#they give the vibes of “they’re so in love with another they’re literally married

[sillykirb]

I have stars in my eyes rn

𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

eddie wakes up with a red string tied from his finger to yours, no idea where he got it, and no idea how to tell you that you're caught on the end of it. soulmate!au. fem!reader, 16k.

content warnings mentioned issues with self image, implied body dysmorphia, reader is insecure/a touch shy, alcohol, a short kiss after one character has been drinking, weed mentioned but not used by eddie or reader. please read with care! requested here ♡

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Eddie remembers the party in flashes. The feeling of his thick-soled creepers caught on the floor, wings in fly paper. Someone's headphones cracking like a wishbone between two hands and a fist fight in the backyard. Your hair touching some degenerate's cheek as they leaned down to kiss you, and the shudder that ran through you as you opened your mouth. Beer. Beer, cheap wine, another beer. 

While he realises the beer may be fogging his memory, none of the fractures explain the piece of string tied to the marriage finger on his left hand.

He stands in the tiny trailer bathroom with his back against the door, the hustle and bustle of his Uncle Wayne's morning routine filtering through the flimsy door. It bends under his weight. Anymore pushing and it'll fly off the hinges.

The string withstands reasoning. Eddie wasn't particularly alarmed when he couldn't slide it off of his finger that morning, half-falling out of bed and desperate for the bathroom. He figured himself the victim of an elaborate prank, toppling out of bed to follow the red string where it stood taut. He chased it to the door and gave up when he realised that it disappeared down the dark stretch of road leading out of the Hills. 

Panic set in somewhere between peeing and a pair of scissors falling apart around the string in the kitchen. Like even the touch of the string was an insult, uncuttable. 

From there he tried yanking, buttering, slicing. The butter made his fingers greasy and the knife went dull. To the touch, the string is thin. Twelve pieces of strand like doubled embroidery thread, plain cotton to the eye, maybe polyester if the minimal iridescent shine is a clue. He can spread it out between his fingers and thumb, he just can't cut it off.

"Eddie, what the fuck did you do?" 

Eddie winces and drops his hand from his eyes. The string slides down the doorway where it's trapped with a light shushing.  

"What?" Eddie shouts back to Wayne. 

"Don't what me, son! Come here." 

Eddie groans and hangs his head. Pissed, he scrounges through the laundry for a shirt that's in acceptable condition and attempts to put it on but the insufferable string refuses to play nice. It bends, snags, and Eddie can't find a way to get it off —he has to pull the string toward him, pleased if sceptical to find that despite its taut nature, it will allow him enough length to get an arm through his sleeve. 

"What the fuck," he mutters, looking at the mirror in disbelief. The purple-yellow bruise haunting the hollow of his right eye has shrunk since last night, to his relief. Upon reflection, Eddie doesn't think it'll draw much attention. 

The string doubles back on itself, a red line up the length of his arm to his armpit where it disappears into the sleeve. From there, it snakes down his stomach to pull out from the bottom hem. 

If whoever has the other end of the string decides to pull, his shirt will rise up. Awesome. Really great. He's a fucking streaker.

"Edward Albert Munson, if you don't get in here!" 

"Wayne," Eddie says, pushing open the bathroom door with a suffering sigh, "what do you want me to say? I can't get the fucking thing off'a me." 

Wayne is thoroughly unimpressed where he stands in the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest and gaze on the countertop by the sink. 

Eddie's confused at first, complaint dying on his lips as he remembers the mess he made in a mad dash for freedom half an hour ago. Butter shines yellow and melted on a small plate, the broken scissors tossed frustratedly aside, a useless knife in similar fashion at the bottom of the sink. 

"What the fuck, Eds?" Wayne asks.

Eddie holds up his hand. "I don't know!" he says, exasperated, eyebrows halfway up his forehead. "I woke up with it, I can't get rid of it." 

Wayne's turn to be confused. But, like his newphew's, his confusion doesn't last long. "What happened to your eye?" 

"The string?" Eddie asks, waving his red string around for emphasis. Bruises are commonplace, were nearly normal the summer between nine and tenth grade, this weird magic string is anything but. 

"That what kids are calling shiners?"  Wayne asks, taking Eddie's face in a rough hand. "At least say you got one in too." 

"I don't remember." 

"You don't remember?" Wayne asks, a mixture of unimpressed and horrified. 

"No, I…" He bats Wayne's hand away, giving his tired-faced uncle an abashed smile. "It's fine, Wayne. I was at Gareth's last night." 

"Ah, well that explains it. What does your bruise have to do with the state of my kitchen? You try cutting it off?" 

Eddie turns from Wayne to grab the scissors and knife. He wraps both in paper towel until the sharps (or not so sharps) are covered and tosses them in the trash, scrounging for a bottle of bleach under the sink to wipe away his buttery mess. "You're focused on the wrong disaster, Wayne. Like, I tried following the string out the door and it's a half a mile long. I'm gonna follow it in the van." 

"Is this, like, a trend? Speaking in tongues to get out of trouble?" 

"What are you confused about?" Eddie asks, spinning back to hold his hand in Wayne's face. 

Wayne doesn't look like Eddie, he's not so dark in the hair or eyes, and he obviously doesn't look like Eddie's mom, but the smile he gives him now was one Eddie's mom wore all the time, enduringly fond. Wayne takes Eddie's hand, turning his nephew's palm this way and that as the string slithers against pale knuckles. It almost writhes. 

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" 

"That's not funny." 

"I'm not joking." 

"Wayne," Eddie says, his shirt rising as he pulls on the string to catch the light. It shines in a way that isn't normal, too many colours like the scale of a deep sea fish. "This!" 

"Right… I can't see whatever it is you're seeing. How hard did you get hit? Jesus, I asked you to stop getting yourself in these messes, you could get seriously hurt."

Wayne doesn't waste another second looking through Eddie's string. The weight of a long shift rests between his shoulders, abates as he brings the chipped rim of a Garfield mug to his lips. Eddie swears the chubby cat is mocking him, cruel eyes smirking at his misfortune.

"Unbelievable," Eddie mutters, ditching the whole scene in search of his dingy black sneakers. 

Wayne chuckles and opens the cabinet where they keep their cookies and coffee cakes, calling, "You want breakfast?" 

"No! I have delusions to attend to. Need anything while I'm out?" 

"A new pair of scissors."

Eddie pretends to stab himself in the eye by the front door, over and over. His frustration calms. He slips into loose laced sneakers and grabs his jacket where it's hanging on the coat rack, digging for his keys.  He elbows the door ajar, and doesn't notice his van isn't in the driveway until he's standing at the bottom of the porch steps, flabbergasted. 

"Did you wanna borrow the sierra?" Wayne asks from the door. 

Garfield looks on in silent judgement. 

Wayne generously lends Eddie the sierra. He's relieved when he shuts the door on his string and it behaves like regular old string (which is to say, it doesn't buckle the metal), but then he tries to grab the steering wheel and his finger almost pulls from the socket, stopped by the string. His relief ends. 

"Fuck fuck fuck," he says, opening the door, gathering some string and closing it again. Righted, he pulls his shirt back down his torso and starts the car. 

Eddie's hoping he can follow the string to its beginning, but at this point he's sure he got his shit rocked hard enough to forget being hexed by a devious yet loveable warlock —the string can't be a real string. It doesn't tangle around the wheels of the car as he drives over the faint line of it leading from Forest Hills into Hawkins' town centre, it just vanishes, like Eddie's winding it around a bobbin. 

He takes the first exit on the traffic circle reluctantly, away from the string and toward Gareth's house, where Eddie assumes he left his beloved van. He can't believe how wasted he must have been, and now that he's accepted the string as an irksome constant but prioritised it below van retrieval, the hangover he should definitely have rears a head. His stomach hurts, his eyes are sand, you were fucking kissing somebody else last night— 

Eddie might throw up. He rolls down the window and sticks his head as far out of it as he can justify while driving. The roads are quiet, a late morning in Hawkins pockmarked by the burr of lawn mowers chewing up perfect lawns and the spray of illegal sprinklers. The sun emerges slowly and then all at once, licking his naked arms with the promise of sunburn should he continue the day unprotected. Eddie never seems to tan. He hates the sun, anyway, the glare of it bouncing off of the road in a blinding dotted line. He unfolds the visor over his seat.

Needless to say, he's in a shitty mood when he finally gets to Gareth's house, spying his van wedged in the driveway between a miscellaneous ford and a buick.

Hungover, too hot, trying not to panic about the red string choking his knuckle. It can't seem to decide on how tight or loose it's going to sit. It tightens as he climbs out of the sierra, loosens as he walks toward his van. 

"Hey, gorgeous," he says, patting her freshly lacquered body with love. She's all jet black now, rust buffed and wheels shiny. 

There are bikes crowded against the house wall like toppled dominoes. The window shades are closed but the door is wide open the hinges, the sharp smell of booze wafting out into the sun. Give it enough time and Eddie's sure the sun'll bake all the milling bodies into a brand new smell. 

"Hey, man," Jamison greets, sitting on the kitchen counter and unfairly put together considering the bottle of sours he demolished alone last night, "you survived." 

Gareth is face down at the table next to a plate of cold toast, jelly congealed. Jeff stands by the patio door smoking a cigarette that smells exciting, and Macy stands doing the dishes at the sink.

"Got the girl doing the dishes. Classy," Eddie says.

Macy drops the sponge she's using into the water, soap bubbles dripping from her fingers. "Thanks for offering." 

He relents. The mess they've made —and it is generous to call it a mess, more apt might be an explosion, or a weather event— is extensive. Pizza boxes upturned, tomato sauce and stringy cheese smashed into the fridge like a modern art piece you'd see at MOMA. Eddie wouldn't put it past drunk or high him to have done it, declaring some statement of pretentious high horsery, so he doesn't comment on it. If it was him, he doesn't wanna know. 

"Some party," Jeff says through smoke. 

Eddie pulls the stopper out of the sink to let the water drain. He doesn't roll like that. "What the fuck happened?" 

Gareth rouses at Eddie's question, said as it is with vigour, and remembers his toast. He takes a bite and turns in his seat to blink blearily at Eddie. For a second, Eddie kids himself into thinking his friend can see the string currently spilling water onto the floor like a tightwire. 

"You lost your shit and wrecked my house, you stupid bastard." 

Eddie looks to Jamison, as if to say, that true?

Jamison pushes a long arm behind his back and stretches. "Y/N was hooking up with Cory Wilson and you took it like a champ, in my opinion. We had a good time." 

"She hooked up with Wilson?" he asks, dread pooling in his stomach. The string shudders as you had, Eddie remembers, your chin tilted up and your eyes closing into sweet dark lines, painted lashes squeezed together. 

"She took you home," Macy says, muffled, a hair tie between her lips. She lets the thin blonde strands of her hair fall back to her shoulders. "She didn't stay the night?" 

"That would've been kind of sick," Jeff says. 

"He could barely walk," Jamison agrees. "Okay, I'm lying. You were fine." 

"I figured she'd have to stay, the way you were begging her. Ditch Wilson, baby, he doesn't know you like I know you. We can make it work, just say you'll stop seeing him." 

Eddie drops a plate in the sink with a splintering crush. The answering roar of laughter tells him what he hadn't had breath to ask. No, he didn't really say any of that shit. 

"You were drunk, not stupid," Jeff says.

"Not that stupid," Jamison corrects. 

Eddie frowns down at the broken plate in the sink for a breather. Nerves abated, total loserdom escaped for another day, he holds his damp hand up in the air.  "Any of you fuckers seeing this?" 

"Get a new tattoo?" Macy asks. 

He shakes his hand, the string (still caught in his sleeve, line like a bright vein up his arm) shaking. "You don't see it?"

"Your artist is gonna be pissed, they hate cheaters." 

Eddie sighs. "Can someone pass me the trash can?" 

They clean the house together in fits and starts, all nauseous, all wishing they'd had the sense to have a chill get together, just the five of them. Gareth declares his home a no go scene for the rest of summer and Eddie doesn't bother offering, nobody wants a party at the trailer park. Seeing the disco ball missing a rainbow lense under the stairs, a jumbo box of popcorn sprayed over the entire downstairs bathroom, and poor Manny Gomez cup-locked where he snoozes on the Persian rug in the lounge, Eddie wouldn't agree to host a party ever, even if he lived in one of the rich kid cribs like Harrington. It takes hours to put it right.

The longer he cleans the looser the string becomes. It drops to the floor (seemingly done with no regard to the laws of physics, having magicked itself out of his sleeve at a point, unnoticed) and trips him up as he walks downstairs. Eddie led a one man search party for Gareth's pet fish who some idiot transferred to the bathtub. The fish flops around at the turbulence of his trip inside of a temporary cup, but Eddie manages to return the poor thing to its tank uninjured.  

"It's fucking sick," he says, crouching down to follow the fish as it reacclimates. Its big black eyes are like sequins set in orange glitter, scales glistening, a shimmering of purple and teal blues kissing its underbelly as it swims. "You're a beautiful creature. I'm sorry somebody tried to evict you, babe." 

"He's a boy." 

"Yeah, and he's a babe." Eddie bites his tongue. 

You bend at the waist. With the shades still drawn, the brunt of the light entering the room is from your left, and the right side, the side closest to Eddie, is lit blue by the fish tank. You smile gently at the goldfish puttering around between artificial seaweed, an expression that grabs Eddie by the intestines. You feel his gaze, turning your face ever so slightly to his. 

"Don't look as nice without makeup, I know," you murmur. 

You're dressed differently today, stripped back in one way and more beautiful all the others, bare-skinned, no makeup or glitters to hide behind. Eddie remembers every detail of what you were wearing last night, the details stamped into his temporal lobe (before he drank his weight in other peoples booze). Black tights that shimmered slick oil as you moved and a tiny dress to boot. You're not a small girl, thighs there and grabbable and so un-grabbed, and when you bent down Eddie's shamefaced to say he followed the line. He loved how you looked last night, loves how you express yourself, but he craves how you are now, the lesser seen side of the same coin.

"You look nice." He cringes, his reflection in the fish tank glass a horror. Eddie never actually managed to shower this morning. If he doesn't smell like pale ale it'll be a miracle. "You do. At least one of us showered." 

"I'm surprised you're alive," you say with a fond smile. Eddie never takes your insults to heart because you never say them to hurt. You're easygoing. You're light incarnate. "I haven't seen you drink that much since graduation." 

"Macy says you took me home." He stands at full height. You follow suit. 

"Kicking and screaming. You told me you were going to drink every drop of Mr. Lashlee's bourbon or die trying, and you tried." 

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asks. He can be volatile when he's intoxicated, like a fish out of water. 

You gesture to his cheek. "Hurt yourself. You were freaking out and your hand kicked back. I didn't think it would bruise. Does it hurt awful?" 

Your sympathy melts him. Eddie shakes his head, lying through his teeth, "I can barely feel it." 

Your hoodie drowns you, your jeans not as oversized but hiding the feats of your thighs from view. He can't say he's not disappointed, though it's cute on you, your jeans rolled at the ends to showcase mildly mismatched crew socks and a pair of converse, their rubber shiny with newness besides a small sharpie heart on the left toe. Trapped beneath them is Eddie's string. 

He tugs it out. You show no sign of feeling it as the string snaps upward like an elastic and stops short. It goes stiff as a stick, tied from the knuckle of his marriage finger and leading…

To the knuckle of yours. 

Like matching rings.

Eddie thinks, Sure. If I'm delusional, of course it's something to do with you. 

"Don't suppose you can see it?" he asks, pulling against the string. The red band expands to accommodate you, rather than tug you inward. It has a mind of its own, apparently, listening to Eddie only on occasion. 

"The bruise?" you ask, confused. "It's hard not to see. But it's not too bad. You could buy some powder for it if it bothers you, but I think it makes you seem cool." 

"I don't seem cool?" 

You smile as though you're sharing a joke. If you are, Eddie hasn't heard it before. 

It's weird, crushing on someone. He can't remember feeling this way growing up, spending sun-soaked days at playgrounds and parking lots and the pool, wet to the knees, you and your friends sitting under the shade of the umbrellas. The first time he saw you there, in your bikini bottoms and your big white t-shirt bent over a book, he didn't feel any sudden revelation. No spark. No pulled string. He thought you were pretty without bragging about it and he met you not long after that at a nondescript barbecue. Then he stopped hanging out with his middle school friends and flunked two years. He forgot you existed. And now he knows you again, he feels more and more of himself bending and twisting trying to be what you want him to be, or what he thinks you want, at least. If you want Wilson, he can be Wilson. Eddie can kiss like a fish and wear too much cologne, he can sell out and cut his hair to the ears. 

Well, maybe not that far. I still want to be me, he thinks, eyes on your hands and the string stretched between them. The red seems darker now, onyx hued, ropey as blood. 

"What are you doing here?" Eddie forces out. Not surprised, you and Macy are close enough that you've formed friendships with the whole gang of merry misfits, but wondering if his string has pulled you here. Does he have any say? 

"I thought I'd help with the aftermath, see if anybody wanted to get burgers, the works." 

Eddie catches a flicker of nervousness in your stance, the half-step backwards you take when his shoe nears your own. The string loosens.

He doesn't have any intention of making you uncomfortable. He probably smells like a dumpster, he wouldn't blame you for needing space. And if who you were kissing last night is indicative of who you'll be sidling up to again in the future, Eddie has low hopes for you both. 

"Burgers?" Manny groans from the floor. 

You turn slowly on one heel. "Hello, Manny," you say, angling your head to line up with his. "Someone's drawn on you." 

"What did they draw?" Manny asks, rubbing his smeared face sluggishly. 

You look to Eddie for guidance. The reality of Manny's tagging is embarrassing. 

"It's a dick, I'm afraid." Eddie offers Manny a hand. "With disproportionate, uh, baubles." 

"But I'm sure Benny won't care," you say.

—

Benny makes Manny wear a baseball cap pulled down low, because This is a family establishment, Man. Every time you see the thick-lined drawing on his cheek you smile and feel awful for it, but luckily Manny seems to be taking the joke well. 

If you'd fallen asleep at the party last night and woke up with a semi-permanent tattoo of similar calibre you'd be too mortified to bother leaving the house until it was gone. You're not thrilled with your appearance as it is. Any cruel additions would have you housebound. 

Guilty, you take a bite of your burger to hide your smile. Eddie's already clocked it, generous enough to pretend he hasn't noticed, and Macy finds it funnier than you do, so she's yet to notice your amusement. The rest of the boys are making ornaments out of plastic straws. Gareth is shit, Jamison better, but Jeff takes the cake with a three layer birthday cake, candles included. It strains to break as he adds another candle. His bloodshot eyes show no signs of anxiety. 

Manny grabs a napkin and knocks your ice tea. The cup sloshes but doesn't spill, ice cubes clinking and beads of condensation racing down the sides of your glass. You pick it up to feel the cold. Lately you've been morose. The cold, any sensation, can put distance between you and the heavy for a while, but there's no cure. And now you've gone and let Cory Wilson of all people kiss you for the simple fact that he wanted to. 

He's the first person who's ever wanted to kiss you. 

But you don't want him to kiss you again, and you're not sure how you manage it. Do you have to tell him you're not interested? Probably not, it was just a stupid kiss. He dipped down, his lips hot, his smell nice if overpowering, and it was right for a while, it was what you wanted, but then his hand dropped down rather than up, searching for something to take rather than something to hold. 

It's not how you pictured it. 

"You okay?" 

You raise your eyes, ice tea in hand. Eddie splits his attention between you and a basket of crispy crinkle cut fries loaded with cheese and bacon bits. He's nonchalant, his shoe tapping into yours as he leans forward for another bite. He chews, and he waits for you to answer. 

"I'm alright. Thinking about work." Bad lie. "Gareth said you got a new tattoo?" 

"Nope. I've been thinking about getting a new one to fill the gap under my puppeteer," he says, extending his arm to show you it in the light, the ridge and weave of his veins stark against his white skin. They're especially fierce leading down to his wrist, as is the small notch on the outermost side. You reach out to touch it without thinking, fingertip rubbing carefully over the bump. 

Eddie pushes his arm closer. "I want something here." He draws a half circle with his opposite pinky in the empty space. "But I can't think of what I want. Sometimes you go to the shop and they have a bunch of flash sheets and you like one of them enough to get it, right? I don't know."

It means a lot to you that he'd let you touch him without asking. You should've asked. 

He should've asked you, but he was drunk. You're not sure he was thinking straight. 

You sit back in your seat and finish your iced tea, feeling the cold slide down into your chest. You shiver at the feeling. 

"Are you sure you're okay?" Eddie asks. 

"Why wouldn't she be okay, Munson?" Manny asks. 

"Quiet, dickhead." 

Manny snorts, grabbing a greedy handful of Eddie's fries as punishment for a low blow. Eddie couldn't care less, clearly, his focus on you and your moping. You step into a sweeter smiling version of yourself that you save for times like this. 

"You know I work for Deenie DIY?" you ask. 

"Of course I know that," Eddie says, and not in the way people do sometimes where they assume you're insulting their intelligence, but the nice way. Like knowing where you work is easy information to carry.

He's the nicest of his friends, which is a credit to him; they aren't a bad bunch.

"So, I have this coworker that keeps bringing soup to work, and she swears that someone is syphoning off a couple of spoonfuls before lunch every day…" 

Eddie listens to your story with a weird expression. You bumble through the twists and turns of the world's stupidest fable, how she blamed a bunch of different people and now no one likes her, and the soup was getting warmed up by the fridge lights —it was her own fault. He listens, he smiles and nods and offers commentary that's funnier than the original story, the entire time with a downturn to his lips. You hate seeing him like that, but you don't know what to say. 

Plates left streaked with ketchup and mayo, glasses dotted by greasy prints and lip smackers, you and your friends tip as generously as twenty-somethings can afford and decide to head back to Gareth's for a couple of hours. It's barely past noon on a Saturday in late July. Nobody has to work for at least thirty six hours. You pile into two cars, arguing about what tape to play for the ten minute drive. Eddie ends up in the seat beside you somehow, and he doesn't shy away when the car takes a bend and you lean into his side. 

He puts his arm behind your shoulder. "Sorry," he says.

"It's okay." 

You lift your head. The memory of his face hovering close to yours, the sweet smell of cheap cherry wine on his breath, his hand clumsy with drink but kind as it climbed your back, your dress thin enough to catch your death, thin enough to feel like he was touching bare skin. Sorry, he'd said, you're just so fucking beautiful. 

"I gotta take my uncle's car back. Wouldn't do me a solid and come with?" he asks. 

— 

You follow Eddie in the van. He can see you in his rear view mirror, your hands on his steering wheel, the window down and the breeze ruffling your hood. 

Jeff was too high to drive and Eddie wouldn't trust Jamison to drive a moped. Gareth can't drive and okay, Macy can, she's good, but Eddie chose you for a reason. The string tied between your hands clings from door to door. 

Eddie pulls the sierra into the driveway in front of the trailer, holding two fingers up to you as he hops out and jogs up the steps. Two minutes.

"Wayne? Brought the car back." 

"How's your bruise, Eds?" 

Wayne's laying on the couch with a blanket over his legs, coffee cup swapped for a plate of cookies and a bag of chips. Eddie leans on the doorway, Wayne's keys on his finger. The string bobs back through the door, as if to say, Hey, she's over here, dipshit.

"It's fine, what are you eating? Did you have breakfast after I went?" 

"Yeah I had breakfast, I'm a grown man." Punctuated by the crunch of potato chips. "It's lunch time. This is my lunch." 

"Let me make you a pot pie or something." 

Wayne waves him off. "You're going back out. Who's in the van?" 

"That's Y/N." 

Wayne smiles knowingly. "Ah, is it?" He stands up with remarkable speed putting his plate of cookies on the table. He ducks down to peek through the window, and you must see him or wave, Wayne waving back. "Make her come say hi." 

"I won't be making her say shit." 

"She was nice last night." 

Eddie cringes, having forgotten you were his saviour. "Do I wanna know what you said?" 

"I said you were an idiot and an embarrassment, and that your safe return deserved a reward. You should invite her over for dinner." 

"No, because that's, like, a couples thing. Come and meet my parents," Eddie says, shoulders jumping, hands up in jazz hands, "laugh at my baby photos." 

"I don't have many of those. Got a bunch of you when you were fourteen and deep in the glam rock obsession." 

He used to say Eddie could wear whatever he wanted and paint his face a hundred different colours as long as Wayne got to take a picture. 

"Great, I'll invite her, and you can show her your nice album of reasons not to date me." 

"Son, why don't you just ask her to dinner? Worked in my day." 

"You're not even old. And I was going to," Eddie whines, rubbing the flat of his forehead ineffectually. "Then she was kissing this idiot Cory Wilson last night. I blew it. Lost my chance."

"I still think you should ask her for dinner. Any sense about her and she'll say yes." 

It's one of those reassurances your mom says to you when you're down on your luck. Handsomest guy in the world, how could anybody say no to that face? 

"Maybe I'll ask her." Eddie smiles nervously. "We're gonna go hang out, cool? You going to Dean's?" 

"None of your business. Yeah, I'm going to Dean's, just to help him fix his hand saw. I'll be back before six. See you then?" 

Eddie tosses Wayne the sierra keys. "See you. Don't drink too much." 

"Ironic, Edward!" 

Eddie leaves the trailer feeling vaguely hopeful about you; maybe Wayne's right. Kissing somebody doesn't mean you're married, but the window of opportunity to let his feelings be known is getting smaller the longer he waits. And seeing you standing against the grate of the van with your hands in your pockets, slice of your calves peeking out between your socks and jeans, big sleeves on your hoodie falling up one arm, he doesn't know if he can wait anymore. 

"Hey, would you wanna get out of here?" he asks. "Like, ditch Gareth's for a bit?"

"And do what?" 

The string shortens as he closes the gap between you. He twists it around his finger. It's tied to you —it must be a sign. (Or he's imagining it and he has, like, a paralytic brain worm eating its way across his eyeballs.) 

"I don't know, hit the goodwill? I have somewhere between twelve and sixteen dollars with your name on it if you're interested." He tries not to shrug, can't help it. "Only if you want." 

"Yeah. I want to." You worry your lip. "I'm not dressed to go out." 

"Are you kidding? You look fine. You look good." 

You rub your wrists together, grimacing. 

Eddie can roll with the punches. "Or you could go home and change first?"

"Would that be okay?" 

Eddie's glad for offering to witness the spectacle of your bedroom. The string seems to hate him but love you, giving you space all the way here and yanking him like a bad dog when he strays too far. You change behind your closet door and it forms hearts at your feet, unperturbed by the mountain of rejected shirts and skirts. 

Eddie lounges in a bean bag by the door, taking in your belongings as he waits. You've crafts on your desk, little origami cranes made of paper you've painted with watercolour. Phthalo blue and alizarin crimson foiled with short, skinny strokes of gold etching. Intricate and simple, time and care poured into each sheet. 

"Are you sure I'm okay by here?" Eddie asks. 

"Can you see me?" 

"No." Eddie can see shelves of books with creased spines, your made bed and all your mismatched sheets, the candles on your window sill —moonlight meadow, half-burned and sun-bleached; candied sweetheart, untouched; white lily and freesia, a double wick with only one melted tunnel—, and the soot stain unfurling like a soft-edged flower around the curtain pole. "Can't see anything." 

"Then don't worry." 

The sun ticks higher into the sky as an hour stretches into a second since you left Gareth's together. Eddie likes his room, his dense kingdom of the stuff that make him him, but he likes yours for the quiet. He can picture you sitting cross legged on your bed with a book in your lap, your back arched uncomfortably forward, a day old drink of water on the ceramic coaster with tiny bubbles clinging to the sides of the glass. He thinks he'd like that, to sit here and watch you, listening to one of your CDs, the string between you bouncing with each turn of a page. 

Eddie pulls on the string experimentally. Determined to fuck with him, it becomes a tauter thread, and the momentum of his tug tips you over. Your hand follows the line and the sudden slip pulls you into view without a shirt. Eddie flinches and looks as far away from you as he can. 

You laugh to yourself, but the sound is bitter, like burning coffee grounds on the tongue. 

"Is everything good with you?"  

You and Eddie are friends. Not great ones, but enough to have been able to ask you to ditch the others. There have been hundreds of seconds alone, the two of you sitting together at tables edged by arcade machines, diner booths, bowling alley benches, waiting for the others to get back, and those are moments where Eddie found time to fall in love with you. The string must be a manifestation or those seconds, threads of time tied together that join you forever, even if you can't see them. They're there. Eddie cares about you and it makes his throat hurt to hear your unhappy sounds; you have a morosity to you that he isn't heartless enough to ignore. He doesn't want to. 

Everybody has an unseen misery weighing them down. Eddie needs to find a way to hold yours for you. Just for a bit, however long you need. 

Unless Cory Wilson is going to take that mantle. Maybe that's why you're sighing; Eddie would be pretty upset if he had to remember being kissed by Wilson. He was already upset about it, and Wilson didn't kiss him. 

"Hey," Eddie says, peering between his fingers. With you definitely out of sight, he lifts his head. "Seriously, are you good?" 

"I don't know what to wear, that's all. Sorry for taking so long." 

"We could sit here till tomorrow and that would be cool. We don't even have to go, but you don't have to stress about what you're wearing. It's goodwill." 

"I always get stressed about what I'm wearing." 

"Is that a girl thing?" 

You toss a pretty flowered dress over the closet door. It slinks under its own weight and puddles on the floor. "I've always been like this, I get too focused on looking nice, it winds me up." 

"You always look nice." 

Your laugh says you certainly don't believe him. "Thanks, Eddie." 

"I'm not just saying it to make you feel better. You'd look nice in a potato sack." 

"Like Marilyn Monroe." 

"Who?" 

You appear in a sliver, naked arm linked to an unseen but unignorable naked chest, your face over your shoulder and a beatific silkiness to your smile. "You know who she is. Happy Birthday mister president? Blonde, with her beauty mark." You tap your top lip with your pinky. 

"Oh, right. Did she wear sacks often?" 

"Someone said she was beautiful because her clothes were designer and made to fit, so she did a photoshoot in a potato sack to prove she was beautiful." 

"You could totally do that." 

"It's not other people I need to convince." You retreat behind your closet door again, your voice half as clear as you confess, "I think… I've always been like this. I look in the mirror and I don't even know who I'm seeing. She doesn't feel like me." 

Eddie's ridiculous sitting on a beanbag while you bare your heart. He swears in his head and climbs onto tired legs, his hangover beating like a dull knife between his eyes for a moment while he gets used to standing. 

You take his silence for something else. "Sorry, ignore me. It's weird." 

"That's not weird. It's not." He tries to say what he means and not the first words that come into his head. "You know, I used to feel that way. Growing up, in junior high, I felt like such a poser. Even when I started being myself, I didn't feel authentic. Does that… is that similar?" 

"I guess so. How did you make it stop?" 

"Okay, this is gonna sound bad, but my mom died." Eddie twists a ring around his knuckle, the string tangling between fingers. "And I didn't care for a while. And then I got older." 

"I'm sorry," you murmur. 

"It's okay. I didn't say it for sympathy. That's just what happened." Eddie sits gingerly on the end of your bed. He doesn't want to intimidate you —after all, you're a young woman alone with him in a state of undress. A vulnerable young woman, if you're as upset as you're beginning to sound. "I'm trying to make you feel better with the worst personal anecdote ever." 

"You don't have to make me feel better. I shouldn't have brought it up, I don't…" 

"You can tell me anything," he says. 

You appear again, this time fully clothed. Black skirt to your knees —the sickest skirt you've ever worn— and a thin gauzy camisole, you look beautiful, and insanely uncomfortable. "Really?" you ask, hands wringing.

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. I promise." 

"Well. Last night," —Eddie sees flashing lights, the carbon bubbles in a spilled beer— "I let somebody kiss me."

He knows. It's agony. Eddie waits for you to continue with an open expression despite the feeling your confession inspires; he assumes this is what a knife to the eye feels like, the willing horror of letting you use it. 

"Nobody's ever wanted to kiss me before, so I let him. And I'm shit scared that I'm never gonna recognise myself in the mirror, so I'll keep letting him kiss me." You wring your hands meanly. "Sorry, I know I sound like a bad movie. Why is talking about your feelings this awkward?" 

"That was your first kiss, last night?" 

It's not the right question. You wince visibly. "I know, I'm in my twenties, it's embarrassing." 

"No, that's–" Eddie sighs. "That's not what I meant." What did he mean? Fuck, I wish it could've been me, and Jesus, that doesn't make a lick of fucking sense. You aren't right, for starters, Cory Wilson isn't the first person who's ever wanted to kiss you, he's just the bastard that got lucky enough to have you reciprocate. "Wait, was it okay? Did he corner you?" 

You sit on the end of the bed with a small smile. "No. He didn't pressure me." 

"Was it what you wanted?" 

"Not really… I guess I don't know what I want." 

Is that rejection, or is he self-absorbed? Should he take the hint, or is he just another guy making it about himself? Eddie leans back into your bed to escape the heartbreak of being close to you, the string anchoring his hand in place as he tries to scratch his chest. 

"It's not embarrassing to get your first kiss in your twenties," he says, eyes roving over the lines of a small paper butterfly, black cardstock like ink against your white ceiling. "That's what your twenties are for." 

"Don't bother, I know exactly how you lost your virginity." 

Eddie scrunches his eyes shut, can't stop himself from smiling as his wry voice scratches out, "Listen, everyone knows how I lost my virginity, but that's not the point." 

"You'd think a seventeen year old would make marginally better decisions." You're teasing, not shaming, your smile playful. 

"No, you wouldn't. Seventeen year olds are stupid. I thought I knew what I wanted at seventeen and now I'm twenty three and the only thing I know for sure is that I don't know a thing. The point of being twenty is doing shit for the first time. It's our first time being grown ups." 

"That's wise," you say. 

"Fuck off." 

You lay down beside him. The string whips like a ribbon in the wind before falling into the shape of a heart again, clearly pleased to have you near. 

"It's not embarrassing," Eddie says quietly. "But when you get your second kiss, I think you should save it for someone you want to kiss. Don't just let someone have it because you're not sure of yourself." 

"That's a nice sentiment, Eddie, but I already gave it away." 

He swallows his surprise, a tiny spike of agony. "How was that one?" 

"I'm not sure about it. I don't think it counted." 

"Do I wanna know?" 

"I'm not sure about that, either." 

"Was it Wilson?" he asks. 

You turn your cheek into the bedsheets. He can hear the fabric brushing your skin, turns ever so slightly to meet you, a few inches all it would take to breathe the same air. 

"Eddie," you say, very, very softly. 

His heart eases into his mouth a beat at a time until it's thrumming between his ears. 

"Yeah?" he asks, his tone a twin. 

"I think I need to cancel our plans." 

It's not what he's expecting you to say. 

—

There's a black velvet jacket dotted with embroidered stars hidden under your bed, their silver thread like cosmic dust. Music pounds the floor and shakes the house's foundations, seeping down into Macy's damp basement one rippling riff at a time, the bass of it deep in Eddie's chest, but he can't stop thinking about your jacket. Did you know it was there? 

The string tied to his marriage finger grows restless the longer you and Eddie are apart, bouncing like a shockwave whenever he thinks your name. In fact, all it takes is the idea of you, the slightest memory of your smile, your hands, the way you tell stories to the group with your shoulders turned to him like he's there alone, and the string flinches. 

"Are you okay?" Manny asks. 

Eddie drags his way up the couch. "Hey, Man. You got the dick off your face. That's great." 

Manny lifts his cheek. "Had to steal some of my mom's make-up. Can't tell, huh?" 

The colour match is dubious, now he's mentioned it. Eddie doesn't have the heart to tell him, flopping back into the crisp, cracked leather seat beneath him. A circle of his face is sticky where it clings to the couch. It's among the worst feelings of this earthly plane, grim as ice cream dripping down your hand on a hot day, or perpetually gutting heartbreak like he suffers now. 

"I think I'm seeing things," Eddie says. 

"Jeff has stuff for that." 

Eddie groans loudly. With the way he feels it's not melodrama. Just pure human anguish. He groans again when nothing changes, fisting his hair in two aching hands. He's clenched and unclenched his hands for hours all day, trying to force the hurt away from his chest, chasing breathlessness to the tips of his fingers. Pins burn his palms. 

He knew in the back of his mind that you weren't going to want to date him. Realistically you have options, even if you think you don't, and his being your only option wouldn't inspire romance anyways. Being someone's last resort isn't love. None of it was love, you aren't in love, but Eddie thinks he could've been. He was halfway there, falling, whatever the poets might say —Eddie wants you. Wants to do stupid shit with you. He can picture the scene like he has before, that first bouquet of flowers, lilies with big white petals and purple sunspots. The cellophane would crinkle in trembling hands pressed to his chest, their stems leaking dew into his hardly worn button up. He'd pass them to you with more confidence than he feels and tell you that you're pretty. You're always pretty. 

He's not pretty, he's barely funny. He was stupid for thinking you'd like him too. 

The string is pale pink. Eddie loops it around his finger thoughtlessly, worsening the sting of pins and needles. 

There were times… 

He clutches his chest. The nausea he's feeling can't be understated.

There were times when you could've been in love with him, he thinks. Splitting a cigarette you had no business splitting on the steps of Jeff's porch, your vanilla chapstick softening the filter. Holding his hand for support as you made the hike down to the lake, your fingers curled around his like you worried you might hurt him. In the passenger seat of his van on the way to your house, laughing as he sang along to a Van Halen guitar solo. You could've been in love with him. 

But Eddie didn't ask you out. He didn't do what Wayne said, because goodwill is not dinner, and now you're probably happily sequestered in Wilson's BMW. He jumped the wrong gun and he blew it. 

"Seriously, Munson, are you good?" 

"Peachy." Eddie holds up the sign of the horns, pinky and index finger up, thumb holding his marriage and middle finger down, face buried in an old cushion. 

"Let me go get you a joint." 

"I gave it up." 

"Dude. Pizza it is." 

Eddie waits for Manny to leave before he turns onto his back. Last night in the shower after a knowing shoulder squeeze from his Uncle and a frankly overflowing bowl of microwave spaghetti, he pressed his forehead to the tile and let it all ache. He might have cried or water may have streamed from his hair, he genuinely doesn't know, but he knows he's in danger of another round of the same if he keeps thinking about you. 

He's a big boy. He can cope with your decision. 

"Eddie, what are you doing?" 

Eddie sits up with a handful of clicks. "Robin?" 

"Hey," Robin says, "whaddya know, I followed the smell of sadness and rejection and here you are." 

She's dressed fancy, her hair in a rare updo, faux pearls dangling from her ears to kiss the collar of a leather jacket. "Shit, you're so cool, Buckley." 

"Thanks. You okay?" Robin asks, sitting on the arm of the couch. 

Eddie's stomach churns as her perfume reaches him, the sweet, subtle smell of vanilla under white musk. He leans his face against the starched denim of her jeans. "Who told you?" he mumbles.

"Steve. Who else?" Robin pats his head. "But Jeff told him. And I was talking about your bruise." 

Eddie waves off her concern. "Where is Steve in my hour of need?" 

"Smoking a not secret cigarette with Jeff," she says, a melodic cadence to her usual light rasp. 

"I wouldn't risk Jeff's cigarettes." 

She snorts a laugh, "Steve would risk his life for a cigarette. He loves to say that quitting was easy, but he drinks half a beer and starts gasping like a fish." Robin mimes Steve's apparent desperation, to Eddie's delight.

She smiles as his laughter peters out, tilting her head to the side. "So… was it bad?" 

"I don't know." He rubs his eyes. "The last time I got rejected was in senior year, and it was– I didn't even like her, you know, thought she was pretty, but this is different." 

"Sorry, Eddie," she says, pushing her bottom lip up into her top one, a bubbled pout that betrays how out of her depth she feels. 

Eddie isn't trying to make it awkward. "That's okay. I liked her, she doesn't like me, it's cool." The string flails. The music from upstairs gets louder. "What the fuck is happening? I thought Macy said it was a quiet one." 

Robin and Eddie start up the basement stairs to the main body of the house. The air is warmer and thicker, the faint smell of hotdogs and burgers grilling in the backyard filtering inside through the patio doors. "You know," Eddie says, glaring at the sudden crowd, "there's an atari down there." 

"Sorry, I think I'll have to keep my idiot out of trouble." Robin points at Steve near the stereo with Jeff, the two of them laughing hard enough to bruise as they mess with the pitch of the music. "Steve! You'll go deaf in your good ear if you don't stop!" 

"What?" Steve shouts. 

Robin rushes over to drag him away from the stereo. Eddie doesn't want to be your best friend, but if it was a friendship like Steve and Robin's he would consider himself lucky to have it, smiling as she wraps her arms around his chest from behind and pulls him away, sniffing at him, her nose wrinkled as she gives a reprimand too low for Eddie to catch. "I'm serious," she says as they grow closer, weaving around the living room coffee table and retreating back into the slim hallway leading to the basement stairs, "where are your earplugs?" 

"In the car, Rob. I'm fine, I promise." 

"Sure. Alright, Eddie, would you keep him away from the stereo?" Robin shoves Steve toward him. "Thanks so much." 

"I'm not high," Steve says as soon as she's gone. 

"While that's uber convincing, honeybear, I don't care if you are," Eddie says lightly. "Not a cop. Wanna go get a burger?" 

They move away from the living room and into the kitchen, where Steve nearly trips over the door jam and Eddie forgets for the first time in days how awful he feels. 

He sits Steve down at the glass table next to Macy herself and a younger friend of Manny's. Jamison and Gareth stand at the grill arguing about who's doing what, but Jamison proves to be the better grillmaster and the better friend, dropping two burgers on paper plates in front of them not more than twenty seconds after they've sat down. "For you, my poor little Munson," he says, smacking the ketchup and mayonnaise down between them. "Eat up." 

"I can't get the cap off," Steve complains, welding a bottle of mayonnaise at him like a dagger. 

Eddie sighs. Steve is definitely high. "You know Jeff doesn't smoke plain rolled cigarettes, right? Like, you knew it was weed?" 

"Whaaaat?" Steve asks exaggeratedly. "Open my mayonnaise." 

"Plausible deniability," Eddie says. "I like it." 

He finds that taking care of Steve is a good distraction, but there's only so much care a grown man needs, high or not, and Eddie's gaze is pulled to the string. It's impossible to stop thinking about you on the other end of it. He tries not to look at the string at all, but he can't, being as permanently tied to his finger as it is. What's worse is seeing people tread on it. The colour fades slowly, once a strong red, now a meek pink. At this rate it'll be bone white by the end of the night, like a vein with no supply. Maybe that's how this ends. You stay kissing Cory Wilson and the string dies. 

As he thinks it, the string tightens. The pink turns rosy, turns healthy, red as a rose, vice-like on his finger. Eddie knows without knowing that you're near. He could've guessed without the string's shifting, your presence the antonym of sixth-sense chills. He turns back toward the house and catches a glimpse of you as you walk past the patio door in your black velvet jacket, those tiny sparse stars like needlepoints from this far away and glinting as you turn to let Robin pass. 

"Holy fuck!" Robin mouths, Steve's earplugs in a small pouch meant for coins in hand as she speed walks down the short path to the table. "She's here!" 

"I can see that." 

Robin sits on the chair next to Steve's. He passes her the last half of his burger and takes the earplugs from an outstretched hand, shaking them from their pouch. You'd never look at him like this with mayonnaise on his top lip, thigh to thigh with loser-sweetheart Robin Buckley, and think he'd be violent. He isn't, truly, his hearing loss the result of getting his ass handed to him hard, and the motivation of a pacifist who wears ear defenders to the movies. 

"You're gonna have to speak up," Steve says, pushing the plugs in. 

"Yeah, man." He doesn't have much to say anyhow. His stomach is curled in knots, the string a tightrope without walkers between him and you in the kitchen. You're talking to someone, walking one way before rushing the other. "What the fuck?" Eddie asks, sitting up. 

Macy stands as somebody gasps. Eddie's quick to follow, Gareth jumping back out of Jamison's reach as the grillmaster swings a long pronged fork his way. "What?" he asks cluelessly. 

Eddie follows the string to you, stepping over the patio doorjam and into the cacophony of the kitchen. Blaring rock music vibrates through Eddie's worn shoes, but it doesn't occlude the vehemence of Cory Wilson's slurring. "I should've known," he hisses. 

Eddie would stand in front of you, he should, he's going to, but he doesn't and he can't fathom why. He's glued to the spot as you defend, "I didn't know. And I didn't do it on purpose." 

"Are you fucking with me?" 

"No." You sound startled rather than scared, but the cagey way you've moved back and the curl of your hands into fists says otherwise. "No, I didn't kiss you to–" 

"To what? Guess it doesn't make a difference. I should've known. Two guys in one night's a good night for a girl like you, huh?" 

You flinch away. It could be the pull of the string or the panic on your lips as you struggle to speak, or maybe Eddie's done being a coward who half-asses his life even if you're not gonna kiss him like he wishes you would, whatever it is, it has him standing in front of you unafraid. 

Cory Wilson is rough. Eyes bloodshot, evil on tequila sliders from the sugary brown stain on his collar, he takes one look at Eddie and starts laughing. 

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean, a girl like her? Why don't you explain it?" Eddie asks, his voice burnt, almost acrid in his own mouth. "What, you plant one on her and you think it's alright to talk to her like that?" 

"Eddie," you say. 

He reaches back gently, his fingertips brushing your abdomen. 

"You're a fucking classless act, Wilson, you always have been. You don't talk to her like that." 

"Why don't you stay out of it, freak?" 

"Dude," Jamison says. "No way. Get the fuck out of here." 

"You can't stay out of it, can you? It makes sense now I'm seeing it," Cory rails. 

This is so teenaged angst and Eddie's over it. You'll have to forgive him but he's feeling territorial. This is Macy's house, they're your friends, and Cory was a dick before he kissed you. "This is embarrassing, dude," Eddie says over the island, meeting Cory's eyes straight on. "Don't do this shit." 

"It was you, right?" Cory asks, nodding, mind made up already. He peers around Eddie's shoulder to stare at you incredulously. "Him?" 

"It doesn't matter!" you insist, stepping forward. "Why does it matter? I said no, I don't wanna go home with you, I'm sorry, I told you more than you needed to know because I thought it would help you get it, and I'm sorry I let you kiss me! I'm sorry, I thought it was best to be honest with you." 

Eddie's thinking you don't have to say sorry for anything. Cory's thinking about the milling crowd of young adults haunting the corners of the kitchen and pressed in from the hallway, rounding the island with his chest puffed up. 

"It was Munson, wasn't it?" 

You take a step back into Eddie. "It's fine," he says to you quickly, because coward or not he'd never let someone hit you, but you're pushing him behind you. You're protecting him. 

"Yes, it was Eddie!" you say. "So what? It has nothing to do with you."  

Macy cuts in, all red hair and glare. "Okay, enough. Cory, you have to leave, man. You can't yell at girls in my kitchen because they don't want to sleep with you." 

Eddie stares at the back of your head. 

Did you kiss him? That second kiss, that was with him?

"You kissed me?" he asks quietly. 

Your lips part as you look at him from over your shoulder. Macy and Jamison argue with a red-faced Cory, Steve asks Robin what someone just said and Robin shouts the answer, but Eddie couldn't tell you what anyone's truly saying if you paid him to, his attention on the pillow of your bottom lip and searching upwards as you exhale. 

"Eddie, you kissed me." Your eyes are soft, the starts of your brows hooked together. "You really don't remember?" 

"I kissed you? When?" He grabs your arm, pulling you toward him. "At Gareth's place?" 

"I took you home," —you drop your chin, a new panic about you as your voice drops, waning, tenuous as spider silk— "you were wasted, you'd been drinking Macy's wine and Mr. Lashlee's bourbon and I didn't mean for it to happen. I wasn't trying to get you to kiss me, Eddie, I just asked why you were upset." 

"What did I say?" 

"You said that I was beautiful. That you wanted to kiss me, and then you did." 

Sorry, he'd said, you're just so fucking beautiful. 

"And then you freaked out like you'd been laced about string between your fingers. I took you to your room and told Wayne you ate a bunch of hotdogs on the turn." You won't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry. I never meant for it to go that far." 

A glass smashes. Eddie takes your hand, pulling you away from the scene and through a curious crowd to the back door. He closes the patio doors behind you and half jogs you down past the smoking barbecue and all its leftovers, chairs pulled out haphazard from the garden table and food discarded. 

He has to be quick, he doesn't know how much time he has before everyone comes flooding back out of the house.

You're strangely timid, shame having sewn your brows together. "Eddie, I'm sorry," you say, your hand wriggling weakly in his to be let go. He lets it fall.

"Sweetheart, stop. Just stop. I'm the one who's sorry… I think I–" He sighs, you're so fucking beautiful on loop in the back of his mind. "I remember. I know I made a move. You didn't do anything wrong." 

"I should've stepped away faster. I wasn't expecting you to kiss me." 

"I shouldn't have kissed you." 

"It was just a peck, Eddie. It's okay, 'cos it's not that I don't want you to kiss me ever, but you were drunk. I should have–" 

"You didn't do anything wrong," he insists, cutting you off before you can criminalise yourself with a vehement shake of the head. "But that's– that's–" He chokes on his question. "What did I say about the string?" 

"The string?" you ask, and fuck! Fuck, you look beautiful now, beautiful still as the night moves forward and the day's last lazy dregs of sunlight dapple your skin through the hanging branches of the surrounding sycamores. You stuff your hands in your pockets and pull your jacket around your tummy to hide from the cold, the string tugging with you. Your eyes are wide with confusion. "You wouldn't stop talking about it. That's when you hit yourself, your bruise?" 

"After I kissed you, or before?" 

"After, but… why does it…" 

"I'm going to sound crazy." 

You laugh softly. "No different than usual, then." 

Eddie opens his hand and holds it out for yours. The string on his finger is loose but not long, moreso when you give him your hand. "I know you can't see it, I get that it's ridiculous, but there's a string tied from my third finger to yours. This red piece of thread like my nanna would use. I woke up yesterday morning and it was there. I thought maybe I was going crazy, because I like you," —he swallows air, no idea why this is so hard— "and I saw you kissing that loser and I figured it was some quasi manifestation of how much I want to be near you, like torture, but it was after I kissed you. It appeared after I kissed you." 

"So we're connected by a string?" you ask slowly. 

Eddie's genuinely ecstatic that you'd even entertain it. "Yes!" 

"Show me," you say. 

"I can't." 

"Well, where is it?" 

The string is tight as a wire again. Eddie runs his finger along it, hoping that'll help. You can't see the string but you can see the ease with which he follows it, how his finger slides from one end to the other seamlessly. Inspired suddenly by the memory of your bedroom, Eddie grabs the string near the middle and pulls. 

The string deigns to do his bidding, yanking your hand forward. 

You pull it back instinctively. "Is that a trick?"  

"There's a string. I've been losing my mind trying to show people, I tried to cut it off. It's impenetrable." Eddie stamps down his excitement in the face of your less enthusiastic frown. "It runs from me to you." 

You rub your marriage finger, the string a strong and shimmering crimson at your touch. "I can't feel it, but you pulled me." Your eyes are shiny. "Eddie, you like me?"

"Yeah, I do." He can't believe he's admitted to it out loud. No escaping it. Of the two secrets he just told you, it's the least terrifying. He wants to say more and he wishes he could take it all back, your confusion tangible in the lines of your frown, your gloss-sticky lips drawn thinner. 

He's interrupted. 

"Hey, Y/N!" Macy calls, slipping through the doors, Robin on her heels. "You okay?" 

Eddie steps back from you guiltily. 

"I'm fine! I'm fine, Mace, I was trying to let him down easy and I kept saying the wrong thing." You drop your hand out of the air. "I'm sorry." 

"Hey, it's okay, I don't care. I don't want people yelling at you, that's all." She spies on Eddie out of the corner of her eye. 

"I'm not yelling at her," he defends. 

"Yeah? You should both come back inside, then. Have a drink. That's why you're here, right?" 

She smiles until Eddie realises, defeated, that she's not gonna leave you alone out here with him. That's fine, he's glad people are looking out for you, but fuck is it annoying. He's finally told you about the stupid impossible string that links you together and you almost believed him, he could see it, and worse, his confession lays at your feet unanswered. 

Macy pulls Eddie back by the t-shirt as you walk on ahead, where you're quickly commandeered by a concerned Harrington, a chocolate milkshake in his hand that he instantly attempts to share. "Eddie," Macy says, jaw dropped in emphasis, "you kissed?" 

He covers his eyes with his hands, palm out, solid rings digging into his eyelids. "Not really," he says, a pounding headache emerging between his eyes. "No. I guess not." 

—

Hawkins library smells musty with disuse. Dust motes swim between beams of light shining down through dirty windows, an aged yellow colour painting the pages of the book splayed in front of you. You'd originally retreated into Hawkins library in the pursuit of one thing alone: resolute, guaranteed solitude. You'd considered disconnecting your phone, but your address isn't a secret. The only sure fire way to be alone was to leave, and to hide. 

No twenty-two year old Hawkinite spends their Sunday mornings at the library. You'd carried a litre bottle of water and a tupperware of sandwiches into the recesses of the old building and dropped into a creaky desk bright and early. For a blessed, blissful half an hour, you set your cheek to cold wood and closed your eyes, content to be unreachable. 

It's not that you don't want to see people. Not that you don't want to see Eddie. You don't want to be seen. Not today. 

Some mornings you wake up and feel wrong. You can shower, dress in new clothes, wear makeup and nice shoes and pretty bangles, but none of it makes any difference to your poor self-esteem. You figured every woman feels this way —what is there to love in a world that advertises solutions to problems you didn't know you had until they printed it in magazines? But it's been getting worse. 

Now you're lonely enough to let acquaintances kiss you for the simple reason that they want to, and insecure enough to attribute that want to a specific motive, but Eddie said he kissed you because he thinks that you're beautiful. Because he likes you. Because a string runs from his hand to yours that can't be severed. 

The latter feels as mythological as the former. 

It's a mess. You've asked a thousand questions. Would the situation be cleaner if you rejected Cory? Did Eddie kiss you because he realised he could, that you'd let him do it? Cruel. Not his style, and mean to think of him, but a worry nonetheless. From there the questions broaden, immature in root. Does Eddie actually like you? Would he be your boyfriend? Does he want that, do you want that, is he okay? Was he high last night? Was he ill? 

You flick through tomes with sweat thumbprints pressed deep into the corners and sides, scanning mildly then feverishly for an answer. Love myths, old legends, everything the librarian can give you on fantastical sweethearts —soulmates.

Eddie thinks that there's a string tied from his finger to yours to torture him as a link to what he wants, but can't have. 

It doesn't make much sense. Eddie Munson could have you if he asked nicely enough. 

That might be the problem. He's never asked anything of you. Eddie's a giver, constantly, a thousand little gifts. Your hair is nice like that. Do you want to sit here? You'll get the next one, but he never lets you get the next one. 

His very best gift was small. Waiting for Gareth to bring the car around and hiding from the early summer rain under the Hideout's short veranda, you and Eddie sitting on a cold wall, his jacket underneath you as he insisted to stop you from catching a chill. You remember thinking he was pretty even with his hair in his eyes, his cheeks hollowed in concentration. He pulled his wallet from his pocket, offering a glimpse of a guitar pick tucked inside of the plastic photo window. "This is my best kept secret, okay? Don't go spreading it around," he'd said from the corner of his mouth, deft fingers folding the length of a receipt into a square. He tore the excess, leaving himself with an incredibly small scrap to start with. From there he made the paper crane swiftly, folding neat corners and twisting the snout, placing the finished craft on your stocking-clad knee. "Here." 

"How did you do that?" you asked, awed. 

He made you a square of your own, shuffled closer to you on the wall, the heat of his hands near yours to correct you and his patient demonstration booting your heart into overdrive. You remembered every step of his origami even weeks later, folds of paper brushed by the soft memory of his fingertips on the back of your hand, accidental touches, and the smell of him, so close. 

Those paper cranes in your room, tens of them sewn like popcorn strings at christmas… 

You shake the thought from your head and close the book. Maybe you do like Eddie. Maybe you have all along (tenuously, waiting to get let down, and thinking there wasn't a chance in hell he could ever like you back). And now he likes you back? 

This obsessive retrospection is bad for your head. Sighing, you stand from the desk you've monopolised and stretch your arms over your head, taking a breath to peer down at your fruitless investigation. The string is in his head. He punched himself pretty hard the night you took him home —he's reeling from the after effects of booze and a mild concussion, no doubt. His mind is playing tricks on him. As far as you're concerned, there's no string. (But your hand moved when he pulled. But you want it to be real.) 

You pull the books to your chest and ferry them back to the lonely shelf they came from toward the back of the aisles near the audiobook stand. 

Fuck, you think to yourself, kneeling by the mythology section to begin putting your books back in a vaguely organised manner. Your reading provided no answers, and you're starting to worry it's none of the scenarios you'd contemplated, but a mean-spirited joke. What would Eddie ever want with me? you think, neatening the edges of the books slowly. 

Realising you like him, his chaste kiss, the red string, it's a lot to take in. You aren't sure what you believe, but you'd love to believe Eddie, in both of his confessions. 

You're standing and dusting your knees when you see it, a small cloth bound book shoved between encyclopaedias on the shelf above. It's more like a personal notebook than a novel. You reach for it on a whim. The cover is selenite white, slightly coruscating in the light and broken only by the weighted lines of Chinese characters painted with the bristle of a squirrel mop brush. You trace the last of the characters mindlessly, the English translation beneath it reading, Chinese Folk Mythology. 

You open the book to the first page, blank; the second, the titular; and the third, contents. You flick through creation myths and cosmology, defeated before you've even begun. You really want Eddie to be telling the truth about this —if he is, it means he's telling the truth about liking you, puts real feelings behind his tipsy kiss. 

The first and last burst of colour stops you short. 

The red thread of fate. 

A red line furls from one corner of the page to the second page opposite, shot through phrases, your eyes catching fast on choice words. Invisible to the mortal eye. Marriage of two souls. Tangled, knotted, but never broken. Fate. 

You sit on your knees on the floor of the library, the pages spread flat under your hands and their minute trembling. 

— 

Eddie checks his hair in the rearview mirror again. "Loser," he says, looking himself straight in the eye. Then he smiles with teeth, kicks open the driver's side door, and drops out of the van with a crushed bouquet of flowers held to his chest. 

Today's been a nightmare. Between you (always you, his only thought of the growing mess he's made) and Wayne, he's been flayed. 

"Your room is a pigsty, Eds, I'm not happy," his uncle had said, glaring at him over the lip of his coffee mug. Garfield absent and replaced by genial Odie, Eddie still felt abjectly judged. 

"I've been busy!" Eddie defended, too worried to eat and instead working his way through five pieces of nicotine gum at once, his jaw aching with each magnanimous chew. 

"Yeah, busy turning down shifts and spending all your money on burgers and beer." 

"I'm way too old for this," he said through gum bubbles. 

"Exactly! Too old to need reminding. If we get bugs I'm kicking you out." 

Wayne would never kick Eddie out, but that wasn't the point. "Wayne, I'm having a crisis. Could you have, like, a modicum of compassion for me? Your only nephew? In his time of need?" He clutched his chest. "Christ, man." 

Wayne leaned backwards in his chair to fish the trash bags from a miscellaneous drawer. "This is compassion. Don't be gross." 

His room was chaos rather than gross, knick-knacks in their wrong places and two hampers worth of laundry piled behind the door. The whole time he cleaned, he debated if it was appropriate to call you, and when he finally bit the bullet and picked up the phone you didn't answer. That's fine, except he called Robin (who was predictably nursing a rumpled Harrington back to health but had enough wherewithal to ask for the hot gossip), Macy (who told him to leave you alone if he was causing trouble), Gareth (who laughed), and Shauna (fucking Shauna) in search of you, and nobody knew where you were.

It got to the point where he couldn't not check on you. Couldn't stay stuck in the narrative anymore of your will we won't we. It hurt his chest too much, a real anxiety with claws to match. He hit Bradley's for a bouquet but the flowers they had were wilted slim pickings, and then he raced to the bakery before he thought about it too much and left empty handed. 

Imagine buying a girl baked goods for her to reject you. Eddie in the rain with his paper bag of croissants and dying flowers. 

He couldn't find you through the phone, but he has a secret weapon: the string that leads from him to you tied tight to his finger, a compass without magnets. He followed it in the van to this secluded spot overlooking Hawkins town, and knew he was in the right place when he found your car parked on the hill. 

His palms clam on the way up, pine needles crushed to mulch under his cons. Dirt crusts their white toes and puddle water splashes over the tongues, seeping into his socks. The rain slows to a pittering that beads down the arms of his jacket and along the ridge of one finger, welled cold at the line of a titanium ring. 

The string is trodden and dirty on the ground. Eddie toes at it as he goes, the thread red but not taut, leaving you closer than he expects you to be, perched on a picnic table with an umbrella held loosely on one shoulder. 

"Hey," he says, tensing as you tense, softening his voice appropriately. "If you don't wanna see me I understand, and I'll leave, but I wanna talk to you… If that's cool." 

You peer down at the umbrella handle under your fingers. "Sure, Eddie. You don't have to leave." He counts his lucky stars, more when he sits on the bench beside you and you ask, "Are those for me?" 

He fights through nerves, flowers squeezed to death in his grip. "They're for you. I had to buy a couple of bunches. These are the best of the worst." He offers you the flowers, cellophane crinkled in his hand, not half what he pictured but somehow better for being real. "I'm sorry." 

"Don't say sorry for giving me flowers," you murmur in your way, not mindless but small. Not tentative, just careful. 

"I'm not sorry for giving you flowers, I'm sorry that they're wilting. I wanted to get you a bunch from Leaven, you know, impress you even if it was too late. I'm sorry for a lot of things, actually. Mostly kissing you without asking first." He doesn't mean to say it like that— oh woe is me. "I want to be honest with you," he confesses, quieter. "Stuff feels weird and awful." 

"I know what you mean," you say. 

"But talking to you isn't like that. Talking to you is..." He scratched his neck sheepishly. "This is going way worse than I pictured." 

"Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty bad." Your voice is calm against his awkward panic. You aren't ridiculing him, the opposite. You're in the same terrified boat. It's reassuring at least to know he's not alone. 

You put your hand out without turning his way. Eddie stares at it with another gasping round of chest pain but takes it swiftly in both hands, too much. Why are you this fucking weird? he asks himself. 

"I think I believe you." 

Eddie bites the inside of his lip. Your hand is marginally smaller in his, softer by yards, and easy to pet at your admission. He feels this bone deep longing to stroke the back of it and he does, the side of his thumb tracing the faint indentation of bones beneath your skin with the care of someone handling a more delicate artefact, the string shortening, shortening, until it's all but disappeared. You're hardier than a rough hand-hold, he's wanted to do this for so, so long. 

"About what?" he asks. The string? Or his affection?

"About the string." You struggle with the flowers and the umbrella in your other hand but make no attempt to take the first back from his grip. 

He waits for you to say more, seconds turning to minutes, his palm growing sweaty in yours. Eddie wants to be cool like a rockstar who knows you want him and doesn't care, and he wants to be sweet and gentle and give you the respect you deserve, but mostly he wants to make it out of this conversation with you at his side. He's not sure how to do it, but holding your hand as you want him to is a start. 

"I have to ask you something," you say finally, as though the words have been dragged from the root of you. "This string… this isn't all a joke, is it? That would be– that would be sick. If it's not real." 

"No!" Eddie interrupts. "It's not a joke, I get if you think I'm crazy but I'm not trying to mess you around–" 

"I don't think you're crazy. This whole situation is crazy. It doesn't make sense." 

"But you believe me?" he asks. What he's really asking is Would you believe me, please? He's so tired of being alone with this. 

"I found this book at the library." Your hand livens in his, your fingers pushing between his to twine together solidly. "Talking about the red thread of fate. There's a myth that people who are destined to get married have an invisible string tied from their fingers. It gets bigger and smaller, and you can't cut it no matter how hard you try, but I still didn't know if I believed you. You could've read the same book." 

Didn't know. Past tense. "What changed your mind?" 

"How would you know where I was if you were lying? We're twenty minutes outside of town." 

"I could be a stalker." 

"Do you want me to believe you?" you ask with a laugh. 

"Of course I do," he says warmly, spurred by your laughter, pulling your arm bodily into his and encouraging you closer. "You don't have to believe that we're destined to be together, but the string is real." 

"And you like me." 

Eddie's turn to laugh. "I do, yeah. So much it's embarrassing." 

"Everybody knows but me?" 

"Kind of." 

"Oh." You lay your cheek against his shoulder. Almost like you're testing his limits to see if you're allowed. 

Rain dots lightly on his jacket arm, the chill of the weather sudden and obvious. He covers your wrist with his hand to hide you from it, knowing he should offer to take you somewhere warmer but needing to stretch this moment, his chest alleviated of anxiety pangs for the first time in almost a week. 

"You really think I'm pretty?" you ask quietly. 

Eddie stares at the top of your head. "You're the sweetest thing I've ever seen. Even if you don't believe it yourself, you're beautiful." 

It's not that Eddie thinks you're going to cry but you come apart, slow fissures in the last of your strength. He takes the bouquet from you to lay on the table behind and closes your umbrella, letting the drizzling rain kiss the tops of both your heads. You look as nervous as he feels. "Come here," he says, desperate for you to feel better. "C'mere." 

You sew your arms under his as he wraps his around your shoulders, the string stretching so as not to hurt you. Your voice comes rushed and low, honesty now that you're no longer face to face, "I like you too, Eddie. Ever since you made me that paper crane, I think." 

He rubs your back. "You don't have to sound upset about it," he teases, trying to rescue you from tears. He'd hate to see you cry. 

"This has all been such a mess." 

He hugs you harder. "I know. I promise I'll make it up." 

"But it's not your fault." 

"Maybe, but that's kind of the point of being with someone. Looking after each other, cleaning up messes. I want to." 

"You're with me," you repeat carefully. 

Eddie pulls back, taking your face into his hand. The string lines your cheek like a teardrop curved down the slope of it. He strokes the red thread gently with his thumb. "I want to be. You think that could work? Us?" 

Your fingers curl into the crook of his elbow. You nod into his touch. "If this isn't a trick."  

"It's not a trick. I'm in love with you," —he wants to lean in, and he can't, not yet, not while a fraction of you still thinks he couldn't want you sincerely— "everything about you. I think I have been for a while." 

"In love…" you murmur into yourself. 

You lean forward slowly, stilted, and when Eddie leans in to meet you your eyes flutter closed. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thinks. He might have kissed you before but he doesn't remember it anymore than a phantom, a ghost, the echo of a memory. He remembers what he said and the blooming pain of his hand kicking back into his eye a thousand times clearer than how your lips felt, he has no idea what you like, where to put his hands—

You kiss him first. You lean in, and you kiss him gingerly, waiting for an impending cruelty or rejection that's never going to come. He keeps it gentle, holding his breath as the tip of his nose slides across yours and his head tilts to allow better access, a proper, full kiss. 

For someone who hasn't had very many, you're a good kisser. A little too still. Eddie sees no harm in it, moving back a millimetre to wade in again immediately, his left hand rising to join the right on your warming face and prompting you into a braver reciprocation. 

He smiles at the feeling of your bottom lip pressed against the seam of his mouth. His jacket sleeve creaks as your grip tightens. 

It's a lovely kiss, even if it's tenuously taken. It's everything. For a while the rain doesn't matter, steams off of him, but it must fall too harshly for you to ignore, peeling away from him, so, so carefully. He meets your softened gaze with a similar expression. For once, you seem completely present, and better, your smile is real. 

"Was that okay?" he asks, sliding his hands down the lines of your neck, feeling for nothing in particular. Feeling to feel, wanting to learn every hill and bow of you. 

"It was better than the first two," you say, an endearingly bashful answer.  

"That's not difficult. One was from a wet-nosed, mouth-breathing imbecile and the other one was from Cory Wilson." 

You laugh without restraint, a full-bodied sound that echoes down his arms. "I think you mixed that up," you say nicely. 

Flirting! Eddie could burst into tears. "You think? How about slimy, frizzy loser?" His hand lives a life of its own, squeezing your shoulder as he suggests, "Desperate and unobsequious uggo?" 

Raindrops catch your forehead as you tip your head back briefly, laughter bubbling on your lips, your relief a palpable saccharine. "In what world are you an uggo?" 

"What, do you like me or something?" He takes another kiss, lips lingering, longing for just a few more seconds. "Notice how you didn't disagree with 'desperate'? 'Unobsequious'?" he murmurs, a quarter inch from your mouth. 

"You're not desperate," you murmur back, almost inaudible under the patter of rain. 

"But?" 

"But I don't think unobsequious is a word." 

"No?" he asks, kissing you again. The awkwardness is gone, replaced by a melding need. "You don't think so?" 

"No," you defend. He can hear your fondness. 

Eddie presses a tight kiss hard enough to feel the impression of your teeth over your lips before tearing himself away. Kissing you isn't a tenth of what he wants from you; there's a lot to tell you. He needs to start now. 

Your lips part as though you've a question to ask, too, but you bring a distracted hand to his hair. "Your hair's getting curlier in the rain. It's…" 

You falter. 

"I'm drowned, huh?" he asks. 

You try to say no. Your hand wavers shy of a coil, listless, "No way," you whisper, eyes on your hand now, on your marriage finger and the red string playing at your knuckle, shimmering with a fish-scale sparkle as you pinch it between your thumb and forefinger on the opposite hand. "I can see it." 

"You can see it?" Eddie asks, leaping onto his feet. 

Your face is transformed, infinitely, impossibly prettier by your beaming smile as you clamber to stand in front of him, stretching the string between your bodies experimentally. "I can see it!" 

"You can see it?" he asks, vaulting his weight into you, his arms working around your back in a squeeze. 

You pull your arm up between you both and twist your wrist this way and that, the string following your whims as you lean back in the circle of his arms. Your eyes flicker between him and the string, as though you're working out which one is an illusion. Eddie and the string are both real. 

"We're really soulmates."

Eddie doesn't know if he believes in soulmates, but he believes in the hopeful colour to your voice as you say it, and the tacky skin of your cheek as he leans in for your fifth kiss, your sixth, each one better than the last. 

If his soulmate were going to be someone, he'd want nothing more than for it to be you. 

—

"Come on! We're so late!" 

Steve detaches himself from the frankly killer novel in his lap to turn, his sunglasses casting you and Eddie in a sepia tone as he drags you bodily down the path to their picnic spot. You giggle girlishly at Eddie's telling off and the bodily nature of his pushing, flopped like a fish out of water in his arms. 

"I'm hurrying, Eds, you're just faster than me." 

Eddie pretends to drop you, to your roaring delight, your laugh echoing across the park and drawing the eyes of Steve's summer club. 

"Here comes happy and happier," Robin groans. 

"You wanted them to date," Steve says, turning to his best friend where she lays on the blanket beside him, his jacket a pillow under her neck. "You have sleep in your eyes." 

"I'm tired," she defends, struggling into a sitting position. She wipes her eyes with the bottoms of her palms, mean, words stretched with a yawn as she continues, "Please tell me Eddie has the basket." 

"Nope," Max says, slamming down on her knees next to Robin, her jeans already grass-stained. 

"Y/N has it," Lucas clarifies, sitting down with them in similar fashion. 

Steve's daunted by them when they're together, but he leaves his commentary at an unintelligible curse word, his head tipped back in annoyance. They're constantly pulling the carpet from under him, practically manufacturing flaws to tease him about, Max whip-smart and Lucas loyal to a fault. 

Still, he likes them. 

More than he likes Dustin when the curly-haired boy sits down next to Steve and takes his hat off. "Feel how sweaty this is getting." 

"Rather not, dude." 

Eddie speaks, closer now, and Steve misses the words but not the tone of them. Dripping, almost sleazy affection, the kind that knows what it is unabashedly. You stand on toes to kiss the highest point of his cheek as quickly as you can, your hand on his trap.

"Hey!" Eddie shouts to their turned head, waving a hand of rings, calluses and bandaids. "You guys look like meerkats." 

His cheeks are rosy red with blush despite the moderate temperatures today, the sun set to come out in an hour or two when the cloud cover moves. Said meerkats make room for you on the picnic blanket, where you share the bounty of your basket, sandwiches and cut fruit. "There are chips in the car," you say. 

"You cut up fruit?" Robin asks. 

"Eddie did. I watched." 

"And ate the best cuts," Eddie says proudly, wrapping his arm around your shoulder to drown you in a hug. You slink an arm begins him to hug him in return, your face pressed with delight to the curve of his neck. "As is her right." 

"Don't be disgusting!" Mike calls, a baseball bat in unconfident hands.

"You sure you know how to use that thing?" Eddie calls back. "Lucas, I thought you were helping him, man? Help him!"

"Some people are beyond help." 

"Shut up, Dustin." 

Despite an abundance of company and a ton of shit to do, you and Eddie are distracted by one another, and Steve isn't stupid enough to not get why. They didn't see you both for a week, and then you emerged from your self-imposed quarantine as grossly in love with one another as Steve has ever seen two people be. Like, maybe the happiest couple ever. In some loud ways but mostly quiet ones, hands held, fond cheek kisses to say hello, these weird paper birds you make for each other whenever there's a scrap of paper left lying around. Eddie's doing it now, having stolen the sticky note Steve was using as a bookmark to craft a teeny tiny crane, Steve, their called cranes. One second it's a pink diamond and the next he's performing an intricate twist, four last folds, and placing the finished product on your knee. 

Steve's sort of jealous, but you guys are too in love, honestly. It's nice if you're in it but too intimate if you aren't (nothing maliciously done, of course), so he rounds up the troops for the first round of baseball to give you guys some privacy. 

If he's expecting you two to start French kissing when he leaves, he's not correct. He wouldn't know it, back turned to you as he takes first bat, knees bent and waiting for Erica to serve, but you guys talk. Talk talk talk. Eddie can talk for Indiana and you listen in your way, wryly amused, promising any minute now that you're gonna get up and spread out on the field.

"Is this a bad idea, sports? What if it beheads someone?" 

"It knows how to behave," Eddie assuages, hand on the blanket next to your thighs, turned toward you, effectively locking you in. "We don't wanna get that involved. You look too good right now to ruin."

Nothing can fix the insecurities you hold instantly, but knowing someone wants to kiss you regularly has helped. Eddie's constant compliments have done even better. He's easy about it, no fuss, no bravado, praise said like fact. Come here, pretty girl, I got a present for you. Hey, gorgeous. You should do my hair, yours always looks so good. And the photos —he has a disposable in the glove box, and insists on taking photos of you when you're especially happy. Now that he's your guy, that's often. 

"You're saying I wouldn't look good if I sweat this off?" you ask, gesturing to your face and your makeup. 

"I know you'd look good." He dips down for a kiss, as if daring you to suggest otherwise. It's a touch rough, twice as devoted. Things are heady for a time, the two of you stealing another short moment to add to the list, your kiss made of twin smiles.  "Maybe we can use it to our advantage," he suggests, pulling back to stroke your cheek. 

"The string?" you ask. 

Eddie steals a last quick peck before his hand climbs onto your leg, giving your denim-clad thigh a pat. "We'll use it to trip people up. Come on, it'll be fun. We'll get Harrington flat on his ass," he says, clambering onto sure footing.

"No way," you say, leaning back to see him, your hand nudging aside a plate of sandwiches. You shield your eyes from the sun as it comes out, sunlight like spun gold spilling down your arm. "I'm not helping you hurt your friends." 

"What, those guys? They're just my D&D subs." 

You shake your head at him in disapproval. 

"I'm kidding!" he says, reaching down for your hands. "Get up, sweetheart, we'll only trip someone if we need to win. Stop fighting me, you know it's useless. I always win." 

"You cheat," you sigh, letting him help you onto your feet. 

"I cheat," he agrees, kissing your cheek, then the opposite, before holding them in both hands and leaning in. "I love how you sound when you know you're losing–" 

"Shut up–" 

"You get all breathless," he says, his face drifting closer, and closer, "all shy on me." 

"If I knew you were gonna try and embarrass me this much I never would've said yes to being your girlfriend," you say, half-glaring at him with a wave of affection brimming behind your poor acting. 

"Really?" he asks. His voice is low, a little rough. 

"No. But you have to stop, okay?" You laugh, nudging him in the stomach with your knuckles. "I wanna play baseball." 

Steve waves Eddie over from home base to field on his team while you join Max, Robin, and Lucas in line to bat. "This isn't enough people for baseball," Eddie says, crushing emerald green bluegrass beneath his shoes. The rainfall last week made for lush vegetation. 

"Yeah, which is why you were supposed to invite more people," Steve quips. 

"I was busy." Eddie rolls his shoulders. "We don't need more people to win. We got this." 

"We do not got this! And no going easy on Y/N, okay? I don't care if you're together, we need to play to win. Loser's buying the winner's pizza and I just got Sheila out of the shop."  

"Are you kidding?" Eddie asks, stretching his arm behind his head, his eyes across the field where you laugh at Robin's side. "Obviously I'm not going easy on her. Why would you think that?" 

"Seriously? This is the worst honeymoon phase I've ever seen. I figured you guys wouldn't even be able to play on different teams, like, major separation anxiety." 

Eddie does this thing with his hand, his thumb plucking an invisible string. "I don't need to worry, man. I know exactly where she is." 

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

thank you for reading, especially if you got all the way to the end! hope you enjoyed ♥

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Wednesday all :) Ahhhh the intro of Metro Tim. This man does thing to me just on patrol and on street clothes. But Metro Tim? it’s a different beast. I wanna say sorry for how feral he’ll make me in this one. But I won’t be sorry really lmao Also a fantastic Lucy/Tamara Ep. So let us start :)

5x14 Death Sentence

We start off with Tim pouring himself some coffee at Lucy’s. There’s so much to love already about this. He’s spent the night, Not only that but enough to know where the coffee is and how to make it, he’s made extra for her and they’re sharing a thermos. It’s the same thermos she brings to work we've seen. It's that same one she has in 4x02. It's a small call back and I adore it it's so much. I love continuity so I’m dying of happiness ha.

The married vibes in this scene make me squee. Lucy hasn't even entered the scene yet and it's already married af. I remember being so excited they'd reached the domestic phase. I love me some hot and heavy newlywed stuff. Don't get me wrong. But something so satisfying to see them move forward towards this stage. Literally so giddy over him making her coffee. That's a good man right there. Thinking of her when she wakes up.

As we know pranking is one of their love languages. Lucy has hidden booties in the cabinet for him. Looks like the same ones she used in 4x02 haha Another call back/parallel. Loving the call backs in this season. It's fantastic. They make the continuity geek in me very happy as I mentioned earlier. He is a boot for Metro and she has to note this. Unreal we're at this place. Getting cute domestic morning scenes. My heart.

Lucy is so bummed she didn’t get a photo of his reaction. We all know how much she loves getting shots of him. No doubt she has a folder on her phone of just pics of this man. I love her morning attire btw. I adore this woman's fashion sense. Tim tells her 'It’s cute.' With all the heart eyes he can. He can actually smile and appreciate it front of her this time. Unlike in 4x02 where he held it back. Gah it’s so cute I cannot. He is at the point where he is so very smitten with her teasing. He has been for awhile but he doesn't have to pretend he doesn't love it now.

Lucy asks why he’s up so early? Tim explaining he’s the new guy. Has to load up all the gear and ammo. Lucy so giddy and cute calling him a newbie. Beaming brightly at him. I love the cute way she says ‘The Boot.’ Her whole body being adorable af as she says this. Tim isn’t even agitated by this in the least.

Just affectionately tells her he’s still a Sergeant. This man is so so soft for her. Just look at him above. He is so damn smitten with her. They're both gaga for each other. Makes me so damn giddy. Just look at these two. Domestic and heart eyes for damn days. Lucy ever the proud wife as she teases him.

The look on Lucy’s face when she says he’s still a boot in her book. That woman is so very in love with the man standing before her. Makes me so happy I can’t even stand it. Giving me all the shippy butterflies as I watch them. Just as gone for him and he is for her. Looking up at him with so much adoration. Said this expression a few times in regards to Tim. But she looks at Tim like he hung the moon and stars. I love how much she loves him. Their almost morning kiss is interrupted by their pseudo daughter walking in the door. I do love her wanting to giving him a morning smooch.

Tim makes a joke saying must’ve been at one heck of a party if she’s just getting home now. Tim and Lucy looking like concerned parents. Tamara jokes with Tim cause that’s their thing. Saying ‘Yeah rager...' Asking if she interrupted something? Tim says no he was heading out can’t be late on his first day. The married vibes reach an all time high as Tim is leaving.

Lucy being wifey af telling him he’s gonna knock 'em dead. Building her man up before he leaves for the day. *heart damn clutch* She just pumped his tires right before he leaves. Look how happy he looks from her words of encouragement. He could power the room with his smile. He looks so damn happy leaving her place. I love him smiling at Tamara too before he goes. She’s their daughter we all know it.

Tim looking at his girl one last time before closing the door. *squee* It's doing things to me. It’s unreal we got this season still. I'm still in a state of shock even a year later ha. Look at these lovely humans in love. Makes my shipper heart so happy. Just a husband looking at his wife till he can’t anymore. That shot of him with heart eyes until he shuts the door is so cute. Doesn't break eye contact till the door is shut.

Her words of encouragement the best start to his day. I cannot. Once he is gone Lucy refocuses on Tamara. All happy and high off her morning with Tim saying 'Good morning' all chipper. Tamara pretending she's annoyed when really she's so happy for her. Look at that smile when she says 'Whatever.' Such a teenager but she is so happy for her mom.

Lucy and Aaron are talking about a prototype action figure his mom wants to make. He won’t do it even though it's couple million profit. Lucy cracks me up saying she will do it. Starts posing saying she can be ‘Lucy Chen, Fist of Justice.’ Never change Lucy never change. I love you so much baha Tim walking up seeing her being an absolute dork. Used to his wife’s antics at this point though. But has to ask what she’s doing?

Lucy not phased by his judgement in the least. Just says working on her side hustle. Tim gets self conscious when she points out the paint on his head. Nawww he’s embarrassed cause he struck out in training earlier. Let’s not bypass how incredible Tim looks in shot. Arms and forearms flexed carrying that box. *fans self* All kinds of deliciousness. My god how can a black t-shirt looks so delectable on a person? Straight arm porn and I'm not mad about it.

Those toned forearms and his biceps threatening to bust out of his sleeves. Phew lord. Think they made his shirt just a little tighter than most. So I can flail and have an ovary explosion. over it. Mmm. Love to climb that man like a tree. Metro Tim is just sex on two legs walking and I’m here for it hot damn.

Lucy is cutest little human in that first gif. Just popping her head in like the adorable bean she is. Taking stock of his new office. Then she makes a little joke smiling at him. Saying well at least it won’t take long to move in LOL I love her teasing him yet being so proud of him at the same time. It’s a heady cocktail everyone and I’m little ship drunk and loving it.

Her smile is everything as she is teasing him. Tim isn't giving her much to work with. I think it's cause Aaron is there HA He shuts the door behind her and works to get settled in his new office. Also think he's a little in his head about not doing well in training at first. Poor love.

After he shuts the door he expects them to go. Idk why. He knows his wife and her antics. Like she was just gonna go after that. LOL Lucy watching her man get settled like the proud wifey she is. Look at that woman watch him get situated. To quote Chandler bing. "Could she be any prouder of him?' She is so friggin excited for him. Her whole body is vibrating just watching him make it to his desk.

Let’s not discount this great shot of his ass in those cargo pants everyone. Sweet lord. Fairly certain I've never found them attractive till they were worn by Tim Bradford. But my god he looks good in them. Doing that thing where something is simple but he turns it into something incredibly sexy just by wearing it. It's sinful to be this attractive really.

Never be over how good his biceps look in that t-shirt too. Sweet baby James man is doing things to me… Tim turns around and realizes he's in a zoo LMAO I do adore her little smile when she gives him a thumbs up. Truly proud of him and getting to where he is now. I think if Aaron wasn’t present he would’ve been softer but he was LOL Lucy is also in teasing mode with the thumps up and such. Being such a troll with Aaron right now and they both know it.

Tim does a small smirk before shutting them out. Her face when he draws the shades is hysterical. Lucy is offended by him doing this. I’m dying. Their dynamic is the best. They go from sweet and domestic cuteness in the morning. Her building him up for the day. To teasing and giving each other a hard time. God I love them sfm. We get to have both now. *happy sigh* I just love this season everyone. Damn they cute.

We join our fav ladies eating dinner together. Lucy noting she’s been working a lot of hours. That she knows she wasn’t coming from a party this morning. It was a job. Asking her what’s going on? Does she need money or something? Tamara breaking Lucy’s heart a little with her answer. Basically saying she needs to save up for an apt on her own. Lucy looks so saddened for couple reasons. One. That she thinks she has to leave now. Just decided she wasn't gonna be welcome at some point.

Two her thinking Lucy has no room for her now that Tim is around. Like she was just going to replace her with TIm. I will say this she wasn’t saving up rent when Lucy was dating the clown… Tamara knows and has known since this started Tim was her end all be all. The real deal in terms of relationships for her. Lucy telling her she doesn’t have to leave. Breaks my heart Tamara thinks she has to leave though.

We all know Tim treats Tamara like family. The puppy jokes have long since faded away. If they we're gonna get a place of their own no doubt he would expect her to join them. Her thinking there is no room for her. UGH. I wanna hug her and it’s upsetting to Lucy as well. To Lucy, Tamara is family and there is no need to feel this way. Unfortunately not how trauma damaged brains work. Her first thought is there is no longer a place for her. Which once again makes me so sad. Before Lucy can say more hubby has arrived home.

We hear his keys in the lock before he comes in. First off let me squee that he has a KEY to her place. A KEY everyone. Also that they had this family movie night planned. Tim apologizing for being late to it. I keep seeing this funny tag when I look for gifs. Says *screaming into the void.* Lmao seems fairly accurate for moments such as this. Perfectly describing how I feel.

They had a pre-planned family movie night. I’m dying. Oh Tamara there is so a place for you with them. This scene right here proves that. Tim being all cute giving Tamara a hard time about not joining. He fully expected her to join them. He is such a dad in his reply to the movie he wants to watch with his girls.

I cannot get over Tim having a pre-planned movie night with them both. This is as domestic as it gets right here. It seems so damn natural already. What I always loved about S5 post 5x10. How natural everything felt with them. Going from friends to this wonderfulness. Never felt off or forced. It just fit and worked.

I cannot express enough this is why I’m glad the slow burn was the way it was. The journey that lead us here. To get us to this place where they just fit like puzzle pieces. Tim not reading the vibe in the room just pivots. Man is too damn happy to be noticing such things right now ha He looks at his girl with relaxed joy on his face. Not upset it’ll just be them for the movie.

Asking if she wants popcorn? The amount of squeeing for this moment is unlimited haha Saw a great tag for this scene. ‘How long have they been married again?’ hehe It’s so true. Domestic af and we’re all here for it. I love him basically living there at this point. Man has a key, eats and sleeps there. Has movie nights planned. God I just love this season so damn much.

We get to see Metro Tim in first op. Lucy is there getting to watch him in all his glory. Watch him lead, be confident, assertive and have a game plan. Commanding his unit with an assertive confidence that has me fanning myself. All of this in a new tactical outfit. Yummy. Gimme.

Wouldn’t blame Lucy if she took that man home after and just had her way with him. Because my god my blood is running hot just watching him in action. Sweet lord. Plus him defending Lopez when he tells his group she will be their spotter. Fiercely defending his decision and her. Making my mouth water Timothy.

Delicious poetry in motion as he leads his team into the rescue site. Also doesn’t hurt we’re getting amazing shots of him. Look at that sexy jawline with a dusting of stubble. Mmm. The way he’s holding that gun, his biceps stretching out the words ‘Metro police.’ I might pass out everyone haha God almighty someone shouldn’t be this attractive leading a mission and yet here we are. I’m a puddle snd may need some ice water....

This finale scene with Tamara’s and Lucy is one of my favs. Tamara getting off the phone with another job. Lucy asking her if she still thinks she has to move out? Tamara being vulnerable with her. (She has grown so much too btw) Telling Lucy she doesn’t want to be a burden. Gah breaking my heart girl. Lucy immediately disperses that train of thought. Telling her she isn’t.

Knowing this ties back to her PTSD before she met Lucy. Letting her know she gets it she does. That she’s been displaced her whole life. So she understands why that’s her default. It’s a hard habit to break when you’ve felt like a burden before. I totally relate to this. Lucy sincerely telling Tamara she’s family. I mean truly she is. She has been for a long time now. Lucy then lightening the vibe a little letting her know she couldn’t get rid of Lucy if she tried. LOL

Tamara thanking her and lightening the vibe herself. Saying she will get a place of her own someday though. She doesn’t want to be around when her and Tim start having babies LMAO God I love this girl. Her sass is the actual best. Also little foreshadowing at its finest. Now I know they’re gonna have babies. For sure they are. I’m not ready just yet on the show but I am down for babies at some point.

Loving Lucy saying that’s a long way off. Not scared or frightened by that idea in any way. It’s in her future no doubt about it. Only replying not yet and my head is exploding haha The rest of this scene is pure goodness. I adore their relationship sfm. I was so excited to see Dylan on set for S6 on insta. I will always always take more Lucy/Tamara. One of my favorite pairings on the show.

Lucy noting she is a really good babysitter. They could use her for all dem babies heh. Tamara being sassy once more. Saying she couldn’t afford her rate. You are an absolute queen madam. The cute smiles that end this scene make my heart happy. Especially Tamara's. How far she has come. Such a good episode for them. I adore these two so very much. Such a good ep. I remember feeling like every ep was a gift in this season. Especially 5x08 on up. They spoiled us to death and I wasn’t mad about it haha

~~~

Side notes-non Chenford

Lucy spending part of the episode trying to teach Aaron how to budget is hilarious. He wants to try and live off his own money and not his parent's. His bills were obnoxious LOL This scene above is the hysterical conclusion to him trying to live on a budget. Aaron you are a treasure my love. Lucy's reaction is so damn funny.

As always thank you to those that like, comment(oh how I love me some comments) and reblog these reviews. Means the world to me. See you all in 5x15 :)

[astoldbychae]

I want all the evens of the Lovey Dovey questions for Messiah even tho he doesn't deserve it

Not even tho he doesn't deserve it *flatlines*...He's tryna call you twinny...He needs you to take him off of Do Not Disturb. 🤣

♥ (02) Does another OC love your OC? If so, whom, and does your OC know?

Yes, Angel and [redacted]. He knows Angel does and has been in his feelings about their break up for some time now. As for [redacted]...No, he doesn't. He thinks she forgot about him after all these years. Who this is will be revealed at a later date...*grinch smile*

♥ (04) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC hates?

He's not big on surprises. Although they are most likely innocent & thoughtful, in his erratic mind he feels like it's a set-up. He's done some things in his past and he's always on alert.

♥ (06) What is the most romantic thing that has been done for your OC?

For his birthday, Angel planned a baecation in Sulani. 3 days and 2 nights of good vibes, good food, and good sex! They would've stayed longer but he's very busy with running his clubs, so she had to use those few days to her advantage. [this wasn't a surprise, she had to tell him she wanted to take him somewhere far away for him to relax with just him & her...also she needed him to clear his schedule in advance LOL]

♥ (08) What is your OC’s dream marriage proposal?

He's been on the fence about being married. After he fucked up on Chana (his daughter Amiri's mother who he was engaged to years ago), He hasn't really thought about seriously settling down. Deep down He wants love but he tends to fuck it up (word to the Villainous Valentine aspiration).

♥ (10) What is your OC’s favorite big way to show their love?

It used to be sex but as he's aged he's learned what real intimacy means, so quality time (especially since he's very busy, if he's clearing/shifting his schedule for you that's big for him). When he's in love, date night is important for him. He likes to do fun/adventurous things. He also enjoys giving gifts. If she has a dog, he's literally treating her dog as one of his children. That's one of the ways He got Angel, that dog LOVES him.

♥ (12) What do you love most about your OC?

I love that he's my wild card! He's got the Villainous Valentine aspiration with erratic, jealous, romantic, active, and family oriented traits. You just NEVER know what you're gonna get with him. Literally keeps me on my toes!

♥ (14) Does your OC have any romantic traditions?

Nah, no romantic traditions. Folding you up like a pretzel is what he considers a romantic tradition.🤦🏽‍♀️

♥ (16) What is your OC’s ideal first date?

Something adventurous and fun. If it's wild, that's a bonus! (Did I mention he has the Adrenaline Seeker lifestyle?)

♥ (18) Does your OC have a “type”?

He loves thick and curvy women with a nice set of lips...both sets. He's an ass man for sure but the hips & thighs is what drives him crazy. If she's short, that's also a plus!

♥ (20) How does your OC feel about public displays of affection?

He's here for it! All of it! He's freaky tho...so it's bound to turn him on and turn into something else.

♥ (22) How often does your OC read romantic literature?

If it's not about money or business (or his daughter's homework) baby boy is not reading about it. Lol

♥ (24) How does your OC determine that they’re attracted to someone?

If he can have deep conversations but also shoot the shit with you, that'll get him. If you have a sense of humor and a smart mouth...He's hooked!

♥ (26) Is your OC ever the first to say “I love you”?

Yes, when he was with [redacted] as a teen and next with his daughter's (Amiri) mother. He was actually engaged to her but she broke it off because he cheated with someone from one of his strip clubs and had a baby. He said it first to Angel also but it was when they were fuckin, so...at that time I don't know if he really loved her or if her coochie was just hella good. LMAO

So he definitely will if his heart is in it. He's romantic and has a tendency to fall in love hard when he does.

♥ (28) What is something unconventional that your OC thinks is romantic?

Doing puzzles together. He LOVES puzzles!

♥ (30) What is your OC’s favorite romantic movie?

Love & Basketball. He knows it line for line!

[shiningshenanigans]

Thoughts on Loki S2E3!

Henceforth and forevermore, Loki and Mobius shall be known as “The Wizard Gentleman and His Butler”

This whole episode had such an interesting vibe. I loved the way they utilized the film/storytelling styles of the time period, with all the melodramatic acting and ragtime score. But, it was also just so different, it took me out of the story at times. I really like it when the show feels grand and ethereal and sci-fi-ish. Still feel like we’re missing some of that this season, but the tonal shifts were a cool storytelling tool nonetheless.

We don’t talk about Mobius and Ravonna enough. Their relationship fascinates me. I love how patient he is with her, how much he genuinely wants her back on his side. The parallels between them and Loki/Sylvie seem very intentional this season. (Ps. I may or may not have a theory that they were married on the timeline, and one or both of their nexus events involved Ravonna leaving him for a Kang Variant. Has anyone theorized about this before and I’m just completely late to the game, or…? Guess we’ll find out soon enough?)

I don’t know how much more of Loki and Sylvie fighting I can take. 😭They’re struggling! They need each other! They both think the other doesn’t care about them anymore and they can’t get a moment to talk about it because the universe is melting! Please, Marvel, just LET THEM REST!!! 😭😭😭

All that said, I am SO👏PROUD👏of my girl Sylvie for starting to recognize that her bloodlust is killing her from the inside out. This is exactly the kind of growth I want for her. Her heartbroken expression when she realizes that killing Timely would make her just like He Who Remains, choosing who lives and who dies for the sake of the greater good… *chefs kiss* Sophia Di Martino knocked that WHOLE PERFORMANCE out of the park. 

Also, as much as I want her and Loki to just hug and make up, I do kind of love the fact that he’s giving her the space she needs to come to these conclusions on her own. He’s been where she is (felt what she feels, etc.). He knows that no amount of persuasion on his part is going to get through to her right now, so he’s letting her figure it out while he works behind the scenes to protect her new life. He’ll be there when she’s ready to take those next steps towards reconciliation (and he better have 10,000 snuggly tablecloths ready because sweet girl needs to be cuddled. A LOT).       

Watching Miss Minutes shift from one dated style of animation to another filled my little animator heart with so much glee. And yes, that whole scene of her coming on to Timely was delightfully terrifying. 

Poor Victor Timely did not ask for any of this when he woke up this morning. Give that man a break.

Ravonna is… awful. I’ve always disliked her. But honestly, hearing her monologue about how often she put the TVA before her own happiness, how it stole her humanity from her… I’m kind of invested in her growth now. Like, I’m starting to want redemption for her, too. Huh.    

Literally everyone in this show is on the same side. They’re all just disagreeing about what the proper course of action is. My guy Mobius’s words are really impacting me right now: “We’ve all lost our way… but someone’s got to keep track of the big picture here.” If that doesn’t ring true of our world, then I don’t know what does.

[elendsessor]

I really love reading people's hcs, especially if it's abtmy special interests. so i was wondering if you have any from the real world (y'know; sheffield, o'brien, real argilla and others ((I'M VERY NORMAL ABT O'BRIEN ">:D

it mostly comes down to sheff and o’brien since everyone else has like next to no complete info or are uber similar to their ai counterparts but i have a few!! sorry if this isn’t the longest list.

spoilers gang

-i mentioned in a previous post greg being a dog trainer but i also see him as doing a thing i see a lot of people at my local dog park do, being using the river as a way to train dogs to swim and retrieve things underwater. there’s also dog walkers who specialize in handling big off leash groups!!! just saying there has to be a reason his name is lupa and i will make up every reason possible as to why sob sob

-that or he has experience as a farmhand. i believe he’s a country boy mostly bc of my experience when i worked at a doggy daycare (there were a ton of people who had hunting dogs or some country adjacent fit i don’t even live in the south how are so many of them like this it must be some sort of requirement)

-bro would own an anatolian shepherd or three. fred was quite literally raised by wolves,,,, and by that i mean dogs meant to fight off wolves and bears (maybe he also has a malamute i mean close enough)

-fred is a roblox and fortnite kid

-if roland counts in this regard he gives me moe szyslak vibes so i do think he shares a lot of traits with him jdgnfsgnoyfgjh

-there was this one time @goatwithaplan made a post about atma avatars as animals and because of it i can’t see roland without thinking of bovines or goats or rams. he would have a pet goat.

(if you can’t tell animals are on the brain right now i’m sorry aaa)

-low key dating adil i can’t believe i remembered his name

-real argilla’s hair isn’t actually blonde.

-she also reminds me of sharpay evans from high school musical so i pretend she’s her.

-sheff is obsessed with true crime and medical shows. probably also would get a kick out of terrifier 1 and 2

-the weird cringe relationship with o’brien is real. they both hate one another for different reasons but god be damned they also have reasons to love one another. they never go on any real dates or say they’re boyfriends they just occasionally fuck.

-sheff flirts a lot. with everyone his age. nobody is safe. not even if you’re married.

-i have like. a nsfw one i’m too afraid to share (i don’t like getting nsfw) but there’s no fucking way sheff isn’t into particular somethings and absolutely annoys o’brien with them (both are consenting i swear)

-o’brien had a growth spurt in his sophomore year of high school. every bit of casual clothing he has is from around that time. maybe he forgets to actually replace them or maybe he doesn’t care.

-sheff has no fashion sense whatsoever and is a cringefail loser

-he has two pet rats who may or may not be named after a certain famous pair of cartoon rats

-constantly goes to shady bars because he would be that guy

-he gets told to shut up constantly. he refuses to. in fact, this makes him worse.

going back to the high school musical mention every weekend someone working on the god project hosts a movie night and yet at least once a month someone asks to watch high school musical 2 or some other dcom

-nobody likes margot. somehow sheffield is better liked. at least he has ✨“personality”✨ (if being an annoying twink counts)

[findroleplay]

Hi! I’m 18+ (she/her) and I’m looking for literate & enthusiastic 18+ roleplayers for an oc x oc romance/drama plot (fxf, mxm, mxf, nb, but with a slight fxf preference rn).

Right now, I’m mostly looking for something that explores darker/heavier elements (tragedy, trauma, hurt/comfort, learning to love/be loved), but I still want to incorporate fluff as well. I’m mostly looking for people who want to write complicated characters and delve into their psyche and how their experiences have shaped them both within and outside of relationships. So, please be comfortable with some angst and dark themes, but we can also discuss triggers/boundaries prior to plotting too. I would also be down for a few fluffy plots with less angst, I’m just not looking for as many of those at the moment.

My main genres are fantasy (medieval, ancient, gaslamp, futuristic), modern, and supernatural (excluding romance/drama since that’s a given) and I’m fine with realistic fcs, descriptions, or drawn/animated fcs. I also love chatting ooc (esp about character writing & ocs) and making playlists if that’s something you also like. If you’re interested in any of the below concepts, leave a like and I’ll reach out!

- vengeful serial killer whose victims all have a link to someone powerful & the agent tasked with covertly eliminating them or catching them

- forbidden romance with two people from rival crime syndicates or noble families (preferably futuristic or fantasy for the second option)

- vampire x vampire hunter / demon x hunter or a god’s vessel/priest

- villain x hero

- android x human

- rival dragonriders

- a god x mortal or cursed demigod x demigod hero

- fantasy arranged marriage w/ rivals to lovers or enemies to lovers

- childhood friends to enemies to lovers or childhood friends to lovers except they can’t get their stuff together and one ends up dating the other’s sibling

- childhood rivals to lovers who’ve spent their childhood competing against one another in almost anything possible. pls give me the dark academia vibes

- (fictional) royal x celebrity

- a spy or assassin romance where they’re either from enemy nations/factions or they’re tasked with hunting each other down

- queen x king’s mistress or mistress x heir(ess) who has to marry to maintain inheritance. bonus points for being set in a period of brewing revolution 👀

- feel free to bring any of your own concepts/ideas!

-

[27vampyresinhermind]

Damn it!!!! So is the Kanchanaburi trip the turning point for all the relationships? That’s when Dean and Pharm level up. Is that when Win and Team are finally gonna admit their feelings to each other instead of just everyone around them!?!?!? At this point, the alphabet gang knows more about Team’s feelings for Win than Win does and he asked him point blank!

JUST TELL YOUR BOYFRIEND YOU LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!

Also, Win used the alphabet gang’s government names lmao!!! He’s like ‘I’ll call you whatever I want and you need to fucking answer’ and those three are just like ‘yes sir’. They learn pretty quick there’s certain things only Team can get away with.

Shit Team’s gonna meet the parents and Win’s introduction just adds to Team’s insecurities about their relationship. Win, if you leave it up to him to define the relationship, you’ll be married with a child and Team is still gonna be like “does he really like me? I bet he marries everyone to make them feel better. I’m not his special husband or anything.” Bitch you better fucking CLAIM him for the world and him to see so there’s no more questioning!!!!!!! Team is adorable but we’ve long established that the boy is no genius. You gotta spell it out for him, and then prolly spell it again because he’s not good at spelling.

Team instantly going into fight mode with those homophobes had me squealing. Like, he’s so protective of Pharm and knows that it would hurt Pharm’s feelings so he was ready to throw down. He won’t fight for himself but if it’s for people he cares about, he will cut a bitch.

Manaow, you’re doing great sweetie! Pruek is there for you cheering for you every step of the way! Damn, only straight dude in the series and girl got him eating out of the palm of her hand and she doesn’t even realize it!!! They’re so cute!!!

Bee was gonna throw hands at that Tum dude! So can we assume that the show Prince is in is a BL? So Prince is gonna be expected to do fanservice with his costar when the show airs? Their story is so cute, I just want the smol beans to be happy.

Waan is trying to piece things together and Tul is over there just stealing his puzzle pieces to keep him from seeing the whole picture! Bro! I know he said he didn’t want to meet in real life but that ship has so obviously sailed off the edge of the horizon you can’t see it anymore. There’s a fight that’s gonna happen when that all comes to light but I feel like it’s gonna end with a kiss because Tul just seems like the kind of dude to make out in the middle of an argument. He gives off those vibes.

Wiew is a literal ray of sunshine and he is collecting big brothers like Pokémon! Team, you have two owners now. I don’t make the rules. Win, if you fuck this up and make Wiew lose his new big brother, you’ll suffer the wrath of the sunshine child. And considering he has no fear running up the death stairs in fucking slippers, you should be scared!

Yet another NC scene we’ve been robbed of!!! And a bar bathroom NC scene at that!!! Not fair!!!!!!!

Whoa….I didn’t think I was gonna ramble this much about the ep. This kind of just became a stream of consciousness post about the ep. Sorry not sorry!

[jacksgreysays]

"Hail to the Queen: She Who Has Divine Right" is interesting, because there are, again, a couple ways this could happen.

The one that first comes to mind is actually her marrying Gaara, and them co-ruling Suna together. After all, her actions with Gelel were what saved their economy. I could definitely see them worshipping Gelel or Shikabane-hime for that. She falls in love with and marries Gaara, only realizing what was going on religiously afterwards. (Though if I'm reading you right, you're more of a Sasuke/Shikako fan and might not be interested just bc of the ship, which is valid)

Another idea that could work would be if the Land of Hot Springs/Ash incident went differently. Maybe Gelel reaches for a dragon vein (right underneath the temple bc that could be part of what made the ritual work) and uses that, along with Shikako, to drive Jashin out and slam the door. That has some sort of side effect that makes it clear that some sort of godly activity took place there. The villagers see Shikako stumble out from the temple, jump to some (correct) conclusions, and start worshipping Shikabane-hime. It spreads from there. Now that it's happened twice, Shikako has access to more of Gelel's power. So this stuff starts to keep happening. Eventually people catch on.

Maybe she goes to the past/different dimension and her 'divinity' starts showing again. People start considering her the patron deity of the Nara. Then they join Konoha and she starts to reveal more of her skills. This is usually because they just weren't needed before, but because they happen to be skills that tend to show up more in other clans (ex: sealing & the Uzumaki), they start thinking that maybe she's growing to be the patron deity of Konoha instead. The fact that she showed up out of nowhere and stopped aging when she turned 21 only supports this theory, to her great frustration. She eventually gives in to the idea when the Mangekyo Sharingan recognizes her as Shikabane-hime. Hashirama is just happy to have a clear successor that everyone is in favor of.

Just some thoughts :)

Hello again aryaokayfriend!

I’m going to say, first of all, I am very surprised that’s the vibe I give off considering my first ever DoS recursive was a Shikaara fic of serene, uncomplicated affection while every time I have to consider Shikako and Sasuke dynamic for a fic I have to go through a checklist of

1) how platonic can the relationship be in order for this to work/be entertaining 2) obviously if there’s any romance it is from Sasuke’s side but does Shikako even reciprocate or is she 2a) going with the flow, or 2b) entirely unable to view Sasuke as romantic due to 2bi) knowing who Sasuke as a character could have turned out to be in canon (an asshole), 2bii) knowing Sasuke as a person since they were little kids 2biii) knowing that she has way more information about the machinations that ruined his life than he does and that she 2biii-) didn’t do anything to stop (even by telling an adult who probably wouldn’t have believed her, but still, no attempt was made) 2biii=) continues to keep it a secret from him even though the literal mastermind behind the murder of his family is walking around the village without any consequences

In all fairness it is probably because of that drama that I write more Shikasuke fic and the ANBU Red Team dynamic is fantastic, so I can see why I might give off that vibe. Whereas because my Shikaara feelings are so uncomplicated and serene I feel like I’ve written all of my Shikaara fic many moons ago (and, admittedly, before I figured out a good tagging/ao3 uploading system so they’re kinda sprinkled around and hard to find T_T)

I am, of course, a multishipper. :D

All that being said, I don’t know if your first idea really meets the brief of She Who Has Divine Right since it seems like her ascension to become “queen” (aka the Kazekage’s consort in this case? Because I can’t imagine Suna’s council would be okay with a Leaf nin co-ruling their village) is more about her marrying Gaara than the Divine powers given to her by Gelel.

Like, if anything, a more “She Who Has Divine Right” adherent take would be if, because she has melded with Gelel, she automatically becomes the leader of Haido’s… country? nation? castle?… or I guess what was actually Temujin’s before Haido killed his parents and etc. ESPECIALLY since according to the wiki “only the royal blood of his clan could forge stones from the ore” and we definitely know that Shikako has her own Gelel stone.

Oh, and it could double for a She Who Leads The Armies since I think they were an invading force that was going to mess with the Elemental Nations (starting with Land of Wind) before Shikako and co. stopped them.

So it would appear that not only did Haido’s invasion fail to, like, six teenagers and a ferret, BUT also the god/divine presence that fuels their literal heart stones also REJECTED Temujin—who is 1) Haido’s heir and 2) the actual original royalty—in favor of one of said six teenagers by fusing with her.

So, you know, now Shikako is the leader of a country/nation outside of the known continent that tried to invade lol. This is just her upping the ante of turning attempted invaders (Sand Siblings) into allies. ;)

~

People earnestly worshiping Shikabane-hime in such a way that it becomes a feedback loop of power -> miracles -> worship -> more power is very entertaining to me because Shikako would also find it entertaining or at least fascinating if it were happening to LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE. As is, the idea of a reluctant burgeoning god is pretty fun. Although part of me is wondering if this would necessarily count as a Hail to the Queen since BEING divine and HAVING divine right are separate things? And of course a lot of my Hail to the Queen series doesn’t necessarily have her become Hokage explicitly—sometimes they are more about being the power behind the throne or the circumstances that push her towards becoming Hokage even though she wouldn’t want to take that from Naruto nor would she want that at all for herself—so it’s not like a governmental leadership role is necessary for the series. But I feel like just becoming a god kind of takes out the intricate… maneuvering? legalese? puzzle?… of becoming queen/queen equivalent.

ALTHOUGH, ALTHOUGH, nothing says that she can’t become QUEEN OF THE GODS.

(I mean, she did pretty handily smack down Jashin as a little god with almost no worshipers to her name and still in a mortal form. That’s pretty embarrassing for him, honestly.)

Or, for a slightly less megalomaniacal take, there was that Changeling ficlet in which I imply that changelings are sent across to the shinobi world to learn and grow and prove themselves and then come back (with or without mortal Knights) to fight in the Courtly Wars and maybe become the new Fae Monarchs

So, you know, she doesn’t need to be human to be a queen.

~

As for the last part of your ask, I don’t know if it matches exactly what you wrote, but I did have She Who Makes The Crown in which Shikako time travels/is summoned by a young Tobirama and is, like, an un-aging advisor to the Nidaime all throughout his reign and helps him build Konoha

It kind of hits on some of the things you mentioned (not exactly, of course) but close enough that I think it might be repetitive if I went that route.

[clearcloudlesssky]

*sips tea* WHY, HELLO THERE

I am here to inquire about your writing! (I just want to give you an excuse to make a tumblr post about it because you're an amazing writer)

Who's your favorite oc and why?

What two characters do you think have the most interesting dynamic together out of the ones youve written?

What tropes do you use the most?

Do you have any ocs you think youd get along with irl? Any you think you'd hate irl?

ALSO...CAN I MARRY ORPHEUS??? (and eule i love them both)

WHY, HELLO TO YOU AS WELL

thank you for inquiring about my writing!! it means a lot seriously

i am so so sorry i didn’t answer this sooner i literally did not know that there was a inbox until today sobs

well anyhoo questions

1) who’s your favorite oc and why?

my favorite oc at the moment is levine. mostly cause depressed doctor with a missing inventor childhood friend, who disappeared after a morally wrong experiment, but then the subject of that experiment appears at his doorstep and what tf is he supposed to do now.

plus i just like his personality (me saying he’s quiet and hates interacting with people just like me frfr)

ok but on the legitimate side of things

levine tends to portray himself as a misanthrope who dislikes spending time with others, but in reality he uses it as a mask to cover up the fact that he doesn’t actually hate people, rather he ends up caring too much, so he just withdraws.

he pretends to be the first option, but ultimately he’s a bleeding heart disguised as a cynic. yes, he’s bitter and somewhat jaded by certain events, but that doesn’t stop him from feeding the scrawny cat on the side of the road or taking in a child? automaton? person? that was left to him.

plus his relationship with childhood friend aka local crazy woman camille who is his exact opposite is fun to write

2) what two characters do you think have the most interesting dynamic together out of the ones you’ve written?

hmmm out of the characters that i’ve written so far the relationship between yuna and neva is probably the most interesting to me, seconded by marion and cinna.

in yuna/neva’s case it’s the mixture of childhood-friends-turned-reluctant-enemies-but-not-really, and the thing about their vibe that i like is that they just keep making each other worse. they love each other, they adore each other, but they also hate and despise each other, and whenever one falls it’s inevitable that the other follows.

yuna is usually the one to take the first downward plunge, without any hesitation, and she always looks back at neva like “are you coming?” —and neva always looks at her, and something inside her whispers that this is wrong, she shouldn’t be doing this, but another part says yes this feels good, and enjoys the thrill, and it’s that side that wins over like all of the time.

because when it comes down to it yuna just does what she wants in the moment, without much regard for the future or the people around her. maybe a different person could reel her in, or clean up her messes, or tell her hey this is wrong, but that person will never be neva. neva is kinda apathetic to both life and people, she’s just plodding through life. yes, she has a better moral compass than yuna, but she’s not pressed enough to follow through on that bit of conscience within her and stop what they’re doing, so everything usually just spirals and spirals until it explodes.

that was basically them in their teenage years, and when the story starts as reuniting adults, the pattern just. happens again but on a larger scale. i told you they’re my toxic lesbians and i love themmmm

3) what tropes do you use the most?

erm i would say that i use “childhood friends” AKA “knew each other in youth” wayyyy too frequently. also a sucker for the parental figure and traumatized child relationship

4) do you have any ocs you think you’d get along with irl? any you think you’d hate?

i think that i’d get along with eurydice (wow i should probably rename her) mostly because she’s a chill lady, runs a tea shop. i’d like to get a drink from her and just relax. i also think i’d get along with doll but let’s be real, doll gets along with like 99% of the people they meet. they are my sunshine porcelain automaton child. (i coparent with levine.)

erm i would probably dislike hanging around yuna, enough said about that. i kinda want to say marion but i wrote him to be fairly charismatic and i don’t think that i would be immune haha

5) can i you marry orpheus (also eule)

STOP MARRYING PEOPLE’S OCS ASHER >:(((((

you have permission to marry eule. but marion comes as a side piece. this is non-negotiable.

as for orpheus, ask anil lmao

suddenly occurs to me that nobody knows who these people are. oH well maybe i’ll post more later TwT

i wrote this at 2AM coughing so if this is incoherent i sincerely apologize

[wondernus]

alright nu, I remember giving you a list of recs before and now I bring more with commentary 😏 now you don’t have to read any of these but they’re some of my current reads that I dig :D

Starting off with…..

1. Lion Heart by Choi Soohyun

Manwha, Josei, modern, medical romance, married-to-work-chaebol x equally-married-to-work-surgeon, he fell first then fell harder, hilarious side characters, contract relationship, immaculate chefs kiss, INSANE ART pls they’re so hot

Season 1 complete, season 2 just started

2. The Top Couple Is a Bit Sweet

Manhua, shoujo but walks the line of josei a little, modern, romcom drama, showbiz, another contract relationship 🤩, more insane art with a hot couple, I haven’t read very far but the vibes and chemistry are off the charts tbh, he totally fell first, power couple frfr

Season 1 almost complete I think

3. I Stan The Prince

Manwha, shoujo, historical but lots of modern references, romcomfan, TOOTH ROTTING SWEETNESS, ML has actual mfing emotions and shows them, she fell first he fell harder ordeal, original work so no novel, not as cliche as you may think, MORE INSANE ART, one of my top faves of all time omg, this one is for the kpoppies

Season 1 complete, season 2 just picked up after a two year hiatus 🥹

4. The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague

Manga, josei, modernc slice-of-life, supernatural office romcom, SO WHOLESOME, lot of memes in this one, ML is sososo sweet, FL is too cool, japanese lore is what makes this supernatural, side couples are equally amazing, just super cute light read

Volumes 1-7 completed, vol.8 ongoing

5. Run, Meil

Manwha, shoujo, isekai, historical, romcom, memes are abundant here too, girl gang is so comedic, ML is sweet, FL isn’t dumb and is actually smart nor does she care about original storyline, og!fl is a cutie too and gets her own happy ending, miscommunications are mild and get spoken through, I’m super picky about shoujos but I love this one

Season 1 complete, season 2 TBA

6. The Girl and The Geek

Manhwa, josei but cute like a shoujo, modern, romcom, slide of life, MAJOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, super sweet and natural love, they make each other better 🥹🥹🥹, their families can be annoying, her family I can’t really forgive, but his family is only initially overbearing but you def warm up to them, humble rich CEO dude, miscommunications but their handled pretty well and actually does something for the plot, ugh the story is so good

COMPLETED WITH SPECIAL EPISODES

idk if you follow Stray Kids but ml is so han jisung coded, there’s a recent photo of han that is soooo this ML 😭😭

HONORABLE MENTION BC IDK IF I REC’D IT BEFORE BUT I’VE TALKED ABOUT IT

7. You Are My Desire (aka Daydreaming About Me)

Manhua, josei, romcom drama, starts off in high school but later half is in college, first loves, some mature topics in relation to family problems, idek what to say but god I just love them sfm and I think the artist is from the same studio as the Hidden Love artist, the novel is sauuuuur good, comic does it justice but I recommend the novel even more

Season 1 ongoing but novel is complete

HI AUTUMN!! i'm sorry this was from so long ago alskfjlasjdf but I added every single one of these recs onto my reading list so I'll be getting to them when I have time and when they're close to being finished. here are some of my recs in return!!! (these are all completed)

L -> R

father I don't want this marriage: I think this one just ended but GOD I love a good reincarnation manhwa and a DILF. the plot is really cliche but I just love the genre so much

the dilettante: E2L mafia member x secret agent. what more do you want?? (I wanted so much more that I looked up the original korean novel and went to a forum to read about what happens in the novel)

bring the love: I hate how some people dropped this because they didn't like the art style but this literally has to be one of the best romances I've ever read. the characters are mature and they communicate really well. they touch upon a lot of social topics that aren't usually talked about in the historical genre. green flags all around.

do you know anything about tpo kageyama-kun?!: plugging a kagehina dj because I squealed when I read this and literally reread it over and over bc of how cute it was

[weekend-whip]

What's your opinion on the "love at first sight" thing from ninjago? And do you have any headcanon With Pixal an Skylor?

Short Answer: Very 50/50 with it. Love what we did get from it, but by god the executions could have been handled better. 

You sly dog, you got me monologuing. Going slightly off-topic cuz i have THOUGHTS

Long Answer: On one hand, it was already a bold enough move to include even a little romance in a toy commercial aimed a young boys, especially when it was so far from the premise of the show to begin with, so I’m not all that torn up about these things happening “too quick”. From one perspective, it’s just another little facet about the characters that helps drive them in the future, and doesn’t necessarily have to be explored deeper, because that’s not the overall point of the story (unless it’s tied with the plot of the season itself, and at least then it does get well-deserved focus). 

On the other hand, I can absolutely understand why people would find it forced, rushed, or unnecessary (or in Kailor’s case, not doing enough), and that’s valid too. If they really were going to go this route, especially with Zane, then they should’ve at least dedicated an episode of them finding the foundation for a bond rather than swan diving into infatuation. Like I’ve said in my fic, it’s hard to be invested in something that happens offscreen lmao. And there’s also the whole thing of these girls juts being brought into the picture to be love interests, rather than having a full dedicated character of their own. Nya’s obviously somewhat of an exception, and Pixal and Skylor do get their moments (eventually), but generally they’re left very flat if they’re not with the object of their affections. 

Jay, while instantly falling for Nya, gets several seasons worth of ups and down that have impact on their characters until it accumulates which, while that might drive people to believe their relationship is “bad” just because it wasn’t consistently perfect, I found them much more interesting because they had to go through the growing pains to get where they are now. They did get together too quick, especially when Nya wasn’t really giving off any “I have a crush” vibes but liked Jay’s attention. And while they did have several communication bumps and disagreements, they were still able to take a step back, reexamine themselves, and readjust enough to the point that they’re practically married now! And they’re happy! I love it! I really, genuinely do! And I know that Jaya tends to cannibalize Jay’s character as an individual too, but she’s just that big of a part of his life. It’s not that he doesn’t have things he likes to do on his own; he just prefers to do them with her. But, it’s just gotta be in a way that respects Nya’s boundaries and her own preference of doing things on her own. Which is something they come to an agreement about!! And it’s good!! 

But then, you’ve got Zane and Pixal just looking at each other and becoming a thing within like three episodes. Not even a “Zane takes Pixal out in the city and shows her how to be more human” kind of episode, no “Pixal helps him get in better touch with his technological side”, nah! Things you’d think you’d get in a Zane season! She just dies, Zane literally breaks his heart for her, and then suddenly they’re the most adorable thing to happen on the whole show sdfghjkhgf. It’s tragic, honestly! That they have this much great chemistry together but next to nothing to show for it besides life or death circumstances!! I literally wrote a fic on that too! Because as much as I love them and their ship and the strength of their give and take, how they started I just cannot get over! Even if Zane fell immediately, there could have been some interesting tension between him dealing with his new feelings and Pixal realizing that she has feelings to begin with! Just some missed opportunities there, really. 

And then—oooh, and then! Kai and Skylor! If anyone I could believe would fall at first sight, it would be Kai! And it’s hilarious, because he’s flirted with other people in the past and now here he is, suddenly and genuinely interested in this intriguing and probably very attractive individual and his usual flirty tricks aren’t always working!! Which would then make him reexamine himself and also actually talk to Skylor to see if they could even work to begin with!!  Or Kai manages to show Skylor some of what’s she’s missed out on while presumably living her whole life on the island and oop there she goes catching some feelings and then we get to see her QUESTION some of her morally dubious actions!! But that’s not what we got lmfao!!!!! That being said, watching them play off of each other is SO much fun, ESPECIALLY when they’re working together running from Chen in the jungle AND THEY HUG but ummmmm...we still know next to nothing about Skylor. I love Skylor, and I ADORE Kailor, but both of them deserve more than a orange piece of cardboard that’s sassy and clever sometimes *lies down* I’m so sorry sweetie it’s NOT your FAULT

aND ON ONE HAND, I’m insane and actually do kind of like that they’re keeping their relationship out of the light, and it gets to develop on their own terms at their own pace without having to be put on a pedestal for others. That avoids the problems Jaya went through. Maybe they are kinda together, maybe they don’t have a label for it, maybe they’re nervous about making the first move, maybe they’ve been a thing the whole time, but it’s no one else’s business! We get glimpses every now and then that show they still have eyes for one another, or that they’re important to one another, and that’s okay!! It can be enough!!! They’re spicy but they’re also subtle and that’s lovely in it’s own way!!

.....But of course, that only works if it was intentional, and by Crystalized we sure know it wasn’t!!! And the true horrid irony of it all was that how they handled it in Crystalized could’ve been something we’d gotten the whole time, yet the blows would have been cushioned by the fact we would’ve have time to absorb this over the seasons, rather than smacked over the head with it in the clutch. And yet, as much as I wanna be sad that we didn’t get more, or at least sooner, what we did get was just so THEM that i can’t be fully mad!! Kai’s still fumbling but he knows what he wants and can voice it; Skylor’s uncertain but willing to hear him out and wants to hear him out, but they still have silent moments of understanding and can and will take the time to talk things out when they’re able an hnnnnng i love them so muuuuuuuch aaaaaaugh why did i write three paragraphs about kailoooooor kill meeeee

So anyway love at first sight isn’t inherently bad, but it’s how you handle the follow up of it afterward that makes it either something to loathe or something to at least come to appreciate *shrug* 

And I know you also asked for headcanons but aaaaah everything that’s a hc of mine is probably going to wind up in Legacyverse, and I don’t wanna spoil too many small surprises x3 

[we-are-inevitable]

Your ask box is my kingdom, I am taking it over

But anyway I so badly want your thoughts on Jack and Davey in my college prof au please please please I know I haven't spoken about it on tumblr yet except from a little bit but I love your Javid so yeah

-has watched high school musical thank you very much

ok ok @roideny obvi this is your au but here are my Very Important thoughts bc i love them Very Much ugh. in love w them

David Jacobs-Kelly:

44 years old, born in ‘79

Undergrad: majored in English, minored in Creative Writing

Masters: Poetics and Theory AdvC- NYU

Doctorate: English and American Literature, thesis is over gender and sexuality in Shakespeare

he’s been Dr. Jacobs-Kelly for about seventeen years by the time the story takes place!

as a prof, he teaches a comp class, an honors comp (Critical Analysis and Writing), and some creative writing/poetry courses! he’s a very busy man.

he meets Race, Albert, and Finch because they’re students in his comp class!

when he’s not teaching, he’s really involved in the local queer scene. i feel like he’s a staple at drag brunches and pride celebrations; he’s not a huge club fan anymore but he still loves being Involved. growing up during the aids crisis is traumatizing at the least, and im sure he lost a few friends, so he stays up to date in the queer stuff to sort of honor them.

he marries jack in 2011 when gay marriage is legalized in new york!

he’s a huge shakespeare fan, as seen by his phd studies. he has a hamlet-inspired tattoo because he’s gay

tbh he probably has a cat named after shakespeare (they have two cats im calling it now. shakespeare and bryan, name courtesy of jack)

he and jack don’t have any kids, but he’s a loving fun uncle for Les and Sarah’s respective kids!

Jack Jacobs-Kelly:

45 years old, born in ‘78

Undergrad: Studio Art! but he dropped out after a semester <33

he just decided that college wasn’t for him. why pay money for something he doesn’t need?

he goes straight into a set design apprenticeship that medda helps him get! medda is his adoptive mom, so he’s been around queer spaces and theatre since he was around 15. he loves it, it’s his home

that being said he probably sells his own paintings and maybe does mural work on the side, he likes to keep busy and is invested in the art scene, and he meets davey when davey moves to New York for his masters! he’s the reason davey stays in NYC <33

he’s very eccentric, and very much doesn’t give a fuck. he’s a black queer man- the universe already nerfed him, so why worry about anything else? i can see him being the really go-with-the-flow husband to davey’s more tight-strung academic vibe. they really balance each other out

again, they don’t have kids, but i feel like this jack is very much For The Youths? i can see him volunteering a lot, working for organizations that help troubled kids get into the arts— i feel like it’s his passion project that makes him feel better when davey is busy at the university all day. in another life he’s a foster parent, but he and davey just don’t have the lifestyle to foster, so he focuses his energy elsewhere!

whenever davey “adopts” some freshmen he’s always on board. he really hits it off with Albert!

not as involved in the queer scene as davey, but his career is literally in musical theatre set design, so even if he’s not in the queer scene he’s In The Queer Scene

i don’t wanna talk about him losing medda but i can see him eventually inheriting the theater!

he loves his nieces and nephews! he’s a big family guy

Extra Thoughts:

jack and davey are a pair. they rarely go anywhere outside of work without each other, and they’re so, SO in love.

jack pretty regularly comes to see Davey while he’s at work; he’ll bring him lunch to office hours and pop in to watch him lecture from time to time.

davey attends the opening night of every show jack works on <33

their apartment is always a mess LMAO. davey has papers and books everywhere, there’s paint on the floor, brushes all over the place— it’s what happens when you cross a tired academic and an adhd creative. shit happens.

they actually stay pretty hip and on-trend? idk how it happens but jack is rlly good with youth culture and davey is on top of gay culture so like. yeah they work.

over summers and breaks, they travel a lot! not anything crazy expensive— they love international travel, but they’re also a big fan of road trips and rental cars!

they are my FAVORITES and i love them so much

[chidoroki]

Hell’s Paradise EP1

aka: gabimaru the hollow soft. he’s a good boy.

The fact this gave me Dororo vibes and is also produced by MAPPA means I’m in for a good time.. although nothing says “happy new series day” like starting off with an execution. Hurray death?

“Furthermore, beheading a person with a single blow is next to impossible. In most cases, several blows are required to behead a person, which makes executions a horrific spectacle.” Seeing how Gabimaru has scars on the back of his neck already I assume it ain’t easy to kill this man.

Can he like.. not actually die? His neck broke that sword in half..

Let’s goooo OP! The little bit we heard from trailers has literally been stuck in my head for weeks now.

Oohh it’s all so pretty.. the song was as good as expected too!

Okay watching it over again and noticing a whole lot of flowers, Gabimaru blazing like an infernal, Tenza badly injured, the blonde chick with the eye scar possibly Gabimaru’s wife? and an unexpected sweet smile from Chobei. Oh I’m so excited to see everyone.

Our man is from the hidden rock village hm? Do ya know Deidara?.. Is that how he broke the blade. Are you made out of stone my guy?

“For someone from Iwagakure, breaking a blade with your own flesh is a simple task.” “Well, yeah. Someone that shitty with a sword can’t hurt me.” Pfft not even four minutes in and he’s won me over.

People have tried stabbing him with a spear to kill him and once said spear breaks, all he can say is “sorry.” No, I’m sorry, I love him so much already.

They even tried burning him alive to no avail. Sweetie are you cursed or something?

This guy holding baby Gabimaru really just killed his parents in front of him?

He can’t even be pulled apart by two bulls.. why does death always escape you sir if you wish for it so bad?

“I had the chief’s recognition and married his daughter. But his daughter was a real idiot.” Wow Gabimaru, tell me how you really feel.

Dude you said you would give up on life yet here you are yet again surviving another execution, which this time is nonchalantly walking out of burning oil like it’s no big deal.

Okay I’ve been hearing a small bell chime whenever Sagiri was onscreen but I couldn’t figure out where the hell the actually bell was til now.

Oh shit, he’s actually scared she could kill him! That vision sliced his head clean off.

“Do I not want to die?” Apparently not! Heaven knows why though.

“To you, is she not your reason to live?” Aw he does care for wifey. But aaah look at the smile and blush of his in the flashback!

Bro he spoke softly this whole time but hearing him yell out now against Sagiri to try and convince himself he has no attachments feels so raw and real. His voice actor is nailing it.

Ah I was right, the lady in the OP with the scar was his wife. Ma’am what is your name? You’re being so sweet to our main man.

Wait, her own father burned her face? What a bastard.

Gabimaru got so flustered from just a simple kiss. He is so precious!

“Someone like you couldn’t possibly be hollow.” Such a pleasant surprise to see he’s not actually emotionless. I didn’t expect him to act this way at all but I love it.

Humans become flowers in the underworld place? Suddenly the OP doesn’t seem very beautiful..

“Traveling to a mysterious island with heinous criminals condemned to death and competing with them for a pardon is the only way for you to be reunited with her.” So I assume just one criminal, whomever returns with the elixir of life, will be spared, while the others will be killed hm? Which is a shame because despite not seeing anyone else yet I’m quite curious to meet the others we’ve saw glimpses of in trailers! And I’m not ready to get attached to them like I already have to Gabimaru if they’re all gonna die!

Ooohh he’s finally using some ninjutsu!

He can be so fierce yet so laid back, how impressive.

I was about to comment on how calming the ending song is focusing on Sagiri til it gives us flashes of Gabimaru going crazy, most likely killing enemies. Oops.

MMHHMM overall a real strong start! Gabimaru is already such a joy to watch and the animation is nice so far too.

[angclnumber]

𝑷𝑳𝑶𝑻 𝑾𝑰𝑺𝑯𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 !

i just wanted to put all my wanted plots in one place . if you are interested in any of these plots please like this post and i will slide into your dms !

zombie apocalypse plot - v much inspired by the last of us on this one, but pls

a band plot ( or mumu ! ) - v much inspired by daisy jones and the six on this one, but a bandmates plot where they’re all entangled and messy ? 

costars plot ( or mumu ! ) - two actors who are playing romantic interests who maybe begin to fall for each other while their characters do ? or two actors in like a harry potter or that 70s show situation, where they’ve been acting together since forever and suddenly these feelings begin to pop up ?

modern royalty plot - it could be an arranged marriage kind of vibe and the drama of that, or maybe they want to be together but they can’t because they’re both arranged to marry someone else ?

bodyguard / client plot - this could go with the modern royalty plot because maybe this is the bodyguard of the royal who is in love with them while they’re betrothed to another ? or the client could be a celeb or other public figure ! 

heist plot ( or mumu ! ) - i am begging for this ,,, i will give you my firstborn . maybe a bonnie and clyde esque duo ? they’re in love and they’re on the run ? 

fake dating plot - this could also be a celeb plot or maybe something along the lines of the proposal even ?

mariage of convenience plots - i just think they're neat ...

life as we plot it plot - okay but 'we hate each other and only tolerate each other because my best friend married your best friend but oh wait they've both d*ed and left their child to us both' will simply always hit as a plot i'm sorry

the bear plot - heavy on the syd and carmy vibes pls . idec if it's platonic or romantic i simply want what they have

quogan plot - listen i know it's been 84 years and it really might just be me but zoey 102 is bringing back my obsession with these two so i would d word for a reimagined zoey 101 mumu or even just a quogan 1x1 ,,, pls

dark academia - i’m always down for anything dark academia always . literally anything . 

married in vegas plot - listen … i love these so bad . or like a marriage of convenience plot ? sign me up .

enemies to lovers plot - i am always up for this and enemies with benefits . if enemies to lovers have one fan that fan is me .

best friends to lovers plot - special shoutout to childhood friends to lovers , that’s my bestie 

best friends brother plot - what can i say, i like the drama 

a society plot - based off netflix’s the society ,,, let’s fix what netflix broke 

rockstar plot - please refer to this post ... yes i am still in the market for this all interested parties pls apply < 3

[mvalentine]

so im just sitting in jfk thinking thoughts and ignoring cam and catching up on our trr2 replay and my mind is wandering to the land of wasted potential… like an Olivia spin off backstory whatever because the TENSION in bk2 where she’s like ‘Hes marrying her and in love with you etc etc’ and she runs off hurts my heart 💔 if we got to choose how the story played out in a true choose ur own adventure doo you think liam/adam x Olivia could be a thing? Do you think they ever were???

And in that camping scene pls give me ur hc on Audrey x Drake bc my girl Anya still hasn’t kissed the bloke by then and is she horny on main 🥲😅

LMAOO as you should good to know you have your priorities in check <333 but nah fr dom i hope you’re feeling alot better now!!

also omg YES both me & audrey in the camp of feel bad for her because you can tell that liam is the only person she’s ever loved & omg she’s loved him for AGES crown or no crown it’s always been liam for her. & im actually in the camp of people who believe that yeah, olivia x the prince could be a real thing!! i really like their fire & ice dynamic, & i would totally live for an au where olivia moves on post engagement fail but was liam’s biggest support system post his heartbreak but then liam starts seeing her in a different light & starts get jealous and shit & then is like wait why am i jealous oh no….. oh wait…… it can’t be…… i want HER to be pined after i want the one who’s pined their whole life to be the one who’s pined for (a la loml pen <333) but yk at the end of the day im maddie & olivia ride or die. but tell me your thoughts!!!! i need to know 💗💗💗

also AHHHHH the camping scene another one of my fav scenes honestly the writers were truly feeding us drake romancers in book2 <333 but also BESTIE anya has more self restraint than me or audrey because goddamn. no but like the way he takes it so seriously & is giving out orders is so adorable to her like is this man fr. and that scene where she goes in the tent she’s kinda like wtf am i doing the prince im supposed to marry is literally right next to us have i lost my mind?!? & then he’s all like wtf are you doing here & this bitch is just like i need body heat <333 and he’s just like shit oh yeah true (like WHAT. i can’t tell if the choices drake knows that the mc is being fr or nah. kinda like the vibe of drake taking camping & the mc’s well-being so seriously that he’s just like yup! okay valid!) —- but anyways the scene where the mc is like you take it so seriously you were barking out orders & then drake is like wait did i ruin it :( with his sad face AHHHH i swear audrey wanted to kiss that adorable little pout from his face she’s like nah it was cute & he’s like cute? and she’s like yeah 🥰 & then he’s all like what else can i do to make your experience more memorable miss huntzberger like shut UP they’re such dorks!! but also i SWEAR mr. walker was down to fornicate (the true meaning of dtf btw!!) in those woods like if fuckin maxwell ugh i really dislike him more & more each play hadn’t interrupted i swear they would have fucked like this man was really like yeah next time we’re coming to the woods alone im gonna go down on you all night you can be as loud as you want baby. but yeah the whole time anya was just thinking of how much she wants this simple life with him how easy & right it feels how right he feels ugh she’s so in love it’s actually sickening to witness.

[lanawinterscigarettes]

Another long ask incoming as I’m gonna reply in one ask!

I do keep going back to read the fic! Ooh, I love the idea of Missy being a massive tease (although tbf when is she not) and also possibly the idea of both Clara and the reader absolutely loving watching the other get flustered at Missy’s teasing and/or joining in on the teasing, but being so embarrassed when they’re getting flustered because of it. I’ve just Googled Michelle in chilling adventures of Sabrina her outfits in that are so Missy-coded.

I’m a scatterbrain too haha! I’m that type of person who’s doing a million things at once and my mouth works way faster than my brain, I genuinely think I’ve got ADHD but I can’t get diagnosed or anything because my family don’t support it and the waiting list is 5+ years so for now my dopamine chasing it is!

Yes…I will admit I had to Google what a saltine is 😭 also yes Clara is an only child she gives off only child vibes and I literally swoon for it because most people have siblings and I’m an only child myself so to see her be so headstrong and everything with her family even like in that TOTD deleted scene where she says she only cooks the turkey so her family don’t eat each other she’s both pretty and adorable!! (Amongst other things)

I will say though I haven’t seen Sherlock and I don’t like tea which are basically two crimes against humanity at this point. The only reason I got into Doctor who in the first place was a friend was showing me her Twitter timeline and I saw Clara and was like ‘wow she’s pretty’ (obviously didn’t say that out loud) and then it spiralled from there 😭

As for Wilderness, I 100% ship Liv and Cara especially after the scene in the bedroom where the girls are sharing clothes and Liv basically tells Cara that she’s not an object to be used by men, hc Liv helps Cara wipe her makeup off and then shows her how to be treated by a woman if you get what I’m saying and for the first time the pair could be properly vulnerable, and Liv is savage she would totally be like ‘my so called husband cheated with her, so I can too’ and then if Will found out (because there’s this scene where Will interrogates Liv about being too close to Cara and she teases about him being jealous) I could totally see her saying ‘you can sleep with her, so why can’t I?’ And just driving him up crazy in a not good way at the thought of his wife sleeping with another woman. Maybe after the scene with the blue and yellow dresses at the bar (you’ll get what I mean if/when you watch it). I mean, if Will doesn’t want Liv…I’ll happily take her myself all I’m sayin’.

Sorry for me just suggesting you a bunch of shows with Jenna Coleman in, can you tell I’ve got a bit of a crush 🤣🤦‍♀️ Emmerdale and Wilderness are genuinely good though and if you can watch them you should and let me know what you think 🫶

I give off star vibes!! Greatest achievement ever. Also oh my gosh Clara x reader at the planetarium or something - I went to a planetarium when I was a kid absolutely loved it. If you do anything Clara x reader involving stars I will die in a good way, you’re spot on about me liking stargazing I always try to take pictures of them and I love learning the constellations. Maybe a fic at the planetarium or somewhere similar where Clara presumes it boring because she knows it’s a school trip location, but changes her mind after seeing the reader excitedly going on about the stars or getting a kiss during the planetarium light show (the light show is this interactive dome, or at least at my fairly local planetarium, where you lay back and watch a screen filled with stars and learn about the constellations it’s super dark and perfect for a secret kiss but also is like, sensory perfect). Genuinely like if I ever had a partner in the future and they took me stargazing or to the planetarium or something I’d marry them on the spot - it’s one of those things with me where it’s obvious if you know but nothing if you don’t - like I have a star necklace or I have a blue sandstone ring which looks like a night sky or my phone and iPad cases are both constellations, or how I will literally stand out in the cold bundled up like a marshmallow just to see the stars twinkle. To someone else it would be just a phone case or just a ring but if someone took enough care about me to notice those things without me telling them I’d marry them - sorry for the XL yap that’s just gone on there 😭

I haven’t seen the classic masters! But I do love Missy from nuwho. The folding is REAL

I do trust your artistic vision, mainly because you’ve given me reason to your writing is great!!

I’m so glad that you love my requests!! I try to write them detailed but with enough creative room to add in artistic flair, so I’m so happy you love them. Don’t worry about the length, any writing you do is amazing and any river/missy/clara/fem reader is always appreciated even if only by me 🫶

I love the tumblr verse, it’s allowed me to be star anon!!

Hope you’re doing okay Aeron, and sending you many hugs 🫶

- ⭐️

I'm definitely going to have some more of missy teasing clara and the reader for the second part so don't worry 🤭 and from what I've seen michelle's character has a very missy-like personality too, like she's teasing but can also be very firm when she needs to be. of course I haven't seen the acutal show yet so I could be wrong haha

I completely get what you mean, I have undiagnosed autism that I literally spent years thinking about and questioning whether I had it only to tell a friend what I thought and have them immediately respond with "no yeah you're totally autistic there's not a doubt in my mind"

yeah sorry I should've just said they were a kind of cracker right from the go 😭 and I'm also an only child! (kind of... I have two half siblings I wasn't raised with and I was always spoiled as the only grandchild on my mom's side so I basically consider myself to be one)

I honestly have no clue how I got started watching sherlock, I just know I was very upset when they took it off netflix how many years ago so my mom bought me the complete series on dvd (my dvd collection is massive... I have all nuwho doctors from the ninth to the thirteenth on dvd because I don't trust streaming services at all haha) and I get what you mean about tea, assuming you're talking about hot tea that is, I'm not a fan of it. I prefer sweet tea, which is something very popular in the southern part of the states where I'm from. it's made in large pitchers at a time with tons of sugar and gets poured over ice. idk if you'd like it or not but if you ever get the chance to try it then I definitely recommend, especially if you have a bit of a sweet tooth like me. and I wanna say I got introduced to doctor who through david tennant? I remember seeing a few random episodes on tv several years ago and thinking it looked cool but I only got super invested within the past year or so

right like men will really cheat on their wives or just do problematic/questionable things in general but when said wives start acting the same way they throw hissy fits. let your wife have an affair too if she wants will 🙄😒 (sorry I swear I'm not trying to promote cheating I just think men can be ridiculous sometimes) and women can usually treat other women so much better anyway so there's that 🤷

it's totally fine, don't worry! I'm constantly yapping to anyone who will listen about my favorite shows/characters so you're all good 🥰 and I'm definitely going to have to check out both emmerdale and wilderness when I get the chance to because if there's one thing I love in shows it's drama (one of my favorite shows is literally called gossip girl so take that as you will lmao)

seriously star anon is such a perfect fit for you!! and it's no worries, I always love hearing you yap 💕 I'm definitely going to have to write some kind of clara x reader planetarium fic at some point, that idea sounds so cute and fluffy I can't stand it (in a good way I promise)

honestly I didn't think you could get more charming than the nuwho masters but the classic masters certainly know how to use their charm to get what they want. the doctor and his companions are stronger than I am because I'd just let the master do whatever they wanted as long as they were nice to me (I'm a huge simp for the "grumpy x sunshine" trope in case you couldn't tell)

I know you always say this but it always sounds so reassuring every time that you do 🥺💗 sometimes I get worried that my writing is too repetitive or boring so it means a lot to hear that

of course!! and thank you so much, I always try to make my fics at least a certain length but sometimes I run out of words and can't expand it or add anything else without making it feel forced so I'm glad to hear you like my stuff regardless 💖

I love the tumblrverse too hehe. believe it or not I've actually had this blog for over three years now (crazy, I know)

I hope you're having/had a great day!! and thank you for all the hugs, they're much appreciated 🥰