#this is a long goddamn post so sorry about that

[rowdydevs]

Can we get dilf!rafe and milf!reader? Max lets it slip to rafe that his buddies ogle and find milf!reader so hot when they saw her pick up Max and Winnie from school a few times? You can choose how it goes afterwards!! I love your writing of their fam saurrrrr much

awe thank you bb 💕 I'm so glad you like it 🤭🤭🤭 sorry this one got a little long—but I hope you enjoy 😋💕 This story is meant to be read either alone or with the rest of the au.

+18 -> smut

𝓭𝓲𝓵𝓯!𝓻𝓪𝓯𝓮 𝓬𝓪𝓶𝓮𝓻𝓸𝓷 𝔁 𝓶𝓲𝓵𝓯!𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓮𝓻

c/w: teenage boys being gross, jealous rafe, swearing, ownership kink, possessive rafe, pet names, multiple orgasms, overstim., squirting, fingering, unprotected p in v, mirror sex, dirty talk, spanking, lots of cum, female oral (post-shared climax)

cameron kids= Max (18), Winnie (17), Rory + Poppy (4)

You lean into the counter, absentmindedly squeezing lemon after lemon into the glass pitcher. Cold juices run down your fingers, sticky as it slips into the creases of your palms and drips to your wrists. The whole kitchen smells like sugar and citrus, with that warm, buttery hint of cookies still cooling behind you.

The plate’s already half gone, devoured by teenage boys lounging in the common space: tall, tan, loud, sprawled across your furniture like they own the place.

“Sugar, please?” You ask, gesturing toward Kelce’s son, perched in front of the one cabinet you need.

“Yes, ma’am,” he hums, flashing you a grin as he hops down to grab it.

His hand brushes yours as he passes it off. You smile, polite and sweet as ever, returning to stir the mix.

“Fuck, she wants me,” he mutters to Max—just out of earshot.

Your son groans, tipping his head back against the cabinet. “Fuck off, Tripp.”

“Why else would she be in here squeezin’ her lemons?” Tripp groans, dragging the sentence out like it’s a double entendre.

“You’re still goin’, huh? Not scared?”

“M’not scared of shit—”

Before Max can answer, the door opens with a thud.

“Hi, Mom!” Winnie calls, sandals slapping the marble as she breezes in. Her boyfriend Jackson’s behind her, arms full, carrying the twins, still damp from the sprinkler, dressed like they’re headed out.

“Is it cool if we take the twins out for ice cream?” Winnie asks. Her tone’s breezy, but she looks sharply toward one of Max’s friends eyeing her up.

That same boy yelps when Max nails him in the arm. “M’gonna fuckin’ kill you,” he mutters, while the kid doubles down, clearly unbothered, shooting his shot at your daughter like it’s all just part of the game.

“Of course, sweetheart,” you say, crossing the counter for your purse.

“Mrs. Cameron, really—I’ve got it,” Jackson says, voice firm.

“That’s very sweet. But not necessary… Thanks for taking them off my hands.” You kneel in front of the twins gently brushing back your daughter’s curls; cupping your son’s cheek lovingly. “You two be good for your sister and Jackson, okay?”

You lean in to kiss their cheeks, and without realizing it, your sundress shifts. The neckline dips, your breasts press softly together, the hem lifts just enough to tease. You linger, whispering something about sprinkles and chocolate.

Behind you, the room goes silent.

One boy swallows hard. Another just stares—slack-jawed—like he’s forgotten how to breathe.

“Max… Dude. This is your life?”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?” Max mutters, jaw clenched.

“I’d move in tomorrow,” Tripp grins. “Be your stepdad today.”

“Bet she tastes like sugar—”

“I said shut up,” Max snaps, louder this time.

Just then, another boy walks in from the hallway, Trevor. He catches sight of you, still bent low in front of the twins, and freezes. Smiling like the goddamn Cheshire Cat, he lifts both hands like he’s gripping your hips and starts thrusting the air behind you in slow-motion silence.

The other boys lose it—coughing, choking on laughter, trying and failing to keep it together.

You straighten up, sundress swaying back into place as you smooth it down with both hands, blissfully unaware.

“All right, go have fun,” you sing out, waving them toward the door.

You turn back to the pitcher, lift it to the sink, and flip the tap without thinking.

Water churns—lemon juice and sugar swirling, rising to the rim—as your gaze drifts out the kitchen window. And then you see him. Rafe…

His white t-shirt’s soaked through, hose in hand as he rinses down the G-Wagon. Sunlight turns the spray to glitter. Water drips down his arms, soaking the cotton clinging to every curve and cut of his chest and abs.

He turns, flipping his hat backward with one hand, jaw flexing as he wipes his brow.

Your thighs press together. Grip tightening on the pitcher just as the lemonade spills over, cold and sticky down your wrist. You fumble the tap, blinking fast, but your eyes don’t leave him.

His shirt clings to his back, practically painted on, while his blue swim trunks ride low on his hips and high on his thighs.

One hand coils the hose, and the other grabs the wash bucket. His chest flexes with every move, muscles rolling under wet cotton like sin in motion.

“Have fun, boys,” you call out, pouring lemonade into a glass, still watching him.

The front door clicks shut as you step outside barefoot. The grass is crisp beneath your feet; sun shining hot on your shoulders.

Rafe looks up the second he hears you. His mouth curves into a slow, knowing smile. “Oh shit, pretty,” he drawls, eyes dragging down your body. “That for me?”

“Mhmm,” you hum, offering him the glass—but he doesn’t take it. He steps closer, warm, wet arm curling around your waist, pulling you flush to him like he can’t help it. His mouth finds yours instantly—hot and slow. Your fingers hook behind his neck, greedy for more.

You giggle into the kiss, breathless. “How much longer?”

Rafe pulls back just enough to smirk, water dripping down his temple “What? You want somethin’, baby?”

ᝰ.ᐟજ⁀➴ 15 minutes earlier…

The garage is quiet at first—just the clatter of golf clubs and the squeak of a sponge as Rafe scrubs the green off his chipping wedge. The radio hums softly from the corner, low and easy. But that peace doesn’t last.

Beer bottles clink inside the fridge; ice rattles in the machine. And just around the corner from where Rafe sits, the boys start talking their shit like they don’t have a care in the world.

“I’m done,” your son mutters—tone flat and fed up like he’s been saying all day.

“Not my fault your mom’s hot as fuck, Maxi.” One of the boys fires back, voice deep and smug. “M’just waitin’ for the day she gets stuck in the washer. I’ll pound her shit right there—”

“Fuck you,” Max hisses. There’s a sharp thud and a groan; Max hits his friend hard enough to give him a moment's peace from him, but it doesn’t stop the rest of them.

“Did you see her in that swimsuit the other day? Playing with the twins? That bikini? She’s still got an ass on her. Those tits too?” Trevor chimes in, practically drooling. “I wanna play with her twins. Slide my dick right between ‘em—”

“I’ll fuckin’ kill you,” Max growls.

“Hey, you fucked my sister, Max. Both of ‘em. Think I get to tug one to your mom… every night—”

“She’s so hot, bro. Like stupid hot,” another pipes up. “Your dad doesn’t deserve that. He can’t keep up. Can’t handle all that. His stamina’s gotta be shot.”

“She made me cookies like it was foreplay,” one of them says, breathy and laughing. “You think she ever looks at us and wonders…”

“She made cookies for my dad,” Max mutters.

“Yeah. That’s what I said—”

And then Rafe clears his throat, loud and measured. The sound slices through the room like a blade. So quiet you could hear the soft clink of a stolen beer cap hitting the concrete.

The boys scatter like mice out the side door and back into the house. Their smug laughter from moments before dies on their lips, replaced by frantic whispers of “do you think he heard” and the squeak of boat shoes skidding across the floor.

“Come here,” Rafe says, low and calm.

Max exhales hard, stuffing his hands in his front pockets. His shoulders drawn up to his ears as he drags himself across the garage floor.

“You wanna explain what that was?” Rafe asks without looking at him, voice steady as he cleans his club.

Max shrugs, sullen. “I mean, you heard it.”

“Yeah… I heard everything—”

“Every fuckin’ day,” Max mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “Anytime we’re at the house. I try shutting it down—it’s impossible.”

“They were talking about your mother,” Rafe says. “You just gonna let that fly?”

“They’re fuckin’ idiots,” Max scoffs. “Just givin’ me shit. They’re not gonna do anything. And what am I supposed to do, huh? Beat the shit out of every guy who opens his mouth about mom?”

“Nah,” Rafe says, smiling without humor. “They’ll get the hint some way or another.”

“Well that’s not horrifying,” Max mumbles, giving him a side-eye—because he knows damn well Rafe might handle this himself.

“She’s not just your mom, you know. She’s my wife,” Rafe says, nodding toward the garage door. “So yeah. I know exactly how hot she is.”

“Ew.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Rafe grins. “I just had to listen to that perverted pissin’ contest over your mother. And Trevor’s sister? Really?”

“…Sisters,” Max murmurs, not meeting Rafe’s eye.

He cringes, face twisting in the exact same way his son’s had moments earlier. “Aren’t you dating Top’s daughter?”

“They’re Trevor’s sisters,” Max repeats. “Doesn’t count.”

Rafe stares at him. “And what’s the math on that? It doesn’t count? You serious?”

Max shrugs, then deflects. “Hey—remember who the enemy is here, alright? He was talkin’ about Mom.”

That earns a dry laugh. Rafe crosses his arms, leaning back against the wall, still giving Max a look like this conversation’s not over.

“I like that excuse better,” he breathes. “Y’all headin’ out?”

“Mhmm,” Max hums, already inching toward the door like he’s trying to disappear. “Just gonna grab some snacks.”

“Yacht Club?”

“Mhmm,” he confirms, eyes on the exit.

“Be safe,” Rafe says, a little quieter now.

Max mumbles something back as he pushes into the house, and the door shuts behind him with a soft thud.

Rafe doesn’t move. He just stands there for a second, staring at nothing, letting the quiet settle. He knows what he feels. Always has. He just doesn’t always want to name it.

He used to love the attention. The looks. The envy. Part of him still does. When you were younger, his friends couldn’t keep their eyes off you. Couldn’t help the comments, the sideways glances. And he loved it—loved knowing that no matter how many mouths whispered your name, it was his bed you came home to.

You were his. All his. Always. But this? This was different. Hearing that kind of shit from teenagers—his son’s idiot friends, their mouths full of his food, beers stolen from his fridge, spending long, lazy days on his boat—no. It didn’t feel flattering. It felt like a fucking insult.

The way they talked about you was like you were some option. Like if given half a chance, they’d step right into his role. As if they could touch you. As if they could handle a woman like you. His wife. It pissed him off. And he knew it shouldn’t—not like this.

It wasn’t new. It wasn’t shocking. But today? It got under his skin in a different way. Raw and hot and fucking personal.

He let out a sharp breath, dragging a hand through his hair. This is what happens when your wife is you. People want you. They always have.

He laughs under his breath—half at himself, half at the absurdity of it all—and reaches for the sponge and bucket again. He wasn’t gonna fight them. He didn’t need to. There were better ways to remind them where they stood.

They wanted to act grown? Act like they could love you, care for you, fuck you like a man? Fine. Let them watch. Let them see what a real man does.

Rafe lets the door swing shut behind him and strolls across the drive, relaxed, deliberate. His gaze lifts straight to the window above the sink—and there you are, stepping into frame like you were waiting for your cue.

Rafe squeezes the hose handle, blasting water against the side of the G-Wagon. He shifts a little closer, just enough to let the spray bounce back misting his skin, ricocheting off the glossy paint.

The sun is hot, but the water is cool against his skin. The soaked fabric clings to the muscles of his chest and abs. He tugs his shorts a little higher on his thighs, watching the droplets slide down his body.

Then he smiles again—cocky and quiet—as he pulls the oldest trick in the book: flipping his cap from front to back like he’s not thinking about it at all.

Next, his shirt. He peels it off slowly and casually and tosses it aside, revealing his tan, chiseled frame. The gold chain with your initial catches the light.

“Five… four… three…” Bang. The door claps shut. He chuckles to himself, smug, reading you like a favorite book. He doesn’t even have to look to know it’s you. But he does.

Rafe glances over his shoulder as he hears your bare feet brushing through the grass; sundress swaying in the summer breeze. And then he sees you, glass of lemonade in hand, eyes already locked on him like he’s the only thing you’ve ever wanted.

“Look at you,” he mutters, watching you float closer. You took the bait. You always do. And he lives for it.

He spots movement through the glass, Max’s friends still inside, lingering, pretending not to watch.

Rafe praises you as he always does, a breathy “mhmm” buzzing past your lips is the only thing passing before he’s kissing you deep, hot, and possessive—right there in the driveway, letting them see. Letting them know who you belong to. How good you fit in his arms. How easily he could take you wherever and whenever he wanted.

He pulls back just enough to breathe you in; Rafe brushing his lips across yours like he can’t stop touching you. His big hand drifts lower, sliding over the slight curve of your back before grabbing a handful of ass—firm, slow, and so intentional it makes your breath catch.

Heat rushes to your cheeks. You laugh quietly, barely holding it in. His shirt’s been tossed somewhere behind him, skin warm and bare against yours, that heavy gold chain glinting faintly against his chest.

The teenage boys barrel out of the house, faster than usual. Lugging the cooler through the grass as they look anywhere but at you.

“Where are you headed?” Rafe calls out, still holding your waist.

“Told you—yacht club,” Max grits, like a chore.

“Yacht club, huh?” Rafe echoes. “Sounds real productive. Why don’t y’all finish cleanin’ the car before you go burnin’ my gas?”

“Dad, seriously?” Max groans, letting the cooler drop to the grass with a thud.

“You’re about to torch another five hundred dollars of fuel,” Rafe says, grinning as he jams the sponge into one of the boys’ chests hard. “Don’t even get me started on yesterday. Three-fifty in food, six bottles of cheap-ass liquor—none of which I’d let past my lips or hers… It’s the least you can do.”

“Pretty sure that was all Winnie—”

“Spare me the bullshit,” Rafe drawls, his Southern accent soaked in judgment, cutting like his smirk.

“Since when are you washin’ cars anyway?” Max mutters, dunking a sponge into the soapy bucket. You try not to giggle but you can’t help it. Rafe’s flair for the dramatics is so visible in Max it’s like looking in a mirror.

Rafe laughs as well, already turning back to you. He reaches up, wiping a drop of water from your cheek with his thumb, pressing a kiss to your lips—gentler this time, like he’s taking back the moment before their arrival.

“Now what did you need, baby?” Rafe murmurs as the boys start scrubbing the truck. You glance up at him, feeling nothing but butterflies. Rafe bites his lip slightly, head tilted slightly, making your brain short-circuit. “Name it, princess,” he mumbles, thumb tracing slow, possessive circles on the small of your back.

“You.”

That one word has him grinning, dark and knowing. “You want me, huh?” He mutters, voice dropping an octave. “Alright. Do somethin’ for me.”

“Anything…”

“Go on back inside. Head to the guest room. Get on the bed, just like this. Don’t take a single thing off,” he adds. “I wanna take it off you. You think you can do that for me?”

“Yeah… yeah, baby,” you murmur, lifting up just enough to press your mouth to his.

He leans in, lips lingering like he’s already counting down the seconds. “Beautiful,” he mutters, voice low, that crooked grin spreading as his hand lands on your ass with a lazy smack. “I’ll be right behind you— ”

“Love you, Max! Have fun, boys. Be safe,” you call out, voice bright and sweet as you disappear toward the house.

The driveway shifts the second the door closes, all the sunshine snuffed out the second you’re gone. The boys go silent, scrubbing like their lives depend on it.

Rafe’s shadow stretches long across the driveway. He folds his arms over his broad chest as he surveys the group, his gaze unreadable—far colder than anger.

“Yacht club, huh?” He says, nodding toward the cooler. “Gonna load up the boat? Burn my gas, drink my liquor, make some memories? I hope y’all have fun,” Rafe adds, and if they didn’t know any better, they might think he means it.

“Thanks, Mr. Camer—”

“Maybe you’ll even get lucky,” Rafe cuts in, clean and easy. “Pick up a few country club girls: pearls, spray tans; the kind who won’t notice your hands shakin’ while you fumble with their bras.”

A nervous chuckle slips out, quickly catching Rafe’s glare, his lips curling into a fake smile.

“You’ve seen my wife, yeah?” He asks casually. “Beautiful. Fuckin’ stunning actually. Prettiest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

He looks back at the house giving the boys a moment to breathe before shifting his sights to them again.

“I’ve been working since I was eighteen. Built this house. That boat. Everything you boys use like it’s yours.” He leans in slightly, voice tightening. “And even after all that—I don’t deserve her.”

That hits. You can see it land—all of them blinking like they’ve just been slapped across the face.

“So what makes you think you do?”

“We were just joking, Mr. Cameron. I swear—”

“That’s my wife,” Rafe snaps. The words hit like thunder in their chests. “Mine. Always has been. Always will be. And I don’t give a shit if you go home and jerk off thinkin’ about her—hell, that fantasy’s older than any of you.”

His smile returns, slow and razor-sharp. “But if you say another word—if you breathe another comment about something you’ll never fuckin’ touch…”

He steps forward, and they shrink; stepping toward Max is self-preservation. His eyes zero in on Trevor. The kid nods before Rafe says another word, like he’s praying it’s enough to stay alive. “I’ll make sure the only thing you’re sliding into is a fuckin’ ditch. We clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Trevor stammers.

Rafe claps a hand on his back hard. The slap echoed through the grounds, making the boy stumble forward with a wheezing gasp.

Then, just like that, Rafe turns and walks away. Calm and steady, like it didn’t happen. He passes Max on the way back to the house, resting a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Love you, kid.”

“L-Love you too,” Max mutters, the lot of them holding their breath until he’s gone for good.

ᝰ.ᐟજ⁀➴

You shift on the bed the second he walks in, soft and shy, biting your lip as your eyes meet his. His gaze darkens instantly, heat rolling off him like a wave.

“I know I changed…” You murmur, voice gentle as a pout tugs at your lips.

The robe’s already falling off your shoulders. Just hanging there. Lace underneath—barely visible, but that’s the point. One leg crossed, stockings tight on your thighs, garters showing just enough to make him stop breathing.

Rafe’s tongue drags slowly across his bottom lip as his eyes roam over you like he’s seeing you for the first time all over again.

He’s already hard, straining against the front of his swim trunks, jaw tight as his fists curl at his sides—like it’s taking everything in him not to rip that robe off you.

“Baby… Don’t apologize. Not when you look that fuckin’ good for me.”

Rafe steps closer, making your thighs part without thinking, giving him room, inviting him in. His hands slide up your legs—rough palms dragging higher—his thumbs hooking under the garter straps, snapping them against your skin.

“You bought this for me, didn’t you? Knew I’d lose my mind over this. Fuck, you know me too well…”

Your pussy clenches at the raw need in his tone. You toy with the satin belt at your waist, slowly teasingly letting the knot fall loose. The robe slips open completely as you lean back, arching your back, tits round in the pretty lingerie.

“Fuck... You don’t even realize what you do to me. The way you picked this out thinkin’ of me? Wantin’ me to see you like this?”

He kisses you, soft and slow, then starts to trail lower—his mouth brushing along your jaw, every touch unhurried, deliberate. His hand glides up your thigh and grips tight, spreading you open. His eyes are sharp, blue, and hungry—fixed on yours.

“Rafe…” You whine, already feeling your thoughts blur.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ ruin you for them,” he groans, hardly holding himself together. “Make sure they never look at you the same. Make sure they know it’s me in your head when you close your eyes. You know what they’ll never have?” He whispers, breath fanning across your lips.

“This. This soft little mouth. These legs wrapped around them. This sweet pussy drippin’ for them.” His voice drops even lower. “All mine.”

You blink up at him, a little crease forming between your brows like you’re trying to figure him out

He lets out this low breath, almost a laugh, but not really. “Fuck, you’re perfect… You don’t even see anyone else, do you?”

“Who, baby?” You whisper.

He scoffs, low and humorless as he tugs down his trunks, tossing them to the floor. “You should’ve heard what they were sayin’ about you.”

“Rafe…” You blink. “Is everything okay?”

Your words tip up into a gasp as he pushes you back suddenly, one knee sinking into the bed, his body climbing over yours. “Those boys,” he mumbles. “They want you.”

“Max’s friends?” You gasp as your face twists in disgust; eyes flicking toward the door.

Rafe grabs your cheeks, forcing your focus back to him. His fingers slip under the lace and he groans—low and guttural—when he feels how wet you are.

“Already soaked,” he mutters, almost to himself. “You’ve been sittin’ here all sweet and innocent, like nothin’s goin’ on—when your pussy’s this fuckin’ desperate for me. Say you're mine… Who do you belong to?”

You whimper, breath hitching as he slips your panties to the side and drags two fingers through your slick slowly, savoring every second.

“Say it,” he demands, his forehead pressing to yours; hand working you open.

“You,” you whisper. “I belong to you—”

“That’s right… Mine to spoil. Mine to love. Mine to fuck.”

You go to touch him, but he grabs your wrists before you get the chance. Forces them up over your head, holding you there. His body presses into yours and when his hand slides down your thigh, it pulls a shiver straight out of you. “Uh-uh, angel. Not yet.”

His fingers curl just right, pressing into that spot that makes your hips jolt off the sheets. He keeps it slow, steady—watching your face with quiet adoration. He’s memorized every flutter of your lashes, every soft gasp that slips from your swollen lips. He knows what it takes… what you crave. And he knows you’re close.

“You’re gonna come for me, pretty,” he murmurs. “Just like this—”

You nod rapidly, falling apart not a moment later. “Fuck, Rafe,” you cry out, trembling as your pussy clenches around his fingers.

But he doesn’t stop. He keeps working you through it, fucking you with his fingers until you’re gasping into his mouth, thighs twitching, hips jerking away from the overstimulation. You reach for his wrist, gripping tight, trying to slow him down—but he groans against your lips, loving how little it takes for him to unravel you.

He catches the lace of your panties and rips them clean off, the tear sharp and sudden. The sound snaps through the room, and your legs twitch from the jolt.

Rafe pulls you off the bed, guiding you right where he wants you, not wasting a moment. “Hands on the glass,” he says, voice rough as he unhooks your bra with one practiced flick. His other hand clamps around your waist, steadying you.

You press your palms to the glass, cool beneath you. Your reflection stares back: hair a mess, lips wet, chest rising fast—tits bare as you beg for more, fighting to keep your eyes open already as they flutter shut.

“Eyes on me,” Rafe whispers roughly, his chest pressed to your back now; hips flush against your ass.

He pushes into you slowly, giving you every delicious inch, your greedy pussy pulling him in. “Shit, baby… You’re tight.” Rafe grinds in deeper, hand splayed across your stomach as he holds you there, impaled on his thick cock. “This,” he pants, dragging back and slamming in again. “This is my pussy. My house. My fuckin’ wife.”

Rafe sets a brutal rhythm, hips snapping against your ass with each thrust. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the room, lewd and filthy. He spanks your ass, hard enough to make you jolt forward into the glass.

“Let ‘em hear it,” he growls. “Let those little bastards outside hear what I do to you.”

Your body trembles with every ruthless thrust; the mirror rattles under your grip, the sharp slaps of skin echoing round the room.

“Gonna cum for me, baby?” Rafe grits out, voice rough and hoarse.

“I’m gonna cum,” you gasp, voice breaking as the knot in your belly coils tight, ready to snap.

“Yeah?” He growls, dragging you closer, rough hands holding you right where he wants you. “Then fuckin’ give it to me.”

One arm binds around your waist while the other slips down, fingers working your clit in rough, relentless circles that make your legs shake. “Show me what I do to you.”

Your mouth drops open in a silent scream as your body jerks—cunt clamping down around him. You peel your eyes open, desperate to see him. And there he is in the mirror behind you: jaw tight, lip caught between his teeth as his hips slam into you again and again.

“Good girl,” he snarls, not letting up for a second. “You ain’t done yet.”

Rafe yanks you upright, chest to back, one big hand wrapping gently around your throat, thumb stroking just under your jaw as he fucks you deep and hard—so deep it’s almost too much.

You break with a choked sob, another orgasm tearing through you so hard your vision blurs. You go limp in his arms, legs shaking, body spent. He doesn’t let go. Just grunts out a rough “Fuck, baby,” right against your neck as his hips pump forward. One last thrust and he’s coming, cock throbbing inside you, breath hot on your skin.

You feel every pulse of it, thick and messy, spilling deep as he holds you there, buried and shaking, not ready to move.

Rafe nuzzles into your cheek, soft kisses dusting your jaw as your breath comes out in shattered little gasps. He listens to every sound. “You still with me, baby?” He murmurs, peeking over your shoulder with a teasing smirk.

“Barely,” you whisper, still catching your breath as you slump into his chest.

He lets out a soft laugh, mouth skimming the edge of your lips. “That smile,” he mutters, voice thick. “Prettiest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen.”

You let your eyes fall shut, head resting against him.

He slips out of you slow, gentle to the last second, then gathers you up without a word. Carries you back to the bed like you weigh nothing, sets you down easy, and smooths your hair from your face with the back of his hand. Just stands there for a beat, staring like he can’t believe you’re real.

“Rafe…” you breathe, voice soft and pathetic, so sweet it nearly breaks him. He smiles, crawling between your thighs. “You gonna tell me you can’t take another?” He whispers, hands sliding under your knees, pushing your thighs open wide. “Yes, you can… You always do.”

Rafe kisses the inside of one thigh, then the other, mouth warm against your sex. His stubble drags across your skin, rough enough to make your lip tremble.

Your hands shoot to his hair the second he dives between your thighs. His tongue works you over, lips locking around your clit as he sucks hard. You cry out, fingers gripping his hair, and he groans into you, the sound vibrating so deep it makes your legs shake.

Rafe’s fingers slide inside without warning, drilling his cum back into you until your back bows and your eyes blur with tears.

You sob, thighs quivering as your heels dig into the mattress, your body barely able to take it anymore; your brain not able to think of a single coherent thought.

“Give it to me. Let ‘em know who owns this fuckin’ bed, aight. You and me… You. And. Me.” A scream rips from your throat, so cock-drunk you cum without warning, soaking his hand, his face, the sheets beneath you, everything drenched in the proof of your pleasure.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” Rafe sighs in relief, licking and kissing through the mess, savoring every drop. He slaps your pussy once, firm and wet, just to hear the sound of it. “Atta baby. That’s what I fuckin’ needed… So damn good to me.”

He drags his mouth up your body. Every touch lingers, every breath shared. He settles over you, wrapping you up in him.

You reach for his face, thumb stroking along his slick jaw. He leans into your touch, his mouth just a breath from yours.

“I love you,” you murmur, voice barely there.

Rafe’s leans in, resting his forehead against yours. A quiet smile breaks across his face.

“I love you more, sweetheart,” he says, low and steady. “Always have. Always will.”

ᝰ.ᐟજ⁀➴ the next morning

“I warned you,” Max mutters.

Tripp doesn’t reply—just stares into the void like something sacred was taken from him last night. Trevor’s slumped next to him, hoodie up, eyes hollow, chewing his thumbnail.

“Warned us?” Tripp breathes, voice shot. “About the wet bed? The screaming? The headboard hitting the wall like a metronome set to ‘destroy pussy’ all night long?”

Knock. Knock. Knock. Bauer adds, thumping his fist against the kitchen table. “All damn night.”

Max shrugs, calm as ever. “I told you not to talk about my mom.”

“…She was crying about it,” Bauer mutters. “Crying about dick—”

“Enough,” Max snaps.

Tripp rubs both hands over his face. “I’ve got PTSD. Did you sleep?”

“You think I slept?” Trevor huffs.

“You could’ve knocked,” Max says casually, sipping his orange juice.

All heads turn to him fast. “Knocked?” They spat in unison.

Max shrugs again, scrolling aimlessly on his phone. “Could’ve asked to crash in my room. I slept great.”

You walk in like it’s any other morning—light on your feet, humming under your breath, dressed in a tiny pajama set that has no business existing in a house full of teenage boys. Your tank’s stretched snug across your chest, love bites just barely visible where your robe slips open at the collar.

You pull the cinnamon rolls out, set them on the counter, steam rising fast. Without thinking, you grab the icing, swipe some with your finger, and lick it clean. You smile, small and sleepy, still feeling kind of floaty from the night before.

And for the first time in god knows how long they sat there in silence.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Tripp whispers as heavy footsteps echo down the hall.

And then—Rafe.

No shirt, just his signature gold chain catching the light as it rested against his chest. His skin was tanned, muscles cut sharp, and those sweats hung low on his hips like he’d just rolled out of bed—or hadn’t bothered to pull them up all the way.

“Mornin’, baby,” He murmurs, already reaching for your waist.

“Good morning,” you hum, letting him pull you into him—cinnamon roll tray still in your hands—as he kisses your skin; fingers curling around the handle of the fresh cup of coffee you poured him, steam rolling over the rim of the handmade Daddy mug from a Father’s Day past.

“For me?” He asks softly, like the entire house isn’t holding its breath.

You giggle, warm and syrupy. “Made your favorite.”

“Already had my favorite last night.” It’s a whisper meant just for you, but every boy hears it.

Rafe grabs a roll, swipes his thumb through the icing, and licks it clean like he’s still tasting you. He sips his coffee slowly, his focus unwavering.

“Breakfast on the porch, baby?”

“Yeah,” you smile like he asked you on a date.

Then finally, with one last glance at his house, his wife, and the group of broken boys who will never forget last night, he mumbles, smug as ever…

“Ya’ll have a great day. ”

new tag list

*new tag list as of 5/8/2025. Please sign up on the link on my pinned

@rafesthroatbaby | @ietss | @lilithblackkk | @rafesheaven | @rafecameronsfavourite | @my-name-is-baby | @urmotherlvr | @forgiveliv | @barnesboo1967 | @wtfisastiles | @k4yr14 | @taliescapes | @rafesbuzzcutseason | @sky-44 | @biascriptum | @vanessa-rafesgirl | @lolasangelz | @st8rkey | @lhhlver | @slut-4-rafey | @gri959 | @prettybabyyyy | @sabrina-carpenter-stan-account | @maybankslover | @buckybarnessweetheart | @angelicameron | @lover-girlyy | @rcameronlova1 | @rafesbabygirlx | @myanqueenxx | @bimbob1tch | @dylsdaily | @blair-bears-blog | @akobx | @countryclubwhore | @emserai-artemis | @jkmylove97 | @wtfdudesblog | @livie4lifestarkeyblyth | @yasmin-oviedo | @queen-cs | @floredaqueen

[natequarter]

hello! do you happen to have any fic recs for ghosts (bbc)? i dont want to be mean because i think its great that people are writing for it! but a lot of the ones ive seen reduce the characters quite a bit? thanks. LOVE your ghosts and dr who fics btw theyre fantastic!! :)

oh thank you! my recommendations concerning the ghosts in general would be:

Chit-Chat by xenolinguist. a chatfic which is not my usual style but is a really fun work focusing on alison, mike, and all the ghosts

Fabrications by SwaggerStick. an incredibly funny piece which puts a new spin on series four's, er, piss lore

And So On and So Forth by V_Evergreen. this is probably the number one fic out of any ghosts fic that i would recommend. the moment between fanny and alison is one of the most perfect moments i've read in any ghosts fanfic. i cannot stress enough how much i love this work

We Are Dead And Buried (yet our ghosts might still learn) by someoneplsloverobbierotten. a long fic focusing on robin and an original character, but absolutely worth it. artemis' internal conflict is fascinating, and his personality thoroughly developed

House Share by Sheepyblue. from mike's perspective, detailing his attempts to bond with the ghosts. bar julian, none of the ghosts make an actual appearance here (for the obvious reason that mike can't see them), but it's nonetheless a very good study of mike's character, his relationship with alison, the ghosts themselves, and what it must be like to be alone even surrounded by people

Don't Let The Good Life Pass You By by Impossibly_Izzy. what if the ghosts came back to life? what if pat (and julian) were forced to reconcile his new life he's found with the ghosts with the old life he can never go back to? worst of all, what if humphrey had to shave off his beard? this fic answers all of these vital questions, and more. and it's well-written to boot!

Ghost of a Kind by LostKagamiWitchInTheIsles. another fic with an oc ghost which is pulled off very well. if i had a nickel for every time i'd read a fic with the premise, "what would happen if another ghost were added to button house (and didn't like the main gang)?" i'd only have two nickels, but both are brilliant. i love cordelia dearly, and i think you all should too

ere ever aeneas began by TheGoodDoctor. i honestly don't know where to begin with this one. it's very much one of a kind. basically, bbc ghosts, but from the perspective of... trees. [robin voice] you had to be there

Button House B&B by quiet_crisis_in_the_corner. an influencer visits button house. keith leaves a review. the ghosts help nobody at all. all in all, a pretty average and awful day at button house. the first two chapters are absolutely hilarious, and that's that

Thick Skull by thehappybones. rather than dying at button house, pat just about survives being struck by an arrow. decades later, he returns to the house after the recent death of his wife, carol, and finally confronts those damned ghosts. a quietly sweet what-if

Nothing Like a Round on 'The Krypton Factor' by neverfaraway. pat/captain, but more generally a work focusing on alison and her relationship with the ghosts. appeasement doesn't work on anyone, least of all dead people. feels as warm and friendly as an actual episode of ghosts, and as accurate to their voices too

humphrey-centric:

'Tis not hereafter by attend_the_tale. humphrey/original female character, with that relationship being the focus and his relationship with sophie the background context. i would be remiss not to mention the author's other work, Present Mirth Hath Present Laughter, along with it, since they have the same strengths: lovely characterisation of humphrey and sophie, a vibrant and realistic original character, and such a brilliant, deft depiction of elizabethan england. the prose, too, is wonderful

so uncomfortably alone (but not for long!) by hounds_of_love. captain/pat/humphrey, from humphrey's perspective. a lovely and very touching fic in which humphrey's loneliness is remedied, and also three idiots kiss, which is how i like my fanfiction

Battles of the Bones by thelastplantagenet. humphrey/sophie, set in the 1500s. concerns a timeline where humphrey and sophie actually learn to like each other, fall in love, kill the queen... you know, the usual. again works with its historical setting rather than against it, and the author has a wonderful knack for humphrey's voice in particular. i'm once again rereading this one. it's good

robin-centric:

songs for dads by whimsicaliity. better entitled, "the fic that cradled my heart, then smashed it to pieces." eerily reminiscent of gone gone, despite being written long before series four came out. i have reread this many times. i have had my heart stomped on many times. i cannot recommend this enough. robin/julian, until it isn't

Witness by TheArchaeologist. what can i say, except that this is a fantastic character study of robin? he's old, he's seen a lot and lost a lot, and he's hilarious. relatively short, but effective with its words

Made Our Cave An Everywhere by MadameReveuse. chess husbands, alternating between robin and julian's perspectives, detailing julian coming to terms with his death. i love fic which deals with julian experiencing "emotions," as those bleeding-heart libs like to think of them

It by Scriblit. emotionally devastating, but so well-done. a look at robin's relationships with all the ghosts, from humphrey to julian, but in particular his connections to mary and julian - and how robin and julian respectively deal with those relationships and the grief of losing mary. a fantastic addition to gone gone, but ouch, my heart

It's Pronounced "Rrogh" by vex_ing. this is a favourite of mine not just because it was inspired by a post i wrote, but because it's a wonderfully written character piece, and a beautiful explanation of just where robin got his name from

moon woman (his moon woman) by fivecenturiesverse. such a lovely exploration of the relationship between robin and mary, as well as robin's age and his connection to the moon. i have a soft spot for mary/robin, and the way that mary grows and changes here is also wonderful

The 62,019 Year-Old Dictionary by Robin Caveman by Turtle_ier. i am beyond obsessed with robin's perspective on life, and while i haven't read this one over in a while, it's a great portrayal of robin. the way it plays around with format also stands out to me

thomas-centric:

By the Fire by scribehotan. focuses on nigel the plague ghost, and his budding friendship with thomas thorne. a lovely, soft piece, with a very cosy setting. deals with nigel's plague-related insecurities, and gives thomas some nuance, which is more or less an instant way to my heart

What Twisted Webs We Weave by The_Purple_Opossum. a canon-divergent fic from isabelle's perspective, in which isabelle nearly dies and discovers that she is, in fact, haunted. by thomas. i think this is one of my favourite depictions of (of all characters) francis button: he puts isabelle down, but is not explicitly cruel, which lines up with what we know of him. so far, it's very well-written - and builds on the warped version of events that isabelle is familiar with, ranging from humphrey's supposed plotting to thomas's supposed duel over shelley

Feeling comes in aid of feeling by Eccentric_Hat. thomas/kitty. lots of lovely character beats, and the development of thomas and kitty's relationship is lovely. has some entertaining discussion of shakespeare - representation of disembodied heads in media is tragically lacking

Eternity With a Nuisance by charliest. focuses more on alison and thomas, but it's a wonderful exploration of both the ghosts' relationship to time and alison's relative mortality. also, anything which gives thomas depth is my shit

I Stand Unsure by midshipmanwilfrid. a brief but touching character study of thomas, focused on his troubled feelings on his own gender. the sort where you come away from it feeling as if you have woken up to a world both the same and fundamentally changed, and are not sure how to feel about it. quietly affecting

Renovations by Ailendolin. thomas-centric, focusing on his emotional repression and struggles with rejection, particularly in relation to his friendship with alison. a beautiful piece on alison and the other ghosts helping him for once. picking just one work for this author was incredibly tough, but this is one of my all-time favourites from both the author and ghosts fanfiction in general

one and the same by wizardmeats. thomas dreams of a happier life with isabelle. pat helps him come to terms with it. a beautiful analysis of thomas's personality, and his bond with pat is very (bitter)sweet

captain-centric:

Land to Light On by sistermichael. a captain/havers modern au, which in general is enough to make me walk away and/or zone out immediately. however! the captain, spain, and only one bed. perfection. the writing style is exquisite; the worldbuilding is skilled; the way it fleshes out havers' character is excellent. very much not something i would normally go for; good enough that i would recommend it anyway

The Blooms of May by kingofthefrogs. fantasy au, captain/pat, enemies to lovers. if you like gideon the ninth, this one's for you. if you like welsh mythology, this one's for you. i love anything with unique worldbuilding (and humphrey/sophie, which this also has), and this one is something unique. i'm hooked

oh, captain, let’s make a deal where we both say the things that we both really feel by seawall. captain/humphrey (or should i say de-cap-itation?), an extended exploration of the captain's developing feelings for humphrey and his dealing with grief. a beautiful work - generally i'm not that interested in the captain, but he's portrayed so well here (and, you know, i love caphrey) that i can't not love it

fieri sentio et excrucior by oui_oui_mon_ami. captain/oc, specifically the captain falling in love with a roman soldier who lives next door. not my usual thing, but a nice read nonetheless

passion and drive by cloudings. captain/thomas, which for some unknown reason i cannot get enough of. elaborates upon the ever-hilarious plot pitch of, "the captain fails to come out to thomas because the idiot thinks the captain's in love with him." one of those ones i keep coming back to

A Kiss, Then by SunriseBirds. also captain/thomas. one that i can say is wonderfully characterised. these two are hopeless idiots, and it's on full display in just how hopelessly idiotic they are here. ten out of ten, would recommend

drug club by Aziz. captain/thomas. the erotics of sharing drugs, a rooftop, and a houseful of ghosts who keep on interrupting your erotics. would you still love me if i was a worm?

(We've Only Got) So Many Tricks by radiocarbonblinddate. pat/captain, focusing on the immediate aftermath of pat's death and how the captain adjusts. beautiful depiction of the ghosts before they were the ghosts we know. cannot recommend this author enough. just read their stuff, and you'll see what i mean

Moving On by Pic_Akai. a very well-written fic in which the captain wakes up in the modern day remembering the events of ghosts, but nobody else except alison does. he helps arrange humphrey's wedding, finds love for himself, and doesn't strangle thomas. very sweet

overall, i would highly recommend anything by any of the authors on this list, but in particular Ailendolin, Sheepyblue, hounds_of_love, and kingofthefrogs. i hope this helps!

[shannonsketches]

thinking about gohan and vegeta and how their bond is underrated

the difference in their reactions to each other 😭

Gohan being the first one to step between Vegeta and Certain Death, twice, without an ounce of hesitation, and Vegeta saving him back despite his feelings about battle intervention.

Vegeta knowing Gohan's the best of all of them

Vegeta and Gohan both born prodigies assigned an unfair amount of responsibility to be Great and be a Saiyan Messiah(tm) way too young by a stubborn and proud if not (relatively) well-meaning father who didn't see any other option and I just think Gohan doesn't get enough credit as like. The first serious muscle behind Geets' personal growth.

[lucabyte]

your ocs!!!!! please ramble about them!!!!

i love your art so much

(GRABS YOU) H. CAN DO BOSS.

So ! My ocs. I guess I'll do an overall explainer for the overall groups. If you check out my Toyhouse (LINK!) there's a bunch of folders up top that are how I categorise them. It's primarily by universe except for the folders that are just "misc."

So folder 1: Blatant favouritism:

These are silly little guys that don't fit in any specific wider universe, but I really really like. So I'll spotlight the two important ones before i get real in the weeds with my main universe.

In here are notably, my Fursona (self explanatory), Ali and Pittsburgh Cincinnati. There's also Hauntkit and Clearpelt who are warriorcats ocs that *is dragged away by airport security*

... So, Pittsburgh, lovingly sometimes called pissbug, is a weird little Thing who I made as like, an homage to characters like happy bunny and Sweetypuss. She (and her weird dog) exist to stand next to strange and offputting captions. I love her. No further context. She's just silly. and violent.

Now. Ali.

Ali Alighieri has thoroughly stolen the show, and also ties into the next folder along, Making Your MK.

With over a hundred extra images compared to second place (Sorry, Tabitha). Ali is my fucked up little scrunkly. My little baby guy. They're a shared character of mine and @samhainian's, and is from their Creature Feature setting (A modern fantasy setting wherein Cryptids and Magic are real but in our modern world.) They are as such, a modern human young adult... Who is also a demon + magic user.

Strange little pansexual altersex genderqueer poetry-nerd that they are... The modern setting also means they are literally just a tumblr user. A fellow countryman, so to speak.

HOWEVER.... Ali's true origin was in *Purrgatorio*, a scrapped visual novel of mine set in the MYMK universe! They were simply retrofitted into CF as the joke with Purrgatorio was that a regular human had mysteriously just shown up in MYMK's pure-furry setting.... And then when we scrapped the project we got all attatched to our little not-so-blank-slate protagonist. But I'll put a pin in Purrgatorio for later.

Making Your MK.

(Guest of honour: My super unfinished website <3)

Okay so here's the big one. The setting with.... (looks at spreadsheet) 109 characters not including so-called incidentals. At time of writing.

MYMK is home to... Multiple stories. As you would hope when a setting has 100+ characters. I'd wager each story has about 10-20 relevant characters tops but with a big shared universe like this there gets to be overlap between casts!!! Yay !!! 😊😊😊

MYMK is the name of the main story in the setting. Pronounced "Making your Mark", it is centered around Markus Felidae (The purple one) and their family. It's very action-adventure-y. It's also the plot I'm most secretive about the backend of since I WILL!!!!! Turn it into a nice prose story with pictures SOMEDAY!!!!! But for now tee hee hee secrets secrets. Markus' family is strange and ragtag and is keeping something from them... I can't ramble on too long here unless further prompted in asks about specifics but!!! Everyone in the MYMK folder has a fully furbished little profile with a blurb about them. So if you're curious....

But yeah, I tend to think of the MYMK setting more in terms of its Locations than its Casts, due to the overlapping nature of them all. The Malbranche may be the villains of the main plot, but they're also major players in relation to The Palsgrave who are the antagonists of Moraine, etc etc,

The country everything in MYMK is set in is called New Orphidian, Southern hemisphere little thing, here's a very cartoony map of it.

Um. Cliffside!

Since it's the best map I have... Here's an exclusive sneak peek of a Zine I'll be getting back to once the fandom brain cools down a bit.... :3c

(... I REALLY NEED TO DO A TOUR AROUND THE MINECRAFT CLIFFSIDE SAM AND I BUILT..... IT'S SO CUTE....)

Cliffside is situated on a big ol' Cliff.

A tiny hamlet of a place, it used to have reason to exist, and now does not. It's not even a good tourist locale, as the cliff is much too dangerous compared to the nicer tourist spot of Welkin just a little north. Not to mention nearby Moraine's allure as a tax haven with no labour laws place where a bunch of TV and Movies are filmed!

It's where most of MYMK's main cast reside (except the antagonists from the Big City Varmonte), and is as such a location I have a lot of tiny little worldbuilding thoughts about :)

I won't go into the other locations here just because then this post will SUPER get away from me but... I think most importantly for Cliffside right now...

Is that it's where Purrgatorio is set. Yes, that VN I said got scrapped. It's not dead. It is in fact serving it's original intended purpose as "A (mostly) noncanon exploration of character voice and setting"

It's back and its prose babeyyyyyyy!!! (A BUNCH OF THE EARLY STUFF IS ME BEING SUPER RUSTY ... BE WARNED)

Purrgatorio is currently the most publicly available coherent work I have out of my ocs! It's very low-stakes and serves mostly to bash my toys together and see what character dynamics come out, but you can look if you want to!

(There's also a whole THING on the meta of its Canonicity... It's not canon, but it's also not NOT canon. But if I talk about Metanarrative Timeline Collapse in my normal mundane non-magic setting im gonna sound bonkers ✌)

Ali's dynamics with the MYMK cast are so goddamn funny to me. Like I literally just handed my OCs some ET shit but ET is a sexually repressed tumblr user with a mood disorder.

But yeah I don't think I can coherently string together much more about MYMK without just actually explaining THE WHOLE PLOT.... Though I will absolutely elaborate on any given character's Whole Deal if i'm prompted. (OH MY GOD I DIDNT EVEN TALK ABOUT CHROME AND TABITHA. WAIT. OKAY THERE'S. OK NO IF I TALKED ABOUT THEM IT'D JUST END UP AN ESSAY ,SORRY..)

So here's some bonafide classic images for the road.

(IF TUMBLR BREAKS THE FORMATTING AND JUST PUTS THESE ONE AFTER THE OTHER INSTEAD OF IN A GRID IM SO SORRY LMAOOOOO)

... And as for the other folders on my toyhouse!

Misc and Fandom are what they sound like. Self explanatory,

Then, Ysden is @samhainian's fantasy setting. It's where our DnD games happen to be set but it's also a general fantasy setting :)

and Monster of the Week... Is currently being revamped! It used to be a modern world setting with hidden magic, now it's going to be more... Adventure Time-y. Fantasy world get iphone. Yknow. It has a lower Age Rating than MYMK's "anything goes", as it started as a Pitch Bible Project in my animation class. They're a little neglected but I still love them :) The revamp is extemely recent and not reflected in any of the art/writing yet but I'm workin on it. It still doesn't have a proper title..... OTL

So yeah!! Uh. This wasn't as comprehensive as I was hoping but it turns out I have way, WAY too many thoughts on my guys. And no idea what to do when im actually asked about them so !!!! This was not a very coherent ramble but it was a ramble !

There's things like essays on Chrome and Tabitha (Link) and also The Queer Gender Identities Of The Whole Cast (Link) hiding around on my toyhouse, and once again, Purrgatorio (Link) serves as my sandbox for playing with how these characters act in situations.

But..... ! I did try to make my toyhouse approachable for the average layman. Every character in the MYMK folder (Link) has a *blurb* of information, rather than a giant wall of text explaining everything about them. I want people to be able to understand their general vibe at a glance rather than be overwhelmed.

In any case ???? Uh. Fun game for everyone: If you know your homestuck classpect, every single MYMK character has a classpect and lunar sway. and a birthday. Try and find your andrew-hussie assigned kin! As a Prospitian Witch of Heart, I share my classpect and lunar sway with Chrome. No I don't know what this means. It worries me honestly he's kind of an asshole.

[fully-caulked-wagon]

Tried some lineartless shit for once uhh

[thungerstorm]

my friend keeps showing me 'cool tattoo mods' for ffxiv, which is lovely because it shows she's thinking of me and that's very sweet.

the only problem is that inevitably the mod she's showing me makes me sad, because like. the body that the tattoo is on is inevitably this. fuckin. weird gigantic hips, stick thighs, and ass cheeks that you usually have to pay a couple thousand dollars for irl, because. nobody has ass like this. and just. fucking. why? why are we doing this. it's so fucking frustrating that there seem to ONLY be these awkward, unattainable fantasy bodies in mod spaces. if you want an average build, or fucking god forbid something that probably isn't something going to be on a magazine cover or rule 34 porn or something, like. good luck. it doesn't exist. you're fucked, make it yourself you fucking weirdo.

it sucks because it's this giant miasma of fuckery that makes me feel like we are simply never going to be normal about bodies as a society. if you are looking for an average human body, a fat body, god fucking forbid a disabled body, you're fucked, you're on your own and enjoy wading through the truly fucking repugnant ableist/eugenics fanclub vibes that is the modding community

there's this pervading feeling that she is showing me all these mods because. i don't know. i'm not a real roleplayer unless i'm in the fucking sync shell or i have 25 pieces of flair/glamorer profiles whatever the fuck. we used to be a fucking fandom. if your character didn't visually match the character you were walking around in the game with, congratulations, that's everyone. nobody's characters match their avatars. welcome to online rp. this was the Fucking Point of creating art, such as drawings and fic. (i am fully ranting at this point, i concede) you can argue mods are art, sure. but. they are co-optable art, which requires a specific framework that is not readily accessible unless you know where to look, knowledge on how to set up, to view, nevermind USE...it's a lot. AND most of the mods people put up are not even their fucking work, it's just iterative copy/paste of other people's work to include other shit. yes it's work, and yes there is a degree of artistry to it. i'm NOT trying to come off as some pretentious hegelian here, i know i am giving that vibe. but please tell me you get where i'm coming from. there is a difference between actually painting a texture or sculpting something in 3d versus adjusting seams and things like that when porting an existing work. do you understand what i am saying. art restoration and art creation are tangentially related but acting like they are the same thing is batshit.

not even to mention the dismal lack of appreciation for the amount of work that DOES go into modding. people just scroll through directories and galleries and yoink whatever. there's no like. wow that must have taken a lot of work, i must thank the author/artist for their generosity in uploading their work for free so i can use it for my own little guy. people don't write comments anymore. nobody says thank you.

people don't fucking write character descriptions anymore. i am looking in search info for carrds and some fucking adverbs but all anyone has anymore is the auto translate for mare lamentorum. what the fuck are we doing. do yall want to fucking play pretend with our blorbos or are we just masturbating.

idk. i woke up late with a massive fuckoff headache and everything sucks right now.

it is fucking bleak out here.

[elytrafemme]

waiting for the day i snap and make a video essay channel where i do a 2 hour long vivisection about the game until dawn and describe frame by frame why it is the worst, most potential-squandering, catastrophically misery porn excuse of a game ever created

[chiistarri]

what if instead of messaging me in the middle of the night about your stupid fucking girlfriend and your stupid fucking problems with her you actually act like my fucking friend and message me like how you message everyone else in our group

[fivefeetfangirl]

'Babe are you okay you haven't done your 91w posting today'

HSJDHSJDH NOO 😭😭😭😭😭

my phone shut down and wont work so i spent the whole day in the car NOT reading 91w like i wanted to. im not kidding i spent almost 10 hours in a car WITHOUT 91W!!! my hands are shaking i need to read

[thegempage]

me in the first couple of months after moving, reassuring myself that things always get worse before they get better: hurting is the first step to healing!

me, a year and a month after the move, undeniably happier than i've been in over a decade and yet watching as each one of my maladaptive coping mechanisms falls apart in my hands, leaving me not only without any beneficial, long-term-appropriate coping mechanisms ready on-hand to replace them but also with the ever-growing sense that there is more wrong with me than i ever knew hiding underneath layers of masks and trauma responses: oh so i didn't know fuck or shit

[red-hemlock]

@onopoeia started following you! (For Onomatopoeia!)

The Bat's renown was becoming an infection. Spreading with no signs of stopping, it seemed a three-way coin-toss to whether or not you were 'spared' or inspired to join Team Good or Team Bad. Team Good had a recent crop of 'hopefuls' looking to shine from the rabble, one of them was scampering ahead of her now. Shit-for-all when it came to the old hand-to-hand, but one slippery street-fish on the evasion-side of things; It'll be glorious once she finally sinks her claws in, and descales those pretty plates back to expose the soft underneath.

But, Hemlock had to admit this one sure knew the city well. Enough to lead her on a mad-dash throughout, and enough to stoke the fires of irritation into an inferno. Time to end this clown-show.

They land behind some old abandoned warehouse, but before the fledgling vigilante can gain ground, pain forces him to eat it, instead. Courtesy of the hooked head of her grappling-gun dug deep into the meat of his calf. The mechanism begins dragging him screaming back towards her; and with no movement wasted, she's on the hero like a starved beast. Knee to the back, hand on neck, and a greedy blade raised skyward for the kill.

But movement is what catches her eye, and stays that blade from falling.

"Woah-oooh, there-!"

“Back-off, Bulls-Eye! I came, I saw, I conquered this tool first. His head belongs to me!"

Or was this ominous hombre here to help this guy? God, she hoped not. There were shows waiting at home for her to get back to.

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

then send me a son

pairing: joel miller x reader

cws/tags: so much angst (w/ happy ending! i swear), discussion of suicide attempt (the canon one), suicidal ideations, losing a child, losing a parent, survivors guilt, discussions of abortion, unplanned pregnancy, p in v, oral sex, virginity loss (but it's not that big of deal/not a kink), both dealing w grief, ellie is dead, this is set in jackson post tlou pt I

summary: joel is put on suicide watch after he returns to jackson w/o ellie and reader becomes his 'caregiver' of sorts. lowkey enemies to lovers but also not bc it's kinda one-sided 'hatred'

a/n: author is pro-choice! and also understands the complexities of mental health that reader and joel do not at times (just wanted to make it clear that i understand... from personal experience... what depression is like as well as suicidal ideation).

title is from the song 'the suburbs' by arcade fire, but listen to the entirety of the suburbs (album) and funeral (album) if you want to understand my mindframe while writing this

the last sentence is a quote and i've reblogged it before but i'll find the image and post it/reblog it again

wc: 9.4k

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Joel is just surprised Tommy has the gall to ask, “Where’s Ellie?” when he arrives in Jackson alone. 

In this world, when two people leave and only one comes back, you don’t ask because you already know what happened. You wait for that person to tell you about a miracle, and when they don’t, you know for sure. 

“Heaven, if you believe in that sort of thing,” is Joel’s response. 

But Joel doesn’t believe in Heaven or Hell, or anything other than ashes and dirt. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Tommy says because he’d already said ‘I’m sorry’ when Sarah died, and that didn’t bring her back. 

It takes a hefty amount of booze to get Joel to tell the story.

“I just hope she died for something. Then, at least, I’ll know I’m being selfish.”

I didn’t get that with Sarah, he thinks. She didn’t die for a ‘noble cause’. He doubts Ellie did either. 

“You’re being put on watch,” Maria tells him the next morning – when he’s sober and asking what his duties are now that he’s back. 

Life goes on, which means work goes on, so what’s my job? As long as it’s not burning bodies, I’ll be okay. 

“Watch? Like I’m watching, or I’m being watched.”

“Being watched.”

He asks why, though he doesn’t need to. Tommy knows why he’s got that scar on his forehead. 

“Fucking authoritarian bullshit,” he mutters, half into his pillow. “Thought you were a communist.”

“I am. And this has nothing to do with that.”

“I bet Tommy put you up to it anyway.”

“He didn’t ‘put me up to anything’.”

“But he told you, didn’t he?”

“He told me a long time ago.”

“Figures. You always knew I was a coward.”

“You say stuff like that, and then act like you don’t need help.”

“I didn’t say I don’t need help. I said I don’t want it.”

She’s silent, letting him continue. “Now let me grieve in peace, will you?”

She hums something akin to agreement, but asks for something that sounds like protest to him. “Where’s your gun?”

“Which one?”

“All of ‘em.”

He tells her because he doesn’t want Tommy or anyone else searching through all his bullshit because that’s what happens if he doesn’t give ‘em up.

“Want my kitchen knives too?” he says, almost wryly. 

She takes most of them, but leaves the more blunt ones out of sympathy. He can have butter on his toast. Unless she takes the toaster so he can’t take it with him in the bathtub. 

She leaves the toaster, and then, leaves him alone. 

Quite frankly, he’s too old to kill himself. Sure, people do it at his age, but he’s so goddamn tired. Moreover, he knows he could get someone else to do it pretty easily. Maybe he could be a martyr. He could save someone from a clicker or a soldier. He could save someone’s life for once. But would that be enough to save his soul? To make it to Heaven and see Ellie and Sarah again?

Maybe, he would, if God really does love people the way some say he does. But if Joel was God, he’d deny himself entry.

He stays in bed for the rest of the day. Aside from the two times he eats. And once in the middle of the night to take a piss because he may be depressed, but the last of his dignity is motivation enough not to wet the bed. 

He doesn’t shower or change his clothes. Not like he’s wearing a shirt anyway, just boxers ‘cause it’s too hot outside and he doesn’t want to get up and turn on the fan. Sleep doesn’t come easy, but it comes. It comes because it has to, reluctant as it is.

He wakes up to the voice of an unfamiliar woman. Quieter than Ellie or Sarah, less stern than Maria or Tess. Not like he was expecting to hear from three out of four of those women, not outside of his dreams. 

You’ve always cared about people, saving lives and all that. But you’re no good with a gun, so Tommy finds a better job than patrol for you.  

“You’re going to be watching my brother, Joel.”

“Like, spying on him?”

“No, like making sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

A suicidal man is nothing new, especially in this world, but Tommy’s bluntness about it is. He acts as if it’s a normal job. Like the ones in office buildings that sound wonderful even though the people who tell you about them assure you it was barely better than life is now. This new watchmen position is the same as patrol, in a way. Terrifying in the gravity it holds. You have to keep someone alive.

You can shoot deer, you can run quickly, you can hide well. You can survive on your own. But, at age 10, your mom bled out as you sat by her side. You were too weak to carry her, to dig a grave and bury her. Your survival feels unearned, but you’re no good with guns. You’d miss if you tried to do it. That’s a rare thought anyway, and surely not one you plan to ever speak aloud. They’d put you on watch too, which sounds suffocating, in all honesty.

You don’t know Joel. You’ve heard his name in passing, but you arrived in Jackson during the period of time he was gone. He was going to take some girl to some hospital for something or other. 

“What about that girl?” you ask. “Is she not taking care of him?”

“She’s not around anymore.”

“Oh,” you say. 

He just nods. The ‘why’ of the whole arrangement makes sense, but you’re still unclear on the ‘how’. Am I just supposed to stay in his house 24/7? Is he allowed to shower on his own? Do I have to cook or do laundry?

“Just check in on him. He’s not the most… personable, but don’t take anything he says to heart.”

Just check in on him. It sounds simpler than it will be, you know that much. Even keeping a plant alive takes more than ‘checking in on it’. 

You arrive at his house around 10 AM. You assume he’ll be awake, but when you look around his living room and kitchen, you can’t find him. Oh God, you think. What if he’s… 

He’s asleep in bed. You’re pretty sure. He’s lying there and there’s no evidence that anything’s wrong, but when you say his name from the doorway, he doesn’t move. So, you walk closer to him, just to make sure he’s breathing. 

“Joel,” you say softly – because your other option is reaching out to touch him, and you feel that’s a little too personal, especially when he’s not wearing a shirt. 

“Who the Hell are you and how did you get into my house?” he says. 

“Tommy sent me.”

“Oh, so they’re making you watch me?”

“Yeah.”

You’re glad he knows about the arrangement. Maybe he’ll give you some direction on what to do with him. 

“Must hate you if they stuck you with me.” 

You can’t tell if he’s being ironic, but you hope so. Still, you don’t know how to respond. You decide on a simple, “I’ll let you get some sleep. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

Though you’re alone in the room, you sit with perfect posture on Joel’s couch, looking around at the decor – or lack thereof – looking for clues about who this man is. 

You think about making him breakfast, but you’d have to raid his cabinets to do so, and you’re terrified to make any missteps when it comes to Joel. You don’t think he’ll kill himself over burnt toast, but there is a persistent need lodged inside your brain to make him like you. It’s a little selfish when you should be focused on just keeping him alive, but maybe if he likes you, he’ll feel better, maybe you’ll feel better too. That’s still nothing but the ever-lingering hope in your heart. But it’s something.

He comes downstairs eventually, in a t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. 

“Good morning,” you say. 

“No, it ain’t,” he says, heading in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Do you want me to help you with anything? Breakfast or coffee?”

“I can make my own damn coffee, kid.”

And he does. The first shred of kindness you get from him is an offer to pour you a cup. 

“I’m alright, but thank you.”

He sits down in a chair across from you and sips his coffee as you watch him awkwardly. 

“Are you really gonna do that all day?”

“Do what?”

“Sit there and stare at me.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“You could leave, for starters.”

“I’ll get in trouble.”

“What? You afraid Tommy’ll get upset with you?”

“A little.”

“He’s a softie. I wouldn’t worry too much.”

You are worried. Sure, you want Tommy to be happy with you, but moreover, you don’t want to leave Joel alone lest something happen to him. You might not know the guy very well, but you’d hate to see someone take their own life. 

“Can I just stay here? I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

He shrugs, and you take it as a yes.

He does not need a caregiver or a watchman. He does not need you, but you look like a kicked puppy and there’s no way he’ll force you to leave. Another young girl he’ll reluctantly let stick by his side. It’s almost cruel of Tommy to send someone like you. Someone young and full of life. Someone he has a hard time pushing away. 

He should’ve sent Joel a crotchety old bitch or a drill sergeant. Maybe Tommy thinks he’s doing Joel a favor by giving him a nice girl, polite and eager to please. It’s a good thing your chipper attitude irritates him. It’s the first item on the very small list of qualities that Joel dislikes.

At first, he insists on making his own food. You’re still a guest, even if he’s reluctant to have you as one. It doesn’t matter where he lives, he’ll always have been raised in Texas. He’ll always hear his mother calling him out on his lack of manners. His hospitality is force of habit.

Plus, if he lets you do anything for him, he’ll owe you something – at least in his mind. And he doesn’t want to owe anyone anything. He doesn’t want to give or get or build any kind of rapport with you whatsoever, especially since you seem to take all attention as progress, despite the fact that Joel is harsh with you most of the time. 

The whole ordeal makes him feel like more of a failure than he did before. He couldn’t save Ellie, or Sarah for that matter, and now he’s being forced into his own retirement or held hostage depending on how you look at it, so he can’t even get the satisfaction that productivity brings.

He also finds himself pretty fucking bored without work. He became so used to being in constant battle, even in his sleep. One wrong move and he was dead. The worst injury he’s gotten in the past few weeks was a paper cut.

Reading was never his biggest hobby, but it’s not bad when you find the right book. Often, you’ll sit across the room from him and read a book of your own, and the silence as he relaxes into the couch is quite peaceful for a change. 

No amount of peace and quiet can cure his boredom, though. It makes him antsy, and you notice. You notice a lot when your job is just staring at him, it seems.

“I found a book of crossword puzzles,” you announce. 

“Congratulations,” Joel says. 

“I thought since you were bored, I’d give them to you, and maybe you could do them…”

By the look on your face, he can guess that you’re regretting your words. Lest he make you cry, he accepts the book. 

“Plus, it looks kind of old so I don’t know if I’d know how to do it myself,” you add.

He knows you don’t mean it as an insult, but it sounds like one, and it makes him laugh. The list of qualities Joel likes about you is already long — and buried deep in his subconscious — but he’ll have to add the fact that you can make him laugh.

“Are you calling me old?”

“Not in a bad way. You’re just older than I am.”

He flips through the book and finds that about 80% of them are done. 

“Somebody did most of these already.”

“I’m sorry… maybe I could erase that person’s answers and then you could do them?”

“I think I’d still be able to tell.”

You hang your head in defeat. 

“Gimme a pencil and I’ll try the ones that aren’t done yet.”

You look through his junk drawer, find a pencil, and hand it to him. He doesn’t expect you to sit on the couch next to him. 

“I know you’re supposed to watch me, but you don’t have to watch that closely.”

You move away slightly, no longer looking over his shoulder. 

“I was just curious about the answers.”

“I was kidding around,” he says (though, it’s only a half-truth). “Come back here.”

It takes him about a week to finish the book. 

“Had to go back and fix some of the others,” he says. “The person who originally filled ‘em out was an idiot.”

“That’s not very nice. Maybe it was a kid.”

“Kid had great handwriting, then.”

You pause, hesitating for a reason he can’t pinpoint. 

“What? You want me to say sorry for calling that guy an idiot. ‘Cause I will if it matters that much to you.”

“No, no, fuck that guy, he was an idiot,” you say, clearly taking after him. 

“Language, Missy,” he says, jokingly scolding you. 

“Sorry. I should stop swearing.”

“It’s okay. You probably picked it up from me anyway.”

“Maybe,” you agree. You’re fidgeting, holding something behind your back, he notices. 

“Whatcha got there?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” you say, holding it out to him. “I just figured since you finished the crossword book, I should get you more.”

He only did the crosswords for you. He never really cared for them anyway. He just wanted to make you happy — he’d rather have you content than pissy or whiny. The only thing worse than your constant insistence on getting his approval would be if you just sat there and cried all day.

He’d tried to give the book back to you, but you couldn’t do ‘em on your own since you were lacking in 90s pop culture knowledge. So, he did them, with you watching over his shoulder the whole time. 

He’s about to admit this to you and hand the new one back over to you when he looks at the pages – white paper, stapled together, all drawn up in pen. 

“Did you make these?” he asks, in awe of both your ability to draw perfectly straight lines, and moreover, how much you must care if you’re willing to go to these lengths. Kiss-ass behavior, he tells himself.

You nod, and he gets the sudden urge to hug you, but opts for a thank you with a smile he can’t repress.

“You didn’t have to do all this, but it’s very sweet of you.”

He considers taking back the ‘very sweet’ comment when he finds that 3 down is four letters with the prompt “grumpy old man”. JOEL fits perfectly in the blank spaces. 

You go on walks, read endless books, and Joel finally lets you start taking on some of the housework. It should be nice, but you get the feeling he’s not all that happy about this situation. Not that he tells you it outright. He doesn’t tell you much at all. And you’ve tried. It’s not like you’re asking hard-hitting questions. 

“How old are you?” 

“56.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

He doesn’t even bother to ask the same question back to you. Sometimes, he doesn’t even look up at you when you speak to him. You know it’s the depression of losing someone close to you, you know what that feels like – the problem is, you don’t know how to fix it. You only know how to hide it.

It’s quite simple, in theory. All you have to do is give him the desire to get out of bed every day. But you don’t even know what he likes. All you know is that your presence is not high on his list of favorite things. You try and try until you swear his shitty attitude is rubbing off on you. 

Tommy checks in with you periodically, asking you how things are going with Joel, and this would be the perfect opportunity for you to get out of this position, which Joel would probably love, but to spite him, you tell Tommy it’s going well.

And it is, in a way – Joel is not actively mean to you. He doesn’t insult you or argue with you, he just mostly ignores you. So, you figure if you ignore him, maybe he’ll miss your attention. Stupid teenage bullshit mindset, acting like you have a crush on him, playing some sort of push and pull game that he’s not even privy to. 

But that’s not like you. That brooding behavior is all Joel, so it lasts no more than a day or so until you go back to trying, and accept the fact that he’s just an asshole. Doesn’t mean you have to be one. 

You never expected to win him over with the crossword puzzles but you see the look in his eyes when you give him the homemade ones, and you know there’s something in there besides all that pain. You know that look, can’t put a name to it, all you know is that it’s a good sign, one you had yet to see from Joel.

Joel wouldn’t have thought he’d get tired of hearing someone ask, “can I do anything for you?”, constantly begging to dote on him, to care for him. The last time someone did this for him was on Father’s Day, which is an ancient holiday now, almost mythical.

But it’s been weeks of the same old shit. It has nothing to do with you. In fact, you’re probably the best ‘caregiver’ he could’ve gotten stuck with. Thing is, though, he doesn’t want a caregiver, and he’s tired of said caregiver bombarding him. It’s enough to just have her watching him like a hawk, but yapping in his ear is another thing. Because he enjoys the quiet (and because the way you ask him questions reminds him of Ellie.)

It’s a joke, a stupid joke. It’s his patience wearing thin.

“Can I get you anything?” you ask. 

“Sure. A beer, maybe. And a fuckin’ blowjob,” he mutters. Yeah, that’d be the dream but it’s a joke, bordering on a jab at you. 

“I don’t think we have any beer,” you say. You both know damn well there’s no alcohol in the house. 

“I know.”

“And, as for the other thing- is that something that you’d want… me to do?”

“Hey,” his tone softens. “Sweetheart, it was a joke. I was messing with you.”

“Okay, so you don’t want that, correct?”

“It was a joke. I’m sorry I even said it.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you say, sheepishly. “It’s your house, your rules, right?”

The concept of free speech in his house was one he’d brought up regarding ‘swear words’— It’s his house so he’s allowed to say ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘bitch’, and every other word he could come up with, and he came up with some deep cuts just to make you laugh. Admittedly, it’s a nice sound.

“Yeah.” He thinks for a moment. “I just think that these sorts of topics aren’t appropriate for someone…”

“You know I’m an adult, right, Joel?”

“Yes, I know, but you’re still young and you seem a little innocent. I don’t want to put those types of thoughts in your head.”

“I know what a blowjob is, and I know what sex is. I just haven’t found the right person yet. That doesn’t mean I’ve never thought about it or whatever.”

You rarely snap at him, so he knows that word — innocent — must’ve been more offensive than he’d meant it. Maybe you’re not innocent. Maybe you’re just kind and a hell of a lot younger than him. Maybe it just seems like you should be.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just saying that I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“But do you want it?” You punctuate every word with a newfound annoyance.

“It’s not about that.”

“Yes it is.” You’re quite incredulous for someone who has been presented with the idea only a moment ago.

“Fine. Yes, in theory, if we were just two people who know each other, then, sure, if you offered, I’d say yes.”

“I offered.”

The way he calls you ‘sweetheart’ feels more like an insult than a term of endearment. You’d rather be ‘kid’ or nothing at all, anything less patronizing. It’s worse when he calls you innocent. You’re not innocent, you’re just nice — something that Joel is not. You’re painfully nice. You’ve heard it makes people like you. You’re still waiting on the results, though.

But, if he’d ordered you to suck him off, you’d have kneed him in the balls, and he would’ve thought twice about calling you ‘sweetheart’. The thing is, he doesn’t. Instead, he backs away from the opportunity, tells you it was a joke. 

But you see two things behind his eyes: one, he wants this. He might not want to want this, but he does. More importantly, you see his genuine concern for your well-being override this desire and you realize you feel safer around him than you do around most men. That’s one of the reasons that you do give him ‘a fuckin’ blowjob’. The other being that, sometimes, before you go to bed, you can’t sleep, and a certain man comes to mind as your fingers slip beneath the waistband of your panties. 

When you reiterate that you offered, you exchange a long stare wherein you try to reach into each other’s souls and sort this shit out but when you both realize you can’t, Joel says, “Okay.”

And you say, “Okay.”

A new kind of tension bubbles to the surface as Joel sits down on the couch and you kneel before him. 

You fiddle with his belt, eventually managing to get it undone, but Joel does the rest of the work it takes to get his pants down to his ankles, boxers too. 

You’d imagined he’d be big, but that’s how fantasies work. Every man’s dick is big in your lewd daydreams, but it’s like you manifested it with Joel. You begin to feel like you’re in over your head, and though you aren’t innocent, you aren’t experienced enough to take him. But who are you to back down from a challenge?

Joel can see hesitation wash over your face for the first time. You pause, study the scene like you’re trying to decide your approach, and then you take his cock in your hand, looking up at him like you’re asking for the green light.

He gives you the go-ahead with the only piece of advice he thinks you’ll need. “Just don’t bite, and you’ll do fine.”

He probably should’ve mentioned another thing: don’t take too much at once or you’ll choke. His head lolls back and his eyes fall closed the moment your lips meet the tip of it. He doesn’t touch you, doesn’t want you to feel intimidated by his presence while you’re exploring, so to speak. He lets out a low groan of approval to let you know he’s still with you.

But he’s fading into a beautiful oblivion until he hears you gag, feels you sputter and it shocks him out of that blissful feeling. His eyes snap open and he cradles the back of your head. 

“Easy, easy,” he says. “Don’t hurt yourself.” 

You pull away briefly and catch your breath. 

“That’s good,” he says. “Breathe, baby.”

He can see you looking for instructions, so he takes your hand and helps you get a firm grip on his cock, sliding your hand up and down, and finally letting you do it on your own. 

“Doin’ good, baby,” he says. “You gotta give your mouth a break sometimes.”

You’ve never gotten anything close to praise from Joel before. It’d warm your heart like nothing else if it weren’t so goddamn sexy in this context. 

You nod, wipe the spit from your chin, and give your mouth a brief break, but you can’t hold yourself back forever. Soon, your lips are back on his cock, kissing from the base to the tip, flicking your tongue over the head, seeing what reactions you can get from him. 

When you get into the rhythm of hand and mouth in tandem, you barely register him telling you that he’s gonna come. 

You imagine it’s an acquired taste but it’s not awful. You can swallow it. So, you do, and you look up at him with a smile. 

He looks like he’s woken up from a dream and he’s still getting his bearings straight, but he’s quick to stand up and take your hand. 

“Where are we going?”

“To my bed.”

You’d follow him anywhere but bed does sound good to you right now. It sounds like an adventure. You don’t go into his bedroom unless absolutely necessary. You’d think he was hiding something horrible in there if you didn’t have a mutual feeling regarding your own bedroom.

“Are we going to have sex?” you ask. 

“No,” he says. 

“Then, what are we going to do?”

“You,” he begins. “Are going to lie back and relax.”

He coaxes you to lie down, and he doesn’t have to try hard. 

“I,” he continues. “Am going to make you feel good.”

You’re fairly certain about what he means, so there’s nothing left for you to do but let him do the work. It’s just another part of the job you’ll have to learn from experience.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says. 

You nod. 

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” he says, playing with the hem of your t-shirt. 

“Wait-” you say, sitting up, and he withdraws. “Can we kiss… first?”

He looks surprised for a moment, and you worry you’ve fucked up. 

“I just feel like we should do that,” you say, much quieter.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess that makes sense.”

His hand cups your cheek and he looks you in the eyes like he’s trying to find answers somewhere in there. 

“Has anyone ever kissed you before?”

“Not really, not the way I want you to kiss me.”

“Feels a bit rude of me to have put my dick in your mouth before you’d even been kissed.”

Still, he leans in and kisses you, but it’s soft, gentle. It’s not a peck on the lips, though, it’s more. It gradually gains momentum and passion. Eventually, he slips his tongue in your mouth and you take it in stride. 

“You’re very good at this,” he says. “If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t think this was your first time.”

“Is that a compliment?” you ask, doubting Joel is capable of such things.

He ignores your question, and sighs. You know it’s not directed at you because you’re fairly sure he’s not listening.

“I know I said I was gonna do some things with you, but I don’t wanna take things too fast, okay?”

“Are you saying you’re just going to kiss me?”

“I think that’d be the right thing to do.”

“That’s not fair,” you whine.

You wish you could sound sexy, or whatever, but you probably come off like a bratty child.  

“Excuse me?”

“That’s not fair. You said you’d make me feel good. I thought you were gonna return the favor.”

“I was.”

“Then, why are you backing out?”

You’re shocked that he’s the pussy — pun-intended — in this scenario.

“I thought it might be too much for you.”

You grab his hand and slip it under the flimsy fabric of your shorts. 

His eyes go wide. 

Fucking hell, you’re wet, is the only thought on Joel’s mind. It makes sense. He’d be offended, maybe even worried if you were dry as a desert down there, but he’s barely touched you. Either you really enjoyed kissing him or you actually liked sucking him off too.

He gently presses the pads of his fingers against the wet spot on your panties.

“You’re right, baby. It’s only fair if I help you out.”

He’s able to get your shorts and your panties down in one swift pull. You look impressed by the action. Just you wait, he thinks. He’s not an expert by any means, but it’s not too hard to learn if you pay attention — and sex is one of the only times Joel does listen — it’s also not a skill you lose over time. It’s muscle memory, or maybe it’s innate.

His thumb rubs your clit lazily as he watches your face scrunch up in pleasure, your eyes fill with need. When the first finger slips inside you, he hears a breathy sigh come from above — it sounds like relief though he knows you haven’t come yet.

He’s never had a woman have such a strong reaction to his lips on her clit. It almost startles him at first. You’re frantic from the moment his lips meet your skin, crying out for him like you’re scared he’ll stop.

“Hey,” he says, “I’m right here. Don’t have to get so worked up. I’m gonna take care of you.”

He can’t say another word because his lips are occupied, so he relies on his hands, his soothing touch, to tell you that everything is alright. He gets the urge to tell you how good you are for him, how good you taste, how pretty you are like this, but he knows it’d be cruel to let up now. He’s callous often, sometimes harsh, but rarely cruel.

His instinct tells him to drag this out, to make your thighs shake, to have tears running down your cheeks, to tease you. To be the asshole that he tends to be when you’re around (and when you’re not). This is a version of Joel you might come to like.

He’s lived long enough to be well-practiced in this field of life. Doesn’t matter if he’s particularly romantic or even sociable, it’s just happened enough times over the course of fifty plus years for him to know the ins and outs. He can get you there quickly and lead you through it slowly.

He’s so used to you saying his name in a tone he considers pestering that he’s begun to hate the word itself. But when it’s drawn out and desperate like this, it sounds wonderful.

You’re at his mercy, he thinks. Which means he’s in control. And, as much as he’d hate to admit it, control does not mean he can kill you, control means he can care for you.

When you come down from your high, Joel is looking up at you from between your thighs with messy hair and kiss-dark lips. His smile looks like one of pride. Your cheeks heat up, only half-remembering what just happened. You could describe the event simply in a cause and effect relationship — he went down on you, so you came. You know what an orgasm feels like, but that was something beyond anything you’d ever experienced before. You fear an addiction may be coming on.

Your voice comes out shaky, which only makes your first words after a long silence sound stupider. “Thank you.”

He looks confused, and it takes him a moment to respond. “My pleasure,” he says, and you swear it might be when you see a semi through his sweatpants.

You’d offer more ‘help’ but you truly don’t think you can manage it. You can feel your body pulling you towards sleep. Your eyes have barely opened and they want to close again.

Joel notices because how could he not, you’re completely naked in every sense of the word.

“Get some rest,” he says before standing up.

He’s leaving.

“Where are you going?” you ask, instinctively.

“Downstairs.”

You do not want to say it. The fear of rejection is too strong, but so is the sudden urge to cry. Holding back tears is a strength of yours, though, so Joel never sees them. Somehow, after doing one of the most adult things, you feel like a baby in the wake of it. You are supposed to be taking care of him, and you are failing.

“What?” is his response to your refusal to meet his eyes.

“I just assumed you were going to stay. That’s all.”

“I can. If that’s what you need me to do.”

You don’t say anything. He climbs into bed anyway after picking up your underwear and handing it to you.

He doesn’t hold you but he doesn’t leave either. What he does do is kiss you on the forehead when he thinks you’re already asleep. It’s a compromise between your fear and your desire.

It isn’t as weird as one might think it would be — acting as if you’ve never done anything remotely sexual with one another. It’s easier because you don’t have to go back to being friends. You never really were. It was always awkward. What’s new? Only your knowledge that at least some of your feelings are mutual. Only the fact that you think about having sex with him every time he’s in front of you. It’s really just out of curiosity sometimes. What would he be like in bed? Does he want it too? How would you even broach the subject?

Sometimes, it’s not just curiosity. Those days are harder to navigate. You have to pretend like every little touch — most of them accidental — fuels the fire. It’s not the sensation itself. It’s just the acute awareness of his body, how close it is to yours, how easily you could reach out and touch him, that enters your mind.

“You’re staring.” Joel says from the other side of the couch.

“Sorry. I zoned out.”

“Got something’ on your mind?”

“Not really.”

“C’mon, what is it?”

“Why do you suddenly care about my thoughts?” About me.

“You think I didn’t care about you before? You’ve been in my house everyday for months now.”

“So?”

“And, I haven’t tried to kick you out yet.”

“You’re not allowed to kick me out. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay. How ‘bout this: I’m down here sitting with you because I know you don’t like to be alone.”

“So you pity me?”

“No, if I pitied you, I’d have told Tommy to give you a new job.”

“Okay, so, you expect me to believe you care but you refuse to talk to me half the time.”

“I’m not much of a talker. But, now that I’m trying to talk to you, you’re shutting me out.”

“I’m not— It’s just not a big deal. I don’t even remember what I was thinking about anyway.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“I said, that’s bullshit.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll talk.”

You take a deep breath before speaking, one long enough that he gestures for you to go on.

“I was just thinking about what it would be like if we had sex.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, since we, you know, we did that stuff… it’s not like it’s a totally crazy thought.”

“‘That stuff’? Be more specific, honey.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I do, but you can’t be thinking about having sex with me when you can’t even use big girl words when you’re talking about it.”

“It doesn’t even matter.” Your face is burning. It so, totally, does matter. “I was just curious.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Mm-hmm. Go on thinking, I’ll get back to reading.”

“Wait, what? You just made me tell you that to make me embarrassed? You’re not even gonna—”

“What? Gonna fuck you?”

The word slips out of his mouth so easily.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Truth is: he’s been thinking about you every day since. He only caught you staring because he was doing the same. He tries to restrain himself because it feels like the right thing to do.

But he still, he acquiesces and takes you upstairs to his bedroom.

He lays you down on the bed and undresses you slowly like you’re a gift and he doesn’t want to tear the paper. He places your clothes atop the dresser, but leaves his strewn across the floor.

Wonder fills your eyes as he reveals his naked body. Hesitation and awe wrapped up in one.

“Wow,” you say, breaking the silence, “it’s, um, you know— do you think it’ll fit?”

It’s not the first time he’s heard that. It no longer brings him that bashful pride that it did when he was younger. It’s just a fact. A nuisance sometimes.

“Not if we don’t get you ready first.”

“Do you need to get ready first too?”

He looks down at his cock, rock-hard and eager.

“No, baby, just looking at you is enough to get me ready.”

A thought crosses his mind — one he thought he’d left in his teenage years — what if he comes too quickly?

He lies back on the bed next to you and reaches for you, waits for you to let him maneuver you.

“Come here,” he says.

You sit up and face him, slowly inch towards his arms that beckon you.

You’re fairly sure you know what he wants you to do. Sit on his face. But god, something about it seems awkward in the amount of control you simultaneously give up and are given in turn.

“You trust me, right?” he asks.

“Of course.”

An answer you wouldn’t have ever thought you’d give back when you first met.

“Then, come sit on my face.”

You swing your leg over him and steady yourself above his face.

He grips your thighs to guide you. You grip the headboard to save yourself from passing out the moment Joel’s mouth meets your skin.

Joel wouldn’t be the man you’d have thought would have such a talented tongue based on how little he uses it. You can’t blame him for not talking right now. Your moans echo off his bedroom walls and permeate the balmy summer air. The windows are closed and the curtains shield your naked bodies from the neighbors but even if you’d left them open, you wouldn’t have the sense to care.

You’re an incoherent mess of moans and half-words, trembling thighs and sweat. Your orgasm comes on strong, and if your eyes weren’t screwed shut, maybe you’d see the gates of heaven.

It’s been a while since he’s done this. Tess never liked it like this and the last woman before her was one from another lifetime, pre-outbreak, an inconceivable world despite having once called it home.

He’s not really thinking about that, though, in this moment, all Joel can think of is you. Your skin, your sweat, your heat, and the pretty noises you make. At one point, he swears he hears his name though your thighs are covering his ears. And he doesn’t mind it one bit.

“I’m gonna pass out,” he hears from above him.

“No, you’re not. I’ve got you,” he tries to say, though surely his words are muffled.

“Don’t let me go.”

He doesn’t. He carefully helps you lie back on the bed. When he meets your gaze, he swears he’s never seen adoration like that in anyone’s eyes before. At least, not in a long time.

It terrifies him, but in spite of his hesitation, he holds you close.

A blanket of peaceful silence settles over your bare bodies.

You speak quietly, trying not to awaken Joel’s senses. The ones that pull him away from you. The moment feels like glass in your hands.

“Are we going to have sex?”

“Hm?”

“We were going to, right? You were getting me ready for it.”

“I thought I wore you out.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I want to stop.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’d tell you if you were.”

He hesitates.

“I’ll be good. I promise.”

Those are the words that awaken his arousal. In an instant, you find his body looming above yours. He kisses you until your lips are red and puffy. He doesn’t break your gaze as he positions his cock at your entrance. Your green light is your needy hips begging him to fuck you.

He starts slow, even the head is a stretch. You scrunch up your face and hold back the urge to squirm.

“It’s gonna be a little uncomfortable at first, baby, and that’s why we’re gonna take it slow.”

Slow is an understatement. It takes ages for him to give you another inch — or maybe you’re just antsy. This one makes you whimper, makes you clamp down around him.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re gonna be fine.”

Joel’s voice is tender and sweet, and it gives you enough hope to ask for something you think he’d usually deny you.

“Can you hold my hand?”

He interlocks his fingers with yours. It feels oddly natural. He doubts he’s heard someone ask to hold his hand since— not now, he’ll go soft if he thinks about her. He’ll close in on himself and you need him — in more ways than one.

He continues slowly as he promised he would until he hears your moans of pleasure and your pleas for more, more, more. More is a little bit faster, a little bit harder, as deep as you can take it, and most importantly, his thumb tracing circles on your clit.

You squeeze his hand with yours as your inner walls clamp down around him.

“Just let it happen. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

When you come, he does too — the most blissful mistake he’s ever made.

Curses fly out of his mouth through his orgasm, stopping briefly as he catches his breath, and resuming when he pulls out and watches as his come drips out of you.

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you insist. “I liked it.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” Because I fucking loved it. “But, it’s dangerous. We’ve gotta be more careful.”

In the future — it’s implied. Another time is nothing when the lines have all been crossed and when the other side brings him a warmth the hot summer never could.

You have more power over him than the sun.

It becomes a routine — briefly — and you are more careful. You discreetly buy condoms, but when your next period doesn’t come, you fear it might be too late.

You don’t tell Joel, not at first. Sometimes, they’re irregular, and you don’t want to give the man a heart attack. But then a week passes, another week passes, and eventually you have to — especially when you’re beginning to feel a bit nauseous and have no other explanation for it. It’s better to say something before he asks.

“Joel,” you say, “I haven’t gotten my period yet.”

A look of horror crosses his face before he asks, “How late is it?”

You take a breath before admitting, “A few weeks.”

“How many?”

“Almost three.”

“Fuck.” He sighs in preemptive defeat. “Have you taken a test?”

“No, I thought it would come so I didn’t want to overreact.”

“We’re going to go get one.”

He stands up immediately and turns towards the door.

“Wait,” you say, stopping him in his tracks.

“I should probably get it. It’ll look less suspicious.”

No, it won’t. Those who suspect something is up with you, will have their suspicions, and those who don’t, won’t think to pay attention.

They recommend taking multiple because false negatives are common.

The first one is a clear positive, so clear you think it might be a false positive, so you wait to freak out until you see two lines come up on the second test.

Joel is silent, even when you hand him the test.

But, so are you, because what more is there to say? The tests say it all.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to,” he says, and you’re surprised until he clarifies.

“I doubt they’ll make you pay for the pill or the procedure — however they do it, but I’ll take care of you while you’re recovering. I’ll be there through it all. Promise.”

The pill or the procedure. The abortion that he expects you to have. Truth be told, you hadn’t really thought about what you’d do until now. It’s probably the right decision. Do you really want to bring a baby into this world? Can you even take care of one?

“Okay,” you say. “I’ll make an appointment.”

You save your tears for Maria. She approaches you in the clinic. You’d be delighted to see her at any other moment.

“Making an appointment?” she asks.

“Yeah, just a checkup,” you lie.

The woman at the counter clarifies with you. “Just a checkup? Is that what you’d prefer?”

You turn back and forth between her and Maria.

“Um, no,” you say, “keep it as is.”

Maria raises an eyebrow and there is nowhere left to hide. You might be able to outrun her, but she knows where you live and isn’t afraid to confront you at your doorstep.

She saves you some of your dignity when she whispers, “How about a chat at my place? I have some tea that helps with nausea.”

The tea is persuasive but you’d have to go anyway. You don’t speak on the walk to Maria’s. She brews the tea and you sit across from each other in the kitchen before she finally speaks.

“What’s the appointment for?” she asks. “And I’m not here to judge you, I just want the truth.”

You’re not my mom, you could say, but she’s the closest thing you’ve had to one since your own passed.

“An abortion,” you say quietly, looking down at the table, at your hands around the mug.

“Okay,” she says, gently. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

You try to reply but all the comes out is a sob.

Eventually, she pries the truth out of you. You explain what happened when you told Joel the news.

“So, he made the decision, and then told you he’d be there for you if he did what you wanted?���

“I guess. But, I think it might be the right choice. I mean, it'd be hard to raise a child in this world…” You cut yourself off when you look at her bump. She’s gonna be a mom, a good mom. And, stupidly, you’re jealous.

Even though it’s not there yet, you swear you can see a high chair in your periphery. You could be holding a warm bottle instead of a hot mug of tea. Maria could be feeding her child his first bite of baby food next to you.

“Let me ask you something, and I want you to really think about it, and be honest with me.”

You nod and wait for her question.

“If Joel had said he’d support you no matter what, even if you wanted to keep the child, if he said he’d step up as a father, would you have made the appointment?”

“I don’t know.” Oh, but you do. Maria waits for you to come to a conclusion, for you to spit it out.

“I like the idea of having a kid. I love kids, and I sometimes think about what it would be like being a mom, but I know that I can’t be one. Not right now.”

If there is one thing Joel can’t be, it’s a father. Not again. He’s too old, too grouchy, too cynical. He’s not the man he used to be. He was never good at it anyway. He couldn’t save his own kid. He’s already a failed father — once, if not, twice.

You’d be a great mother, and that’s the greatest tragedy. He’s failed you already. He’s not good at the kinder things of life. He shouldn’t have indulged in you, in the love you gave him when he cannot give it back. There are a lot of things Joel can’t quite get right — being a lover, a father, a good man.

Every night since the outbreak began, he’s watched Sarah bleed out in his arms. Sometimes he sees Tess, Sam and Henry, Bill, even Tommy which feels like an augury. Ellie is there almost every night, losing consciousness. Only sometimes is she in that hospital bed, often, she’s lying in the show, with blue lips and almost no pulse. Now, you’ve begun to enter his subconscious. You’re always too far out of reach, screaming his name until he’s shot dead, and the last thing he hears is you shriek as you watch him die in front of you.

Another person is another tragedy once they have the misfortune of coming into his life. There cannot be another person, especially not a child.

You should be back by now, he thinks as he splashes water on his face for the umpteenth time, hoping it’ll wash away all the mistakes he’s made.

He can tell it’s Maria by the way her knuckles rap on his front door. He can tell she’s pissed too.

When he opens the door, he sees you in standing behind her, like you’re afraid of him.

“Unless you want to have this discussion on your doorstep, I suggest you let me — us — inside.”

He does, reluctantly.

“Joel Miller, when do you plan on becoming a man?”

“What?”

“You just told her to make an appointment, didn’t even give her a chance to think about it? You managed to run away from your problems while you’re on house arrest. Impressive.”

“I thought that was what we both wanted,” he says, looking past her, to you.

“I guess, maybe,” you shrug.

The one thing he’s grateful for is Maria’s suggestion that you talk privately.

You sit further from him than usual, you refuse to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask what you wanted. I thought I was making the right choice.”

“It’s okay. I don’t even know what I want.”

But the tears suggest otherwise.

“Do you want to keep the baby?”

“Maybe, but I can’t. It’s not a good idea.”

“That’s what I think, but Maria’s right, it’s your choice.”

“But I don’t know how to make that choice.”

“You’ve got a good heart. Follow it.”

You spend a lot of time thinking, remembering, and trying to convince yourself that there is no part of you that wants to be a mother. But, in your bedside drawer, there is a handful of photos — all from before the outbreak. You see your mom as a child on a swing set, and as a teen blowing out candles on her birthday. Her mom is in that one too, sitting next to her, smiling. You wish more than anything to have pictures of you and your mom.

You think about the little girl who pretended a ratty old stuffed bear was her baby. You can hear your mom telling you that you’re doing a good job, how you’ll be good at this one day. Your bedtime stories were never about fairy princesses, but about your family, the ones you didn’t get to meet.

“I wish I could have that,” you’d say.

“One day, you might be able to — the world is scary right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be like this forever,” she’d insist.

In retrospect, you wonder if she really believed that, if she really believed that teddy bear would one day be a baby that you’d be the one carrying, and she’d be the proud grandmother.

“I told her I wanted to be a mom like her,” you explain to Joel, and he understands.

You know about Ellie, but not about Sarah. Joel never brings either of them up to you. Until now. It’s a fair trade, he tells himself. Photos for photos, info for info. But it’s more than that.

“Hold on for one minute, I’m gonna go get something, and I’ll be right back.”

It’ll only take him a second to grab the pictures, but he’ll need a moment to compose himself.

“This is Sarah,” he says, pointing to the little girl in the photo. “My daughter.”

You’re silent for a moment, gazing at the photo, at a younger Joel you’ve never met.

You’re the first person not to tell him that you’re sorry for his loss, and he is relieved not to hear the empty sympathies once more.

“What was she like?” you ask.

It’s hard to explain, and for that reason, he talks for at least a half hour about Sarah. All her likes and dislikes, all his favorite moments from the day she was born until the day she died. He tells the story of that too.

When you try to tell him that he sounds like he was a good dad, he has to explain why he wasn’t.

“I couldn’t save her,” he says.

“I couldn’t save her either,” you say, pointing to your mother in one of the photos.

“You were just a child,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”

“And, you were just a man,” you say. “It’s not your fault.”

“A grown man.”

“Doing the best that you could.”

And you’re right. He did try his best. He stops arguing not because he’ll ever concede but because the weight of the present falls upon him all at once as he meets your eyes and remembers why you’re here.

He can’t have Sarah back, he can’t have Ellie back, but you’re right in front of him — and he loves you. It’s too late to turn back and kick you out on your first day, it’s too late to never speak to you, it’s too late to not love you.

It’s not too late to fail you like he’s failed everyone else. It’s not too late to do the opposite either.

You tell him your decision, and wait for his disagreement, for him to dissuade you. But, he doesn’t.

“Okay,” he says.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try my best.”

You cancel the appointment and make the final decision, but it doesn’t feel real until Joel finishes building the crib in the spare bedroom. The most unexpected part is how excited you feel even when you’re nauseous, even when your feet are bloated, even when your back is killing you.

You’re also terrified, particularly when you hear Maria’s account of her labor and delivery. For someone describing how painful it was, she seems oddly unfazed, happy even. She’s too focused on her baby boy, and you get it — he is pretty cute.

When the day comes, you find that you’ve underestimated the pain entirely. The wounds you’ve gotten in combat are nothing compared to this. Every hour that goes by feels like a full day for you. Every time the doctor checks your dilation it’s still not yet time.

Until it is. And everything becomes a million times more chaotic. You swear the only thing keeping you sane is Joel’s hand in yours. (You have to apologize later for squeezing it so tightly.)

Finally, the telltale cry comes, and it feels like you’ve run a marathon by how exhausted you are and by how proud you are of yourself for doing it. This will go down as the greatest feat of your life and you are more than satisfied with that fact.

The doctor announces that it’s a boy and though he said he’d be fine with either gender, Joel’s smile is wider than you’ve ever seen it. You’re smiling almost as big. It hurts your cheek muscles but you can’t stop, especially when they hand you your baby boy. Though he doesn’t know how to speak, his hand wrapped around your finger tells you that it’s going to be okay.

There is so much pain in this world, but not in this room.

[thistlecrimes]

Things I've learned from getting covid for the first time in 2023

I wear an N95 in public spaces and I've managed to dodge it for a long time, but I finally got covid for the first time (to my knowledge) in mid-late November 2023. It was a weird experience especially because I feel like it used to be something everyone was talking about and sharing info on, so getting it for the first time now (when people generally seem averse to talking about covid) I found I needed to seek out a lot of info because I wasn't sure what to do. I put so much effort into prevention, I knew less about what to do when you have it. I'm experiencing a rebound right now so I'm currently isolating. So, I'm making a post in the hopes that if you get covid (it's pretty goddamn hard to avoid right now) this info will be helpful for you. It's a couple things I already knew and several things I learned. One part of it is based on my experience in Minnesota but some other states may have similar programs.

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The World Health Organization states you should isolate for 10 days from first having symptoms plus 3 days after the end of symptoms.

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At the time of my writing this post, in Minnesota, we have a test to treat program where you can call, report the result of your rapid test (no photo necessary) and be prescribed paxlovid over the phone to pick up from your pharmacy or have delivered to you. It is free and you do not need to have insurance. I found it by googling "Minnesota Test to Treat Covid"

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Paxlovid decreases the risk of hospitalization and death, but it's also been shown to decrease the risk of Long Covid. Long Covid can occur even from mild or asymptomatic infections.

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Covid rebound commonly occurs 2-8 days after apparent recovery. While many people associate Paxlovid with covid rebound, researchers say there is no strong evidence that Paxlovid causes covid rebound, and rebounds occur in infections that were not treated with Paxlovid as well. I knew rebounds could happen but did not know it could take 8 days. I had mine on day 7 and was completely surprised by it.

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If you start experiencing new symptoms or test positive again, the CDC states that you should start your isolation period again at day zero. Covid rebound is still contagious. Personally I'd suggest wearing a high quality respirator around folks for an additional 8-9 days after you start to test negative in case of a rebound.

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Positive results on a rapid test can be very faint, but even a very faint line is positive result. Make sure to look at your rapid test result under strong lighting. Also, false negatives are not uncommon. If you have symptoms but test negative taking multiple tests and trying different brands if you have them are not bad ideas. My ihealth tests picked up my covid, my binax now tests did not.

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EDIT: I'd highly suggest spending time with friends online if you can, I previously had a link to the NAMI warmline directory in this post but I've since been informed that NAMI is very much funded by pharmaceutical companies and lobbies for policies that take autonomy away from disabled folks, so I've taken that off of here! Sorry, I had no idea, the People's CDC listed them as a resource so I just assumed they were legit! Feel free to reply/reblog this with other warmlines/support resources if you know of them! And please reblog this version!

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I know that there is so much we can't control as individuals right now, and that's frightening. All we can do is try our best to reduce harm and to care for each other. I hope this info will be able to help folks.

[mickyschumacher]

[BREAKFAST IN BED!]

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: the racing season is finally over and lando is more than excited to have you all to himself. or in which lando prefers his breakfast in bed with you as the main course.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 18+ (minor dni), breastplay, grinding(?), teasing, oral sex/eating out/cunnilingus, fingering, pure moments of fluff because bf!lando is the sweetest, discussion of lando mentally struggling at the start

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: bf!lando norris x fem!reader

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 2k+

𝐀/𝐍: i promised a post before the end of the year and it happens to coincide with a holiday of giving ;) merry christmas and happy hanukkah to those who celebrate it! and happy new year! // as usual poorly proof-read ♡︎ (sorry if it's shitty, i haven't written a full-piece in a while)

🏎️ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | ⚽️𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

The season was over. Finally.

Not to be offensive or anything but you had been waiting for this moment for what, this year, felt like forever.

Yes, it was action packed–largely due to the fact that a certain RedBull wasn't winning every race. Yes, McLaren had whipped up the fastest car on the grid to shake things up. And yes, the same team had clinched their ninth World Constructor's Championship.

And while that made you absolutely over the moon, all you had wanted was for some peace and quiet on a random Wednesday morning so you could (maybe creepily) ogle your handsome boyfriend.

Was that too much to ask for?

It had been a tough season for Lando and naturally, as you promised from the very start of your friendship alone–that you would stick by his side no matter what–you had also been through the thick of it.

Convincing Lando to not look at the comments after every session or race had been difficult. You tried your best to remove any negativity that clouded his mind. Some days it worked and some days it didn't.

But that was life. And that was then.

Now you were wide awake at some odd time in the morning, laying comfortably on your stomach with your head turned towards Lando. There was about one degree of separation between the both of you, allowing you to carefully observe him.

Lando was never an early bird. If he was, it would be by some miracle or your upper arm strength pulling him from the sheets. A small smile crept onto your face. You had been friends for years now and together for even shorter. Yet you still couldn't believe that the sleepy bird next to you was yours entirely.

His dark tousled and recently cut curls, the stress lines on his forehead you were always aching to smooth out and comfort with the pad of your thumb, his "perfectly normal sized ears" that you definitely never made fun of, his lovely lashes you were jealous of, and the soft pink lips you couldn't decide whether to touch or kiss.... all yours.

Behind all the stupidity, humour, and claimed 'indifference' Lando sported on camera and with others, you always knew his heart. It was open for everyone and had more than enough love to go around. You were in love with the biggest sap you had ever known.

And on top of all of that, he made it out of that car to you... alive... every goddamn time.

You were luckier than you could ever imagine.

"How long are you going to stare at me, love?" Lando's voice queried, thick with the rasp of the morning and the events of last night.

You slightly widened your eyes, watching him open those beautiful baby blues and land on you. An flustered flush of heat wavered up your skin. You bit your lip before slipping beneath the covers, feeling the warmth envelope your skin entirely. You started with a muttered curse.

"How long have you even been awake, Lan? That's so embarrassing," you chided with a muffled tone.

Unbeknownst to you, Lando couldn't help but grin at your sudden shy demeanour. It was hard for anyone to imagine you as shy but he had seen every side of you. How enjoyable it was that even after all these years, he could tease you and see how flustered you could get. If he had met you when you were kids, this is exactly how he imagined you'd be.

He stretched out his taut arm, grabbing you by the waist. His skin swarmed with heat as he felt your bare waist under your shirt as he pulled you over him. He moved your knees so you straddled him.

He pressed his lips to prevent a full blown smile at what he was seeing.

Your hair was fully covering your face, head down and hands hovering over to hide the tinges of pink and red on your skin.

"Baby... come on, love. Show me your face," Lando encouraged, nudging your hair lightly with the side of his finger. "Come on, baby."

You groaned, lifting your head, feeling all your tresses go back. You blankly stared at your boyfriend with burning cheeks. "I hate you," you mumbled, giving him a small glare.

Lando snorted, putting his hands firmly on your waist. His fingers edged up behind the hem of your shirt, rubbing small circles into your bare skin. "You love me. Someone who hates me wouldn't stare at me so lovingly."

"I–" You tried to open your mouth to retaliate but to no avail as you quickly came to the realisation that he was indeed correct. As Lando usually was with these things.

"Fine. You got me," you sighed admittedly, "I just missed waking up next to you in the morning. Is that such a horrible crime?" You dramatically asked, tease heavy in your voice.

In any other situation, Lando would've narrowed his eyes at your teasing but all he could do was gaze softly at you. You weren't able to travel with him all the time and he wasn't able to spend every day with you. You both knew that. And while it sucked, you had both gotten used to it, cherishing when you were together.

But this year... Lando had spent every living second wishing you were next to him. He wanted you to tell him your god awful jokes. To look at him from across the room and take his entire breath, mind, whatever, away. To drop the fake smiles and rest in your arms with all the time in the world.

"No," Lando whispered, warm eyes travelling over your face, trying to find anything new to memorise. Anything he had missed since seeing you. "That isn't a crime. If it was, I'd be guilty as charged."

Your breath hitched while a small shiver trickled down your body as Lando pushed back a lock of hair behind your ear. You chewed down on your lip before breaking into a smile gently. "I love you, Lando Norris. Forever," you murmured, placing a brief kiss onto his lips.

Lando stared at you hard, far more awake than he had ever been. He lifted his head slowly, holding you close to him. And without a second thought, he brought his lips to yours.

This kiss was different from the others you had shared. Perhaps it was the atmosphere or context that accounted for that different but the need, the love, the softness and the brutal passion was poured into every fibre of your being

Your hands curled around the back of his neck, pulling him tighter while your nose glided against his as Lando only just begun ravaging your mouth. He sucked on your lips with a small nibble here and there, relishing the muffled moans passing your lips.

His own hands continued to travel the path of your body he had committed to memory. He knew as he traversed your heated back exactly where the dark freckles he had come to love were.

Your soft moans became more audible and pleasing to Lando's ears as he curled his lips to your neck, leaving the sloppily yet controlled path of possessive kisses down base of your skin. He could feel your pulse against his skin and God, he wanted to burn it into his brain and save it.

"Lando," you gasped as you felt a sudden jerk underneath you, feeding into the pooling wetness between your thighs. Your teeth sunk into your pillowy bottom lip, your hips automatically responded by grinding down onto Lando's bulge.

"Ah, fuck," Lando cursed, feeling his cock throb in his underwear. His eyes fluttered shut, hands immediately returning to your hips to continue the stimulating pleasure.

You were driving him crazy.

Both of your skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat as you felt Lando's clothed cock rut into your poorly covered pussy. You rocked your hips harder into him, feeling a slight jolt against your clit. "Oh, fuck, Lando," you moaned his name in his ear, fingers curling into his skin.

Lando opened his eyes, drawing back to capture your face. Your dazed eyes, glowing skin, panting lips, the way your hips bowed towards him... he had missed you. So. Fucking. Much.

"I want breakfast," Lando blurted with a slight gasp as the pleasure rocked through his body.

You stopped moving your hips, body shuddering from the halt. You raised a brow at the sudden desire but shrugged it off considering you were way past breakfast hours and you were only human. "Okay," you responded, about to move off of Lando to head to the kitchen.

Lando reached over, hand pulling your body back towards him, rolling your body so he hovered over you between your legs. "Where are you going?" he tutted, "Breakfast is right here."

You seemed to lose the ability to speak with Lando's hand kneading the flesh of your thighs, implying exactly what he wanted. You breathlessly watched his head move over your body. His tongue lapped at your skin, travelling to any bare patch he could find as though he wanted to feast on you. His warmth made your core tingle as you arched into his touch.

You were positively going to lose your mind.

His hands slid under your shirt, burning your skin until he could fill his palms with your breasts. "Oh baby," Lando moaned, fingers teasing your soft mounds. "I love your tits so fucking much."

A choked cry broke through your lips upon hearing his confession, fingers brushing against your hardened nipple almost painfully slowly. No matter how many times he said it, it set you alight.

"Lando," you moaned loudly, hoping he could read and hear the sound that beckoned him towards your aching core.

He paused, allowing you to take in the heavenly sight of Lando's bare chest, decorated only by the necklace you had gotten him on his birthday last year. In turn, his gaze was only focused on your core.

You tested your lung capacity, taking in a sharp inhale as he pressed his knuckles against your panties, purposely pushing harder against on the ball of your clit. You faltered at the smile sprawling on his face, your hips jolting forward and mouth unable to contain a desperate yelp.

Lando was every inch as desperate as you were, taking no time to waste. His fingers hooked onto your panties and removed them in one swift motion, leaving you bare from the waist down.

Your stomach churned at the sight of Lando nestling his head into your inner thigh, his once light blue eyes now dark and heavy with desire as he inhaled the scent of you. The moan escaping his lips made you shiver.

You were sure you were dripping. You could feel the slick trail down your pussy, glistening in a patient wait to be touched just like you were.

Your eyes fell back to Lando who groaned your name. "I promise to God, I'm going to make you cum so hard that breakfast in bed will be the only option you have," he stated so surely against your skin as his fingers slid from the seam of your entrance to your clit, bundling all your wetness onto his hand.

Oh god.

"Lando, please," you begged shamelessly, legs aching to clench together to relieve the pain of being untouched.

Your legs trembled around Lando's head, his hot breath nearing your pussy while his mouth drew closer. You watched him take you in for the last time before his lips firmly sealed over your aching clit.

The burst of pleasure cut through your body so sharply. Your cry of joy echoed in the late morning, hips bucking against his mouth.

Lando's hands travelled to the outside of your thighs, grasp tightening to keep them spread open on his shoulders. "Keep them open, baby," he ground out.

It took everything in your power to keep your legs from collapsing, particularly as he made his point with another hard to suck to your clit, but you body seemed to follow his command. His mouth returned your wet folds, tongue swirling around every crevice before coming back to the most sensitive part of you, turning you into absolute mush.

Your hands had found their way to those mop of curls you cherished so much, legs trying to conform around Lando's shoulder to welcome any better angle of pleasure.

Your gasp at the sudden dismissal of his mouth was short lived, any chance to complain gone as his fingers pushed into your slick folds, stretching your clenching muscles out.

"Fuck yourself on those pretty little fingers for me, baby. I need you ready for me," Lando encouraged breathlessly as something feral inside of him emerged.

His fingers stroked your swollen walls from the inside, ensuring you felt every inch of them along the sensitive front wall of your pussy while his tongue glazed over every puffy slick fold like you were golden honey.

Lando watched in torture as he pushed his fingers in and out of your walls, your body jerking forward at the sheer pleasure. "That's it, baby," he continued to praise you.

"Doing so well for me, hmm?" He asked, a gleam of your wetness coating his lips. Moving his free hand down your thigh, he gathered your flesh in his fingers before reaching the small bundle of nerves, thumb going in small firm circles.

You were beginning to feel numb. A cold yet hot tightness coiling within your core, waiting to be unleashed. "Lando," you gasped, struggling to keep your head up, "fuck, I–I think I'm going to cum."

"Yes, baby," Lando coaxed, fingers speeding up with every action they had entailed, "Cum for me, please. Keep your eyes open. Look at me, love."

You fought the urge to squeeze your eyes shut, forcing your eyes to travel to those familiar baby blues. All the trillion nerves in your body felt like entangled knots tied by Lando's tongue while his fingers found the sweetest spot of your pussy and held to you that pinnacle.

Your teeth sunk into your bottom lip while Lando held your gaze, tongue sliding, curving up, and pushing in and out of every crevice. Your pussy finally succumbed to the hard pressure, clenching muscles squeezing hard at the sharp pinch of pain.

The pain was explosive, searing, and all-consuming.

You cried.

You cried so loudly you were sure your neighbours would be complaining any minute now.

It didn't matter. Not when the pleasure shooting through you was disproportionately and literally blowing you out of this world as though it had been seated and waiting to be released since the dawn of time itself. Your hips bucked and stuttered while you squirmed and writhed against the bed, the fabric of your shirt sticking to your sweaty skin.

Lando's mouth had never left you through your orgasm, tongue still deep in your folds, savouring all the convulses, shudders, and clenches of your body.

Even better yet, he had watched every second of you falling apart.

And it absolutely drove him crazy.

Lando's hand rushed to catch your falling body, holding you up as a small wave of exhaustion crashed into you. You stared at Lando shiftless, still seeing the faint image of floating stars across his face.

Oh my god.

Lando had broken you with his tongue.

You watched Lando lick his fingers clean as you slowly removed your legs from his shoulders. You lifted your head, pressing a long kiss onto his lips.

Lando grinned, cradling his arms around your body as he pushed you both into the bed yet again. He pushed back your slightly greased hair, caressing your cheek gently. "You okay?"

His query made you feel soft all over. You smiled into his hands and nodded. "Perfect," you chirped, hands hanging over his neck.

"So... breakfast in bed?" Lando offered knowingly as he massaged your thighs gently. You were not walking to that kitchen.

You furrowed your brows. "What about my breakfast?"

Lando wanted to question you but as his eyes followed your gaze, the answer became as clear as the aching bulge underneath his boxers.

"Oh."

© 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐘𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑

[tempestandwhirlwinds]

I disagree with almost everything said here, and I'd like to add my two cents to this conversation. I'm going to separate my arguments in the order that they appear in this post. I'll probably paraphrase a lot of this since I'm on mobile.

1. Anon thinks that Haymitch's character was assassinated bc Haymitch was taking orders from the rebellion instead of using his own intellect with the forcefield. They think it's more meaningful that Haymitch was punished when he was just trying to survive instead of being punished for deliberate attacking the arena/games/Capitol.

I disagree entirely with the "character assassination" assessment - I think what we learn in SoTR gives Haymitch more depth and explains the motivations for everything he does in the Trilogy: it characterizes him as a man who's lost everything because of an ill-planned rebellion. He's not a drunk bc he has to watch 2 kids die every year. He's a drunk bc he actually tried to dismantle the system and, when he failed, it cost him his family and the love of his life. He drinks to forget what he's lost, and he stays away from everyone to make sure Snow doesn't punish anyone else who he could care about. Haymitch's backstory has another purpose: it shows us exactly how much Katniss had to lose by publicly embodying the face and symbol of the rebellion. Even when Katniss escaped the arena in CF, Snow bombed 12. What do you think he would've done if she hadn't?

I also think you're giving Haymitch's intellect with the forcefield a bit too much credit. Sure, he figured out how the force field works, but the only reason it worked in killing the other tribute is bc he was injured and fell at the exact right moment. Even if you argue that he led them over there on purpose, luck factored in heavily to how he won, and this is undoubtedly the angle the Capitol would've leaned into.

2. Anon doesn't like how the original message we got from Katniss and Peeta watching his games in CF are now void bc of what we see in SoTR - that the Capitol heavily edited the footage to control the narrative.

In CF, Katniss says that Haymitch's trick with the forcefield "made [the Capitol] look stupid" bc it "wasn't meant to be apart of the arena" and "they never planned on it being used as a weapon" (CF 282). It's not until Mockingjay that we learn that this stunt got Haymitch's family and girl killed.

Looking back on it, this seems like a disproportionately severe response, especially since it could be spun that Haymitch didn't intend to use the forcefield like that. Katniss and Peeta deliberately defy the rules to rob the Capitol of a Victor with the berries and neither of their families are punished for it. And we know from SoTR that they can easily kill the family members/loved ones of Victors and say that they died of "natural causes", so why didn't they do this with Katniss and Peeta's family? Because what they did was not as rebellious as what Haymitch did. Bc the berries could be turned into a tale of romance and teen love. Haymitch used a BOMB to try and take out the arena in SoTR.

The trick with the forcefield seems nothing by comparison. What is a little lost pride by the Capitol with keeping that end clip in the footage in the face of showing the most blatant and violent act of rebellion they had likely seen since the Dark Days?

In terms of what the original "message" of Haymitch' games in CF, the message of "mess with the Capitol's image, and you'll get punished for it" is not only still in SoTR, but it is compounded once we see the true extent of what happened in the games. The only thing that is different is we see how absolutely the Capitol controls the media and the narrative surrounding the games, which means that any evidence of rebellion will be hidden from sight and squashed out of history books - UNLESS the rebellion succeeds.

We knew that the Capitol distorted the truth of what happened in the Districts in the Trilogy, but it's not until SoTR that we see how they we able to change the perception of the PAST because of it. A very poignant lesson to learn in the modern political climate of cherry picking what's in our history books.

3. OP states that the characterization of young Haymitch in CF seems to align with the older version of him we see in the Trilogy. He's dismissive, arrogant, aloof, and he's pretty much by himself during the games. OP then says "one of the key differences that was stripped from haymitch in sotr is that he cares about people, in his own silent way but he does care".

I was following you in the front half of this but then you lost me completely with that last part. Are you saying that Haymitch doesn't care for people in SoTR? He has a Ma and brother that he loves, a girlfriend he adores, his sweetheart Louella that he is protective of, and Maysilee, who becomes his sister during the games. Haymitch is by FAR the character with the most loved ones in the entire Hunger Games universe. That's why losing everyone as a punishment hit him so hard!! It's why he desperately tried to push people away so he wouldn't endure the pain of losing someone else he cared about! But he still has love in his heart, which is why he reluctantly gets attached to Katniss and Peeta in the Trilogy. That man is a lover! It's such a fundamental part of his personality that he's devastated that the edited games make him look like a jackass who abandoned everyone when he really was isolating himself to protect the others bc he knew Snow had pit a target on his back.

4. OP mentions that him being the noble hero at the end and trying to help someone else be the victor felt undeserved.

Haymitch thought he was a dead man here. He wanted to go home, but knew that probably wasn't going to happen bc of how much he'd pissed off Snow. He wanted to make sure that if anyone else was going to win, it was someone who he allied with, just as a small way taking back some control.

5. OP says that it's hard to believe that Haymitch would not have been killed by the Capitol if he had actually blown up the arena. It made sense to kill his family and girlfriend for the forcefield trick, but why wouldn't they kill Haymitch for the bomb?

Couple reasons. Haymitch had gotten Snow's attention early on (with Louella's corpse in the parade), which means Snow was paying very close attention to what Haymitch was doing. Therefore, when Haymitch descended into the sublevel of the arena to blow up the water tank, Snow clearly didn't have the cameras recording his actions. The circumstances almost certainly have been different if the audience HAD saw what happened, but we know from the film of the games afterward that they didn't see it (or didn't see enough of it to register what he was doing and the memory was surpassed by the official recording later). Because of this, Snow was able to focus on punishment, not damage control with the Capitol's image.

Also, Snow DID want Haymitch to kill himself. He sent him poisoned milk directly into the arena, clearly a response for what Haymitch did with the water tank and forcefield. It's only pure luck that prevented Haymitch from drinking it. And we all know the consequences of what happened to Haymitch bc he didn't drink it - Snow killed his Ma, Sid, and Lenore Dove in front of him.

6. OP says the message about propaganda was only "shoved down our throats at the end", making it feel like clumsy writing - "telling" instead of "showing".

The message about propaganda gets more direct at the end, sure, but there is a constant throughline of "painting your own poster" which shows how the characters want to take control back from the Capitol's propaganda and show everyone who they really are, even when their image is used by the Capitol. Once we get to see the recording of Haymitch's games, we understand that even when we are aware of propaganda, we cannot control how ppl will view it, how it will be presented, or how it will effect us.

(Also we are told so much about Lenore Dove - and not shown - specifically because she's a rebel and she's trying to keep Haymitch in the dark about it to protect him, hence the orange paint on her fingernails and Maysilee's commenr about how L.D. was ahead of the game. This is the same mindset that used with Katniss during CF - knowing too much can be dangerous)

7. OP says Collins used propaganda as an excuse as to why Haymitch's personality is so different in SoTR when compared to the Trilogy. How could he have become smarter in the Trilogy when he spent so many years an an alcoholic?

Even though it seems like Haymitch's personality (as described in the 50th games in CF) matches his mentor persona (as seen in Katniss' "he didn't have to reach far for that one" comment) it's clear that he's putting on a facade, just like every other tribute does. We don't get much indicators of his personality apart from that one line in his interview with Flickerman, and he seems pretty neutral with Maysilee in the recording, so it's a bit hard to compare 16yr old haymitch with 41 yr old haymitch in CF. But quite honestly, I would've been astounded if his personality was the same in SoTR as it was in the Trilogy. I would hope a man changes a bit between 16 and 40, and we also knew that his family and girlfriend were killed by Snow. Him being a more charming, friendly guy in SoTR only emphasizes how devastated he was by his loss.

As for his intellect - in SoTR, he was a brash 16yr old who thought he had nothing to lose. It was only once he actually lost everything that he realized the depth of his mistake. Even with all the drinking, that's a lesson that teaches you to be smart about your decisions. He's also smart about maintaining appearances and an image with the audience in SoTR (hence the "rascal" mantle) and he clearly doesn't lose this intellect and knowledge by the time the 74th games roll around. I actually saw more similarities between young Haymitch and Peeta at the beginning because of this.

8. OP says that the message of a books shouldn't be so heavy handed bc it's implying that the audience is dumb or too stupid to get it.

Not necessarily. The subtlety of a book's message heavily depends on the audience the book is advertised to. The Hunger Games trilogy, TBOSAS, and SoTR are all YA novels, which means a certain level of blatant messaging is expected. Even though the novels are politically complex enough for me to wish it had been written for an older audience (a lot of the messaging went over my head as a 13yr old), you can expect the target audience for a book to be the same age as the protagonist. And even if the themes/messaging are a bit too obvious or blatant for some ppl's taste, that doesn't mean that the message is wrong or not worth reading about. Personally, I think the message about how "you must fight within the corrupt system before you are able to overthrow it" and "attempting to control others will only lead to your downfall" was well done, but this can be subjective, so I'll move on.

9. OP says that propaganda was used effectively in TBOSAS and the Trilogy because Snow, Katniss, and Peeta were all able to use it to their advantage within the Games. Haymitch's games only withheld information, which is different from propaganda, therefore the propaganda message falls flat.

You mention what propaganda is defined as, but I'll put the full definition here. Propaganda is "information of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view." We see how the Capitol used propaganda to make the systemic murder of children into a game of entertainment, similar to betting on horse races. We see how Snow and Peeta are able to take control of that propaganda and use it to their own advantage (Snow getting ppl to care about Lucy Gray bc of her musical ability and getting sponsors as a result, Peeta leaning into the romance to engage the audience in a different way and keep their attention).

Katniss, on the other hand, cannot play the game the same way as those two. She is inherently honest, and while she can shut down the projection of her emotions on her face, she very consistently can't act to save her life, which becomes a huge problem when she fully steps into the role of the mockingjay. The rebellion needed her to act like the larger than life hero for their propaganda so she could be a figure for the Disticts to rally behind, but she simply couldn't do it (haymitch says something along the lines of "and that's how a rebellion dies" when she tries to give them what they want). In the Mockingjay, Katniss proves the point of the George Orwell quote used in SoTR: propaganda is lying, no matter which direction it's in. Katniss wins over the public by being HERSELF - a girl who loves her sister enough to take her place in the Games, a girl who respects and values those she trusts, a girl who honors the dead in a system designed to see them as a number. Katniss is proof that propaganda can fall to authenticity.

Haymitch, and SoTR, on the other hand, shows what happens when only one side has the power of propaganda. Haymitch tried to control his image in the propaganda with the whole "rascal" thing, but he was unsuccessful. He got the Capitol's attention before he got the Districts, which meant Snow was able to control his narrative before he even had the chance to get a foothold in his own propaganda.

You say that withholding information is different from propaganda, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I would argue that simply withholding some information is the most insidious form of propaganda, since it has the most truth to it, and it can use that truth to make whatever point it wants to. Haymitch witnessed how the withholding and reorganizing of the order of events turned him from a trail-blazing rebel into a self-centered kid who barely cared for the rest of the kids in the arena. Haymitch witnessed how the propaganda literally changed his history in the eyes of the Capitol, and it showed the reader how subjective any telling of the past can be.

You mentioned how propaganda plays on emotions - which is true - and in Haymitch's games, we could pick how so many moments that could've been used to play on the emotions of the audience and draw or repel the viewers to/from Haymitch's side. Lou Lou's death, the sharing chocolate with the Career, Ampert's death, blowing up the arena etc. But when we see the replay of his games, the Capitol has deliberately nullified the emotional impact of these scenes. Some were removed entirely, some were placed in a different order so they had no connection to Haymitch. This shows the Capitol's skill with propaganda, and they expertly rearranged the narrative so that Haymitch was longer someone to rally behind. In the recording of the games, they made him almost like every other Victor. Self-centered. Forgettable. Won by luck. They took away the power of his actions by removing them from the tapes, and because that made all the difference. It cause the rebellion to fail before it could even begin.

The next few thing you say I've already addressed, so I'll skip past them.

10. OP says the 48 tributes wasn't used to its full potential, and that more people were interested in Haymitch's deterioration than the games.

We already knew from CF that Haymitch was practically on his own for the length of the games bc he went in a different direction, so we wouldn't see the bloodbath that happens at the cornucopia. I don't think we ever really witness that part of the games (bc the narrator has to live) so SoTR isn't unique in that regard. But focusing too much on the games (much like the Capitol citizens) would distract from the actual message - the dangers and impacts of propaganda.

As for the interest in Haymitch's deterioration part, I would be incredibly surprised if people actually want to read about a novel that focuses explicitly on the descent into alcoholism and depression, especially since we know how isolated he is. What, he gets up, drinks until the sun goes down and then passes out? He watches the tributes die again and again for the next 25 years? Sure, I would've been interested in seeing how he viewed at least one pair of tributes, but I wouldn't want that to be the majority of the book by any means. What was important is the WHY behind his alcholism, which we got in spades in SoTR.

He doesn't drink bc of all the dead tributes he mentored, like we thought. He drinks because he thought he could be the hero and it got everyone he loved killed. He watched his mother and brother burn to death in front of him. He put the poisoned gum drop in his gf's mouth himself bc he didn't realize Snow switched the bags. That, for me, was much more meaningful than a detailed descent into despair.

Last point!

11. OP says that the spark for rebellion the THG was much more compelling while the attempted rebellion in SoTR was laughable. The fact that no one died trying to take down the Capitol in SoTR feels like suffocating plot armor bc there were no consequences.

The rebellion plan in SoTR was extremely desperate and far-fetched, but that is the point. Beetee was desperate to have his son's death not be in vain, sure, but it shows one key thing: rebellion cannot be manufactured.

What Katniss and Peeta did with the berries worked bc they lucked into the exact right circumstances: Katniss desperately loves her sister, and she's shown to be smart and capable and honorable (Rue's funeral); Peeta loves her and was trying to keep her alive bc he thought he had no chance of winning; AND (key point) they thought they would be able to win together before the Capitol revoked the rule change (made them into sympathetic characters in the audiences eyes bc Captiol cheated and changed the rules). All of these combine to make them - and Katniss especially - extremely compelling to both the Capitol citizena and the Districts.

These sets of circumstances simply didn't happen with Haymitch, and so he didn't have the opinion of the public on his side. But even so, Snow didn't want to risk the chance of making him a martyr (which is why he didn't kill Katniss after the berries) and gave him the chance to kill himself with the milk in the arena. But when Haymitch didn't do it, Snow killed those he loved as consequence. He already killed Ampert to punish Beetee, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did the same to Mags and Wiress. So no, the main characters of the rebellion weren't killed bc of what they did. But their loved ones were, and they probably would've rather been killed than endure that punishment.

Killing the rebels makes them a martyr. Killing the families of the rebels makes them a warning. And it was a warning that Haymitch heard loud and clear.

you’re so right about people not knowing how to handle conflict and i wish they did, people act like collins can do no wrong but if they could see past that there are some really interesting conversations to be had about this book and what does or doesn’t work from a literary perspective. but they aren’t willing to hear it out in a mature and respectful manner.

anyways what i wanted to say and get your opinion on is that i get collins maybe wanting to make a point about how long rebellion takes and how much trial and error there is but i kind of hate that it came at the cost of haymitch’s story from catching fire, like there are so many other ways to write about themes of propaganda i hate that we had to take a story with really interesting and impactful messages about rebellion and the cruelties of the capitol and say it was actually all propaganda, it doesn’t make sense to me.

haymitch not purposely acting as a part of the rebellion but rather just trying to survive (like katniss and peeta with the berries) makes for such a compelling message too. like i think him outsmarting the capitol using his own intellect rather than because he was following instructions from the rebellion and thus the captiol punishing a kid who wasn’t trying to dismantle them but was just trying to survive and make it back home alive hits so hard why erase that? she could’ve conveyed these themes with a different characters story, why assassinate haymitch like that? i also think there’s something powerful in his catching fire story about how him and maysilee broke the alliance but he still went after her without obligation.

i’m convinced that what we see in catching fire was what she originally intended his story to be and that she came up with the events of this book much later. it just frustrates me that she wrote haymitch’s story with such compelling ideas and messages only to then with this book say the capitol made that all up. like haymitch has always been my favorite character and while i hate that she took away his intellect and edge i actually hate that she took away all the meaning behind how his story in catching fire played out more.

Alright I will go into the propaganda aspect and why none of it works. Let’s start with Haymitch in Catching Fire: everything that we learn about him and the 50th games seems believable to how Haymitch had been characterized up till that point. During his interview: “Haymitch shrugs. “I don’t see that it makes much difference. They’ll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same””(CF.197). That way of thinking is shown to align exactly with how Haymitch views others and what he verbally says he thinks of them throughout the original trilogy, remember he was not impressed with Katniss or Peeta. In fact he was completely dismissive of them until they both showed that they had a will to fight, he didn’t exactly respect them after that but he did show a real interest in them. Which is the same thing that Haymitch did in his arena from what we were showing in CF, he went off on his own from the start and only after Maysilee saved his life did he see the benefit of having an ally.

One of the key differences that I think was stripped from Haymitch in sotr is the fact that he cares about people, in his own silent way but he does care. Haymitch and Maysilee splitting up in CF made sense and didn’t need any further explanation; they were nearing the end of the games and almost all of the others were dead, they didn’t want to end up fighting each other. It’s a simple reason and we really didn’t need anything more, but then we’re shown that Haymitch did care about Maysilee more then just a person he had allied up with. He ran to her aid when she started screaming, even though he didn’t have to, they were no longer allies but he still cared about her. Sotr makes it seem like Haymitch only ever cares about the others in the arena because they all agreed to be allies, and not because he actually grew to like a person but knew there was no way they’d both make it back alive. Hie entire ‘Nobel hero’ act towards the end with him genuinely willing to die so a different tribute could live was just so… undeserving? We know nothing about the girl, I can’t even remember her name, and Haymitch knowing that he still has a family back home doesn’t even try winning to get back to them.

The forcefield incident was 100% the reason why Haymitch got punished by Snow, becuase come on lets be so realistic; if he destroyed a part of the arena he would have been killed in seconds for doing so. Why would Snow let Haymitch keep playing the game for another 5~ days after he tried to blow up the arena? And then at the end of sotr Haymitch didn’t have a plan to use the forcefield, it read like a complete accident and his victory is a coincidence instead of a clever use of the arena’s capabilities that he knew were there. I can see Haymitch’s family being executed for using the forcefield, but I can’t see Haymitch not being executed for the water tank.

So the propaganda message doesn’t really get shoved down our throats until the very end when Haymitch rewatches the games with Caesar, and I do mean SHOVED down our throats because it was about as subtle as a brick to the face. Haymitch physically tells us that everything has been altered because Collins forgot that it’s show, not tell, and told us everything. (As a side note this is why I hate Lenore Dove. Everything we ‘know’ about her has been told to us and we never get to see her doing any of the things she supposedly cares about.) Haymitch said while watching the re-run that he doesn’t recognize the person he is seeing on the screen and I for one agree with him, because I did not recognize the Haymitch I knew and loved in the original books once in sotr. So Collins just wanted to use propaganda as an excuse for why Haymitch’s personality is so drastically different in the chapter from CF, but its not that simple. His games in CF line up exactly with who Haymitch has been shown to be as a person for the entire series. I’ve seen people try to blame Haymitch’s alcoholism to explain away why he’s so different between the two books, but how did he somehow build all the brain cells he clearly possesses in the og trilogy that were lacking in sotr from being an alcoholic? Sure his personality could pleasingly have changed but his intellect wouldn’t. There was also no need for a propaganda ‘message’ because it doesn’t convey anything we don’t already know about that games, the capital, or propaganda as a whole.

Messaging in books and movies should never be so heavy handed because it implies that the audience is stupid and isn’t able to pick out hints and clues from the text to figure out the message, it comes across as demeaning and insulting. Especially when the ballad of songbirds and snakes does propaganda surpassingly well. The games were loosing traction and nobody wanted to watch them, so what did Snow do? He propagated it. He sold the tributes and the games as an active participant experience for the people of the capital and it worked, the loved it and bought into it. Propaganda by its definition is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Which is what the hunger games are and have always been about in universe. They are a tool to remind people about the war and to keep everyone divided. Selling the tributes is a form of propaganda and it’s not something new to the series.

What are Katniss and Peeta doing for their entire games? Propagating their relationship because it gets them sponsors. Later in CF they have to keep up the image, spreading more falsehoods about their relationship, just to stay alive. Sotr was not the first hunger games book to feature propaganda but it was actively the worse use of it, because propaganda from real world experiences is usually sublet and plays on peoples emotions to get them to believe the falsehoods. What happened in sotr wasn’t propaganda it was erasure of information, which are two very different concepts that do not correlate together in the way that Collins is trying to portray them.

The games we see for Haymitch in CF were 100% the original vision and it’s very clear to me why she did not stick to it; because we already know what happened in his games and it’s boring to read the same thing twice. So she added a bunch of stuff and rewrote Haymitch (and Snow, because neither the Snow we saw in bosas or the og would be ranting about his high school crush to a tribute or making rookie poisoning mistakes) to make the story feel fuller, but it came at a cost to already established lore. I think sotr could have been exactly the same as what we were showing in CF but it shouldn’t have only been his games. The original concept could have been entertaining and original if she wrote only a portion, literally like six chapters at most about the games, and then everything else about his life afterwards and the next few years of tributes. I know why the book is the way that it is, but it doesn’t make it magically good or excuse it for being poorly written. Personally I never wanted a Haymitch book because I knew something like this could happen, which is the same reason I don’t want a Finnick book, neither of them work because we don’t actually care about the games themselves do we? Sure 48 kids is an interesting concept for a game, but it was barely used to its full potential in sotr. What I think people were actually more curious about was Haymitch’s deterioration, which we got in a half asssed way, because we knew he spent majority of the game itself on his own so we never would have gotten to know the other tributes properly regardless. But let me ask you now, what would you actually want to see: Finnick being in the arena and winning the games, somehow as a 14 year old despite the fact that we know he’s from a career district and it would be unlikely that nobody volunteered for him? Or what happened afterwards with Snow selling him as an escort and Finnick eventually finding love with Annie, maybe seeing how he gets pulled into the rebellion because he has a lot of good reasons to be in one? I know which one I’d pick and it will never be the one we get if it does happen.

As for the rebellion, I think we could have gotten a good buildup and set up for the early rebellion but again I don’t think it could ever be Haymitch, or at least not the way it was portrayed in sotr. The thing with rebellions however is they are unpredictable in their nature. They could take a few days to a few years to start. Katniss and Peeta almost killing themselves and almost leaving the capital without a victor is actually a very believable and frankly powerful spark to start a rebellion, as it was meant to be. I don’t doubt that the victors have all been talking between each other for years before that and contemplating an uprising, but the way it happened in sotr is laughable. Nobodies dies for trying to take down the capital: not Haymitch, not Beetee, not Mags, not Wiress, not Plutarch, and Snow knows about the whole thing. It’s so shrouded in plot armour it feels suffocating as a story, because there were no consequences.

[candied-cae]

And Who Are We At The End Of The World? - Please, Be Gentle with My Breaks - III

Chapter 18/? - - - Read it on AO3

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Word Count: 10,480

Summary: There's a difference between being broken and having a few breaks. But a lot of these kids and been dealt a lot of blows, and not just from physical monsters of the Upside Down. There's still a lot of stuff hidden just under the surface that they haven't been able to show just yet.

TW: Depictions of PTSD - Triggering events and flashbacks

More ST Fics

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Friday morning - the morning Family Video was set to re-open its doors and begin taking business again - had finally come.

It was a sunny morning. The kind that starts with birds chirping from the trees and the smell of coffee drifting from the kitchen. Robin and Steve had made plans to be at the store early, a few hours before opening, to eat breakfast together in the back office and take care of any possible final business that could come up. It was going to be a very good day. They'd decided that much.

Robin was still asleep and a little while away from starting that very good day when a noise that was less pleasant than birdsong rattled through her window.

It had been a week since the morning after the earthquake, and the construction crews had finally made their way to the suburbs near the Buckleys to take care of refortifying, structural concerns, and general repairs. One such house that required their attention, was the neighbor's from right behind them. The one that happened to be closest to the wall of Robin's room.

She was woken up when the racket started.

There was yelling, the workers shouting across distances and making their plans. Her neighbor's house had a lot of worry. She usually wouldn't mind the yelling that much. She could ignore it until Steve arrived to whisk her away. But she had been asleep and would've liked to stay that way. And all the noise outside made it impossible to fall back asleep. So she rolled out of bed and pulled her thin, red curtains closed, trying to block out just a little bit of the early morning sun.

It was about then that the foreman of the crew grunted with displeasure and came to a decision.

“Too much mess here. The whole foundation's got cracks in it, I don't like the way these wooden support beams are splinting, these warps in the flooring don't look good, and that roof damage is only going to get worse with bad weather. Call the homeowners. They can bitch about the facts all they want, but this house is going to be next with the demo team and need a complete reconstruction before anyone moves back in.”

Robin had already finished getting ready. She was washed up and dressed, and finally, the noise softened. Maybe they were done for the day. And she probably had another hour before Steve would be rolling around. So she dove back under her covers and tucked them in around her. Closing her eyes and drifting back off to sleep for just a little bit longer before she'd be taken away from her warm, comfy bed, and would be made to face the daunting trials of customer service.

Maybe forty minutes later, Robin was in that slippery state between sleep and awareness while the heavy machinery of a demolition team rolled down the street. All at once, those titans of force began to unmake the house right behind theirs. So close to where she peacefully slept. And the house did not go down easy.

Robin was startled awake in a red-tinted room, with the impossibly loud sound of destruction erupting from right behind her. The strength of it was rumbling the bed under her body, accompanied by the shriek of over-used and under-cared-for mechanical parts.

And all of it just sent her.

It felt like Thursday night. In the Upside Down. Where the red-tinted sky opened up above her, and the ground shook under her feet so hard she almost fell over. When the groans of an old house moved around her and filled up her ears. Until it all became echoes of screams instead.

Lucas's screams.

“Erica! Call for help!”

She felt it. She felt the fear again. Like it was all occurring to her for the first time.

Max was dead. Lucas was hurt. Eddie was going to die.

Her hands started shaking. She felt the sweat stick to the back of her neck, on her forehead under her bangs. Her arms and legs almost felt numb- or maybe they felt disconnected from her? They didn't feel right. Or useable.

She was frozen. And she tried to reason with herself. Thursday night was Thursday night. It was over a week ago. It all already happened, and she's supposed to be fine. She's in her room.

But as she looked around, none of it seemed familiar. It all looked foreign. Alien. It even started to look like the room was covered in vines, and dust, and cobwebs.

And she was alone. Steve and Nancy weren't there with her. By her side. Helping her run through the terror anyway.

She was alone.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and then one of the neighbor's walls went down. Everything shook even worse. And while she was petrified just a second ago, she was then thrown into urgency. She all but pushed herself out of the bed and backed up under the frame. In the little space between the floorboards and the box spring. She just tried to crawl further and further back, closing herself into something small and hidden.

Nothing bad should be able to find her under there.

She started crying harder.

Somewhere in it, her parents started asking questions. Asking if she wanted any breakfast before she left. Trying to make sure she was still up. Wondering why she wasn't answering. But none of it reached her. She just stared straight forward, trying desperately to cover her ears and make it stop. She just needed it all to stop. But all she felt was the tremble. And all she heard were the screams.

Her dad opened her door. He and her mom poured into her room and kneeled on the floor to find her down there under her bed. They tried talking to her. To figure out what was happening. None of them understood why it was happening.

Max was dead. Lucas was hurt. Erica was in danger. Eddie was going to die. Dustin was limping. Steve was bleeding.

Nothing was okay. And Robin was alone.

Steve's car rolled to a stop in front of the Buckleys. But Robin wasn't sitting, waiting for him on the stoop. She probably just woke up late and needed another minute, or two, to finish getting ready. They were going in early anyway.

Steve wasn't in any rush.

So he just sat in the driveway. Letting the radio play through “You're Much Too Soon” by Hall and Oats. But still, as the song ended and the host announced that The Cars would be playing next, Robin wasn't outside.

Which was starting to seem unusual. He'd never waited very long for her to run out. It's not like she was someone to go to a rager and be hungover the next morning. And there was no way she had something with Vickie that went so late she couldn't wake up. At least no way she wouldn't have mentioned it to him.

He wasn't sure what her deal was, but he still didn't really want to risk getting Mrs. Buckley's stink eye by knocking on the door. A person only makes that mistake once. So he shrugged to himself and honked his horn in two short bursts. To make sure she knew he was there. Not to sound passive-aggressive, but maybe she forgot what time they planned on leaving.

And in that dark space between what was happening and the memory playing over reality, Steve's car broke through.

Robin knew that beep.

From all the times she was already packed into his car after closing, and he was taking too long to lock the door to Family Video, so she'd lean over to the driver's seat and honk at him from his own car. From every time they'd gotten talked into running one or a couple of the kids somewhere, and they were taking their sweet time, so he'd honk at them. From any time someone peeled out past a stop sign in front of them, Steve would curse, ask how much they think his car is worth, and he'd honk at them because he couldn't expect an answer.

Robin knew the sound of Steve's Beemer.

Which meant Steve was there.

That was the only thing she could grasp and hold on to. Steve was there. Somewhere out of sight, but there. Steve was there, so she wasn't alone.

“Steve? STEVE?” she called for him. Past her parents that didn't fit the picture in front of her, she yelled for her best friend to fill in.

Just when Steve was really starting to wonder what was up, he saw Robin's father open the door.

“There's something wrong with her!” he shouted, looking more scared than grown-ups usually let him see.

And Steve didn't even think he'd ever run so fast for anything. Before he could even worry about what specifically could be wrong, before he could worry about the Buckleys not being his biggest fans, before he could worry about not technically having been invited inside their house - he was through the front door and following the sound of Robin's voice down the hallway to her room. Where her mother was crouched on the floor trying to reason with where Robin must've been under her bed.

He just shucked the jacket off his arms and scooted himself under there beside her.

“Hey. Hey, Rob. I'm here. It's me.”

She looked at him. And he made sense. As much as all of it didn't make sense, Steve being there with her while she felt terrified? That made sense.

Robin's fingers released a sweater that had been lost under her bed and instead grabbed onto the short sleeve of Steve's white shirt.

“Steve. Steve, it's- i- it's shaking. Everything is…”

“I know. I know, it is.” He nodded with her,” But, hey, I’m right here with you. Okay?”

There was barely enough room for the width of their bodies under there. But even so, Steve untucked his arm from beside him and pushed it into the space over Robin. He held her tight around her shoulders, her hand still twisted in the fabric of his shirt. She was probably going to stretch it out, but Steve wasn't even a little worried about it then.

“It's so loud…” she whispered, trying to cover up one ear without letting go of Steve.

“That's okay. That's okay, because…” Steve reached over to his discarded jacket. In the pocket was his walkman and one of his mixes he was keeping on him until he made the one specifically for Vecna. He slipped the headphones over her ears with a little difficulty, due to the angle and tight quarters. But after he got it on, he'd quickly sped through the first third of the tape, because ABBA's “Lay All Your Love On Me” should've been the fifth song on it.

He pulled her tighter against him while she listened to the music and spoke right into her hair,“ I’m right here. And I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She continued to cry.

Robin's parents just looked at the two in shock. They knew that they had gotten close, but they never imagined… Steve was the kid in town with a reputation for getting around. They always assumed there was something there, something he was chasing her for. They weren’t happy about it but figured - maybe just maybe - Steve Harrington got drawn into Robin’s refusal of his advances and it just made a game for him after they worked together at the mall.

But the way he was looking at her, it was love.

And not a romantic or lustful thing. It was just love in its purest form. Like they were two halves of the same person. Destined to link their arms together for the rest of their lives, despite whatever husband and wife they would get tied to down the road. It was something bigger than her parents understood.

But they were starting to.

Robin eventually stopped shaking so badly, and stopped crying so hard. Steve asked them if the construction crew could stop what they were doing. Even for just fifteen minutes. Just long enough to let Robin calm down some and get out from under the mattress and put some distance between them.

And the parents left them to each other. Somehow, they completely trusted that all Steve Harrington wanted to do was help their daughter feel better. When they told the crew that their kid was having something of a nervous breakdown, they were incredibly apologetic and immediately shut off all the equipment. Mrs. Buckley brought out some lemonade for them as a thank-you while they killed a little time.

“You doing better, Rob?” Steve asked when she looked like she was coming back to herself.

The room didn't look so scary anymore. Her mind wasn't covering her floor and walls in leathery tentacles. She couldn't hear kids screaming and crying in her ears. She knew Max was safe in the hospital, and Eddie was right next to her recovering. Lucas, Erica, Dustin, and Steve all made it out with bumps and bruises, but they were fine.

Robin pushed the headphones off of one of her ears and nodded to Steve, wiping off her face,” Yeah. Yeah.”

“Do you wanna get up?” he offered.

She thought about it. But her legs still felt like jello, and she still had an icky feeling making her hair stand up. It didn't look like the Upside Down anymore, but she was still scared it would again as soon as she made it to her feet.

“Not yet? It feels safer down here. Closed in, nothing can surprise me.”

“Okay. We’ll stay down here for a few minutes.”

Robin shook her head. She felt silly. “We’re going to be late to work,” she told him.

“Fuck work.” Steve remarked, and she laughed through a sniffle,” I’m the manager now. I say Family Video can re-open tomorrow.”

But then the worry hit her again,“ But, Steve, if I stay here all day and they start again, I-”

Steve just shrugged against her shoulder,“ We can go wherever. Wherever you want.”

And she relaxed again.

They got her up off the floor, splashed some water on her face, and got packed into the car after Robin hugged her parents. Told them she was going to be fine.

They blared music from his car and stopped back at his house first to grab snacks. She met the Antonovs while Steve stole a boombox and a handful of cassettes from his room. And then they made quick goodbyes and were off again. Steve figured a good place to go, to get away from everything, was that junkyard past the quarry.

They drove up the gravel road, around the big open water, into the break of the trees, and out through the clearing of abandoned cars and scrap.

“So, this is where Dustin took you, huh?”

She'd wondered what kind of place made for a demodog trap and makeshift fortress to hunker down in. Not enough to actually ask for a visit to a place that screamed serial killer central, but she'd wondered about it.

“Yeah. Except we came from the tracks and walked the whole way from town.” Steve told her.

Robin crinkled up her nose at the idea,“ If you're gonna bring me to the edge of the world, I'm not walking there. Only way you're getting me all the way out here is if I'm riding in style.” She leaned back in the seat, popped her feet up on the dash, and closed her eyes. Like she was trying to become the picture of luxury.

Steve just smiled softly and hummed,“ Of course, you are.”

The Beemer was parked and the two climbed out together. Robin's first instinct was to comment on the mess. The broken glass and the dented-up metal. Steve pretended it was all damage from the demodogs. She didn't know any better to push it. But they sat down in an open spot. Dug into the leftovers of Claudia's brownies while they just talked and looked out over the hill.

And then Robin brought the conversation back to something she considered to be of high importance.

“So, what's the plan with Nancy?”

Steve completely turned away from her, echoing her question like that'd make her drop it,“ What's the plan?”

And, as if she didn't even hear the annoyance in his tone, she agreed,“ Yeah. What's the plan? What sort of idea do we have on the docket?”

“Robin. Her boyfriend is sleeping on my couch right now.” Steve reminded her.

“Which is why I want to know the plan. Situation's gotten complicated.” Robin crossed her legs and popped a bit of brownie into her mouth.

But he declared,“ There is no plan.”

And she almost sounded disappointed. "Steve.”

“You guys keep trying to open that door - and maybe you could entertain the idea while Jonathan wasn't around - but it's different now.”

“You guys?” Robin pointed out,” Who else has been talking about you and Nancy?”

Steve muttered,“ Munson might've said something stupid…”

Her eyes widened,“ See! Multiple people-”

“Just the two-”

“Multiple people think there's something there! So why aren't you going for it? We got your confidence back, you're acting like the hot commodity you are again. Don't get why you're wasting time.”

He tried to redirect her,“ Why don't we focus on the Vickie front?”

She argued,“ The Vickie front is fine!”

“Oh? So what are the two of you then?” Steve pressed.

Robin got quiet before eventually saying,” I don't know.”

“That doesn't sound very fine.”

Which thankfully seemed to pull her away from Nancy Wheeler.

“How do I broach that topic then, Steve?” she asked.

“Well, you're gonna wanna get all dressed up, look real nice, lean in close, and then you're going to ask her where this thing is going.”

“And if she doesn't think 'this thing' is going where I want it to go? Then I've just outed myself and started the countdown until I become the town pariah.”

“You just gotta be covert enough it's safe, and direct enough you get a clear answer,” Steve advised. Which sounded like an impossible balance to strike.

And Robin was at least a little bit annoyed he'd even say such a thing. “Oh? Is that all?“

“That's all it takes!”

“Then…” Robin leaned over and got all in Steve's space before she put on a husky voice,“ Where do you think this Nancy thing is going?”

Steve cried out “Shut up!” and shoved her shoulder. They both fell into boisterous laughter while they lay out on the grass. Leaving behind the horrors of that morning and knowing full well that Family Video wasn't opening by 10 am as they planned.

Karen got a phone call that morning from Theresa. Robin's mother mentioned that they'd had a rough morning at their house, and asked if Karen had noticed Nancy going through anything after the earthquake. Seeming like she was reliving it at all, or stuff like night terrors? Karen truthfully told her that she hadn't seen any of that from Nancy, but what she kept to herself was that their kids didn't just face an earthquake. Karen knew they'd seen more than they needed to.

And with her soft heart, knowing that Robin got really shaken up and quickly left with Steve that morning to get away from the ruckus, Karen decided she'd pay the two of them a visit. Offer a little kindness and remind them that - even if they couldn't turn to their own parents for help - she was on their team now. Like what Nancy had said the night she found out what was going on.

So Karen baked a batch of fresh cookies in the oven. Her oldest daughter was pouring over her school work, the new and the old, and paying extra attention to her essays. Karen slid a plate on the dining room table to Nancy as they came out. Still warm and gooey, practically falling apart as Karen warned her to let them cool a minute so she didn't burn herself. And then she headed out the door. Packing herself and her Tupperware container away while she drove over to Steve's place. Where surely the two of them would have gone after Robin's fright.

The oddest thing was, as she came up to the front porch and knocked on the door, it wasn't either of them that answered. Nor was it Hopper or Joyce, or any of the kids. Instead, there was a man she'd never met before. A very attractive man, for the record, wearing a pretty skimpy pair of cut-off jeans that were halfway up his thighs and what probably used to be a tee shirt until the sleeves were snipped off to the shoulder and the bottom cropped until it almost showed skin.

Which was a little out of the usual considering Spring just started and nobody else in Hawkins would be dressing like that for weeks, if not months. Just wasn't warm enough for it yet. But there this mystery man was, looking like he was ready to host a Summer cookout and work on his poolside tan.

He pursed his lips under a crisp mustache and asked, with a strong, deep voice and accent,” Yes?”

“Uh, yes, I- uh- I’m Karen. Wheeler. Mike and Nancy’s mom.” she explained. Remembering herself after a moment and shifting the cookies onto one arm, reaching out with her other hand to shake his. Friendly, polite, and mannerly. Maybe a little more bashful than she should be.

He smiled kindly and shook it with a firm grip,” Dmitri. I am Mikhail’s father.”

“Oh, yes, I’d heard- that, um, that we had someone new coming into town.” she made the connection and thought to herself that she was being silly. Stuttering and sputtering for no reason.

“Ah, yes.” Dmitri nodded,” Once your government sends me some papers, I may move out of this boy’s home. Maybe then we will even be neighbors, yes?”

Karen smiled and agreed,” Yeah, maybe.”

It was quiet for only a moment before he wondered,“ Was there something…?”

“Oh! Yes! Sorry, um, I assumed Steve and Robin would be around. Wanted to drop off a snack for them.” she motioned to the container she held.

“That is very kind of you. They are out, but I can put it in the kitchen.” he offered.

She handed the sweets over with a simple “thank you,” but she didn't exactly want to run back home so quickly. And she thought it was only reasonable to try and get to know him. Being another adult on the end-of-the-world team and all.

“How- how are you and your son adjusting? To Hawkins? I'm sure it must be a big change.”

“It is fine,” he assured her. “Mikhail wishes he were in school. Also wishes he had his own room, but that will change in time. We are fine. Much better away from where we were. And I, myself, am most enjoying all the time free from work and the warm temperature.”

Dmitri remarked on it all with a smile. Pale, blue eyes shining under the midwest sun. Which must've been a stark difference compared to the snow-covered country he'd called home just days before. He really seemed happy to have completely turned his whole life around.

It wasn't like he had much of a choice. By the sound of it from Murray, Hop, and Joyce, he had to leave. There wasn't anything left for him or his son in the Soviet Union after he was imprisoned, escaped, and every person at his workplace - convicts and guards alike - was killed. He was a renegade, no matter what. So he had to pack up his kid and him, board a sketchy helicopter, and come with the people he'd become loose companions with. Chasing “hope of a better life” and “the American dream” as far as it'd take him.

It sounded terrifying for Karen to imagine putting her own family through. But here, the man stood. In the door of a teenage boy's home because it had a spare room to borrow. In a country he didn't know. Without a clue about what exactly was going to happen in the coming days, weeks, months, or years. If they made it that long.

And he smiled under the sunshine. Because he was away from work, and they had nice weather in Hawkins, Indiana. And that was enough to be happy about.

“Really?” she asked him.

“Oh, yes. Certainly. If I could spend the rest of my days like this, though in a home of my own, I would. Waking up early, making food, spending time with Mikhail and sending him off, enjoying this lovely weather… it is all I need.”

Karen had to laugh to herself. It sounded like the life of a housewife this man was wishing for. And she knew it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. It wasn't as easy or as fulfilling as it seemed like it was when a person summed up in one clean sentence.

“Your son must be better behaved than mine.” she joked.

But Dmitri's eyebrow raised, and he leaned in closer to drop his voice,“ You think too highly of Mikhail. He is still a handful.” He sat back and mentioned,” Though, I suspect I am lucky to just have the one. You manage two.”

“Three, actually.” she corrected,” I have my youngest, Holly, too.”

“Three, then. Miss Wheeler, you are a mother of considerable strength, to do so on your own.”

“Oh, I’m not on my own. My husband, Ted, he-” Karen stumbled for a second. Not exactly sure how much she could speak to her husband's adequacy as a father. Not when it came to the softer parts of childcare. “Well, he supports us. Has a good job and brings home the bacon.”

“But you manage the home and children?” the man restated.

“Uh, yes, I guess, he mostly catches the bills, and I manage the house. And the kids. The day-to-day. If you want to look at it like that.”

“Then that makes you strong,” he argued.

Karen just averted her eyes and brushed her hair off her shoulder. “You’d be the first to think so.”

“Americans do not think their mothers are strong?”

“It’s-” She didn't get very far.

“They should. I believe you are very strong woman, Miss Karen Wheeler.” Dmitri said with full sincerity.

She couldn't help but notice he didn't correct to “Mrs.” even though she brought up her marriage. But it was nice to hear the rest of that sentence too. She was a strong woman. Seriously spoken, because it was no laughing matter.

Karen also couldn't help but ask a question she's wondered a few times by herself.

“Was it easy? To work and take care of your son on your own?”

It seemed a little rude to ask. She'd only known the man for a few minutes, and she only knew he was a widower or some kind of divorcee because it was sort of the elephant in the room. You don't think to grab the kid and not the mom if everything is going well. So he was in the parenting game on his own. And maybe sometimes Karen wondered if she could do something like that.

“Absolutely not.” he answered honestly,” My wife passed many years back. And my job it- it kept me away from home a lot. Only way we got through it was our sweet neighbor watching him when I could not. I only hope I may find way to tend to him more now.”

“You’d want to be a house-husband?” she asked, surprised.

“If I could? Absolutely. Just be a little… little trophy for the Missus to show off while I take care of the home and my boy.” he mused. “Sounds like a fine life to me.”

Karen only let out about half a laugh. “You’re a very interesting man, Dmitri.”

“What? You do not agree?”

“I can see the appeal, from the outside view. I’ve been in the housewife spot for a while now. It can be nice at times, but I definitely miss…” her eyes wandered,” the freedom.”

“I take it you have a passion then? One you put away to take care of your family?” Dmitri leaned against the door frame. His exposed bicep squished against woodgrain, though Karen tried not to notice, and he watched her carefully. Listening.

She admitted to him,“ Yeah, I did. Once upon a time. Many, many years ago.”

“Well, I hope you find it again, Miss Karen.” There it was with the “Miss” again- “Maybe your kids straighten up and give you time to chase it? Or your husband takes over some responsibilities of the house?”

“Oh, that’ll be the day.”

“You think Mr. Wheeler is not strong enough for the job?”

“He does his job.” Karen had to defend her husband. She began to count on her fingers,” Provides the roof over our heads, food on the table-”

But this Dmitri wasn't having it. With one hand, he gently closed his grip around hers. Only enough pressure to stop her, so he could say,“ If your husband leaves you so dissatisfied, then I do not believe he does his job very well.”

And Karen could feel the heat in her cheeks go hotter. He was close. And touching her hands. And serious but not afraid to laugh. And sweet in the way he talked about his kid. And attentive to her in a way no one has been since she and Ted first met.

It swelled something in her chest that scared her.

She smiled politely, and pulled her hands back,“ Sorry to have taken up so much of your time. I wasn't planning on more than a quick drop-off. But I’m happy to hear you’re both settling in. Feel free to help yourselves to the cookies as well.”

“Thank you,” he said, smoothly. No hint of dismay as she backed out. And then he added,” But it was no bother to speak with a beautiful woman on a nice day. Especially if she's brought over her own baking.”

In a moment of bravery, Karen agreed.

“It was no bother speaking to you either. I’ll see you again sometime.”

“Until then, Miss Karen. To your free time and the rise of house-husbandry.”

And Mr. Antonov stayed at the door while Karen returned to her car. He popped open the top and swiped himself a cookie in the wait. Watching as she opened the door and slid into the driver's seat. He only closed the front door of Steve's house once he'd seen the engine turn over fine. Making sure she'd have no problem getting home.

A length of care just beyond what was necessary.

It'd been a long, long time since Karen felt like anyone had extended that attention toward her.

Not that it mattered much. She was a married woman. A housewife. A stay-at-home mom. And Dmitri didn't convey much confidence that she was able to be anything else anymore. Not with three children to look out for. Even if Nancy was going to be off to college soon, Mike still had three years left. Hell- Holly was only six.

She needed to get back home.

Get back to what she knew how to do.

Time passed by in the junkyard. The sun rose up and eventually hung high in the sky overhead. Steve and Robin nearly emptied the last of Claudia's brownies. They were probably ready for some real food soon. And to get back to civilization.

But, for the moment, they just lay out on the ground next to each other.

Trying not to think about all the dirt getting into their hair and rubbing into the back of their clothes.

But Robin finally felt like herself again.

“Thank you,” she said to him. Her best friend. Who sat with her through the whole thing. Even though it snuck up on them out of nowhere, and they've never dealt with anything like it themselves.

“For?” he asked her.

She filled in,“ For being there for me.”

“Rob,” Steve rolled over onto his side to look at her,” I always will be. You know that.”

Robin nodded,“ I know. I just…” she started to explain,” didn’t realize it could get that bad. Nothing ever hit me like that after last summer. Nothing was ever similar enough to what happened that I just- I don’t know. But then I was just in my room, and I looked around, and it was just like Thursday night. Like some amalgamation of my bedroom and the Creel house, and the sounds were just- ”

Steve put his hand on hers where she'd started mindlessly ripping grass up by the roots.

“I know. But we’re fine. We’re fine.” he assured her.

“Yeah. We are.”

“So we’re feeling better now?”

“Yeah. We’re feeling better now.” Robin squeezed his hand.

“All the way better, or is there still something you need to be all the way there?”

She chuckled and smiled up at the bright blue sky. A big toothy smile. The kind her mother would've told her to reign in if they were taking family pictures. But the gentle fondness of Steve Harrington could be funny when he overdid it. Like a mother hen checking on his little chickadees over and over again.

And Steve might've been thinking about cruising by a drive-thru to finish off the comfort, but Robin had another solution in mind to settle any lingering anxiety.

“Well, if you’re offering… you know what my favorite thing ever is…”

And that was all the leading she had to do. Steve's eyes narrowed at her. But he didn't resist much.

“… Fine. Since you had a shitty morning.”

And then Steve went to his cassette player and dropped in “Robin’s Mix.” A tape he'd put together some time ago that always got the most runtime when its namesake was with him. It only took seconds for the sounds of ABBA's “Dancing Queen” to come out through the speakers. The first song on it. Robin stood, dusted herself off, and joined Steve by the hood of his Beemer where he'd propped the player. Fully set on turning the patch of seclusion into their own private dance floor.

And as the Swedish singers came in, Steve was quick to mime a microphone of his own. Directing every single word to his very best friend. Just like they had for her birthday.

“You are the dancing Queen, Young and sweet, Only seventeen! You can dance, You can jive, Having the time of your life, Ooooo~ See that girl, Watch that screen, Digging the Dancing Queen!”

They spun around each other. Robin shook out her hair, dropped her shoulders, and grooved side-to-side. Put her hands up in the air and swept them around in smooth motions. Steve was jumping around, posing, and kneeling to bask up at her. Like she was a real celebrity.

They probably put too much energy into it. If anyone serious was looking at them and compared their moves to the music at hand, they'd probably have said they didn't fit together. But to the two of them, it was how the song was meant to be danced to. It's what was right when everything came down to just Steve and Robin. No one else on the planet was invited.

And just being Steve and Robin was the easiest thing most days.

They made it all the way through the song before Robin nearly collapsed against him in giggles. He put away the phony mic, tossing it somewhere behind him to catch her before they both ended up on their asses. “One Way Or Another” began to fire up, but neither was listening too carefully.

“Thank you,” Robin said, almost out of breath.

“You already said that.” Steve pointed out.

“I know. But seriously,” she grabbed his hand and squeezed it like it was the most tangible lifeline she's ever had,” Thank you. For being my favorite person in the whole world.”

He squeezed her hand back, just as much love expressed in the simple act,” Thank you for being mine.”

Eventually, Robin stood back up on her own two feet. And they decided on that drive-thru meal to offset all the sugar and chocolate they'd had in lieu of a balanced breakfast. And interestingly enough, they also decided on going back to Family Video anyway.

They had no plans to open. More so just get out from under the sun before one of them (Robin) got sunburnt. Maybe even avoid the mosquitoes for the rest of the day. And Robin's Mix played through Steve's stereo the whole drive.

It might've only been Friday, and the nurses might've said they wanted to hold on to Eddie through Tuesday, but he was getting stir-crazy.

He hated, hated, hated just sitting there on that bed. He wasn't supposed to get up and move around too much, lest he desire to face Nurse Tracey's wrath. But it was torture. The tv was no adequate entertainment, and it killed him to know that everyone else had something to do. Some way they were healing or fixing things.

Just “getting better” wasn't a good enough assignment.

Not when there was so much at stake. Not when he was laying down right next to Max, who was stuck where he'd gotten out of. They told him it wasn't the same. But it should've been. They both died, and El brought them both back, and they both got to a hospital. But she wasn't awake.

And it pissed him off so much.

She played decoy, and so did he. And they both did their parts a little too well. But she didn’t get up after.

Wayne dropped in and ate breakfast with him on his way to work. Expressed his sorrow about Eddie's ring. Eddie's mom's ring. His fingertips drifted to his right ring finger where he'd always worn it. Not on the left, because that was the spot dedicated to his own engagement one day.

He missed it. The black gem, cut in too many facets that it caught the light too much. It didn't have the same mystique as domed, smooth onyx that seemed more like a void set in silver than a stone. He'd looked at some in pawn shops and understood the appeal.

But as much as his mom's ring didn't exactly fit the idea of what his aesthetic "should" be, it was better.

And it was gone.

He didn't cry when Wayne mentioned it. Didn't cry when Wayne said he was going to ask around, keep an eye out, and look wherever he could think to. Didn't ruin it for him by saying," I know I wore it into battle. I fucking kissed it before climbing up a twisted version of our trailer and starting my set. So if it's gone, it's gone in another dimension. And, honestly, it was probably eaten by a demobat, given how much they bit at me. So it had to be fucked up for good after sitting in dead monster stomach acid all this time."

No. Eddie just smiled at his uncle. Told him thanks for everything. Said he was going to make it up to him with a spaghetti night when they settled in a new place to call their home again. Wayne smiled and told him not to forget the garlic bread.

"You know that's the best part." he laughed.

Wayne's eyes caught on his watch, and it was time to go. He laid a hand on his boy's shoulder, kissed him on his forehead, and told him to just keep getting better. Try not to worry about anything in the meantime.

Eddie didn't promise him anything.

He finished his re-read of The Hobbit. Sniffled at the end like he always did. He looked over old notes and put together new ones for a campaign. The boys, including Josie and Erica, and even Will, all came by. It was nice.

It wasn't a very complex storyline he'd thought up, but for a one-shot, it would do. The gang of nine players packed around his bed was given the task of sneaking into a masquerade party held in a castle. The queen had received word that her daughter was in danger, but she didn't know who it was. It could've even been a member of their own royal guard. So she'd hired the band of adventurers to make sure the princess would be safe. The hard part was, she'd survived an insane labor of nine. Yup, nonuplets. So there were nine identical princesses to keep an eye on and protect while they tried to find the bad guy. And just as fate would have it, one of them died.

It was only thanks to Will's impeccable notetaking that they figured out it was not actually Daphne in the pale green dress, but Rowena who'd swapped their clothes and taken the place of her sister. A scheme worked up with an assassin she'd fallen in love with to steal the title of "eldest daughter" and have the first claim to the throne. She had been the youngest of nine, after all, she was far down the list before she'd see a crown.

But they solvest the mystery. Earned a good chunk of change from an incredibly distraught royal family who not only lost one child, but a second too. Everyone cheered for each other when they got the confession and defeated the enemies in combat. Tucked away the characters with mentions that it might be nice to dust them off and revisit the theme again another time. Make a regular habit of these Sherlock Holmes-like mysteries dipped in a little bit of fantasy flair and ass-kicking to close it all out.

It was fun. Mostly. But holding the session around his bed, where he felt like he was some weak little thing he didn't think he was… it hurt Eddie in a way he wasn't expecting. It itched against all the other feelings he was holding on to. And he didn't like it.

He was feeling cagey.

So, after they all said their goodbyes, he made a break for it.

Or, more exactly, he told Tracey he had to get out of there and begged for any way to make it happen. She was not happy. Looked at him down her hooked nose, through her thick glasses, from under crumbling mascara that rimmed her eyes. A scornful expression like she was trying to intimidate him into pulling up his covers and saying how much he actually liked it there.

But he stood his ground. And she admitted, him being a legal adult and all, that he could fill out an Against Medical Advice form - meaning he couldn't sue if he fucked himself up for leaving early - and he'd be free. So he asked her, very nicely, to fetch such a document for him. And she did. She still pestered him about calling or coming in the minute he felt bad. To watch himself for a high temperature, upset stomach, sweating or chills, bleeding, puss, or extra sensitivity around the injuries. So he swore up and down he would.

And he made it out.

His car was still at Wayne's hotel, wherever that was exactly, so Eddie just hopped the bus and made it downtown. He didn't have an exact plan, but he was not going to go home. That trailer was practically a fallout zone and wouldn't make for much of a shelter at that point. And he also didn't want to even figure out where Wayne was pitched up at. Because he was bound to go stir crazy there just the same as he had in the hospital.

He ended up on the idea to stop by a certain video store to annoy a certain pair of employees and whatever poor souls decided to shop there on the day Eddie Munson became a truly free man.

“What? Am I not pretty enough for you, Robin?” Steve asked.

His voice dripped with offense, like the discussion at hand was the cruelest thing anyone had ever said to him. They'd been making plans for Robin to ask Vickie on something more obviously a date. To help bridge that gap between girl friends and girlfriends. Robin had suggested something more like what she and Steve do anyway, getting together at someone's house when there are no parents home for a movie. But that also painted what they do as being inherently romantic and she gagged. Now, Steve was on some tirade about being a wonderful date and she should be so lucky.

He leaned against the shop counter and struggled to pop his hip out in a way that could even come close to feminine. But none of the shapes were there, and Robin could only look at him with pity. Not an admission of defeat.

“As much as I love you, Steve…” she tried to soften the blow,” You already know the key thing keeping us apart is my particular interest in…”

”Oh, right.” Steve's tone dropped, and he cupped his hands on his chest as if it was the first time the thought had occurred to him,” Boobies. I don’t have those for you.”

The comment caused Robin to crinkle her nose in a sharp cringe,” Stop calling them that!”

“Why?! It’s what they are! Not my fault you can’t handle the proper word for them!” he pushed.

“ANYWAY!” she tried to take control of the conversation,” I like them a lot, so stop pressing it. It's starting to get really sad.”

“Alright, alright, I'm hearing you, but what if I turned like this.” Steve turned around and arched his back as he shyly looked over his shoulder at Robin. Trying to pull off a more pin-up pose. Like, because she couldn't see his front, she could forget he was missing the pair features they both enjoyed so much. Like it made him girly enough at all.

Robin tried to hold back her snickers at his display. Steve closed his eyes and shook out his hair behind him for effect. He put on a pretend sultry voice before asking her,“ Does this do it for you?”

“What did I just walk in on?” Eddie froze in the open doorway.

As Steve's brain registered that the question didn't come from Robin, he snapped open his eyes and jumped out of the pose. Some kind of less-than-manly shriek flew up from his mouth, and all too quickly he practically tumbled over the countertop and crossed his arms over his chest to cover himself behind it. As if he was even topless in the first place. He wasn't, but he still felt pretty exposed.

“Can't you read the sign?!” Steve griped. A pointer finger shot out to where the “closed” side of the board was clearly facing out the door to any foot traffic on the sidewalk.

Robin was less focused on Steve's cause for concern and complaint. Instead, she joyfully exclaimed,“ Eddie! You’re out of the hospital!”

“Yup, doc declared me as less than ‘healthy as a horse’ but not likely to bleed out at any moment, so I've been released on good behavior for bedrest at my own home while the wounds, you know, do their thing and scar over.”

“If it’s bedrest, shouldn’t you be, ya know… in a bed? Resting?” Steve questioned him. Maybe a little pointedly, but hey, he was allowed to feel a little sour over Eddie walking in on his and Robin's nonsense. That stuff's supposed to be private.

“Didn’t really feel like hitching a ride across town for a quiet hotel room packed with Wayne's and I's stuff while he finishes the rest of his shift.” Eddie excused,” Plus I’d miss out on whatever the hell all this is. So I’ll ask again; what did I just walk in on?”

“Steve’s just really sad that he’s not pretty enough for me.” Robin mused teasingly. Figuring that context was innocuous enough for the present company.

“Oh, man. Tough break, Princess Harrington. My condolences.” Eddie said, putting one hand over his heart and the other on Steve's shoulder like he actually meant to console the man's wounded pride.

Steve swatted away the gesture immediately. And then he decided something new about Eddie being a member of the party.

”You two are insufferable!” he said with a pair of aggressive finger-pointing,” I don't like this duo! I don't need the two of you ganging up on me! It's unfair!”

“Wait till we get Dustin in on the action too. Three on Steve seems like fine odds.” Eddie added just to see the way it made Steve twist up his face. He even started getting a little red!

Through it all, Eddie and Robin found some kind of understanding between the two of them. An understanding of how fun it was to push all of Steve's buttons. And somehow, they still secured invites to his place for dinner. Maybe it was their wicked pair of sad eyes, maybe it was more of that “feeling way too bad for everyone” gene he's got, but Steve let them both pile into his car while he made his way home.

Eddie met their European guests, shook more hands, and made more small talk. And by the end of the meal, Steve would say he narrowly survived the onslaught of teasing. Steve ran Robin back to her place and stayed parked right outside until she buzzed him on the walkie and said she wasn't having a panic attack in her room again and he needed to clear out before someone accused him of stalking. Eddie and Steve laughed, and as the driver wondered where he was sending Eddie off, he admitted he didn't know.

Still hadn't even called his uncle to find out which spot across town he was camped up in.

And somehow… that conversation ended with another invitation to Steve's house. That time, one to spend the night. Eddie was eager to accept. A bustling house of kids and the most random assortment of adults sounded like the exact opposite of falling asleep to the sound of his heartbeat beeping on a machine next to him, and Max's a few feet away.

And thanks to an already stacked dance card - the Byers and Co. on the couch, Joyce and Hop sharing the master, Murray laid claim to the first guest room, the Antonovs in the other - there was really only one place with any spare room without tossing one the injured men to the floorboards.

And that was to partner up and share Steve's bed with him.

It started with Eddie trying to break the ice. Pointing out the grid pattern painted on Steve's walls and hung up on his curtains. Mentioning that it was nothing like how he imagined the King of Hawkins slept. It looked more like a cage than anything else.

Steve shrugged, agreed with the sentiment, and tried to focus on grabbing his own pajama options and getting the night over with. As awkward as it was shaping up to be. But drawing attention to his closet, drew attention to the desk and chair right in front of it. And the denim vest hanging on the back of that chair, which rightfully belonged to Steve's most recent guest.

“There it is!”

Steve turned around and followed Eddie's eyes to the battle vest he'd accidentally borrowed for too long.

“Oh, right! Sorry.” he picked it up from its perch. “Didn't mean to steal it. Just forgot it was there a little.”

“Wow. I let you dress yourself in my battle vest - watching out for your delicate purity so that it might not be besmirched - and you forget about such a deep moment we shared?” Eddie lamented the tragedy. Wondering to himself if it would be too much to try and force a tear.

“I didn't mean I forgot about it like that. Just- I was trying to figure out what to do with it, and I forgot to give it back.” Steve quickly handed it over,” Here.”

Eddie barely looked at the item before he asked,“ What to do with it? That sounds a little spooky. Did you have some kind of black magic spell in mind that you needed it for? You're not gonna steal a lock of my hair after I fall asleep, right?”

“No. Absolutely not. I, just, I was wearing it while I was all gross and sweaty and bleeding, so I figured the same rules as borrowing gym clothes applied, and I should wash it before I gave it back.” Steve tried to explain,” But you have so much stuff on it I didn't want to get ruined, and I wasn't sure how to go about it, and everything has been so insane all the time-”

“I get it. Worry not, Stevie.” Eddie tried to release him from whatever pressure he put on the idea. “Plus you don't really wash a battle vest. It's kinda supposed to go through hell and come out the other side with some authentic grime.”

“But another guy's blood and sweat? That's pretty extreme.” Steve commented. But his face said he leaned more towards 'nasty' than just 'hardcore.'

“You don't understand the culture. That's okay.”

“Alright. Well, then I guess my dilemma turned out for the best.” Steve ducked back into his closet.

Eddie more carefully examined his vest for all the wear and tear it saw. None of the patches or pins looked like they were in danger, but there were some new loose threads he could think about playing with. As he looked it over, he commented with a chuckle,“ Yeah, if you wanna uselessly panic about other stuff and wind up saving the day through inaction, there's the Vecna guy I don't know if you've heard about. I think those magic powers could really speed things along and get us all to summer break in one piece.”

Steve quickly turned out of the hanging garments and urged Eddie,“ Don't let Murray hear you strategize, or he'll barge in and spend an hour actually trying to make a plan out of it.”

He said it so seriously Eddie couldn't even get a response ready while Steve slinked out of the room to go across the hall. To change into the jammies and take care of his nightly routine in the comfort and privacy of his own bathroom. And before Eddie knew it, he was left alone in Steve Harrington's room. Sitting crisscross on the edge of his bed, a pile of denim in his lap, and far too much awareness of how fresh their friendship really was.

The rest of the house had gotten pretty quiet. They'd all turned in for an earlier evening after a long afternoon of work at Hop's cabin and some folks still adjusting their internal clocks to Hawkins time. A big, big house, packed with people, and yet there wasn't much noise.

Steve came back to his room just after a few minutes. He tossed his clothes from the day in a dirty laundry hamper and sat on the other side of the bed. Pushing down the covers before he swung his legs up under them. Eddie followed suit. Standing up to put his vest back on the desk chair for the time being, and climbed into the bed next to his roomie for the night.

And then Eddie and Steve were left to each other. In Steve's bed. Laying still as statues to get some well-deserved rest.

And it was nerve-racking. All of Eddie Munson's nerves were racked. He couldn't help thinking about how the whole situation was so far off the map for him a few weeks ago. On the 22nd of March, Eddie Munson held a broken glass to his neck, and everything's been so strangely on the up and up since. Minus the whole almost-dying part. They'd been forging a bond, a weird one, given such a distinctly separate history. But there they were. Having a sleepover in the famed King's bedroom.

And it wasn't any easier for Steve to deal with. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It shouldn’t do or mean anything to him. Steve's done this sort of thing with Robin tons of times. Falling asleep next to someone you’re not attracted to should be easy and simple. But it wasn't.

Like, with Robin, they were both allowed to stretch their limbs out in all directions and hug the night away before they tried to kick one another off the bed. But, with Eddie, they were both practically on the edges of the mattress with their backs to each other so they wouldn't accidentally touch or even look at one another. And Steve wasn’t falling asleep. Instead, he felt like he couldn’t move without bothering Eddie.

What if his stitches were still super sore? What if he was lying about the vest and was actually bothered about the condition it was in? What if he was mad about his mom's ring?

And all of a sudden, Eddie started talking.

“You didn’t, by the way.”

Which didn't exactly make any sense as the first thing either of them had said in almost thirty minutes.

“What?”

“Stomp on me.” he clarified.

And it didn't immediately click. But after a second, Steve remembered what he said while Eddie was still in the coma. The part about “I was a bully,” and “I hope I didn't bully you,” but “I wouldn't really remember,” and “Tommy called it stomping on the ants” like that excused any of it. So that was the stomping Eddie was thinking about.

“Oh… so you…“

“Heard that bit?” Eddie finished for him. “Yeah. When our girlie woke me up in my head, some stuff outside started coming through. When there were a lot of you in the room, I couldn’t really follow any of it or understand what you were saying. But you stopped by on your own. Said that bit. It was easy to hear then.”

“Sorry. I honestly didn’t think you’d catch any of it.” Steve tucked his hands in closer to his face. More thankful than anything else that they couldn't see one another for this conversation.

And yet, Eddie joked,“ You planned to waste such a moving monologue on deaf ears? For shame, Harrington, for shame.”

“I just-” he tried again,” I’m sorry-“

But the other wouldn't hear it. “I just said you didn’t do it. Alright? Nothing to waste ‘sorry’ on.”

“But I must have, at some point.” Steve reasoned.

Unsure why his idea was to argue that, no, no, Eddie, actually he did mistreat you, you must be mistaken, think harder. But Eddie didn't waver. His voice was sure and even. And he simply affirmed the fact.

“You didn’t.”

“But-“

“I’ll admit, I convinced myself once or twice that you orchestrated all of it. Sent out your legions of jocks and goons to carry out your dastardly demands for you while keeping your hands clean. But, I know now that I was wrong about that idea.”

And with a pang of guilt that gnawed at his ribs, Steve spoke quietly,“ But I know I’ve said it.”

Freak. He called him The Freak. He knew he did. Hell, he said it just weeks ago when Dustin invited him to the game. He knew that.

But Eddie didn't dwell on it. Didn't deem it the important part.

“Not to me. Not once did you shove my face in it.”

“I’m still sorr-“ but Steve felt a smack on his shoulder. Carefully, he looked over to see that Eddie was laying face up, no longer with his back to Steve. The wall of air between them was gone, in one way or another. So Steve shifted over, joining him in laying back until he was looking up at his ceiling too.

“And do you always do that?” Eddie asked as he tried to get comfortable.

“Do what? Apologiz-”

“Talk through movies?” Eddie interrupted, steering the conversation way out into the left field,” I mean, I was unconscious, but I still heard your whole commentary on Grease. Very strong opinions you have on that one.”

“Okay, Sandy did nothing wrong and shouldn't have had to 'compromise' with Danny at the end just because he lied about their relationship to his guys for points. Had her story been about actually wanting to be less of a goody-two-shoes for her own reasons-”

Eddie stopped him before he really got going,“ That is what I'm talking about. Seriously, dude? And you had something specific to say every minute of it. Was practically watching it with you even with my eyes closed because you'd remind me what beat we were on without fail.”

He bumped into Steve's shoulder with his own. Small laughs bubbled up. And the whole situation didn't feel so awkward and stilted anymore.

“Yeah, I guess.” Steve agreed with a smile,” Rob and I are usually pretty chatty when we watch ‘em together. I think I picked it up from her.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re a real Chatty Cathy, Steve Harrington.”

“That such a bad thing?”

Eddie paused to think on it. But quickly decided otherwise. “Nah. I wouldn’t say so. Felt way less lonely with someone talking.”

Steve felt some pride settle back into himself,“ Then you’re welcome.”

“Oh, great,” he groaned,” Now I went and gave you a big head about it.”

“I think most people would tell you I already had one.” Steve pointed out.

“A big, stupid head.” Eddie took a finger and poked Steve right on the side of his forehead. But before Steve could really say anything else, he tugged the blanket up and rolled over in the bed. His back was up again, but it didn't feel so insurmountable. It was comfortable.

“Go to sleep,” he commanded. As if he wasn't the one that started their discussion in the first place.

Steve rolled onto his own side,” You go to sleep.”

A comeback fit for a first grader. My, how the mighty have fallen. But sometimes falling could be a good thing. Brings a person back down to Earth. Reminds them of all the other people that didn't climb too tall on their high horse.

And that kind of falling, the kind that Steve Harrington did, didn't make him shatter into broken pieces on the ground.

Some parts of a person need to break. Explicitly so they can put themselves back together. And maybe the breaks were always going to be there. But maybe he'd be the better for it. Maybe they all would.