#was this an obvious reference to everybody else.

[housebird]

listening to the addams family musical soundtrack (again) and i just had a thought. oh god that family that ruby and her friends wanted to dress up as for halloween in feel the fear (??) was definitely a parody of the addams family huh.

[cavegirlpoems]

Further thoughts.

There is a tendency to write settings - particularly for interactive media like ttrpgs, larps, etc - that are essentially gender-blind, where you can create whoever you want without that having an effect on the game. The decision to be gay, or a woman, or trans, or a gay trans woman with pink hair is an aesthetic choice that will not give you a meaningfully different experience in the game.

This rather kneecap's the setting's ability to tell queer stories, imho. If we take it as read that queerness refers to gender- and sexuality-based identities and behaviours that fall outside of the societal norms, then the experience of falling outside those societal norms is (rather tautologically) a key element of queerness.

So, in a completely gender-blind setting, one can't - tautologically - be gender-nonconforming. There is no expectation to conform to. The experience of queerness, of being outside of societal norms, becomes null and void. Such a setting will feature homosexuality, but it won't feature gay pride, and nor will it need to as none of the societal forces that led to the pride movement exist.

This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, a world where one is not oppressed for one's identity is an enjoyable world to explore for what should be obvious reasons. On the other hand, it becomes impossible to tell (say) a coming-out story in a world where there's no closet to be in to begin with.

There is also the element that whilst a setting may say its gender-blind, it's still written and played in by people from the real world, who still subconsciously inherit real-world biases, and this can be reflected in the world.

While (say) women might have just as much right to political power as men, if in practice the people with political power are disproportionately men, that sexism is still present. Far from removing it, the gender-blindness of the setting simply obfuscates it, and often actively proves an obstacle to addressing it; one cannot call somebody out in character for sexism in a setting where sexism doesn't exist, no matter how sexist they're being.

(Similar biases around sexuality, transness, polyamory, kink, aceness, etc also creep in).

(In many cases, this can also apply to other axes of marginalisation, such as race, etc. However, in a lot of settings this doesn't apply the same way. Many fantasy settings are deeply opinionated about a character's ancestry; see the D&D skull-callipers explaining that elves are just more intelligent and agile than everybody else, and this being a mechanically enforced fact in the world.)

My point, anyway, is that in these cases efforts towards inclusivity can paradoxically erase that which they seek to include. One cannot represent the lived experience of a marginalised identity in a setting that totally denies the existence of that marginalisation.

[hiraya-rawr]

— oh and by the way im married (zhongli) .

synopsis !! zhongli neglects to inform his friends that he's married.

contains !! they/them reader but referred to as wife, comedic dialogue

Z H O N G L I

Perhaps it's the fact that you've been married for centuries that informing others didn't seem to be a priority for Zhongli.

It wasn't obvious either. He had his day job and you had yours. To regular couples, the amount of distance you two spend would be a little strange, but time is something you have in abundance so it didn't really matter when you spend a few days apart doing your day jobs.

It was Hutao who brought it up the on the evening's Lantern Rite dinner.

"Aiyaya, it seems like everybody alive and dead has a date for this year's lantern rite."

"Hahaha! And here we are celebrating a feast with new and old friends. It doesn't sound like much of a loss to me." Venti laugjs, pouring himself a drink that threatens to overflow from his hand.

"I'm not saying it's a loss, I'm simply wondering wouldn't some of you want to spend the night with a special someone?" She smirks, eyes scanning the group. Chongyun coughs into his cup as Xiao averts his gaze from the troublemaker.

"If you're asking for my opinion, I'd say everyone here is quite special to me," Lumine smiles warmly before glancing at the two archons and yaksha, "I'm sure there's still time for dating in the future. We're not that old."

"Well. . ." Hutao turns to Zhongli. He raises a brow, placing down his cup.

"May I ask why you're staring at me, Director Hu?"

"No reason~ It's just, as your boss, of course I'm a little bit concerned. Aren't you wasting your youth by not going out on dates, mister Zhongli? I'm sure there's a line of Liyuens who would love to–"

A burst of laughter comes from the green bard. "Oh, him? On a Lantern Rite date with someone else? (Name) would surely kill him."

"(Name)?" Everyone questions.

"Huh? He didn't tell you?" Venti tilts his head.

Zhongli coughs, "Ah. . . Please don't be concerned about my dating life, Director Hu. After all, I am already married."

Silence.

A cup drops.

Tea spills (literally).

Then,

"Married?!" The restaurant shakes as Hutao and Lumine jolt upright, hands slamming the table.

"Married." Zhongli confirms.

"What! For how long? When? What's their name? Why have you never–"

Zhongli hushes, trying to calm his boss from jumping over the table. His face dusts a light pink, perhaps embarrassed by the whole ordeal.

"For a few. . . years now. As you know, they're (Name). And as for why I never mentioned my wife. . ." He glances at the crowd, ". . . I simply forgot."

"You. . . forgot," Xingqiu slowly repeats.

"Yes, it seems I've forgotten to inform everyone. Then again, is it not obvious that I'm a married man?"

Chongyun covers his face in his hands, processing the whole ordeal, "Thinking back. . . mister Zhongli always had a domestic kind of aura. It seems so obvious now."

"Wait, wait, wait! How come I didn't know about this? We work together almost everyday! And why does Venti know! Didn't you two just met! Do you even have a ring?" Hutao interjects, flabbergasted as Zhongli and Venti freezes.

In truth, he does have a ring. One he carved himself made of only the most precious of jade and metal. It has rested under his glove for centuries—

Under his glove also hides his draconic arms, golden veins against dark brown, almost scale-like skin. Proof of a entity greater than human.

"Ehe. . . about that," Venti nervously looks away, "I've actually. . . met his wife before!" He covers up, voice laced with enthusiasm.

"Yes, yes, my wife is quite fond of Mondstadt's songs. They've frequently visited the nation before."

"And you don't come along?" Xiangling asks.

"I don't."

The group blinks.

"And what about the ring? I never see you wear a wedding ring." Hutao narrows her eyes.

"That's because I don't wear it." He answers bluntly.

". . . and you never introduced them to us because. . .?" Lumine questions.

"Because . . . I haven't had the time to?"

Hutao rests back on her chair, her eyes glazed in judgment, "No offense mister Zhongli, but you seem like a terrible husband. If you don't get your act straight, I'd say your marriage won't last."

His jaw drops. Venti laughs.

|| ko-fi support / character m.list ||

~ bonus ~

"Darling, am I a terrible husband?"

"No? What makes you think that?"

"No reason. Although I believe we should try dating publicly."

tumblr has been deleting my last paragraphs why

//for some reason tumblr has been deleting my last lines in drafts so i have to type this so my last sentences wont get deleted

"No reason. But perhaps it's about time I show you off to the public more."

ko-fi support | character m.list

[fairyysoup]

i can see you

♫︎ i can see you - taylor swift ♫︎

pairing(s): steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: The secret history of your long and arduous relationship with Steve Harrington.

aka: the 5 times you pined over each other, and the time you actually did something about it

words: 17.6k (we're NOT gonna talk about it lol)

cw: explicit, smut, piv sex, flirting, making out, heavy petting, slight exhibitionism, oral (f receiving), fingering, marking, biting, steve harrington has a big dick, themes of infidelity/cheating (sort of), skipping out on dates, bad dates, steve steal-your-girl harrington, almost-kisses, jealous!steve, jealous!reader, possessive behavior, smoking, alcohol consumption, allusions to marriage but it's never actually mentioned, canon compliant, reader and steve are the same age, 5+1 things, songfic, angst, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, pining, mutual crush, slow burn one shot, mild twist ending, begins in season two (1984) and ends in the 90s, high school, scoops ahoy era, family video era, waiter!steve, steve harrington (the eras tour), vignette, one instance of billy hargrove slander, original characters created for plot, inspired by i can see you by taylor swift, other taylor song inspo throughout bc i'm insane like miss swift

a/n: hi and welcome to ✨rose's mental breakdown✨ yes this song will be my number one on spotify wrapped bc i listened to it on a loop for five days straight while writing this. idk. anyways this is So Much and i'm tired of looking at it so if there are any mistakes i apologize. anyways whoever can point out the most taylor song references aside from the obvious titular one gets a doubloon

ALL OF MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

You brush past me in the hallway, and you don’t think I can see you, do you? I’ve been watchin’ you for ages, and I spend my time trying not to feel it…

Hawkins High, September 1984

He’s so pretty sometimes that it’s disgusting.

That’s really the only thing you think when you watch Steve Harrington sneak up on his girlfriend, Nancy Wheeler, and swoop her off the ground in front of her locker. From across the hall, your locker hangs open, your body turned halfway toward them so that you can pretend that you’re not staring.

You stare a lot.

It’s not exactly the hair, you think- everyone shits a brick about his hair, for some reason that you don’t understand. Yeah, it’s nice… but you like everything else about him, too. You like how sweet he looks when he laughs. You like the way that he holds himself and the way that he looks when he puts his hands on his hips and stands around like he’s directing the traffic around him. You like how much of a prince charming he is, really. It would surprise you if he doesn’t win prom king at the end of the year. They already call him King Steve, it’s not too far of a stretch.

You close your locker just as Steve kisses Nancy, in front of god and everybody in the C Corridor hallway. Steve’s arms wrap around Nancy’s petite frame and he dips her, like they’re in some sort of George Peck and Audrey Hepburn movie. Not that the place is much of a cinematic setting, though. Down the hall, the science rooms are doing their dissection units, so the whole place smells like formaldehyde and disinfectant, and you sort of feel like curling up into one of those dissection pans and dying, yourself. 

That should be me, your brain screams. Me!!

It’s always been like this. You’ve had a crush on Steve since freshman year- the fact that he’s dating Nancy, who’s a year younger than him, doesn’t escape your jealous mind. You’ve been in classes with him for four years, you’ve admired him quietly, you’ve hoped and prayed that he somehow noticed you noticing him.

You don’t think he knows you exist. Four years- and now you’re both seniors, about to graduate, and he still doesn’t notice you. You should really stop caring, or stop trying, or stop… pining. Or something. 

You hike your bag up onto your shoulder and juggle your books in your arms. The bell rings, and quite suddenly the entire hallway erupts into pandemonium (predictable, sure, considering everyone loiters around instead of actually getting to class on time). Kids fly around you in all directions to get to their next classroom. Nancy Wheeler ducks away from Steve Harrington, avoiding yet another kiss.

God, you wish you could kiss him.

Someone slams into your shoulder from behind, muscling past you to get to science lab 5, rat central. Your binder slips out of the stack of books in your arms and clatters loudly to the ground, just as someone walks past and kicks it across the floor.

“Fuck,” you spit, chasing after it. The back of your neck feels hot. For the first time in four years, you hope to god that Steve Harrington doesn’t notice you. 

You duck around people’s legs, trying to grab at your binder, while not trying to drop any more of the books in your arms. Loose papers are starting to fall out of the binder as it skitters across the floor, and this is becoming more and more of a comedy of errors by the minute.

Your fingers just brush the corner of it before someone kicks it again. 

“Do you mind?” you snap as they walk away, not even looking in your direction. Crouched close to the floor, you don’t matter. Maybe you could count that as a blessing, considering you don’t want to be perceived right now.

You finally just throw away all dignity and crawl across the tile floor- disgusting and dirty and covered in sandy grit, as though it hasn’t been cleaned all year- to get to your binder. 

And you come face to face with a pair of white Nike’s. Ones that you know way too well, because you’ve stared at them every time they’ve passed you in the hallway. 

Nonononono- You clench your jaw and then look up, way up, to find Steve Harrington towering over you. 

He looks like he was about to just step around you, but then he notices you gazing up at him from all fours, and his hazel eyes lock on yours. You blink at each other for a second before he flushes, a pink blush breaking out on his cheeks and crawling up his neck, and he looks away quickly, but crouches down to grab your binder before your hand can land on it. 

“Sorry,” Steve says quietly, gathering up the couple papers that had started to slide out of the folders inside. You sit back on your heels, your blood rushing in your ears, mortified. His big hands gently poke the papers back into the folder as they should be before he hands it to you. “Looks like you’re gonna be late to class.”

You scoff. “Look who’s talking.”

Steve’s eyes find yours again, and he’s finally so close to you that you can admire the little bit of green in them. You’ve never been close enough to notice before.

He cracks a lopsided smile, one that he uses to charm people, you know- you’ve seen him use it on teachers and cute girls alike. “I’m always late to the party. But I get there, eventually.”

“I hope so.” He cocks his head at you. He doesn’t know the real meaning to your words- or, at least, you don’t think he does. 

I hope you don’t stay oblivious forever, Steve Harrington. I hope you get there, eventually.

You take your binder from him, but you pull your eyes away from his a bit later than you properly should. “Thanks, Steve.”

You get up and take off toward your next class, walking quickly so that you don’t come off like you’re lingering too long. But, halfway down the hall, you look over your shoulder at him.

Steve hasn’t moved, still crouched down close to the floor, with his head bent like he’s deep in thought. With his back to you, you can still see the pink flush on the back of his neck, peeking out above his collared shirt.

‘Cause I can see you, waiting down the hall from me, and I can see you up against the wall with me. What would you do? Baby, if you only knew that I can see you…

Hawkins High, April 1985

Prom season sucks. Always has, and always will. 

Maybe it was your fault for hoping that Logan Sawyer, popular prick extraordinaire, was serious about wanting to take you to prom. He seemed serious enough, stopping by your locker during passing period and leaning over you as he asked you, his mega-watt smile making you blush. You’d counted yourself lucky- you didn’t think anyone was going to ask you, and people aren’t allowed to go to prom stag.

It took Logan two weeks to find a prettier girl to go with, though. You don’t know why it hurts so much. Maybe it’s because you wanted to believe that you were someone’s first choice, but it never quite seems to turn out that way.

You wipe your tears in the mirror, scowling at your puffy, bloodshot eyes. The bathroom next to the girls’ locker room in the sports wing is completely deserted at this time- the boys’ gym class is in session now, and you’re cutting into your lunch time, but you really don’t want to have to go and cry at a lunch table, in front of a bunch of your bitchy peers, who will inevitably make fun of you for it.

Sniffling, but slightly more composed, you head out of the bathroom. The sports wing is ridiculously bigger than any other wing of the school (typical of American public schools, to prioritize sports over every other department). The wing boasts weight training rooms, dance rooms, three separate gymnasiums, and a door directly to the football field, with the locker rooms on the farthest end to allow for easy access to the field. Connecting all of these rooms is the longest corridor in the building, which seems to run for half a fucking mile.

You’ll have to walk that half mile, because in order to get to the cafeteria, you’re gonna have to traverse the entire building. You might not get to eat much today, but it was a sacrifice you were willing to make. Maybe Mrs. Marshall will be kind enough to let you snack on a granola bar in your next class period.

Halfway down the long hallway, you feel the angry sting of tears behind your eyes again, and your face screws up in frustration. You stop, turning halfway back toward the girls’ bathroom, wondering if you should just go back in and allow yourself to cry some more.

Suck it up, you think to yourself, smacking at your tear stained cheeks. He’s not the guy you really want to ask you to prom, anyways.

You press your fingertips into your eyes to relieve the sting of tears, taking a deep breath. Being in high school is driving you crazy. At this point in the year, the teachers have given up teaching, the students have given up learning, and you’re basically just biding your time in a glorified babysitting service until you can inevitably grab your diploma and get out of here. You can’t wait for that time to arrive. 

A door opens further down the hallway, in the direction of the cafeteria. You wipe your nose once and keep moving in the direction you were going, not wanting to draw attention to yourself, standing in the middle of the hallway having a breakdown.

Moving forwards, you keep your eyes on the ground. Once you hear the door that had been opened slam shut again, you figure that whoever it was has moved on down the hallway, and you lift your eyes again. 

They have not, in fact, moved on. And you suddenly have the urge to turn and fucking run back into the girls’ bathroom, because Steve Harrington is bent over at the drinking fountain, directly outside the boys’ weight room.

What the fuck, what the fuck. You suck on your teeth, trying not to falter in your stride. Maybe he hasn’t seen you, and you can just pass him up. It’s fine, he hasn’t seen you crying. 

Your mind backtracks to the beginning of the year, you fumbling your binder all the way across the hallway and ending up right in front of him, crawling toward him. Looking up at him and probably, most definitely, making him really uncomfortable.

You have English class together, where you sit at the desk closest to the door. He comes in late almost every day, so he passes by you every time. Some days he looks at your desk. On good days, he meets your eye. But he hasn’t spoken to you since that day in September, and you really shouldn’t hold out hope that he will. 

You definitely don’t want him to notice you when you’ve been crying, your face is a mess, your hair is limp and you look bedraggled. You just want to fade into the background of your next class with whatever snack you can get from the cafeteria snuck into your bag, so you can stress eat it without any guff from a teacher (like you aren’t 18 and capable of deciding when you are and aren’t allowed to eat).

You keep your eyes down. If you don’t look at him, he doesn’t exist.

Except, Steve Harrington always exists, in the back of your mind, and in your periphery. He is impossible not to notice, as per usual. He really just draws the eye like a magnet. Try as you might, your eyes keep flicking up to take stock of him. 

He’s wearing a uniform gray P.E. shirt and gym shorts that don’t leave a lot to the imagination, and you fixate on his thighs more than you should. He has sweat dripping down his neck, wetting his hair on the sides of his face and the seam of his shirt. It shouldn’t be attractive. He shouldn’t be attractive. With his face a mess. And his hair limp, and looking bedraggled. Truly, you make a priceless pair, being the only two people in the hallway.

We’re perfect for each other, a voice says in your head. And you manage, for the first time in an hour, to crack a smile down at your shoes.

He finishes getting his drink at the fountain, and you figure that he’ll just go back into the weight room and not see you. But, of course, luck is not on your side.

Steve Harrington looks at you. And you look away, quickly, acting like you hadn’t been staring at him. And in your periphery, again, you see him stretch his arms over his head, and then turn and lean against the cinderblock wall beside the door to the weight room, with his hands on his knees as though he’s catching his breath.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

He does it so casually, and with the way he’s sweating and his face is flushed, you’re sure that he probably does just want to take a break before going in and lifting more weights. But something in the back of your mind says that the maneuver was too purposeful, immediately after he laid eyes on you. 

It could just be wishful thinking on your part. You heard through the grapevine that Steve and Nancy Wheeler broke up in a nasty way just before winter break, and it doesn’t seem like he’s been interested in anyone since. He hasn’t dated anyone, hasn’t flirted with any girls or showed up at any parties. Nancy must have really broken his heart.

You know too well what that feels like, right now.

Nearing where he leans against the wall, you keep your head down and you plan on just passing by without any acknowledgement from him, same as it ever was. If he’s still carrying a torch for Nancy, you’re sure that he doesn’t want anything to do with you. You’ve nearly convinced yourself of it.

But then you hear your name called quietly, and it nearly makes you jump. You look over at him, thinking you’re just hearing things, but you look directly into a pair of hazel eyes again, and you feel yourself rocketing back in time to September.

You didn’t even think he knew your name.

You slow to a stop. It would be rude not to stop, right? “Uh… hi, Steve. You good?”

Steve Harrington looks you up and down, while he leans against the wall and breathes a bit heavily, like he’s out of breath. He peers at you through long eyelashes, looking impossibly inviting despite everything; the setting, your appearances, the way that you feel like dissolving into a puddle right in front of him. “Yeah, great. You?”

He’s scrutinizing your face now. You shrug, since he’s already seen you, and there’s no way to pretend you weren’t crying thirty seconds ago. “I’m fine. Just being dramatic, don’t worry about me.” 

“When people say not to worry about them, it usually means that you should,” Steve muses. He looks coy, like he’s speaking from experience. 

You sigh, stepping forward to get your own drink from the drinking fountain. “Logan Sawyer called off our date for prom.”

“Oh.” Steve pauses for a few seconds, watching as you bend down and take your drink, more silent than he usually is. “I mean… that really sucks. I’m sorry. But… Logan Sawyer?”  

“Yeah.” You wipe your mouth, and then wet the ends of your fingers and use the cool water to rub at your stinging eyes again. When you’re done, you lean up against the wall beside him, letting your back settle into the cinderblock.

“The guy’s a fucking douche.”

“Tell me about it.”

“No, I mean it, I think it’s a good thing you’re not going to prom with him. He’s really shitty to girls.” You look up at Steve, who’s watching you with his arms crossed, with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen him wear. “I mean, the only guy worse than Logan is probably… I dunno…”

“Billy Hargrove?” 

Steve laughs. Actually laughs. You’ve wanted to make him laugh like that for four years. His cheeks turn crimson and he grins down at his shoes, snickering like there’s way more to the joke he’s laughing at than you even know about. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s gotta be the worst.”

You chuckle, albeit with a sadder tone than he has. “Well, I’m not going to prom with either of them. So, I can count my blessings. I guess.”

Steve frowns, and he looks like he’s going to say something else, but you’re already turning away, not wanting to continue the depressing conversation about your lack of dates. Especially not from the one guy who you desperately want to go on a date with.

You get a few steps away before he takes a step after you, saying, “Wait. You, uh-”

You stop, and look back at him. He looks dumbfounded, his arm outstretched like he was going to try to grab you if you didn’t listen to him. When you frown, he steps back against the wall, bringing his hand up to run through his hair. 

Oh . That’s a nervous tick. You know it, because you’ve watched him do it more than once in English, in front of the class during a presentation.

Steve looks down at his shoes, his brow scrunched in thought. He looks like he’s really trying to find the right words to say. In your head, a hopeful part of you imagines what those words could be. ‘Will you go to prom with me?’

Finally, he looks up at you resolutely. “You’ll find someone to take you to prom. I’m sure of it.” He nods a little, like he’s reassuring himself that he said the right thing. 

You can’t help the smile that springs onto your face. It’s incredulous, of course, but he can’t know that. Keep trying, baby. You’ll get there, eventually.

“Thanks, Steve.” It’s the second time you thank him in the course of the year.

But what would you do if I went to touch you now? What would you do if they never found us out? What would you do if we never made a sound?

Prom Night, May 1985

The dress you’re wearing is sleek and a lot simpler than some of the more popular styles on the dance floor, but you like it more than you care to admit. You’d just grabbed it off the rack at Macy’s, and beyond that you didn’t want to go all-out for prom. It turns out that your lab partner, Gavin Connelly, needed a date, too. So, you’re here with him, because you knew that if you missed prom, you would probably regret it.

Except, well.

Gavin, stoned out of his fucking mind, is sitting at one of the tables, nursing a cup of punch, looking like he’s two seconds from falling asleep. You’ve taken to making the rounds and saying hi to anyone you can call a ‘friend,’ because you’re tired of just loitering next to him. Something tells you he didn’t want to even be here.

The speakers are playing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’ and couples are swaying on the dance floor in a Bonnie Tyler-induced haze. At a loss for people to bother, you wander back over to your date to find his head plastered to the white table cloth. 

You glance to the guy sitting next to him, a kid with glasses who you don’t recognize but who seems to know your date, because he’s just patting Gavin’s back. “Is he okay?”

“Oh, no, he’s dying.” The kid shoots you a sarcastic smile. 

You nod, pressing your tongue hard to the roof of your mouth. “Well, if he wakes up, tell him I’m getting some air.”

Fuck this. Fuck prom. Fuck high school boys.

Your heels, which are killing your feet already, click loudly on the tile hallway floor as you exit the gym. The table where you can check your bag and coat are located at the other end of the hall, where everyone is supposed to enter through the door to the football field.

You can hear voices from the far end of the hall, and Bonnie Tyler’s voice fading out the further you get from the gym. You might never be able to hear that song again without thinking of your ruined slow dance opportunity.

As you pass by, someone coughs off to the left and you turn your head to see Steve Harrington, black tie and all, loitering in the shadows. You stop a few feet from him and squint into the dark.

You can’t believe it. He always seems to show up at the worst times. “What are you doing, skulking around?” 

“I’m not sulking.”

You snort, stepping into the shadows with him. “No, skulk- like, sneaking around?” 

“Well, I didn’t mean to sneak-” he looks over his shoulder at the gym entrance. “I’m just getting some air.”

“Funny,” you murmur. “I was just about to do the same thing.”

He eyes you, a lot like he did a few weeks ago in this same hallway, further up toward the other end of it. He takes in your hair, styled painstakingly to ‘perfection,’ or as close as you could approximate it, and your off-the-rack department store dress. You suddenly feel like you aren’t as pretty as you thought you were at the beginning of the night. 

But then he meets your eye, and all those insecurities fade into the back of your mind. He’s smiling at you, and that can only be a good thing.

“So, uh…” Steve leans back against the wall, his hands in his pockets, “You found someone to take you?”

You press your lips into a tight line. You don’t really want to think about your date right now, but- “Gavin Connelly.”

“Who?”

You laugh, kicking the heel of your shoe against the ground with a soft clack. “Yeah. God, I wish I didn’t know him right now.”

“Why, what’d he do?” Steve sounds perturbed. You look up to find him scowling already.

“Oh, he just ate a pot brownie before he picked me up and passed out at one of the tables.” You finish with a tired giggle, shrugging at Steve as he peers at you with an annoyed expression. “Who did you bring?”

“Kelly Palmer.” 

You know Kelly. She doesn’t say much, but she’s gotten a scholarship to a big art school. “Do you like her?”

“Yeah, she’s nice,” he says mildly. Unconvincingly.

You can understand the subtext. She’s not Nancy. When you look at his face, he seems tortured in the low light coming from down the hall.

“Guess I’m oh-for-two,” Steve adds after a pause. “Last year’s prom, Nance and I didn’t have such a good time, either.”

You nod. It seems like there’s more he wants to say, but he doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” you offer. You don’t know the ins-and-outs of Steve and Nancy’s relationship, aside from watching them suck face in the hallway five paces from you for a year and a half. “Prom sucks. High school sucks. These can’t be the best years of our lives, trust me.”

“Yeah, I hope not.” 

“I just can’t wait to get out of here, you know,” you grumble, allowing your sour mood to come out a little more than normal. It seems like Steve is just really good at getting you to let your guard down. “I’m planning to go to Chicago for college. This is all just… you know, it’s just the starting point. What about you, any big plans?”

“Dunno. I didn’t get accepted to any schools, so I’ll just be getting a job here in town until something better comes along.” Steve shifts, his heel hitting the wall behind him. He looks disappointed when he says, “I think I made too many mistakes.” 

You frown, chewing on your lip. “What do you mean?”

He gives you a heavy look, like he’s gearing up to say something important, something game changing- and then his gaze softens. 

“You’ve got an eyelash.” He gestures to his own eye, like it’ll make you understand exactly where the loose one is on your face.

“Oh.” You falter, lifting your manicured hands and wiping at your undereyes. “Did I get it?”

“No, uh- here, I can-” Steve tentatively reaches forward, and you step toward him to let him touch your face. 

Steve Harrington is touching your face.  

His fingertip brushes your cheekbone, so featherlight you would barely feel it if you weren’t hyper aware of everything that he said or did. His touch glides across your cheek and toward your temple, and then he seems to keep it there, his hand hovering just over your skin.

Reflexively, your hand comes up to rest on his shoulder. You’re inches from Steve’s face, your eyes falling to his lips.

You could kiss him. You could live your fantasy, right now.

Steve’s gaze lingers on your face for a moment, and then he says, “You’re so beautiful.”

Your heart lurches in your chest. He doesn’t say that you look beautiful. He doesn’t say it conditionally, like it’s just for tonight. You are beautiful. Even when you’re crawling on all fours after your binder. Even when you’re crying, and your hair is limp, and you look bedraggled.

“Steve…” you whisper, inching closer to him. 

“STEVE??!”

You jump away from him like he’s burned you, and peek around the hall corner to see Kelly Palmer standing outside the gym looking up and down the hall, searching for him. She looks lost, and sad, like he must have ditched.

She looks an awful lot like you just did, coming out of that gym.

You feel Steve’s hand where it had fallen to your wrist, dragging your attention gently back to him. You take his hand and squeeze it once, giving him a tight smile. 

“You brought her here for a good time,” you say with your bravest smile. “Just don’t pass out at one of the tables on her, okay?”

Don’t be a douche. Don’t be like Logan Sawyer. 

Steve swallows, and gives you a short nod. You think he finally got there.

You give a soft pat to the lapel of his suit jacket. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” 

He touches your arm one final time before he slips around the corner, just as Kelly turns to go back into the gym. You watch him walk away, and you think to yourself, That’s the last time I chase after Steve Harrington.

Wherever there is, it’s not with you.

Steve loops his arms around Kelly’s waist and lifts her, earning a thrilled squeal as the silver taffeta of her dress glints blue in the light from the gym. You wait until they’ve disappeared back into it before you turn and high-tail it toward the coat check table.

And we kept everything professional, but something’s changed, it’s something I like. They keep watchful eyes on us, so it’s best if we move fast and keep quiet…

Starcourt Mall, June 1985

“Come on, it’s ridiculously hot outside,” your best friend, Shelly, groans as she pulls you along by the wrist. “I can’t believe they only have one ice cream place here.”

“I’m sure they have slushies at the-”

“Ice. Cream.” You know better than to argue with her.

Scoops Ahoy has a novelty nautical theme that makes you want to both laugh and break down in tears when you see it. The PA is playing a cutesy rendition of Drunken Sailor on accordion, and you think that if you keep looking at the striped wallpaper behind the counter, you might get literally seasick. In the mall. In landlocked Indiana. 

Or… is it landlocked if it fronts Lake Michigan? It doesn’t matter. You’ll be in Chicago in two days, anyways.

You let Shelly drag you along until you look towards the front counter, and you see something that nearly makes you trip and face plant into Shelly’s fresh perm.

Even Shelly pauses. “Is that who I think it is?”

It’s something about the stupid little sailor’s cap and shorts, and that he’s so, so pretty in it, you think. It’s also something about how you have the perfect vantage point to watch him try and fail to flirt with the girl that approaches the counter to order. You’re enamored with him. There’s no other way to describe it. 

You have half a mind to run away, after what you promised yourself on prom night over a month ago. You’d done good, you didn’t search for him in the halls, you ignored him in your last couple of class periods with him. You’d even been in the bathroom when his name was called at graduation. 

But, here he is. Steve Harrington, absolutely obliterating his chances of getting a date with the girl ordering a sundae ahead of you. 

Honestly, you don’t know what you’re waiting for. Maybe an invitation? A sign from god that today’s the day that you’ll make a move? Or maybe this is just a test of will.

You stop resisting Shelly’s attempts to drag you along, and straighten your spine. You can do this. Four years’ worth of pining won’t make a difference in whether or not you order a strawberry ice cream cone.

He’s even prettier up close, his rosy cheeks framed by sunkissed, wavy hair. When he sees you he stalls, going a bit wide-eyed and then seeming to realize he’s supposed to do his job. He leans heavily against the counter. “Ahoy, ladies! Would you like to set sail on this ocean of flavor with me? I’ll be your captain, Steve Harrington.”

“Uh-huh.” You stare at each other for a long moment. “How much do they pay you to recite that script?”

“Absolutely nothing, I do this for pure enjoyment.” You’re almost sure that he doesn’t. He pauses, a hand poised on his hip. “Too much?”

“I’d dial it back just a smidge. Maybe keep the ahoy and the captain thing and toss the rest.” 

“Noted.” He nods slowly, his eyes fixed on you. “I thought you were going to Chicago?”

“I leave the day after tomorrow,” you shrug. “Still time for me to burn the place down, you know.”

“Well, I’m glad you stopped by,” Steve chuckles. “I could show you where the gas line is, then we’d all be in trouble.”

“Oookay.” Shelly gives you a curious side-eye, and then turns back to Steve. “Well, I’ll have a U.S.S. Butterscotch with a chocolate dipped waffle bowl, if you don’t mind.”

Steve tears his eyes away from you long enough to grin at Shelly. “Coming right up. And for you?”

You freeze, glancing up at the menu. It’s written in an infuriatingly cutesy code-language that you have to decipher. “Um. I’m still deciding.”

“All right, then. Just let me know, when you’re ready.” 

Steve slips away to make Shelly her sundae, a heaping pile of ice cream and butterscotch syrup that looks like the fast track to a heart attack. You alternate between trying to comprehend the menu and being distracted by Steve in that stupid sailor’s uniform.

The script on the menu may as well be written in a foreign language. Blackbeard’s Delight. Treasure Island Turtle. U.S.S. Sherbet. The sizes are even harder to understand. Fathom. League. Nautical Mile. You don’t have the capacity to decipher it- your eyes are seeing the words, but your mind is traveling back to prom night, and feeling Steve’s finger on your cheek as you gear up to kiss him.

“Are you ready?”

“Mhm…” It takes you a second to zone back into the present moment, where Steve is standing in front of you, on the other side of the counter, waiting to take your order. He waits, with a patient smile on his face, while you blink dumbly at him.

What did you say? What did he say?

“I… um.” You’re sure you look completely out of it. Your eyes flick nervously up at the menu, that you still can’t fucking read. Shelly’s already gone to sit down with her sundae, the traitor.

“It’s kind of hard to understand, isn’t it?” Steve says quietly after a moment, dropping the phony customer service charade. “I hate it. I think we should just be able to say what our favorite ice cream flavor is and be done with it.”

“Yeah,” you murmur, still squinting up at the menu. Blackbeard’s Delight: blackberry swirl with blueberry syrup and a gold doubloon. “The fuck is a doubloon?”

Steve snorts, and reaches under the counter before bringing back a handful of gold foil-covered chocolate coins, which he dumps into your outstretched hand. “You want more? We get them wholesale.”

“I’m good,” you giggle, juggling the chocolate coins before they go cascading to the floor. “I think… I don’t… I don’t understand a thing on that menu.”

“What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?” He leans forward to ask you, like it's a secret. Just between the two of you. His head bent a little to peer at you closely, so close that you can count the freckles on his skin.

You glance over your shoulder. Shelly is seated by the far wall, under a painting of a kraken, giving you an indignant look. When she notices you looking, she mouths an emphatic, ‘LET’S GO!’

“Don’t tell anyone,” you whisper, and Steve affects his gravest expression as he nods. “Strawberry.” 

“A classic,” he grins. “Fan of sprinkles?” 

“I can dig a few sprinkles.”

“Perfect. I think we have something up your alley.” He grabs a scooper out of the bin and twirls it once, just to show off. “Sex on the Beach.” 

“What?” You don’t remember seeing anything about that on the menu.

He glances up to smirk at you before shrugging. “It’s strawberry ice cream with peach syrup. You’ll see.”

You keep an eye on his hands behind the glass partition, watching them put two scoops of strawberry into a medium sized carton. Completely unable to rein in your thoughts before they get away from you, you’re thinking about how good they would feel under your shirt. You follow a treasure map of freckles trailing up his arms, disappearing under the blue sailor’s shirt he wears. You want to kiss every single one of them.

You finally reply, “I guess I have to put my faith in your professional ice cream slinging abilities.” 

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Steve mutters sardonically as he squirts peach syrup across the two scoops of ice cream, giving it a golden sheen. “I’m the king of cream.”

You purse your lips as it takes Steve a second to realize what he just said. When he does, he snaps his head up to meet your eye in horror. 

He opens his mouth to take it back, but you shake your head, holding back laughter. “Don’t ruin it.”

“I think it’s pretty much ruined already.” He turns crimson, blushing down at the half-made sundae as he rapidly shakes yellow sprinkles onto it. “I was doing so good, too.”

“Who says you aren’t still?” You give him a cute smile when he looks up through his lashes at you, still arranging toppings on the sundae. You’re not sure what happened between prom and now to change him so much, but it’s almost as if he’s… goofy. He’s less concerned with appearances, he’s more laid back and willing to make fun of himself. 

You like it a lot. 

You watch him plop two maraschinos onto one ice cream mound, and wedge a candied orange slice into the other, inverted, to look like a setting sun. As he passes it over the counter to you, he says, “Here you go, one Sex on the Beach. On the house.”

“What? No, I couldn’t-”

“I mean it. For overlooking my stupidity,” Steve insists. He gives you a meaningful look when he adds, “A million times over.”

“I’m not overlooking anything when it comes to you, Steve,” you tell him fondly, and drop one of the doubloons into the tip jar. It’s gaudy, gleaming artificially gold in the middle of the crumpled up dollar bills. “Hang onto that. You might be able to cash it in for a kiss someday.”

Steve blinks rapidly, leaning across the counter as you walk away. “After you come back from Chicago, right?”

You look over your shoulder, and you wink at him.

When you finally stop in front of Shelly, and you use your plastic spoon to dig into the adorable sundae that Steve crafted for you, you remember that you’d gone up to the counter with every intention of ignoring Steve and acting like you didn’t even know him.

You winked at Steve Harrington. You said you’d kiss him. You think back to the girl who was so afraid of Steve even noticing her, almost a year ago, and wonder where she went.

You look down at Shelly. She’d graduated a year before you, so she wasn’t there to witness every blunderous interaction you’d had with Steve in school. You never told her how in love you were with him.

Now, she looks up at you coyly. “So. Steve Harrington, huh?”

“Shut up,” you grunt, looking up and out at the food court outside of the Scoops Ahoy storefront. “As if you know everything.”

“Are you gonna try to make something out of that…” she gestures vaguely with her spoon toward the counter, “before school starts?” 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” you say honestly, still poking at your sundae. “Anyways, I leave too soon for anything to really happen. What- I screw him tomorrow and then fuck off forever? It’s just wishful thinking, probably.” You finally take a bite of the ice cream, just to punctuate your sentence.

“Hm. Probably. How is that?” Shelly nods at the ice cream in your hand. “Looks pretty.”

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” You’re being honest. Something about the peach syrup with the strawberry base literally evokes the flavor of a sunset. “They should give him a raise.”

Humming, Shelly stands and takes her half-eaten sundae. She nudges you in the direction of the door. “C’mon. We’ve gotta eat these before the next showing of The Breakfast Club.”

Steve watches you and your friend leave, with the wistful gaze of someone who just watched their greatest opportunity walk away from them. He never knew that it was possible to hate an entire geographic location, but he really wishes Chicago would get blown off the map in the next 24 hours. 

The wooden partition doors slam open, and Robin’s head appears in the window to the kitchen. “The cream king? Do you want me to actually hurl?”

“I said, ‘the king of cream,’” he groans, digging his knuckles into his eye sockets. “Kill me, Robin. Load me into the freezer. Bury me at the fairground.”

“You think you’re valuable enough to displace that much ice cream?” Robin rolls her eyes, and with another loud thwack, her white board appears in the space behind her. “We don’t make anything called Sex on the Beach. This is a family establishment.”

“I made it up.” 

Robin coos, “Aww. Be still my heart. You love her to the point of invention.” 

Steve whirls around. “Love? Who said anything about love?” 

“I did.” Robin uncaps her dry-erase marker and draws a tally mark under the side that reads, you rule.

“Uh, Robin,” Steve snaps, pointing at the board condescendingly. “I think you put that on the wrong side. I fucked it up.”

“Dingus. Please. As much as it makes me gag- and you know I gain immense pleasure from counting how often you screw up- I could practically hear her heart eyes.” She sets the white board down, begrudgingly. “I think you found the only girl alive who’ll find all this-” she waves her hand at him, “endearing. Who was she? Some ex of yours?” 

“If only,” Steve sighs, shaking his head. When he turns back to the counter, his eyes land on the single chocolate coin glinting in the tip jar.

He scoops it up with two fingers and pockets it.

You won’t believe half the things I see inside my head. Wait ‘til you see half the things that haven’t happened yet…

Family Video, March 1986

The air conditioning nearly blasts you backwards into the parking lot. You don’t know why they need it blasting so hard at 7pm, in the middle of March. It’s not like it’s the height of summer- your spring break takes place earlier than the local school’s, but it just means that you get to beat the crowds when you come home to visit your family.

Of course, they love to send you to run errands. You end up picking up the groceries, and the housewares, and, on this occasion, the choices for family movie night. 

This Family Video’s selection isn’t necessarily as extensive as the ones in Chicago, but it’s good enough. You enter the store, and it dumps you directly in front of a cardboard cutout of Phoebe Cates about to flash you. Family friendly entertainment, and all.

The TV in the corner is running the final scene of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- Ennio Morricone’s score plays dramatically into the empty store. There’s no one behind the counter currently, so you pull the list of videos your extended family members had all requested. The Breakfast Club. Camelot. The Birds. Pretty general selections for your family, but it seems like you’ll have to hunt them up on your own. 

You’re wandering down the romance aisle, since The Breakfast Club was nowhere on the new releases or comedy shelves, when someone finally emerges from the back room. You see a flash of a head moving toward the front counter from over the top of a rack, and you take it as your chance to ask for help.

“Excuse me? Do you guys have any copies of The Breakfast Club, or-”

You stop short, choking on your words. Steve Harrington turns around to look at you, carrying a stack of VHS tapes perched under his chin, and holding a folded up piece of paper between his teeth.

You stare each other down for a second, before Steve gracefully spits the paper over his shoulder and onto the counter. “Hey, um… long time, no see?”

“I’d say.” You tilt your head. Funny how quickly your eyes will hone in on his lips, like searching for a target every time. “We always seem to run into each other like this. What happened to the ice cream gig?”

“Starcourt burned down,” Steve says, plopping the stack of VHS tapes down on the counter beside the paper he spit out. “Right around the Fourth of July, last summer.”

“So, right after I last saw you?”

Steve smirks to himself before he turns back to you. “Yeah. Like, a week or so after. Did you manage to burn the place down, after all?” 

“I wish.” 

You pause, taking the time to size him up. It’s amazing what the better part of a year will do to someone, inside and out. With a striped shirt and green vest, he looks much more relaxed and casual than he had at Scoops Ahoy. His hair’s a little longer, his eyes a little darker as they rake over you, in return. 

You’re a little bit desperate to see what’s going on in his head, if it’s anything like what’s happening in yours.

You wish you could say that you tried to seek him out when you got back to town- a year ago, maybe you would have. But you’d pretty much given up on the idea of him, moving up to dating college boys who don’t string you along, who don’t wait until the last minute to finally try their hand at flirting with you. If he ever passed through your mind, it was with the attached hope that he’d found greener pastures than Hawkins, Indiana. Foolishly, you hoped that as long as you told yourself that he’d moved on, it would be true. And then maybe what could have been wouldn’t matter anymore.

You’d stepped back into Hawkins after half a year of college, the graveyard of all hope in your happily ever after, and you hadn’t even thought of Steve Harrington. Except, seeing him now, everything comes flooding back. All the days spent pining over him. All the close brushes you’d had with finally getting the ending you wanted. 

You have to be honest. “You look good, Steve. You always do.”

Steve chuckles, tilting his chin down as he shoves his hands into the pockets of his light wash jeans. “Better without the sailor costume, right?”

“Aww, I liked the sailor costume.” You step closer so you can whisper, “I thought it was sexy.”

Steve peers down his nose at you, drawing himself up to tower above you at his full height. He tries to look unaffected, but you can see his ears glowing pink beneath wisps of golden highlights. “Watch it. You’re gonna give me an ego.”

“We don’t want that, do we?” You unfold the list of movies you’re here to collect, holding it up to him between two fingers. “Got any of these movies?” 

Steve reads the short list, and nods to himself. “I know we have Camelot, but I’m not sure about The Breakfast Club. Let me check in the back?” 

“I’ll be here.”

“All right- don’t get up to any trouble, though. I’ve got my eye on you.” He points at you coolly, feigning an authoritative expression. He tries to hide his smile, but the creases around his eyes give him away. 

“I hope you do.” You try to appear casual as you breeze past him, but you have to fiddle with your jacket collar to hide their shaking. Still, you feel the sweep of his gaze on you like rays of sun on your skin. It frightens you how easily you can fall back into the old back-and-forth routine you established in high school- how he gets you to say things you never meant to voice, but that live in your head effortlessly. 

Steve watches you disappear down the drama aisle before he takes in a huge breath of air and bolts toward the back room. Any and all coolness he was performing disappears like so much smoke. Slamming open the door, he nearly shouts, “Do you have a doubloon?!” 

Robin startles, swinging around in her seat, looking away from her computer screen. “A what? Why are you yelling?”

“A doubloon, a f-fucking-” Steve looks quickly over his shoulder, out the door, and starts hunching over as he whispers, “a chocolate coin. Like one of those ones we had at Scoops, remember?”

“Why do you want a chocolate coin?” Robin squints at him. “Stop crouching like that, you look like Nosferatu.”

Steve hisses through his teeth, and he’s got a frantic edge to his expression that Robin doesn’t like. “Okay- remember that girl, the one who showed up at Scoops that time, and you gave me my one and only ‘You Rule’ tally?” 

“No.”

“Great. Well, she’s here, and she told me if I gave her one of those chocolate coins she’d kiss me.” Steve shoves his hands through his hair, mussing up the already disheveled style. “Please, Rob, I can’t let her get away again. I’ve done it, like, a thousand times already.” 

“Okay, Romeo,” Robin humors him, turning around in her seat. “So you’re saying this babe, who I very much don’t remember because you always struck out while we worked at Scoops, told you that if you bribed her with chocolate she’d kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t think she was maybe joking?” 

Steve opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. Truthfully, he hadn’t. He’d overlooked the idea that, after everything that had happened between you, you might just be joking about kissing him. 

“You know you could use your actual charm to get a girl to kiss you?” Robin dips her chin, shaking her head like it’s obvious.

Steve frowns. As if he hasn’t already tried that. “Do you have any chocolate coins or not?”

Robin sighs exasperatedly. “I don’t think I’ve seen one of those things since we worked at Scoops. Sorry, bud. You’re out of luck.” 

“FUCK!” Steve’s hand smacks the door as he heads out of the back room, making Robin scowl after him. She shakes her head as she turns back to her work.

Back out on the sales floor, the credits to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly have finished, and white noise fills the empty space. Steve turns in a circle by the checkout counter, searching for you among the aisles.

Where did you disappear to, this time? A part of him dreads the answer. He was the one who fucked everything up- he shouldn’t have chickened out when he had the chance. He should have asked you to that fucking prom, but he was too scared to commit after what happened with Nancy. 

If this is his last chance, he needs to make it count. 

He coughs into the dead air, and says, “Looks like we’re all out of The Breakfast Club.” There’s a disconcerting amount of silence that leaves him cold, almost certain that you’ve left already, for the last time.

Then, you appear from behind the red curtain to the adult videos section.

Oh.  

“Everything okay?” you ask sweetly as you approach, holding a couple tapes that you must have picked up while you shopped around. “I heard some yelling back there.” 

“Oh, yeah. Just, uh… shelving issues.” Steve backs his way behind the counter. He repeats, “Sorry, I couldn’t find the movie for you.”

“I heard. I’m not worried about it.” You plop the tapes that you did find on the counter. “It was nice of you to look for me. Thanks, Steve.”

“Always.” Steve starts scanning your tapes; it looks like you managed to find the other films on your list, along with one for yourself. From the adult section. 

You watch in amusement as you can see the cogs visibly turning in Steve’s head, while he stares at the front of the porn video you picked. Spring Break Sex Party II. Not that you’d ever seen the first one, but the cover of this one was suggestive enough- a bunch of drunk people naked on a beach, lying in a great big pile. Looks like fun, in your opinion.

You always love seeing Steve blush. The prettiest shade of pink colors his cheeks before he glances up at you. “Should I ask…?”

“It’s the closest thing to getting a Sex on the Beach, here.” 

Steve chokes, and he scrambles for a response to that. “I- I was gonna ask for an I.D.”

“You know we’re the same age,” you deadpan.

“Y-yeah. I, uh- I know… I know that.” He hangs his head and pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes tightly shut.

You wonder if this is what you looked like to him, that time in the hallway when he loitered by the fountain to talk to you. “Breathe, Steve.”

A blast of laughter leaves his mouth before he can swallow it. If only you knew how hard it actually is, to act like he’s not just fucking melting right in front of you. When he hangs on every word you say, and every other thought he has is about how badly he wants to tell Robin to get lost and take you in the back room. You don’t know how much he’s fixating on your curves and how they’d feel against him, how much he wants to taste every inch of your body. He’s practically vibrating in place with all his pent up frustration, and you’re here buying porn, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Steve clears his throat, shakes his head. Christ. “Okay, well. You know that this is a sale item, it’s not for rent. You can return it within 10 days as long as the packaging hasn’t been opened.”

“I know.”

“Okay.” He’s still nodding as he puts it into the bag with the rest of your rentals. 

“Are you always this affected by people buying from the adult section?” you ask mildly. 

“Nah, usually I don’t care,” he replies without thinking. 

“Good to know that you care about my taste in pornography,” you tell him with the most shit eating grin on your face, taking the bag from him. “I’m flattered.”

He makes a clumsy noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a laugh and a grunt. He’s right back to working at Scoops Ahoy, fumbling every attempt at flirting, losing his cool at the sight of a pretty girl. It’s… humbling.

He’s sure Robin would say that he can always use more humility.

“It was good to see you again, Steve.” And just like that, you’re sand slipping through the cracks in his fingers. 

Desperately, he tries to block the flow, closing his fingers around you in an attempt to keep you in his grasp. “Do you- uh-” He lurches forward, white-knuckling the counter like his life depends on it. You turn back towards him, an eyebrow raised at his sudden outburst. 

You’re back in the school hallway, senior year. Crying over Logan Sawyer. Harrington is up against the wall by the drinking fountain. You want him to just say the words and ask you to prom.

“I mean… if you have the time, while you’re in town… do you want to go for a cup of coffee? With me?”

“Oh, Steve.” You sigh, and it’s the most heartbreaking noise he’s ever heard in his life. Soft sand, falling through his fingers, disappearing back the way you came. He already dreads your answer before it comes. “I wish… you know, if I had come in here and met you about a week ago, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. But I have to catch the train back to Chicago tomorrow. My break’s almost up.” You offer him a reassuring smile. “I’m just glad that you didn’t completely miss me, at least.”

“Right, of course.” Steve smiles back at you, feeling more like an idiot the longer this drags on. He’s like Sisyphus rolling that rock up the fucking hill. “I… I’m glad I got to see you, too. Maybe next time.” 

Oh, it hurts. It hurts way more than you thought it would, to have to turn Steve down- after all the years pining for him through high school, after the time you turned him away when he would have kissed you. You think about kissing him, now. He would let you do it- he’s asking you out, and he looks so sad that you’re saying no.

You could. But wouldn’t it make saying goodbye this time even harder than it already is?

“Yeah. Maybe next time,” you tell him. You don’t want this to hurt more than it does. You truly hope there’s a next time, another year down the line when you run into him over winter break. Maybe you’ll find him at the Radio Shack. 

Steve watches you leave, once again. Fumbling his chance, again. When the door swings shut behind you, Steve bends at the waist and drops his head against the countertop. 

Typical Harrington. Late to the party, miss the girl.

“Well. That was… really painful to listen to.” Robin emerges from behind one of the shelves, crossing her arms. Gently, she adds, “On the bright side, I don’t think the chocolate coin would have mattered.”

Steve picks his head up, and he thwacks his forehead back down onto the counter.

And again.

And again.

And I can see you being my addiction, you can see me as a secret mission. Hide away, and I will start behaving myself…

Sur La Table Restaurant, Chicago, April 1991

You shake your umbrella out as you step into the warm foyer of, quite possibly, the most upscale restaurant you’ve ever set foot in. The carpet is deep, blood red, the walls a dark chestnut wood. The white covered tables are each spotlit within the otherwise dark dining room, and the atmosphere is flavored by soft piano and the quiet din of hushed voices. 

You had been hesitant to accept Theo’s invitation to dinner- he seemed too stuck up for your taste, but when Shelly introduced you to him, you had to admit that the name of the restaurant piqued your interest. Sur La Table. Chicago’s premiere Michelin Star restaurant. 

As you hand your umbrella over to the coat check clerk, you’re greeted by a smiling hostess. “What’s the name for the reservation?”

“Um… Theo Bowman. I believe he’s already here?”

“Yes, ma’am. Right this way.” 

Theo stands as you’re shown to the table. Tall, with dark hair and a wide smile, he reminds you of someone you knew once, but you just can’t seem to place it. Then, when he towers over you to shake your hand, standing far closer than necessary, you’re able to pick it out from the recesses of your mind.

Logan Sawyer.  

“You look nice,” Theo says pleasantly, and you chalk up your initial comparison to nerves, on your part. You don’t often let friends set you up on dates, so you’re a little bit out of your element as it is.

As you go to sit down, you admit, “I was so glad when you picked this place, I’ve always wanted to eat here, since I moved to Chicago.” 

“It’s not the nicest place I’ve been,” Theo shrugs, taking the seat across from you.

Your smile falters, for a second. “Oh, no?” The water has already been brought to the table, you guess while he was waiting for you. You take a long drink.

“Nah, I’ve been to Le Bernardin, in New York. That’s fine dining.” Theo waves his hand at the upscale dining room. “This is… okay.”

“I see.” You lift your menu, hoping that he’ll do the same.

“Yeah, New York is so much nicer than Chicago, in my opinion,” Theo continues, fiddling with his napkin as he talks. “There’s a lot more to do. Have you ever been?”

You hope this is just his nerves talking. “No.” 

Theo keeps talking as you stare at the menu in front of you, at a loss. It’s an a la carte menu, clearly, but extensive and all in french. Salade de poires pochées. Coquilles Saint-Jacques Gratineés. Filet au poivre vert. You’re scrutinizing the fine print of what all the dishes include when your waiter steps up to the table. You know when it happens, because Theo finally stops blathering about New York. 

You break your eyes away from the menu to glance at the server’s waistline, at eye level with you. He wears a crisply pressed suit and tie, his hands clasped in front of his belt. 

“Good evening sir, ma’am,” the server says in a hushed tone, to keep the volume of the dining room down. “Welcome to Sur La Table. I’m Steven, I’ll be serving you this evening. Before we begin, are there any questions about the menu?”

You peer up into the darkness to try to see Steven’s face. He’s standing just outside of the spotlight over the table, only able to be dimly lit from the indirect light reflecting from the tablecloth. Once your eyes adjust, they lock onto a pair of familiar hazel ones.

Oh my fucking god.

It’s got to be fate, or kismet, or some force of nature that keeps bringing you together like this. Steve Harrington’s face hasn’t changed in five years. Maybe he looks just slightly older, a little more filled out in his suit and tie. His hair is a bit shorter at the back but still that same shade of golden brown, neatly groomed and tidy for the formal atmosphere- but you can see it being tousled on his off days, still flopping across his eyes in waves. And those are the same lips you dreamt about kissing, the same eyes you admired in the school hallway, the same nose that you always wanted to grind o-

“No, I think we’re ready to order,” Theo announces, louder than necessary. You throw your gaze at him, your eyebrows raising despite your best efforts to remain calm. 

Is he really going to order for you? Just like that?

“Well, I was going to ask-” you begin, wanting to get a little more specification on how the filet is made, when Theo cuts you off.

“It’s okay, I speak French,” he insists. Not that it makes a difference to what your question was.

You press your lips together in irritation and glance at Steve, who looks back at you stoically. You wonder if he recognizes you like you do him- it’s been long enough, and you’re sure that you look a bit different than you did the last time you saw him. And then you notice the creases around his eyes.

He’s playing it off well enough, sure. But Steve is doing that same look that he did there in the Family Video five years ago, trying to pretend that he’s not affected by you, swallowing back his smile. He sends you a knowing look that says, What a fucking douchebag, am I right?

Suddenly, this date just got way more entertaining. You give Steve a minute roll of your eyes, only enough for him to notice. Tell me about it.

“We’ll start with the Bordeaux,” Theo is already reciting to Steve as you settle back in your seat. Steve pulls a little notepad out of his jacket pocket and begins writing. “For an appetizer, the coquilles. Then for the main, I’ll have the canard montmorency, and she’ll have the mignons de veau.” 

You watch Steve’s hand pause as he’s writing, and he looks to you. He raises his eyebrow, saying everything he needs to with the one gesture. Is that what you really want? “The veal?”

“No,” you say, digging your thumbnail into your palm, where it rests on your lap. “Actually, I wanted to ask about the filet. What brandy is the sauce made with?” 

Steve smiles, leaning a little bit closer to you. “We use Courvoisier.”

“Great. I’ll have that, please.” 

Steve nods encouragingly at you. As he jots down the order, he says, “Wonderful. I’ll get this to the kitchen for you, but before I can bring you the wine, I’ll just need to see the lady’s I.D.”

“Are you serious?” Theo snaps. 

“It’s all right,” you murmur, hiding your face as you dip your head to fish your I.D. out of your clutch. “He’s just doing his job. Right, Steven?”

Steve meets your eye as he takes the card from your hand. “You can never be too careful.” You watch him smirk as he looks over your I.D., his eyes lingering on your name for a second before he hands it back to you. If there was any doubt in his mind that you are who he thought, it’s gone now. “Interesting. We’re the same age.”

You laugh. Probably a little louder than is respectable, but you can’t help it. Leave it to Steve Harrington to remind you of the time you bought porn from him, while you’re on a date. 

You watch Steve write something else on his notepad, and rip the page out before folding it up. He tucks his notepad into his pocket as he says, “I’ll get this started for you. I hope you enjoy your evening.”

“Thank you, Steven,” you offer just as he starts to walk away. 

Steve shoots you a sideways glance. “Always.”

Your heartbeat pounds in your chest as you turn back to your date. Theo looks disgruntled, but he just lifts his water to his lips.

“So,” you begin, “what do you do?”

“Marketing manager,” Theo says, with a click of his tongue. “For Bowman Wine & Spirits.”

“Oh,” you nod. “No relation, I suppose?”

“My father owns the company.”

“Right.” God, help me. 

Across the dining room, Steve watches you over his shoulder. His jaw sets as he sees you, the girl of his literal dreams, sitting across from some idiot who doesn’t even know that you don’t order for your date without asking her what she wants first, you fucking weasel. 

That’s all right. You seem to have the situation under control, for now. Steve watches you calmly sip your water, staring at your date but not listening to a thing he’s saying. 

Steve sighs. He’s never been much of a schemer, but he’ll just make sure that you won’t leave with this guy if you don’t want to.

His fingers brush the note in his pocket, and he pinches it just as he passes the front of house manager, Taryn. Without breaking stride, he slips the note into her hand, heading toward the back hallway and down to the wine cellar.

As Steve passes by, Taryn unfolds the note he slips her, and raises one eyebrow at the request he’s written.

I can see you in your suit and your necktie, pass me a note saying, “Meet me tonight.” Then we kissed and you know I won’t ever tell…

Overall, you enjoy Sur La Table immensely. The restaurant itself, anyways. The wine is wonderful. The atmosphere is great. The food is exquisite. 

You’re about to jump the waiter’s bones. 

Theo got his second wind sometime after the scallops arrived, and you think he hasn’t paused for breath since. You’ve been calmly eating your food, while Theo tells you literally everything about himself. It’s the best case scenario you can see happening on this date. You enjoy the food, mumble a non-committal acknowledgement now and then, and Theo entertains himself with his own voice the rest of the time. 

You’re gonna kill Shelly for setting you up with him, but that’s tomorrow’s problem. 

Right now, you’re focused on finishing your glass of wine while he talks about camping, of all things. 

“So we got up into the Rockies,” he’s telling you, gesturing with his hands like it’ll make you more engaged. “We ended up freezing our keisters off. No joke, I have frostbite scars.”

“That’s, um… that sounds like fun.”

“No, are you listening? I mean, it was terrible. We couldn’t move for, like, two days. And when the snow stopped we were so tired and cold, we almost died.”  

You knock back the rest of your wine with one gulp, and say with a sticky voice, “Wow. A near death experience must have been really scary, I’m sorry.”

Theo frowns. “No- I mean… It wasn’t… it wasn’t near death-”

“You just said-”

“It was more like a serious inconvenience, you know. But we pulled through. I wasn’t scared. A little snow isn’t gonna kill me,” he laughs incredulously. “It was just-”

Theo stops as Steve approaches the table. You catch him giving the back of Theo’s head the most murderous look imaginable before slowing to a stop and plastering an easy customer service smile in its place. “How did you find everything this evening?”

“It was fine.”

“The food was wonderful,” you tell Steve reassuringly. Your date, on the other hand…

“Yeeeah, could we get the check, please?” Theo asks, finally looking up at Steve. 

You watch Steve’s brow twitch, such a small movement you could have imagined it. “Certainly. But first-” from behind his back, he reveals two white gift boxes and places them on the table in front of you and your date, respectively. “We like to give each of our customers a signature chocolate truffle, as a token of our appreciation.”

Everything in you aches. “Oh, that’s nice. Thank you so much.” You look down at the box in adoration, thinking for a second that it might be the only time in your life that Steve Harrington gives you something similar to a ring box. 

“I’ll be sure to have our hostess come through with the check,” Steve adds delicately, making a gracious exit. His finger just slightly brushes your arm as he passes by- a dangerous move, but one that nearly electrifies your entire body at the single touch. You shiver as he says, “Have a lovely night.”

You watch Steve walk away from you, and your heart sinks into your stomach. You want to chase after him. The 18 year old you, who almost kissed him on prom night, is trying to claw its way out of your skin and bolt after him. 

When Steve disappears from view, you have nowhere to look but at your date. Theo opens the white box in front of him and pops a neapolitan colored truffle into his mouth. “Well, that was underwhelming.”

You don’t want to watch him chewing anymore, like a cow gnawing on grass. You sigh, running a frustrated hand across your forehead, and flip open the box in front of you. The top of it rears up like a clam shell, and you freeze, your fingertips suddenly sticking to the sweat beading on your brow.

You don’t have a neapolitan truffle- you have a single golden chocolate coin. You stare at it in shock for a second before you even notice the note pasted to the lid of the box. 

Meet me outside- the door past the bathrooms. 

“Aren’t you gonna eat yours?” Theo asks suddenly, as the hostess approaches holding the check. 

Your eyes snap up just as your heart shoots back up into your chest. “I think I’m gonna save it for later.” You flash him a smile as you close the box swiftly and shove it into your clutch. “Do you mind if I hit the bathroom real quick?”

“No, go ahead. I’ve got it.” Honestly, it’s the kindest thing he’s done for you all night. You might have to thank him some day. 

Once you’re out of your seat, you chase after Steve like a shot. Around a block of tables and into a tiled corridor, you walk past the kitchen doorway just as another server comes backing out, carrying a tray of dishes. 

There’s a door at the end of the hall, labeled exit. You never actually thought you’d be escaping a bad date through the back door; the notion was too clichéed, you thought that sort of thing only happened in movies. But you find yourself nearly running past the men’s and women’s bathrooms, until your hands slam down on the bar of the back door and thrust it open into the wind. 

The rain has picked up, more of a downpour than a light drizzle now. In your haste, you’d left your umbrella and coat with the coat check. Not that it would have been at all discrete if you’d gone to collect it before running towards the bathrooms. 

The door clicks shut behind you, and you gaze around in the dark. The alley behind the restaurant is only partially lit by a yellow street lamp, making it even more difficult to find him than it was in the dining room. “Steve?”  

You catch movement in the corner of your eye, and turn in the direction of the street lamp. Steve stands up from where he’d been sitting on an overturned crate- apparently the only accommodations the restaurant staff gets during a smoke break. The rain has already soaked into his hair, messing up the tidy style and turning it stringy, falling across his forehead, shining gold in the yellow light. He takes one last puff of the cigarette in his mouth before tossing it into the gutter, and he looks at you. 

He sees you. And it’s all you’ve wanted since the day he first walked into your geography class, freshman year of high school. There’s been some kind of a magnetic pull between you two for years. Something keeps bringing you together, it’s just never been the right time. Until now. 

Finally, you’re running towards him, and Steve’s arms finally come around you, pulling you against his body. Your hands find the back of his neck just in time for his lips to crash against yours. 

You had lost count of the amount of times you watched him kiss other girls in the hallway in high school- not just Nancy, but any and every girl he attached himself to (for a while, it seemed like he couldn’t make up his mind who he was dating at any given moment). All you knew was that it was never you, and you wanted it to be so desperately that it consumed your mind half the time. He looked like a good kisser, and you fantasized about going up to him and testing that theory for yourself.

But you never expected that his lips would slide over yours with an urgency that you could feel through to your very core, probably even more desperate for your kiss than you are for his. Steve’s fingertips press into your body through the thin fabric of your dress, holding you firmly to him like he’s afraid you might disappear on him again if he doesn’t absorb you completely. Your mouth opens with a soft gasp, and Steve’s tongue against yours tastes like tobacco. 

It happens so fast that you can’t even think- and you don’t really want to. You’re tired of thinking everything through, finding reasons upon reasons why it’s not a good time, why it’s a bad idea, why it won’t work. He moans into you, grabbing the side of your face as he stumbles with you to the wall, pressing you up against the side of the brick building. 

You meet his moan with a whimper of your own as his hand slides down over the curve of your ass, and he hikes up the skirt of your dress to grab at your skin with abandon. There’s a ferocity in Steve’s kiss that you don’t know what to do with, like he’s trying to stake a claim to you right there in the rain, with no one around to see it happen but the moths in the street light overhead. Not that he needs to- he’s already got you. You already chose him. 

Steve gives you room to breathe with a soft sigh, his forehead resting against yours. “Been wanting to do that since high school,” he admits, just loud enough for you to hear, before pressing a featherlight kiss just beside your mouth, and again to your cheek.

“Y-you fffucking-?” you gasp when he latches his lips around a sweet spot on your neck and sucks. “I had such a huge crush on you, Steve.”

“I know. I- I should have- I should…” Steve drops his head against your shoulder and groans when your nails rake against his scalp. “Fuck.”  

He grinds his hips up against yours, biting your lip as the hard length of his cock presses up against your core. “Gonna fuck me in this alleyway, Harrington?” 

“I’m seriously considering it,” he growls into your ear. His lips find yours again with a passion, his hand holding your jaw still. A hot breath escapes him, pouring over your skin and making you shiver. You’re lightheaded, so close to just letting him do it, too, when the back door of the restaurant swings open. 

Steve still takes a second to pull away, a little too absorbed in kissing you to really care who sees him do it. If he had his way, he’d have everyone see that you’re his- that you belong with him, and have for a long time. He finally glances over his shoulder to see one of the cooks, Liam, walking off in the direction of the employee parking lot.

“Where did you get the fucking doubloon?” you whisper into his ear, sounding so fucking adorable that Steve can’t help the lovesick look he gives you. 

He brushes his nose against yours. “I sent my manager on a treasure hunt.” You giggle, pressing your forehead up against his, and he can’t help but chuckle along with you. “I wanted to give you one at Family Video, that time.”

“I know,” you say, and he pulls back to look at your face. “I heard you yelling at your coworker in the back room.” 

Steve snickers and turns red with embarrassment, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. You run your fingers through his rain-soaked hair, a content smile on your face as you feel him grin against your skin and shake with laughter. “Take me home, Steve.”

You don’t have to ask him twice.

What would you do, baby, if you only knew? That I can see you throw your jacket on the floor, I can see you make me want you even more…

The drive to Steve’s apartment downtown is made with light conversation and the heavy, heavy weight of his hand on your thigh, creeping up further with each mile. But aside from the implication of sex hanging in the air, it’s as easy as breathing, chatting about the night with him. Shitting on Theo.

“Did you notice the way he said coquilles,” Steve murmurs to you at a red light. “I thought he was gagging on something. He was just trying to impress you, you know.”

You grunt. Could’ve tried a little harder. “He didn’t even like them. He said he didn’t like shellfish,” you laugh in return as you lace your fingers through Steve’s. “Why the fuck would you order scallops, then?”

“The price.”

“The price.”  

It’s sweet, talking to him all the way to his apartment building, just catching up like old friends. He tells you that he’s going to culinary school now, and he’s been working at the restaurant for a little over a year, just to pay the bills.

“Culinary school? Really?” you say, with a note of awe in your voice. 

“Turns out I’m really fucking good at cooking,” Steve chuckles. “Who’d have thought? Maybe someday I’ll stop waiting tables and work back there in the kitchen.”

“I can see it,” you tell him softly. “I can see you being the world’s best chef. Three stars and everything.”

He scoffs, but a pink blush creeps up the back of his neck. “You have too much faith in me.” 

“Those are fighting words, Harrington.” You wag your finger at him. “Throwing down the gauntlet?”

“You just want me to cook you something,” Steve tuts.

“Absolutely, I do.” You consider him for a moment, in the passing light of a streetlamp. “Am I that transparent?”

Steve tilts his head to eye you meaningfully, and he smirks. “Always have been, honey.” His thumb rubs a little circle on your thigh that has you squirming in your seat.

The first thing you see of Steve’s apartment is the kitchen, and beyond that the dormant living room, but you don’t get that far before you’re sidetracked. Steve throws his keys onto a drop station by the door, and pins you up against the refrigerator before you can even think to ask where to put your shoes.

Your clothes are still damp, your hair still pasted to your clammy skin. Steve’s lips are attacking yours and his hands are grabbing at everything he can touch, but it’s still not enough. He’s not able to feel all of you at once, and it’s driving him insane with every passing moment.

Steve roughly yanks his suit jacket off, throwing it onto the tile floor beside the kitchen island. “Lay down.” 

“What?” you whisper to him as he kisses your neck, guiding you away from the side of the fridge. “Here?” 

“Right here,” Steve states, not joking in the slightest. You wobble on your feet as you kick off your heels, but his hands on your hips keep you steady. “Been waiting too long for this- can’t wait anymore.”

“I- wwhuh-?” you gasp as Steve kneels in front of you, and your knees buckle involuntarily as he lays you down across his discarded jacket. Your hands grab his shoulders as you tumble backward, taking him with you. 

He face-plants into your stomach with a noisy, “Oof.” Cackling, you run your fingers through his damp hair, as he laughs and shoves his blushing face further against your torso. Steve litters your stomach with kisses, giggling against you with a note of nervous energy. He’s adorable.

You pet your fingers down the side of his face and he leans into the touch. “Can’t even wait long enough to take me to the bedroom?”

“Well, I would have fucked you in the alley,” Steve points out as his fingers breach the hem of your skirt and find your panties. He tugs as he says, “Be thankful I even got you home.” 

Your cheeks burn hot. You fidget, trying to press your thighs together to abate the throbbing ache between them. “Careful, baby. You’re starting to sound desperate.”

Steve pauses, his hazel eyes lighting up when they lock on yours. “Call me that again,” he requests, pressing a kiss to your ankle as he pulls your panties off your feet. He tosses them over his shoulder, but you don’t see where they land as he continues peppering kisses down your calf.

You hold his gaze. “Baby?” His eyes flutter, his lips parting as they drag up toward your knee. “You like when I call you that?”

“I like when you call me anything,” Steve admits. “But as long as you call me that, it means I’m yours.”

Your breath stutters in your chest. Steve Harrington is yours. It doesn’t matter if it’s just for tonight- what matters is that you have him now, and he wants you just as badly.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” he murmurs quietly against your skin, his voice crackling with brimming need. He’s flushed, his cheeks pink and his hair drying in tousled waves over his forehead the longer he drags this out. 

Nodding your head, you reach down to lace your fingers through his, where they’re bunching your skirt up around your hips. “Yes, Steve.” Always have been.  

He turns his head and sucks a spot on your calf, just below your knee, resting your ankle over his shoulder. Still, despite your desperation, you nervously keep your thighs pinched together.

Steve tuts, “C’mon, baby, you’ve gotta spread your legs for me. You wanna let me see that pretty pussy, right?” 

Still clammy and cold with rain, the air on your exposed skin makes you shiver almost as much as his sweeping hands do when they gently part your thighs. You let go, let him take control as you still and keep your eyes focused on his face, because looking anywhere else would remind you that this is real, and not a dream.

Steve sighs, “There she is. Y’gonna let me taste you, sweetheart?” He bats his pretty eyes at you in a way that makes your heart stop dead in your chest. He can’t keep his mouth off of you, even for a moment, his lips and slight stubble dragging across your skin as he says, “Been wanting to forever, you won’t even believe-”

“Please, Steve,” you start to beg before he even finishes his sentence. “Please, my god, I- I just- I just want you so much-”

“Sh-sh-sh-shh.” His tongue licks wet and hot against your inner thigh before he whispers, “I’ve got you, baby. M’not going anywhere, I’m staying right here ‘til you cum.”

You’re instantly hot all over, your blood fucking boiling beneath your skin and your wet dinner dress. Steve’s fingers dig into the meat of your thighs as he yanks you toward his face, the fabric of his jacket beneath you audibly zipping along the kitchen floor. 

Steve dips his head, and his mouth closes over your cunt right at the same moment that yours falls open with a moan that won’t come out, because you’ve suddenly forgotten how to breathe. The noise stalls right at the beginning- your lungs stop working and you can’t seem to get them to start again, because Steve’s tongue is everywhere, dripping wet and gentle on skin that’s way too sensitive to handle it right now. Your hips try to jerk away from him in resistance, but he slams his hand down on them, holding you hard and still against the tile floor, his shoulders pushed up against the backs of your thighs to keep them open. 

Steve takes a break just long enough to grin evilly up at you, because he’s been waiting for five years to tell you to, “Breathe, sweetheart.”

“Fffffuck,” you manage to spit out finally, your voice cracking on the word like it didn’t even really want to put in the work to make it happen. Your breath comes back into your lungs all at once, rapid firing with a dozen moans for punctuation. Steve’s lips quirk against you, and he rumbles a noise of satisfaction against your pussy that makes you jolt in his hold again. “Steve…”

He pulls off of you with a slow, slow stroke of his tongue over your clit, making you whimper high and tight in your throat. “That’s it, baby,” Steve whispers, his breath fanning across your slick cunt, his left hand leaving your hip so that he can drag his knuckles teasingly through your swollen folds. “Feels good, doesn’t it? Feels so right.”

Two long fingers sink into you with ease, stirring the need in you to have him just simply destroy you. You moan loud, your hand shooting out and wrapping around the leg of a bar stool for the kitchen island beside you. 

“Poor thing’s just so sensitive, huh?” Your head arches backwards against the floor, your pussy clenching tight around his fingers as he curves them with practiced accuracy. Steve’s voice is a deep murmur, distant thunder rolling over your nerves, “Relax for me, honey. You’ve waited long enough, just let it happen. Let me give you what you want.”

His lips shine when you look down at him, your hand reaching to run through his hair. Stifling a whine that threatens to come out when he kisses your clit and bends his fingers within you, you stutter out, “J-just want… I- ha-ah! Just want you.”  

Steve purrs. “I know.” The crisp white fabric of his shirt scrapes against your thighs, almost rough in comparison to his tongue flat on your pussy. You can hear the wet, salacious sound of his fingers pumping into you, pulling you toward the edge of oblivion. He hisses through his teeth, shaking his head slightly. “God, I’m so fuckin’ lucky.”

“Y-you-?” you manage a laugh, scraping your nails along his scalp lightly. “You’re lucky? You have n-no… fffucking idea-” You cut off with a sob when Steve wraps his lips around your clit, sucking long and hard enough that your leg twitches, your heel dragging up the back of his pristine white blouse. Your breathing picks up just as all your muscles lock down tight. “Jesus Christ-”  

“There you go,” Steve praises as your orgasm shakes your body, your hand gripping his hair so hard that he groans softly into your damp skin. He doesn’t stop moving his fingers, lewd wet noises picking up and echoing through the quiet kitchen. “That’s a good girl. Mmm , felt so nice to let go, didn’t it?”

You don’t know if he really wants you to answer that- you’re still twitching, coming down from your high as he pulls his fingers from your spasming cunt and sucks them into his mouth. The pause gives you a gentle reprieve, sinking back onto his suit jacket beneath you. Then, his mouth finds your pussy again, his tongue delving deep into your entrance and laving up to your sensitive clit. 

You gasp, throwing your hands down into his hair. “Steve-?!”

He moans in response. “Just needed to taste you some more, honey. Taste so fuckin’ sweet, I can’t get enough.” Steve relents, crawling up your body to hover his face over yours. “Still wanna see the bedroom?”

You nod excitedly, your hands finding his smiling face and stroking the hair away from his eyes. With a gentle kiss of his wet lips to yours, Steve gathers your still-wrecked body into his arms and carries you into his bedroom. 

He’s struck by how blissful you are as he sets you down on his bed, so soft and inviting. He encourages your arms up, his hands finding the zipper of your wet dress and finally, finally, pulling it over your head so that he can see you. All your curves and edges on display for him, after all this time imagining what he couldn’t see with the naked eye. 

“You’re so beautiful.” Steve repeats what he told you all those years ago at prom- he meant it then, and he means it now. Maybe even more this time, now that he’s not a stupid teenager, now that he finally has his head on his shoulders. 

You shiver against him when he unclips your bra- black lace that matches the underwear sitting in his entryway. A possessive part of him rears up, knowing that you’d worn them to a date with some asshole who couldn’t treat you right, even for one hour of the guy’s miserable life. Steve dips his head and kisses your breast, so much softer now than he was before, feeling your heartbeat against his lips.

“Hey.” You gently tug him by his tie, loosening it and his collar. You look into his eyes, and his heart melts. “Where’d you go just now, sailor?”

Steve blushes, his eyes flicking down as you remove his tie and start unbuttoning his blouse. “Just thinking...” he trails off, eyeing you thoughtfully. “Just thinking I could have missed you again if I wasn’t careful.”

“Mmm,” you hum, your hands smoothing up his chest and over his shoulders to get his shirt off of him. It drops to the floor with a whisper. “I don’t think so. I think this was meant to happen, eventually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You scrunch your nose cutely, in a way that makes Steve’s pants tighten even more uncomfortably across his hips. “We’ve run into each other too many fuckin’ times, baby. Karma’s on our side.”

He laughs. “Karma.” He shakes his head as he undoes his belt.

You quirk your brow at him as your hands fiddle with the fly of his suit pants. “Don’t believe me?” 

Steve grunts, shifting to lean over you. “I’ll believe anything you say when you’re taking my pants off, honey. I’m easy that way.”

Your nails rake through the hair on his chest- you can’t keep your hands off of him now that they’ve got him. You trace over two blotchy scars, one on either side of his torso that mirror each other. “What happened here?”

He blows a puff of air out of his mouth, rounding his cheeks as he shrugs. “Some… animals decided I looked really tasty, at one point. I know, they aren’t very pretty.”

Steve’s brushing over it like it’s nothing. You search his face, and you decide to do the same. “Actually, I think it’s kind of hot.” You drag your hand up to lay flat over his chest. You whisper conspiratorially, “Plus, I think you look really tasty, too.”

Steve quirks an eyebrow. “Y’gonna bite me about it?”

“Probably.” You wink. “Most likely.”

Your gaze falls indiscreetly to his cock, hard and flushed, glistening with precum and curving up toward his stomach. Girls talk, especially when they’re all trying to one-up each other; you knew that he was big. You’d heard the rumors. You’d seen him wearing those tight fucking jeans all the time, and you didn’t have to have much of an imagination to figure it out.

Still. It’s… a little overwhelming. You reach out a tentative hand, lightly wrapping your fingers around his base. They barely meet. Jesus Christ.

He groans, and kisses you until you can’t speak, resting his weight on top of you until you sink gleefully into the mattress. There’s a smile on your lips that transfers onto his, happiness and ease still flowing between you even as he grinds his hips up against yours. 

“Ready?” Steve murmurs softly into your mouth, stealing your breath when you feel his cock slide through your folds, hot and fat.  

“Dunno,” you tell him teasingly, but there’s an edge of reason to your words. Your hips squirm and you feel him even worse, slippery with your arousal. You whine. “I think you might kill me with that thing, Harrington.”

“I’ll go slow,” he whispers, hoarse in the back of his throat, his voice already shaking. “I’ll make sure you feel every bit of it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you agree as you reach to line him up properly. “I’m all yours.”

Steve gives a relieved sigh as he slides into you, his head falling heavily to your shoulder. His cock aches, his torso shaking as he tries to steady himself. “Oh my god.”

“Baby,” you coo, choking on a moan when he bottoms out. He’s so thick- your nails dig into his shoulder blades as you try to remember how to breathe. It’s certainly a big stretch to try to fit him, but you can’t help wanting more just as soon as he comes to a stop. You can feel him trying to hold steady, holding himself back as though it’s the hardest thing in the world for him to do. 

Because it is. You can’t see it, the way that his brow is furrowed in concentration, his eyes screwed shut. He didn’t know it would be like this- that he’d be in danger of blowing it just as soon as he started. 

Your heel digs into his ass, and he doesn’t know if you do it purposefully, but he almost whimpers.  

You take a shuddering breath. “Please- please move, Steve, I can’t take it.”

Oh, you can’t take it? “You know what,” Steve says with a hint of strain in his voice, picking his head up to nuzzle his nose with yours, “I think you like me.”

You snort, and kiss him lightly. “What gave you that impression?”

“Y’so fucking cute.” Steve hums and sloooowly pulls his hips back, dragging his cock through your walls so deliciously that your toes curl. “Could be all those times you stared at me in class-” He watches your face as he pushes forward, until his hips are flush with yours and your head arches backwards against his sheets. “Could be when you nearly let me kiss you at prom-” Out. In. Steve runs his tongue up the length of your throat, and bites at your earlobe. He whispers, “Could be that you came on my tongue ten minutes ago.”

He picks up his pace, just a bit. Just enough to have the bed creaking under you with the rhythm, to have you moaning in tandem with him- needy and high pitched, leaping from your throat into the hot, sex-charged air.  

Steve’s lips latch onto your neck, and he sucks hard. He eases up after just a couple seconds, dragging his tongue over the sensitive spot, but you know what he’s just done- he’s marked you, right where you won’t be able to hide it in the morning. 

You want him to do it all over your body.

Your jaw goes slack and you’re losing all integrity. He’s even better than you imagined- sleepless nights wanting, hoping endlessly that you’d find yourself here, under him, couldn’t have prepared you for how perfect it feels. His hand finds yours and laces your fingers together, pinning it to the mattress beside your head, squeezing with every slow and purposeful thrust of his hips. 

Steve’s cock finds your g-spot like it’s nothing, like he’s known your body for ages. He barely even has to try before you’re whimpering, raking your nails up his back and leaving long red trails behind. 

Your teeth latch onto his shoulder and you bite, probably harder than you should, but you just can’t refuse the urge to mark him the way that he’s left his mark on you. He moans, a deep and boyish sound in your ear, as you drag your tongue along his shoulder, soothing the bite, tasting his sweat. The salt and the sweetness of his skin, mixed with the heady smell of sex in the room, have you losing yourself in him.

“Biter.” You hear him chuckle dangerously, rumbling along your skin while his nose skirts your jawline. 

“You’re so good, Stevie-” you whine, hot pleasure rearing up in you like a tidal wave. “Oh, you feel so fucking good, I love- love how you feel inside me.”

Steve groans loudly into your shoulder, his teeth grazing your collarbone. You think he has a mind to bite you back- maybe he’d do it harder. You can see Steve drawing blood, when the mood suits him. 

But his hand squeezes yours, his other sweeping broadly up your thigh and hitching your leg up further over his hip. “Yeah?” His voice is rough, bordering on a growl, “What’d’ya say we stay like this forever, huh? Just like this?” 

His pelvis grinds up against yours, his pubes crushing against your clit making you gasp. Everything’s wet- your skin, his skin, the sheets. Sweaty bodies sticking and sliding against each other, your hips meeting his in the middle.

“Like this?” you gasp, your head reeling. His forehead presses against yours, and it’s just about the only thing bringing you back into focus. Steve doesn’t falter, keeping the same pace and rhythm while he watches you try to form a coherent reply. “Mm- I- I, hhuh-”

“C’mon, babygirl,” he breathes against your damp skin, “you can do better than that. You love my cock so much, you wanna keep it warm all the time? Wanna stay in bed with me forever, is that it?”

You nod fervently, your hands grabbing at his neck, his hair, his shoulder- anywhere you can touch. “Yes, yes. God, Steve, I- you’re gonna make me cum, shit-”  

“I know it,” Steve murmurs, tugging your lip between his teeth and making you whine again. Your cunt pulses around him, and he hisses, his hand slipping on your thigh. “Love seein’ you all drunk on my cock- shit, you’re so gorgeous like this.” He pauses to kiss you, making you lightheaded, making you tug at his hair. “Y’look so pretty under me, baby. Pussy feels so good, I wanna stay here, too. I can see us doin’ this for the rest of our lives, huh? How’s that sound?” 

How does it sound? You and Steve Harrington, together forever? Intertwined, knotted up with no way to lose each other, no disappearing and then reappearing years down the line?

“S’that a challenge?” you whimper shakily at him. “Throwing down the gauntlet?” 

“I don’t think I could let you go, now,” Steve tells you firmly, his hand leaving your thigh so that he can grab your jaw possessively, his tongue darting out to trace gently across your bottom lip. “I’m never gonna let you go, baby.”

You wrap your legs around his waist. “I don’t want you to.”

“I hope so,” he whispers, his breath mingling with yours.

Steve kisses you long and slow when you cum. You swallow his moans when he does.

What would you? Baby, if you only knew that I can see you, oh, I can see you…

You almost think it’s a dream. When you rouse in the morning, you feel like you imagined it. But you’re surrounded by the scent of Steve, of musky cologne and sweat and sex, and maybe just a little bit of hair gel stuck to his pillows. 

You flop over and stare at the ceiling. You’re alone in a king size bed, fitted with gray sheets and a few too many pillows. The other side of the bed is still warm, but your paramour is nowhere to be found. His bedroom is fairly stark, with a few little things arranged on the dresser top and clothes thrown around the floor. It doesn’t feel like a room he spends much time in, aside from sleeping and dressing in the morning.

You immediately think about what this all means for you. Whether he really meant what he said in the heat of the moment, if he really wants this to be a long-term thing or if it was just pillow talk. It doesn’t take you long to determine which one you want it to be.

There’s commotion on the other side of the closed door. You lean over the side of the bed, searching for something to put on before you just waltz out there naked. Ultimately, you pull on his blouse from last night.

You emerge from the bedroom squinting against the light in the room. The blinds in the living room are open, casting bright sunlight across the room and into the kitchen. You find Steve in front of the stove.

“Hey, there she is!” he announces happily. “Just in time for breakfast.”

Steve looks so comfortable in the kitchen, moving around quickly and efficiently, whereas you tend to blunder about. When you wander over to the island, you notice he’s already picked up his suit jacket, and laid it across the bar stool next to the one you choose. 

Your underwear is nowhere to be seen.

You grin at his back, plopping down onto the bar stool. The metal is cold against your bare ass, nearly making you squeal and jump back up. “Is it a Sex on the Beach?”

He laughs gleefully. “Nah, if only. How was that, by the way?” 

“The ice cream, or the porn?”

He turns to grin at you over his shoulder. “Both.”

He’s wearing glasses. Round wire frames that complement his face perfectly, making him look distinguished in his gray sweats and black t-shirt. Just like that, you’re spiraling. Suddenly, you’re picturing yourself being here, with him cooking breakfast in his glasses and PJ’s every morning, on and on into the future. Doing domestic shit, grocery shopping, dancing around in the kitchen at 3 am, kissing in the rain- well, you’ve already done that one.  

But you can see it. That future, with him by your side, it’s right there. You just don’t know if it’s the one that he wants. You don’t really know how deep this runs for him.

Funny what just an accessory can do to your train of thought.

“Um.” You swallow. What was the question? “The ice cream was great. Still the best sundae I’ve ever had, by the way. The porn was bullshit, I didn’t get through twenty minutes. I just wanted to make you blush.”

“Brat.” He spins around, and plates an omelet right in front of you. You watch his face, tracing the easy smile he wears. “I hope you like it- but if you don’t, you better not say anything. I don’t think I could handle the pain of your rejection.” He looks up at you, hazel eyes shining gold in the sunlight. “You’re staring.”

“I-” you blink at him. You don’t fucking say. You open your mouth to ask- you want to ask what this is, what he feels, did he mean it. Do you want to do this again? Is this serious for you? Because it is for me, if you want it. You just don’t get that far.

“You’ve been staring since we were fourteen,” he chuckles, sliding you a fork. 

That startles you. “Well,” you click your tongue. “I didn’t realize you were looking so closely.”

“Oh,” Steve shrugs, turning to place the pan in the sink. “Just since freshman year. When you read Juliet’s monologue in English class. Remember?”

You tilt your head. Vaguely. It was just a class project, where each person had to choose a Shakespearean monologue to recite in front of the class. You thought he only even became aware of you senior year.

Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee, Take all myself. 

“Are you telling me,” you say, palms flat on the counter as you peer at him incredulously, “you’ve liked me just as long as I’ve liked you?”

“Told you I’d get there, eventually.”

Your brain refuses to compute. You stare at his back, his tousled hair, and want to yank him toward you and squeeze him like one of those fucking squeaky toys that you get at the pet store. The ones the eyes pop out of.

Steve turns to you with a smirk, leaning across the counter to mirror you. He reaches forward to trace the mark he made on your neck, still tender, while mocking your pout back at you. His eyes crease at the corners, like they always do when he’s trying to be coy.

“Eat your breakfast, baby. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

(I see you, I see you, baby.)

[markrosewater]

Hi mark. It’s me, the guy that was complaining about orphans of the wheat. I wanted to start by apologizing for using the word lazy. I wasn’t trying to say that the people who make this game don’t put a ton of thought and effort and care into it, but I totally get how my wording made it sound like I was trying to say that. I’m genuinely sorry I came off like I was belittling the immense work you all do.

I also want to clarify that I wasn’t trying to say “I don’t like this thing therefore it is bad”. Millions of people play magic, all with very different tastes, and I’m just one weirdo. Everybody is going to have aspects of the game they like and aspects they dislike, my opinion is not objectively correct.

What I was originally trying to get at was that it feels as though a lot of designs that are “based on” something feel like they are getting more overt. Bonny Pall is the example my brain always goes back to because the name is almost the exact same thing as what it’s flavored after, Paul Bunyan. Orphans of the wheat is just a more recent example of this and what sparked me sending my initial message.

A few years ago, I saw a video on YouTube of a speech you made, I think it was your 30 years 30 lessons one. In it you talk about how akroan horse was originally Akroan Lion, and players didn’t get it, but when you changed it to akroan horse, suddenly people loved it and it felt so flavorful. I get that it’s important to make sure that people get the reference when you’re making one. And I get that it’s a delicate balance. Too subtle, and people don’t get it; but too overt, and bozos like me send giant messages complaining.

My qualm with Children of the wheat is that it is an example of a pattern I feel like I’m seeing where you are erring on the side of “gotta make sure they get it”, to the point that sometimes it feels like the reference is being beaten over our head. But I do recognize how that’s just my perspective and other people have different opinions on where the line is for “too obvious”. For example, I think Altanak and say its name are awesome. I like how the art is someone looking in a mirror and if you say its name three times then you summon the big bad monster. But I totally get how someone else might see that and say “well all they did was make Bloody Mary a bug”. And I also totally get how there might be another person who didn’t even get the reference and would’ve needed a card called “mutilated Miranda” to realize it.

This whole *thing* is just my way of saying that designs that are references to something feel like they are more and more often mutilated Miranda or Bonny Pall or orphans of the wheat, and that fewer and fewer of them are getting even one step removed from what they are referencing.

Thanks for taking the time to write back. It means a lot to me. How close we get to references is something we’re constantly reevaluating. We’ve definitely got the note that this year indexes too high on the obvious references.

[rimunagenius]

The Five Times Caitlin Clark Wanted to Kiss You - C.C

❝ word count: 3.4k ❞

❝ warnings: RPF!! , fluff , two massive idiots in love ❞

❝ rimunagenius speaks: this might be the very first time i fulfilled the promise of uploading something the night I say i will … everybody clap for me pls!! 🙂‍↔️ anyways … sorry this is actually pretty long but i actually feel like i cooked so bad on this !!! also yes, i used todays game day fit for reference in this … do not judge me rn … ❞

| Women’s Basketball Masterlist |

The first time:

You two had been best friends your entire lives. You lived right next door so seeing each other almost every day, being together all hours of the day wasn't an uncommon occurrence. That's why when you two had been couped up in her room all day, a long day of swimming in her pool, it didn't phase anyone in the home. Including yours. 

The talk about starting your senior year of high school was something that came up quite often this summer. Nerve-wracking but also excitement-inducing. "Who do you think will play again this year?" You lay on your back, your feet at the edge of the bed, the cool wall barely ghosting your toes while your head hung off the bed, next to Caitlin's. 

You looked to the side, analyzing Caitlin's face. She looked very pretty. Her cheeks were rosy from the slight sunburn that began to set into her pale skin, brown spots that appeared to be new freckles scattering her rosy cheeks. 

She sat on the floor, her back resting against the bed you appeared to be dangling off of. She turned her head to you, looking away quickly realizing the proximity between the both of you. Her patience and self-discipline began to grow weary the last two months of summer being around you all the time. She couldn't help but notice that you had grown into the most beautiful girl in the world. 

"Well, I know Sydney got pissed last season because we played well together that she only got playing time when you and I weren't on the court or the field. So I have no idea if she'll want to come back." She shrugged looking back at you, her eyes dropping to your tongue dragging across your lips quickly before looking away. 

"Yeah, I feel bad about that. We're just better together." You looked at your best friend, her brown eyes locking with yours for what felt like the longest moment of the whole day. 

"Definitely better." She whispered, suddenly the urge to meet her lips with yours getting increasingly harder by the second. Suddenly it didn't feel like she was all alone in what she seemed to think about you this whole summer. 

You scooted your head just a tiny bit closer, closing the distance to dangerous proximity, your breath practically fanning over the other. You both inched closer, the tension between the both of you growing. 

"Dinner's ready." Colin came bursting through the door, looking at the both of you. Both your heads shot in the direction of the intrusion, suddenly whisking away any possibility of you two. 

"We'll be right there." You said, cheeks suddenly growing hot and pink as you sat yourself upright and stood. 

Caitlin Clark, your best friend, just almost kissed you. 

The second time:

You two had just graduated and you both couldn't be any happier graduating together. The celebration with your families took place tomorrow so tonight was just you and Caitlin. All of your friends had left a while ago, pushing an hour ago, and you two stayed at the cool lake together. 

She just picked you up and ran and jumped into the water with you. You came up from the water laughing so hard your stomach hurt, it softly echoing in the space around you. You swam in front of Caitlin, studying her face as the sun began to set behind you, the pretty hues painting another artwork on her already flawless face. The pretty pattern they painted in her chocolate eyes. 

You fought the feelings you had been growing for the brunette all of your senior year. It wasn't obvious to anyone else but you two. The irony of it all made you laugh. "Will you miss me when I'm gone? Promise to visit or meet back home?" You asked. The soft pain in your heart started to settle and make home when she announced she committed to the University of Iowa and you Iowa State University. 

Both are at home but yet so far away from each other. "Of course, I'll miss you. How could I not miss this pretty yet obnoxious face hounding me every day." She ruffled your wet hair, swimming a little closer towards you. Would it be strange to say that in the cold water, you could still feel her warm body radiating its warmth towards you? 

"Good. Can't have you going and abandoning me now that you're miss hotshot, all-star recruit." You hugged her, enjoying the stark contrast of the water and her body against yours. You pulled away, your eyes getting lost in hers. You couldn't possibly kiss her. 

She fought demons and all the thoughts telling her to just kiss you because she won't see you for a long time after you both leave. One kiss wouldn't hurt the friendship, right? But it would. She didn't know for sure that you liked girls. The longing glances, the lingering touches, and the indirect confessions you two shared late at night throughout the year still weren't sufficient pieces of evidence to convince the brunette that you shared the same admiration she did for you. Love. She was in love with you. 

She couldn't ruin the friendship. That's why when she noticed both your breathing growing heavy, the eyes bouncing from eye to eye and to each other's lips, the declining distance, she had to cut it short. She'd rather love you in silence than announce it to the world and lose you in the process. "You're my best friend, you know that?" She looked at your face, scanning it to make sure she didn't say the wrong thing. Maybe she should have just kissed you. In the privacy and knowledge of only you two. 

"Yes, of course. You're mine." You whispered, pulling apart and reaching for the deck to pull yourself out of the water and dry off for the night. 

The third time:

You had quite literally sweated through your tank top under your Clark jersey while you anxiously watched what was the last minute of the BIG 10 tournament with the Clark family. Your team had been eliminated a couple of games ago, so you made haste in coming to see your favorite girl play.  You and her mom holding hands, Colin on your other side while you held his hand. Caitlin had a stellar game so far, so you shouldn't have felt as worried as you did, but you couldn't help but feel nervous because you knew how badly she wanted this. 

You came to see her and have been attached at the hip for the last three days like old times. You watched her relentlessly practice her shots, you assisting in her off-the-dribble shots, contested shots, her quick release shots. You spent hours in the gym with her. You watched her practice and the team, you had complete and utter faith that they'd secure the win, it was just nerve-inducing to watch it all unfold. 

She had pulled another logo three off a screen, the whole family, including you, celebrating among the thousands of other people in the arena. The cheering halted for moments before the final buzzer, signaling the win Iowa University had secured. 

The shouting and screaming that ensued was enough to rupture the eardrums in every single being in this arena. You and Colin embraced while jumping up and down that all of your guys' favorite girl had won the biggest game in her career. This was truly an unreal feeling for a mere spectator in Caitlin's life, so you couldn't possibly imagine how this must've felt to Caitlin while she celebrated with her team on the court. 

It wasn't long before the family was allowed to make their way to the court and celebrate with the champions. You greeted all of Caitlin's friends who had soon become yours within the last few days. You congratulated them on their win and praised their efforts in making it all possible. 

You caught the eye of Caitlin, deep into a post-game interview, her eyes meeting yours, a soft smile gracing her lips as yours reached your eyes. You couldn't have been more happier and proud that she achieved what she so desperately wanted and hoped to accomplish for herself and this program. 

You and her parents waited for her to finish all her other obligations before thinking to interrupt to celebrate, it was quite taxing due to the excitement and pride the five of you harbored for the brunette, but it left a lull in the celebration between you. "You know, I'm glad you were able to be here. I know how much it means to Caitlin that you could make it tonight. I know how much it means to me and Anne that you stayed her best friend through all these years, being another major support system for our girl. You're a part of our family and we love you, kiddo. Just thought I should mention it." Brent leaned to the side, and low, to be able to reach your ear close enough so you could hear him over the roar of cheers among the women and their families. 

His eyes trained on the happiness of his daughter while she hugged her teammates trying to make her way to you guys. You looked up to the man, the man whose house you spent the majority of your childhood in. You smiled to yourself at his confession, nearly bringing tears to your eyes. "Of course. I was happy to come and make her game. I wouldn't miss it for the world. She's worked so hard and I'm glad to see the amazing player and woman she hoped to be." You patted his back, him looking at you at your confession of Caitlin. "I'm glad you consider me part of the family too. I would hope so because then I spent all those years asking for food and sleepovers for nothing, Mr. Clark." You both laughed. 

Unbeknownst to you both, Caitlin had been sauntering over to the lot of you. Her family. She never admired your beauty more than she did right now. She loved that you could spend the moments in her absence, talking and laughing with her parents and brothers. The look of this picture seemed so natural to you. 

She could kiss you so badly right now, wanting nothing more to relish in the thought of you finally being far more than just her best friend. The attraction she had for you, doubled tenfold, just by the small interaction you shared for being absent for the last three months. 

She couldn't get enough of you. 

The fourth time: 

It was mere hours passed from the point where you, Caitlin, and your family celebrated her win in the BIG Ten tournament that you two spent the night quietly in your apartment. You had invited her over, leaving the option for her to celebrate with her family of course, and she gladly accepted your invitation. 

You two had cleaned up for the night, you changed your clothes, showering most immediately when arriving home, letting Caitlin wander around your place for the first time. She showered second, changing into old pajamas you kept of hers over the years. "Cait, I seriously can't believe you guys did it! I mean, I can, but oh my god it's still crazy." You looked at Caitlin who sat at the island barstool just watching you. Attentive to what you had been saying and the way your eyes literally shined talking about her. It settled a warm feeling in her chest, that some like you, especially you, could talk about her with such joy and adoration. 

"You literally looked amazing out there, Cait." You smiled at her, placing the strawberries you had been cutting into the bowl next to the cutting board. You two had already eaten dinner at a restaurant with some players from the team and their families. You two just wanted a snack and all you had were strawberries and whipped cream. 

"Thank you, pretty." The blush in your cheeks suddenly matched those of the berries you had just placed in front of Caitlin. You turned to grab the whipped cream from the fridge, trying to bask in the cool air to ease the flustered look on your face. Failing miserably. 

"Of course, Cait." You smiled. You really could not stop smiling whenever you had been around her. It was becoming concerning. Not literally, but seriously, the happiness and giddiness were becoming funny at this point, especially amusing the brunette in front of you. You suppose that's why she kept calling you names like that. Except the effect is more efficient in person and not over Facetime. "Do you want something to drink?" You asked, clearing your throat. Suddenly the air becoming increasingly thick to breathe when she looks at you the way she has been for the last twenty minutes. 

You opened the cupboard, noticing that the cups you needed were on the second shelf, the shelf you indeed could not reach. "Hey, do you min—" You turned to face Caitlin, seeing her already two steps ahead of you. 

She stood behind you, placing one hand on your hip. Surely she needed to balance herself, but she was six foot...

You sighed quietly, fully knowing she could hear you but it didn't matter. She reached her other hand, picking up two glasses with one hand with ease. Caitlin waited til the last possible second to remove her hand from its place on your hip. She placed the glasses, down, closed the cabinet, and turned you around to face her, all while her one hand remained on your body. 

Looking at her this close, with the both of you sharing the same look, and surely the same thoughts about the other, was something totally different than all the other times. Granted the other times both of you had a nudge of what could transpire between you both, just less courage and lack of all the information keeping you from doing so. 

But right now, the reaction she managed to draw from you, her being so close she could hear it and feel you beneath her, the feeling of your body growing warm at the mere thought of her touching you anywhere else was something so different. There was more clarity about your guys' relationship right now than there has ever been before. 

"You're so pretty. Do you know that? It's unreal." Caitlin whispered, her face now next to your ear, the feeling of her breath sending chills anywhere and everywhere. You could not believe this was happening right now. How could you two act like best friends if what you think is about to happen happens?

"I wouldn't say unreal." You seriously could not muster a better response than the first, most flustered, yet idioticly undertoned answer that came to mind.  You looked into her eyes, suddenly unaware of anything else. Her eyes were chocolate brown, almost black in ill-lighted rooms but right now they were the center of your captivation. It would be a national crime to look away right now. 

Caitlin could see the way she was making you feel right now. She couldn't lie to herself and say she didn't feel the same way you did, she was just better at hiding it than you were. "No, I think that's exactly the word I'd use. So pretty." Her voice gets significantly faint and breathless at her last sentence. Her lips now significantly closer to yours. 

You reached a hand up and rested it on her cheek instinctually. You held her face close, your body now pressing into hers. Both of Caitlin's hands were resting on either hip, holding you as close as you'd allow. 

This was a major dynamic change of your friendship and you two were processing this as you went. It was scary to think about. You tilted your head up, breath fanning over her lips, her pace in breaths matching yours. Both of you felt so extremely overwhelmed but the good kind. Your eyes met each other, the action making it feel like a butterfly sanctuary inhabited your belly as the moment occurred. 

"Caitlin, are you going to kiss me or not?" You sighed, the desperation evident in the tone of your voice. You sighed at the force of which one of her hands reached the back of your neck, pulling your face into hers. She kissed you so hard you couldn't breathe. The way she grabbed so gently yet so desperately like if she didn't, you'd vanish. 

This was truly something out of a movie. The years of build-up between the both of you. The feelings that were so secretive yet not so. It was a perfect act that transpired in your kitchen. 

The fifth time: 

Caitlin was in a rush to get ready, fully under the impression that you were already done and just waiting on her. The second you both walked into your shared apartment in Indiana, Caitlin bolted to your guys' room and hopped in the shower. They had beat Chicago Sky for the second time this season and you had gone in shorts and a black form-fitted crop top, with Caitlin's jersey over it. You had told her you had to change and that was it, but it panicked Caitlin that she would have to complete a whole routine before she would be ready. 

"Baby, have you seen my—" She paused in her hurried state, looking at you, suddenly unimpressed at the state she found you in. "Baby, are you kidding me?" She chuckled softly as she found your face buried in a pillow. You had already put on your spaghetti strapped, long pencil dress, curled your hair, and all you had to do was your makeup. 

"I'm just a little tired, Cait." You turned over, looking at your fiancé with a sleepy smile on your face. You patted the spot next to you, putting your face back into the pillow. Wanting to be near your beautiful girl at the moment while you lay in your shared bed. 

"Let me get dressed. You need to do your makeup before you start to complain that I didn't tell you sooner because you have no time." She slid on a sports bra and a white crop top. Her underwear and her forest green shorts followed. She plopped on the bed next to you. 

"I don't want to do my makeup but I do. I just want to lay here with you. For like...ever." You sighed as you rolled onto your side, your arm sliding over her stomach, cuddling you two together. "Baby, we have to go." You sighed, looking at her with a pout on your lip.

"Yeah, I know that. You're the one laying on me." Caitlin looked down at you, watching you get up. She sat there and watched you as you walked up to your vanity in the corner and started your makeup routine. She couldn't believe you were real. You two grew up together and not once did she believe that you'd be this gorgeous. It was literally like watching an angel. 

You had caught her eye through the mirror, and you blushed profusely, suddenly aware that she had been watching you this whole time and you just now noticed how insane you looked with unblended concealer and contour. "Stop looking at me like that." You proclaimed, cheeks blushing and lips curled into one of the biggest smiles. 

"Like what?" Caitlin whispered, her hands folded in her lap. God, she couldn't help but smile whenever she seemed to be looking at you. 

"Like you want to kiss me so bad." You blended out your concealer and contour, now putting blush on. Hoping it'll conceal the blush already present. 

"Well, I want to." She said matter of factly. Which made you both blush even more than you two already had been. You two were blushing mess in each other's presence it was insane. 

"Oh my gosh, can you let me get ready without you trying to seduce me, at least once?" You both laughed while you tried to hurry up and get ready before Caitlin's eyes literally made you explode. She went to blow dry and straighten her hair before finding her resting place on the bed, watching you. "Okay! I'm done, my love." You said, sliding on your sandals before grabbing your purse that Caitlin was already holding out for you. 

Mumbling a thank you, Caitlin grabbed her matching blazer to her shorts and followed you out of the room and to the car. She stole the kiss she was waiting for before opening the door for you to get in.

[dannyricsmirrorball]

obsessed • pg10 ੈ✩‧₊˚

ੈ✩‧₊˚ pairings || pierre gasly x girlfriend!reader

ੈ✩‧₊˚ genre || social media au

ੈ✩‧₊˚ summary || inspired by olivia rodrigo’s obsessed. reader is pierre’s new girlfriend who happens to be a pop-star who can’t shake off this obsession she has with his ex.

alt. y/n is obsessed with pierre's ex.

ੈ✩‧₊˚ warning || jealousy? reference to pierre & kika as exes, reader is kind of crazy

ੈ✩‧₊˚ a/n || psa. i love kika so no hate!!!

liked by pierregasly, charles_leclerc, and 109,082 others

yourusername kisses <3

tagged pierregasly

pierregasly mon amour ❤️

⤷ yourusername mon cœur ❤️

username18 awww i love them sm

username1 last photo is sawr cute

alexandrasaintmleux charles has a picture just like that

⤷ yourusername ofc he does 🙄

⤷ charles_leclerc ?!?

⤷ pierregasly don’t be embarrassed calamari 😉

username73 does she remind anyone else of kika?

⤷ username14 i agree! like her vibes are so similar and even the photos she takes w pierre remind me of kika and pierre

⤷ username36 yeah she’s an international popstar and kika is a glorified influencer… so similar liked by yourusername

⤷ username2 no need to hate on kika, she’s a really popular model but i agree they aren’t the same

⤷ username36 y/n liked my comment?! and then unliked 😭

gracieabrams cutie pie

liked by yourusername, username17, and 17,092 others

f1couxples missing our favourite couple 💔

tagged pierregasly, francisca.cgomes

username13 they were so perfect why did they have to break up?!

username64 he’s in a relationship!!! get over it, u don’t know these people!

username18 they’ve both moved on lol

username91 everybody moved on… i stayed here

username83 i’m deadddd not y/n accidentally liking 😭

⤷ username77 hahahah this isn’t even the first time like girl u are not beating the stalking pierre’s tags allegations

⤷ username35 i reckon she stalks kika’s tags actually 😭 there’s been times she’s liked kika fan acc posts by accident bahahahah

⤷ username9 she’s so feral,, pierre literally left kika for her and she’s still acting like this

⤷ username61 you’d think she was in love w HER and not pierre

liked by yourusername, lailahasanovic, and 135,864 others

francisca.cgomes last night 👄

username81 the prettiest girl in the world

username14 y/n lurking in the likes yet again 😭

⤷ username74 aren’t they friends tho?

⤷ username46 i mean pierre broke up w her for y/n so erm idk if kika would call her a friend

⤷ username71 you’d think they’re best friends from how often i see her on kika’s page

username17 pierre fumbled

⤷ username62 he fumbled a baddie for another more unhinged crazier baddie

liked by username72, username10, and 14,029 others

f1wagcentral kika talking about y/n on portuguese radio show some time ago - when her and pierre were still together (10/3/2023)

username61 nah her saying jealousy, jealousy is crazy

⤷ username3 why? i’m new to the fandom

⤷ username61 basically jealousy, jealousy is about kika - well allegedly but it’s really obvious

⤷ username3 oh i thought they were good friends when kika and pierre were together?

⤷ username61 well i mean yeah but everyone else could tell that she was in love w pierre (even kika)

username35 forever missing the friendship we could’ve had between these two

liked by username79, yourusername, and 21,029 others

f1wagcentral NEW! ex-wag kika talking about her ex boyfriend, pierre gasly’s current girlfriend, y/n y/l/n’s new album GUTS. (13/1/2024)

username14 kika is better than me bc if my ex left me for his girl best friend he told me not to worry about (that acted like my best friend and wrote songs about me) i would not be this nice

username61 classy girl

username91 i could not be kika bc her situation would ruin y/n’s music for me but like i could not imagine life without it 😭

username2 why are they still asking this poor girl questions abt her ex’s ex?

liked by luisinhaoliveira99, flavy.barla, and 183,761 others

yourusername loml

tagged pierregasly

username13 pinterest couple

username63 gagged bc isn’t this the same dress kika wore last week

⤷ username4 yes. yes it is. 😭

pierregasly ❤️

⤷ yourusername ❤️

username35 making me feel single in every way possible

charles_leclerc 3rd slide 🥵

⤷ alexandrasaintmleux 2nd slide 🥵

⤷ yourusername 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

⤷ pierregasly 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

liked by magui_corceiro, alexandrasaintmleux, and 98,747 others

francisca.cgomes reflexões

username81 the prettiest girl ever

alexandrasaintmleux 😍

magui_corceiro lindaaa 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

username46 out of this world

ben_thorne cool girl

carmenmmundt gorgeous ❤️

liked by pierregasly, alpinef1, and 150,738 others

yourusername play mirrors by justin timberlake

username18 she’s crazy

username84 no way she just blatantly copied kika 😭😭

⤷ username17 wow mirror selfies how original

⤷ username84 i mean u have to admit it can’t be a coincidence that she posted a post w all mirror selfies even mentioning it in the caption right after kiak did the same thing. but i can’t blame her after everyone keeps rubbing kika and pierre in her face still

pierregasly mon cœur ❤️

⤷ alex_albon mate she’s crazy

⤷ lilymhe but she’s free!

alexandrasaintmleux y/n 😭

⤷ yourusername alex 😛

charles_leclerc HAHAHAHHA

liked by alex_albon, lewishamilton, and 128,208 others

yourusername love ya london

tagged pierregasly, lewishamilton

username17 my parents frrrr

username83 not sir lewis 💀

lewishamilton 🤣

username91 almost forgot she was a singer bc we’ve been in a music DROUGHT

username73 THIS IS NOT A DRILL Y/N BACK IN THE STUDIO!! 🚨

sabrinacarpenter keen baby 💋👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

pierregasly love ya 😜

⤷ yourusername 😐

pierregasly belle ❤️

pierregasly my pretty gorgeous girlfriend

pierregasly mon amour 🙏

⤷ yourusername no. stop trying.

⤷ pierregasly but you let alex listen?!

⤷ alexandrasaintmleux i’m her wife ofc she let me listen

⤷ pierregasly dégagé

⤷ charles_leclerc stay mad

⤷ pierregasly NO HIM TOO???

⤷ alex_albon when u said alex hope u know that meant both…

⤷ lilymhe and me 😊

⤷ pierregasly wtf.

⤷ charles_leclerc mate i think it’s better for YOU not to listen

username17 omg what do we think the new music is about?! she didn’t let pierre listen but everyone else??? a love song?!

⤷ alex_albon you could call it that i guess…

liked by yourusername

liked by ben_thorne, yukitsunoda0511, and 201,829 others

yourusername 🔜

username81 i can’t wait any longerrrr

username2 album? ep? single?

⤷ yourusername single 💋💋

⤷ username2 we’ll take what we can get!!!

username62 the song HAS to be a love song she keeps using pics of pierre

⤷ username3 or she’s just that obsessed

⤷ alexandrasaintmleux @yourusername lol

⤷ yourusername lol.

⤷ charles_leclerc HAHHAAHHAHAH

⤷ username3 WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

francisca.cgomes excited 💗!!!

⤷ yourusername 🤍

⤷ username7 y/n kika interaction in the good year of 2024 🙏

username17 eeee so excited

username65 finally a love song from our queen!

username80 awww can’t wait for a cutsie love song for pierre

alex_albon everyone in the comments is in for a nice surprise

⤷ yourusername 😭

liked by sabrinacarpenter, pierregasly, and 309,028 others

yourusername obsessed out now on all platforms (+mv) 💋

username71 AHHAHA NO FUCKING WAY

username9 that shit hittttt

francisca.cgomes can’t wait abt to give a listen 🩷

⤷ username81 oh- girl…

⤷ username7 the deleted comment 😭😭

alexandrasaintmleux my unhinged wife 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

charles_leclerc crazy woman

username4 her BLOOD TYPE?!

landonorris banger i reckon

username61 IS SHE GOOD IN BED? girl if u don’t stand tf upppp

username7 all this sleep lost over a french man

pierregasly mon dieu bebe😭

⤷ yourusername i love you 🥰

⤷ pierregasly i love you too…

username16 i get her tho i mean i would also be obsessed w my bf’s ex if she was kika mf gomes

⤷ username7 valid but like also shes y/n mf y/l/n

username81 everyone gagged but this is the same girl who wrote jealousy jealousy allegedly also abt kika 😭😭

⤷ username72 also i feel like her online behaviour very much supports this song…

username27 need someone to make a run down of the lyrics and the irl counterparts

⤷ f1couxples on it 🫡

liked by charles_leclerc, yourusername, and 1,082,747 others

pierregasly my crazy baby released a song about how crazy she is for me ❤️

tagged yourusername

yourusername crazy for u baby 🥹

⤷ pierregasly my gremlin

charles_leclerc you make her seem so sweet

username61 my guys is loving this

username84 i just know pierre secretly loves that she’s so feral about him

landonorris 🦶🦶?!? @yourusername

⤷ yourusername fuck off

username73 still need that lyric breakdown

⤷ f1couxples coming up

liked by username8, username74, and 20,0828 others

f1couxples BREAKDOWN of obsessed by y/n y/l/n

singer-songwriter, y/n y/l/n, the girlfriend of pierre gasly has released a song obsessed that many fans suspect is about the driver’s ex girlfriend - francisca gomes. for context, y/n and pierre are childhood best friends. during the time kika and pierre dated (2022-2023) fans observed y/n’s somewhat jealous behaviour which finally materialised when pierre left kika and after a matter of weeks was seen with his best friend.

here’s a breakdown of some of the lyrics! reminder this is all personal opinion and no hate to anyone involved!

If I told you how much I think about her

You'd think I was in love

And if you knew how much I looked at her pictures

You would think we're best friends

this in general just can be brought down to all the times y/n has been caught accidentally liking fan acc posts of kika or kika&pierre. stalking queen 🫡🫡

'Cause I know her star sign, I know her blood type

in the third picture we have a screenshot from an interview on a popular portuguese radio show. she talks about how y/n did her entire zodiac chart!

She's talented, she's good with kids

random but kika is known for her large family and often posts with her many little cousins and nieces/nephews - especially when she was with pierre (last slide)

She even speaks kindly about me, ha-huh

the third photo is a screenshot from interview kika did in barcelona- she praises y/n and gives many nice comments. there are various other instances where kika says kind words about y/n.

But every time you call my name, I think you mistake me for her

the 5th photo in the carousel is from the 2023 vegas gp, kika’s visibly upset facial expression and the physical distance between the couple is apparently due to a fight they had earlier in the paddock. bystanders and a small audio evidence clip suggest that pierre accidentally called kika ‘y/n’ during their argument - so really pierre actually mistook kika for y/n 😬

You both have moved on, you don't even talk

obviously pierre moved on very quickly with y/n (many believing he broke up with kika just to be with y/n) as well kika has been seen on dates since the break up. additonallu, although the pair still follow eachother and have stated they remain friends- kika and pierre have not liked any posts of the others and haven’t been seen interacting even when kika has visited the paddock.

Is she friends with your friends? Is she good in bed?

as seen in the fourth photo, kika was very good friends with pierre’s friends especially his trainer ben thorne and close friend ilies nadri. as well, all of pierre’s friends still follow kika including charles leclerc.

francisca.cgomes uploaded to their story

francisca.gomes uploaded to their story

yourusername uploaded to their story

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

first one in awhile! lmk what u think x

[x-gabrielle-x]

Interlinked

Pairings: Mattheo Riddle x Reader.

Warnings: Swearing, angst, major character death, blood, war.

Summary: Mattheo Riddle was hated by most, yet you saw more in him than what most could.

Mattheo Riddle knew that he wasn't the most approachable person out there, especially when more than half of the school referred to him as his father's son.

Besides his small group of close friends, anybody else was just another thorn in his side. He had come to learn that despite keeping his distance and reserved personality, he was still seen to be just like his father.

So of course, it was a shock to everybody when you had chosen to sit beside him in potions class away from your usual group of friends.

You hadn't said anything to him, merely sparing him a quick glance and small smile before you were placing your things down quietly onto the desk. He could see your friends in the corner of his eye gawking at you from across the room and silently waving you back over, one of them even going as far to call out to you, yet you paid them no mind and picked up your quill, scribbling down the notes written on the board before the professor continued on with the lesson.

He felt his gaze linger on you longer than he would've liked to admit, brows furrowed before he chose to let the silence thicken.

Mattheo knew then and there that this wouldn't be the last interaction he'd have with you.

It went on like this for a few more days. You coming into class and sitting directly beside him, showing him your bright smile that he desperately wished to hate despite the small warmth it gave him. At this point it became regular routine, and if you ever happened to be late for class Mattheo would ensure that your seat was kept empty.

It was a silent agreement between the two of you.

So once again when Mattheo caught himself staring at your bored expression in class, your head propped up onto the palm of your hand, he decided that for the first time it was time to break the silence.

"Not taking any notes today?" He couldn't help to hide the growing grin on his face when your head nearly snapped toward him, eyes wide as if you were checking that he was in fact talking to you.

You leant back further into your seat, shrugging as you turned to fully acknowledge him whilst also being discreet from the Professor as to not get caught.

"I'm just not really in the mood for it, I guess," you shrugged, giving him a small smile. "It's pretty basic stuff, anyways," you added.

He grinned once again, although this time he put no effort into hiding it. "Of course, one of the best students in class calls it 'basic.'"

He didn’t fail to notice the way your eyes lingered on his smile. He never smiled, really. Maybe the occasional half lipped smile to his few friends he had, but to you, it felt natural. Meaningful.

"It could be basic to you too, if you took notes and gave the lesson your full attention," you teased him, nodding to the board.

"Unfortunately, my attention is elsewhere.”

You rolled your eyes, and despite your attempt at hiding it, Mattheo noticed the obvious blush dusting your cheeks when he flashed you one last smile.

In truth, Mattheo wasn't awful at potions class at all. In fact, he found it to be one of his best subjects. He would never admit that to you, though. Not if it meant that you could continue to tease him about it.

The both of you quickly went silent when Professor Snape turned your way, eyeing mainly Mattheo for a second before he continued to pester poor Neville about what chapter to read from.

Small conversations would be thrown back and forth between the two of you, and Mattheo being himself, of course threw in many flirtatious comments, addicted to the way you'd attempt to change topic and hide the nervousness from him.

It didn't take long for him to realize he was craving for your attention every chance he could get. He found himself looking for you in the corridors and in the main hall when he happened to be walking with his friends, and it didn't fail to go unnoticed by them when his usual bored demeanor would instantly change when talking to you.

You would catch his attention with a bright smile and wave, before your friends were quickly pushing you away to giggle about the situation.

After practically begging you to help him study for the upcoming potions test, despite him not needing the help, he was insistent on getting to spend more time with you.

When you were both sat in the library with the few books you had brought over, Mattheo found himself watching as you concentrated hard on what you were explaining to him, with your brows furrowed and your eyes darting along each printed word on the page. Only it didn't last long when you suddenly closed the book and looked at him expectantly.

"You could at least pretend to be a little more interested, Riddle," you had teased when you discovered he hadn't been listening to you, earning a small chuckle from the boy sat across from you.

"Would it be a surprise to you that something else had taken my interest?" was all he said, watching you closely for a reaction. He caught the slight blush dusting your cheeks.

"You're funny, Riddle." You quickly turned away from him and picked up your book, opening to a random page to save you from the embarrassment of his words. You knew that he had you wrapped around his finger, and he loved it.

Christmas holidays had come, and of course the two of you were sad to go. The many bickering conversations and your smile would have to wait until next year.

"I'll send owls whenever I can, I better get some back, Riddle," you had said, throwing one of your jumpers into your bag as Mattheo sat watching from the common room couch.

He rolled his eyes at the comment, as if it were impossible to do so. "You'll be missing me that much, Princess?"

He caught you halting your movement, and you looked at him.

"Would it be a boost to your ego if I admitted I would miss you?"

He pretended to ponder, but he couldn't hide the grin on his face. "Not entirely sure, I guess were going to find out."

You rolled your eyes once more and zipped up your bag. "Then if it makes you feel better, I will miss you, Mattheo."

Nothing felt it had sunk in until you were stood on the platform to the train, Mattheo at your side and bags in hand. You would both be going to your homes, and the several months of friendship the two of you had built together would not make it easy for the next few to come.

Your father had insisted to pick you up himself, claiming he couldn't wait long enough for the train to arrive. Unfortunately, this would mean Mattheo would go by train alone.

So, when the both of you were saying your final goodbyes, of course it had surprised him to feel your lips press against the corner of his mouth.

You patted his cheek twice, to which he just silently gawked at you.

"See you soon, Theo," you smiled before turning away to find your father who was waiting somewhere nearby.

He watched you walk off, and without another thought he was turning on his heel and stepping on to the train.

Then he was gone.

Mattheo never sent a letter, and the months seemed to drag on the longer you waited. Every day you would run outside of your family home to check the mail, expecting, hoping, to see that he finally sent you a message. You couldn't deny the embarrassment every time you opened the mailbox to see it empty. Your hope was fading, but still, there was the smallest tinge of hope left deep in you.

You thought that maybe you were overthinking things too much. He did say he had plans for the holidays, after all. Your owl would wait by the window ready for you to clip another letter to her neck once again and fly off the moment you opened the window. No matter how many times you would send a letter, deep down you knew you wouldn't receive one back.

When school was finally about to start up again the coming week, you were beyond excited to see Mattheo again, despite the fact of his lack of letters. You were sure there was a reasonable explanation!

As he sat in one of the carriages in the train, his eyes zoned out of the window and watching the fog clouding the terrain, his memories flooded back in and for a moment he swore he felt a sharp sting on his forearm. Glancing down at the Dark Mark printed pure black, he remembers the exact moment his father had pressed the tip of his wand to his flesh and the searing pain that followed.

He felt as if the holidays had been the slowest they'd ever been. Being stuck in the same building as the Dark Lord feels like that, he concluded.

He was drawn away from his thoughts when he heard the carriage door slide open, and he wasn't surprised to see your face peeking in through the door with your usual smile, only it was brighter than he'd ever seen it.

Despite him not sending you letters; you were beyond happy to see him again.

Ignoring your excitement, you met his gaze and gestured to the seat across from him. "Mind if I sit with you?"

Truthfully, he wished for some alone time to dwell on his thoughts. He didn't need you or anybody else trying to strike up conversation with him, especially after he had been mostly ignoring your letters and leaving them stranded in piles upon his desk. The slight annoyance began to bubble in his chest, yet he gave a curt nod and continued to stare out the window.

You seemed to have caught onto his behavior, the awkwardness settling in once you closed the door behind you and watched in silence.

Your mind was swarming with questions you desperately wished to ask him - What did he do during the holidays? Why was he acting like this? Did he miss you?

You inhaled a breath before asking the question you had been craving to ask the most.

"You never sent me any letters over the holidays?" You regretted mentioning it the moment the words slipped your lips, and you bit the inside of your cheek when you heard a deep inhale come from Mattheo.

"Things get busy," was all he said, and the pang in your chest that followed caused for you to try think of anything else. He refused to look at you, and that only made the pang worsen.

"Oh, that's alright," you nodded, teeth pressing deeper into the skin of your bottom lip. "What did you do over your holidays?"

Mattheo shrugged, and you wished that he could just meet your eye the longer he stared blankly out the window.

"Nothing of much importance."

His bluntness to you confused you. Never had Mattheo attempted to be so short and bored with you, even when you were both at the awkward stage of just becoming friends. You took it as a sign to sit in silence the rest of the train ride back to Hogwarts, feigning it'll be back to normal once you're both settled into the regular routine again.

The longer the days passed at Hogwarts, the more Mattheo found himself hating your presence. You were always there - always following him like a lost puppy or trying to strike up conversation. He didn't want you here. Not at the moment. He couldn't.

You didn't fail to realize this either, firstly it being small things like the previous conversation on the train a few weeks ago. But then you found that Mattheo was physically avoiding you, changing seats to be on the opposite side of the class, leaving the dining hall whenever you attempted to sit with the rest of your friends. He never saved your seats anymore; even going as far as to make sure he was sat between other classmates to avoid you being near him.

You did miss him, but you also weren't one to push boundaries. Especially when it came to somebody you cared about as much as him.

You had tried to give him space, tried to give him time to come to you, but your own emotions were clouding, and you just wanted your old Mattheo. You had made sure to find Mattheo when he was alone, gently tugging on his arm and pleading for him to talk to you.

"Can't you just fuck off already? I don't need you here. You're a constant pain, how don't you see that?! I thought you would have gotten the hint ages ago!" He'd practically screamed in your face, and you had never felt more mortified than you did right now.

"Thats not what I'm trying to do at all, Theo-"

"You need to leave me the fuck alone, Y/N!"

He hated you. He hated you for making him feel this way. It was your fault. for making him care about anything in the first place, and it was your fault that he despised you for it. And most of all, he hated you for making him love you.

He could never forget the look on your face when he stood beside his father at the war, the tears seeming as if they were rivers along your dirty cheeks, cuts littering your body. Despite all that, in your pain seeing him, he still wondered how you had managed to stay beautiful even in these circumstances. Even with the blood from your wounds, you seemed like the brightest person here.

He so desperately wished to reach out a brush away the bloodied strands of hair away from your face, to apologies for everything. He couldn't stand the way your heartbroken gaze was practically burning into his soul.

Then the flash of green and a heavy thud echoed.

He hadn't even registered the war around him as he darted forward, tripping over his own legs as he dropped to his knees and cradled your body. He couldn't even hear his own wails and sobs over the screaming of his classmates.

He wished he hadn't looked down to the sight of you in his arms, because as soon as he did, he felt as if he had been stabbed in the chest. Your body was limp against him, your head lulled back to which he carefully readjusted his body to keep his arm supporting your neck. He could barely see with the tears cascading down his face and blurring his vision - some even dropping down onto your cheek and rolling off the slopes of your jaw. He quickly whipped it off with his thumb.

This couldn't be how you last remembered him, could it? He was pressing his forehead to your cold one the longer the seconds passed.

"You’re not leaving me, Princess, ok?" he was mumbling to you in your ear despite his sobbing. Deep down he knew you were gone, but the lingering hope that you'd flutter your eyes open and smile back up at him was haunting to him. He couldn't resist but to shake your shoulders in hopes that it would be true. "You need to get up now! It's dangerous," he cried longer, and in that moment, he couldn't care less what happened to him beyond that point, because the one thing he truly cared about was now gone.

He would never hear your voice again, your lips pressed against his, or your smile that he secretly wished to see every day. He wished that he could feel your hands running along his hair comfortingly as you whispered sweet nothing to him.

He would never be able to tell you that he did, in fact, read every single one of your letters. That he wished to write back. That he wished to see you every second of the day.

Your last memory of him would instead be of how he betrayed you. Left you, and fought against you in the war. Scared and broken because of him.

It was truly all gone, and he had never hated himself more in that moment.

©x-gabrielle-x. Do not steal, copy or translate my works.

[themultifanshipper]

Yes, two fully grown adults can go trick or treating in silly halloween costumes, thank you very much.

What wasn't okay however, was that Charles was walking around SHIRTLESS in a fucking SKIRT.

Part of my Halloween event!

Warnings: blood, smut, sub Charles, the inherent eroticism of men covered in their own blood, minor injury, temperature play

Also real ones will get the very obvious reference to another popular fic of mine lmao

He'd jumped at the idea of going trick or treating with you, after all, you two didn't get to spend much time together between races, and he loved candy.

 BUT, Charles had decided to dig out his old Prema Gladiator costume (yeah, you know the one) and the top part didn't fit anymore because of how much more muscle he'd got since those days.

So there he fucking stood, in all his oiled up glory, looking like a whore!

He knew exactly what he was doing as well, every time you rang a doorbell he would flex his abs to give the ‘maximum effect’, as he put it.

So to say you were riled up was an understatement.

On one hand, you got to ogle your almost naked boyfriend as much as you liked, but on the other, so did everybody else.

You were a goddess next to him, literally because you were dressed up as a goddess, but you had chosen a dress that didn't show off too much specifically because you knew Charles would get insanely jealous.

Yeah, you might as well have dressed as Bobo the fucking clown.

He was driving you insane in two different ways.

First off he was making you angry, because he was flexing and lowkey flirting on purpose to make you mad.

But the problem was that he was also making you incredibly horny.

His thick thighs wrapped in that thin faux-leather skirt, his oiled up (why the fuck did he oil himself up??) torso on display, his nipples peaking from the cold air of the night.

You were going to lose it before the end of the night, you were certain.

But apart from your inner turmoil, your evening was going great.

Even little kids were giving you candy from their baskets, because they thought you two looked so cool.

“I'm going to kill you when we get home” you said as you wrapped an arm around his waist.

He chuckled “And why is that, love of my life?”

Yeah, he was laying it on thick now, the bastard.

“Because I had to dress modestly to protect your ego and you decided to dress like a whole slut, baby”

He grinned at you, poking your side playfully.

“You are just jealous that the last woman asked for my number, in front of you”

“Okay, I'm going to go back and say yes to her, then”

You gasped mockingly “I am not.”

He suddenly turned around and started walking back in the direction of where you'd just come from.

“Don’t you dare!” you laughed, as you ran after him.

He was quicker though and he sprinted down the road as you struggled to keep up.

“I'll see you later, I guess. I don't know what time I will be home!” he called back, turning his head to laugh at your slower pace.

“Charles Leclerc, you come back here!”

It was a lot of fun bantering and running around like children again.

Until disaster struck.

He hadn't been looking where he was going as he ran around, baiting you into chasing him.

And, well, there's no way of saying this that isn't objectively hilarious.

Charles Leclerc, world famous formula 1 driver, man of immeasurable dexterity and coordination, ran face first into a telephone pole.

You thought he was joking at first, trying to be funny or something as he clutched his face.

But as you caught up you saw blood and immediately worried over him.

He was hunched over so you pulled his hands away to inspect the damage.

Blood was pouring out of his nose and, somehow, he'd also managed to bust his lip. Nothing too serious.

“Are you okay, baby?” you said, just a hint of mocking in your voice.

He pouted, then hissed in pain as he realised that was not a good idea with a busted lip.

“Do I look okay?” he asked.

You almost laughed at how whiny he sounded.

“No broken teeth so yeah, I think you're good”

He shot you an unimpressed look and you smirked.

“Come on drama queen let's get you home and mop up all this blood.”

And there was a lot of it.

It was dripping down his face onto his chest and running down his abs…

You hated seeing him in pain but, as you watched a drop roll down his stomach, you had to admit it was kind of hot.

And to be honest, it also kind of completed the whole Gladiator look.

You can’t really know in advance that seeing a man vulnerable and covered in blood is going to make you horny.

By the time you got home Charles's pain had gone down a little bit and the bleeding had stopped, so he let you sit on his lap while you disinfected his lip.

It just happens, and then you have to live with it.

He whined in pain when the spray hit the cut.

“You need to stop making those kinds of noises or I’m going to have to kiss you and make it worse”

Charles' eyebrows shot up in surprise.

You grinned as you got off his lap and went to get an ice pack for his nose.

“Don't move” you ordered “If you're a good boy I'll give you a blowjob to make you feel better”

You walked out and Charles was bewildered, to say the least.

You were horny? Now?

While you grabbed the ice pack out of the freezer he pulled his costume off, leaving him in his already tented underwear (he is but a simple man after all).

Not that he was complaining. Seb had taught him “never say no to a good blowie”.

You handed him the pack and looked him up and down.

You'll never figure out how you managed to get such a hot man to love you.

You cradled his jaw in your palm and he whimpered as the coldness of the ice made contact with his swollen nose.

“I’m going to ride you instead”

“I've changed my mind” you declared, and Charles looked like a kicked puppy, thinking you weren't up for sex anymore.

You slipped out of your drees and dropped it somewhere to your left as you looked at Charles seductively.

His cock twitched and you smirked, helping him lay down sideways on the couch as you slid his underwear off.

You’d been soaked since he ran into the pole (you were probably going to hell for that) so the slide was delicious as you straddled his hips and sank down on him slowly.

The lack of prep made him feel huge inside you and you moaned when his hips bucked involuntarily.

Once you were ready, you lifted off of him and slowly sank back down again.

The drag of his cock against your walls was pure heaven as you hadn't had time to fully indulge in your boyfriend since he'd been back.

You started a slow but demanding pace as you rode him exactly as he liked, and his hand flew to your hip to help ground himself.

Your hands went to his bloody chest to help stabilize you and you ended up smearing the blood further all over his skin.

“You're so hot like this, baby” you purred, Charles was already half gone, completely caught up in the pleasure of your tight cunt around him.

“Charles look at me”

He did. Those sea green eyes gazed at you heatedly as you bounced on him as if your life depended on it.

He was still holding the ice pack to his face with his other hand, and you decided to rip the corner off and take an ice cube out.

His confusion was evident on his face, but you just grinned evilly at him as you swirled the ice around one of his nipples.

He half yelped, half whined as it made contact, the cold making him shiver.

You ran the cube down his abs, following the trail of blood and smearing it even more, before going back up and teasing his other nipple with it until it melted completely.

His hips twitched involuntarily as his head swam with lust at your actions and when you leant down to suck on one of his nipples he cried out.

The heat of your mouth straight after the cold ice sent his body into overdrive and he started mumbling and begging you for release.

You felt pretty on edge yourself so you brought a hand down to circle your clit expertly while mouthing at Charles' other nipple.

“I'm not stopping you Charles, come for me if that's what you need” you mumbled against his skin and that was it for him.

His hips slammed into yours as he orgasmed, making you see stars as you reached your own peak and you rode each other's highs out like that, hips rolling against each other until you were sated.

“I think we both need a shower now” he said and you giggled as he lifted you up effortlessly and walked you over to the bathroom, him still inside you to avoid leaking cum all over the place.

The hot water of the shower stung his wounds, but it washed away all the blood and cum from your bodies as you basked in the heat together.

Once you were both thoroughly cleaned up, he carried you to bed and and curled up behind you, wrapping his arms around your middle and kissing your cheek goodnight.

“I love you” you mumbled sleepily after a couple of minutes.

“I love you too” his low grumble sounded behind you as he drifted in and out of sleep “and all your weird fucking kinks”

You both giggled like children and he squeezed you tightly. He was never letting go of you, even if it meant running into a few telephone poles now and then.

[crazyoffher]

BREATHLESS.

summary: jenna's jealousy gets the best of her.

warnings: smut (18+) — rough sex, strap-on referred to as "cock", fingering, slapping, slight dirty talk, jealousy, implied continuing sex, slight teasing, dom!jenna + sub!reader.

word amount: 2400+

a/n: hi.

It took about one hour, three drinks, and unconsciously flirting with someone else for Jenna to dismiss you both, dragging you to the upstairs bathroom in the house and bending you over the sink to fuck you deep and hard with a strap-on.

The party was more of an afterparty, celebrating the premiere of Scream 7 that you had attended with your girlfriend, Jenna, not long ago. You both played characters in the movie that survived, Jenna’s being a recurring character while yours was new, finding love with the smaller girl during filming and leading you to the happiness that you never thought you’d find.

Ten minutes prior to finding yourself in a rather pleasurable position in the bathroom, you were sitting around an extended couch with the main Scream cast, talking and chatting as if you were all high school friends that hadn’t seen one another in years. The root of Jenna’s soon-to-come rage started with another new character’s actor, Jeremiah, that your character dated until the reveal of his character being one of the killers.

“(Y/N)!” He called from the other side of the couch, a disgruntled expression on his face that formed upon seeing you cuddled up with Jenna. Your head rested on her shoulder while her arm was wrapped around your shoulders, and he quickly covered up his expression and replaced it with a rather enthusiastic one, but Jenna caught it.

She caught every expression he gave you, seemingly only making it obvious to herself and nobody else that the boy had a crush on you. He hid it well, but not well enough to bypass Jenna’s hardening gaze she sent his way when she’d find him staring at you from afar. 

Or when he’d get a little too close for comfort, his arm brushing up against yours while he eyed you with a gaze filled with nothing but love when you rambled on about a topic.

Jenna fucking hated Jeremiah.

She trusted you with her life, knowing you’d never leave her, cheat on her, get mad at her for a stupid reason, nothing. You were the light that led her from the darkness, but God, did she wish that you weren’t so oblivious sometimes? She hoped day by day that you’d notice how Jeremiah acted toward you and immediately shut him down, but that day hadn’t come yet.

Instead, you unconsciously leaned into his flirtatious remarks as your conversation furthened, not seeing them as short-indirect advances and shooting back with words he took to heart. Jenna’s blood boiled. She knew you had no idea what flirtatious situations you found yourself in with him, but it didn’t help her urge to fuck you in front of everybody to show them all that you were hers. Hers only.

So instead, she did the next best thing and excused the two of you, her hand firmly digging into your wrist as she brought you upstairs and into the bathroom. “Jenna, are you alr-”

“Shhh.” She shushed you, closing the door behind you and locking it with a click before taking you into a bruising kiss. Your back met the door with force; Jenna’s hands were digging under your shirt and roaming your skin. Her fingers flicked over your breasts, and you let out a rather embarrassing groan at the simple touch, which only spurred her on. Her hands gripped the entirety of your breasts while she redirected her lips to your neck.

You pulled away in desperation for air, eyes blown as you stared wildly at your heaving girlfriend. “Baby, are you okay?”

“No time for me to answer that.” Her voice was husky, and her hands almost ripped your shirt off as she pushed it over your head. Jenna tossed the clothing item aside, her hands quickly sliding their way to your back to undo your bra, and your nipples hardened from exposure to the cold air when she slid the covering fabric off of you.

“Tell me,” she started off, two of her fingers moving to roll your nipples, and you let out a large breath at the sensation. You’d always been sensitive when it came to your breasts, and Jenna never wasted the advantage she had to use that part of you whenever she’d overstimulate you.

“Who do you belong to?”

“¿Qué diablos?” You pulled your head back, creating space between you and Jenna, and her eyebrows furrowed at you. “Huh?”

You sighed, being the bilingual one out of the two of you, and craned your neck to the side slightly. “Why are you being possessive? I don-” Jenna's lips on yours again, her hands messing with the belt strapped to your pants, cut your rambling short. She slid the belt through the hooks on your jeans, bunching it up and tossing it where your shirt and bra sat, and your underwear soon joined the mess on the floor.

“You don’t understand how badly he wants you, don’t you?” Her lips moved from your lips to your neck, sucking directly over your pulse point. A jolt of what felt like electricity shot down to your core, the sensation too pleasurable, though you fought back, “Who is ‘he’?”

“Jeremiah.” Jenna’s reply was simple: her lips removing from your neck. She kneeled down before you, hands placed on your hips, while those big, brown, wide-gazed innocent eyes looked up at you. A small smirk tugged at her lips, and you could only let out a small huff at his name, words piling in your throat but sticking to come out.

One of her hands that sat on your hips slid their way to the outline of your core, teasingly sliding her fingers around your sensitive area. You bit your lip, fiercely trying to contain a whine from the teases. “Baby, I don’t think he likes me. We’ve been through this.”

“I know we have.” Jenna pressed a small kiss to the side of your stomach, using that as a movement to catch you off guard when she slid her thumb through your folds, pressing down against your clit. You sucked in a breath, releasing a disgruntled noise when she started to slowly rub the nub in circles. “But you’re just too oblivious to see that he wants you badly. Never as badly as I’ll ever need you, though.”

“Jen-”

“But you just don’t listen, so I guess I’ll have to fuck the obliviousness out of you, yeah?” In quick maneuvers, Jenna stood up and grabbed your waist, giving you a dark look before forcefully turning you around to where your back was to her front. You gulped at the feeling of your ass brushing against something hard, realizing what was strapped to her hips inside her pants, and your mind filled with excitement.

Jenna pushed her index and middle fingers into your cunt with ease, her demanding words turning you on more than you knew and enabling her to fuck your tight, wet hole with ease. You let out a choked-out, breathy moan. In spite of knowing that she was making you feel wonderful, she went rough, the sound of your slick against her fingers making her own mind dizzy.

“Please.” You whined out, hands gripping the sink countertop, when Jenna bent your upper body over to dig her fingers deeper into you. Your head hung low, high-pitched whimpers filling the room with the mixture of Jenna’s fingers pumping in and out of you and the bulge in her pants purposefully rubbing around your core.

“Come on, baby.” Jenna’s body was bent over yours, whispering dirty nothings into your ear and taking pleasure in the way your face rapidly contorted into different expressions. “You gonna cum for me, honey?”

You couldn’t form words, already trying your hardest not to release the loudest moans known to mankind to alert your friend group downstairs, so you dumbly nodded. The feeling that you grew used to—the burning feeling in your stomach—burned hotter and hotter with each pump of Jenna’s fingers. 

“That’s too bad, honey.” Just as quickly as the pleasure came, it left, and you couldn’t hold back the whine that left your mouth at the feeling of your hole being empty. A harsh slap came to your ass a second later, causing your body to jolt from both the pain and pleasure, and you hung your head lower.

“Don’t whine at me.” Jenna spoke shortly, though firmly, and she sent another slap to your ass, the skin turning a bright red. “You should be grateful I don’t plan on leaving you edged.” One more slap was sent to your skin, but this time it was to your wet pussy. You let out a small whine at the action, and Jenna slapped the area once more. Veins popped out of your neck at the self-control you managed, keeping in your whines at that slap and instead releasing a harsh breath.

“Good girl,” Her voice purred, and you could’ve came from just her words; the way her tone was low and smooth sent an eerie spark to your spine. The tight grip you formerly had on the sink returned, and you felt the head of the silicone cock rubbing up against your entrance.

“Shit, shit.” The cock sank in deeper, stretching you out profusely from it’s girth, and you could feel every fake vein on the cock as it trapped itself in your velvet-colored walls. Soon enough, Jenna’s hip met your ass, and she halted her movements for one second, helping you adjust to the girth—and length—of the silicone deep inside of you.

She always chose her biggest, just for you.

Her movements were slow; she thrust slowly, almost unsure if you were comfortable due to the emptiness of your voice.

“Faster, please.” Her assurance was placed down, and the girl bit her lip in eagerness. The grip on your hips became more firm, with nails digging into your skin and creating crescent-shaped indents on the area. In one swift motion, she drew her hips back, leaving only the head of the cock in before thrusting it’s entire length back into you roughly.

You let out a moan that sounded as if it came out of a pornstar's mouth, too sure in your mind that somebody from downstairs had heard the noise. It’s not like you cared anymore; your mind and body were too occupied by the pace at which Jenna’s thrusts had grown.

She was giving you a deep, rough fuck while adoring the way your face appeared—eyes closed, mouth open, and emitting a mixture of moans and whines. “God,” Jenna bent herself over your back, taking a hand off from your hip to grip your face roughly.

“Look at yourself, so needy and submissive, all for me.” You were greeted by Jenna's lust-filled, glaring eyes when you faced the mirror. “Taking all of my cock so well.” If it was even possible, she grunted as she pounded into you more forcefully so she could see the way your eyes closed, uttering long, drawn-out groans.

Her eyes trailed all over your body, noticing how your back twitched through every thrust, and a big grin drew itself over her face. “So close to cumming already, baby?” Her light laugh echoed in your ears; you could feel your ears turning pink in embarrassment, letting out a drawful whine when her hand snaked under your figure to circle your clit.

“Fuck.” Jenna groaned herself, only now noticing how her orgasm was building up through the strap hitting her clit with each thrust, and now she wanted nothing more than to chase it.

Her hands rejoiced on your hips, and you let out a squeal when you were effortlessly turned over and pushed up to sit on the sink, the silicone cock never leaving it’s place inside you. Two lips met in a searing kiss, your hands snaking through Jenna’s hair to bring her closer as her thrusts began once more.

“Oh my god,” she muttered, eyes trained on your body. Her eyes watched as, with every deep thrust, the cock's head poked through your stomach. A hand found itself on your skin, pushing into the bulge of your stomach. You let out a groan, finding more pain in that movement than pleasure. Seeing your discomfort, Jenna removed her hand, trailing it around your jaw and muttering an apology before taking you in for another kiss.

It wasn't long before Jenna felt the burning rage of an inner coil wanting to snap, her mouth wide open, as she fucked into you with even more angst. She rubbed your clit in circles with more force than her thrusts, trailing her thumb in a desperate effort to get you hotter. You let out a deep moan, your hands flying to Jenna’s shoulders to keep yourself from falling due to your failing limbs.

You whined. “Fuck, Jenna, I’m gonna cum.” The moment your orgasm finally came, you flung your head into Jenna's neck crook and bit down on the skin there, causing her to groan. She continued thrusting for another second before she felt her own legs start to tremble, her hand grabbing hold of the back of your head as her head fell on top of yours, and she moaned into your hair.

You both lingered there for a short while, savoring the pleasure's afterglow, before finally separating and taking a breath. Jenna gave you a soft kiss on the top of your head while gently running her hand through your hair. “Are you still oblivious, honey?”

Your head fell from her neck to her shoulder, muttering a small “no”, and Jenna laughed at your tired state.

“Oh, honey, you can’t be tired yet.” Your head lazily drew itself up, turning to face her with your eyebrows furrowed, foreshowing your confusion. “What do you mean?”

“He’s still downstairs, is he not? When we see him on our way out, you can only trust my words when I say that I plan on doing much more to you in the car.”

☟

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[cheeseanonioncrisps]

So like, it's okay to be good and nobody is born evil and anyone can change the path they're on, yadda yadda yadda, but I actually think one of the biggest lessons Megamind learns over the course of the film is the shocking revelation that actions have consequences.

I'm not even kidding. When you put aside the whole 'evil' thing, one of Megamind's biggest flaws is his entirely screwed up notion of cause and effect.

Like, the whole reason the plot happens is because it apparently never occurred to Megamind that 'carrying out elaborate plots to kill Metroman' could ever result in 'dead Metroman'. Nor that creating a new hero with the specific motivation of defeating him, Megamind, could lead to negative consequences for him, Megamind. Or that riling said hero up into a murderous rage could have the unforeseen consequence of that hero raging around murderously.

Dude spent at least a few years kidnapping Roxanne, threatening her with alligators and lasers and various other villainous knick-knacks, only to disguise himself as somebody else and lie to her until she fell in love with this fake identity he'd created and is genuinely shocked when she is upset upon finding this out.

Not just that she did find out, but that post-her finding out he is unable to talk her into continuing the relationship.

“We don't judge a book by its cover or a person by their appearance… we judge them based on their actions.”

“Seems kinda petty, don't you think?”

Megamind may be a genius when it comes to inventions and evil plans, but he's a fucking idiot when it comes to predicting and anticipating the obvious results of his actions.

And thing is, it makes total sense why he would be like that.

He spent his childhood being consistently punished by the adults in his life, often for no reason that he could understand or even for no reason at all. As a result, he stops viewing punishment as a consequence of his behaviour and starts seeing it as a consequence of him being 'evil', which of course leads to him leaning into his evil persona and eventually becoming a supervillain.

And, as a supervillain, ironically enough, he's completely sheltered from consequence by his greatest enemy, Metroman.

Megamind doesn't need to worry about his evil plans hurting any citizens, because Metroman will use his powers to save them. Megamind doesn't have to worry about the damage he does to the city, because Metroman can fix it.

Megamind does in theory have to worry about social consequences for his behaviour, but the social consequences are being locked in prison and having everybody hate him which is like, the default status quo of his existence since he was a baby.

He literally calls the prison as 'home', a word he does not use to refer to his Evil Lair or indeed anywhere else in the film barring his home planet. Going there is an inconvenience, maybe, but it's not really a punishment. It's where he lives.

Metroman's 'death' changes all that.

Not only does one of Megamind's evil plans finally destroy something that (seemingly) can't be fixed, but he's then turned loose on the city with no superhero to run around after him cleaning up his mess.

Now, if he steals all the artwork in the gallery, then Metro City will no longer have artwork in it's gallery, and people (Roxanne) will miss it and be upset. If he doesn't take care to clean the streets then the streets… will be dirty, and people (Roxanne) will be negatively affected.

If he gives a random, unstable, person superpowers and then goes out of his way to piss that person off, then that person can't be guaranteed upon to “play the game” just because that's what Metroman did, and people (Megamind… then everybody else) will be negatively affected.

And the flipside of this is that, by the end of the film, he wins the battle because he realises "hey, I can change this". If his negative actions have negative consequences then he can choose to do the positive thing instead and save the city.

[answer2jeff]

this you knew.

warnings : (workplace) established but private relationship. fluff. that's about it actually.

also, this mostly just weirdly poetic and emotional writing. not a lot of plot or substance. sorry!

a/n: carmen refers to reader as "pico," short for "piccola" (small), and reader refers to carmen as raga, short for "ragazzone," (big boy) sorry if these nicknames are cringe they're cute to me !!!!

Fuck, it was cold.

Why did winter have to stretch out for such an excruciating amount of time? It had been snowing since late November—which, at this rate, might continue until March, give or take.

The holidays had just passed, stores were back open, The Bear was back under maintenance, leisure was nonexistent. There was no need for slush on the sidewalks and frost on your car window. You'd already spent the holidays with your extended family, even after swearing up and down you had no intention on coming home this year. Anything remotely related to that mistake needed to be disposed of.

Tonight was calm. Almost too calm. Richie and Marcus were still laying out the general foundation of the dining hall, and Carmen finally beat his record timing for passing through each station of the kitchen marked by green tape. You were pretty much free to go home. Especially since Sydney was the first to leave and encouraged you to do the same.

But just as you walked out of the empty kitchen space through the back door, something urged you to walk back in.

Just act like you forgot something.

Quickly swinging the door open and turning the corner into Natalie's office, where you knew Carmen would be, you stopped. Just barely near the frame.

Altered by your presence, Carmen snapped out of the trance that was staring at the empty space of the wall in front of him. He spun around in the 5-wheeled chair to face you.

"Raga?" you called out, not wanting to intrude as you stepped into the box of the office. Despite the door being wide open like it always was.

Raga. Sure, he wasn't a huge fan of petnames—but it made him feel like he was yours.

And he was. And you were his. Possibly for months now. And you even started to feel it. The word "boyfriend," though it wasn't used religiously, didn't feel bitter in your mouth. The way your name rolled off of Carmen's tongue was addictive to him. He preferred it over a simple 'she' when he spoke of you. You were chaos, but grace all in one.

You told your closest friends about a week after he spoke the words

"I don't really know what I'm doing, but that's—that's okay. It's more than okay. I want this."

But you hadn't told your family, and not even your true, chosen one. Which was here, in this restaurant, and everyone who played a part in it. But perhaps they already knew. Neither you or Carmen were particularly good at keeping secretes.

Just because your mouth stopped, didn't mean your body language or your face did.

Smiles and glances, whispers in corners of the restaurant incoherent to anyone else, his kisses against your temples that weren't as discreet as he hoped, it made it obvious.

But it felt right. This was okay. More than okay.

"Pico?" he repeated, mirroring that same skeptical voice you used just seconds earlier.

Eyebrows knitted with concern, your teeth gnawing at the inside of your cheek, you stood with your weight on your hip and your arms crossed against your chest. Carmen realized you stood like this all the time. But right now, he almost felt like he was in some kind of trouble; the way you eyed him above his level. Like you'd been looking for him and he failed to come to your assistance.

His urge to cave and melt into you was overwhelming. Big, blue eyes peered up at you as he leaned forward, prepared to listen. You only smiled while shrugging your shoulders and leaning against the doorframe.

"Think everybody went home. I didn't really see y'leave. Just—" you swallowed, "—wondered if you'd left or not."

That seemed to finally be enough to soothe him. You just wanted to know if he was here; if he was okay and ready to go home like he should've been.

"Uh—yeah, yeah, I'm still here."

"Yeah, I see that now."

The room stilled. Silence bounced off the drywall. But it was comfortable. It wasn't forced or unwanted. Just simple. And simplicity was scarce at the moment.

"C'mere," Carmen mumbled as he motioned his hand to signal you to come in, his voice barely audible, "just for a 'sec."

Caving in, his cadence and the look in his eyes being enough to convince you, you stepped in. He blinked slowly so as to not miss a single bit of you. For once, you could appreciate the slow of time in this room.

"I'm feeling really good about this," you smiled down at him, "this whole thing, I mean. Mikey woulda' been so proud 'f you, Carmen."

The lump in his throat was harshly swallowed back down as he nodded his head, not quite smiling, but not frowning either. You knew that face all too well. It was the face of guilt. He always wondered if he'd been doing the right thing. Lately it'd been easier to convince himself that the renovation was right, and that he was completely and fully capable of making these "adult decisions," as you called them.

"Thank you."

It was mostly thanks to you, though.

A delicate hand reached for a curl that fell just past his eyebrow. You wrapped the blonde strands around your finger, glancing from his eyes and back to his hair, just to see if he'd been watching you as closely as you hoped. Almost as if it had been second nature, he tilted his head up for easier access as you pulled away from his hair and reached to cup his clean-shaven cheek.

"I mean it, bear," your thumb gently caressed his skin as you spoke. He looked up at you as if he'd just found God in your eyes.

"I know," he tried to protest, giving you a weak smile and threatening to pull his head away.

But he waited.

There'd never been anyone in the universe, on the planet, in the country, in the culinary industry, in this city, or in this restaurant who saw through you the way Carmen Berzatto did. He'd been your head chef even before what was then, The Beef. You followed him back to his home city even months after the two of you made a pact to quit your last job as his sous, and his as your head chef. There was nothing you wanted more than to see him chase his stardom.

You loved him. This you knew.

"You're better at what you do than you'll ever give yourself credit for."

This he knew. At least now he did.

You took him in again with one look. His little moles here and there, his blue eyes, the rose of his cheeks. And at a moments notice, you leaned down to kiss him like it was the last thing you'd ever do. Carmen rose without even letting your lips separate. His hand planted itself at your waist as the other held the back of your head and gently buried itself into your hair. He tasted like cigarettes and mint with a hint of that bitter and filmy residue left on pill capsules.

He loved you. This you knew.

"Maybe you should give yourself some credit, too."

This you knew.

[monzamash]

ruin the friendship — charles leclerc

summary – maybe you were a little more than friends but that was between you, charles and god. nobody else. and you refused to be the one to break the pact. pairing – charles leclerc x you (female reader) rating – 18+ (smut, language, sexual references, probably bad french/italian) word count – 2.5k a/n – “we passed being friends like 20 fucks ago” requested by anon. thank you! masterlist

“Everybody get changed for dinner and we will meet downstairs at the restaurant in an hour. Le Bein?”

The group of nearly a dozen of Charles’ co-workers, employees and friends all nodded in agreement and went their separate ways in the foyer, buzzing about how beautiful the resort was. And it was truly magnificent. Extravagance fortified every wall, even the ceilings. Chandeliers dangling from the rafters above, sparkling and flaunting the huge amount of wealth that was stashed away in the Italian Alps. Eye-watering amounts of wealth.

You weren’t enamoured like the rest because simplicity was more your taste, minimalist living was the way of the future and you weren’t afraid to voice that to Charles as he walked up beside you, eyes trained on your rolling ones. His hand was dangerously hovering above your lower back, the large puffy jacket the only thing keeping his hot touch barricaded from your cool skin – he couldn’t help himself.

“It’s over the top but Ferrari is paying for all of it,” He whispered into your ear, too close for your comfort, especially around his brothers who were no doubt watching your every move – adamantly sceptical that you and Charles were just friends.

“I should report you for misuse of company funds, sir. And if anyone from work asks why I was here when we get back next week – it was a coincidence. Purely happenstance.”

“Si,” Charles drawlled, toggling between his native tongue and Italian, which always threw you off, “You coming up to my room after dinner will just be some luck too, yes?”

You could hear the smirk on his face before you let your eyes glance his way, breath tickling the hairs on the back of your neck and again, standing way too close for a pair of colleagues who, by chance, had accidentally found themselves in the same place, at the same time. That was the story and you were sticking with it. Unfortunately Charles was a horrible actor – that much was obvious since the moment he sparked up this unlikely romance with you but in his defence, his impulses were intensified after weeks of being away from you. And you felt the same.

The relationship wasn't exclusive by any stretch of the imagination in the beginning, but as time went on, you became loyal to each other. The friends with benefits label was a facade for the public and for your employment but deep down, you both knew there was more to your relationship than just sex. You knew each other so intimately and spent hours staying up ‘til dawn, sharing your deepest, darkest secrets. He made you feel safe, like you were more than just a girl who happened to work for the same company he worked for. It was easy to get swept up in the lavish lifestyle and reap the benefits that came with it but Charles saw you differently – saw life differently. And to him, you were the missing piece to his puzzle.

You were friends’ first – great friends but he was charming and by far the most attractive man you’d ever laid your two eyes on. And by some miracle, he felt the same way about you. But all of that meant your friendship had been compromised, your working relationship was hanging in the balance because if either of you caught feelings and made them public, then you’d have to report it to HR and you didn’t want to lose what you had.

Because sneaking around was kind of hot. Or really hot if you asked Charles and you didn’t want to burst his bubble. You weren’t that selfish and truth be told, you enjoyed the thrill of it. The secret glances from across a table when you were supposed to be taking notes, subtle touches whenever he complimented your suggestions in a meeting and riskiest of all, the quick fucks in his drivers’ room between qualifying blocks. That had unabashedly become a perk of your job and a scandal waiting to be blown wide open but you loved it.

“I think it might just be your lucky day, Leclerc,” You replied and looked away from the man who was seconds away from exposing your secret, calling off dinner and dragging you up to his room for dessert. But he was better than that and obviously he could control himself for a couple more hours. Surely. 

“See you soon then.”

He looked like a man tortured when you walked into the restaurant, all of your glorious curves swaying side to side, eyes on everyone but him. Since simplicity was your style, you’d gone classic – long, black satin skirt hiding the stilettos you wished you didn’t have to wear, paired with a black blazer and a white, lacy bustier top underneath. It was a fancy establishment, which meant everyone was done up to the nines, their best attire on display and you were pleasantly surprised that Charles hadn't caved to the pressure of appearances, marching to the beat of his own drum in a basic black tee. He still looked as delicious as the aperitini he’d already ordered for you, eagerly awaiting your arrival.

“For me?” You asked him politely, feigning surprise even though these were the little things he would do for you in place of physical touch.

“Of course.” He smiled, delighted that you took the seat directly across from him and not the one being offered to you by his annoying younger brother.

You are beautiful, he mouthed once everyone returned to their 'round the table small talk. You are. Charles had you blushing and fidgeting with your thin gold chain, as if it was first time he'd ever said that to you. It wasn't but it still had you squirming in your seat, grinning like a lunatic.

The 3-course dinner was sensational, and more than satisfied the hunger you’d conjured up during your long day on the slopes and Charles agreed wholeheartedly. He had also worked up quite the appetite retrieving you from the snow every time you stacked it, brushing the ice from your suit and cheeks, lingering longer than he should have. It was great fun but famishing once you all made it back to the resort.

“All my training has gone down the drain after that meal – my god.” Charles groaned and patted Andrea on the back with a mischievous smile, taunting his trainer and closest confidante. Andrea simply shook his head and muttered something to the effect of vaffanculo before disappearing into the bar with the others, sick of Charles' shit after being stuck with him in the Dolomites for the last 3 weeks.

You and Charles hung back from the group, both waiting for the other to send up the bat signal, or in your case, holding up the three-finger salute. Your first solo hang out – not a date – with Charles was watching the Hunger Games together, snuggled up with a glass of wine. Ever since, your signal to abort mission had been the sign used in that film and more recently it’d become your gesture for sex. Would you have liked it to be a little more sexy? Sure but it did the job.

“People are going to miss you, ma belle,” Charles whispered between the soft kisses he was sloppily pressing to your trembling lips, backing you against the only blank wall in the room.

“Don’t care.” You rasped, moans caught in your dry throat as you felt a pair of cold hands unzipping the long silk skirt you’d worn to dinner and gliding it down your shaky legs like it was as light as a feather.

A small gasp slipped from your lips as you caught Charles’ dark eyes again, his soft laugh fanning warmth across your face, "All I've been able to think about tonight is this..." He stammered off with a smirk before running his hands down your sides, pushing the thin blazer off your shoulders and gaining full access to the length of your neck.

You moaned quietly and brushed your dainty fingers through his soft, dark brown locks, "It's all I've wanted since we got here," You whispered and rested your head back against the wall, enjoying the feeling of his hands smoothing down your to your ass.

"You're so fucking beautiful," Charles growled against the tops of your breasts that were being pushed up by the tight bustier top, leaving you breathless and shaky under his touch. He got off on having complete control over your body, especially like this – desperate and panting for him in the darkness.

Charles dropped down to his knees and pushed his hands up under the hem of your top so he could access the waistband of your panties. You were spellbound now with your eyes closed and heart thumping in your chest, head dizzy and skin sizzling as he trailed his hands down your thighs, gliding your flimsy underwear down far enough that you could step out of them without needing to look.

"So sexy." Charles groaned at the sight of the dark red lace that had been hidden by your skirt, his hot breath now fanning over your shaky legs that were now completely bare and exposed to the cool air, even though your were burning up, "Le rouge n'a jamais été aussi beau." Red never looked so good.

His large hands gripped you thighs and roughly separated them in front of his mouth, every single little movement riling you up even more. Charles was ravenous, hungry to devour your after hours of deprivation – starved of your taste, of his name falling from your lips. He needed it, needed you to sing his praises, beg him for more and you never disappointed.

Your fingers brushed back up the side of his head as he hooked your leg over his shoulder and buried his tongue between your thighs, sending you into overdrive and taking your breath away. Your hands instantaneously gripped the tuft of brown waves on top of his head, trying to control the moans that were threatening to escape your chapped lips, his fingers doing the work of a maestro, orchestrating your body like a symphony.

"Feels so good," You whined as Charles grunted, mouth still attached to your cunt as he readjusted your leg on his strong, muscular shoulder, deepening the achingly perfect angle even further and making your already shaky legs start to tremble with pleasure.

Charles took your sensitive clit between his teeth, gently and pressed his free hand that wasn't clutching your thigh to your stomach, balancing you as best he could as you uncontrollably bucked your hips, riding his perfectly flat tongue. You placed your smaller hand over his and arched into his face, trying to alleviate the knot building in the pit of your stomach. He felt so fucking good and looked even better when you did dare open your eyes, peering down into his sinful ones.

The small smirk that appeared on Charles’ dimpled cheeks when your gaze met his was enough to send you spiralling into a whimpering mess, unable to stop the loud moan that ripped from your constricted throat – you were getting closer with every single teasing stoke he gave you, his thick fingers fucking you into a blackout and you were losing it. He muffled a laugh and didn't relent one bit as you white knuckled his wrist, attempting to hold in the noises that were so close to escaping, jaw clenched.

"I wanna hear you, bella – let me hear you," Charles panted as he glanced up and continued to taunt you, “I want to hear you moaning for me like this for the rest of my fucking life.”

Even in your orgasmic haze, you furrowed your already rutted brows at his comment, head throw back, still whimpering, “Friends don’t say that to each other, Charles.” You breathed, gliding on his unrelenting fingers, his pace slowing as he processed your words.

Charles scoffed and pulled back from your pulsing core, eyes trained on yours as he pressed a sweet kiss to your thigh, voice hoarse. “I think we passed “just friends” about 20 fucks ago, baby. You don’t have to pretend when it’s just you and me.”

It took you a second until you nodded silently, agreeing that you didn’t need to keep the act up with him. You brushed your fingers that had been knotted in his thick, beautiful hair, down the sides of his glistening face, lips raw and looking like a mirage.

“I like it when it’s just you and me.”

If you blinked, you thought he may disappear from your vision but he made sure you knew he was real, kitten licking your sensitive bud and reassuring you that he wasn’t just a figment of your imagination.

“Me too.” He whispered.

It didn’t take long for Charles to resume his toe-curling assault, sending every nerve in your system into lockdown as he pushed you closer and closer to the edge. He’d put both of your feet on the ground, thighs spread as far as they go so you could ride his face, insisting that you came like that for him. The feeling of having every breath suppressed from his lungs while you let yourself go on his tongue, fingernails clawing at the skin on your thighs was worth the rush of blood to his brain. His face was beet-red, pupils blown out and he was achingly hard, scared he was going to blow in his pants like a prepubescent teen.

"Oh my fucking god, Charles," You moaned loudly as he reached up and pressed his palm firmly on your flushed chest, needing to feel your heart thumping under your skin, making him feel alive.

"I've got you."

"I'm – baby, I’m right there!" You cried out, head thrown back against the wall again as Charles eased you through your earth shattering high, panting and sweltering under his touch.

Loud moans echoed through the hotel room as he lapped up everything you had to give, holding you in place and making sure you were completely satisfied before removing his shaky fingers and pressing a couple of pecks to your reddening thighs – no doubt leaving bruises from his tight grip. You couldn’t wait to feel those small reminders of his touch in the morning. It took a good couple of seconds for your mind and body to float back down from the clouds above and god, it was a gorgeous sight when you did come to.

"You are so good at that," You breathed as Charles used your hips to drag himself up off the carpeted floor, hands still clutching your waist to also keep your knees from buckling. He knew you too well.

The sensation of his swollen lips kissing yours brought you back and without hesitation, you hooked your arms over his shoulders and deepened the kiss. His hands snaked around your lower back, bodies flush and you could finally feel how hard he was underneath his trousers.

Knowing Charles was that turned on from making you feel ethereal triggered a proud smirk to sweep across your flushed face, “Would you like some help with this, friend?” You teased, reaching down for the button on his pants, flicking it open with ease.

“It’s what friends are for, no?” He cockily replied before you clutched his stiff cock in your palm, causing him to gasp at the sensation.

“Absolutely would love your help – thank you very much,” Charles quickly added, desperate for your attention as he captured your lips in a rough kiss and nudged your body towards his messy bed.

“That’s what I thought,” You chuckled into the kiss, letting him cash in every single benefit he could imagine. All night long.

let me know what you think!

[johnnyutah]

average adam faulkner stanheight fan: if adam isn’t in saw xi we riot! @lionsgate @kevingruetert @jameswan #adamlives #justiceforadam #corpseinconsistencies

average john kramer fan: What people don’t realize about John, is he’s such a genius that even when he makes mistakes, he planned on making the mistakes. He is the greatest villain of all time

average jill tuck fan: Appreciation post for the Women of Saw 🩷 [the same ten photos that get posted once a week]

average lawrence gordon fan: last night i watched a 2004 tv movie about serial killers called ‘the riverman’, followed by the cheesy family rom-com ‘a castle for christmas’. today my friends and i are going to binge the entire third season of netflix’s ‘stranger things’. none of us have seen a single episode of the rest of the show and we don’t plan on it. then we might rewatch ‘another country’ together

average amanda young fan: sorry i haven’t been online in 4 weeks i’ve been too busy trying to get the new pig cosmetic in the rift [posted 7 weeks ago]

average mark hoffman fan: [underneath a gifset of costas mandylor in a republican christian propaganda ‘sci-fi’ movie] #hes so fucking hot #i would give anything to put him in a sports bra and make him do jumping jacks in front pf me i would literally do #ANYTHING #i need to make him into a marionett and fist him lol

average daniel rigg fan: Here’s a quick low effort doodle I did of Daniel! I just love him so much ❤️ [a literal masterpiece, the best art you’ve ever seen in your entire life] [3 notes]

average allison kerry fan: i am hardcore attached to ONE ship which is probably either allison/amanda or allison/lindsey and my whole blog is devoted to them. there are dozens of us DOZENS

average lynn denlon fan: okay so i know bahar is a realtor now but in her last instagram post where she’s congratulating her son on some new achievement, both the first and last words in the post have 11 letters, AND there’s an X and an I visible in the background of her post 👀?? is this a reach???

average jeff denlon fan: No seriously let me finish seriously when you compare him to the other shitty men in Saw he’s NOT that b

average david tapp fan: i’m 39k away from publishing my 40k tappsing Everybody Lives AU <3 this is going to be epic [account has been deactivated for an indeterminate amount of time]

average brit stevenson and mallick scott fan: Hey I stayed up making this instead of writing my thesis paper for grad school. Here’s a 30,000 word document about the implications of Brit’s promotion within the Marshford group and how it would lead to her eventual demise and also how she rose to the top in her group. It also delves into her relationship with Mallick, whose existence, I believe, is an obvious literary reference to an ancient Roman play read by only me and three other people currently alive. I translated relevant passages and included them in my work. I got understimulated around page 8 so I did take a break to pierce myself in the same spot that I believe Mallick would have a piercing. If you read my fics on AO3 you will already be familiar with the location.

average peter strahm fan: haha peter does CRACK cocoaine haha i think he sniffeds some drugs! why else would he be so MANIC HYPER CRAZY!!! i love my crazy JUNKIE man LOL get him some andderall STAT!! if hoffman didn’t kill him the SPEED certianly would of! LOL!

average lindsey perez fan: i love lindsey perez i’m such a big fan of the character lindsey perez

average matt gibson fan: i literally would eat garbage out of a dumpster

average ezekiel banks fan: holy shit i just finished spiral what a good movie what the hell!!! what a cool addition to the saw universe! i bet everybody else loves this as much as i do! let me take a big drink of water as i check tumblr dot com to see all the nice things people will have to say about darren lynn bousman’s Spiral

average william schenk fan: my hobbies include: being a fujoshi,

average cecelia pederson fan: [pic of cecelia yanking on the metal loop around her neck and smirking] https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT3f5IIzt5PG-M7G9_Z-gjY4gZaiUneTdMlYrFAcdBGcJo0-N-RDQcj2JfxOaBTxKa6J_DiDQNgqVpg/pub

average logan jigsaw fan: What people don’t realize about John, is he’s such a genius that even when he makes mistakes, he planned on making the mistakes. He is the greatest villain of all time

[morganbritton132]

Eddie doesn’t post much over Parents weekend. When he does post, it’s a picture to the Official Corroded Coffin twitter account of Wayne rocking a vintage CC sweatshirt (vintage as in Eddie made it for him before the band even existed).

Overly invested fans don’t have to fret though because whereas Eddie isn’t posting, the kids are.

Every year they fill out bingo cards with Very Specific Things that they think will happen over the course of the weekend and play to see who gets bingo first. This all plays out across their TikTok accounts because the rule is: if you don’t get a video, it didn’t happen (the rule was made after the cheating scandal of 2016).

The game is always centered around whoever is hosting so this round is Steddie-centric. So, no one makes it obvious that Steve’s mom clearly didn’t show up, but if you’re invested enough in his mama drama than you’d pick up on everybody’s effort to keep him engaged enough that he doesn’t really have to think about it.

(1) The first to get a piece on the board are El, Mike, and Lucas. They manage to catch on video Claudia Henderson fully lifting Steve off his feet when she hugs him. You get three different angles of Dustin next to them with the most ‘are you shitting me?’ look on his face because she hugged Steve first.  This is a staple of these events. It happens every time. Everybody had it on their bingo cards but the others didn’t get it on camera. 

(2) Will has ‘Karen says something that would’ve gotten Steve’s neighbor burned at the stake’ on his card. He posts a TikTok of Karen referring to Steve and Eddie’s salt and pepper shakers as ‘kitschy.’ Steve smiles and says, “I know! Eddie picked them out.”

(3) ‘Eddie stands on a table’ was banned from being on the card because it has happened at every single event ever. ‘Eddie falling off a table and being caught by Steve’ however? Very specific. Weird it happened. Lucas gets points, but also a little side eye.

(4)It’s not going to win Erica any points, but she posts a video of her mom talking to Robin about finding her a good man. Now, don’t get her wrong. Sue Sinclair’s LGBT+ ally-ship is only rivaled by Joyce Byers, but she never remembers that Robin is a lesbian and Robin is always too awkward to correct her. It’s like watching two robots have a conversation because Sue mentions that Dustin is single and Robin is just like, “And…short?”

Eddie is not in the video but you can hear his wheezy laugh next to her. Erica’s just like, “Would you use your inhaler or die somewhere else?”

(5)Dustin posts a video of Steve standing by the window, clearly lost in thought as he stares out at the road. You can see Eddie sneaking up from a distance but instead of scaring Steve, he takes him by the hand and spins him around so they’re facing one another. Dustin isn’t close enough to hear what they’re saying but you can hear him mutter ‘gross’ when Eddie presses Steve up against the window to kiss him.

Steve’s the one to pull Eddie towards the stairs going to the studio, but they don’t actually make it down them because Hopper pulls Steve away to talk to him. There’s an argument between the party in the comments of the video of if this counts as ‘Steve and Eddie sneak off to make out like teenagers in the studio’ because they don’t actually succeed in sneaking away.

(6) Every single person playing gets a video of Hopper looking at Eddie and asking if he’s on drugs. Eddie says, “I don’t doOoOo drugs, Dad. It’s just marijuana.”

Dustin gets an extra point for catching Steve’s eye roll. Eddie has repeated that phrase at least a hundred times since Dustin told him about the Russian elevator.

(7) Max and Dustin both score a point with ‘Steve and El pull a “prank” on Eddie’ and it’s just Steve very confidently claiming that he can roll a nat 20 easy-peasy just by rolling the dice in a special way. Eddie obviously calls bullshit and then Steve rolls a 20 three times in a row.

After the fourth time, Eddie narrows his eyes at Steve and then spins around until he spots El on the other side of the room and points at her like “YOU!!!” No one watching understands this video. There are fights in the comments about what the hell is even happening here.

(8) Max is the only one with ‘Eddie says ACAB’ on her card. She posts a video of her handwritten card and then pans the camera up to Eddie. They’re all sitting around a bonfire later in the evening. Steve’s practically in Eddie’s lap as Eddie says, “-exactly what I mean, ACAB! All cops are bastards!”

Steve: Not Hopper

Eddie: Especially Hopper! Are you kidding me? Do you know how much weed he stole from me?

(9) Mike catches Steve and Eddie sharing a cigarette on the front porch later that night. It’s only after someone edits the video to remove the sound of the wind that you can kinda hear Steve say ‘It’s just that this is kinda it, right? I opened the door and she slammed it in my face.’

Most of the conversation is inaudible, but Joyce catching them and taking the cigarette from them is not. Neither is her shooing them back inside and finishing the cigarette herself.

(10) The party members all end up staying the night and everybody sleeps in the living room since Hopper and Joyce have Steve and Eddie’s bedroom and Wayne has the guest room. Steve and Eddie sleep on the couch because Eddie’s back can’t handle the floor. Max and Lucas get an air mattress, and Dustin claims the other side of the couch with El since they’re the only single people there. Everybody else is on the floor

Max wins bingo with a one-two punch the following morning with Mike complaining that Steve stepped on him with his big ass sleepwalking feet and Dustin posting a picture to his Instagram of him, Claudia, and Steve with the caption “best moms a guy could have.”

[huellitaa]

the world is yours, literally 💭🎀🧁

so if you've been on this side of tumblr or any girly self improvement etc. side of social media, there's a high chance you've discovered the statement "you are the creator of your own reality" or "the world is yours" or something along those lines at some point. it sounds so far fetched when you first hear it, without any thought going into its true meaning, but the reason this is used so much is because it is true.

we are our lives. you are the world around you. everything in our lives is intrinsically entwined in ways we can't explain and the biggest connection out of all of them is us and life. it sounds obvious and self explanatory, sure, but when you think of it on a deeper level and dig into the complexity of the notion, like most things, you'll find it holds a lot stronger of a stance in your life.

have you ever noticed how so many metaphors for your life and bettering yourself reference and relate to nature and the world? "treat urself like garbage and the flies will come”, “water your own garden before anyone else’s”, “the darker the night, the brighter the stars”, “needing good roots to grow", they all relate to the sun and the sky and the sea and the world and the ground we stand on. they all relate to earth.

have you ever noticed how when people free themselves from bad situations, their reality and their world around them seems to get better too? how it seems to shift along with them?

because we are our world. every building we've built, every concept we've invented, every life we've created and every life we've lost, everything on this earth down to the last blade of grass was once nothing, but once we began to discover and create and flourish and bloom (see, the analogy still stands even there), the world grew along with us, and still is every day.

in truth, the world is in no set way, shape or form. it is not a singular entity. that's why your life can be remade and reshaped so easily within the blink of an eye (but that's for another time) because the world you know is solely your reality. that's the reason everybody has a different perception of you just as you do them, the reason why we have separate interests, conflicting outlooks, the list goes on.

the more we grow, so does our world, and our reality. you've seen how many people have changed and grown and gotten happier and healthier and only kept on going when they finally began to step up and better themselves, how their world changed along with them. because us and the world are one and the same.

the most important thing i'd like you to ask yourself is how do you treat the world? how do you view the world? and how do you treat and view yourself? are there any particular differences? similarities? anything that stands out? what is the world to you?

all my love... 💬🎀🫶🏻💗