“I’ll bring her with me,” Steve says, “We can take turns driving.”

Tears slide down Billy’s cheeks, full of hope. “She’s a bitch in the car."

"So am I, I only want to listen to Wham."

"She's only got a permit. What if a cop–”

“--We’ll go on a high-speed chase. I’ll get to you sooner.” Harrington says. 

Billy exhales a laugh. 

Thinks about the years spent wondering what he deserves. What he wants. Never imagining the line between them would whittle away and disappear until their weight could kiss like reunited lovers. 

Thinks of death and life. Of Max.

"Y'know, I usually sit on the beach, first thing. Watch the sunrise."

Steve hums. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Billy scrubs away the tears on his face, shuddering as more slide to take up their mantle. “Got something to write with?”

–

The answering machine gets him. 

"Argyle," Billy says, standing over his kitchen sink. "You're not in. Uh. I just wanted to let you know that Steve's coming to town. Steve Harrington. He's on his way and I don't know what this means, I sorta feel like I'm drowning a little bit, but. In a good way. A really good way."

Billy rinses his stomach bile, watching as it swirls and disappears. 

"I don't think I'm going back to Hawkins, but. I also don't know if I'm staying here. My dad died, and Steve's brining my sister to see me, 'cause. I have a sister, I think I told you about her, and. I have a Steve. You know about him, so."

Billy swallows, wondering how many fuckin' goodbyes he will have to live through. 

What he will have to live through, now until forever. 

"Just," Billy says, voice cracking, "Thank you. For talking to me on the beach that day, and asking me to come work for you, and just. You brought me back to life. That's it. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow. Maybe I won't, but. Give Eddie a punch goodbye, for me. See ya around." Billy sucks a mouthful of air, scrubbing at his eyes, "This is Billy, by the way."

--

Billy's grateful Arcata has a shoreline. The ocean has been good to him, his first true sanctuary. Makes him think of the trees back home, in Hawkins. Has him wondering if it's okay, now that home is a person. People.

It's warm, for February. 

He watches the sunrise with a lump in his throat, knowing that any minute a car will pull into the lot behind him and love will walk back into his life. Maybe it never left. Maybe it's not something he's ever had to work for. 

He counts the minutes. He adjusts his blanket, the very same one Joyce draped over his hospital bed all those months ago, and then a car approaches. Two doors open and shut, one right after the other, and then.

Dawn breaks, driving a knife through the dark.

[inawickedlittletown]

V puzzled about people saying what oliver said was biphobic

To me what happened is that oliver went out of his way to reaffirm that buck is bi. That he doesn't want to the show to go down the either road of 'he just fucks guys now' or 'he going back to solely fucking women'. Both of which are far more biphobic then... showing bisexual man be bisexual. And both of which I've seen happen tons on similar soap / syndicate shows?

What would be the promiscuous bi stereotype would be showing him completely unwilling to be in a long term relationship, or him cheating

It's just really odd to me. It really seems like some (not all obv) of the people saying 'it's biphobic!' are either being biphobic themselves (acting like bi people should be held to higher 'moral' standards then straight people / wanting him to 'pick a side') or are upset about BT and are taking it out on Oliver

It’s not an inherently biphobic thing to say and I don’t think he ever intended it that way. The issue is that bisexuality has been characterized often by “oh they must sleep around can’t pick what they want” — it’s the stereotype. And it’s such a switch from what he’s said before and also how this story has been portrayed up to this point.

I think Oliver meant it the way you’re saying it here. He meant that he wants Buck to display his bisexuality and not stick to just women or just men in the future. But he didn’t word it right. And if someone that is bisexual feels offended by it then there’s a reason. Let’s remember that Oliver is straight.

It doesn’t help that his excitement for Buck going back to S1 slut era rubs people the wrong way when what we’ve seen on screen in someone that wanted to have Tommy move in and someone that was ready to settle down for a future with Tommy. So for Buck to fall back on old habits…that would work if we knew that he would correct again and figure out he was right about a future with Tommy. The interviews saying Tommy is gone is a nail in the coffin.

And you said that it would be biphobic if he were shown unwilling to commit…but that’s what Oliver implies by saying a montage of him sleeping with a girl girl guy guy girl or whatever way he worded it.

And it’s not about wanting to hold bi people at a higher moral or anything because pretty much everyone that’s said it’s biphobic is talking about the context in which he said it and the portrayal he wants for Buck as bi. No one is saying real life bisexuals shouldn’t sleep with whoever they want or date whoever they want. It’s more that a tv show should want to stay away from the stereotype.