#they’re hing AND bombing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

carolmunson · 2 years ago

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let's go, don't wait (e.m. x f!reader)

inspired by this prompt by @edsforehead - it's not exactly the same but i did my best! summary: modern!eddie's been single since 2020 and aside from getting his dick wet after weekend shows at the hideout, he hasn't been going out of his way for love until his friends make him. cw: 18+ for adult themes. alcohol use, swearing, some sexual themes. some discussions of bad parents. eddie had some sad parts of his childhood. all around this is a fluff piece so nothing too bad. (11k) eddie is 32, reader is 30. so older!reader i guess, idk. i already started writing the part two which is almost entirely smut.

Jingle. Click. Creak. “Mmmm.” Eddie knows that groan anywhere, the deep primal urging of a one Gareth Emerson and the giggles of his girlfriend, Tatianna Edwards. They stumble into the apartment, lips attached, hands grabbing and fisting each other’s layers from the cold.

“Hi guys,” he calls out, his tone was as bored and annoyed as he hoped it would be. His eyes don’t leave the TV, transfixed on the screen while he watches another YouTube compilation of the best guitar solos of all time. He disagrees with most of them, but it’s enough to drone on in the background while he scrolls through his Twitter feed. He’s never even posted. Not once. Not even a picture on his profile.

“Hi Ed,” Tati chirps, clicking the side table lights on. He can smell her Chloe perfume when she comes to give him a hug hello. Her arms wrap around him from behind the couch, cheeks touching, a few of her butterfly twists falling forward over his shoulder.

“Did you stay in tonight?” she asks, pressing a glossy smooch to his cheek. “Sure did,” he huffs, arms crossing over hers in a semblance of an embrace. Her gold bracelets are cool against his skin, her gold rings match his silver ones. He thought when Tati entered the picture that he and Gareth would’ve started to drift apart. Instead, Tati became Eddie’s new best friend – Gare really took ‘date the girl version of Eddie’ to heart. They were two peas in a pod. “You should’ve come out, there were a lot of single girls there – you’re a good dancer, you coulda snagged one,” she sounds like a mother trying to set him up. Eddie tilts his head up and looks at her from below, her deep skin shimmering with the glitter fallout from her eye makeup. She always looks pretty with ease, even with her makeup smudged – like she meant to do that.

“Oh, I’m sure,” he smiles tightly, but the look falls to something soft when Tati lets go and her almond shaped manicured nails rake gently over his scalp through his conditioned curls. “You can’t just keep picking up girls from shows, dude,” Gareth chides playfully, coming around the couch to sit next to him, “They’re starting to get waaaay too young for you at the bars.”

“Yeah, perv,” Tatianna teases, ruffling his hair before curling up on the recliner closer to the TV.

“Can we please not talk about this again,” Eddie sighs, sinking further into the cushions. He presses on his eyes with the heels of his hands, “You do this every time you guys come back from a date.”

“We gotta get you on Hinge, or something,” Gareth says.

“Tinder at the very least,” Tatianna follows.

“Okay, I’m going to bed,” Eddie grunts when he gets up, a little dizzy at the speed before he finds his footing, “Don’t be too loud tonight.”

“Just trying to help!” Tati calls out, “You deserve to be too loud at night, too!”

Eddie sucks his teeth before he turns the corner to the hallway, disappearing for the night while his friends fell more in love.

It feels like they’re disassembling a bomb. Eddie sulks in a seat at the kitchen table while Robin, Steve, Nancy, and Gareth chatter behind him. Jeff and his wife sit across from him with just as much excitement as the group opposite them. Eddie frowns, bangs too long over his eyes, hands sweating onto the back of his banged up stickered phone case.

“I think you should put the picture of the guitar last, it doesn’t have your face in it. I’d swipe past you,” Robin points at the screen in front of him while he tries to make sense of his Hinge profile.

“Well you’re a whole lesbian Rob, so you’d swipe past me anyway,” Eddie’s clipped words make the group laugh instead of making them back off. His shoulders sink immediately. This was mortifying.

“She’s right though,” Steve pipes up, “They’ll think you’re some weirdo who's obsessed with his guitar if you — well, actually then maybe it’s fine…”

“Why don’t you—” Jeff starts.

“You’re married and you’ve been with Alycia since 2014. Your opinions are void,” Eddie interrupts with a sigh.

Jeff lets out a laugh from his broad smile, “Look, I’m just saying. Why don’t you focus on your answers to the questions rather than the pictures? Girls love stuff like that. You’re smart, you’re a good writer.”

“Babe, they’re not gonna care about his answers if the first picture they see is of an out of focus guitar taken on an iPhone 4S,” Alycia cocks her head at Jeff, “Like, at least be honest with him.”

“I know you’re squinting in that picture from Jeff’s wedding but maybe you can put that one first,” Nancy points to the screen and then scrolls down a little. It lands on a photo of Jeff and Eddie, both sweating from the night's activities. His dress shirt is unbuttoned half way down his chest, silver chains and tattoos on full display, tie tied around Jeff’s forehead like a makeshift Rambo.

“Yeah, you look really good in it,” Robin agrees.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Tati shuffles into the kitchen, “I got in touch with the photographer from the show two weeks ago at Wraith Bar and he’s sending me some pictures.”

“You can use the six pictures you’re tagged in from the last three years,” Tatianna scolds, “You look like a bum in them.”

The group frowns and tosses glances at each other, it’s true. The more recent pictures they had of Eddie were far and few between. He was either blinking or off to the side, blurry or ducking out of frame. Every picture where he looks like himself was either from a show or had Chrissy in it, and he deleted all of those three years ago.

“Stop, you look so fine in these,” Tatianna squeals, “The girls are gonna love you.” Everyone but Eddie huddles around Tatianna to scroll through the pictures. Some of him mid shred with sweat pouring down his chest. Some of him screaming into the mic, hair wild and wet around his face. There was one, that he begrudgingly really liked, where his head leaned back into the light with a winning Munson smile. It was when he heard the opening drums to cover ‘The Immigrant Song’ as a gag – but not really a gag ‘cause he loves that song. It gets everyone at the bar pretty excited – even if they only know the song from School of Rock.

Eventually, Eddie isn’t even holding his phone, it’s being passed between Tati, Steve, and Robin while he dictates his answers to stupid questions. By the time his profile is finished, his head is hidden in his mass of curls, resting his forehead on his forearms at the table.

“Are we done now?” he asks into the space between his face and the woodgrain. Despite the winter air flowing through the kitchen window, he’s overheated with embarrassment. There are suddenly too many people around, too much talking, too much giggling at his expense. He tilts his head back up and takes a full breath through his nose and out through his mouth – “Oh shit! You matched with someone!” “How? I didn’t even look at anyone yet,” Eddie’s brows furrow while his head slowly comes to center. “Don’t worry about it, dingus,” Robin chides, “Just talk to her.” Eddie takes the phone and looks at her profile. Rachel, 27, Vet tech. She’s pretty, soft eyes, great smile. He swallows thickly before he goes to his ‘Matches’ and types three letters that felt like they took ten years to write: Hey.

The chats start fast and die faster, some flirty banter here and there before he’s too nervous or quickly bored. His heart squeezes every time he gets a notification, a buzz in his pocket, a reminder of a message. Some girls don’t want a relationship and that’s fine, that’s just not what he’s looking for. Some girls ask the big questions first and he can’t answer right away. Some girls just aren’t his type and he isn’t theirs either.

The first date he goes on ends with her excusing herself to the bathroom before they even get to order dinner. She doesn’t come back — he’s not even sure what he did. It started off fine, she was pretty with blonde hair and blue eyes. Fun and easy conversation, a voice that sounded like powder puffs and sugar scented perfume. If he blurred his vision a little, she could’ve been Chris. But she wasn’t Chris.

Maybe that’s why she left. Maybe she got the vibe that he was preoccupied with her looking like his ex.

Maybe it was because he said, ‘You remind me so much of my ex-wife,’ before they got to order dinner.

His second date wasn’t much better. He was proud of himself for not going for another Chrissy look alike, but it was clear that this new girl was on a hunt for a husband.

“So are you planning on getting the tattoos removed?” she had asked, pursing her red lips. He was surprised at how well her lipstick stayed on after eating a pasta dish. Whenever he wears makeup for a show, it smudges before the lights come up.

“Uh, no why?” he asked.

“Just y’know, thinking ahead — family photos and whatever,” she shrugged. His mouth had never run so dry in his life. The chicken alfredo turned in his stomach.

The third ended up being a quickie in the bar bathroom only for her to leave right after and unmatch him without as much as a ‘Thanks for a good night!’ He at least wanted to be a gentleman about it.

The fourth fizzled out and neither of them felt the connection.

The fifth felt weird because they had talked so much on the app that they didn’t have anything left to talk about when they went out for drinks.

A month had gone by and all he had to show for it was five bad dates and dozens of unanswered chats. Eddie was found sitting in his bed in the dark, only the light on his phone keeping him illuminated while he thumbs through Instagram. Another app that he has for no reason, he never posts, he never shares anything. He just scrolls.

He wonders if Chrissy’s on Hinge. Eddie’s stomach lurches at the thought of coming across her profile. All blonde and blue eyes, all sweet and spunky, all the right answers to her curated questions. Photos of her in the Maldives, in her friend’s weddings, of her in Chicago after she moved. His heart hammers, sweat collects on his bare chest, heating up the chain lying flat against it until it sticks. He quickly swipes out of Instagram to his home screen, a photo of Robin and Steve flipping him off from the stage after a Corroded Show during load out. He holds his thumb on the app until all the apps shake, thumb hovering over the ‘x’ on the corner to delete the Hinge for good.

What’s another three years of being single?

“Ed?” he hears Tati on the other side of the door, her soft knock following her voice, “I got Indian and I’m not gonna eat it all. Gare doesn’t want it, you want it?”

“Yeah, sure,” he hums. She opens the door and sighs at the darkness. He squints as the light pools in from the hallway and sees her lean her shoulder against the door frame.

“Are you in here sulking?” she asks, one brow raising.

“Yeah, Tat, I’m in here sulking,” he groans, laying flat on his mattress, “I like to sulk. Let me sulk.”

“Don’t sulk,” she puts on a pout and flicks his light on, leaving the containers of rice and chicken saag. He groans when the light stings his eyes, tossing a forearm over his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice falling into kindergarten teacher territory. She never realized her profession would come so handy living with two grown men, “Why’re you being such a baby in here?”

“I think I’m gonna delete the app,” he murmurs, still hiding under the protection of his tattooed arm. The pressure feels good on his face, releasing the tension starting to brew behind his eyes. He hadn’t eaten since his lunch period at work, the hunger was starting to catch up to him.

“Don’t delete it,” she shakes her head, crawling onto the end of his bed. She takes her twists out of her jumbo claw clip and readjusts to pull them all back away from her face. Tati eases his phone out of his hand and slides her glasses on, flinging his dead arm off his face to use his Face ID. He whines, face scrunching is disapproval.

“I told you to stop doing that,” Eddie complains, sitting up against his pillows before crawling out of bed to get the food waiting on his dresser, “Do you have any naan or…?”

“Do I look like a food bank, Munson? Damn,” she tilts her head and he raises his brows in a silent ‘Well, do you?’

She sighs deeply, “Yes, I have extra naan but you can only have it if you don’t delete the app and eat with us in the living room.”

“Those are two totally different asks, Tati,” Eddie huffs.

“I don’t make the rules,” she shrugs before starting to laugh, “Actually, I totally do.”

The phone buzzes in her hand and Tatianna’s grin only widens when she sees the notification, “You have a new like.”

“Whatever,” he shrugs, face laced with disappointment and frustration, “It’s gonna be another dud. Why bother if there’s no point? Like, this can’t actually be how people meet each other —“

Tatianna opens her mouth to protest but Eddie interrupts his own thought before she can speak, “You and Gareth are the anomaly.”

“What if the sixth time’s a charm? She looks really cute,” She smiles, teeth bright against her smile, cheekbones glistening where her moisturized skin hits the light.

He rolls his neck and sighs while Tatianna continues to encourage him, “Just try. You owe yourself that. Chrissy wouldn’t—.”

“Fuck Chrissy, Tat,” Eddie’s voice raises slightly, suddenly defensive. His chest burns at the sound of her name, heat rising up through his neck to his face, “I don’t really give a fuck what Chrissy would and wouldn’t want. ‘Cause if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have to be on these stupid fucking apps.”

“Whew, tell me how you really feel Ed,” she says while she stands up off the bed to walk towards him.

“Look, I get you’re still mad about how things went down with Chris. I know you’re still hurting, but you’re denying yourself a chance to start over — just shoot this girl a message. She seems cool,” Tati speaks so gently to him that he soothes instantly. She offers his phone, still open on the new profile — he’s hesitant at first but he takes it from her to look at the screen.

There you are. You are cute. Your profile is simple: your name, age thirty, your opening tagline ‘idk i’m just out here i guess’. He lets a puff of air out of his nose at the sentiment — ‘Same,’ he thinks.

“Fine,” he says finally, “I’ll look through her stuff and I’ll message her. Are you happy?”

“Thrilled,” she smiles, “So thrilled that I’ll even let you have the extra samosa.”

He follows her out of the room with his phone and food in hand, looking at her fondly when she passes him a tinfoil covered piece of naan in the kitchen, “You’re my best fucking friend, dude.”

“I thought I was your best friend?” Gareth pouts from the kitchen table, D&D notes littered in front of him.

Eddie scrunches his nose, tilting his head while he considers, “You’re alright I guess.”

When the food is done and he’s gotten a proper look at your profile he decides to bite the bullet — fingers shaking while he matches back with you. He doesn’t start with ‘hey’ this time because Robin and Steve said that was boring, so he tries something new:

wild that you’re just ‘out here’, me too.

…

lol, twin behavior. how’s your night?

Eddie’s heart hammers at the response. He’s surprised at the reaction, he hadn’t had that with any of his other chats, normally expecting them to die off after the first ‘Hey, how are you?’ pleasantry. But maybe this could be different, maybe this could be fun.

scored some indian food from one of my roommates so it’s one of my better nights.

ooh, i’m so jealous. i have buyers remorse from some baked ziti i ordered. should’ve just made it.

what did you get?

chicken saag, still jealous?

i’m more of a saag paneer girl but consider me over here seething.

Eddie grins into the phone, cheeks hot while he thinks about what to say back. He skims over your profile again, eyes stilling at a photo of you laughing on what looks like a cruise deck. The sun hits you like a golden streak across your eyes. The caption reads ‘the last time i felt a single shred of genuine happiness’, he huffs an airy giggle before going back to the chat.

you’re funny, did you know that?

um ya, i’m the funniest person i know, actually. 🥰

that's crazy cause i’m the funniest person i know. and since now i know you, it’s looking like we gotta battle for who the funniest is.

Jesus fucking Christ Munson, why can’t you just be normal? Why can you just say ‘lol’ and call it a night? He frets. His leg bounces while he waits for your reply, food rolling in his stomach. The cool metal of his rings is welcomed on his warm cheeks while he leans against his hand on the arm of the couch. The few minutes he waits for the buzz of his phone feel like eternities. But there you are to save him from his embarrassment:

lmao okay. where did you wanna battle?

there’s a bar in the city that i think could host. you around tomornight?

tommorow night* sorry, fuck, i was trying so hard to be smooth with it.

TOMORROW***** FUCK. LET ME LOG OFF FOR ETERNITY REAL QUICK.

yiiiiikes! embarrassing. but this proves you actually might be funnier than me. i’m not a sore loser so i’ll go on a date with you if that’s what you’re asking.

do you drink? it doesn’t have to be a bar.

i do! where did you have in mind?

there’s a spot called little spoon saloon in the city if you’re familiar. sorta cozy.

oh yeah sounds great for a battle 🙄

but yeah i know it, that’s not too far from my place. maybe we’ve seen each other before and never known it. two ships passing in the night~*

does seven work for you? i know it’s a monday, so we can do earlier if you gotta be up early or something.

sevens fine :)

okay :)

see ya tomorrow! Eddie bites his lower lip, breathing steadily through his nose while he sends over his number. Anything to get out of looking at the app for at least another day, anything to spare him from potentially running into Chrissy’s profile despite her being in a different state. It was getting close to the holidays, she could be around at any moment.

Before he can spiral, his phone buzzes again – this time a text from an unknown number. His grin widens, too caught up in the excitement bubbling in his chest to feel Tatianna’s stare from the recliner. hi, it's me. jsyk if you don't reach out by like, two tomorrow -- i'm considering it a cancellation and i do have a 50% cancellation fee. sorry!

50%? stop selling yourself so short, kid. but don’t worry, i won’t cancel. no? you’re not scared to battle? i’m never scared of a battle. :) (A lie.) see you tomorrow.

“What’s got you smiling like that?” Tatianna smiles, cheeks tight from being unable to hide her excitement. “Are you talking to a girrrrrl?” Gareth teases. Eddie let’s out a ‘tssss’ while he stands up and stretches, quirking a brow at his best friend. “Is it a girl? You takin’ her out?” he asks again. “Yeah G, it’s your mom,” he shrugs, “Night y’all.” “Ed,” Tati whines, “Come on.” Pink floats across his cheeks, itching his nose to hide his goofy smile behind his hand. “Yeah, it’s a girl. And yeah, I’m taking her on a date tomorrow,” he groans. Tatianna squeals, shimmying with giddiness while the recliner rocks with her. Eddie’s too caught up in hiding his face, “Ugh, she’s cuuuute, Tati, what am I supposed to do?”

“Show her what she’s been missing,” Tati shrugs, “Everyone needs an Eddie.”

Last night, Eddie fell asleep caught in a memory that became a dream. He’s eight years old at the YMCA, Wayne sitting in the stands watching him – this is maybe two weeks after his dad dropped him off before he got sent to prison. Wayne wanted to make sure his schedule stayed the same as it could, so Saturday swim lessons it was – today was diving off the block. Eddie had been dreading this lesson for a month, knowing that level 2.5 meant you had to at least try. In level two, they had you stand on the block just to get used to it. He could barely breathe for the ten seconds it was up there, tears stinging his eyes while his teacher encouraged him to come closer to the edge. Three of his classmates had already asked if they were allowed to jump off. It looked fun but it was just so high up. What if it hurts? What if he landed the wrong way? He was up soon, standing behind the block with the rest of the kids, shivering from being out of the water. He could dive off the edge of the pool just fine – in fact, his teacher said he was a great diver, especially for an eight year old. So it should be no problem to dive off the block, he just had to do the same thing he always does. Just higher.

Gareth, before Gareth was his best friend, climbs up the block and puts his feet at the edge of the white plastic and metal. His teacher, Miss Tiffany, tells him to put his arms up and bend his knees and to dive at the whistle. The whistle blows and Gareth leaps – but he doesn’t dive smoothly into the water.

“BELLY FLOP!” Jason Carver yells from the edge of the pool where all the kids who already dove sat. They start teasing him relentlessly, Miss Tiffany helping him out of the water to inspect his red belly. Tears well up in Gareth’s eyes, his mom leaning over the bannister from the seating area. “Are you okay, baby?” she asks. Gareth burns red with embarrassment, only encouraging the cackling kids to get crueler.

Miss Tiffany puffs her whistle three times, “If you tease again, you’re not allowed to go to free swim. Do you understand me?”

The group quiets, slowly kicking their feet in the water. “Alright Eddie, you’re up next!”

He gulps, climbing up on the block slowly before standing to full height with his eyes closed. He takes a deep breath through his nose and out through his mouth, like his Uncle Wayne taught him to do when he was feeling nervous. When Eddie’s eyes opened, a chill ran through his chest – for some reason the block seemed higher than ever.

“Ready Freddie?” Miss Tiffany asked, treading water in her red bathing suit. She grinned up at him, knowing that the phrase always made him giggle – but not today.

“Arms up, knees bent,” she continues. Ed looks down at the water and the room spins, he can hear Jason and the class giggling. Hear the splashes from the kicks of their feet.

The whistle blows. He doesn’t move. The whistle blows, again. He puts his arms down. “You okay, Eddie? You can do it! You’re a great diver!” she cheers.

Eddie chews on his lower lip, thinking about the smack of the water when it hit Gareth’s stomach. The laughter. The teasing. The potential of the pain. The whistle blows again. Eddie climbs down off the block, sniffling when he makes it back to the pool deck, “I don’t want to Miss Tiffany.”

“C’mon Ed, I know you can do it! Do you want me to save you for last?” she asks, her smile still bright and encouraging. Eddie sniffles again, eyes burning with tears while Jason and his friends start to tease him, too. “Swimming sucks,” he bites, stomping towards the boys room, grabbing his ratty towel off one of the benches on the way in. He’s only in the locker room for a few minutes before he hears the door open and Wayne’s apologetic voice talking to Miss Tiffany from the deck floor.

“He’s just goin’ through a lot right now,” Wayne says, his gruff voice rattling off the metal of the room.

“Eddie?” Tiffany’s voice calls.

“Come out here, son,” Wayne calls, “Y’know, if your decent.”

Eddie sniffles back his tears again, shuffling over to the door while Miss Tiffany waits with his Uncle.

“Do you maybe wanna stay a little late today and we can practice diving off the block when class is over?” she offers, “I know it can be scary to do it in front of your classmates, but I want you to pass to level three!”

“No thanks Miss Tiffany,” he mumbles to the tiles on the floor.

“That’s okay Eddie, maybe we can try again next week. How’s that sound? I know you can do it,” she says softly.

“Okay,” he murmurs before turning on his heel and moping back into the locker room. Wayne was waiting by the check in desk when Eddie emerged after changing, his ratty towel slung off his shoulder.

“You okay?” Wayne asked.

“Yeah, can we just go home?”

“Sure kid, was gonna stop and get us some lunch if you wanted,” Wayne’s eyes crinkle with his smile, “Wanna go to McDonalds?”

Eddie returns the smile half heartedly, “Yeah.”

They walk to Wayne’s pick-up hand in hand, despite some parents thinking he’s ‘too old’ to be doing that. He needed the support, and his uncle was never one to make him feel like he didn’t have it.

“So d’you wanna try again next week? Your starting form was great, buddy,” Wayne asks while Eddie puts his seatbelt on. Eddie considers it. Getting to the edge of the block and making Jason Carver eat his own words. Making him look like a loser for a change.

But the words ring in his ear ‘BELLY FLOP!’ The relentless teasing if he didn’t do it this week and then messed up next week. He’d be a baby and a joke.

“I don’t wanna do swimming anymore, Uncle Wayne,” he huffs.

“You sure?” his uncle frowns, putting the car into gear, “You’re really good, Ed. Y’could be on the swim team.”

“I don’t wanna come back. I quit,” he repeats. He crosses his arms while they pull out of the parking lot, watching the rest of the kids pool out of the doors with smiles on.

Eddie wakes up to his alarm blaring, back in his 32 year old body. He swears that the air of his bedroom smells like chlorine.

Eddie made sure to text you at 1:59 PM like an asshole.

still on for tonight? :)

so close to having to pay my cancellation fee.

but yes, still on for tonight :)

sorry, work’s been wild today. would’ve texted you sooner!

you’re off the hook…

for now. 😡

He likes your little attitude, he decides. That little hint of sass in your messages keeps him on his toes and it’s not lost on him that this is probably how you flirt. He wonders, selfishly, how easy you are to fluster. You both exchange a few back and forths before he’s finishing up work for the day and heading to Wheeler’s for a campaign chat.

The texts completely drop off while he gets ready to see you. He takes an extra long time in the shower, using the tiniest squeeze of Tati’s curl cream when he comes out because it makes his hair look good. He scrubs his face raw before shaving, following up with the skin care routine he kept up with, even though Chrissy curated it for him.

Once dressed, he stepped quietly out to the living room to grab his jacket in the closet and pull out his boots.

“You used my curl cream, I see,” Tatianna crosses her arms. He blushes.

“Don’t be mad, I just wanna look good,” he puts on a faux pout, eyes rounding while he slides the leather over arms.

“You look really good,” she smiles, “It’s gonna be great.”

Eddie shoves his socked feet in his Docs, worn in from years of wear, and looks up at her, “I’m kind of excited.”

“You should be! I don’t know, I just have a really good feeling about this one,” she smirks, “Text me at some point, let me know how it goes.”

“It’s a better indicator if he doesn’t text you, Tati,” Gareth says, coming up behind her, “You look sharp, dude.”

“Sharp?” Eddie rolls his eyes, “What’re you? Eighty?”

Tatianna clicks on her phone to look at the time, “Can you get the fuck outta here? You’re gonna be late!”

“I’m going, I’m going!” he laughs, arms up while he grabs his keys from the hook by the door, “Wish me luck, bye!”

Eddie felt sick. Suddenly feeling like he was standing at the edge of the pool in ‘98.

When he got his keys in the ignition of his Honda Civic, a text came through immediately. He swallowed tightly, in some way expecting it to be you. In some way, expecting you to be canceling on him.

Instead, it was Tatianna in the big group chat:

here, we made a playlist for you

Eddie clicks on the Spotify link and laughs. First Date - Blink 182

First Date - Blink 182

First Date - Blink 182 First Date - Blink 182 First Date - Blink 182 First Date - Blink 182

And so on. The music automatically connects, the opening guitar ripping through his speakers. Eddie quickly types up a response on his phone before pulling out into the street.

very creative, edwards.

someone in this house has to be. ‘In the car, I just can't wait, to pick you up on our very first date. Is it cool if I hold your hand? Is it wrong if I think it's lame to dance?’ He rolls his eyes as Mark and Tom serenade him in the car, laughing at the lyrics. It’d been a while since he’d listened to this album, let alone this song. While he won’t admit it to Gareth or his girlfriend, it was exactly what he needed before he got to the bar.

‘Do you like my stupid hair? Would you guess that I didn't know what to wear? I'm just scared of what you think, you make me nervous so I really can't eat.’ “Let’s go, don’t wait, this night’s almost over,” he sings along, fingers tapping on his steering wheel while he waits at a red light. He’s on the fourth replay of the song by the time he pulls up. The ignition cuts off the lyrics before the chorus, he takes a big breath before opening the door. Just a couple minutes past seven, but he told you he was running a little late, so you wouldn’t be mad. His phone buzzes to Robin, Steve, and Jeff reacting to the playlist Tati sent. Alicia, Jeff, and Nancy sent him sweet good luck messages. Robin and Steve sent them a picture from a bar they were at, flipping him off. ‘Break a leg, dingus,’ came in her follow up voice memo. Eddie considers making this new picture his phone background.

He swallows hard when he gets to the door, his bottom lip getting pulled between his teeth in apprehension. He nods to himself, “You got this, Munson.” Another deep breath, he’s still ten, he’s still afraid to dive off the diving block. What if it hurts? What if he belly flops?

‘What if you don’t? What if you dive this time?’ He thinks to himself. He opens the door to the bar, his ten year old self puts one foot on the diving block. The chatter of a few conversations at once is disorienting, so is the low light of the bar in comparison to the neon outside. The man at the entrance asks for his ID and he awkwardly fumbles for his wallet as if it’s not obvious he’s been old enough to drink for eleven years. “Here, man,” he says, somehow nervous he’ll get caught with a fake like he’s nineteen again. The security’s light flashes over his birthdate and he passes it back with a short and gruff thank you. Eddie takes a few steps before checking his phone to remind him what you said you’d be wearing.

in a red cut off sweatshirt, jeans that look like dickies – hard to miss! white airforces! i’m here, looking for you if you can’t spot me just approach the most off putting girl at the bar, it’s probably me :)

He smiles into the light of his phone. You’re are funny. His phone lights up again, another text bubble added to your previous one. Eddie’s heart hammers in his chest when he looks at it, knowing you’re really only moments away. got you a guinness cause that’s what you said you liked on your profile. it looks like battery acid tbh. there’s a couple seats by the end of the bar, i’ll grab them. He looks up from his phone finally to see a blur of red start maneuvering over to the end of the bar. That’s you. Oh shit, that’s you. Oh shit, you’re – fuck. You have a fat fucking ass in those jeans. He swallows again, shaking the horny thoughts out of his head through the tendrils of his hair. Another deep breath through the nose, out of the water to the diving block just to dive again. He walks the length of the bar and hears his name, your voice in real life – not through a voice note or on your profile. “Ed?”

Eddie catches your eye and his heart sinks and leaps so quickly he thinks he’s going into cardiac arrest. You’re real pretty, even more so when you grin at him from a few feet away. You wave him over and he does his best to walk confidently towards you, taking his jacket off while he does. He doesn’t know it, but the other girls at the bar are looking. He’s all broad shoulders and dark tattoos, two silver chains and understated rings. Full lips and doe eyes. Tatianna never told a lie, he was unmistakably handsome – he just didn’t know what to do with it. You toss your hair when you speak to the bartender from the end of the bar with a bright smile. The man puts two drinks in front of you and you leave cash in their wake. Eddie winces when he sees you pay, but tries to ignore the sting. In a way, it feels like he’s already losing – like he’s playing Sims with Robin and he’s not on track to get a gold reward on date night. You’re hot and you know it, but he can tell it’s like you just found out. Your eyes are flirty no matter what you’re looking at, you’re full bodied and it’s like you know it’s making him salivate. Eddie can’t help but be nervous when he takes a seat next to you, fingers immediately drumming on the bar top in front of him. “Guinness for you,” you say, sliding the pint glass in front of him. “Thanks,” he smiles, “You didn’t have to do that. I asked you out, you’re not supposed to be paying for me.”

“I know, but – why don’t you get the next one and we’ll call it even?” you offer. He nods while he takes a sip, eyeing the lighter orangey liquid in your glass. “Did you get a cider?” he teases.

“It’s a grapefruit beer, thank you,” your brows furrow at him while you take a sip. You have a good face, part of him wants to say that but it seems like a weird compliment. ‘Nice face.’ Like, what does that even mean? His tongue feels heavy, he can feel the sweat building under his curly bangs. “Weaksauce,” he laughs, scrunching his nose, “Grapefruit beer? Not for me, toots.”

“Yeah, because you drink battery acid!” you tease back, “You’re a stout snob, huh?”

“Nah, just never heard of grapefruit beer. I always drink Guinness – or like, Miller light. Never really stray,” he shrugs.

“You wanna try mine?” you ask, sliding the glass to him.

“You sure?” he watches you nod and brings the beer to his lips. It’s tart, a little bubbly, hitting his tongue on the off beat from the stout before. It settles and then it’s sweet, he wonders if you’re the same. Eddie smacks his lips, “I don’t hate it.”

“That’s such a stout snob thing for you to say,” you pull a face, bringing your drink back to sit in front of you. “I’d offer you a sip of mine but I know you don’t like it,” he smiles, “Wouldn’t want to ruin the taste of your dessert beer.” “Fuck off,” you shake your head and smile, taking another sip of your drink. The Guinness in his hand makes him feel less nervous, but not all the way – toeing the line of the end of the diving block but not scared to look down into the water. He can tell you’re nervous too by the way you pick at a hangnail on your thumb absentmindedly, the way you cross and uncross your legs. Eddie’s eyes linger for a moment at the way they spill over each other, squishing flat on the seat of the stool when you keep them uncrossed. He tries to discreetly follow the line of your thighs to your hips, up to your waist before getting ahead of himself and pulling his eyes away.

“How was your day?” you ask. Not the question he was expecting. “My day?” he asks, brows raised while he tries to recollect anything before getting ready to see you. “Uh, my day was good. Yours?” You fucking dumbass, you couldn’t just spare one detail? She’s gonna think you’re an asshole. “It was fine,” you answer quietly. Your smile fades a little and he feels a panicked chill rush in his chest. “S-sorry, I should’ve elaborated. I sound like such a dick, sorry,” Eddie feels the heat creeping up on his cheeks, a clamminess starting up at his hairline, “I um, I went to work. Came home, went to a friend’s house for a minute and we talked about a campaign we’re putting together next weekend. I had some dinner, and then I started getting ready to see you and um – uh, now I’m here.” “Campaign? Are you a politician or somethin’?” you quirk a brow while you look him over. He feels insecure under your gaze, he hopes you like his tattoos.

“No, no, it’s for Dungeons and Dragons.” Saying it outloud makes him feel like a loser, even though you don’t react like you think so.

“Cool,” you smile.

“Do you like, even know what that is?” Defensive already, waiting for you to make fun of him. Waiting for this to end up another mistake. Waiting to belly flop.

“Yeah, I know what it is,” you answer quietly again, this time your shoulders, “Have some friends that play.”

“Oh, cool. Cool,” Eddie nods, chest tightening, toying with his rings while you reach for your drink, “Um, I’m — yeah, sorry if that came off like, dickish. I didn’t mean to—.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” you shake your head when you say it, almost like it’s rehearsed. Like you’re always ‘okay’-ing something.

“Sometimes people think it’s weird when I tell them, I dunno,” he shrugs, still looking down at his rings, “If I’m being honest I haven’t been so great at this whole dating thing.”

You smile again and he looks up in time to see it, his breath hitches. You’re very pretty.

“If it makes you feel any better, I learned how to play Magic the Gathering twice to impress a boy. Two different ones,” you grimace, scrunching your nose, “Gross right?”

“Oof, that’s rough,” he jokes, “Magic the Gathering? That’s like, way worse than D&D.”

“Well the difference between you and me, is that I don’t still play,” you bite back, cocking your head while you take another drink. “Didn’t impress those boys after all, huh?” he raises a brow and your mouth falls open in faux offense.

“You’re so mean,” you gasp.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he drawls, “Should’ve put that in my profile.”

“Oh, so you are mean?” you grin.

“The meanest,” he grins back, teeth straight and shiny. Full lips pulled tight against them, “How was your day?” “I worked,” you shrug, “Not as exciting.”

“What do you do?” he asks, turning towards you on the stool, leaning one arm on the bar. He relaxes into the seat, legs spreading wide while his free hand runs nervously over his thigh.

“I’m a personal assistant to a jewelry maker,” you let out a half chuckle through your nose, “It sounds fake when I say it out loud. But basically, I just keep her schedule and run errands and keep her shit in order. She’s an older woman and she’s not the most tech savvy in the world — great at what she does though, really eccentric but I feel like you gotta be when you work in the arts like that.”

“That’s cool,” he says softly, watching you talk, “What kind of jewelry does she make?”

“Oh you’ll love this, since you like D&D and stuff,” you start, your excitement is infectious, his heart thrums, “She makes fine jewelry for the most part, but also makes anodized chain mail jewelry and wearable pieces for theater and ren fairs on the side. I told you, eccentric.”

“Oh, so she’s a little alchemist, huh?” he smirks.

“Kinda, yeah,” you shrug, heat hitting your cheeks while he keeps his gaze on you, “It’s cool to watch the first few times, and then you get bored.”

“I’m sure it’s the same for people who watch my band,” he laughs. You shake your head, a curve pulling from the corners of your lips while you finish your beer.

“Alchemist,” you repeat with a playful roll of your eyes, “You’re such a nerd.”

“What do you do for work?” he notices you fully turn when you ask, your knees toward him. He remembers Steve telling him once that it was always a good sign when they do that. Like Steve knows anything about body language and dating these days, he’s been platonically attached to Robin for years. His little guard dog.

“I’m a teacher,” he replies, knocking back the remainder of the Guinness in his glass.

“Hm,” you hum, looking him over suspiciously, “That’s surprising.”

“I work at a performing arts school,” he rolls his eyes, “It’s 2023, I’m allowed to have tattoos.” “What do you teach?” you squint when you look him over a second time, “Actually, let me guess – drama?”

“Music theory,” he corrects.

“Ooh, big brain,” you joke, “That’s cool.”

“Big brain? I don’t know about that, I just like music,” he shrugs, “It makes sense to me.” “When I was in high school everyone always talked about how hard music theory was – like, all the band kids,” you explain, there’s a sparkle starting to glint in your eye when you talk to him. “You were hanging out with the band kids?” he tosses a sarcastic knowing look before taking his glass in his hands, “And I’m a nerd? I dunno girl, it’s not looking good for you here...” “Even worse, I was dating one,” you grimace back. “Fuuuuck, you were really fighting for your life in 2009 huh?” Eddie laughs low, lower lip tucking in between his teeth to run his tongue over it.

“2007, 2008 all the way to like, 2016,” you hide your face in one hand and he wishes you wouldn’t.

“Damn, that’s a long time,” he observes, “You didn’t marry that guy?”

You lift your head back up, and shake your head, “It was on and off for a long time, he’s not a fan favorite. It’s uh – it’s why I normally don’t date musicians. I almost didn’t match with you ‘cause of your first picture.”

Fucking Tatianna.

“Eek, sorry,” Eddie puts his hands up, “Should I go?” “Do you play bass?” you wince.

“I play a lot of instruments,” he chuckles, “I can play the bass. But I’m not like…a bass player, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” you breathe out a sigh of relief, “Made that mistake more than once.” “What’s your favorite instrument that you play?” you ask, it’s almost girlish. He ponders it while you cross your legs, the toe of your shoe barely brushing the back of his calf but he knows it's there. You rest your chin on your fist while you watch him think about it. His brown eyes glint in the reflection of the light overhead, plush lips parted while he runs his hands over his stubble. “I think I’d have to say…electric guitar? I’ve been playing that the longest,” he hopes you think that’s cool. “Is it the same one that’s in your pictures?”

“The Warlock?” he asks with a grin, “Yeah, that’s my girl. Best relationship of my life, prob’ly the only lady who talks more than me.”

“It’s really nice. I like the color.”

“Thank you,” he says quietly, eyes darting to your knees where they sit between his, “Um, can I get you another drink? Do you want a beer or…?”

“If I get a real drink will you stop making fun of my beer?”

“I promise.” He slides off the stool, sad to see your close proximity to him fade away when he stands up.

“They have food here, right? I’m sort of hungry, if that’s okay,” your voice gets sheepish when you ask.

“Yeah, that’s okay. Did you eat dinner?” The words fall out of him too fondly.

“I had like, a huge spinach salad,” you explain, “Might not have been enough.”

Something tells him to press further before he buys you more liquor, lest this date go to the wayside too quickly, “Did you eat lunch?”

“I worked through lunch.”

“Did you eat breakfast?”

“I had a smoothie,” you confess.

“Okay, so before I get you a drink, why don’t I get you some chicken fingers or something?” he insists. You’re shy in your smile back to him, nodding along at his advice. Yes, you should eat more before you keep drinking with him. He doesn’t want you to think he’s just trying to get you tipsy, he’s never been that kind of guy – even when he’d bring home girls from the bar. (They’d at least be the same level of totally obliterated as he was.)

He beams back at you when you nod, “Atta girl.”

He doesn’t notice when your thighs clench.

The last chicken finger is eaten, the last fry of the basket he got for you to split crunched through. The conversation had lulled, not because you weren’t interesting – the nerves were getting to him, creeping up like vines along his chest. The look over the diving block at the water, it’s slow waves teasing him to jump.

“So um,” you began, swallowing your final fry and wiping your hands on a napkin, “Since you’re a teacher, how was school today?”

Eddie’s so used to this question that his response doesn’t change, always the same quote from the same movie. Forgetting he doesn’t know you like that, his mouth moves quicker than his desire to play things off cool.

“The worst day of my life, what do you think? Gosh!” Eddie sounds more like John Heder in 2004 than John Heder does now – but when he hears himself say it, he’s immediately embarrassed. Eddie opens his mouth to apologize, nervous you won’t understand but instead – you laugh. And what a sound that is for him to hear.

“Oh, shit. I haven’t watched Napoleon Dynamite in years. Like, not since grade school.” Eddie laughs with you, “Sorry, sorry, that’s like my go-to reaction at home when my roommates ask me that. I should’ve said something more normal like, ‘It was fine. The kids can’t stop trying to take TikTok fancams of me.”

“Roommates? Fancams? You’re so hip, tell me more,” you enthuse. He puts a finger up to stop you at first, locking eyes with the bartender so he can finally order another round of drinks.

“What kind of real drink do you want?” he asks.

“Just a marg on the rocks, salt,” you shrug.

“Psh, I said a real drink,” Eddie teases with a roll of the eyes, but they soften when you go to argue back, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

His toes inch towards the middle of the diving block.

“You’re cute when you’re mad,” he flirts. Eddie can see the heat hit your cheeks, the creep of a smile slowly curving upwards, you’re embarrassed. Nervous like he is. Maybe this is going just fine.

When the drinks arrive he slides the margarita towards you and sips his own Jack and Coke slowly through the tiny bar straw.

“Okay, so. I have two roommates. Gareth, who’s been my best friend since I was nine; and Tatianna who has been my best friend since I was twenty-nine,” he explains.

“So why aren’t you dating Tatianna?” you challenge. You miss the straw when you reach for it with your mouth, it slides over to the other side of the cup. You try again and miss, cheeks burning while Eddie looks at you continue to fuck up. His eyes glint mischievously while you hold in your frustrated laughter, “Stop looking at me.”

“It’s fine, I’ll wait while you get your life figured out over there,” he jokes, checking ‘the time’ on his wrist, “Shouldn’t be too long until you finally get it.”

“You’re so annoying,” you grit out playfully while you capture the straw between your teeth, “Should’ve put that on your profile, too.”

“Anyway,” he continues, “I’m not dating Tatianna because Gare’s going to propose to her when they go on vacation in a few weeks.”

“Oh! Yeah, that makes sense,” you nod, “Probably not a good idea to date your best friend’s almost wife.”

“Yeah, definitely not well advised,” he shakes his head, pulling his hair up off of his neck for a minute before dropping it down, “Plus, her last name is Edwards and I dunno…don’t think I could live with myself if I was ‘Eddie Edwards’.”

You laugh again and he hoped you would. It’s a goofy laugh, you don’t try to sound cute when you do it. He knows you must be a loud laugher, if your small ones are any preview to what you could really do. You don’t sound like Chrissy. Her laugh was dainty, feathery. Like how they teach you to giggle in an etiquette class – all soft edges, all smooth lines.

“You wanna take the girl’s last name?” you raise your brows, “Very forward thinking. Progressive.”

“I don’t know, something about it’s kinda hot right?” he asks cock of his head, “Plus, my dad sucks so I don’t want to keep repping him by having his last name.”

“Oh wow, my dad sucks, too,” you reply cheerily, “We have so much in common!”

“What was it you said before? ‘Twin behavior’?”

“Twin behavior, yes!” your hands meet both of his knees where he sits across from you, your tone is light and earnest, “You get me.”

Eddie takes in a hitch of breath, desperate to keep his cool when he feels your hands on him. It’s not even sexy but he could shoot straight to the moon if you asked him to. You use his knees as leverage to hop down from your stool, grabbing your drink before nudging him with your hip.

“If we’re still battling though, there’s an air hockey table in the back room if you wanna play,” you offer.

“Are you any good?” he wonders, hopping off the stool to follow you to the back.

“I’m amazing,” you grin, “Actually won seventeen first place trophies in the intergalactic air hockey competition – of course I’m fucking bad at it, that’s why it’s fun to play.”

Eddie laughs this time, it’s gruff and nicotine soaked. You’re already winning the battle for funniest person – you’re sharp with him and he’s starting to like it. He runs his hand over the side of the air hockey table in the empty back room, more and more pleased that he put this date together on a Monday. He slides a dollar into the machine so it whirs to life, the neon lights flicking on with a stutter.

“This reminds me of birthday parties when I was a kid,” you muse to yourself, reaching for the hockey disc trapped in your goal, “Can you help me?”

He nods, hand grazing your back to get you out of the way – you’re warm to the touch. If he was a braver man he would’ve pulled you into him but he’s not, instead squatting down to reach further into the goal where your game piece was.

“Hm,” he murmurs, reaching further back and barely touching the top of it, “It’s in here, it’s just back there. I can get it, just –” he sucks his teeth like he did the night before, getting to his knees to try. Music plays over head, stuff the new crop of bar goers would consider oldies. You smile at the opening ‘Damn, shawty snappin’...’ of T-Pain’s ‘Buy U A Drank’, but even more surprised when you hear Eddie sing along softly to himself.

“Snap ya fingers, do yuh step, you can do it all by yourself. Babygirl, what’s your name?” “Not you knowing the lyrics,” you laugh.

“I was in highschool in 2007 of course, I know the lyrics,” he huffs, standing up, “I think it’s a bust for air hockey.”

“That’s fine,” you shrug, “We tried.”

“I know the club, close at three,” he lip syncs to himself before, turning his attention to you, “What’s the chances of you rollin’ with me?”

You back and forth to each other in time with the lyrics before settling back down in your spot at bar.

“You even know the Yung Joc part? Damn,” you laugh again, he loves it.

“Why’re you so surprised? Is it the tattoos?” he asks.

“Well yeah, you definitely give off a ‘loved Avenged Sevenfold’ in high school vibe,” you scooch your stool closer to his, your knees slotting between his open ones like a perfect puzzle. It’s not enough though, and he’s not sure if it’s himself or the Jack and Coke that encourages him, but he reaches for one of the legs of your stool to pull you closer.

“Hey,” he says, your faces only a few inches apart.

“Hey,” you respond. You catch his eyes flick briefly to your lips before they meet yours again. You can see the light smatter of freckles over his nose, long faded from the summer.

“You’re right, I was really into Avenged Sevenfold when I was in highschool.”

“I figured. I was into that whole scene thing, back then. All those singers that are mad at their dad’s and like, in retrospect, all hate women I guess,” you realize it as you speak.

“I probably would’ve thought you were cute,” he guesses.

“No, you would’ve called me a poser,” you correct, “Don’t lie.”

He hesitates before nodding, “No, no, you’re right I definitely would’ve called you a poser. Did you like Fall Out Boy and all of that shit?”

“Don’t shit on the music I liked,” you frown, “That’s not cool.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” he assures, pulse speeding, “I promise, I’m not. I’m sorry.” You continue talking about music, high school, college, some ins and outs. Nothing too serious. Nothing too intense. But by now, Eddie’s feeling nice and if one thing’s for certain:

He wants to fucking kiss you. Toes at the edge of the diving block, Miss Tiffany’s whistle caught between her teeth.

“So now that we’re three drinks in, can I ask you a personal question?” you ask, your eyes a little glassy. You’ve confessed that you’re tipsy, but aware, that if you have one more drink you won’t be – so Eddie already paid the tab.

“What do you wanna know?” he asks.

“Why’re you,” you enunciate, implying he’s something, “On the apps? It’s hard to believe that someone like you would be single. Unless you have like, something deeply wrong with you, but you’ve been all green flags so far.”

Your hand falls back to his knee and he eyes it before sliding his own hand down his thigh to lace your fingers with his.

“You want the real story?” he asks, lifting your hand up of his knee to play with your fingers in both of his hands while he talks. His hands are warm and calloused on the fingertips, but the rest are soft. Lacing and unlacing, running his thumb up the lengths of your fingers, tracing your palm.

“The real story.”

“You gonna tell me why you’re on the apps after?”

“Sure,” you nod. You look gentle, at ease. He eases in, too.

“I got divorced in 2020,” he confesses. It feels like a weight off his chest to tell you, “Married my high school sweetheart, things were great for a long time, but y’know. People grow and – the pandemic was not kind to us.”

“Oh, I’m…I’m sorry to hear that,” you offer softly.

“It’s okay,” he smiles tightly. “I guess I was both surprised and not surprised at all when she broke up with me. Almost relieved, I guess – that I didn’t have to play the part of her husband anymore. Not that she was a bad wife or anything, she was great she just – I don’t know,” he rambles, “And I don’t know, I just threw myself into work and my friends after. Girls after shows. Was too scared to like – go on dates incase it ended up like my marriage and –”

He laughs, “My friends were tired of seeing me be so sad, I guess.”

“You have such a solid support system,” you comment, “You mention your friends, like, every other sentence.”

A beat. “I like that,” you nod and smile. He can’t get over how you look when you do that.

“Why’re you on the apps?” he asks, your hand now cradled between the two of his, his fingers grazing your wrist.

“I’m six months out of a six year long relationship,” you let out a breath through your nose and drop your shoulders a little, “Figured it was time to get back out there – enter my slut era.”

“Oh yeah, you’re super slutty,” he teases, “That’s actually the first thing I thought when I saw you. ‘She’s in her slut era.’” “God, fuck offfff,” you giggle again.

“But yeah, I ended it. I figure I should make that clear,” you say, “Just in case that’s like, a red flag for you. But I don’t know, we just weren’t growing in the same directions. Things felt done way before I left and I – I don’t know. I think I was just scared. I took some time for myself and now, here I am.”

“It’s okay that you ended your relationship, it’s not a red flag,” Eddie’s voice soothes you when he says it, “If you told me you like, cheated on him and then hit him with your car then maybe yeah, I’d be a little concerned. But you’re an adult, you just know what you want better this time around.”

“Yeah,” you agree. Your eyes meet in a silent confirmation. His eyes flick to your lips for a second time before tucking his lower lip between his teeth again.

BELLY FLOP!

“You wanna head out? It’s getting a little late,” he offers.

Your brows raise in surprise, “Uh, sure, yeah.”

“Not that I don’t like spending time with you,” he assures, letting his fingers linger over your hand while he stands up, not wanting to lose contact just yet, “Just don’t want to keep you out too late.”

“Oh yes!” you start with an old southern twang, “My daddy’ll be out there with his pistol if I don’t get home ‘fore sundown.”

“You’re funny,” he laughs, letting go over your hand to reach up and squeeze your cheeks affectionately. You both put on your jackets and head outside, both of you wincing in the cold of the winter air.

“I’d really like to do this again, if you want,” a shy blush reaches his cheeks, meeting the pink from the cold.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” you’re just as shy in your response, “This was fun. You’re fun.”

“Thank you,” he flushes deeper, trying to prolong the inevitable. What if he belly flops? What if it hurts? What if the kids make fun of him?

“I’d offer to drive you home but I’ve had a few,” he says, hand reaching out to fall on your shoulder, “I feel good to drive but like, god forbid anything happens so – I’m happy to get you a car or pay for it for you.”

“That’s really sweet, thanks. Let me just um,” you pull out your phone to get in Uber with a speed that impresses him, “It’s really not that pricey, I’m close-ish by.”

“Still,” he says, “Just wanna be a gentleman y’know?”

“You’re very gentlemanly,” you flirt. Eddie stiffens, nervous, palms clammy.

“So um, I’ll see you soon?” he asks, opening his arms to give you a hug.

“Yeah, for sure,” you nod while you let him engulf you. His scent is warm and spicy, mixed with tobacco. You guess either still smokes, or he used to, but he never got up to have a cigarette in the hours you were at the bar. Eddie let’s go and cups your cheek briefly before giving you a gentle but winning smile. His warm brown eyes linger for the last time on your lips, now they’re slightly parted, waiting for him. His toes curl over the edge of the diving block, his knees are bent, arms up over his head...I don’t want to Miss Tiffany.

Swimming sucks.

“See ya.”

You quirk your brow for a moment, having expected much more than a hug, “Oh, um…see ya.”

He walks half way down the street to his car, heart thrumming in his chest in embarrassment. He should’ve just done it. FUCK. He should’ve just kissed you.

But what if it hurts? What if she leaves? What if you can’t make it to level three? What if they laugh at you?

He breathes heavily through his nose while tears threaten to well up in his eyes, staining his eyelashes. What if you don’t want to see him again after this? What if you change your mind? He sighs audibly when he turns the key, phone auto connecting to the speakers. He turns up the radio while the car revs to life, pulling on his seatbelt and putting the wheels into gear. He leans back in his seat to pull out of his spot only to see you still waiting for the car outside of the bar.

Blink-182 blares through his speakers, hitting him straight in the chest.

‘Let’s go, don’t wait, this night’s almost over. Honest, let’s make,this night last forever. Forever. And ever. Let’s make this last forever.’

What if he did stay a little later after class? What if he got the chance to move on to level three?

Fuck it, he thinks. He turns off the ignition, shaking out the sounds of Jason Carver and the kids laughing, the sounds of their feet kicking in the water. Just Miss Tiffany and her whistle. He gets out of the car, determined. You’re still there, head whipping around to see him coming towards you while you bounce on the balls of your feet in the cold.

Arms up. Knees bent. “Ed? My car’s gonna be here in a sec–” Whistle. His hands reach out to your cold cheeks to pull you in before his full lips capture yours. His eyes flutter close at the contact, feeling your mouth react to his in time. Soft and needy, hydrated. You immediately know how to keep his pace while he separates and goes back in for more. Wet but not messy, passionate but not feverish. The smoothest dive he’d ever done in his life. Your hands escape your pockets, fingers sliding behind his neck to pull him closer, sliding through the nape of his hair. He breaks away for a moment to delicately push your hair out of your face and really look at you before pressing his lips to yours again. You only stop when your Uber beeps from across the street.

“I wanted to do that all night,” he mumbles sheepishly.

“I wanted you to do that all night, too,” you giggle, breathless and blushing, “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he says, running a hand over his face, “Let me know when you get home, okay?”

“Okay,” you nod, hurrying across the street as the car honks again, “Bye!”

“I’ll put something together for next time!” he calls out. ‘Cause there will be a next time.

Tatianna is leaning over the back of the couch with her chin in her hands when Eddie opens the door. Her cheshire cat grin matches his own.

“So I didn’t hear from you all night,” she starts, her voice syrupy smooth, “So that means it must’ve went really well.”

Eddie sighs dreamily, kicking off his boots at the entryway and hanging his jacket on one of the hooks by the door.

“Ooh, you like herrrr! I can tell! Look at your stupid face!” she laughs, pointing at him, bouncing on the cushions.

“Tati she’s…fuck,” he shakes his head in disbelief while he walks towards her, “There’s either two ways this could go.”

“Yeah?” she asks, looking up at him, “And those are?”

“I’m gonna marry her, or she’s gonna absolutely fuckin’ ruin my life.”

“I like her already,” Tati grins, “Sit down, tell me everything.”

“Yeah, yeah, give me a sec,” he grumbles, his phone buzzing in his pocket. He plops down onto the couch while Tati grabs two cups of tea from the kitchen that she made especially for the recap of his night. Gareth had been long asleep for an early morning at work tomorrow.

Eddie takes out his phone, two unread text alerts lingering on his home page. He opens them, smiling stupidly into the screen.

i’m home :) you’re a really good kisser by the way.

glad you made it home safe. you are too. :) but you started off pretty kissable so, that’s probably why. you’re making me blush over here, stop it.

Eddie lets out a soft chuckle through his nose, clicking out of your text conversation to go back to his home screen.

He deletes the apps.

#eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fan fiction #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson

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deathnguts · 2 months ago

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“What’s the matter, Jaimie, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Scream AU with James as Sydney, Regulus as Billy, and Barty as Stu. Also Randy is Sirius and Tatum is Lily.

Like UGH James could totally have final girl energy if he tried and his and regulus’ relationship being hinged on manipulation from reg would be such an interesting way to keep reg as the antagonist he’s meant to be while also entertaining Jegulus. And then Barty being Stu gives the perfect amount of Bartylus to me, like yes they’re soulmates and only trusted each other with this partnership and also they’re damn good at killing, but they’re fucking psychos like regs too hot headed under pressure and Barty can’t take thing seriously and they’re messy bitches who were totally chill with killing their partners. And then Randy being Sirius makes sense because subtle prongsfoot plug Randy liked Sydney and also his big ass house was where they had the party for the final showdown AND he suspected Billy more than anyone and Sirius would 100% suspect regulus come on. And then lily as Tatum because besties with James and Bartylily is a ticking fucking time bomb to me, Barty killing her makes a lot of sense to me (no hate to the ship just like think about)

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crazyunsexycool · 1 year ago

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My Little Love

Chapter 29

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!reader

Word count: 3.5k

warnings: MAJOR ANGST, sad kids, crying kids, sad Bucky, Reader being tortured (nondescript), being tied, blood, stabbing, non descriptive bombs, reader is a fighter ok, Lorraine (reader's mom) being a complete and utter monster, talks of having an abortion(not reader)

A/N: I am so sorry for this one.... 😬

Series Masterlist

Bucky almost collapsed once his feet were on the ground. The compound was destroyed. It was obvious the missile hit the living quarters. There were injured people everywhere on the lawn and parking lot. It was a mess but he intended to go into that building and find you. Or he would if it wasn’t for Steve holding him back.

“Let me go, I have to go in there. I have to find them.” He fought against his best friend’s hold.

“Take a breath and look around you.”

Bucky did just that. He looked around. There were hydra agents in handcuffs. Shield agents armed and standing guard. He then noticed Maria Hill making her way over.

“Buck-“

“Where are they? Were they hurt?” Bucky cuts her off. Impatient and desperate for some news, any news really.

“They aren’t here.”

“Where the hell are they?”

“Charlotte saw this happen hours before it did. Y/N found me and we made a plan. Hydra was after the kids so she made plans to head to the tower. She said she’d wait for you there.”

Bucky could breathe again. You were safe and so were the kids. He should have known you would have kept them safe, that his girl, his doll would have seen this coming.

“You see they’re fine. Let’s go see them.” Steve pats him on the back.

Tony is already working on the next steps with Bruce. The rest of the team is waiting for news.

“They should be at the tower.” Steve announced and the team relaxed a bit. “We’re going to head there now. Nat back us up, everyone else stay here and help where you can. Keep comms open and both teams will update each other as we go.”

Everyone nods and start heading their separate ways. Bucky heads to the garage with Steve and Nat following behind.

Soon three motorcycles roar to life. All three of them weaved through traffic with ease. The closer they got to the tower the easier Bucky could breathe again. But it wouldn’t be enough until he saw you and held you, all three of you in his arms. That need made him go faster and be a bit reckless. He didn’t care though. He was just around the corner and all of his worries would disappear once he could talk to you again.

Bucky practically drove the bike into the building. He left it on the sidewalk but he didn’t care. When he walked up to the main doors he ripped them open and almost pulled them off their hinges. An alarm blared as he stepped inside and scanned the room. Security guards scrambled to get the alarm to stop as one of them made their way to the trio.

“Captain-“

“Is agent Y/L/N here? She should be here with two kids.”

“Daddy!” Henry yelled from across the lobby. The people that had been caught inside the building when it went into lockdown all parted for him. “Daddy!”

“Bubs.” Bucky choked out as Henry ran into his arms.

He fell to the floor as he hugged his son. His kids were safe, because of you. Henry cried into his chest and Bucky soothed him the best he could as his own tears spilled.

“Dada!”

“Doll. C’mere.” Lottie soon joined the pile on the floor.

Bucky didn’t care that others were watching as he kissed and hugged his children. His kids were safe and far away from hydra’s reach. Very little scared him but losing them and you terrified him. Above him Nat stood by, her eyes scanned the crowd looking for anyone that might be out of place and informing the team of what was going on. Steve stepped away with the head security guard to discuss something in a more private area.

“Buck.” Steve called and nodded in the direction of an office. The same place the kids had come from.

With both kids clinging to him Bucky stood and followed Steve. The moment he stepped into the small office his world crumbled.

“Ed?” Bucky looked at your father. He had red rimmed eyes and a grief stricken look. “What are you doing here? Where’s Y/N?”

Lottie straightened herself to look up at her dad. “Bad man take mama.” She whispers with a trembling pout.

Just as quickly as he had gotten hope it was pulled right from under him like a rug. Steve takes Charlotte in his arms, Nat takes Henry. Ed steps closer to Bucky and places a hand on his shoulder. He shakes Bucky to get his attention and pulls him to sit at one of the chairs in the room before telling him everything you did.

“How long ago was that?”

“About four or five hours ago. She asked me to bring the kids here and that’s what I did.”

Bucky gave him a nod but he was only half listening by this point. Lottie is back in his lap and she pulls and twists the straps on his uniform. When he looks around Steve and Nat are gone.

“They went to see if they could find anything.” Ed fills in.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for, boy?”

“She shouldn’t have had to sacrifice herself if I had been there.” Bucky says sadly.

Ed just shakes his head in disapproval. “You know my girl, she’s a fighter. If you’d have been there she would have gone with you just to make sure you were safe.”

Bucky gives him a sad smile because he knows it’s true. You were the one who held this family together. He would be nowhere without you.

“Dada?”

“Yeah doll?” He looks down at his girl.

“Want mama.”

“Me too. We’ll bring her back soon.” Bucky holds her tighter as he makes a promise to himself and to you. He will find you and bring you back. No matter what it takes.

It’s a nightmare, that’s the only explanation. Except your mother’s voice rings clearly in your head as you were dragged away and placed in a small cell. It wasn’t just small, it was tiny like a closet. So you breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth and your eyes closed to try and keep your composure. That way you can imagine you’re somewhere else. Like in bed with your three favorite people piled on top of you and trying to cuddle. Yes, that’s a nice thought while you pop your shoulder back into place.

****

You zone in and out of consciousness as you try to sit as best as you can. The cell you’re in isn’t metal so you can’t break out of it. It doesn’t even have nails in it. Had they been ready for you? They must have been.

Your thoughts go back to the woman you had called mother. If she was hydra, was the rest of your family hydra too? Had you handed your kids to another hydra agent? You shook your head to get rid of that thought. Your father wouldn’t betray you like that. He taught you what it meant to be a good person and to do the right thing. There’s no way he could be hydra. Right? It made you question every person in the family you came in contact with. Sadly knowing your mother was hydra, made perfect sense. What she said kept repeating in your head though.

“I had lost all hope that I could turn you into what you were meant to be.”

The door opens letting bright light into the dark space. You lift your hand to shield your eyes from it and rough, calloused, unforgiving hands pull you out.

“Anything?” Bucky stood from the couch he had been sitting on.

Since showing up to the tower Pepper had arranged for the team to be set up in the apartments there. When everyone had finally come in from the compound they were exhausted. Nat was the last person back after having gone to track you down, or at least try.

“Your SUV was blown up.” There was no need to sugar coat anything. She pulled out her phone to show him the pictures she took. “No sign of her, I’m sorry.”

Bucky hadn’t expected anything different. Charlotte had already told him your fate. He looked over at the kids wrapped up in each other’s arms as they slept. Afraid that if they let go the bad men would take them. Bucky sighed and gave a nod.

“I’m gonna go put them to bed.”

With a heavy heart Bucky stood and grabbed both Henry and Charlotte and headed toward the apartment Pepper had offered him. He set the kids in the master bedroom and covered them with their blankets. With a kiss to each of their foreheads he stepped back out to the living room to sit. Bucky wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that you were somewhere out there.

Ed places a glass on the table in front of Bucky and then fills it with whiskey.

“What’s the plan?”

“We’ll look for her until we find her, I’m not giving up. Not until I bring her home.”

“And the kids?” Ed asks before finishing the last bit of whiskey in his glass.

“I- I don’t know.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’m retired. I also spoke to the twins and Luke and Molly. They’re willing to come in and help while you go out and look for her.”

“They’d do that?”

“Of course. That’s their sister and those are their niece and nephew. Besides, I think having Olivia here would be a nice distraction for Lottie and Henry. And Tony said that until we get Y/N back and end this it would also be better if they stayed close by.”

Bucky nodded just as a blood curdling scream came from the master bedroom. He rushed in, gun in hand ready to stop whatever was making Charlotte react like that.

“Daddy, she’s seeing something.”

Bucky moves to Charlotte’s side of the bed and tries to comfort her the best he can. She babbles but the only word he can make out is ‘mama’ and ‘hurt’. It makes him sick to his stomach to think that not only are you being hurt but that Charlotte has to see it happen. You wouldn’t want that for her.

“Can you get Wanda?” Bucky asks Ed who nods and disappears.

He holds Lottie closer to his chest and comforts her as best as he can. When Wanda walks in he’s relieved.

“Can you make her forget? Just for a little while.”

“Of course I can.”

Little sparks of red light move from Wanda’s hand to Lottie’s head. It doesn’t take long for his girl to lose the fight with consciousness.

“This is only a temporary fix.”

“I know, but she’s been through so much already, she doesn’t need to see her mother get hurt.” Bucky says as he gently caresses her cheek. “C’mere bubs.” Bucky says as he gets comfortable on the bed and opens his arms for Henry.

Wanda walks out and Ed closes the door to the room. He’ll do his best to look out for the kids but he feels unqualified. You’d know just how to comfort them. But he was drowning in a sea of worry and anguish right alongside them.

Pain radiated from your wrists where your hands were bound, down to your shoulders as your arms were held up and over your head by some hook. They had you dangling in the air and whenever you didn’t answer their questions or told them to fuck off you’d receive another blow.

“Get her down.” A man somewhere behind you said.

You were angry and tired but you would fight them every step of the way. When one of the guards did get close and had started to unhook your hands, you took the small amount of strength you had left and swung yourself onto his shoulders. With your hands free you wrapped the rope your hands had been tied with around his neck and then you tightened it until he crumpled to the ground.

This was your moment to fight your way out to at least make enough of a disturbance that someone somewhere would think to come looking. More guards made their way into the room, people you knew. They had been part of the Strike team. Knowing them didn’t stop you though, you managed to get four more guards down before someone grabbed you from behind.

“I see the kitten still has claws.”

“Rumlow. I thought you were dead.” You grit out as he pulls you down the hallway.

You fight against his hold and he slams you against a wall. He hovers over you as you lay on the floor. His skin was marred with burn scars. His eyes still held that same anger and resentment toward the world and it was now directed at you. Rumlow wraps his hand around your throat.

“I’ve wanted to get rid of you since our first mission.”

You claw at his arms as he tightens his grip. The light hits a chain he has hidden under his shirt and your focus moves to that. You manipulate it and turn it into a spike and you jam it into the space between his shoulder and neck causing him to loosen his grip on you. Then you run. Unsure of where you’re going but that doesn’t stop you. An alarm goes off and there’s shouting behind you. None of it slows you down, not until you have to duck into some room to take cover.

Fortunately for you it’s an empty lab. You leave the lights off as you move further in. The first thing you did was move the security camera. Then thinking back to all the time you spent with Bruce you look through the room for anything that could be used to set a fire or an explosion. Anything that will be distracting enough to give you the chance to flee.

****

You found everything you needed and you made a makeshift bomb thanks to some late night talks with Tony. He had rambled about so many things that night and now you were so grateful for it. There are footsteps that stop right outside of the door. With quiet movements you take your place hiding as best you could. When one of the agents walks in you don’t wait and throw one of your bombs in his direction. He screams and you take the opportunity to run.

There is no way for you to know which way will take you out of the building or deeper into it. The only thing that keeps you going is the thought of Bucky and the kids. You pushed forward through guards and agents. Using the supplies you had acquired carefully. It was the most tragic of outcomes. The exit was just right there, a few feet away but you’re dragged away by your hair back down the hallway.

Rumlow was waiting for you. His arm twitched as blood ran down it. You must have hit some nerves.

Good.

That bastard deserved more than that. Once his men have thrown you at his feet he takes a knife out.

“You really are a dumb son of a bitch aren’t you.” You spit as the knife flies out of his hand and into the throat of one of the men that dragged you back.

You manipulate it and swing it towards the other guard. It buries itself into his chest and you twist it until he’s on the ground.

“That’s enough.” Your mother’s voice rings out from the end of the hall as you move to finish Rumlow.

She moves quickly to stand over you. You meet her cold hardened gaze. Lorraine’s hand connects to your face. The knife follows the motion and cuts her across the cheek. She grabs it from where it’s moving back in her direction.

“Take it you idiot and get out of my sight. Send someone else here now.” She says over her shoulder to Rumlow.

“You continue to be a disappointment, but don’t worry I’ll have you fixed right up.”

“Fuck you.”

“My my, do you kiss your children with that mouth?” She chuckles as she looks down at you. “Take her to the exam room.”

****

All you felt was pain. The leather straps were digging into your skin and the surgical table they had you on was cold. It didn’t help that you were completely naked in a room of strangers, your mother being one of them. They enjoyed the screams they ripped out of you as they began their work. Doing what? You weren’t sure. The drip they had you on kept you conscious enough to feel everything but drowsy enough that you couldn’t fight back.

After hours of what felt like them pulling you apart and then putting you back together they stop. You cried just from relief until your mother stepped into your line of sight. She pretended to be a mother by wiping away the sweat off your forehead with faux concern on her face.

“Why?” You asked. Your voice was hoarse from the screaming.

“You have to be more specific.”

“Why are you doing this? Why did you join them?”

“Join them? No,” Lorraine shakes her head. “I didn’t join them, I was born into it. I’m a legacy and so are you or at least you will be when I’m done with you.”

“Legacy?” Your head hurts just from having to think.

“Yes, your grandfather was hydra too. Actually he was part of the team that helped create the winter soldier’s kids, including the two you stole.”

“What?” You looked up at her with horror. “Is that why you had us?”

“It’s a bit complicated.” She moves around the table doing who knows what before she steps back into your line of sight. “I guess I should tell you the truth huh? It’s not like you’re ever getting out.”

“My team will, they’ll come for me.”

“If you think so.” She laughs and waves her hand dismissively. You always hated when she did that. “Your brother Luke was a mistake. I was young and dumb and on a small leave from my job here when I met your father. It was only meant to be a weekend fling. Then a few weeks later I found out that I was pregnant. My first thought was to get an abortion but my superiors thought that we could use the baby for some testing. Maybe even create the next super soldier. They gave me a shot and then sent me to find the baby’s father. Unfortunately the shot they gave me didn’t work, Luke didn’t have any abilities, no enhancements. Then my supervisors ordered me to have another child. Gave me so many shots to prepare me better and somehow things stuck and here you are able to manipulate metal.

You should know that I didn’t hate you at the beginning. I was very proud that you would be hydra’s next weapon. But you ended up being stubborn like your father so I had to try and teach you obedience. It obviously never stuck. That won’t matter soon though we’ll make sure you can’t go against us ever again.”

You were reeling from all of the information.

“The twins?”

“Hydra wanted more so I gave them more but the injections didn’t work like they did with you. You must’ve had some kind of mutant gene or something but we never got

A chance to test it. Unfortunately your father was around too often for me to sneak you out of the house for a couple of days.”

Was everything in your life a lie? A tear escaped you.

She sighs. “Crying is for the weak. We made you strong, there is no need for tears. You should be proud that you will be the next weapon for hydra. Then we will get those two brats back and reprogram them. The three of you can go out and kill as a family, won’t it be wonderful?”

Lorraine starts to walk away. The fear of the kids being brought back to something like this grips you and you’re begging for her to come back. She looks bored when she steps beside the table again.

“I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t go after them.”

“Whatever I want?”

“I won’t fight the guards any more. I’ll let you do whatever tests you want on me but you have to promise that you won’t go after the kids. Let them be.”

She looks like she’s thinking it over and looks up to someone behind you then she smiles.

“Fine, you’ve got yourself a deal. You let us prepare you and we’ll leave those brats alone.”

“Ok.” You whisper. Relief washes over you although you know you can’t trust her. If she leaves them alone you’ll go through whatever you have to until the team finds you.

You’re dragged away from the exam room and this time you’re placed in a better cell. This one has a bed, a table and a chair. The guards throw you on the bed and then leave dirty, tattered clothes on the floor for you. You just curl up on the thin mattress and close your eyes. It won’t be long before the team will come for you.

Bucky will save you. You know he will.

Ch. 30

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#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #my little love series #Charlotte Barnes #Henry Barnes #girl dad!bucky barnes #Boy dad!bucky barnes #dad!bucky barnes x mom!reader

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transhuman-priestess · 1 year ago

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If you’ve ever heard of Ronald Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative” a/k/a “Star Wars”, you’ve likely understood it was a stupid idea. What you may not have understood is that it’s even stupider than it sounded.

It hinges on a concept know as an “nuclear-pumped x-ray laser” which is a really fancy way of saying “a thermonuclear bomb in a box that functions as an antenna”

Basically, each “laser” would have to track a missile, aim at it, and detonate. The detonation releases an enormous quantity of x-rays, which would be directed down the antenna at the target.

So each “laser” can fire only a single shot, which means you’d need, at minimum, a couple thousand thermonuclear bombs in earth orbit. That’s if you get to the missiles while they’re still in powered flight. Ballistic missiles only operate under rocket power for about the first 20% of their flight. The rest is entirely unpowered (though they may have very small thrusters to fine tune aim). Military doctrine also demands multiple cross-targeting to ensure destruction, ie more than one “laser” being aimed at each target. Multiply your number by 2-5x

If it’s a missile with multiple warheads, now you’ve got to put up 10-20x as many “lasers”.

Now, even if that works, even if you don’t have a single launch failure while building the “laser” platforms, even if it manages to take out every incoming warhead, you’re still setting of nuclear bombs in outer space. Congratulations! You’ve saved America! And, in doing so, you’ve destroyed the electrical infrastructure of the entire northern hemisphere with multiple EMP blasts.

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fukuokanodivision · 6 months ago

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The Kamora Files - Volume 2 ______________________________________ Entry #4 - Yozakura ______________________________________ The Yozakura are a ruthless Bōsōzoku gang primarily stationed in downtown Ueno and a few places across Japan. Lead by Aranai Norikoru of Sakurai Clan, they’ve risen from the ashes and started anew. Still reckless as the former, it appears now they’re asking for much more than trouble… ______________________________________ [Crimes] - Gang Initiation - Assault/Manslaughter [Multiple Counts] - Bribery/Thivery [Multiple Counts] - Cyberwarfare [Multiple Counts] - Disturbing The Peace [Multiple Counts] ______________________________________ Entry #5 - CodeX/Scorpion Den ______________________________________ CodeX is Shinagawa’s 1st DRB rap team, consisting of scientist Okada Ritsuko, CEO Kobayashi Miho and Scorpion Den leader Shinomiya Sumire. 3 individuals with ulterior motives in the DRB, who work together and play into each others strengths fairly well. “Toxic chemicals as sweet as poison” is a prime example of their own dark sides, their own poison is injected into their victims very slowly…______________________________________ Bio #6 - Ritsuko Okada ______________________________________ Ritsuko Okada [known as “Snake Eyes”/“Strychnine”] is Chuohku’s lead scientist in charge of Ramuda clones. A woman who knows what she wants and poisons others in her way. Stealing and retrieving both her father’s and an acquaintances research data, some crimes from her have been committed. Snakes appear mostly harmless in society, or there are ones who poison others for personal gain… ______________________________________ [Crimes] - Data Theft - Harassment - Experimentation [Multiple Counts] ______________________________________ Bio #7 - Miho Kobayashi ______________________________________ Miho Kobayashi [known as “The CEO”/“Iron Maiden”] is a famous businesswoman in E.L medical co. A woman who fights to keep her fortress intact, being a huge inspirational figure for other women. With her dominant figure and genius intelligence, little to no crimes from her have been committed. A fortress may stand taller than many others, but it needs more than some rusty hinges and steel. ______________________________________ [Crimes] - Endangerment - Bystanding ______________________________________ Bio #8 - Sumire Shinomiya ______________________________________ Sumire Shinomiya [known as “Venefica”/“Diabla”] is an infamous anarchist and leader of infamous hacker gang Scorpion Den. A woman who wants to start the world anew and “fix” society. Turning the world on its hinges, multiple notorious crimes from her have been committed. Spiders have been known to trap people in sticky webs, though hers is a hidden gem to trap others. ______________________________________ [Crimes] - Assistance In Illegal Activity [Multiple Counts] - 3rd Degree Murder - Bombing - Prison Break ______________________________________ Bio #9 - Scorpion Den ______________________________________ The Scorpion Den is an underground hacker gang located in Shinagawa, Japan. Lead by Sumire Shinomiya of CodeX, they’re driven by her vision of starting the world anew. With their eyes on Chuohku. it is clear they don’t truly play nice and sanitary… ______________________________________ [Crimes] - Gang Initiation - Hactivism [Multiple Counts] - Intelligence Gathering [Multiple Counts] - Tech R&D - Espionage [Multiple Counts] - Thefts [Multiple Counts] ______________________________________ Entry #6/Bio #10 - Queen Card ______________________________________ Queen Card [known as “Queen Card”] is a highly regarded stage magician in Minato and Chuohku detective. A woman with a mystic aura and dark secret beneath her facade. Enthralling others, some crimes from her have been committed. She may appear nice and quiet, though Houdini may have had a secret to his escape. ______________________________________ [Crimes] - Criminology - Withholding Information - Trespassing ______________________________________

#hypmic oc #Kamora files #W.I.T.N.E.S.S

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invincibleweasel · 2 years ago

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You know, we talk a lot about how often characters of colour are frequently villainised, pushed to the background or killed off in RWBY, and that’s all perfectly valid and true. But something I haven’t seen much of, is how often characters of colour only ever gain importance or redemption when they are particularly useful to the predominantly white protagonists. Ilia is used as a way of removing the threat of Adam bombing Haven but beyond that, is thrown aside into irrelevancy even as the team moves into Atlas—a place of significant importance to Ilia and her trauma. The Atlas arc should’ve been Ilia’s chance to shine, she is one of if not the most impacted living character by the Atlas elite. Ilia should’ve taken on Nora’s role as the primary criticiser of James’ treatment of Mantle. She lived there. A fact that was pre-established years before. It would’ve made sense. Unfortunately, such logic doesn’t seem to matter to the writers. They would rather send Ilia into offscreen-land once she’s done being useful to the protagonists and instead give her most logical direction of character development to the white Nora. Emerald is another character who plays an integral role in the downfall of a primary antagonist’s machinations. Or rather, her semblance does. Through the use of Emerald’s semblance the group is able to successfully ambush and defeat James. In a similar circumstance during the same time, Marrow uses his semblance to stop the other Ace Ops from apprehending Qrow and Robyn. The entire plan to stop James hinges entirely on these character’s semblances. Emerald and Marrow had to redeem themselves for this plan to work. It makes their redemptions seem forced, convenient and something that needs to be over and done with so they can help and be useful in defeating James and his allies. Instead of something that was earned. These characters aren’t redeemed out of a genuine want to do some good and be better. They’re redeemed because the writers wrote themselves into a corner and needed an easy way out. The last two characters I’d like to talk about are Terra and Alyx. These two are different in a sense that they required little to no redemption but were still narratively used to benefit the white protagonists. Terra is a minor character in Volume 6 who helps the protagonists in their attempt to bypass Cordovin in their mission to reach Atlas. Once again, Terra has a skill that is a crucial part of making sure the protagonists’ plan works. In this case, her knowledge on the communications tower. Ultimately, it’s a small and insignificant moment but is something that tends to add up when it’s a consistent and recurring theme. Alyx. A character that was done dirty by the narratively completely. First introduced as the moral of the Ever After - an endlessly cruel, selfish and deceitful child who made things for the Afterans so much worse. An idea that isn’t challenged until the very end, wherein she becomes useful to Jaune. Not only bringing him back to the fight against the Curious Cat but also in reverting Jaune’s aging through her dagger. Beyond this, her story begins as a cautionary tale and ends being violently murdered and turned into a tool for the white protagonists’ success. A key piece of information to note, is the fact that in all five scenarios. The plans were initiated by white characters to make use of their non-white allies skills and abilities. Blake is the one who brings Ilia to the ‘light’ and acts as the leader in leading the Menagerie militia in foiling Haven’s destruction. Jaune is the one who comes up with the plan to steal the Atlas airship, and the one who benefits from Alyx’s death. Weiss and Winter are the ones who specifically collaborated in coming up with a plan that used Emerald and Marrow’s semblances to their advantage. These characters of colour are being written as tools to be used by the white protagonists until they are no longer useful and are then subsequently written out of the show or pushed into the background, never to be seen again. It’s a disturbing pattern and one I fully expect to continue as we move into Vacuo.

#rwby #rwde #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #qrow branwen #james ironwood #winter schnee #robyn hill #marrow amin #terra cotta arc #emerald sustrai #rwby alyx #the curious cat

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gristlegrinder · 7 months ago

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Hm... For the OC asks: how about Fear, Ghost, and Mistake for the GW2 OC you most recently played in-game?

not-so-nice oc ask meme

hello anon! unfortunately the answer to that question is almost always siya. i play them too much.

content warnings for discussions of trauma, near death experiences, and death. this one got heavy in my drafts. sorry, it’s a long one!

GHOST: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

there’s a joke here about siya having a shitty ex-boyfriend literally named ghost. anyways.

siya ran to lion’s arch to get away from the grove, and quickly adopted it as their home with a sense of pride. i really cannot emphasize enough how much of their early sense of identity hinged on belonging to a city of pirates and scoundrels. they fell in with all the other misfits that had called it home, and reveled in late nights, bad decisions, and having the future laid out in front of them, as unending as the ocean.

scarlet briar destroyed it without warning.

they never said goodbye. their tenement was burning rubble before they even woke up among the survivors. there are friends and neighbors and regulars at their bars that they never heard from again, that they’re reasonably sure are still alive but don’t have the means (or true desire) to get back in touch with. when they close their eyes, they can retrace footpaths in alleyways that don’t exist anymore. gendarran apples dipped in dark chocolate, notches in their usual booth’s tabletop made with sif’s pocketknife, the stench of fish being unloaded at the docks at four in the morning, their face against the cool tile of moldy bathroom floors.

it aches. and they never went back— they still haven’t. they’ve been avoiding it for years, taking the long ways around travel routes to avoid the asura gate hub and the ports. too much has changed, in really painful ways, and they don’t want the memories they have of the place to be “spoiled” by plaster-and-stained-glass pavilions sponsored by the captain’s council. they want the shadows, and the shiplap, and the sense of self-discovery that sent them there in the first place. even if those memories aren’t particularly good, anything else feels wrong, and bad.

whether or not that preservation would actually make a difference (they can’t go back to that version of lion’s arch either way) doesn’t matter; there’s a finality to accepting that things are gone that they’ve been putting off for the last decade of their life, mostly in the form of never thinking about it ever and avoiding all reminders of it forever, reinventing themself as who they are today in the process.

FEAR: What is your OC's greatest fear? What do they do when confronted with it? Are they open with their fear, or do they hide it away?

okay, so i think there are two ways i could take this question— first is a very tangible fear, in the sense that they very clearly have PTSD from what happened in lion’s arch. siya was there when the first bombs dropped and the miasma had a coin-flip chance of killing you. their actual memories of what happened are spotty, on account of the blast, but their unconscious body was pulled from the wreckage after the initial chaos, and it was deemed a miracle that they had survived.

for a long while, that lingering panic manifests as a twitch in their hands when the air gets too thick; tensing up at sudden loud noises and drawing exit strategies for any enclosed space and fighting any situation where medical personnel want to put their hands on them.

(siya finds refuge in the canopies of the maguuma jungle for a time, living in the wyvern cliffs with a friend. mordremoth sends the pact fleet crashing down into the trees and it startles them more than the dragon’s call itself ever could. afterwards, they flinch at the slightest provocation and spit that they’re going to personally shoot the killing bullet into mordremoth’s skull, when they remember how to feel anything at all. that’s the first time they realize there might be a problem.)

it’s hard not to be honest about it all when it’s visible on them (the hacking cough, the scarring on their face, the bad knee) so they don’t bother trying to hide that something’s fucked them up. if anything, it doesn’t matter that you know— they just don’t want you to stop taking them seriously. they can hold their own in a fight, they can handle themself.

and while that fear hasn’t ever gone away, it’s stabilized; helped by years of distance, self-soothing rituals, and lithium salts. the love of their life is a volcanic eruption, and they’ve grown to find comfort in heavy, warm pressure blanketing them.

what they’re really afraid of, underneath that, is death. the lights being snuffed out for good. rolling bad dice, finally, and getting unlucky. not knowing what’s gonna happen afterwards (do they get the gold chariot? do they float through the ceiling?). not wanting to lose the few good things they’ve got. braham’s prophecy starts unfurling and they spend months picking their wounds and watching him like a hawk when they can’t sleep at night, in case he’s the one that doesn’t make it.

that one, they don’t talk about. they can’t.

MISTAKE: What's the worst mistake your OC ever made? What led to them making it? Have they been able to fix it? How have they moved on?

siya has never made any mistakes in their life, ever.

okay, that’s a lie— but most of their mistakes feel petty in the grand scheme of the world. shooting themself in the foot (metaphorically) by reading situations wrong, talking a bit too much and slighting somebody, fumbling a good thing by being a little too much or pushing somebody away before anything can start. that’s just being neurodivergent. none of those are life-ruining on their own.

likewise, there are things they would consider to be significant mistakes of theirs that i don’t personally agree with their judgment on. lying in the grass underneath a friend they’ve already lost to the nightmare court. locking eyes with ghost across the room in a dive bar that was never up to code. staying home with garm and a migraine when braham gets invited to the all-legions rally.

(okay, that last one hurts more, but they can’t get too caught up in it for the same reasons they don’t let braham get caught up in his own what-ifs.)

not taking the lionguard suggestion to re-enter the city when able to do so, in order to retrieve the rest of their belongings, probably ranks up there. they took whatever they were rescued with, shoved away every worried medic trying to stabilize them, and followed their gut instinct to get as far away from the burning wreckage as possible. it was an irrational, anxious impulse, and they do really regret not getting to say goodbye before that became insurmountable.

#siya #ask meme #ty for the questions!#i think a lot about them.#also i should clarify. siya has– and this is embarrassing– two thousand more hours of playtime than my next most played character.#the odds get really stacked in their favor in regards to playtime

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therumpus · 2 months ago

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The Strangeness of Fiction: A Conversation with Scott Guild

By Elizabeth McCracken

When I first spoke to Scott Guild on the phone, it was in the wake of a terrorist attack: I was calling to offer him a spot at the New Writers Project, and it happened to be the day that the whole of Greater Boston—where he then lived—was shut down while police looked for the Tsarnaev Brothers after the Boston Marathon Bombing. I was delivering good news at this strange time; we joked a little but also talked about the utter strangeness of the moment. That conversation now seems from the world of Scott’s fiction: surreal, terrifying, full of suspense, thousands of people in their homes holding their breath.

As a person, Guild is modest and self-deprecating—knowingly, comically self-deprecating—but as an artist he’s astonishingly ambitious, a virtuoso. Plastic (Pantheon Books, 2024) is a book, an album, a project like no other. How can a book be about plastic figures, sentient waffles, and a miniature Jesus who comes off His crucifix to be a song-and-dance man be so deeply human and humane?

Scott Guild is a musician, writer, and teacher whose first novel and first album—both called Plastic—were released this year. He’s a professor at Marian University in Indianapolis, and for many years has been an advocate for prison reform. Though Scott and I have had many conversations over the years in person and on the phone, including in front of audiences and over guacamole salad, we conducted this interview over email.

***

The Rumpus: Plastic is both a high-concept novel, and profound, so intricate and strange that I find it hard to describe. I just want to insist that people read it. It's full of strange concepts and yet it's not about them. I guess I mean that largely the characters are plastic, but the novel doesn't stay with that initial question, “What if plastic figurines were sentient?” (Let's call it The Toy Story level.) It's interested in much more complicated questions. How do you describe the book to people? And what do you think it's about?

Scott Guild: You make an excellent point here, which is that the characters never discuss the fact that they’re plastic figurines—this is just their normal reality, walking around with their hinges and hollow bodies. Unlike Toy Story, there’s not a world of flesh-and-blood humans in contrast to them. I think this gets at a part of the book’s meaning: We all live such strange lives now, immersed in our technologies while the natural world crumbles around us, but more and more this just feels normal, the state of existence we’ve all accepted.

I wouldn’t want to define what it “means” that the characters are plastic figurines: I’d love for readers to interpret that for themselves, and it’s meant different things even to me in the years of writing the book. But when I look at the way we live now, and then think about how we would appear to people from a century or two ago, we probably would seem as alien to them as plastic figurines, at least in some ways—living so far from nature, completely surrounded by our inventions and the narratives they give us.

In writing the book, a main goal was to capture something of what it feels like to be alive right now, and—at least for this novel—I couldn’t seem to do that with more traditional narrative forms, which seemed rooted in a different era and type of cognition. The form of my book had to take on the story’s themes; it had to inflect how the story itself was told. I tried writing Erin’s story with a limited third person voice, then with a first-person voice, but this always fell short of what I hoped to evoke. The novel only started to work when it was written as a TV show, when we saw Erin’s life through the filter of the media to which she’s addicted. Similarly, it was only when I gave the characters plastic bodies that their world felt right to me.

All that being said, this isn’t how I describe the novel when someone first asks! I mention that it’s set in a world of plastic figurines, but then also that it’s a love story, and a story of a person trying to reclaim her humanity in a violent, chaotic world. Erin exists inside many layers of alienation, but her personhood and spiritual growth always feel like the heart of the book to me (even if her chest is technically hollow).

Rumpus: I feel like you and I have talked over the years a lot about the uses of strangeness in fiction. You talk about it a little here from the point of view of a writer—by making the world stranger, you can also write about our own world, a kind of pinhole camera—and I wonder if you can talk about what strangeness means to you.

Guild: This is such a fascinating question, and it gets me thinking about what strangeness is in art. When something is "strange," this means it has swerved from our expectations, that it has somehow defied a normal or typical pattern in its genre. It's funny, because there are whole genres—like surrealist fiction, which I write—where strangeness itself is the expected pattern, and therefore not "strange" at all!

To be truly strange in surrealist fiction, with all its genre expectations, I think you need to zag at times in the opposite direction, to go for realism when the reader expects the bizarre. This was part of my hope with Plastic: to write a surrealist novel that also has the intimate, personal stakes of traditional literary fiction, so that the two different genre patterns would keep subverting each other, creating a tension that matches the tensions in Erin's world. Just when you think you're in this zany, wacky metafiction novel where the characters get "Brad Pitt's Disease," here comes the section where Erin cares for her father as he dies of BPD—far more Alice Munro than Thomas Pynchon.

This connects to what I was saying in the last question: my desire to capture something of what life feels like right now. Seeing Trump high in the polls, seeing our eco-crisis ignored, seeing a global rise of fascism, many of us feel like we're trapped inside a satirical metafiction novel (and not a particularly well-written one!). But this doesn't change the depth of our connections to each other, or the inner depth of our emotional and spiritual lives.

And this leads to another thought: what is the point of strangeness in fiction? Why seek it at all, as a writer or reader? To my mind, when something is truly strange—and strange in a way that's satisfying—it's because it finds a new way to render experience, a shift in form that gives a new window onto our personal or collective existence. In the 1740s, when Samuel Richardson pioneered detailed character interiority in Pamela, this gave readers a very strange and new literary experience, but one deeply rooted in their own personhood. Three centuries later, nothing could be more expected in a literary fiction novel—detailed inner lives are the definition of normal. Though a little less common, the same point can be made about Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness or Kafka's dream logic narratives: innovations become widely-used craft techniques, and these techniques no longer startle us. But these formal innovations were effective at the time, and continue to be effective now, because they train their gaze on something crucial about the human experience and can still speak to us centuries after their strangeness has worn off.

Rumpus: I love this answer so much, from Pamela to notes of Alice Munro in Plastic. I wanted to ask you about the visual in the book. One of the things that struck me is how clearly I saw some of the things in the book (things that don't exist in our world, like sentient anthropomorphic waffles), while at other times I didn't need to see things in great detail because I was so busy listening: to monologues, song and dance numbers, et cetera. Even though I read the book on the page, it's somehow a real multimedia experience. Maybe my question is just, “How'd you do that? And what do you see when you write?”

Guild: This is all so wonderful to hear. In many ways, the true setting of the novel is Erin's mind, and it's a mind immersed in visual media—particularly television, which she uses to escape her traumas. When Erin looks out on the world, she sees it as close-ups and wide shots, as scenes in front of an imaginary audience; her own thoughts feel to her like a confessional to a camera in Reality TV. Like so many of us today, she's deeply disassociated from reality—all of life feels like a screen—and I wanted this type of cognition to come through in the form of the book, to immerse the reader in this space as well.

In the early drafts of Plastic, when I was writing in limited third person, I always felt like I was telling the reader about Erin's mental state, from the safe remove of a more traditional narrative form. When I began to write the book as a TV show, suddenly I could see the plastic world through her eyes and the distance between us vanished. It's incredible how evocative language is: When I'd write, "the camera zooms in on Jacob's face," or, "the camera pans across the room," it felt like this whole other visual part of my brain switched on, and I could write (and see!) the setting in much more detail. And I had to admit how steeped I am in this media myself, that a few phrases about a camera could do this!

I didn't realize it until later, but I think I cribbed some of my formal approach from Joyce's Ulysses—I should give credit where it's due! So much of Ulysses is told through the lens of his era's dominant media—as a play, as a series of newspaper stories, as an academic text, depending on the section—and Joyce wants us to remember that we receive our whole sense of the world through these rhetorical structures, that there's really no such thing as "objective" perception. But the experience of Ulysses is one of continuous fragmentation—a major Modernist theme—and I wanted the form of Plastic to feel fluid and seamless, in the fluid way that visual media tries to present the world.

Rumpus: You are also a musician, and have released Plastic, the album. Is it a companion piece? An essential part of the experience?

Guild: Thanks for asking about the music! I do think of it as essential to the experience because it takes you directly to one of Erin's most important mental spaces: a space of song. Erin slips into surreal musical numbers throughout the novel—usually at her times of peak emotion—and the album is a way to experience these moments in full, with melody and arrangements for her lyrics in the book. The songs on the album are also chronological, so you can experience the whole story in about 40 minutes of music.

The album didn't feel like an "adaptation" of Plastic—the way a movie or a musical would—but an expansion of a space already in the book. It lets Erin step from the pages and continue her story in a different narrative structure, with the amazing singer, Stranger Cat, giving her voice. I love the music videos we made as well, and what these add to the storytelling experience.

Rumpus: I know that you worked on this book over years—I saw some early iterations and was always surprised by how much changed from draft to draft. You ended up with a book that was both different in nearly all its particulars and yet at its heart, the same book, undeniably. The same in its soul, and its ambitions, and life force. How did you keep the book from seizing up as you worked on it? I suppose this is another way of saying, “How did you keep it alive, and yourself interested? How does it feels to have it out in the world and done?”

Guild: I suppose the easy answer to this is Erin herself—staying close to her as a person through the years. (It’s been a long time since I thought of her as “fictional,” though I suppose she’s technically not alive!). With each new draft, I felt like I was coming to know Erin better, slipping more fully into her world.

Everyone writes and develops their fiction differently—there’s no one correct way—but I usually need a feeling of discovery as I work, a sense that I’m arriving at the truth of the characters and the world, rather than “making things up.” Learning that Erin is plastic, that she breaks into musical numbers, that she gave her father hospice care, that her sister is a terrorist—all these were discoveries while I was deep in the drafting process, and then I’d get excited and start reshaping the book around them. It would take months, or in some cases, years, and I was lucky enough to have brilliant readers like you giving me feedback and guidance along the way. But it was always grounded in Erin, and in becoming more in touch with her mind and heart and world. That often changed the book formally as well, which was a fun surprise of its own—as I mentioned before, her story only made sense to me when it was written as a TV show.

I made the album for many reasons, and I can see now that a major one was spending more time with her! We’d been together for so many years, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet: I started to work full-time on the songs once the book was completed. Now that the book and album are out in the world, and people are reading her story and hearing her songs—it’s a feeling beyond words, letting go of the person who meant so much to me all those years, seeing her leave and have a life with others. In some ways it’s very fulfilling, but I also miss her! Luckily, we still get to bring her alive at all the book-and-music events around the country.

#lit #interviews #the rumpus #writeblr #creative writing

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