#which is good because it's either this or starve

[ennabear]

Gentle/soft sevika… im starving, lord have mercy

^also im the important exam anon! I dont know how i did in that day since the results would take 2 more weeks minimum, but im pretty sure whether it turns out too good or too bad than usual its thanks to you, imma keep you updated! I also think i did good because replaying what you wrote in my brain was just a the best kind of rewards^

IMPORTANT EXAM ANON HAIII!!!! i’m sure you did good hehe idk who you are or what you’re going to school for but i believe that you’re very smart… BUT THANK YOU!!! i’m so honored heheheh 😭 here’s some soft sevika 🤎🤎

everyone always thinks that sevika is aggressive and scary, especially because she can be on occasion. but in reality, you’ve never really seen her that way.

all of sevika’s violence and crimes are done outside of the walls of your shared home, as far away from them as she can manage. most of her killings and fights are done in a dark alleyway in the middle of nowhere, or closer to topside, where although it’s risky to be so close to those stuck ups who’ve never witnessed a crime before, she always gets away with it.

and she never does it out of cold blood. she only lays her hands on someone if they’ve wronged her first.

to you, her hands are the softest thing in the world. well— hand, technically, because she only has one human hand left. but both of them, whether flesh or metal, treat you with the greatest care possible.

late at night, they can be found wrapped around you, either holding you to her chest in a tight snuggle or pinning you to the bed while she snores on top of you. sometimes her metal fingers will trace little shapes into your back, the pointy tips of them making you shiver as she slowly lulls you to sleep.

sometimes she forgoes her mech arm completely, you being the only person she feels comfortable enough to be vulnerable with. still, her human arm will cling to your hips or your waist as you move around the house. whether that means doing chores or washing yourselves up or taking a well deserved afternoon nap on the couch.

sometimes she’ll even cry in front of you if she feels safe enough— which of course she does around you. you’re the only person on the whole planet who knows about her past and the things that still do scare her. like losing you, for example.

her favorite thing in the world is crying with you, although it seems dark. but to her, it’s like she finally feels seen. whether you’re crying over the same thing or just being mutually sad together, she loves to comfort you and feel it back at the same time. neither of you can even stay sad for long, because the other is trying to cheer you up by making you laugh or crack a smile, and it always ends in two teary-eyed giggles bubbling through the room.

[babygray]

This is the second bit of a untitled GinHijiMitsu story. A bit chunkier than the first bit. I'm not so much on a roll as much as I had a lot of free time today.

Part 1.1 (200 words) Part 1.2 (870 words)

Yorozuya Gin-chan’s shabby second-floor office was quiet that afternoon. Warm sunlight filtered through the windows as the company president doze on the couch, his copy of last week’s Shonen Jump covering his face. He let out a soft snore. “… domain expanssshhhhh…”

A knock on the front door filtered through his dream, popping it with a polite tap-tap-tap.

Gintoki groaned, his eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to stay within his pleasant dream of infinite parfaits, even as the Jump magazine slid off his face. “Kagura, the door,” he said before remembering she and Shinpachi had gone out that morning.

The person at the door gave it another polite tap-tap-tap.

He flopped and stumbled to his feet, the magazine falling to the floor with a thud, and vigorously rubbed the sleep off his face. “Hold on, I’m coming,” he said, stifling a yawn.

The unexpected guest was a young woman he had never met before, with light-colored hair and large, reddish-brown eyes. A parasol shaded her from the weak sun. A thick shawl was wrapped snugly over her shoulders. A couple of beads of sweat glittered on her brow. Her gloved hand was still raised to knock on the door, exposing her thin, pale wrist.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her soft voice as gentle as her features, as she lowered her hand. “I’m looking for Yorozuya Gin-chan. Did… did I awaken you?”

“Awaken? What ‘awaken’,” Gintoki said. “What hard-working adult is still sleeping at ten in the morning?”

“It’s actually just past noon,” the woman said, her amused smile widening.

Her smile jarringly reminded Gintoki of the faint scent of steel and blood.

He quickly brushed the thought aside. It was hard to imagine just a visibly frail woman wielding a blade with bloodlust in her eyes.

He chalked it up to his imagination, still groggy from sleep, and ushered her inside.

“Thank you,” the woman said as he served her some tea in one of the nice ‘customer’ cups and himself some strawberry milk in his usual glass. “I hadn’t realized how thirsty I am.”

“Well, don’t hold back on my account,” Gintoki said, taking his seat on the couch on the other side of the table.

She laughed softly. “Then, I won’t.” She lifted the cup and cradled it in her hands before taking a dignified sip. “I hadn’t realized that traveling by train would be so exhausting. It certainly isn’t as relaxing as the magazines make it out to seem.”

“Long trip, then?” Gintoki said, leaving his milk untouched.

“Oh, yes. I left on the first train this morning,” she said. “If I let myself wait for a more reasonable hour, I feel I would have hesitated and not come at all.” She took another sip before setting the cup down. “But if I hadn’t come, I would have felt anxious all day for letting the opportunity slip by.”

She rested her hands on her lap. Without the gloves, her long, thin fingers looked delicate and harmless. “I read about you recently and hoped to hire your services for a day. Nothing too strenuous,” she added hastily. “I merely wish for you to guide me through Edo. Specifically Kabukichou.”

She looked down at her hands. The fingers entwined. “My brother mentions it on occasion in his letters, that I felt almost obligated to learn more about it firsthand.”

Gintoki picked up his glass of milk and raised it to his lips. “Your brother lives in town?”

“Oh, yes.” Her smile turned fond, almost indulgent. “He works for the government. Dangerous work, but he never writes to me about it. He’s always trying to keep me from worrying about him. Not that I could ever stop worrying about my little brother.”

“If he’s in town, why not have him guide you around?”

“Oh, no, he couldn’t pull him away from his important work.” She shook her head. “He would be so upset if he found out I was in town and didn’t see him first.”

Gintoki drank his milk and set the empty glass down on the table. He wasn’t sure what to make of her, but he clearly had nothing better to do. “Well, you should have called first, you know,” he said, leaning back. “I don’t mind that you came without an appointment, but I’m usually booked solid for a month.” He winked. “Sleeping doesn’t happen on its own.”

She laughed, covering her face with the sleeve of her kimono.

“But, since I have the time, I’ll be your guide for the day, Miss…”

“Mitsuba.” She bowed her head. “I’ll be in your care, Sakata-san.”

"There's no need to be so formal. Gin-san is fine."

Gintoki gave her one of his better smiles, the sort that might make a drunk middle-aged woman swoon on a good day. He slotted away the fact she didn’t give her last name into the back of his mind, along with that odd sense of familiarity he had felt earlier. “Where do you want to go first?” he said. “The pachinko? The race track?”

She tilted her head, as if giving his ridiculous suggestions serious thought. “Perhaps a restaurant? I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“I’m feeling hungry myself. If you want to experience Kabukichou, I know just the right place.”

[arolesbianism]

Some very lazy concept doodles for my swap au Wendy

[here-there-were-dragons]

i have to wonder what super hardcore militant vegans think should be done about obligate carnivore animals, because in all my painfully-rapidly-approaching-30-years i've literally never actually seen anyone give a clear consistent much less halfway feasible answer on that

[grymmdark]

eaaughhhhh siblings are so hard to have sometimes.....

[featherymainffins]

Binge-reading Dungeon Meshi because it's the only thing standing between me and suicide ngl.

[maddybthorne]

I want a BBC Merlin fanfic where Hunith visits Camelot as a surprise. Merlin doesn't know she's coming, only Gaius knows that she plans to visit. This is set in a time period where all the knights are alive (I'm looking at you Lancelot.) and Arthur is Prince, but running the Kingdom as Uther is unwell.

Hunith pulls up to Camelot and is walking towards the Castle through the citadel, burdened by her bags, when a cheerful voice rings out. "Do you need any help, miss?" It's one of the many Castle servants.

Hunith explains that she is heading to the Castle to visit her son who works there, the servant then offers to carry her bags.

"Oh I don't want to be a bother." Hunith replies

"It's no bother at all! Really, I was heading that way already." The servant insists and they both make their way to the castle, "What's your son's name by the way, I might know him if he works here."

"His name is Merlin." Hunith responds with a smile. The servant stops walking and looks at her. It's not only him that stops at this announcement.

"Y-you're Merlin's Mother?!?" A nearby servant who had been close enough to hear the conversation says in awe.

The courtyard that they're walking through gradually fills with hushed whispers as the news spreads. Everyone knows of Merlin. The Prince's manservant who had managed to not quit in the first week of serving him. Merlin, who changed the Prince from a spoiled brat into a good man whom the Kingdom was proud of and eagerly awaited the day he would be crowned King. Merlin, who had followed the Prince into battle time and time again to save Camelot.

I want a fanfiction where The Entire Of Camelot loves Merlin and is thankful for his role in making Arthur a good person. Where not only the Knights, but the Castle staff meet his mother and collectively decide that she is That Woman and treat her with Respect. Where they treat her like Royalty.

Ofc Gwaine loves her. That's his best friend's mom. Hunith looks at all the knights and adopts them on the Spot.

And Merlin is either really confused by this behavior or knows and just lets it happen.

Arthur has no idea what's going on or why but he treats her with reverence and love because that's his future Mother in Law and he's very much starved for parental affection which she gives him (and the knights) in spades.

But yes, I just want a fic of people meeting Hunith and being like "Thank you for giving birth to your son. I'd die for you both" and her being like "...please don't."

(Bonus if Leon meets her and is just like. "How did you survive being around that little shit (Merlin) for so long?" And she just laughs and gives him advice, which makes him cry because he's just so tired. #LetLeonRest2024 I will push this agenda till I die)

[sttoru]

OKAY IK YOU JUST DID SATORU BUT BOOBOBSESSED!TOJI PLEASE !!

 𝝑𝑒 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒. husband!toji fushiguro x wife!female reader. smut, pwp. mention of bôōb job, m. māsturbation. brēast play. reader gets called ‘doll, girl’ not proofread

“tojiiii, i just came home,” you whine as the black-haired man lifts you up and brings you over to the couch the second you step into your shared apartment.

it’s become a part of your daily routine at this point. every time you come home, you’re put on the couch or bed and your clothes come off. it doesn’t necessarily have to lead to sex—sometimes your husband does it to comfort you and relieve your stress (and his).

“yeah, i know, doll,” toji responds in a gruff voice. he lifts your shirt up over your head and leaves chaste kisses on your shoulders and collarbone, “jus’ let me take care of you, ‘kay?” you can feel his stubble, making you realise that he did not shave. not that you’re complaining.

in fact, you’re the one who told him that you prefer it when he has a little stubble. it’s so sexy on toji—especially during the early mornings, when you wake up next to him, his muscular body on full display with that lazy look in his eyes. it makes you drool every time.

you hum shortly in agreement. toji licks a strip over your collarbone before swiftly undoing your bra. he watches your tits bounce free from their confines and he groans, feeling his cock swell in his boxer shorts already.

“been needing to suck on those,” he sighs. he shamelessly attaches his lips to your nipple, tongue flicking out to taste your plump flesh. it’s an addiction at this point. not a day goes by where toji doesn’t leave your breasts alone.

he either has to knead them while he watches a show or lazily suck on them while you cuddle. he can’t help it—your tits are just a delicious treat he wishes to indulge in every second of the day. even when toji is out of the house, images of your perfectly round chest keep him from focusing on the road ahead.

hell; one time toji even had to pull his car to the side so he could quickly palm himself through his boxers, simply because of your tits. he had one of his hands under his pants and the other held his phone, scrolling through pictures that captured your bust well.

“fuck,” toji curses under his breath. he groans with nearly every suckle, his eyes closed like he’s experiencing euphoria. you run your fingers through his hair, your back arching off the couch a little. your husband massages your other breast, his tongue quickly circling your swollen nipple like a touch starved man, “mh, can’t stop. fuckin’ delicious. wanna keep on suckin’ em.”

toji pinches your other nipple which causes you to moan loudly. it’s like your stress is quite literally being sucked out of your body. every suckle motion makes you relax even more in his embrace.

“babe, i need t’ make dinner,” you mutter between soft whimpers. you know it’s futile saying that—toji is not going to let you go. once he’s got you, he’s keeping you for the rest of the day.

the black-haired man rolls his eyes at your words while he’s actively sucking on your tit. he looks up at you before detaching his lips from your hardened nipple. there’s a wet spot of his saliva left over your chest.

“no need,” toji rasps, kissing the valley of your breasts. his dick twitches at the thought of being sunk between your tits, his cum shooting from the tip and coating your breasts and face white. “got my dinner right here,” he sighs and wraps his lips around your other nipple.

you moan at the stimulation. you tug at toji’s hair from the pleasure, your hips bucking up to grind against that hard bulge that’s been pressed between your thighs since the beginning. your husband hisses at the contact and bites on the sensitive nub.

“easy, girl,” toji growls, his eyes darkening with lust, “just a little more, mhm? i’ll give it to ya real good after.” he’s nearly going insane from the sensations. his hips grind back slowly against your core while his face is buried against your tits. the pair is getting equal attention, either from his lips and tongue or skilled fingers.

the pleasure is unending. you want nothing more than to return the favor to your lover, but with how things are going, that’s going to take a while. you’re going to need to pry toji away from your tits; he won’t leave them on his own free will.

if it was up to him, he’d live there forever, right between your tits.

[fortunxa]

Physical affection with Jinx

H E A D C A N O N S

╰┈➤ requested

Jinx x fem!reader

cw: mentions of nsfw, hallucinations

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Jinx is such a touch-starved girl.

She doesn’t shy away from physical contact, but paradoxically, it can catch her off-guard if she’s not the one initiating it—blame it on her childhood.

As you get to know her, start off gently with some light taps that get her attention.

She’ll often nudge your shoulder, drag her nails across your arm or leg as you’re talking, doodle on your skin, or simply grab your hand as she’s excitedly leading you somewhere.

Jinx is just so curious as to how you’d react, testing the waters.

But once you gain her trust, her innocent touches turn into proper hugs. And I don’t mean duvet-like embraces that let you breathe, but cocoon ones where you can feel every ounce of her as she holds you tightly.

This is the moment you realize she’s now afraid of losing you.

Those hugs come unexpectedly, like a predator pouncing on its prey, and you often stumble from her sheer force.

She’s definitely a waist/torso hugger, and believe it or not, it’s not because of her height but because she genuinely feels safer that way.

Shoulder hugs are traps, so be prepared for a paint bomb to find itself attached to your back.

She will be impressed if you can throw her over your shoulder.

Loves piggyback rides.

Pinky promises. It’s a childish gesture but one that holds enormous significance to her. She would link her finger with yours with those wide, innocent eyes. No take-backs.

– “You know that’s legally binding, right?”

If you’re her first kiss—which, let’s be honest, you probably are—her Jinx persona is nowhere to be found. It’s Powder now, and she’s so cautious as she closes the distance.

Her lips ghost over yours so lightly it almost tickles, but you let her take her time as she grapples with the newfound closeness. You don’t rush her, and when she finally kisses you, it’s slow and tentative. She wants to feel and analyze everything.

– “Was that good?”

As she gains confidence, she starts experimenting with the mix of sensations.

She’s attentive to your reactions, and she soon finds all of your sweet spots.

Will randomly kiss you, and it doesn’t matter where or when.

Forehead kisses, kisses on your neck, earlobes, stomach, hips, thighs… You name it. She adores every single one of them.

She’s the type to swap a piece of candy or gum through a kiss.

Jinx is all about PDA. She wants everyone to know you’re hers.

Hickeys, hickeys, and more hickeys.

Unfortunately, when the wrong people figured out that you’re her partner, it did get you kidnapped once as a way to undermine Silco. Take Jinx’s favorite person away, and she becomes erratic, unfit to carry out his plans.

Heavy on ‘once’ because the hell she brought them was enough to terrify anyone else with the same strategy.

The number of explosions that day alerted Piltover itself.

Talking to Silco and/or Sevika? She’s holding your hand, slightly pushing you behind her in a protective manner. Neither of them approves of your relationship, they deem it a distraction.

Much to Silco’s dismay, she will drag you into most of their private meetings and fidgets with your fingers if she gets bored.

You’re ordering at the bar? She’s either behind you with her arms around your waist or next to you with her hand on your hip as she’s pulling you closer.

You’re on a mission together? There she is, fighting back-to-back with you so she knows you’re there, unharmed. If you’re separated, she can’t concentrate properly anymore, and she keeps seeking you out in between firing her gun. She’s prioritizing your safety over anything else, which has gotten her injured quite a few times.

She insists that she can patch up her wounds herself, but once you see that goddamn stapler approaching a gash, you’re frantically snatching it away from her hands.

You tend to her injuries in such a caring and gentle way that it brings tears to her eyes.

At first, you’re worried you went too deep with the needle as you were stitching her cuts.

– “What’s wrong? Did that hurt? I’m so sorry–”

– “No one has ever done that for me before.”

Whenever the roles are reversed, and you’re the injured one, she’s in a frenzy. She’s muttering to herself as she grabs the first aid kit.

Stern face and furrowed brows, but despite it all, she tries to be delicate—‘tries’ because the voices are making her movements jerky.

– “Are you crazy?! What were you thinking? No, no, she wasn’t thinking at all…”

She will absolutely kiss your wound better afterward.

Cuddle time on her couch after a long day.

She loves it when you sweep her off her feet and carry her bridal style to lay her down.

She likes to be the little spoon but face toward you because your scent and the sound of your heartbeat calm her down.

Occasionally, she’ll be the big spoon to switch it up and make you feel secure, too.

Your presence helps with her night terrors, and she sleeps more often with you around.

But you always wake up with her hair in your mouth, her elbow on your face, and covers on the ground, and she’s snoring—occasionally drooling—in a starfish position.

– “Where the fuck did your pillow go?”

Morning kisses!!!

Morning sex.

Showering and taking baths together.

Hygiene isn’t a big thing in Zaun (shocker), so when you have time to get clean, you do it together. Washing each other’s hair, trying to get all the grime—and occasionally blood—out.

It’s a tender moment that turns entertaining—or sexual—rather quickly.

You’re washing off, and you turn around to see Jinx with a bubble beard, her face completely stoic. She starts pretending to be a Piltovan man as you’re laughing.

Or she’ll come up behind you and press her soapy body to yours as her fingers dip inside you.

Physical affection while she’s working on a project can go two ways:

When she’s confident in her work: She loves having you close, whether it’s by having you sit on her lap and vice versa or grabbing your hands for an impromptu dance break when she’s feeling her playlist. She’s babbling about her ideas and designs, explaining each step as you play with her braids.

When she’s experimenting: Do not come close or she’ll scream. She’ll be too scared to have you near in case she messes up an equation and causes an explosion. She will actually make you go elsewhere as a precaution. But she’ll be more than happy to show you her progress after!

You love painting each other’s nails, but she often chips hers.

She straddles you as she does your makeup and vice versa.

Will use her own saliva to clean up any messes.

Jinx absolutely adores trying out new looks on you, and she treats you like her human canvas.

Not only with makeup but with markers and paint, too.

She will draw out tattoo ideas and judge each placement.

Speaking of tattoos, you constantly trace hers with a light touch that sends shivers down her spine.

Brushing and playing with each other’s hair. She actually melts in your hands once you take her braids out and start massaging her scalp.

Will bite your arm out of excitement. The urge to chomp is just too great.

You comfort her differently depending on how bad her episode gets:

You either hold her impossibly close, hiding her face in your chest as you stroke her hair and start humming or talking about something she loves to ground her.

If she gets to a point where you can’t even approach without her backing away—or worse, getting violent—you dim every bright light and reduce any other stimuli. You don’t call her by her name—neither Jinx nor Powder—as both can trigger her even more. She will use some of her bombs to try and muffle the voices with the sounds of explosions, but you do hide any other weapons. You don’t talk too much or too loudly to not confuse her even more. Once she’s calm enough, it’s back to scenario number 1.

You’re both crying by the time her episode ends.

– “Please… Tell me you’re real.”

Jinx is so in tune with your emotions, and contrary to popular belief, she’s very empathetic.

She notices any tone or mood changes immediately.

If you’re mad at something or someone, she’ll be mad with you, if not even madder. You have her unconditional support because her trinket can do no wrong. She’s tracing her nails down your back or stroking your thigh as you’re rambling.

– “And then Sevika called me incompetent. Can you fucking believe it? How was I supposed to know that they put the shimmer there?!”

– “Sevika’s a bitch. That barrel was totally in your way.”

If you’re mad at her, she’ll spiral. You want to leave to cool down? Nuh-uh. She’s holding you so tightly, shaking like a leaf, that it makes your anger dissipate.

– “Don’t leave me, toots. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll be better.”

If you’re sad or crying, she cups your face in her hands and makes you look at her as she praises you. She wipes every tear away. This is also the only other time she will reach for a hug over your shoulders/around your neck—no paint bombs included. She just wants to cradle your head and soothe you.

[stevieschrodinger]

This is not how Steve wanted to spend his afternoon.

Actually, he’s found himself doing a lot of things he hasn't wanted to since Starcourt burned down but, honestly, this is probably right up there.

God it’s disgusting.

But he had to try. All the kids had looked at him with their stupid hang dog faces, so he said he’d try. Which is why he’s at lovers lake, freezing his ass off in the water and nipple deep into the shrubbery, ripping slimy crappy weeds and grass out of the muddy lake bed.

At least Robin got in with him. She’s shivering in her bathing suit, but she’s gamely holding onto the cooler as it floats in the water, so at least there’s that.

The bin full Upside Down vines next to the tank hadn't made much sense at the time, but it became apparent pretty fucking fast when the fish creature in Steve’s pool hadn’t eaten for forty eight hours, and Steve was now, finally, sober enough and not concussed enough to put two and two together.

Hopefully this works though; all the kids have, obviously, become immediately like, fucking pack bonded with the thing. Man. Fish Man.

El and Max keep insisting he’s a mermaid – Merman? Merdude? - like he’s something out of a fairy tail and is all magical and shit.

Steve takes a breath and ducks down again, having felt something hairy and frond like with his exploring toes.

“You think this is enough? Like as a fair test?” Robin rocks the half full cooler forward and Steve peeks in.

And alright, Steve just doesn’t want to fucking be here at all, so he says, “yep, looks good,” as they share a lightly guilty look.

It might not work at all, of course, so their wanting to give up is legitimate. They can always come back when it’s warmer if the fish man does eat this shit.

He certainly isn’t interested in the raw fish the kids have been trying to feed him – Steve’s going to be eating fish for a fucking month with what’s in his freezer now, and don’t those reprobates realize the price of fucking prawns??

The fish man wasn’t interested in meat either, not raw, not cooked – even though Dustin insisted that because of his ‘forward facing eyes’, ‘claws,’ and ‘slightly pointed teeth,’ he must be a predator Steve! The vines must have just been for, in his tank, or whatever, Steve!

Whatever.

Steve’s here to prove them wrong, and Robin’s backing him up.

The kids have gone home when they get back, which is a fucking relief. Even with the heaters in the car on full, Steve still feels cold in his bones. His skin warm and tingly, but the shivers still locked inside; him and Robin head for separate bathrooms without even really talking about it, fishboy has survived this long, he can do another twenty minutes.

Steve finds the biggest sting of kelpy weedy seaweedy stuff from the lake, and drags the tip of it in the pool. It’s dark out, the light from in the house reflecting on the surface of the pool, making it impossible to see where the creature might be hiding; until he disturbs the surface, a few seconds later.

Steve splashes the end in the water, “here fishy fishy fishy.”

“Steve,” Robin elbows him.

“What, it’s not like he has a name,” Steve doesn’t look at her though, he’s watching that strange pair of eyes come closer. They reflect the light strangely, like a wild animal in the headlights. His dark hair is plastered to the top of his head, being wet, and everything else is submerged.

Steve knows he can breathe fine for at least an hour out of the water though; that’s how long the rescue took. And then the bathtub; he was fine in there for a day while they drained the pool of chlorinated water and refilled it with fresh. And it was easy enough to get him in there; if he was human, Steve would say that fish dude was starving to death. Concave stomach, all his ribs clearly visible, pale flesh pulled too tight over the knobs of his spine. Steve had lifted him easily, the sad curl of his dull black tail hardly adding any weight to him. He felt frail, breakable; like a bird.

If there’s any lingering chemical in there, it doesn’t seemed to have hurt fishguy, but then a creature from the upside down must be tolerant to plenty, Steve thinks, imagining the constant fall of ashy dust from the dark sky.

The creature cautiously approaches, and when he’s near enough, there’s a gentle tug on the weed, like the most cautious of bites on a line. Steve lets go, and both fish guy and weed disappear under the water.

“Do you think it worked?” Robin whispers, like they’re viewing a skittish wild animal. Which, they kind of are.

“Don’t know,” Steve whispers back, unable to stop himself. There’s just something about someone whispering to you that’s irresistible; it’s like an unavoidable instinct to follow suit.

“How will we know if it’s worked?”

“Dunno. Try another? See if he takes it?” Steve’s just about to break open the cooler again when the head pops up. All of it, this time.

He has dark hair. So dark it looks black; thick and ropey, it kind of reminds Steve of the vines of the upside down. His face is...pretty much human; just very pale. When he’s got his mouth shut, hiding the slight point of those teeth, nothing would give him away.

He lifts a hand out of the water, offering something to Steve who, gingerly but reflexively, takes it.

It’s the stalk of the weed. The leaves are gone, and the fleshy green of the outside has been carefully stripped off; use for those pointy teeth. Steve guesses all the plant material of the upside down is actually probably quite sturdy and quite hard to eat. It probably also has the nutritional value of wet cardboard.

Steve offers another weed, and the fish dude doesn’t leave this time. Steve watches as he eats; quick, practiced movements, trimming leaves with his claws, rolling them, eating them, then just as Steve suspected, using his sharp teeth to strip the outer stalk of all it’s fleshy wet goodness.

Steve doesn’t shudder at the thought of the mud at the bottom of Lovers Lake.

“Steve one, Henderson zero,” Robin says quietly, the fish man tipping his head to the side, as if he’s listening. Steve’s seen it a lot, the amount that the kids chatter at him, but the fish guy tends to stay at the other end of the pool to them. Watching. Nervous, and frightened, if Steve had to put a label on it.

But then, wouldn’t anyone be? Stolen from your world by unrecognizable creatures in hazmat suits. Shoved in a tank. Probably experimented on.

The whole thing sounds shitty.

Steve offers another weed, and the fish guy repeats the process, floating closer still, “Robin, humor me, go and see what’s in the crisper drawer.”

She follows his logic immediately, “on it.”

Steve watches the creature, the fish man, and the fish man watches Robin warily, moving away from the edge again a little, but coming back when Steve offers another frond.

He takes it, strips it, hands it back.

“We need a name for you man, I can’t just keep calling you ‘fish dude’ and ‘creature’ in my head.”

Steve looks over at the house, figuring he has another minute before Robin comes back, he taps the middle of his chest, fishguys strangely gimlet eyes tracking to movement from his too thin face, “Steve.”

Nothing. He tries again, pointing to himself and tapping, “Steve,” and then pointing to the creature, trying to get him to understand.

Fish guy swims a little closer, raising a hand out of the water. Steve sees the stubby but pointy black claws, like little ovals on the end of his fingers. His webbed fingers, Steve sees next, webbing stretched between them up to the first knuckle. He hesitates for a moment, but Steve doesn’t move, wanting to see where this is going.

Fish guy points cautiously at the center of Steve’s chest, close but not touching, lifting far enough out of the water to reveal protruding collar bones. He opens his mouth, and Steve watches with baited breath, fish guy frowning like he’s concentrating, such a human emotion on his face.

Footsteps, then, and he drops back into the water, backing away into the middle of the pool, sinking down so only his eyes are visible. Steve remembers to breathe; he’s not imagining it, something was about to happen. But he can try again tomorrow, once Robin has gone.

“I got some lettuce and some frozen peas,” she whisper hisses at him as she sits again, handing them over.

“Gimme the lettuce,” that seems like the next nearest thing to Steve.

Part two

[namjooningera]

Hii can I request any yandere JJK men with a reader whose on a hunger strike or refuses to be handfed by them? Ty ^.^

Yandere JJK react to y/n refusing them/not eating

Characters: Gojo, Geto, Nanami, Toji, (NEW) Sukuna (king ver of Sukuna)

AN: just reader being a lil bratty (real) also I just added Sukuna as a new character tehe. Tell me how it is 👀 however since he’s a yan I am making him softer towards y/n (but insaner towards other ppl yk?) also he’s a king in this one so

TW: starving, SLIGHT physical violence, threats, force feeding, tiniest bit of infantilization (gojo & Nanami)

Gojo:

No he won’t allow it.

He won’t allow you to act like a child and refuse to eat or drink. At this point he’s worried because you won’t do anything. Like a dead doll standing as still as possible to not be caught moving.

Nothing scares him. But you do.

So he took matters into his own hands and tied you up in a chair, hands to the armrests, legs to the feet of the chair, chest binded and rope littered all around the rest of your body tied to the helpless chair.

You screamed since you couldn’t kick, bit since you couldn’t hit, tried to refuse and refuse and he just didn’t know what to do. Seeing you hurt yourself, not eating as a protest to your involuntary stay, god it was torture to him. Like his own punishment.

At first he let it go. Tried to hand feed you your favorite snacks and placed a cup of cold water at your lips. And everytime you smacked it away from you. He watched your favorite snacks hit the floor and soil the carpet. The water spill and create a wet mess on the floor boards.

Why couldn’t you just be good and eat? Drink? Please stop refusing. At one point he almost started begging you. Hands at his chest, put together, eyes wide and sad, his mouth profusely spitting out begs and whines of how he just wanted you safe and healthy.

You didn’t listen.

You probably should’ve, or at least acknowledged his damn presence, because what he did next what’s unpredictable.

Tying you up in that chair and force feeding you. He made you your comfort food in hopes you’d actually want to eat it on your own. You didn’t. Which is fine. It just means he had to take extra precautions. His hand swirled the spoon of food around in the air, blowing raspberries as he said,

“Here comes the airplane!” As if you were some stupid child not wanting to eat your greens.

The spoon flew to your mouth but you moved your head to the side the only thing you could move, avoiding the spoon and it’s food.

His smile dropped just the tiniest bit but he continued his ministrations.

“Babe! Here comes the airplane Kay? Say ahh!” He announced once again in that awfully positive attitude, nudging the spoon at your lips, which you kept sewn shut.

“Come on babe, just open up~” but you didn’t, and he was getting impatient. “Babe?”

You didn’t look at him, didn’t dare open your mouth or even glance his way.

He snaps, grabbing your jaw and pinching your nose. You gasped, not being able to breathe, and without a second thought, that spoon of food was shoved into your mouth. He let go of your nose, and scooted his chair closer to yours.

“It’s good right? I added extra flavoring just for my girl. I know you like it that way.” He giggled, as if he didnt force the food down your damn throat.

“Here comes the choo choo train!” He whistled, and you realized that he enjoys babying you the way he does, even if it meant going against your will.

Geto:

This man does not play around either.

Coming home to you after a long day with what he calls “monkeys” just to see the untouched food still sitting on the table from when he made breakfast. He had brought take out- just to find out that you haven’t been eating in the first place.

He made that for you, took time out of his day to cook, make breakfast for you, the time where he’s normally busy. But alas, he cleans the dishes and runs up to your room and knocks on your door. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want him in he’ll come in anyway.

“I noticed you didn’t touch your plate. From this morning. It’s night now.”

Your stuffed into the sheets, messy covers over your body and head in your pillows. You don’t answer. You don’t think he deserves one.

“You haven’t eaten all week.”

He shuts the door behind him and storms towards you. It’s obvious that your silence is making him angry. Normally, you ignoring him doesn’t make him upset, he understands how you might feel…uneasy in this kind of situation. But hurting yourself? That’s not something he’ll allow or even tolerate.

He grabs the sheets and tugs them off of you, revealing your drained form. You groan and cover try to tug the sheets back to cover your body but he throws them to the floor and glared at you.

“You know why you’re so drained? It’s cause’ you won’t fucking eat.”

You don’t answer, you don’t want to answer. You just want the bed to swallow you whole, and the ground to open up so that you may fall into the abyss and disappear.

“I don’t want your fucking food.” You say, instead.

“Why not? Is it not to your liking?”

You grumble and glare up at him, finally lifting your face from the pillows.

“You’re not to my liking- Suguru I wanna go home-“ “enough!”

He cuts you off quickly, shutting you down almost immediately, which causes you to stuff your head back into the pillows.

He groans seeing this and slowly shuffled onto the bed with you. His mouth came down to your ear where he whispered

“If you don’t at least try to eat, I’ll make you.”

A shiver ran down your spine, you knew he wasn’t fibbing. You slowly got out of bed but he was quicker then you, pulling you out by your arm and sitting you up against the bed post.

He brought the takeout food and opened the bags of food on the bed, handing you a plate and utensil. You took it hesitantly and kept it on your lap. Not opening the food.

“Well?”

You shook your head. This was your way of protest, against him holding you captive, running a cult, being a damn curse user-

“You’re going to eat.” He demands, and you just shake your head and look to the side of you, away from him. You know he’ll force you- but you can’t help but refuse him anyway.

And without a second thought, he grabs the food then you, hoisting you into his lap without a single chance for you to fight back. One arm caging you in by your chest and arms, stopping any movement from you, the other bringing a spoon to your mouth.

“Eat, darling, or it’ll get worse from here.” A smile adoring his lips and licking the tips of your ear.

You finally take a bite of the food, his arm that basically were bruising your ribs to stop your movement finally unclenched around you and gave you a second to breathe.

“See? That wasn’t so hard. Now open up.”

Toji-

“Yer’ not eating your food.”

You’ve slumped down on the chair in front of him in the dining room, swirling around the water in your glass cup, the food in front of you untouched.

“I’m talking to you, doll.”

But you ignore him, watching the whirlpool or water in your cup, ignoring his very obvious angry presence.

“You haven’t eaten in days. You know what’s’ that gonna do to you? You’re gonna faint.”

You again ignore him and sigh, head resting on your hand that rested against the table.

“I’m talking to you.”

You don’t look up. You know it’s a lousy way to protest this invuluntary stay but you can’t think of anything else. He’s basically taken away any other form of protest you could ever possibly have, he’s controlling and fuck is he actually smart. His protectiveness on the kind of level where he made sure you could never fight back or hurt yourself in the process.

As your dazed, zoned out in your own thoughts, you don’t see him get out of his seat and grab you by your arm, forcing you up and off the seat and the floor.

“Didn’t yeah hear me?”

You wince at the fact your arm is being held above your head and you’re practically hanging from it.

“I heard you okay.. I’m not hungry.”

He huffs and puts you down. “Not hungry? It’s been days, doll. Days.”

You just shrug, rubbing your sore arm from being hanged up by it.

“If you don’t eat, I don’t mind feeding you like a baby bird. I’ll eat it up then force into your mouth with mine.”

“Y-you’re so crude, Toji..” You almost whine, disgusted by the thought.

“I’m not kidding.”

You sit back down at your seat, his eyes watching you pick up the fork and start to stab at your food.

“What did I say?”

“Okay okay.” You whine, finally sticking the fork in your mouth, making eye contact with him as you do, glaring at him.

“Tastes bad.” You whine.

“You little-“

Nanami-

Nanami is quite the patient man. You don’t want to get out of bed? Fine. You don’t want to shower? Fine. You don’t want to touch him? Fine. But you don’t want to eat or drink? That’s fucking pushing it.

When he first took you, he made sure you got all the proper nutrients you need, took care of your hygiene and made sure you were perfectly physically healthy.

He’s been putting down food at your nightstand for every meal, sometimes snacks in the middle of meals as well. He feeds you such a good amount that’s supposed to keep you full for every second of the day. Keep you satisfied. And pantries filled with your favorite snacks (the healthier versions, however), and a mini fridge with your favorite zero-sugar healthy drinks. With water, of course.

But you haven’t touched any.

He notices that every meal he puts down at your nightstand is untouched. You lay still in bed, so still he thinks you might be dead. Well you might be, with the absence of food eating at you.

And the pantry is untouched so is the mini fridge, and all the snacks he left for you in the middle of the days start to pile up.

At first he didn’t mind it. He got it, you might be nauseated or feel sick at the fact your away from home. That’s fine. He’ll give you time.

But then days go by.

And he just gets so worried about your health.

He encouraged you as much as he could but wouldn’t push it, he didn’t wanna scare you away. But at this point, it was just ridiculous. He watched from work, on his phone with the app that connected all his security cameras, watching as you hovered around the kitchen. He knew you were hungry. So why torture yourself?

At this point it was torturing him, not you. Well maybe that was the point to it. But he couldn’t take it anymore. He felt like a terrible caregiver. He was supposed to take care of you and protect you as your lover- that’s the damn reason he took you in, in the first place. So why couldn’t you see that? Why couldn’t he help you?

But Nanami is a good man, with zero bad intentions. So he decides first he can try bribing you. He makes your favorite dishes, the smell wafting in your room and up your nose. He places it at your nightstand, with your favorite cold drink next to it. The perfect combo. He does this for a while. No matter how hard the food is to make, whatever bullshit combination he needed to construct, however simple or complicated, he made it.

And yet you didn’t eat it.

He tried buying you material things, giving you extra little privileges like time in the garden or extra TV time, but you don’t even use them. You don’t even care.

And he can tell that you would, if you had the strength to. But you don’t, you’re weak. Probably because you’ve gotten so weak. But your hoping, your begging, that maybe he’ll see your weak body and finally get you some help. Maybe he’ll realize this is hurting not helping you, and he’ll let you go. You know the Nanami you’ve always known is deep down beneath the insecurity of his yandere self. You just need to find it right?

He got home that night. Late. His mind buzzed with work, eyes tired and body sore from constantly staying in his office chair, clicking the keyboard and staring at a screen. He’s been looking into a job for jujutsu sorcerers- but he thinks that’ll take too much time away from you.

He dragged his body into the house, closing the door behind him and quietly yelling out, “Sweetheart, I’m home.”

He hoped you’d flock to the door and he’d feel your warmth- but obviously that was just a dream to him and you never did so. Staying hidden away in the your room or wherever you were.

He decided to prepare a late dinner for the both of you, hoping some time together could encourage you to eat.

He dragged his body to your room. He just needed you, needed your warmth, your kindness, your loving presence and any kind of physical and emotional attention you could give him.

But as he opens the door to your room, he sees the breakfast he left on your. NIght stand, still left untouched.

“Sweetheart. This has gone too long. I respect all your decisions, and that you might be upset with me, but I need you to eat.”

Your wrapped up in the sheets, ignoring him, face stuffed in your white pillows.

“Honey, dear. Please, look at me.”

You can hear the desperation in his voice, the almost begging in his timid voice that almost makes you choke.

You look up at him, soft dead eyes staring up at his concerned ones.

“I made your favorite meal again. I know you don’t want to eat, but can you at least come sit at the table with me?”

You know this is his soft way of trying to convince you. And you also know that he wants you to sit at the table so he can feel like you two are an actual couple not one from hell.

You get up, which makes him sigh of relief. Thinking that you’re giving him a chance. Obviously, that’s not your idea, but you’ll let him think so.

He gently takes your hand, leading you downstairs to the dining table. You see he decorated, putting candles on the table, brought out the fancy silverware and china, the wine glasses and table cloths that matched the fabric of the silk pillows on the cushioned chairs.

“Sit, my love.” He pulls your chair for you, with a gentle smile. You can see the relief in his eyes when you sit, and he pushes you in.

You’d be flustered by such a gentlemanly move if it wasn’t for the situation you were currently in.

He sits in front of you and pops open the white wine, the insanely expansive white wine, pouring some in both of your glasses, he raised his up to yours, in which you ignored, and he clinked his glass with yours.

“Ready to try? I simply perfected the recipe-“

You place a spoonful of food in your mouth, before spitting it out right at him, shocking him and making yourself laugh for the first time in so long.

You soiled his expensive blouse, the shock of your behavior making him spill his wine, his eyes wide and looking down at his ruined blouse, then to you, then to the spilled wine, then to you.

You just giggle, smirking in victory at his dazed response and how you won’t let yourself be pushed around by him.

But what you don’t expect, is for this extremely caring gentlemanly man to slam down the cloth from on his thighs down at the table, getting up as he unloosed his tie.

“I’m done.”

And your smile drops in a way that makes you realize you won. He’ll let you go, he’s finally done with you he’s gonna let you go-

“If you want to act like a child I will simply treat you like one, until you can behave like an adult.”

Your eyebrow raises at that. What? Wait what?

He throws his tie off his neck, grabbing your hands and tying them up. You try to fight him off you but he’s strong, he didn’t even try.

He leaves, and your relieved, a little scared that he left you tied but at least the mad man is gone. But then he comes back with a toddlers seat. A fucking child booster seat.

Your eyes widen as you realize what he meant. “N-no no way! I’m not sitting in that- I won’t even fit-“

“You know I bought this.. I bought this hoping our first child could use it..” he sighs. “But I guess you can be the test drive..”

“N-no! Your crazy! Your insane! I won’t even fit in it I won’t!”

“You don’t have a choice.” He cuts you off. “I’m tired of watching my love kill themselves off just because you’re upset. You can be upset just don’t hurt yourself.”

He places the child’s booster seat next to you, at the table.

“You either eat, or fucking sit here and I’ll feed you. Well? Do you want a baby bottle too?”

Sukuna:

Catching the eye of someone so murderous and evil is just the most hell filled unfortunate thing that can happen to you.

And it did.

You found yourself being coddled and “loved” by a monster. He’s pure evil, and you’re his. There’s no denying it. You’re the chosen one.

As his maids touch up your hair, give you a manicure, clean your face of the tears and blood from biting your lips, you stare at them with desperation in your eyes.

Save me.

You think, but they won’t. They’re loyal.

Sure, Sukuna hasn’t done anything actually bad to you, but he’s locked you up, like a princess in a tower. You hope that your prince in shining armor will save you, that he’ll come running with his horse and sword, armor and shield in hand.

But he never does. And if he did, you’d never know because Sukuna probably killed him before he even got a chance to get a glimpse of your pearly eyes.

A maid brushes your hair. You think. He’s taken away all your forms of protest.

When you stopped taking care of yourself, that was fine, he ordered his maids to wash your hair and clean your body, do your skincare and paint your nails. Even go as far as to brush your damn teeth.

They’d use expensive amounts of creams and moisturizers, the kind even the bourgeoisie couldn’t afford. Perfumes from across the land and hair oils from different kingdoms.

All these things, just for you.

When you didn’t want to get out of bed, see the sun, he made sure you were made to get that vitamin D every morning, a small stroll before and after breakfast in the garden, with of course, the guards watching you.

He pampered you, without even being there. Made sure you were healthily entertained with your favorite books and games, all your devices you humans use to take up time. He even brought a festival worth of people to greet you when he took- when you came. Circuses, fire crackers, acrobats, all those to welcome you into his palace.

And you took it all with a grain of rice.

You didn’t want to be here, you didn’t mean to pique his interest. But you did. And now your stuck. You even heard the townspeople whisper of how the man who forced everyone on their knees to worship him is now worshiping you. A mere boring human.

So you decided to find your own way to protest, something he can’t force you to do or make other people do for you.

Eat.

You sat at the large dining table, him on the long other side, watching as he ate, watching him with no love or adoration in your eyes. While he would hold the stars for you. He’d bring them down for you if you asked.

“Well? Is it not to your liking?” You hear him slur from his side of the table.

“No.” You know this is dangerous. The cruel king, he could have your head.

“What’s not to your liking? I’ll have it changed.”

You shove the plate away from you. “It’s all bad, I don’t wanna eat.”

Maybe you should’ve used different words, different wording to your protest because Sukuna simply didn’t understand it was a form of protest.

“It’s that terrible? Very well. Servants, carry the chef who decided to cook my woman this rechid food and have him publicly executed.”

Your eyes widen with dismay and shock and you look at him. “What? Executed?”

“What? What did you expect, woman? Anyone who feeds my soon to be queen something not up to par, they shall be ridden with shame. With, or without their head.”

He says it with such a nonchalant attitude, as if he isn’t talking about death.

“I-I no. It’s not bad, actyally. Hah. I just meant.. I wasn’t hungry.” You try to solve this mess you accidentally dragged others into.

“Your dramatic show of disgust was simply because you aren’t… hungry?”

He looks at you almost confused, the big plates of foods surrounding him. He had a surplus of hunger, the kind of hunger only you can satisfy.

“I… I apologize.” You think about giving up on your plan, you don’t want to drag people into this, have them hurt because of you. “I just.. actually prefer your food.” You lie.

“My food?” He smirks. The maids and servants look around in fear, some even annoyance, expecting your head to fly off and blood to soil the floors after you basically asked to share food-his food, with you.

“Very well then. You may sit close and satisfy your belly with my food.”

He pats the seat close to him, different from the seat your sitting at now, far from Sukuna. Everyone stares at you with bewildered shock, that the cruel Sukuna is willingly sharing his meal with you, that he hasn’t offed you or anyone else in his vicinity for your request.

You waddle over to him, sitting next to him, and he watches you try a piece of meat, lamb, off one of his large family plates, as if asking for your approval, to see if you like it.

You hum, the food is actually prepared amazingly well, a lot better then the streets of the poor sides of town you had to buy your meat from.

He nods at you, and continues to finish his meal as well, practically clawing and savagely ripping apart the food at his hands, like some animal.

Everyone’s always been afraid of the way he eats, as if he’s ripping apart someone’s flesh and bones, but to you it’s kind of pathetic. Like a little puppy and its chew toy, slobbering over its bone. Instead of saying this however (which he’d have your head for), you go for taking a small folded table cloth napkin and wipe the blood from the flesh of his food off his cheek, cleaning off the smeared gore that he doesn’t seem to notice.

He looks down at you, huffing as a sign of appreciation at your small sign of affection, and you look back up at him with the same look.

You hate this cruel man, the man who’s killed hundreds and hurt people and hurt you. Who stole you.

But as you look up at him, the folded napkin in your hand still poking at his dirtied cheek, you can’t help but think that perhaps the cruel king and the prince in shining armor are the same person.

And that’s Sukuna for y’all 😈😈🔥 guys why did I accidentally make his fluffy what

[oliviawebsite]

disabled, unemployed, and in need of help

i know ive been asking for a lot of help but when you get left out in the cold by your employer after a bad relapse of a chronic illness, it's not so easy to get back on your feet in a swift manner. this is me simply asking for help maintaining a general fund to survive until i either find new employment or start to make some headway on applying for ssdi.

i am physically and mentally incapable of working a normal full time job but continue the endless process of appealing and getting rejected for disability because my condition spends "significant amounts of time in remission" which is all fine and good until it comes back to bite me even harder and i end up dropping the ball on responsibilities bc i can barely walk or get out of bed.

i know many of us are struggling in similar ways, i don't expect a lot but just enough to keep me floating until i can find secure income once again. im sorry that my many failures and shortcomings have led to me being an e-beggar likes this. i know you'd rather not see me doing this. i don't want to be doing it either. but i also don't want to starve or end up homeless because of a bad couple of months. no one should have to go through that. and i especially am keen to not repeat that experience ever again.

if there is anything you can do to help a seriously chronically ill trans woman with a scrambled and broken brain i would greatly appreciate it. i will return the favor whenever i have the means. we are in this together and all that. i love you, please help or share if you can. I am setting a short-term target of $600 since this seems like a reasonable nest to safely carry me to my next paycheck.

0/600

paypal link

venmo link

$claireol on the cash app

bandcamp page to buy my music (material exchange of goods and services)

[lovebugism]

📼  ; ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY | 1/2

summary: by the summer of 1987, eddie munson has mastered the art of dying and coming back to life again. but worse than that: he can't seem to stop running into the pretty lifeguard from hawkins community pool. the grumpy ol' vampire slowly learns to love sunshine in the afterlife. (23k)

pairing: vampire!eddie munson / ditzy!sunshine!reader

contents: fem!reader, strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, hurt/comfort, extreme canon divergence (most of the events of st3 and st4 still happen but starcourt is still standing, some people aren't dead, etc.) (i'm just here to have fun, honestly) cw for mentions of grief and ptsd, mentions of blood

( best listened with headphones, full fic playlist here )

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

          she lives in the place in the side of our lives

          where nothing is ever put straight . . .

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

Being a vampire sucks.

No pun intended.

Eddie Munson’s too tired for puns. He’s too tired for most things, really.

That’s what they don’t tell you about being a vampire — it’s not nearly as cool as The Lost Boys make it seem. He isn’t any stronger now than he was the night he died. He isn’t any faster, either. And if he’s capable of shape-shifting into a bat, he hasn’t tried because the thought of becoming the thing that killed him feels like more of a purgatory than what he’s been doomed to already. 

He didn’t even get a cool cape out of it, which is more of a bite than anything, honestly. 

No pun intended.

All Eddie’s got to show for his death are the patches of marred skin on his stomach to prove it. And a couple of pointy teeth — which, so far, have only tasted his own flesh because he’s bitten his lip with them more times than he can count. And, yeah, maybe he’s got a heightened sense or two, but that’s it. It’s not nearly as cool as it sounds, either. Enhanced hearing and sense of smell are just code for being constantly overstimulated.

Eddie misses being alive. He misses not knowing what blood tastes like. He misses forgetting to eat all day and accidentally having ice cream for a first meal — which he’d then scarf down like a man starved until it inevitably made him sick, so that he could then complain about how sick he felt. 

He misses the consequences of humanhood because now he’s half-corpse, half-god — a dizzying mixture for a boy who used to just be somebody’s kid.

And what does Eddie do to cope with it all? He gets his weekly mint-chip cone at Scoops Ahoy.

Steve passes the ice cream over the counter with a kinder smile than Eddie’s used to. His skin is freckled and golden against the dark navy of his uniform. So full of life. The child’s sailor outfit hasn’t stopped being funny, but Eddie scowls at him ‘cause he’s jealous. He’s never been anything but pale, even before death, but he can’t exactly catch a tan now, can he?

“You look good,” Steve Harrington observes, distant but meaningful. 

The wild-haired boy ahead of him doesn’t seem nearly as poorly as he did a day or so ago, when he looked somehow more like death than the day he actually died. He’s got his usual color back now. A telltale sign of a recent feeding.

Eddie flashes the boy a dubious, brown-eyed glance. “Are you flirting with me?” he jokes with his ringed fingers curled around the waffle cone, too monotoned to sound as playful as he means.

Steve’s face screws. “No.”

“Damn.”

“See! That’s what I’m talking about!” the brunette proclaims proudly, waving an accusatory finger in the other boy’s direction. “Eddie from yesterday wouldn’t have made that joke. Eddie from yesterday wouldn’t have said anything, actually.”

“Well, Eddie From Yesterday, hadn’t eaten in two weeks,” the boy deadpans. (He isn’t talking about food, either). “And Eddie From Yesterday was so exhausted and filled with an inhuman rage that death was funnier than making stupid jokes.”

Steve tries not to cower at his faux-seriousness. “Touché,” he nods.

Eddie hands the boy the last bill in his wallet. Steve makes out his change and, like a total idiot, dumps a dime onto his palm. The silver hits his skin like a drop of acid rain or molten lava. Eddie winces at the burn, hissing through his teeth as he jerks his singed hand back. 

“Why are you giving me dimes, man?!” he shouts over the sound of clattering coins.

“Shit!” Steve grimaces. “Sorry, dude— I forgot.”

“Oh, you forgot?” Eddie bites in a mocking tone.

“Yeah! Sorry if I can’t remember everything about—” Steve pauses his rant to peer around the shop with cautious eyes. He quietens. “—Vampires, alright? Sue me.”

Eddie watches the boy scramble to gather scattered coins –– coth hat askew on his head, scarlet tie in his way. The sight alone makes him laugh. A sharp exhale through his nose, but a laugh nonetheless. “You know what? How ‘bout just keep the change?”

“You keep the damn change,” Steve grumbles under his breath.

“Nice one.”

“Shut up.”

Eddie takes a big bite from his fresh scoop. He lets the sharp peppermint and deep chocolate concoction melt in his mouth. The strange combination was always the best distraction from the coppery tang of blood lingering on his tongue. 

Distracts because the metallic taste never quite leaves him, no matter how often he washes his mouth out. The taste of death always persists. Not in a poetic way, though. It’s more like a mouthful of old pennies.

Only problem is, he can’t really taste it now — the tart mint-chip or the pint of blood he’d choked down yesterday afternoon. The sensuous scent of hibiscus lilts along an otherwise still breeze, sudden and very overwhelming. It’s powdery and floral, rich and fruity. A fragrance sweet enough to make him ill, and it’s accompanied by the rhythmic flip-flop, flip-flop of rubber sandals.

Eddie glances mindlessly over his shoulder, then nearly breaks his neck at the force of his double-take. The candied scent, he finds, belongs undoubtedly to the pretty face behind him.

You saunter into the ice cream shop like a rolling summer cloud — with a walk that’s as soft and delicate as you look. There’s something thaumaturgical in the honeyed atmosphere that follows you in, still unceremoniously punctuated by the flip-flop, flip-flop sound of your shoes against the linoleum.

You are, unsurprisingly, as pretty as the raspberry, marshmallow, lily-of-the-valley scent radiating from your sunkissed skin. There is much of it on display now, and what little is covered is hardly left to the imagination.

Straight from a shift at Hawkins Community Pool, your mandated uniform clings perfectly to your torso — a pretty, scarlet one-piece that scoops deeply at the chest. Stamped on the center is a pool floatie and two surfboards that make a more summery skull-and-crossbones shape. ‘Lifeguard’ is written just beneath it, right over the swell of your breasts.

You wear a pleated skirt on your lower half to match. The bouncy fabric rests scandalously, and perhaps unintentionally, low on your hips. A faint sliver of your skin is showcased in a way that drives him hopelessly wild. And you’ve paired it all with a pair of too-big sunglasses on your head and a cherry sucker in your mouth. 

Effortless. A total cakewalk of perfection.

Eddie Munson and Steve Harrington have never known much about either. 

The latter is still trying to dump change into the tip jar when he goes to greet you. Your eyes link, the words get stuck in his throat, and the coins scatter to the laminate all over again. Steve tries to catch them at first before realizing how utterly uncool he must look. He makes a bigger fool of himself by just letting them fall.

“Hey. Hi. Wel—Welcome to Scoops Ahoy,” the brunette clears his throat. He props his hands along the countertop and feels a rogue penny stick to his clammy palm. “You’re not lost, are you?”

Steve forces a lopsided smile at his sorry excuse for a joke. Eddie rolls his eyes. You blink at him and pluck the cherry sucker from your mouth — which has left your lips softly swollen and tinted a rosier shade.

“This is where pretty boys in tiny sailor outfits sell ice cream, right?”

Your deadpan expression makes it difficult to gauge whether or not you’re joking. Steve’s face glows red at the sort-of compliment. He nods rapidly until the words catch up to him. “Yeah— Yeah, it— It is, actually.”

You smile at him, tightlipped and warm. It fills the windowless shop with glittering sunbeams. “Then can I have a scoop of rainbow sherbet, please?”

Steve raps his knuckles against the counter and nods again. “Yep. Coming right up.”

Eddie takes another hearty bite of his ice cream while you linger at his side — a couple of feet away but feeling much closer than that. As the minty chocolate melts slow on his tongue, all he can taste is the fruity-floral scent of you. 

It makes his head go all swimmy because he knows your blood must taste the same. Like velvet. Or an expensive red wine people spend half a fortune on. He can hear the soft wooshing of your heart, too. Soft and unhurried. Gentle like an ebbing and flowing tide.

He shouldn’t be thinking this way, he knows. He fed yesterday; he should be feeling halfway normal by now. But your scent is dizzying still, and much stronger than Eddie figures it should be. If he’d met you a day or more ago, when the need for a feeding was quite literally eating him alive, he’s not sure he would’ve been able to contain himself.

He doesn’t think he would’ve hurt you, per se — because he hasn’t actually hurt anyone yet. Not in this stage of his afterlife, anyway. But it would’ve taken all the waning strength left in him to stop himself from doing something unthinkable. And that thought alone is somehow more terrifying than death.

Neither, however, is as scary as your gaze meeting his. 

Your eyes lock, and only then does Eddie realize how long he’s been staring. His blood runs cold. Cold-er. An eon blinks as he tries to recover from his hopeless leering. (He’s just as useless as Steve The Hair Harrington, turns out).

“Hi…” he murmurs through a mouthful of mint-chip once he realizes he’s got nothing else to say. How’s a freak like him meant to talk to someone like you? A walking fairytale of ethereal chaos?

You move the cherry sucker to the pocket of your cheek with your tongue. Through it, you mumble, “Yeah. I guess I am.”

Eddie laughs before he means to. His pink lips curl into a smile, and the inside of the delicate skin scrapes the fangs threatening to poke through his gums. They fit just perfectly over his canines, typically veiled by his gums until it’s time to feed. Or until he’s faced with a pretty girl who smells like Heaven and looks just the same, apparently.

He hides his grin behind his fist and scoffs a breathy laugh.

Your face twists in a delicate look of confusion. “Why’s that funny?” you question once you’ve plucked the piece of candy from your mouth.

His smile ebbs instantly. “Oh. It’s… It’s not— It’s not funny, actually,” he stammers, chocolate eyes wide and round like a pair of buttons.

Your frown deepens. “So you don’t think I’m funny?”

“No, it’s— it’s not that I don’t think you’re funny, I just— I think that—” Eddie stumbles over himself trying to get the words out. He inhales deeply through his nose and swallows hard. “I’m a little confused, honestly…”

There’s a brief moment of silence that passes like minutes. 

There’s something distinctly wild in your unwavering stare. It possesses a sort of magnetism that makes it impossible to look away from — though Eddie desperately, desperately wishes he could. But because he can’t take his eyes off you or the fire swimming laps in your irises, he catches a flicker in your gaze. A flame. A spark.

A smile quirks at the very corner of your mouth before a brighter beam blooms there. A sunshine sort of giggle sputters past your lips. “Oh, gosh— You should see your face right now,” you manage through a fit of laughter, swatting his shoulder with your free hand (a little harder than he thinks you mean to.) “I’m just kidding! Seriously. You can laugh now. It’s okay.”

Eddie doesn’t find it all that funny anymore, but your gaze is pretty and expectant, so he forces out a faint laugh just to appease you. He gapes in confusion the second you look away.

You’re a strange thing. Pretty, yes. But still very, very strange.

When Steve passes you a rainbow scoop on a waffle cone, you fish a crumbled bill from the chest of your swimsuit. The boy takes it with a trembling hand — like touching the cash is touching you in some way — and struggles to recall basic arithmetic when he makes out your change. 

Eddie watches you savor one last taste of your diminishing sucker, lips curled around the lolly before popping audibly off of it. “Is there a trashcan—” you ask and glance around the shop.

“There’s one back here,” Steve offers mindlessly. “I can chuck it.”

Your hands brush when he takes the paper stick between careful fingers. Silky sunkissed skin sweeping against silky sunkissed skin. 

Eddie’s almost jealous. He wishes he could touch you in such an innocent, accidental way — or anyone, really. But his blood stopped circulating about a year or so ago, and he’s had a glacial disposition about him ever since. Sometimes, when he’s just freshly fed, he feels sort of warm. Sort of normal. But that only lasts about an hour or so before his skin goes wintry and grey again.

“Thanks,” you lilt with a kind grin, sandals squeaking as you step back from the counter. You arch a brow, and the sweet smile turns suddenly mischievous. “And don’t worry about the change. I’d hate for you to make a bigger mess.”

You tilt your head and take a kitten lick of your scoop, fighting back a giggle when the sailor boy gapes at you. You spin around and flip-flop, flip-flop out of the ice cream shop — back to whatever fairytale you came from.

The scent of ripe fruit and freshly-cut flowers leaves with you, along with the lavender haze Eddie had been swimming in since he saw you. Drowning in, more like.

Steve laughs at your sort-of joke until the mist passes. Only then does he seem to notice the coins still scattered across the countertop and the half-eaten sucker in his hand. His fluffy brows pinch together in a very evident confusion — like he’s just woken up from a dream.

“…What the hell was that?” he muses after a few long moments.

Eddie shrugs and takes another bite of his half-gone scoop, tasting it for the very first time now that you’re gone. “No idea,” he answers through the mouthful.

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

          once you get it, you never wanna quit (no, no)

          after you've had it, you're in an awful fix. . .

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

Eddie finds you again several minutes later. Not between the pages of a fantasy book, but on a lone bench by the bus stop. 

You finish your rainbow sherbet in silence, people-watching behind a big pair of Sharon Tate-style sunglasses. The sight of you alone makes him trip over his feet, like you’ve got your own gravitational pull that makes him stumble on thin air just to be closer to you.

“Oh—” The huff spills accidentally from his mouth when his sneakers scuff the pavement.

It garners your attention accordingly as you turn slowly towards him. You lift your sunglasses to your head again, just to squint at the vividity of the golden hour. You flash the boy an ice-cream-stained smile, tight-lipped and warmer than the setting sun — like he’s one of your old friends who deserves to be looked at so kindly. (He’s neither.)

“Hello!” you greet brightly as you lift the waffle cone to your mouth. You take another bite and add through the mouthful. “Again.”

“You’re still here?” Eddie squints, ‘cause he’s not sure what else to say.

“I’m on lunch—” you answer, slightly slurred through the melting ice cream on your tongue. A milky drop of pink and orange falls to the side of your thumb, and you lick it away mid-sentence. “—Late shift.”

Eddie hums with a slow nod, squinting one eye to block the sun. 

His pale skin buzzes, even under his leather jacket and dark thrifted tee. It isn’t because he’s hot, though. He hasn’t broken a sweat — not even swaddled in the ninety-degree evening — because he lost the ability to somewhere between getting eaten alive and rising from the dead. 

The sunlight just makes him feel a bit weaker than usual. Hungrier, too. And he hates being hungry because it makes him feel viciously ravenous. Like a total barbarian. Cruel and angry and inhuman. So he tries to stay out of the sun when he can.

He knows he should start plotting his way out now, but talking to you is like getting caught in a spider’s web. He gets all tangled in his words, netted in his want to impress you. He ends up superglued in a trap he isn’t totally sure he wants to get out of.

“Must be a slow day then, huh?” Eddie jokes dryly.

Your face twists. “Hm?” you wonder wordlessly as your tongue darts to the corner of your mouth.

“I just meant that— You’re a lifeguard and everything, right? And you— You’re dry, so… There must not have been a ton of lives to save today,” the boy explains, gesturing wildly with ringed hands. He laughs at himself and sticks the trembling limbs into his jacket pockets. “That’s… That’s what I meant.”

You don’t seem to notice his sudden floundering, or the way he can hardly make out an intelligible sentence when you’re looking directly at him. He can’t tell if you’re just kind enough to ignore it or if you’re just totally aloof. He hopes for the latter.

“It’s a lot less swimming than you’d expect, honestly,” you confess as you analyze the melting cone in your hand. You twist your wrist with your face pinched in concentration — like deciding whether to bite into the pink, green, or orange bit is that intense. “It’s just a lot of, like, blowing whistles... And walking around…”

You choose the raspberry pink side in the end, crunching as you bite into the waffle cone.

Eddie nods in response — not because he’s really heard you, but because he feels like he sort of understands you in some way now. You were sweet raspberry in the flesh. The color pink incarnate. Gold and glittering, like the sunset was fashioned in your likeness.

But then you smile up at him, with crispy wafer crumbs clinging to the raspberry-lime-orange concoction on your mouth, and the moment feels a lot less poetic than that.

“Sometimes I just wanna be like, ‘Jeez— Can’t one of you fuckers at least try to drown or something? God,” you mock in an accent that’s hardly your own, giggling at yourself halfway through. 

You flash Eddie another expectant smile. Grinning with all your teeth as you wait for him to laugh with you.

It takes him a second too long to force another chuckle — still trying to gauge how serious you are — but you don’t seem to mind. “Right. Well, uh��� Here’s hoping, right?” Eddie quips with a crooked smile, lifting his right hand to flash his crossed fingers.

You giggle louder at that. Laughing with him, and not at him, for the first time since he started making a fool of himself in front of you. 

His chest swells like he’s still got a functioning heart hiding there. It’s sparkling and warm, full of pride, almost like he’s alive again. Truly alive. He realizes, then, that he never wants to stop making you laugh.

When your giggling ceases, you hum a contented sigh and take another sloppy bite of your ice cream cone.

Eddie watches you — unblinking, like a total freak — and tries to figure out if he made you up in his head. 

You were like a fairy-tale princess come to life. An enchanted form of imagination, slightly childlike and effortlessly romantic in a way. You were the kind of girl who held butterflies on the tip of her finger, who reached out to touch the stars at night, who shared her secrets with the moon when no one else would listen.

You’re the kind of thing that only exists in dreams. You have no real sense of reality, accordingly, which Eddie thinks only proves his point.

With sunshine glittering in the strands of your hair, your eyes flit back to his. Eddie averts his gaze suddenly (and very obviously) from yours, but if you’re perturbed by his leering, you don’t show it.

Instead, you look at him the same way you’ve been looking at him this whole time — like you’ve got a world of magic secrets hidden in your eyes. Like you want him to come searching for every single one of them.

“Did you— Did you walk here, or…?” the boy trails off, eyes falling to your rubber sandals. 

He hopes you hadn’t. It’s far too hot, and the pool is quite a few blocks from here. From what little he’s learned about you, though, he figures you’re probably crazy enough not to care.

“Bus,” you answer plainly, pausing mid-bite.

Eddie blinks. “The buses stopped running a half hour ago… You know that, right?”

You freeze. Melted ice cream pools at the edges of your mouth. A very loud answer, even in its silence. 

There’s a very audible crunch-ing sound as you chew through the too-big bite. You bring your palm to your chin to catch rogue crumbs and blink up at Eddie with wide eyes. 

“…What?” you wonder pitifully in response. Though, with your mouth still full, it sounds more like a deep, muffled, and utterly pathetic, “Wah—?”

“They stop running here at six-thirty.”

You swallow, face screwed.“Why?”

Eddie shrugs. “Beats me.”

You turn away — staring far off at the parking lot but looking at nothing, really. Eddie feels like he can finally breathe now, without your eyes strangling him.

He watches you go deep in thought and wishes he could see what the inside of your mind looks like. He imagines it’s full of confetti. Wild, glittering thoughts and a handful of sparkling confetti.

“Well…” you huff after a few moments, a deep and whimsical sigh. You look down at the melting cone in your fist and try to find a silver lining in the swirls of pastel colors. “‘Least the ice cream’s good.”

“Are you gonna walk?” Eddie wonders aloud as his chest pinches with misplaced worry. He crosses his leather-clad arms over himself in a feeble attempt to soothe the ache there — to smother his palpable empathy, which makes him feel like your burden is his to carry. 

He doesn’t have to. Carry it, that is. It’s not like you’re not asking him to. But he can’t ignore the overwhelming urge to help you — this strange, elven princess who needs rescue by a lowly bard way out of his element. It’s an instinct that borders on primal.

“Do I have a choice?” you respond rhetorically. Eddie shrugs and you shrug back, unfazed. “I can walk. The sunset’s pretty… And there’s a dog park on the way there, so… That’ll be fun, I guess.”

Eddie’s dark eyes flit to the sky, where the sun’s slow descent paints the wispy clouds in vivid colors of blush and honey. He understands the simple beauty of it but rarely ever gives it a passing glance.

He spends most of his sunsets inside, hiding from the pretty golden hour behind closed curtains. He cowers under his blankets like a child (‘cause his tiny square window is west-facing, painfully so) and tries to tell himself that he’s not as hungry as he feels.

That he’s not hungry at all.

That he’s still normal.

Eddie looks back to you a moment later, features twisted with uncertainty. “I’m pretty sure the park’s gated after sunset…”

You don’t ask him how he knows that, and he’s grateful. He figures you must assume that he’s got a dog of his own, which is a lie he’s happy to stick to. 

It’s better than admitting that Jim Hopper nearly caught him dealing a couple years back and had to make a quick escape through the park — where he then had to hop a locked fence he didn’t know was there. It wouldn’t have been so embarrassing if he hadn’t rolled directly into dog shit when he fell to the ground. That’s a secret he’ll take to the grave. 

If the Chief takes mercy on him, anyway.

“Well… The sunset’s still pretty,” you conclude with another sigh, because at least that can’t be taken from you. 

Eddie watches you take another bite and makes a very pointed decision not to tell you that that’ll be gone soon, too. By the time you walk back to work, the sky will be a muddy mixture of orange and lilac and navy. Hardly a thing worth looking at.

He lets you revel in your little nothings anyway.

“I should— I should probably go. I have a… thing to get to, so…” he trails off, chuckling at his own hopelessness. His worn sneakers scuff the pavement when he steps back from you. He scratches at the small curls twisted at the nape of his neck and tries to find the words to say goodbye. “Uh— Have a good rest of your shift, I guess. Hope it’s more… eventful.”

You smile at his stammering and his poor excuse for a joke. 

“Thanks,” you nod. “Have fun with your… thing.”

Eddie nods once. His smile wavers only slightly when he turns away. His cheeks puff as he exhales a deep breath — which he hadn’t realized he’d been holding until now. 

He stops short at the edge of the sidewalk. Doesn’t even make it off the fucking curb before his guilty conscience catches up with him. It stops him like a force field and weighs heavy on his chest with a similar strength.

He turns quickly again, curls whipping around his face. “Do you… Do you want a ride?” he blurts with a squint in his deep chocolate eyes. 

The offer is hardly from the kindness of his unbeating heart. He just wants to make himself feel better, if he’s honest. He wants you to decline, actually — so then he’d be alone, and his conscience would still be clear.

Your eyes widen softly at his offer. You shift on the hard bench. It squeaks quietly under your weight. 

“Well, I— I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t wanna intrude,” you tell him, stumbling over your words for the first time in front of him.

Something about it, how shy you’ve suddenly gone, makes you feel a bit more human compared to the glittering creature Eddie made of you in his head.

The boy shrugs. “You wouldn’t be.”

“No?”

“No. It’s just… on the way…” Eddie insists, sighing to himself, because Hawkins Pool most definitely is out of his way. “So, you know… It’s no problem.”

There is a beat of fleeting silence, filled only by a whispering summer breeze and muddled conversation from distant mall-goers. Eddie’s eyes dart over your features, twisted softly with a faraway look of worry. 

The anticipation has his heart in his throat. He isn’t sure now what answer he wants to hear. Both might equally break his heart. A double-edged sword.

Your chest deflates with a dramatic sigh of relief. A lazy smile tugs at the corners of your mouth. “Okay. Good. ‘Cause I didn’t wanna be, like, too eager, you know? But that would be… super duper nice.”

“Good thing I’m a super duper nice person then, huh?” Eddie jokes with a tightlipped smile, which ebbs into a scowl the moment he turns away from you. 

He becomes a storm cloud of annoyance as he stalks across the parking lot. Less so because of you and more so because of his deep-rooted sensitivity, where everyone else’s emotions demand to be felt by him and him alone.

It’s a very strange thing, indeed: to be dead and yet still carry the crushing empathy of a person with a bleeding heart.

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

         real to real is living rarity, people stop and stare at me

          we just walk on by, we just keep on dreaming . . .

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

Eddie doesn’t look back to make sure you’re following him. He knows you are. He can tell by your lingering strawberry-vanilla scent, and your rhythmic footsteps in rubber sandals that trail just behind him. The incessant flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop quickens as you rush to keep up with his longer strides, trying hopelessly to finish your ice cream and talk at the same time.

“Adam— my manager— he’s such a hardass. Like, if I was late today, he definitely would’ve fired me,” you ramble and crunch hard into your cone. “Well… maybe not fire me… ‘Cause we’re kinda short-staffed right now— But he definitely would’ve given me a lecture! Like, dude, just because your dad owns the joint, doesn’t mean you have any actual authority over me, you know?”

You giggle loudly at yourself. Eddie just nods in response, barely listening, and not bothering to glance back at you.

You continue anyway, through a mouthful, no less. “Except, he kinda does have some authority, I guess. Since, you know, he’s the one who signs my checks and everything, but… You know what I mean.”

The boy ahead of you stops suddenly in place. Your sandals scuff the pavement to keep from running into the back of him. He turns to face you, brunette curls flouncing, and your heart skips at the proximity. He’s much too pretty for anything else.

You can smell the cologne spritzed on his neck from here. A high-pitched and very boyish cedarwood that makes him somehow more endearing. There’s something floral in it, too — perhaps from the conditioner making his hair all shiny. And the subtle powdery scent, you figure, comes from his old Back Sabbath tee. An evident hand-me-down of some sort. 

You can see more of him like this without having to ogle like a creep. His brown eyes are so dark they’re almost black, but you can see flecks of gold in them, too. His pronounced nose is dotted with pores and faint freckles you think you could count if he let you. There are a couple of spots on his jaw, too — some still red, others already scared over — that make his scowling face more youthful.

He’s got a couple of dark circles under his eyes, which you think means he doesn’t get as much sleep as he should. He’s got a pair of perpetual smile lines beside his mouth, too, which must mean he laughs a lot (even if he isn’t now). And he’s got a subtle furrow between his bushy brows ‘cause he’s totally the quiet, observant type.

You’d like to think you’re taking a closer look at him than anyone else in Hawkins ever has. Where they see a freak with crazy hair and a dangerous attitude, you see an old soul with young eyes and a wild mind.

“Is this you?” you wonder aloud, with ice cream clinging to the corners of your mouth.

Eddie lifts his hand and taps the key fob twice. The rusted tin can behind him unlocks with a hearty ca-chunk. He fakes a tight-lipped smile, “Yep.”

You rush around the hood then, hurrying for the passenger seat and struggling to finish the rest of your ice cream. Eddie eyes you expectantly as he lifts himself onto the chipped pleather of the driver’s side. His deadpan face twists with amusement as you inhale the remaining bits of your ice cream.

Your eyes go wide when you catch him staring, cheeks jutted like a chipmunk’s. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, then swipe your palms together. “Sorry— Sorry, I didn’t—” you swallow hard and try not to choke. “I didn’t wanna get ice cream all over your van.”

A laugh sputters from Eddie’s mouth, a more boyish sound than you thought he was capable of, and he hurries to cover his mouth with his fist. He can feel the sharp stinging of his fangs as they stab slowly through his gums, more prominent now that you’re so close to him — smelling as sweet as you look.

“Well, this isn’t exactly a sports car,” he scoffs. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

You swallow down the rest and hop in beside him. The faux leather of the passenger seat has grown distressed with time, sticking to your sunkissed thighs where your skirt doesn’t reach and poking you in places. The smell of his cologne stains the interior, along with a more subtle, skunkier scent.

You have to tug extra hard on the seatbelt — once, twice, and then a third time — before it gives.

Eddie sticks the key into the ignition and twists. A heavy metal guitar solo blares suddenly through the speakers, rattling the old van and making both of you lurch with a momentary panic. 

“Shit!” the boy curses as he reaches for the blasting radio. He turns down the volume with pale, lanky fingers, wide eyes flitting from the console to the pavement as he peels out of the Starcourt lot. “Shit… Sorry.”

You shrug a bare shoulder. “It’s okay. I listen to my music loud, too. I’m pretty sure I’ve blown out the headphones to at least two Walkmans by now.”

“Yeah?” Eddie hums with a lazy smile. “What kinda stuff stuff do you listen to?”

You purse your lips to the side and avert your gaze as you ponder the question. “Van Halen, definitely… Dio and Def Leppard occasionally— oh, and don’t even get me started on Ozzy Osbourne.”

Eddie feels like his heart’s in his throat. It settles there and makes it hard to breathe while his anxious hands fidget on the steering wheel.

You can’t be this pretty and like all the music he likes. It’s just not fair. It’s like the universe is trying to kill him. (Even though it kinda already did that once.)

“Are you joking?” he wonders aloud, laughing with furrowed brows. His chocolate eyes dart from you, to the winding road before him, and back again. The soft smile on your lips blossoms into a more mischievous thing, and he nods slowly to himself. “You’re… You’re joking, right?”

“I might’ve been looking at your cassettes, yeah.”

Eddie’s gaze flits downward to where he keeps his tapes stacked in a cubby beneath the console. His chest aches with a distant embarrassment. “Right…” he huffs.

“Real answer?” you offer with a twinkle in your eye, spinning in the seat to face him more. You tuck your feet beneath you and count each name on your fingers. “Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, ABBA, and Blondie. That’s my top four— Not in that order, though! I love them all equally.”

“That makes… a lot more sense.”

“Do you have any of their tapes we could listen to?”

Eddie scoffs a faint laugh until he realizes you’re being serious. His tightlipped smile ebbs as he answers, “I can’t say that I do. No.”

“That’s too bad,” you huff and slouch further in the passenger seat. You gaze out the window with a faraway look in your eyes and start rambling before you mean to.

“I’ll let you bum one of mine, if you want. You can borrow my copy of Arrival, that’s one of my favorites! My most favorites. Or Super Trouper, maybe. I love that one, too...” You deflate with a heavy sigh. “Shit. I can’t decide— Which one do you prefer?”

Eddie stammers for an answer. He feels like you’re barely speaking his language.

“Screw it. I’ll just make you a mixtape,” you decide firmly. “It’s impossible to pick just one.”

Eddie nods wordlessly to himself, unconvinced that he’ll ever actually see you again — like this, anyway. With you making a home in the passenger seat of his van, which has never known a pretty girl like you before now.

“You could always swing by the pool if you want,” you offer with a hopeful grin. “Adam lets me man the radio sometimes.”

“Does he?” Eddie hums indifferently.

“When I wear my bikini, yeah.”

His face screws at the thought of someone taking advantage of you in that way, with you perhaps too gullible to understand. “Well, Adam sounds like a dickwad,” he grumbles and shifts his grip on the steering wheel.

“A massive dickwad,” you giggle like it’s your first time ever using the phrase. “One time, I played my Billy Joel tape, and he called it pedestrian. Pedestrian! Not only is that, like, totally sacrilegious or whatever, but it’s also extremely pretentious. Just call it lame or something, you sound arrogant.”

When your rambling ceases, you can hear Eddie laughing. Really laughing. Not just that weird breathy sound he keeps making. It spills from his mouth like sunshine, though he tries to stifle it with a fist pressed to his mouth. And even though you don’t remember saying anything particularly funny, you laugh alongside him.

“Why do you cover your smile when you laugh?” 

“Why do I do what?”

“You always put your hand over your mouth when you smile,” you observe with a curious squint. “Did you know that?”

Eddie’s tongue darts over his protruding fangs, which peek in faint slivers from his pink gums now. You would only see them if you checked his mouth like a dog, but he gets self-conscious about it, anyway.

“No. I didn’t. Must be an old habit, I guess,” he stammers, lying through his teeth as he turns into the parking lot of Hawkins Community Pool. 

The crowd there has seemingly ebbed with the setting sun, which he’s grateful for. He stays on the far edges of the property still, lest he draw any unwanted attention. ‘Cause the only thing more recognizable than his wild hair is the tin can he rides around in.

His ringed hands curl around the gear stick. The van jerks softly when he puts it in park. Eddie clears his throat. “We’re, uh— We’re here.”

You get distracted easily, and he’s grateful for that, too. You drop the conversation entirely as you reach for the seatbelt. The buckle clicks when you unfasten it. “Thanks for the ride, Eddie,” you chirp with a pretty smile.

His head snaps in your direction with enough force to give him whiplash. His mouth opens and closes like a fish as he gapes at you. He struggles to find the words to say. He thinks he’d rather face a hundred demobats (again) than have this conversation.

“You…” he swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing. “You know my name?”

You shrug, oblivious to his otherwise very palpable fear. “‘Course I do.”

His heart would stop if he weren’t already dead. He thinks the force of his current shock could jolt it into beating all over again. Though, he figures he has no right to be so surprised. He is Eddie Munson, after all — the town freak who didn’t murder Chrissy Cunningham but left her to die instead. 

No one knows that she’d been long in the dying before Eddie ran like a coward. No one knows that there was nothing he could do to stop the dark wizard from killing her. No one knows that he died trying to avenge her death despite all that. And no one ever will — save for the handful of teenagers who saved Hawkins alongside him. 

Eddie knew, from the moment he rose from the dead and made it out of that godforsaken hellscape, that he would never be seen as the hero. He didn’t want to be. He just wanted to be a kid.

But here he is now. A half-dead and hated thing. A creature not worth loving.

And here you are, smiling at him like you intend to love him back to life.

“So… So you know what happened with… With the…” He talks with his hands and struggles to make the words out. He always has. He always will.

You nod before he has to. “Yeah. I think I just… I figured that wasn’t something you wanted to talk about with strangers—”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he insists.

“Then me not bringing it up was a good thing, right?”

“I mean, yeah, but—”

“Well, I’m hearing a lot of talking for someone who doesn’t want to talk about it,” you mock, not totally unkind, just a little bit strange. 

Eddie almost laughs at that. “I’m just— I’m confused.”

“About what?”

Now, he really lets himself laugh because the answer’s rather obvious. 

“Because most people are scared of me!” Eddie blurts with a cynical chuckle, gesturing wildly with his pale, ringed hands. “Everyone thinks I’m some— psycho-killing murderous freak.”

“Well, I don’t,” you insist, all pretty in your way, as you shift on the worn pleather seat beside him. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

You unlatch the glove box ahead of you and help yourself to its contents. The junk inside clatters together while you search very obviously through it, rambling mindlessly to yourself as you do so. 

“You like mint-chip ice cream cones smothered in sprinkles. And your initials are sewn onto the waistband of your jeans— like you’re gonna lose them or something. And… there’s a Blondie tape hiding in here.” You giggle to yourself and flash him the cassette.

Eddie blinks at you like an owl. “That’s not mine.”

“Secret girlfriend?” you tease with a scrunched nose.

“Secret tape,” he confesses before plucking it suddenly from your fingertips. 

There’s a whole story behind it that he’d tell you if he could. About how he couldn’t leave the house for some weeks after he came back to life and how his friends brought him things to pass the time. Robin Buckley had an elaborate assortment of board games that bordered on concerning, and Dustin Henderson had brought an entire library to his trailer. 

The rest of them put together a selection of tapes for him to listen to. He can’t be sure now if Nancy Wheeler really gave up her prized Blondie cassette or if Mike Wheeler did it without her knowing.

You struggle to bite back your laughter as you sort through the center console next. 

“See! That doesn’t exactly read psycho-killing murderous freak to me, Eds. Honestly, it kinda reads as someone who’s never hurt anyone in their whole life, who probably wants everyone else to stop hurting them—” You cut yourself off with a gasp. “Ah! Here it is.”

You dig a rogue ink pen from the depths of the console. A bright smile tugs at the edges of your lips. Eddie’s still struggling to breathe when you reach for him. “Can I have your hand?”

“Why?” he wonders with pinched brows.

“You’ll see,” you lilt mischievously and take his ringed hand in your smaller one. 

He worries, briefly, that you might comment on how cold he is for the middle of summer. But if you notice it at all, you don’t mention it as you scribble your number onto the back of his hand.

Eddie grimaces when the tip presses hard into his pale skin. “Ow…”

“See? You’re just a big baby,” you joke, giggling quietly to yourself. You click the pen with your thumb as you part from him. “There. Now you have my number.”

Eddie flashes you a dubious glance, unsure of what he ever needed your number for.

You answer his silent question like it’s obvious. “So I can give you the mixtape.”

“Right,” he hums with a slow nod.

“Well, I’m gonna go clock back in before I get a total earful from Adam,” you sigh and reach for the metal door handle. “Thanks for the ride, Eddie.”

“Don’t mention it,” he shrugs nonchalantly as you slide out of the van. The back of your pleated skirt rises softly in the process, flashing a glimpse of your ass. He swallows hard and stammers. “Just— Just, like, be safe, or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” you mock with a lighthearted chuckle.

“Well, this is a crazy world we live in, haven’t you heard?” Eddie jokes to cover up his blunder. He tilts his wild head to his shoulder as a pink smile forms crooked on his mouth. “I hear psycho-killing murderous freaks are roaming the streets these days.”

He expects you to laugh, but you grow strangely serious instead, furrowing your brows as you mumble to yourself. “Crazy World... That’s a good song, actually. I should put that on the mixtape—”

You forget to say a proper goodbye as you close the door behind you. The rusted metal hinges screech before slamming shut. You walk off towards the pool house without another word, flip-flopping the entire way to the front gate. Eddie watches you go with his features twisted in a subtle mixture of shock and awe.

Steve Harrington was right. What the hell was that?

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

         oh, how could i ever refuse?

          i feel like i win when i lose . . .

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

Three days pass before Eddie sees you again. Not that he’s counting, anyway. He debates, however, calling you on the second one — but by then, your number had long disappeared from his hand. He decided, then, to count his losses and pretend he wasn’t as boyishly heartbroken as he felt. 

Missing you was a double-edged sword. He never wanted to see you again, but he mourned for you always. He prayed he’d never run into you like before but searched for you in all the faces he met. It was agony. 

When he drops Dustin off at Scoops Ahoy after a long afternoon of campaigning, Eddie tells himself it’s not with intent to run into you there. He tells himself it wouldn’t be the worst thing, but not to get his hopes too high. That he’d only make a fool of himself. That it’d be better if he didn’t see you at all.

He’s left grieving anyway when he doesn’t immediately spot your face in the dwindling crowd of the ice cream shop.

“If it isn’t the man of the hour,” Robin lilts from where she sits at one of the tables, obviously on her break and eating from a bowl of the rainbow gummy bears they use as toppings.

“You dweebs talking about me?” Eddie scoffs as he shoves Dustin light-heartedly ahead of him. 

As soon as he crosses the threshold of the small shop, you come very suddenly into view. You sit ahead of Robin, in your usual uniform, and with your usual rainbow sherbet cone. You steal a few rogue gummy bears from her cup and dip them into your ice cream, which has started to melt with your distraction. 

He stills in place, struck with a bolt of blue. Your pretty, summer scent hits him full force, then — slaps him in the face and demands to be noticed. You flash him a small smile, and he has to remind himself to breathe.

“Not at all,” Robin answers with a knowing smirk.

Steve scoffs from where he wipes down the counter, tendons flexing in his golden arm. “Only for ten straight minutes.”

“We were talking about how I gave you my number. And how you never called,” you explain to the poleaxed boy, tilting your chin to your shoulder to peer at him from beneath your lashes. A mischievous smirk hints at the corners of your lips. “A girl could start to wonder, you know?” you tease, only partially playful.

Eddie stammers for an explanation. He feels like his heart’s in his throat, like it’s closing on him, and like he can’t really breathe.

He blinks rapidly as his head starts to swim. He zeroes in on your heartbeat, though he knows he shouldn’t. It’s a soft and rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whooshing — like that of an excitable baby deer. His hands ball into fists until his dull nails leave crescent shapes in his palms.

Dustin gapes at the sight of you. “You’re real?” the strange, curly-haired boy blurts.

“Me?” you ask with pinched brows, motioning to yourself with the ice cream cone.

“Dustin!” Eddie scolds, nudging him pointedly on the shoulder.

The boy cowers. “Sorry. It’s just… I thought you were, like, an imaginary person Eddie made up or something,” he admits, squinting his hazel eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. You flash him a dubious look until he elaborates obliviously. “‘Cause Gareth was making fun of him for not having any friends outside of Hellfire and stuff—”

“Hey,” Eddie snaps to get the rambling boy’s attention, tapping the brim of his Thinking Cap. “Shut up.”

“What’s Hellfire?” you wonder aloud.

“Book club,” Eddie lies.

You grin with furrowed brows. “You talk about me at book club?” 

“I mentioned you. Once. ‘Cause Gareth asked— And I didn’t call because the pen smudged,” Eddie answers all at once, swallowing hard when he feels bile building in his throat. He can’t get your heartbeat out of his ears. Or your scent out of his nose. It’s suffocating, all of it. “Does that clear everything up, or…?”

Steve hisses through his teeth. Robin scoffs. You blink at him with wide eyes, hardly expecting him to be so short with you. “Uh-huh,” you nod with a forced smile.

Eddie would apologize for it if he didn’t feel so sick. But now he teeters on the knife’s edge of nausea, unsure if he’s going to faint or vomit or both. So he fakes his own smile and inches towards the exit. “Great. I’m gonna— I think I’m gonna go—”

“And leave us with babysitting duty?” Steve scoffs. “How nice of you.”

Dustin frowns and flashes the makeshift sailor his middle finger.

Eddie fumbles to come up with an excuse. “I just remembered, uh— Wayne wanted me to record Cheers tonight, and I totally forgot. The ol’ geezer’ll kill me if he misses an episode, so… I gotta run.”

He ducks out without another word, grimacing at himself because he’s usually a much better liar than that. The others can surely see right through him. They know that he’s unwell — that he’s just hungry and impossibly overstimulated. 

But you don’t. You don’t know him at all, and maybe that’s exactly why you rush out of Scoops behind him.

Eddie shoves the glass exit of Starcourt Mall with trembling hands. The summer breeze rushes over him immediately, billowing through his hair and clothes. He takes his first good breath and the swimmy feeling of nausea starts to fade.

The hunger remains even still. The ravenous thoughts remain, too — of your heart between his teeth, beating on his tongue, and your blood tasting of sweet red wine.

When he starts to scare himself, his mind tells him that he’d never hurt you. That he hasn’t yet, and that he never will. But still, the thoughts are there, and they hardly ever leave.

Your fresh berry scent covers him like a shroud as he rushes to his casket (his van, really, but the symbolism fits.) You struggle to keep up with his longer strides, pleated skirt flouncing as you hurry behind him — a kicked puppy who doesn’t know when to stay back. 

“I don’t mean to annoy you, you know?” you call after him.

Eddie stills and spins sharply around to face you. You stumble back on rubber sandals to keep from running into him, trying not to cower when he towers suddenly over you.

“What?” he asks with his features swirled in confusion and distant suffering.

Your wide eyes dart over his pallid features, more sallow than you remember. You forget everything you were going to say as concern drips from your pretty features. “Do you feel okay?”

“I feel— fine,” he stammers, less than convincingly.

“Okay…” you nod, unconvinced, then repeat yourself. “I don’t mean to annoy you, by the way.”

Eddie shrugs. “What makes you think you annoy me?”

“I dunno,” you answers, sheepish in a way he hasn’t seen you before. You shift your weight on your scarlet sandals and talk wildly with your hands, looking everywhere but at him. “I kinda talked your face off a few days ago, and then I made that stupid joke about you not calling, and I just… I realized you don’t know me all that well. And that I can be kind of a lot sometimes. Or, you know, a lot of the time. But it’s not like I mean to be, you know? I don’t mean to be a burden or to—”

“You’re not a burden,” Eddie blurts.

Your breath catches as you blink at him with wild, glassy eyes. He gets the feeling no one’s ever said that to you before and tries to ignore the stinging in his chest.

“No?” you echo in a mousy voice.

“Not even a little bit,” he answers instantly.

You inhale a shaky breath that leaves through your mouth in a sigh of relief. “So you’re not upset with me?”

“No,” Eddie scoffs. “You haven’t done anything to upset me. So far, anyway.”

You nod to yourself at the reassurance. “Okay. Good. I just— I thought you ran off in such a hurry ‘cause you didn’t wanna be around me or something.”

You chuckle to yourself, feeling silly about it now. 

Eddie shifts awkwardly ahead of you ‘cause you’re not too far off.

“Do you… Do you want a ride?” he offers despite himself — despite his overwhelming feelings for you and despite the fact the buses are still running for another fifteen minutes. 

He chucks his thumb over his shoulder and flashes you a sheepish look. Because he isn’t sure of what to say now, or if he wants to leave you at all.

You duck your chin and scrunch your nose, too pretty for your own good. “If it’s not too much trouble?” you lilt.

Eddie only grins. “Who says I don’t like a little bit of trouble?”

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

         under those white street lamps,

         there is a little chance they may see . . .

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

He survives the golden hour, but just barely. Eddie hides from the setting sun underneath the covers, writhing on the thin mattress as he waits for the ravenous feeling of insatiable hunger to pass. It never does.

Instead, he feels the absence of you most ardently. He withers away as he grieves for you, like a wilting flower craving sunlight. But he’s nothing but a pale, gray, and exhausted thing now — an unloveable creature aching for a feeding. 

“Wayne…” Eddie grumbles tiredly, half muffled into his pillow. When he receives no response from his uncle, he musters the strength to shout. “Wayne!”

Footsteps trudge down the hall, bulky work shoes heavy on thin carpet. His bedroom door creaks slowly open, and his uncle stands beneath the frame of it — wearing the thick navy coveralls that has his name sewn in cursive on the chest. His weathered hands work at the buttons below the collar.

“What is it, Ed?” Wayne wonders in a gravelly drawl.

Eddie takes in a rattling breath, peeking one eye open to look at his uncle. His vision’s too swimmy for anything else. “Can you call Hopper?” he slurs like a sick child.

Wayne’s graying brows furrow in worry. He squints at his nephew across the bedroom, languishing beneath his covers and growing more waxen by the second. He’s typically only this miserable when he hasn’t fed in weeks.

“You hungry again? It’s only been a couple days.”

“I know,” the boy grumbles, squirming on the mattress like he can’t get comfortable. “I just don’t feel good...”

Wayne can see that much from here, so he doesn’t put up any more of a fight about it. He fastens the cuffs of his sleeves with wise and suddenly anxious hands. “I’ll give him a call before I head to work… You gonna be alright without me?”

Eddie nods against the pillow, curls frizzing around his head. He responds in jumbled slurs, “Mhm. ‘M alright. ‘M just… real tired…”

“I’ll call Hopper,” Wayne repeats, firmer this time, before shutting the door behind him.

Eddie spends the next half hour rotting away in the lonely trailer. 

Jim doesn’t bother to knock when he arrives, but it’s not like he needs to. He makes enough deliveries of the riboflavin kind to Forest Hills that he deserves his own key.

Besides, Eddie could smell him when he pulled into the driveway — the pint of blood he carried with him, more so. It’s a deep, rich, and powdery scent. Nowhere near as sweet as you. But then again, he doesn’t think anything could be.

“What’s the special this time, Chief?” Eddie jokes with a small huff as Hopper helps prop him against the headboard. 

The mustached man is still clad in his khaki work uniform, gold badge glinting in the lamplight. His hardened face remains in its usual deadpan frown, though his bushy brows furrow in a subtle confusion. “Do you really wanna know?”

Eddie thinks for a moment, then sighs. “No…”

Jim opens the brown paper bag sitting on the nightstand. He pulls out a plain styrofoam cup topped with a lid typically used for coffee. The thing looks innocent enough, save for a few drops of crimson staining the white of it, likely from an overfill. 

There was a time when Eddie could do it himself. Where he could puncture the blood bag Hopper delivered and pour it into one of the mugs he and Wayne have been collecting for years.

He stopped being strong enough for that a while ago, though. The sight of blood makes him queasy now, which is ironic for very obvious reasons.

The chief does most of it for him now, though Eddie thinks Hopper likes it best that way. 

“Here you go, kid,” Jim says as he passes the boy his cup of liquid scarlet. He holds the lid of it in his other hand, face screwed at the coopery smell engulfing the small bedroom. “Try not to think about it too much, alright?”

Eddie takes the cup in a trembling fist and squeezes his eyes shut so he can’t see its contents. He forces himself to down it in one go — equal parts because it’s easiest that way and because he doesn’t want to be too much of a baby in front of the chief. 

The blood tastes like a strawberry milkshake as he swallows it down, but that’s always the easiest part. It’s the after that’s so ruthless. After the overwhelming bout of starvation passes. After he’s half normal again. That’s when the blood starts to taste like blood — all metallic, like a bunch of old pennies. That’s when he feels like a monster.

Eddie groans when the cup is fully drained. He passes it back to Hopper with his eyes still shut. The man takes it with one hand and pats him on the shoulder with the other. “Good job, kid,” he mumbles, dropping the empty cup back into the bag. 

The boy relaxes against the pillows with a shuddering breath.

Jim waits until then to interrogate him. 

“What happened between now and four days ago?” he asks with his arms crossed over his chest, towering over the boy’s bedside. “This is the first time you’ve needed to feed more than once a week. Hell, it took Wayne and me almost a year to convince you to feed more than once a month.” 

Eddie shrugs lazily, lips jutted and eyes lidded. “Nothing happened.”

“I need to know, kid. So I can keep you safe.”

And so I can keep everyone else safe, too, but he doesn’t say that part.

“It’s just— This girl,” Eddie confesses, then grumbles with a sigh. “I don’t know, alright. It doesn’t even matter.”

Hopper squints. “What girl?”

“No one,” Eddie insists, then cowers under the man’s glacial stare. “Fine. Some-one. She just— makes me go all weird or whatever. I don’t know.”

Jim hums, nodding softly to himself and trying not to be too amused at the thought of Munson having a crush. He scratches at the coarse hair underneath his chin. “And is… staying away from this girl an option, or…?”

Eddie ponders the question for a moment, then exhales a chest-deflating sigh. Just like he did when questioning the origins of the blood in his cup. You were a lot of the same in that way — a thing he needed to survive but wasn’t strong enough to face.

“No… I don’t think it is…”

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

Hawkins Community Pool is strangely liminal after dark. The property itself is illuminated by only a few amber streetlamps, with most of its light coming from within — from inside the wooden pool house and beneath the sparkling cerulean water. 

Eddie parks his van on the darkened edges of the parking lot and tries to find the courage to leave it. The crowd is minimal now, having lessened significantly since he dropped you off some hours ago.

There are only a few stragglers left, most of them teenagers soaking in the last few minutes before closing. He’s grateful for that much. The fewer eyes on him, the better.

If he wasn’t being ogled at with gazes hardened with disgust or softened with pity, people weren’t looking at him at all. Their attempts to keep from staring were perhaps more blatant than they realized.

Maybe they didn’t want to be rude, or maybe they wanted to pretend he wasn’t there at all. It made Eddie hyper-aware of himself either way, which is why he often preferred to stay hidden.

He idles by the chain-link fence, swaddled in the humid summer air that smells overwhelmingly of chlorine and dewy grass. It takes several agonizing moments to catch your attention.

You dance softly in place and mouth the lyrics to a song Eddie can only make out vaguely from here, while the girl beside you stands perfectly and unenthusiastically still. 

You freeze when you catch Eddie’s gaze. Confused at first, then surprised. It takes a matter of seconds for both emotions to mix together and leave you a bumbling ball of excitement. 

The boy raises a ringed hand in a curt wave, which you reciprocate with a much more enthusiastic one. You turn to your co-worker and mouth something Eddie can’t hear before rushing to the parking lot to meet him. The flip-flopping of your rubber sandals grows as you make your way to him, along with the rustling of the windbreaker you wear over your bikini.

It’s a modest scarlet two-piece, with a high waist and a halter neckline — but much more of your skin is on display than Eddie’s used to. (If there was any time he needed to be grateful for a recent feeding, it was now.)

“Hi…” you greet, panting heavily as you stand before him.

“Hiya,” Eddie grins cheekily.

“I… I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I didn’t either, honestly.”

“Did you, uh— Did you and Wayne get to watch Cheers?”

It takes Eddie a moment or more to recall his earlier lie. He nods rapidly in response, perhaps too quickly to be truthful, but you don’t seem to notice. “Uh, no. Not yet. He’ll watch it when he gets back from the graveyard shift.”

“Okay. Cool,” you beam, eyes sparkling as they dart over his features — which have seemed to gain a bit of their life back. He’s still pale, but his eyes are less sunken in than they were. The dark chocolate of his irises swim with a melted honey color. “You look a lot better, by the way. Than you did when I left, I mean. I was scared you were getting sick.”

“Nah, I just… Needed a breather, I guess,” Eddie admits with a breathy chuckle. “I was with Hellfire all day, and… Babysitting’s a tough gig, turns out.”

You laugh alongside him, noticeably less forced. “No, I get it. I basically spend all day babysitting, so…”

“Right. I shouldn’t be complaining.” Eddie scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck and grimaces when his rings get caught in his hair. It takes a very noticeable moment for him to gain the courage to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. “Can, uh— Can I see your hand real quick?”

Your brows pinch. “Why?”

“You’ll see,” he lilts with the same mischievous smile you used on him some days ago now.

He holds a ringed hand expectantly out for you. Your gaze glimmers with intrigue as you put your fingers in his paler, colder ones. You watch him dig in his jacket pockets for a moment before pulling out the same ink pen you’d rescued from the depths of junk in his center console. He clicks it with his thumb, and you jerk your hand out of his.

“Wait!” you blurt. 

Eddie flinches, feeling like he’s done something wrong, like he must’ve hurt you in some way. 

Your features screw in a pinched look of concentration as you stick your hands in the pockets of your windbreaker. “I’m pretty sure I have a marker in here somewhere— Ah! Here it is!” You’re smiling all over again when you pass him the black Sharpie. “So it won’t wash off before I get to call you.”

“Right,” Eddie hums with a slow nod, taking the marker from you. He bites back a smile when he catches you shoving a pack of sparkly stickers back into your pockets. “What are those?”

“Stickers,” you answer, then grimace when you realize that much was obvious. You rush to elaborate. “For the younger kids that have older siblings. They usually get dragged here, and nine times outta ten, they haven’t learned how to swim yet, so… I try to make ‘em feel better with sparkly things.”

The grin Eddie tries to hide blooms very suddenly across the expanse of his pink lips. His chest swirls with a warmer feeling because you’re sort of his sparkly thing, in a way. A bright and glittering thing that makes him feel whole without trying.

You offer him your hand again, shier now. He wraps it in his larger one with fingertips that border on glacial. You fight back a shiver while Eddie uncaps the marker with his teeth. He mumbles through it while he scribbles his number on your wrist.

“Don’t let this scrub off before you get to call me like other idiots do, alright?” he jokes, flashing you a sparkling stare beneath his lashes.

“I’ll call you the second I get home,” you promise with a firm nod. “I’ll write it down, too, so I won’t forget.”

Eddie caps the marker with a lopsided grin sitting lazily on his mouth. “And it’s only for emergencies, alright? Like, if you need a ride or… A spare Blondie cassette that I may or may not have in my glove box.”

You nod again, this time with a giddy and very poorly hidden smile. “Emergenicies,” you parrot, so he knows you really heard him.

(You call him the second you’re back from your shift, though Eddie expected nothing less from you. The emergency in question? You missed him too much.)

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

          this is stranger than i thought,

          six different ways inside my heart  . . .

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

You decide to visit him that weekend, unannounced and unexpected — which is basically how you entered his life in the first place.

You’re a smiling thing on his doorstep. A rival to the early morning sun beaming in rays behind you. Eddie squints one eye and grimaces at the brightness of each.

“Morning!” you chirp like a songbird.

“What are you doing here? How’d you even find me?” Eddie grumbles tiredly, rubbing his sleep-swollen eye with his fist. He wears his slumber all over — in the wild curls, and in the wrinkled shirt that used to be Wayne’s, and in the baggy plaid pants sitting low on his waist. 

The complete and utter opposite of you: an angel kissed with the summer season.

The sun sparkles in your hair. The warm breeze billows in your clothes. The scent of something sweet clings to your skin — of fresh cherries, vanilla cake, and swathes of dewy grass. Each is tantamount to your bone-crushing beauty, which borders on whimsical and intimidating now.

It’s weird seeing you out of your uniform. A strange, but welcomed sight. You’ve traded the mandated bathing suit for a flouncier dress. The thin cotton fabric clings to your torso and drapes over your thighs like summer rain. It’s a scarlet number, gingham-patterned, with two white bows for sleeves. 

Eddie’s tired eyes rake over your pretty form despite himself. He gapes when he finds the raging scrapes you wear on both knees, a bright crimson color to match your strawberry aura. “Jesus Chr— Are you okay?!”

You follow his gaze, bending softly at the waist to peer down at your legs. You press the skirt of your dress down with your palms, and your chest pinches at the sight of your raw knees.

Your eyes flit from the fresh scratches to the concerned boy ahead of you. “Which question do you want me to answer first?” you wonder with wide, sheepish eyes.

Eddie repeats, firmer now, “Are you okay?”

“I’m totally fine,” you shrug with a beaming smile before rambling an explanation, talking absentmindedly with your hands. “I decided to buy a bike after I got my paycheck, but I don’t really know how to ride it yet, so I’m trying to teach myself, and I… kinda accidentally swerved into a ditch on the way here.”

Eddie’s chest flares with a primal feeling. He can’t stand the thought of you hurt — can’t stand the thought of you hurt and him not being there to help you. “Okay…” he wavers with his face still screwed.

“I wasn’t stalking you, by the way! Scout’s honor!” you blurt, holding up four fingers instead of three. “I just knew you lived at Forest Hill’s, and, I mean, the van is a dead giveaway, Eds.”

“Fair enough,” he huffs.

“Besides, I really wanted to bring you something, and I couldn’t wait until I saw you at Scoops because the anticipation was driving me crazy—” You lose yourself in thought and slide past him in the doorway without thinking. 

Eddie just blinks and shuts the door behind you. “And… What is it… Exactly?” he wonders cautiously, only partially fearful of the answer.

It takes you a moment too long to answer him, as you get lost in the sights around you. The trailer was bigger than it appeared on the outside, not messy by any means, but very lived in. 

There’s a folded cot in the corner beside the recliner and a small square TV across from it playing morning cartoons. Vintage baseball caps line one wall, and a collection of mugs line the other. Everything feels like a self-portrait of the Munson family.

“The mixtape I promised,” you answer finally, spinning around to face him again. You pull a plastic cassette from the pocket of your dress and gesture with it in a nervous hand. “I was starin’ at this thing all night, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you— about giving it to you, I mean.” You correct yourself with a nervous laugh and rush to move on. “I’ve always been super bad with gifts— I can’t keep ‘em a secret to save my life. I’m good for, maybe, five seconds, and then I’m just like, gosh, I can’t wait anymore, you know?”

You realize you’re rambling and trail slowly off. You swallow hard, muster a wavering smile, and motion for Eddie to take the cassette. You watch as he studies it with a careful hand — pale and lanky and devoid of his silver rings.

“You made this for me?” he mumbles after a few moments.

“Well, I told you I would.”

“Yeah, but… You made this? For me?” he repeats, with a different inflection. ‘Cause he doesn’t know who else to put it. Doesn’t know how to tell you he doesn’t feel half deserving of anything you could give him.

You giggle in response. “You said you didn’t own anything ABBA. Or Madonna. Or Cyndi Lauper— so obviously, I had to make you an entire compilation of their discography. I’m not an asshole,” you laugh. “And I put a few of my favorite songs on there, too…. And songs that made me think of you and stuff…”

Eddie smiles before he means to. It’s a strange thing, he finds, to be thought of in such an innocent way — to be looked for in the places where he couldn’t physically be. He ducks his chin and peers at you with glimmering eyes. “Yeah? Like what?” he humors.

You don’t miss a beat. “He’s so shy!”

Eddie flinches at your singing — the volume of it, more so. Your voice rings across the quiet trailer, and a laugh sputters past his lips.  “Yeah. Alright.”

“That sweet little boy who caught my eye!” you continue and reach out for him, digging your fingers into the junction of his neck and shoulder. His skin is milky white, smooth, cold to the touch.

“Okay!” he chuckles and swats you away with a playful hand. “I get it!”

“It’s the Pointer Sisters,” you grin.

“I’ll take your word for it.” 

His chocolate eyes dart back and forth between both of yours, momentarily lost in the way you’re looking at him — with your eyes all squishy around the edges. He’s not used to being looked at so softly. Or being noticed at all. 

He swallows hard and averts his gaze. Your scrapped knees enter his vision again, weeping a bright scarlet that threatens to drip down your shins. He ignores any instinct of hunger. 

“You’re bleeding pretty bad, by the way.”

You only feel the ache when you’re reminded of it. Your stomach gets all swirly at the sight of your bruised knees, rubbed raw and stained with the grass that partially cushioned your fall.

“Gosh…” you mumble to yourself, clutching the skirt of your dress in your fists. You flash Eddie a sheepish look and a wavering smile. “Any chance I could bum a bandaid?” 

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

The bathroom is a tight fight, but you make it work.

You sit on the counter, per Eddie’s instruction, while he retrieves the first aid kit collecting dust in the medicine cabinet.  He sits on the edge of the bathtub across from you, way out of his element (in more ways than one), as he cleans your cuts with trembling hands.

His throat is tight with nausea. His head swims with it, too. White stars speckle his vision that he tries hard to blink away. The sight of your blood, diluted and pink on the white tissue, makes him weak.

He isn’t sure if it’s instinct or desire that makes him want to swallow you whole, but the primal urge to consume you is there — in the figurative sense, of course; to bury his teeth in your neck and have a piece of you forever. 

Being between your legs in such close confines is ample enough distraction, though.

You push the skirt of your pretty gingham dress up the expanse of your thighs to give him space to work. You sit with them slightly spread, too — enough to reveal a sliver of your underwear, he thinks. Eddie isn’t sure if it’s intentional or not, so he fights the boyish urge to catch a glimpse of the most private part of you.

“Jesus…” he huffs and chucks the napkin into the bin. With the blood and the grass stains now wiped away, he can see the scratches more clearly. Your delicate skin is abraded and raging with it. Like you fell and kept on falling. “Did you get mauled by a bear or something?”

“In the knees?” you quip.

“Looks like it.”

“I just wanted to match my dress,” you shrug. “That’s all.”

Eddie opens an alcohol swab with his teeth, then meets your pretty smile with a scowl. “You’re hurt. It’s not funny,” he deadpans after spitting the package from between his teeth.

“It is a little bit, though,” you argue just to argue, scrunching the bridge of your nose. He presses the damp wipe to your knee, and you flinch at the sudden stinging feeling. “Ow!”

He smiles at your pouting. “Maybe a little,” he concurs.

“That was mean!”

“You told me to distract you, so I distracted you. Sue me,” the boy shrugs, feigning innocence, as he reaches to toss the swab in the trashcan beside the counter. 

The sight of wadded tissue, all stained with your ruby-colored blood, makes his breath catch in his throat. The ground starts to sway beneath his feet. His eyes go lidded and heavy. His mouth waters with need.

Eddie shakes his wild head in a feeble attempt to remove the ravenous thoughts from his brain, but all it does is make him dizzier.

He blinks wildly as he reaches for a bandaid in the opened container beside him. It slips from his clammy, tremoring hands. He fumbles to grab it again and slaps it to the counter beside you.

“You okay?” he hears you ask, sitting right in front of him but sounding much further than that.

He sits up again and clears his throat, gaze dim and glassy. “Yeah. Yeah, just— Just give me a second…” He breathes hard through his mouth. Eyes squeezed shut. Knuckles going white around the edges of the ceramic tub. 

You watch with a wide, inquisitive stare as you smooth the bandages over your knees yourself. Your concerned gaze flits from the pallid boy ahead of you, to the plasters on your skin, and back to him again. 

“If blood makes you queasy, you coulda just said,” you joke, trying to make him smile, ‘cause you hate seeing him so ill. “You didn’t have to torture yourself just to help me.”

“Blood doesn’t make me queasy,” Eddie tells you, though he’s still slurring his words.

“Then why do you look like you’re about to hurl?” 

His glazed-over eyes are slow to open. “That’s just my face,” he deadpans.

“No. You have a pretty face, Eddie,” you insist as your giggling swells like sunshine in the tiny bathroom. “It’s just all scrunched together, like you’re gonna be sick or something— like this.”

You swirl your features in a manufactured look of drama and pain. Brows furrowed, nose scrunched, mouth snarled. Eddie chuckles before he can help it. The sick feeling still lingers, though not as obvious now. 

“You are bizarre. Did you know that?”

“I did, actually,” you giggle. 

Your entwining laughter fills the bathroom’s close quarters. The glittering noise echoes through the small trailer and finds Wayne at the doorstep. He toes off his work boots and pauses at the sound of giggling — one familiar and lower in pitch, the other foreign and sparkling. 

His socked feet pad down the length of the carpeted ground until he finds the door between Eddie’s bedroom and the kitchen’s edge, already ajar. It creaks loudly under the man’s calloused palm when he pushes it slowly open.

His tired eyes widen at the sight before him — a pretty girl on the sink with a pair of scrapped knees, and Eddie sitting on the tub ahead of her with bloodied tissue in the bin beside him.

Wayne’s heart falls to ass like a steep drop on a rollercoaster.

You smile brightly at the strange man. “Hello!” you greet with an enthusiastic wave.

He blinks slowly at you for a moment, then nods politely. “Hi there,” Wayne says in a deep and gritty drawl before turning to his nephew. “What’s goin’ on here?”

“Nothing,” Eddie blurts, all wide-eyed and fidgeting. He struggles to be casual as he swipes his clammy hands over his thighs. “We were just, you know, hanging out…”

“Everythin’ alright?”

Eddie nods quickly, then stops when it makes him queasy. “Yeah,” he answers, clearing his throat. “Yeah, she just— fell on her bike on the way over, and—”

He flinches when you gasp. 

“Wait! You’re Wayne!” you shout with a sudden recollection.

The man tries not to recoil at the volume of your voice — much too loud for so early in the day, like a chirping bird outside his window. He forces a tightlipped smile and nods again. “I am,” he tells you.

You smile so wide your eyes squint at the edges. “You have Eddie’s nose!”

Wayne laughs, a single scoffed breath. “What can I say? Big noses run in the family.”

“Well, I happen to like ‘em that way,” you insist with a casual shrug, kicking your feet back and forth from where you’re perched on the counter. Your heels meet the cabinet in several rhythmic thunk, thunk, thunks.

When you look down at your bandaged knees, Wayne and Eddie share a look without you.

The older man raises his greying brows. This girl is bizarre, Eddie can hear him saying. 

He nods wordlessly at his uncle’s silent observation, as though to say: I know she is, and I happen to like her that way.

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

          i guess you’re just what i needed,

          i needed someone to bleed  . . .

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

The plastic case of the cassette you made him clatters on the dashboard of his van, filling a silence that would otherwise be occupied by you. 

Eddie’s passenger seat, cracked and worn with age, feels strikingly empty without you in it. Which is strange, ‘cause your presence used to frighten him once. It does, still, he thinks — but now he mourns the haunt like an old, empty house. 

He drives his rattling tin can across town to Hawkins Community Pool, with a cup of rainbow sherbet rattling in the holder at his side, like an offering for a ghost he no longer wants to exorcise from the home behind his ribcage.

“It’s gonna melt before you get it to her,” Robin remarked with a smirk as she scooped ice cream with an expert hand. “You know that, right?”

Eddie bowed his head and tried to hide behind his curls. “Not if I run real fast,” he joked sheepishly.

The pastel sherbet softens quickly in the summer heat. (Not even the van’s middling A.C., pointed right in its direction, could keep it sufficiently cool.) The muted hues of pink, green, and orange begin to swirl together as the milky concoction undulates in his ringed fist. He hopes you don’t mind and prays you see past his feeble attempt to be kind.

“Well, well, well…” Billy Hargrove lilts with a pretty pink smirk at the sight of Eddie Munson’s familiar face. He lifts his sunglasses to the top of his mulleted curls and rests his magazine on his lap. “The dead has risen…”

The poor boy sticks out without trying, despite his desperate attempts to stay hidden — all but swimming in his leather jacket, baggy jeans, and wild hair. He’s a pale, death-touched thing floating in a sea of golden life. 

But, unlike the contemptuous leers from the other patrons, (some who are still certain Eddie killed Chrissy, and others who have always seemed to look at him that way), Billy Hargrove only smiles. A fake, sardonic grin that shows none of his teeth and shines mostly in his eyes. 

His squinted ocean gaze glimmers like he knows all of Eddie’s secrets — which is only half-true. Billy knows what the end of the world did to him, because it almost killed him too, once upon a time.

So, no. He doesn’t know all of Eddie’s secrets. 

Just the biggest one, maybe. 

Despite being largely immune to the summer heat, Eddie still feels the burn of embarrassment stinging his chest. Clawing behind his ribcage like a thousand ravaging demobats. The hot-cold aching of wishing he were dead ebbs when you turn to look at him over your shoulder — when your wide eyes of sparkling hope lock with his darker, dead-er ones.

There’s an undeniable spark of delight in your irises, though Eddie doesn’t know what for. No one’s been this happy to see him in a year. No one’s been this happy to see him ever.

Something about it makes his stomach hurt. Or maybe it’s just the way you and Hargrove are sitting behind the front counter together, like a couple of old friends, with glowing sunkissed skin hugged tight in scarlet bathing suits. 

In that split second, Eddie feels like he’s in high school again — a loser, not yet dead, pining for the pretty girl way out of his league and praying the basketball jock doesn’t shove him into the bleachers.

If you notice the momentary fear in his eyes, you don’t show it.

And if you care that he’s a loser, you don’t show that, either.

“Eddie! Hi!” you greet, giggling as you push yourself off the countertop. Your pleated skirt swishes around your thighs as you rush to him. Your matching sandals pad rhythmically along the stone floor. The flip-flop, flip-fop sound echoes through the shaded breezeway.

Eddie doesn’t know how wide he’s smiling when you’re finally standing ahead of him, but he can feel it burning in the apples of his cheeks.

“You haven’t been around for lunch,” he says in place of a greeting, fidgeting with the cup of melting ice cream in his fist. “I was scared that you keeled over or somethin’.”

“You were worried about me?” you wonder aloud, voice a few octaves higher than he’s used to. You purse your smile to the side of your mouth and scrunch your nose. “Aww…” you croon and dig two fingers into the junction of his neck.

Your touch is soft and warm and less than gentle.

Eddie cringes, effectively set aflame by the electricity of you. He shrinks back with a wavering smile and finds himself grateful that he’s too dead to blush these days — or else you’d see how hopeless he is. 

You ramble an explanation while his skin buzzes.

“I’m a little slow on my bike, turns out, and I couldn’t make it back here in time,” you tell him, which rests his anxieties a little.

Eddie’s been worried about you ever since he patched you up in his bathroom. Everyone’s been worried about you, in truth, ‘cause it’s a well-known fact that you’re a total klutz.

“And after being late for the third time, Adam got kinda mad at me…” you continue, shifting on your feet. “He got really mad at me, actually. I wore his favorite bikini, and he still threatened to fire me. I was, like, oh shit, I’m actually in trouble—”

You giggle to yourself, but Eddie feels like there’s a knife between his ribcage. A sharp, burning, and pulsing urge to get you away from all of these assholes. To get you out of this town. God knows it doesn’t deserve you.

He swallows hard and tries to joke. “Must’ve been real bad then, huh?”

You exhale a dramatic sigh. “Yeah, so… I’m kinda trying to get back on his good side and everything. It’s easier to just stay here. I would’ve called, but I— I didn’t think you cared that much.”

“I care!” Eddie scoffs, pale face swirled with offense.

“You’re the one that said emergencies only!” you mock through another pretty giggle.

“Abandoning me for a week is an emergency.”

You light up like a goddamn Christmas tree at that. 

“See! I knew you were worried about me!”

Eddie scoffs again and looks away. He focuses on the crowd bustling outside the breezeway because it’s easier than meeting your eyes. Until one of them catches his gaze and flashes him a leery look, anyway. Then he feels like he might puke. 

“Not at all,” he answers in a playful deadpan, clearing his throat when his voice shakes. “That’s definitely not why I decided to bring you a… half-melted cup of rainbow sherbet.”

His chocolate eyes avert to the plastic container in his fist, swirling the milky pastels again for good measure. When he looks at you again, it’s through his lashes and with his head bowed sheepishly.

You smile with your lips curled under your teeth — obviously giddy and trying hopelessly to hide it.

“I thought it was for me, but I didn’t wanna assume,” you admit quietly, cheek squished into your shoulder.

“It’s basically a milkshake now,” Eddie mumbles and extends his arm. His voice shakes as much as his hand does. “Sorry…”

You beam at the pinched look of worry on his face. “I like milkshakes, too, silly,” you giggle and take the cup of melted ice cream from him. 

Your fingers are gentle and strikingly warm as they brush his colder, paler ones. Warm like dragonfire, or an old house bathed in candlelight, or a freshly sharpened blade through the heart.

Eddie bleeds out on the pebbled concrete as you turn away. 

You rush back to the counter you leapt from, balancing the container in one palm as you bend over the top of it. A satiny summer breeze rolls through the shaded shack and billows through the pleats of your skirt, lifting the thin fabric to reveal the thong of your one-piece — a sliver of soft scarlet running between your thighs.

Eddie’s undead heart lurches into his throat. He turns his gaze to the ceiling until the wind passes.

Billy looks up from his magazine to smile at you with his teeth. “This your boyfriend, sweet thing?” he asks as you pluck your straw from the styrofoam cup you were just drinking from.

The nickname floats on the humid air and strangles Eddie accordingly. Your mouth curls around the end of the bendy straw before you give him a proper answer. You blow hard to dispel the remnants of room-temperature water before sticking the plastic into the milky concoction in your fist.

“Yes,” you answer plainly, then take a long sip of the softened ice cream. You shrug with the raspberry-orange taste on your tongue. “He’s a boy. And he’s my friend,” you lilt. “Jealous?”

Billy laughs. Loud. 

“Of Munson?” 

You nod quietly, straw caged between your teeth.

He laughs louder and slouches in his swivel chair. The golden muscles of his toned chest flex as he flashes you a quieter smile — one that might say he knows a lot more than you do if you cared enough to read the signals.

“I can’t say that I am, no,” Billy hums, faux sympathetically.

“Well, maybe if you were a little nicer, he’d be bringing you food, too,” you tell him, very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, as you spin on the heel of your rubber flip-flop and saunter away. 

Eddie grimaces when you’re ahead of him again. “Please tell me this isn’t the only thing you’ve had today.”

Your face screws as you take another sip. “No,” you answer with a firm shake of your head, though the word comes out garbled from the fruity concoction in your mouth. You swallow it down and confess, “I had half a Poptart for breakfast, so…”

“That’s… not breakfast,” the boy monotones, then motions his wild head to the cup cradled in your right hand. “And this isn’t lunch.”

“Well, I told you I don’t have time to get lunch,” you argue like a child, soft and sheepish, head bowed to avoid his unwavering stare. You stab at the softened ice cream with the plastic straw, leaving holes in the pastel swirls, as you mutter to yourself, “And I can’t make it for myself, either. I’m not adult enough for that yet.”

Eddie feels it again. The sting of empathy in his chest. The primitive need to help you that makes it hard to breathe most days.

He shrugs his leather-clad shoulders and crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his trembling hands under his armpits.

“Well— Maybe— Maybe I can, you know, bring you something?” Eddie offers, stumbling over himself the entire way through. He shifts on his feet and swallows through the frog in his throat. “Like, when I have the time, or whatever.”

He doesn’t tell you that he always has the time. (‘Cause he only works nights at The Hideout now, and spends the rest of the day’s many hours rotting in bed.)

Your face pinches into a girlish pout. Something soft, but sterner than he thinks he’s ever seen you before. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering,” Eddie argues. “And I’m not doing it outta the kindness of my own heart, either— It’d just make me feel better to know you’re not totally withering away whenever I’m not here.”

You try hard to keep your scowl. But then your chest starts to glitter like a thousand sparklers in July, and you’re beaming before you can stop it. Eddie watches the pretty smile curl slowly on your lips despite your futile attempt to hide it.

“What’s that look for?” he cautions.

“Nothin’,” you shrug, smiling with the straw between your teeth. “I just like you.”

Eddie forgets to breathe and dies all over again, right at your feet.

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

         only boys who save their pennies

         make my rainy day!

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

Most Tuesdays, some Wednesdays, and every Friday — (the mornings after his late night shifts at The Hideout) — Eddie Munson buys you lunch. 

He stands at the counter of Benny’s Burgers and pays with the rogue quarters and crumpled bills he finds in random pockets of his jacket. The bearded man looks on in slow-blinking bemusement while the boy counts out the $4.89 your sandwich costs.

Benny ends up throwing in free fries for the effort.

It takes Eddie an embarrassing amount of time to realize you were sneaking money into his pockets every time he visited you, even though he told you not to pay him back. Even though you swore you wouldn’t. (He’ll never believe another one of your stupid Scout’s Honor promises again).

Saturday comes, and Eddie’s cleaned out ’til his next shift on Monday. 

He thinks he’s handling it pretty well — the very palpable lack of you — but the contrary is written all over his face.

He’s sprawled out on the sunken-in couch in the living room with the headphones of his Walkman around his neck. Madonna plays muffledly (and far too happily) as he stares up at the ceiling, trying to make constellations of your face from the cracks and water stains.

Dustin watches his best friend grieve from the other side of the coffee table and sighs. “It’s the sandwiches, right? You guys hate the sandwiches?” he wonders aloud, but to no one in particular. “God, I knew I put too much jelly in them—”

“The sandwiches are amazing, Dusty-Bun,” Robin insists from Wayne’s recliner, with a mouthful of PB&J jutting out her freckled cheek. Her chipping maroon nails are stained with crumbs as they flash an ‘ok’ symbol in his direction.

With grape jelly on the corner of his mouth, Steve mumbles from the floor in front of her, “Doesn’t explain why Eddie’s still sulking over there, though.”

“Exactly!” Dustin huffs, flailing his arms.

Eddie rolls his eyes. He exhales a heavy breath that makes his chest deflate, then turns to face the eyes staring back at him. “I’m not sulking,” he grumbles like a rain cloud.

“Yeah. It’s the pouting that’s so convincing,” Max scoffs from Dustin’s other side, blinking at him from behind her glasses as she fakes a tight-lipped grin. 

Eddie just squints at her. She’s not nearly as menacing as she used to be. Not when her ocean eyes are bugged out from such thick lenses, anyway. Now he finds her sort of adorable, in a subtly intimidating way — like a kitten holding a pocketknife.

“I’m not pouting, either,” the wild-haired boy retorts, features scrunched in a soft pout.

Lucas wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “He just misses Barbie,” the boy croons playfully.

Eddie blinks at him with a flat face. “Barbie?” he echoes.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, voice high. “Barbie.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is, or…?”

“Oh, you know who she is,” Lucas nods with a boyish chuckle. “Very well.”

He keeps on laughing about it until Max elbows him hard in the shoulder. Steve misses the silent cue as he tears off a piece of bread crust, snickering to himself at the inside joke.

He pops it into his mouth and meets Eddie’s gaze, emotionless and expectant. His eyes widen as he stammers for a response.

“The girl— Your girl— She was at Jazzercise the other day,” Steve explains, then swallows hard. “She was with that pretty lifeguard, too. What’s her name again?”

He looks instinctively up at Robin for an answer. Eddie beats her to the punch. 

“Billy Hargrove?” he monotones.

“Ha-ha.”

“Heather Holloway,” Robin tells him.

“Heather!” Steve exclaims, snapping his fingers. “I’m pretty sure I dated her freshman year, actually… Or was that Heather Hart?”

The boy loses focus quickly as he goes deep in thought. Fluffy brows pinched, honey eyes squinted. A heavy silence lulls over the crowded living room, and Madonna’s muffled voice grows louder. ‘Cause we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl!—

Before Eddie has time to be embarrassed, Steve shrugs at himself. 

“Doesn’t matter. Anyway. She was at Jazzercise with Heather just, like, dripping in pink. Pink leg warmers, pink leotard, pink tights…” Steve trails off again, stare glazing over like he's imagining you all over again. “It was crazy…”

Eddie’s face swirls in disgust. Not at the thought of you, of course, but at the notion that your beauty is perceptible to others. That he isn’t the only one who can see you, admire you. He is not the only one you’ve threatened to kill with your piercing stare, and the thought alone makes his stomach twist.

“You’re such a boy,” Eddie scoffs.

Robin leans forward, freckled face solemn and serious. She rests her elbows on her denim-clad knees and slowly shakes her head. “No… It was crazy,” she echoes more earnestly.

It sounds different coming from her. It means something different coming from her, too. Eddie’s brows raise and disappear beneath his curly bangs. “Oh, yeah?” he hums with bated breath.

“Yeah,” Robin answers with a disbelieving sigh.

“Hence, the nickname,” Lucas nods, seemingly missing the meaning ‘cause the only other girl he’s cared to notice besides Pheobe Cates is the redhead sitting beside him.

The girl with magnifying glasses over her eyes and legs that don’t work as well as they used to. Despite the circumstances (involving dark wizards and a certain death), Max hasn’t changed at all. And neither has the way Lucas’ teenage boy heart beats for her.

Eddie scoffs a tired laugh. He turns back to the ceiling and throws an elbow over his eyes. “I’m gonna tell her you guys call her that behind her back, by the way.”

“It’s a compliment!” Dustin defends, a few octaves higher than normal.

“Or you could tell her to her face,” Max offers with an absentminded shrug, folding her napkin into a weird shape in her lap — only ‘cause she’s fidgeting, of course, not because Dr. Owens said it would help ease the stiffness in her fingers. (Being dead might’ve taught her some things, but listening to figures of authority is not one of them.)

“She’s working today. Billy said so.”

Eddie peeks at her, flat-faced. “Did he?”

“Yeah. Means you can go visit your girlfriend instead of bitching and moaning about how much you miss her all weekend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend, Mayfield.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“No. That is entirely the point,” Eddie argues, laughing more sincerely now. “Other than the fact that the sun will literally kill me.”

Max’s light eyes narrow into thin slits behind her clunky glasses. She says the hard thing out loud, without blinking. that the rest of them are already thinking, anyway.

“You’re already dead, Munson.”

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

          hey, you, with the pretty face,

         welcome to the human race!

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

No wonder the streets seemed so apocalyptically empty, Eddie thinks to himself as he walks through the front gates of Hawkins Community Pool. Because every goddamn person in town has chosen to spend their Saturday here.

Benny from the diner sits by the kiddie pool next to the entrance, watching his daughter wade in the shallow water. He looks like a different person without his grease-stained apron on. His swim trunks are bright red and slightly too short for him, his Hawaiian shirt is unbuttoned to reveal his beer belly, and his face is burnt everywhere but under his sunglasses. 

Jason, Andy, and all the rest of their goons hog the picnic tables while pretty girls sit on the tops of them — wearing their expensive bikinis and basking in the sun like it’s shining just for them. The boys laugh and shove at one another, trying to pretend like they’re far too cool for it all.

Familiar faces fill the blue water, but it’s hard to make them out in the crowd. Everyone’s swimming and splashing and stuffed within the chain-linked fence like cattle. They all go blurry, like a bunch of indistinct shapes before a backdrop of bright colors. Like a Claud Monet painting, if he ever cared enough to paint uninspiring Midwestern towns.

It’s far too packed to feel self-conscious ‘cause this is the kind of horde you drown in. But that just means it’s catastrophically overstimulating. For Eddie, most of all, who’s sorely out of place in his leather jacket and baggy jeans and dirty sneakers.

The boy cranes his neck to search for you, dark eyes flitting wildly over the crowd — once, twice, and then a third time.

You’re nowhere to be found, and he knows this because your face is far too pretty and not easily missed. Your sweet hibiscus scent is equally absent, drowned out by the overwhelming smell of chlorine, sunblock, and sweat.

If you were around, he’d know it.

“She’s not even here!” Eddie huffs, lifting his arms only to drop them dramatically at his sides. Any arguments about his pouting are surely moot now. Even he can feel the petulant scowl pinching his features.

Max, equally confused, stands at his side and pushes her glasses up her nose. “Billy said she was working today. I heard him on the phone. He definitely said it,” she observes, mostly to herself, ‘cause she can’t stomach being wrong. “Well… He said he was opening with the two prettiest girls in town, so I figured one was probably Heather and the other was—”

“Barbie?” Eddie finishes flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Well, she’s obviously not here, so… Let’s just go back home and do— literally anything else.” 

Eddie spins on the heel of his worn sneaker with the intention of going back the way he came. His van is parked crooked, anyhow. Steve complained as much when he parked his shiny new BMW right beside him. He figures he should probably get back before someone slashes his tires. Again.

He nearly runs into someone the second he turns around. Someone standing far too close for comfort, in a bright red bathing suit and matching skirt, with too big sunglasses on the top of her head.

“Who’s not working today?!” the person shouts loudly in his face, with the evident intent to scare him.

Eddie stumbles back into Steve, who promptly shoves him forward again. It takes him approximately that long to realize it’s you.

You guffaw when the rest of them jump in fright — a loud and heavenly sound that refuses to be drowned out by the droning of a million different conversations.

“I totally got you guys!” you exclaim, giggling so hard your head tilts back. 

Eddie laughs with you, mostly in shock, as he clutches his chest where his heart isn’t beating.

“Admit it! I got you a little?” you say, pinching your thumb and forefinger and squinting through the sliver of space between them.

“Yeah,” the boy huffs a forced laugh. “Yeah, a— a little bit.”

Visibly delighted by his words, you beam brighter than the golden hour sun.

“I knew it!” you grin before your eyes flit over his shoulder, to the group of friends gaping wordlessly behind him. You scrunch your nose sympathetically. “Sorry… You guys were just collateral.”

“You know I have a bad heart,” Steve complains for the sake of complaining, clutching his chest over his short-sleeved button-up. He flashes you a stern look and gripes, “That shit’ll kill me.”

Your eyes narrow in a challenging squint. “You’re twenty-one years old, Steve.”

“Yeah,” he scoffs. “And being around you ages me five years.”

“Well, then, I guess we’re gonna have a very long, very happy life together. Aren’t we, Stevie?” you retort with a sickly sweet smile that Steve meets with a scruffy-faced scowl. 

Eddie watches the brunette boy roll his eyes like he wasn’t getting half-hard at the thought of you at Jazzercise an hour ago. It makes him only partly jealous.

He could never dream of being so casual around you. ‘Cause when your eyes find his again, it feels like his stomach’s doing backflips. It’s like he blinks, and he forgets how to speak.

“So!” you chirp. “Family trip?”

Eddie opens his mouth and doesn’t realize until that moment that every word in the English language has left his brain. Robin shoves him hard in the back to put his head back on straight. The words fly from his mouth like a pull-string doll.

“I didn’t wanna bother you, but these idiots forced me into it.”

“Good. You need to get out of the house from time to time, Eds— You’re getting so pale,” you ramble and reach suddenly for his face. Eddie freezes when you take his chin by your thumb and forefinger. The warmth of your velvety touch sets his skin aflame; more so when you look directly into his wide-eyed gape and say, “There’s nothin’ wrong with needing a little sunshine, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Weird,” Max muses with a sarcastic lilt. “That is exactly what we’ve been trying to tell him, too.”

Eddie shoots her a glare — the best he can, anyway, with your hand still cradling his jaw. He can only see the redhead from the corner of his eye, but the smug smirk on her freckled face doesn’t go missed.

Your fingers slip from his face, and Eddie feels like he can breathe again. He feels strangely empty, still, without you touching him — like he’s starving, or like he’s never been touched before now. Sometimes, it feels like both are true.

He wonders if that’s just the price he has to pay. If being near you means feeling like he’s dying and coming to life all at once. There’s a nagging voice in the back of his head that tells him he’ll pay it, with your pretty fingers strangling his neck and all.

“You’re MADMAX, right?” you wonder aloud to the girl with auburn plaits draping her freckled shoulders.

She’s mostly a stranger to you now, but you think she must mean a great deal to the rest of them. They talk a whole lot about the redhead with chunky glasses who acts like she’s way too cool for it all but defends her Dig Dug high score like her life depends on it. 

The girl nods and crosses her pale arms across her chest, flashing you a suspicious, tightlipped smile. “Yeah. Which means you must be Barbie?”

“Barbie?” you echo.

Eddie chimes in then. “That’s what these freaks call you when you’re not around,” he says, nodding his wild head to the group of aforementioned freaks behind him.

Your face twists as you bring your hand to the center of your chest. “That is the nicest thing anyone’s ever called me before,” you respond, strangely sincere.

Lucas smiles from over Max’s shoulder, nodding like he’s proud. “You’re welcome,” he tells you.

Dustin stands just beside him with a conspicuous paper bag under his arm. You squint past Eddie and over to the curly-haired boy. “What’s that?” you blurt.

It takes him a second too long to answer. “Oh. Uh. A sandwich—” he stammers vaguely, extending his arm towards you. You take the sack from him without thinking twice and rifle blindly through its contents.

“PB&J?” you guess with an inquisitive arch to your brow. Dustin nods, looking pleased by your assumption. Your arm stills suddenly within the crinkling brown sack, and your eyes narrow into thin slits. “With the crust cut off?”

“Uh… no.”

“Good. That’s obviously the best part of the whole sandwich,” you respond, almost to yourself, as you pluck the snack from the bag. 

You unwrap it from its plastic seal and take a hefty bite in one fell swoop. Your eyes flutter shut like it’s something gourmet, and not just something Dustin slapped together on his kitchen step stool at home.

“Thank you for this,” you mumble through the wad of food in your cheek. “You’re officially my new best friend, Dusty-Bun.”

“Rude,” Eddie scoffs.

You swallow hard and fight back a smile, like you were hoping for that exact response. “And who said you were my best friend in the first place, hm?” you argue playfully, waving the half-eaten peanut butter jelly sandwich in his face. “That is very presumptuous of you, Eddie Spaghetti.”

Your pleated skirt flutters at your hips when you spin on the heel of your plastic sandal. You flip flop, flip flop out of the shaded shack and towards the sunshine and unadulterated chaos. The rest of them follow behind you — save for Dustin, who migrates to Eddie’s side with a far-off gaze.

“Sure she’s not your girlfriend?” the kid wonders, never once taking his eyes off the back of you.

Eddie looks down at him with a flat face. “I’m sure,” he monotones.

Dustin grins wide, likely forgetting that other people can see it, too. “Good,” he hums to himself.

“Don’t get any ideas, Henderson,” the older boy blurts before he means to, then tries not to cower under the expectant glance he gets. “You’re obviously way out of her league.”

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

The group fits in pretty well despite being the self-proclaimed outcasts of Hawkins, Indiana.

Steve most of all, but that usually goes without saying. He looks like small-town royalty in his brand-name polo and too-expensive navy swim shorts. He’s lost his touch since high school, though, as he tries and fails to flirt with Carol Perkins’ sister.

“So, Amber— What’d you say you were studying again?” you hear him ask as he lingers awkwardly by the longue chairs.

“My name is Autumn,” she corrects in a drawl that’d give a valley girl a run for her money.

Steve, oblivious to his blunder, only smiles. “Oh, cool. That’s, like, definitely in my top four favorite seasons—”

Robin, in a strange turn of events, is much more casual in her flirting than her co-worker-slash-best-friend. She spotted Vicki the second she walked in, sitting with a few girls from yearbook and rubbing sunscreen onto her supple skin.

She pretended she didn’t, though, which only made it that much more obvious that she had. Vicki waved at her once, then again to invite her over, and Robin was far too awkward to decline. 

Now, she sits gracelessly with a bunch of half-strangers and her biggest crush, looking only slightly out of place in her frayed shorts and Steve’s baggy tee. She nods politely in conversation and thanks the universe for making it so damn hot today. At least now she can blame her burning freckled face on the golden setting sun.

Dustin and Lucas, meanwhile, stuff their faces with ice cream sandwiches in a feeble attempt to consume them before they melt. The softened vanilla leaves messes on their fingers and faces, making them look somehow more boyish than their respective Spiderman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle swim trunks.

Max sits off to the side of them in her own chair, partly overstimulated, and trying to let the piercing sunbeams ground her again.

Eddie Munson, however, in his attempt to blend in, only draws more attention to himself.

He sits beside your post, shaded beneath a wide umbrella, in the same attire you’d see him in on any other day. The baggy jeans, and the thick leather jacket, and the Corroded Coffin merch. He’s dripping in black and silver but hasn’t yet broken a sweat. You don’t know how, though. ‘Cause you’re hot just looking at him.

You pluck your plastic whistle from your mouth to ask, “Are you sure you’re not burning up over there?”

Eddie laughs before he means to because the answer’s obvious to him. 

The last time he felt an ounce of heat was when he was bleeding out on the dirt floor of an alternate universe — when crimson blood ran warm over the mangled skin of his chest and ribs. He’s been colder than ice ever since. And he keeps forgetting you don’t know about any of that.

“Yeah. I’m sure,” he answers, angling his head to face yours.

There’s a white cast on his grey face from sunscreen deliberately not rubbed in. It feels like a shield in some way. Not in the warm-blooded human kind of way, of course, but in the vampiric curse kind. The kind that would otherwise make him debilitatingly weak sitting outside like this. Now, he feels somewhat normal.

The golden hour sun sits like a halo behind your head. He squints one eye to see you better. “If you wanna see me shirtless, you can just say that,” he jokes. “Instead of beating around the bush and everything—”

“I wanna see you shirtless,” you blurt in a strange monotone that makes it hard to tell if you’re joking or not.

The boy falters. Tries not to choke on his own spit. There isn’t a world where he can flirt with you where you don’t immediately snatch the upper hand. It’s like you’re immune to that sort of diffidence. Eddie wishes he was, too.

“Wow,” he scoffs after the few long moments it takes him to recover. “Way to be blunt, sweetheart.”

“You told me to say it!”

You give him a lazy shrug and a lazier smile as you swap the bright red lifeguard buoy to your other arm. Eddie shifts uncomfortably in his seat, as though physically affected by the way you look at him, and the plastic pool chair makes a weird squeaking noise beneath him.

“Yeah, well, most people tend to be more subtle about it.”

“I’ve never been subtle about anything in my life.”

You turn back around to scan the busy pool, and Eddie feels like he can breathe again. A laugh rattles through his tight chest as he quips, “I’m starting to realize that about you, actually—”

“God. Stop flirting,” Max groans from your other side, who has otherwise been so silent that Eddie was starting to forget she was there. She doesn’t turn to look at either of you from where she lazes on the lounge chair. “Sitting with Steve would be more bearable than this.”

“Yeah, Eddie. Stop flirting with me,” you grouse, obviously playful, and without missing a single beat. You glare at the boy over your mostly bare shoulder and try hard not to smile. (He can’t see it in your eyes, anyway, though.) “I’m trying to talk to my new friend MADMAX. Gosh—”

You spin on the heel of your plastic red sandal, and your matching skirt twirls with you. Eddie can’t take his eyes off the back of you. He forgets how to blink when the fabric swishes to give him a brief glimpse of your ass.

He’s always hated the sun, but he loves the way it kisses your skin — leaving you glistening and mouthwateringly supple. 

His fangs threaten to make an appearance when a warm breeze carries your cotton candy cloud scent to him. His gums start to burn with the sharp ache.

“—Hi, MADMAX,” you singsong to the scowling girl, grinning with your cheek pressed to your shoulder.

“You can just call me Max,” she deadpans. “You know that, right?”

“But MADMAX is so much cooler. And it suits you way better.”

“Does it?” MADMAX wonders with an unenthusiastic hum.

“Yeah. Maxine is a name for an old woman. Or, like, one of those ridiculously expensive French poodles,” you ramble and turn back to the pool again, head bobbing as you scan the crowd. “But MADMAX? Now, that is a name for a badass with really cool hair and a sick pair of reading glasses.”

There’s a beat of silence, filled only by the sound of splashing water and the buzzing of a thousand distant conversations, as Max tries to bite back a laugh. It sputters past her anxiety-bitten lips before she can stop it — a strangely airy giggle from such an intimidating girl. 

She shakes her head, still, to pretend she’s above the childish giddiness.

Your face screws in feigned offense. “Don’t laugh!” you scold.

Which, of course, only makes her laugh harder.

Eddie lifts his head, finally taking his eyes off you to gape at the redhead across the aisle, who hasn’t laughed like this since the world ended. 

It must be something strange you alone bring out of them, he realizes. Something special in you that the end of the world didn’t steal like it did everyone else.

“These guys bothering you, newbie?” you hear your manager call to you, only partially drowned out by the surrounding laughter and shouting from the bustling crowd.

His voice is annoyingly distinct. It’s deep and articulate in a way that makes him seem smart. You don’t know if he really is, but you do know that he’s really a raging asshole. 

Adam stands before you, gold and glittering under the setting sun like God’s first creation himself. He’s got veins up and down the length of his muscular arms, and a bulging chest that he waxes every two weeks like clockwork. He’s Steve The Hair Harrington pretty without an ounce of the charm.

“Huh?” you call back, brows raised and eyes wide, just to make him repeat himself.

“I asked if these guys were bothering you,” Adam repeats, flicking his cleft chin back to get the blonde curls out of his eyes. “You look distracted.”

“What guys?” you wonder with an innocent furrow to your brows.

The man’s emerald eyes flit instinctively over your shoulder at Eddie, who everyone has been trying and failing not to stare at this whole time. 

You wonder if Eddie notices it, too — if he’s gotten immune to the constant leering or if he’s bone-crushingly aware of it all. Either way, no one deserves to be ogled at like that. Like some kinda zoo animal. 

Everyone always walks on eggshells around him, refusing to look him in the eye out of fear he might bite. But you know he doesn’t have the teeth for it.

Despite that, you look at Eddie over your shoulder like he’s a stranger. His eyes are wide and swimming with apprehension as the chocolates of them dart between you and the man made out of chiseled marble. 

Adam knows that you know him. You know he knows it, too. Which makes lying to him all the more fun.

“I’ve never seen this man before in my life,” you shrug.

Adam squints and crosses his too-big arms over his chest. “Doesn’t change the fact that he’s loitering. Along with the rest of these kids—” He looks around him with a visible disgust. 

Max pretends he isn’t there. Dustin and Lucas, meanwhile, forget to be casual as they cower under his stare with their ice-cream-stained faces.

“It’s a public pool, Adam. Everyone's loitering. Duh.”

You turn away and stick your whistle back in your mouth. You chew absentmindedly at the plastic and scan the pool for any reason to use it.

Adam’s neck twitches. An angry sort of tic he didn’t know he had until he met you. “You’re still on the clock, newbie. If I see you gettin’ distracted again, I’ll—”

You blow the whistle. Loud. And for far longer than you probably need to. 

The high-pitched chirping rings in Adam’s ears from the close proximity. He flinches away accordingly.

“No running, please!” you shout sweetly to the pudgy middle school-aged boy on the other side of the pool. (His babysitter always brings him here so she can sunbathe, and he’s always roughhousing in the deep end. Billy’s developed a personal vendetta with him over the summer.) 

The suddenly quiet pool returns to its deafening chaos a second later.

You flash Adam a cheeky smile. “You were saying?”

“I was saying that I’ll take it out of your paycheck,” the man bites, angled jaw clenched tight. “You’re already on thin ice. Understand?”

Your lip juts in a feigned pout. You nod slowly, eyes wide like a puppy he’s just kicked.

“One more strike, and you’re cleaning toilets, newbie.”

“Ah, I knew that’s what this was all about…” you lilt seductively, lips curling into a mischievous smirk. “You just want to see me bending over—”

You lean closer toward him until your spearmint breath fans across his chiseled jaw. Your bottom juts out in Eddie’s direction, until he can see the very bottom of your ass from beneath your pleated skirt. It makes him as flustered as Adam the Asshole, who stalks off on long legs quickly after, sufficiently embarrassed.

You laugh at the back of him until he disappears into the crowd again. The bubbly sound ceases the moment he’s out of earshot, and your smile ebbs into a girlish pout. “Dickwad,” you mumble under your breath.

You recover from it all rather quickly while Eddie struggles to remind himself to breathe. His mind reels as he, for the first time ever, grapples with the very real possibility that he might actually be in love with you. Or that you’re not real at all, and that this is just Vecna’s doing — long gone but still putting visions in his head somehow.

He doesn’t know which is worse.

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

         oh, what a strange magic!

         oh, it’s a strange magic!

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

The golden-orange sky turns a milky pink and lavender. Eddie’s friends, sunburnt and sufficiently pruned, don’t leave until the first star blinks faintly in the sky. The rest of the crowd goes with them, bustling bodies spilling out in a swarm.

It takes the rest of the gang several long moments to realize Eddie isn’t behind them. (You told him you forgot your sunglasses, and he offered to get them for you, ‘cause he’s nice like that and everything.)

(He doesn’t know the sunglasses are currently hiding in the pocket of your windbreaker.)

“What, where’s Eddie?” Dustin wonders aloud to the rest of the group, head flitting wildly in search of the misplaced metalhead.

“He went to the bathroom, I think,” you blurt the first lie you can think of. “He was talking about a nervous tummy or something. I don’t know.”

Steve scoffs like he senses a non-truth. “So, he’s leaving me with babysitting duty again?” he quips with a cynical, lopsided smile. “How predictable.”

“You say that like we’re the spawn of Satan or something,” Lucas jokes.

“You aren’t?” the oldest boy deadpans.

Dustin flips him off with a chubby finger and a flat face.

They bid their leave tangled in mindless arguments and lanky limbs. You watch them leave with the understanding that Steve’s 733i will be a tighter fit than it should be, crammed with a bunch of rowdy teenage boys. You feel sorry for Max and Robin most of all. 

Steve’s car peels out of the parking lot one moment, and Eddie returns the next.

“I couldn’t find your sunglasses anywhere,” he confesses sheepishly, face twisted like a puppy’s as he scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I think some asshole might’ve stolen ‘em—”

“Oh, no, it’s okay,” you shrug with a tightlipped smile. “I found them in the, uh— In the lost-and-found bin.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool,” Eddie stammers, nodding slowly, just before a smile tugs at his lips. You watch from beneath your lashes as the subtle realization curls on his face. “You had ‘em the entire time, didn’t you?” the boy wonders in a low voice that makes your stomach do whirl.

“Yes,” you squeak in a mousy voice, then ramble before you can stop it. “But only ‘cause I wanted everyone else to leave! You know, so we can have a real date and everything…”

“As opposed to the fake ones we’ve been having?” he jokes with pinched brows.

“Exactly,” you nod, strikingly sincere. ‘Cause the constant carpooling and melted rainbow sherbet dropoffs had to have meant something. 

“As tempting as that sounds, sweet thing,” he humors, scrunching the bridge of his nose. “I do think I might be actually coming down with sunstroke.”

You turn your head wordlessly to the entryway of the shack. There’s only a sliver of the night sky visible from here, but it’s navy blue and sparkling with so many little stars. You look back to Eddie with a dubious glint in your eye. “The sunset twenty minutes ago, Eds.”

“Yeah, but… I’m still sick.”

He removes his hand from the pocket of his leather jacket and balls it into a fist over his mouth. He coughs once, trying hard to make it believable ‘cause he hasn’t been truly sick since the winter of ’84.

That’s perhaps the only cool thing about being a vampire — he’s basically got Superman’s immune system now.

“Well, I actually learned how to treat sunstroke while I was in training,” you lilt with an air of mischief in your voice as you take a daring step closer. The scent of sunscreen and cheap musky cologne clings to his skin. Something about the combination of the two is maddening.

You’re filled suddenly with the primal urge to bite into him like an apple. But you refrain, lest you scare him off.

Eddie’s caught in a similar dilemma, but with perhaps realer consequences than that. Your natural marshmallow-passionfruit scent suffocates him like a pillow to the face. His fangs threaten to force their way through his gums as his head starts to swim.

He ignores every vampiric instinct swirling in his mind and focuses, instead, on the pretty smile curling at your lips.

“Bet ya didn’t know that, did ya?”

Eddie swallows hard and shakes his head. “No, I— I don’t think you ever told me that,” he stammers, then clears his throat when the words get stuck there. He puts both hands back in his jacket pocket, balling them into fists until his nails bite into his palms.

“First, you gotta take off your clothes—”

“You’ve been trying to get in my pants all day,” the boy laughs. “You realize that, right?”

“—And then you gotta cool off in a very luxurious community pool.”

Eddie gets what you’re playing at, then. His smile ebbs almost instantly. “No,” he dismisses with a stern shake of his head. His deep chestnut curls, frizzed with the late-summer humidity, sway around his jaw. “No. No way.”

“Oh, c’mon! Please,” you whine. “The pool closes in, like, half an hour— Then it’ll just be us! We can swim together!”

“I don’t know how,” Eddie whines back, head tossed and face screwed. “Seriously. I grew up in a trailer park. No one ever taught me how to swim, alright? I’ll drown.”

Something about that seems to please you, as your pout curls slowly into another smile. You meet the boy’s wet brown eyes with a gaze that glitters something wicked.

Eddie can see your head spinning with a thousand bad ideas from here. His heart would race at the thought of getting into trouble with you if it was beating still. 

You’ll bring him back to life yet.

“Don’t worry, Eds,” you shrug with a sure grin. “I’d give you mouth-to-mouth in a heartbeat.”

                            ꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦ (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷

The pool glows a vibrant sapphire color. It makes the surrounding amber streetlamps seem dull in comparison. The water is as blue and crystalline as an early summer sky. Eddie figures you must be the sun, swimming in the center of it all. 

You wait patiently in the shallow end — out of both your windbreaker and pleated skirt for the first time in front of him — and swipe your hands over the water, letting it drip like liquid diamonds from your fingers. You hum quietly to the slow song playing on the boombox across the way, which now houses the mixtape you made that Eddie seems to take with him everywhere. 

The boy shifts uncomfortably at the head of the pool, feeling awkward in the pair of swim trunks you found for him in the break room.

You’ve never seen so much of him before. His paper-white legs are a lot longer than you expected, ‘cause his baggy jeans hardly do him any favors. And his arms are a lot muscular, too — likely from moving band equipment and bussing tables.

He’s already so pretty to begin with. You don’t know what he’s got to be such a Nervous Nelly about.

Eddie knows he’s making it harder for himself. It’d be a lot less awkward for the both of you if he just took his shirt off and jumped in the water. But he’s paralyzed by the misplaced panic that strikes that lightning in his chest. And by you, ogling at him like he’s a pretty thing that deserves to be ogled at.

“Stop staring,” he calls to you, pretending to be playful but meaning every bit of it. “It’s makin’ me nervous.”

“Would it make you feel better if I closed my eyes?”

“Much.”

You put your hands over your eyes, to make him feel better and all. Though, you can’t help but peek between the slivers of your fingers as he strips himself of his Corroded Coffin tee.

His torso is as long and lean as you imagined, with sprinkles of hair on his chest and the pudge of his tummy that trails into his borrowed trunks. You try very hard not to stare too long at the gray scars embedded in his pale skin.

Everything seems to come easier to him when you’re not looking at him. He slides the black fabric off his pale, pale torso, tosses it to his feet, and hurries to hide in the water in one fell swoop.

The chlorine makes his nose burn, but the water feels like satin on his skin. It’s soft and warm and smooth against the cold, sharp edges of him.

“You can open your eyes now,” Eddie scoffs when he notices your hands still over your eyes. He can see you blinking at him through the slits in your fingers. “I know you’re peeking.”

“I was not!” you gasp, mouth agape with a playful offense.

“Well, you weren’t exactly being discreet about it, sweet thing.”

“These are very nefarious accusations you’re making, Eddie Munson…” you scold with arched brows and wide eyes. The water ripples faintly around you as you stalk towards him like a predator to prey, eyes narrowed in a challenging squint. “Are you prepared to back them up?”

The boy cowers slightly under your unwavering stare. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me right now—”

And he was right not to. ‘Cause you’re lunging suddenly towards him in a flash.

The water splashes violently around you as you wrap both arms around his neck and sweep him off his feet. Literally. You kick his legs out from underneath him, then catch him before he can fall completely backward. Both his downfall and his savior, ironically.

“Ha!” you shout in his face, the tip of your nose brushing his.

“Jesus!” Eddie gasps in response, still heart lurching in his chest.

“I asked if you were prepared!” you defend like you’re innocent, like you aren’t still cradling him in your arms — the only thing keeping him from going under.

“Not for this!” he yells back. 

Only then is he able to take a good breath in. He can smell the velvety scent of your blood from the achingly close proximity. He can feel your heart beating in his own chest from where you’re pressed so intently against him. It makes him instantly dizzy.

He fights back the primal urges that would otherwise drive him mad.

“Jeez…” he huffs, fangs burning. “You’re a lifeguard— You’re supposed to stop people from drowning.”

“Yeah, but no one ever needs saving,” you whine. “It’s so boring.”

His chocolate button eyes flit back and forth between both of yours. “You tryin’ to save me, sweet thing?” he jokes.

You squint. “Is it working?”

“Yeah, actually… If you let me up now, at least.”

He’s grateful when you do, though he mourns the lack of you when you step back a few paces.

His damp hair sticks to his skin when he rises to full height. He shakes his head like a dog, and you giggle when a few rogue droplets fly your way.

“You have freckles on your shoulder,” you observe distantly, eyes darting across the faint amber spots on his pale skin as you try to make constellations out of them. “I didn’t know that ’til now.”

Eddie’s lips jut downward as he peers at his arm from the corner of his eye. “Not really,” he shrugs.

“You do!” you insist. “There’s not many, though. I could probably count ‘em if I wanted.”

“Maybe on our second date.”

“I didn’t know you had a tattoo here, either—” You poke him in the chest, a little harder than you probably mean to. 

Eddie winces and rubs his palm over the fading black widow under his collarbone. “Well, you don’t know everything about me,” he quips. “I like it that way. It keeps you on your toes.”

Your face pinches into a girlish pout. “Only ‘cause you never tell me anything.”

“I tell you loads of things,” Eddie laughs.

Your frown deepens. “You never told me about the picture of Ozzy Osbourne you keep in your wallet.”

“…How do you know about that?”

“Dustin told me.”

“Of course he did,” Eddie huffs. “Remind me not to tell that little shit anything ever again.”

“You never told me about how you got those scars, either,” you blurt, eyes trained on his milky white torso. Beneath the clear, rippling water, you can see the parts of his supple stomach that are marred and turning pink.

You don’t realize what you’ve said until your gaze flits back to his startled one. Your eyes widen as you ramble quickly, “You don’t have to! I’m not trying to… I’m just— I’m just saying. ‘Cause, you know, Steve has the same ones… On his ribs…”

“I’m not even gonna ask how you know that,” Eddie jokes with a (mostly) feigned jealousy.

“Billy does, too. He’s got the same lookin’ scars on his chest,” you continue. “And then I started thinking, you know? I thought, since you all know each other and everything, maybe something happened to you guys. Like, in the earthquakes or something.”

Eddie swallows hard and debates on spilling his guts. 

He swallows his secrets down like bile, in the end.

“Yeah. You’re— You’re not too far off, actually,” he answers with a breathy, bitter laugh. He scratches at the back of neck, if only to busy his anxious hands, and flits his gaze to the velvety night sky.

The blinking white stars there ground him when the world starts to swim — reminds him that he’s on Earth, in Hawkins, and not in the hellscape he died in.

That was his final thought as he took his last breath that spring. How strangely fitting it was that there were no stars in the Upside Down.

“We, uh… We kinda went through hell and back, but, uh… ‘Least lived to tell the tale, right?” Eddie scoffs at himself, then remembers Chrissy — how young and full of life she was one moment, and how her wide blue eyes were sucked out of her skull the next. He recoils then, feeling like he’s said the wrong thing. “Wait. That was— That was insensitive. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“What are you talkin’ about? You’re right,” you assure him with a quiet, emotionless laugh. “You guys survived. You got lucky. We all did.”

Eddie peeks at you beneath his lashes, through the wild curls sticking to his face. “Where were you?” he murmurs. “When… When everything happened?”

“Crying into my milkshake at Benny’s Burgers,” you answer without missing a beat. The memory’s far too vivid for anything else.

A laugh sputters from Eddie’s throat. He’s sure you must be joking. You blink at him like an owl, and he goes solemn all over again. “Oh. You’re… You’re serious?” he mumbles.

“Yeah, I was… feeling sorry for myself over something stupid, and then the ground started shaking outta nowhere— like the universe was trying to say, ‘Hey, this could be soooo much worse, dude,’” you ramble quietly to yourself, skimming your fingers over the water’s surface. “…But then I found out people actually got hurt and everything, so I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I shouldn’t make this about my stupid broken heart, actually.’”

Eddie’s tight chest deflates with a wavering exhale. He didn’t know you back then, but something about knowing you were okay makes him feel better. ‘Cause, yeah, he died and all, but he couldn’t stomach the thought of Vecna taunting you.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” the boy confesses in a honeyed whisper.

A soft smile quirks at the edges of your lips. “I’m glad you’re okay, too, Eddie Spaghetti.”

Your hand reaches out for him. Almost instinctively. Like he’s a whole universe with his own gravitational pull.

Your palm settles soft and warm on the outside of his torso. Your thumb grazes the marred skin over his ribs, and Eddie tenses at the foreign feeling. You jerk back instantly.

“Oh. Shit. Sorry,” you stammer, face twisted apologetically. “I didn’t— I should’ve asked first.”

“No. It’s— It’s okay. Seriously,” Eddie assures with a rapid nod. There’s a faraway look in his chocolate eyes, almost like he’s daydreaming. He feels like he is, anyway. ‘Cause he’s never let anyone this close before.

“I just… I wasn’t expecting it. That’s all.”

Do it again, he says in so many words. Please, I think I might need it.

You reach for him again, more hesitant this time. Your hand settles over his scars again, and you breathe hard through your nose.

Your stomach twists with a phantom sort of ache, like you can feel every ounce of the pain he surely experienced back then. Thinking about how hurt he must’ve been makes you hurt, too.

Eddie can see it written all over your face. How much you ache for him.

He can’t stand it. 

He cups your cheeks between trembling, unsure hands. His touch is softly calloused and colder than ice. He tilts your jaw gently upward, urging you to meet his gaze once more. Your eyes are wet and glittering when they lock with his heavily lidded ones. Your mouth parts to say something, anything. But your brain doesn’t work fast enough.

‘Cause Eddie's kissing you before you can blink.

He tastes distinctly of nicotine and boyhood. Of midnight, full moons, and neon lights. You can feel every groove in his bottom lip from where he picks at it with his teeth. Every sensation is new to you, like cool sparkles of excitement in the pit of your tummy, but it’s strikingly familiar all the same. Nostalgia for something you’re experiencing for the first time warms the center of your chest.

You breathe hard through your nose. The gust of air tickles Eddie’s cupid’s bow as he parts from you, lips smacking apart in protest.

Your eyes, still yet to blink, remain wide and glazed over. “Whoa…” you sigh to yourself.

Eddie’s unsure of how to gauge your reaction. His face swirls with horror.

“What?” he mumbles, still cradling your face between worried hands. He can’t tell if your cheeks are heating or if he’s just colder than usual. Perhaps both are equally true.

“Nothing,” you answer quickly, still slightly faraway. “I just… I got a weird sense of deja vu just now…”

The boy forces a quiet laugh. “Who else have you done this with?” he quips.

“No one!” you blurt. “…But I think I might’ve dreamt about this once.”

“Really?”

“Definitely.”

“Was it better than you expected? Or should I just see myself out now—”

You lean forward to chase his mouth. The cerulean water ripples faintly around you. Your lidded gaze never wavers from his rosy lips, which you’re realizing now are all but begging to be kissed. You don’t know how you never noticed it before.

Eddie’s smiling too wide to respond appropriately.

“Why are you laughing?” you frown.

“I’m not!” he responds through breathy chuckles.

“You are—”

Eddie leans forward in a flash, pressing another chaste kiss to your pout.

You’re all smiles again the second he pulls away, bursting at the seams with a sort of giddiness that could give the sun a run for its money. 

He knows, somewhere deep down, that he shouldn’t make you this happy. He doesn’t even deserve the chance. But here you are anyway, smiling so wide at him that your eyes are starting to crinkle at the edges — showing him that there’s still sunshine in the dark, reminding him what it means to be living.

“Does this mean we get to do this forever?” you wonder in a mousy voice.

“What?” he chuckles. “Kiss?”

You nod wordlessly, blinking up at the boy with wide, wet eyes.

Eddie nods quickly back. 

“Then yeah…” he wavers, chest aching and gums burning. 

He loves you so much he’s gone hungry for it. For you.

He longs to devour you, in every way imaginable, and you want to devour him just the same. He can tell in the way you stare at him when you think he isn’t looking — in the way you stare at him even when he is looking — and in every one of your movements that urges him closer, closer, closer.

Your gaze is debilitatingly intense. Your attitude is mind-bendingly strange. You’re ruining his life, and Eddie can’t believe there was ever a time he wasn’t kissing you.

“Yeah,” he repeats, firmer now. “As long as you want.”

if you made it this far: i love you. so sorry for making you read something so long. i'd kiss you on the forehead if i could. also pls consider reblogging! this took me so so long to write, and it really helps a lot! thank u, love u (▰˘◡˘▰)

[uchinagai]

The rhythm of winter - karina

𝜗𝜚 idol!Karina x figure skater!reader

𝜗𝜚 synopsis : y/n,  one of the biggest names in figure skating and Karina, also a big name in the K-pop industry. None expected these two worlds to collide, even if y/n secretly enjoyed their music, but all it took was 2024 winter Olympics that was hosted in south Korea to make the idol fall in love with the girl.

𝜗𝜚 contains : idol! Karina, figure skater!reader, fem!reader, wlw, mentions of ED, starving, overworking, cursing, bad mental health, strangers to lovers, the reader is 20, angsty but not really, mostly written in 3rd person view, kind of rushed in the end??

𝜗𝜚 w/k : 4.6k+

𝜗𝜚 a/n : english is not my first OR second language so please, ignore anything incorrect. this story is heavily inspired by Alexandra Trusova's 2022 Beijing but then just changed up. first time writing something this big so if spotted any mistakes please ignore them.. some Olympic events are changed for the plot and stuff. . Check out moodboards for a better idea of the vibes they bring to the function hehe… enjoyyyyy :3

Y/n moodboard || Karina moodboard

y/n, a top tier figure in skating known for her dark yet captivating aura. Some may even call her Yuzuru Hanyu's girl version in skating, she was that good. But the girl was mysterious, she had a lot of friends in the industry, Yuzu himself, Anna Scherbakova, Mao Shimada and so many others, but she was reserved from the public eye. Nobody knew her but also everyone did because she still made headlines. It was either about her dark fashion sense, skills, interviews, she was everywhere and was known as “South Korea's pride” that was till the 2022 Beijing incident.

She was promised, she was encouraged, she starved herself for this. She needed that gold medal like breathing, but no. everyone lied to her, including her coach, whom she trusted with everything. She got second, which in her world was losing: “winning is first place, everything else is losing.” She was mad at everyone and everything, they PROMISED her. She needed to land that god sake five quads that no woman has ever landed in history and she did it. She had to stop eating, lose weight, train unrealistically to achieve it yet it was not enough. When she finished her routine she was happy, she landed something no woman has ever done at age of 18 but her own friend, Anna, beat her to it. She was crushed, devastated, to say the least. She cried her heart out, cursing everyone who tried to get near her, her makeup was ruined but she could care less. She was so mad that getting near her was the same as stepping into a minefield—dangerous and potentially explosive. She pushed her own friend away. Was it slightly silly to end your friendship of 8 years over skating? Maybe. Did she care at all? No. This sport is her life and if someone ruins her perfect life, she gets rid of them. She blamed Anna, her coach, judges, everyone. In the changing room she lost it officially to her coach, she kept throwing skates at her cursing her out while the coach just dodged the, tried talking her out but y/n was never gonna have it. When she got back on stage for the awarding she had a mask on, yet it was obvious how shattered the girl was. In the interview said the lines that would change her career:

“I'm never stepping on ice again, I hate it.”

Who was she lying to? Of course she would make a big comeback for the 2024 olympics. She laughed at anyone who thought she was actually going and could freely compete without being threatened by her skills. She took private training in those two years while also working on her mental health away from the public eye, something she was expert in. In two years she also got into her home country's pop music.  K-pop was all over so she gave it a chance and discovered a few groups she enjoyed music of. She loved girl groups. Some of the groups didn’t match her usual aura but yet she enjoyed Girls generation, Red Velvet, (G)I-DLE, Newjeans, Kiss of life, Aespa., she loved the girls. But she had a goal to achieve in her home country: get the gold that was once stolen from her.

Karina, leader and main dancer of girl group Aespa, one of the biggest names in K-pop industry. Everyone was losing their mind over the girl. She looked unreal since her debut and earned the title of “human ai” along. She was pretty, talented and sweet and loved making friends in and out of the industry. She loved her job and the spotlight even more, so when her group got invited to the 2024 Winter Olympics as special guests, she was absolutely ecstatic, buzzing with excitement at the thought of being in the center of attention with cameras and she would also get to enjoy such shows as olympics live. Aespa opened the ceremony with their title track Armageddon and it was time for countries to come out. First was traditionally Greece to open and when it finally came to their country, South Korea, Karina fixed her posture to watch her home country athletes enter. They seemed so cool, Karina thought but a black haired girl seemed to draw her in. she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her. Maybe it was the look she gave to everyone, how reserved she seemed, but the girl was for sure interesting. She was wearing a basic white jacket as other athletes walked down while waving their country flag, the girl walked behind, looking around confidently with a small smirk that was till she looked to the side…. Russia.  Her once best friend, Anna, had to be there. Not like she wasn’t expecting her but seeing her was… a painful reminder of everything she had lost and everything she was determined to reclaim. Anna already knew the girl was there, she felt sad watching her from afar knowing nothing was changing between them. On the other hand, Aespa girls sat at a special spot, watching them. Karina couldn’t feel the tension between athletes but her focus never left the girl.

As they walked down and finished everything, she turned to her manager.

“Who was that girl, in the back, looking all scary?”

“You mean y/n l/n? She's figure skater”

“I'm shocked that she actually made the comeback…” said Ningning, shocked in a low whisper..

“Why is that?” Karina questioned.

“You don’t watch the Olympics at all, do you?” winter said, causing girls to laugh while the leader just sulked.

“Long story short, at Beijing 2022 she went crazy… absolutely lost her mind over winning second place.”

“Why? second place is very good” Karina said.

“That's y/n for you. Her famous quote is “Winning is the first place, everything else is losing.” plus she did something no woman athlete has ever achieved at the age of 18.” Ningning explained as Karina realized just how serious the younger girl was.

The actual tournament was planned a few days later since there were other sports but instead of training, y/n was stuck with government officials of Korea and a bunch of chaebol kids ripping her ear off while talking. She had no interest in being here, she needed to train but couldn’t decline the offer since other athletes were going too and it was hosted by officials. So here she was, standing in front of the table with red wine in her hand. From afar it looked like a vampire had sneaked in, y/n is pale, tall, slender with deep black hair and bloody red lips. Her outfit wasn't anything big either, a black dress tight around her figure, a big puffer chrome hearts jacket, and big boots adding a few inches to her height even if she was tall without them. Her makeup wasn’t anything special either, not like her usual dark concept, it was light but she balanced it with “Kro 02” from Gentle Monster (sorry I really had to specify). Party was… boring to say the least. It was more like money talks between the rich, while athletes and singers were present for formal purposes.

Right, talking about singers.

y/n saw a few familiar faces that she saw on TV which made her slightly excited but had about zero courage to walk up to them. She was too tired of humans in general even if she hasn't seen the public eye for 2 whole years. y/n was shocked seeing how almost flawless these idols were: perfect posture, always collected face and easily socialized with everyone. They had no problem with walking up to any chaebol old or young and starting a flowing conversation. What were they even talking about? God knows. 

That was till y/n spotted her so called ‘bias’ from Aespa standing away from party, observing and seemed like she was just as bored with everything happening in front of her.

They locked eyes.

y/n just locked eyes with the Karina of Aespa.

She felt slightly intimidated by her gaze, that was still the girl's face softened and sent her a small smile which made y/ns heart flutter…  just a little.

None of them dared to step forward first even though Karina felt drawn to the younger one and without her knowledge the feeling was very much the same.

y/n considered Aespa, especially Karina, one of the best groups in their generation. SM for sure knew how to pick visuals AND talent at once because the girl across the table was everything. She was the prettiest girl y/n has ever seen on camera and in real life, the camera does no justice to her beautiful face. Sharp jawline, a smooth nose, and a perfectly shaped nose with amazing facial harmony, the girl was breathtaking. And talent? She had everything an idol needed, she was the main dancer for a reason, her movements were clean and sharp, her vocals were unmatched and the girl could even rap if she wanted to. She was sweet and playful with her fans too. 

She was perfect.

y/n wanted to be as perfect in her job as the older one. Even if they had different professions, y/n looked up to her idol due to her determination and hard work. She knew being an idol was no easy job at all and they trained just as hard. They had a huge hate train too and one scandal could ruin their whole career,

which was new to y/n even if she caused the scene of 2022 in Beijing. She had a huge fanbase who supported her and understood her pain of losing. She was more than grateful but she knew it wasn’t the same for them; they were criticized for everything so it was normal for them to get criticized for even looking at the opposite gender, which was so silly to y/n. So what if she looked at another guy? Doesn’t that mean they’re in love with each other; she was friends with so many opposite-gender figure skaters due to projects or introductions from friends. She could never see them more than a friend and colleague.

While y/n got so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice one of her childhood friends, who was one of the only chaebol kids she could stand, approach her with the black-haired girl next to him.

“Yo, y/nnie.’ 

Pause

“y/n, I call your ass back to this universe!” he says, as he nudges her side to snap her out of her clouds.

“What?”

As she freezes. Karina was next to him, standing there looking right at her. The gaze was alluring, like it was serenading y/n into her; or she was just reading into it deeply before speaking up.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, y/nnie,” she says as she reaches out her hand for y/n to shake.

“Nice to meet you too, Karina, was it?” she says as she shakes her hand slightly awkwardly due to y/n being starstruck by the girl's beauty up close.

While y/n was star-struck, Karina was no better; it was like the girl wrecked her whole orbit to bits and was having a hard time staying nonchalant about this small interaction.

“You two finally met. I think y’all know each other from TV a least so I thought u guys would get along. I present Jimin to you, y/n” Jaewon says and whispers into Karina's ear “She’s not very social” which Y/n hears right away giving an offended look.

“That’s not true”

“It is”

“Is not !!”

“Anyways!! I leave you two to it” he says as he grabs a champagne and leaves the girls alone, standing awkwardly. That was till Karina just burst out laughing which caused y/n to tilt her head in confusion.

“What’s so funny?”

“No- no it's just that it was so silent and awkward I couldn’t help but laugh.”

“Oh right,” y/n says and chuckles awkwardly.

“Well im Karina, of Aespa, I don’t know if you know much about us, but yeah”

“I’ve heard a few thing or two. I'm bae y/n, the figure skater”

“I did my research about you before I came over here, you’re quite interesting”

Oh, that means she probably knows about Beijing…

“Oh really? What did you learn?”

“Well that first, you’re the ‘quad’ queen, seriously those 5 quads were amazing, how long did it take you??”

She knows.

“Quite a lot it was one hell of a deal too,” y/n says as she giggles and and takes a sip from her wine.

If Karina ever had a chance to re-hear the girl's giggles she would give anything, literally. It was so smooth and angelic that it made her want to become more of a funny person so she could get to hear the girl's laughter more.

“How’s the idol life? I don't really know much” a lie. y/n knew everything that was related to Aespa, she followed the fansites of each member and kept up with them WHILE training.

“Nothing exciting, we just had a comeback, if you watched the performance, scandals there, brand deals here, and it a little messy but we managed it!!” says Karina excited “We are a group of four, I'm the leader, ningning, Giselle, and winter”

“Winter? As in season??” y/n jokes as she chuckles. 

‘Yes!! But she’s not cold or anything, she’s the sweetest, it's her stage name. Her actual name is Minjeong, I'm Jimin, ningning is Ning Yizhuo, and Giselle is Aeri.”

“Oh so that’s why Jaewon called you Jimin,’ y/n says as she starts laughing “-also, ningnings name is so pretty, is she Chinese?”

“Yeah she's from Harbin”

“Oh, the cold queen? We would get along, all the ice made me immune to cold”

“What are your plans for this Olympics?”

“Gold.”

“She knows what she wants.” Karina thought.

“By what I’ve seen so far, I think you’ll for sure get that.”

Even if y/n knew that she was good, these words coming from her idol, for sure encouraged her and made her feel more proud.

“Thank you, Karina-ssi.”

—

The time passed, and the party came to an end without her being sick and tired of people talking non-stop, because Karina was next to her, making her laugh and enjoy the might little more. Of course, they exchanged numbers and for the last bid their goodbyes.

Has y/n always been this nervous before the match? No, but she was the last one to come out for her stage, and right before hers, Anna was on the ice and she was magnificent. Y/n knew Anna loved ice just as much as she did and truly enjoyed it. She was talented, determined, and very gentle and smooth with her movements, she was artistic, which y/n lacked a bit. Y/n always focused on tricks and spins while Anna was mesmerizing even if she didn’t have many tricks up her sleeve, she still had an impact on judges; that’s why her current score was looking at 243.12, which was good, but lower than 2022, which made y/n a bite happy, she could beat that, right?

y/ns choreography was complicated but didn’t lack the artistic side of it while also being full of tricks. The program concept was “the fallen angel”. y/n was wearing a dark black costume with hints of silver. The design was a well-fitted costume with metallic and feathered accents resembling broken wings with a combination, but the sleeves were flowy enough to make her movement seem more balanced while having dark smokey eyes.

The coach was talking in her ear, some encouragement but she muffled it out and calmed her breath as she did small jumps at the spot to warm up.

“AND FOR THE FINAL… Y/N L/N, REPRESENTING REPUBLIC OF KOREA!!”

Was announced by speakers as people started cheering for her. At least she didn’t get a black ocean or silence.

The door opened and after stepping on that ice with her black, leather skates everything went black; y/n made her way to the center and the beginning pose was simple: bend down on one knee, head bowed, with one arm extended as if reaching for something unattainable. Slowly “Dies Irae” by Verdi fades in and the choreo begins for a dramatic and intense opening

She Begins with a clean 4S to maintain the technical momentum

then lands 4F, challenging jump with precision to earn high base points and GOE.

 After 4F we get 4Lz with amplitude and control. 

Is she gonna try the same thing? But her body can’t take another 5 quads. As her coach thought, the music fades to “O Fortuna” by Carl Orff, building towards a powerful climax.

4T+3T serves as a technical highlight in the middle of the program.

4Lo Incorporate this difficult quad to maximize the technical score.

There it was; another five quads. The crowd goes loud, she did it once again, these would for sure earn higher than Anna, right? … but she was not done yet while the music goes to the last part, “Symphony No.7, in a major, Op. 92 - II. Allgeretoo” by Beethoven for a solemn and reflective ending. 

3A+2T A reliable combination that adds to the overall technical difficulty.

3Lz Execute later in the program, maintaining a clean technique despite fatigue.

3A+1Lo+3S This combination sequence increases the difficulty, especially in the latter part of the program.

She also did a few spins to earn more points such as Flying Camel Spin (FCSp4) Layback Spin (LSp4) and Combination Spin with Change of Foot (CCoSp4).

Finally. 

The ending pose was with a deep knee bend, one arm reaching upward as if making a final plea, and the other hand placed over the heart.

She got up, and looked at the judges from her lashes, almost glaring with a smirk, she didn’t celebrate like last time for 2022 instead left the stage and made her way to the changing room.

Little did she know, the black-haired girl that she was texting each night was watching over her, with a satisfied look, she didn’t know anything about the tricks y/n landed but they for sure looked amazing and memorable. She watched her 2022 performance and she could feel the change in her. The aura was unmatched, she was magnetic, and everything about her was Karina's style even if the girl texted like an elder due to being slow with the keyboard and not being into texting. As she watched in awe winter nudged her

“Fallen angel got your heart?”

“WHAT?? NO??”

“Oh, she definitely has~” ningning teased causing Karina to glare at her.

“We just became friends and I think she’s very… cool,” Karina admitted as members started making random sounds to make the leader blush.

Younger was sitting in the waiting room, the camera on her, focused on the screen waiting for her overall score.

Technical Element score: 136.23.

Of course, she gets a pretty high score, that’s her best trait.

Program Component Score: 112.14

This was unexpected; pretty high for skating skills, transitions, performance, composition, and interpretation.

Deductions: 3.15

Wait.

Oh my god.

Overall score: 245,22

She just won, not only over Ana but she also won gold for her country with 2 whole points of difference. She was stunned, frozen.

Not like she wasn’t secretly waiting for it but still, it felt unreal. 

She made it.

She was leaving the room for the medal presentation when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Anna clapping and cheering for her.

She smiled back at her.

Everything wasn’t over, after all.

As the gold was placed around her neck she bit down on it, for the tradition as she looked up to the crowd waving happily with Ana on her right, with silver.

There she saw the girl.

Clapping and jumping for her, screaming and she couldn’t help but laugh at Karina's silliness. She waved at older as she waved back.

Karina didn’t care about the spotlight or cameras that would capture this moment, she was cheering for her friend and her idol image was her least of worries. She saw how Anna and Y/n looked at each other. She couldn’t put this feeling in words but it for sure made her uneasy. If she could be on that ice, she would snatch Y/n right away and never let them interact but she’s meters away from the stadium and it would for sure cause a scene, so she's standing back, clapping for the winners. She could see how Anna was admiring her Y/n from the lower platform as Y/n was too oblivious due to her excitement. Older was glad Y/n was not paying attention because if she did acknowledge Anna she would drop all of her morals and cause the scene she’s being held back from. But Karina was also very conflicted, why was she feeling like this? Why is she all of a sudden so possessive over the girl? They’re not even that close, yet she yearns for her attention all of the time, calls her, spams her, and says random things JUST to get her attention, so what would older do?

Leave her position as soon as the crowd goes thin and walks to the lounge where athletes are gathered, complimenting each other's performance and just chatting. She spots her desired figure, the whole reason for her to consider being in a relationship late at night, the whole reason why she felt her knees go weak over a smile.

She was standing in front of a girl, y/n's honey-like laughter dripping out of her voice as she spoke with the person.

She was holding a panda plushy, an animal that Karina discovered to be Y/n’s favorite in the interview Younger mentioned. The person in front of her, whose face was shadowed by y/n was still an easy one to recognize.

Anna.

They seem to rekindle their relationship. So it appears.

Karina is probably the only person in this world to hate this sight, so here she is, standing there like a sore thumb watching the two interact with ease.

While she just stood there, the rest of the members decided to follow their leader to wherever she was heading off to and stood behind her.

“Rina?” the youngest called out to her frozen figure making her jump a little and look over her shoulder seeing her members with worry plastered on their faces.

“Yeah?”

Without a response, Giselle nudged her towards y/n and Karina took it as a sign and approached the younger, tapping on her shoulder as she turned around, a small smile flashing on her face.

“Hey,”

“Hey..”

Silence fell for a moment broken by Winter's small slip of a giggle making Karina glare at her over her shoulder while y/n looked at the short-haired girl, crackling a chuckle herself.

“The performance was excellent… I knew you could do it…” Said Karina mentally cringing at her awkwardness while the girl in front of her burst into laughter. Was she laughing at her?

“I never imagined you this awkward, especially over messages and that night at the party,” said y/n causing Karina to relax and now pout.

“I didn’t know how to approach you since you were already talking to somebody else…” she said, causing Anna to peek over her shoulder, a small smile on her face, assuming that idol meant her.

The girl was Slavic and looked like a perfect doll. She had a classical, graceful look with soft, light brown hair that flowed in loose waves. Her facial features were harmonious and refined, with a gentle and approachable expression. Even if on ice, she looked icey, in real life, she made up for all the warmth. Her sweet aura and presence made Karina feel uneasy.

It ate her up inside seeing them so casually together, chatting.

“Hello,” the girl greeted with a small accent slipping, which sounded adorable.

Idol smiled at her and bowed turning her gaze back to the younger.

“Remember, you promised me ice cream” Karina reminds y/n which causes the skate to sigh.

“I thought you would drop that..”

“Not after you told me you have never tasted mint chocolate,”

While the two kept going back and forth, the skater trying to reason with the idol, Anna stood there, watching the two bicker. It warmed Annas’ heart watching a person she associated with her childhood be so lively after everything she had to put herself through. Even if Anna wasn’t there, watching y/n prepare for the 2024 Olympics, she knew she wouldn’t be so easy on herself with food.

She noticed the lack of fat just as they stepped on ice, not like the girl wasn’t already in great shape.

“It was great, catching up, y/n” Anna interrupts the duo as y/n turns around.

“That’s sounding like a goodbye to me,” y/n joked as Anna nodded.

“It’s best I head back now,”

“Oh, sure then, text me… if you ever feel like it,” Y/n says as they hug each other for the last time and bid their goodbyes.

“You never tell me that,” Singer breaks the silence that was once achieved, causing y/n to turn around.

“Huh?”

“Do you like Anna?”

“You’re overwhelming me what is going on??” y/n was lost for words, idol always managed to mess her up, and not be able to form a straight thought. 

“Do you, or do you not love Russian ice skater, Anna Shcherbakova, y/n l/n?” Karina asks determined to find out the question fearing for the answer.

“No, No I don’t, Yu Jimin,” y/n answers back in the same tone but in a slightly mocking way.

‘No’ as an answer was all it took for Karina to lose all her threads holding her back to slide her hand from y/ns jaw to her neck and pull her into a kiss.

Figure skater was frozen, confused, and conflicted but couldn’t help but return the kiss as she grabbed older by her waist, pulling her closer as they savored the moment till both of them had to pull away, panting for air but saliva still connecting the two.

“W-wha?-” y/n looked at the older girl, wide-eyed, her voice barely above a whisper, “What… was that?”

“I think it’s the right time to tell you that I like you,”

“And you thought that was a proper way to say it instead of communicating like adults?”

y/n saying that to Karina felt like she just got rejected, right in front of others she tried to pull away but the second she tried, she felt y/ns grip on her tighten

“I didn’t say I hated it either.”

“You’re so complicated…”

“You still owe me that mint chocolate ice cream date and then I won't be so complicated”

“oh-ohhh, so you’re inviting yourself on a date now?”

“Yes or no jimin?”

“Million times a yes.”

"we are still fucking here," Ningning chimed in.

of course. they followed their leader.

[princessbellecerise]

Sweet Like Sugar

──── ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧ ────

summary | In which you’re Coryo’s sugar baby

warnings | smut, sugar daddy!coryo, slight public sex

this is an eighteen plus fic. minors do not enter

divider by @princessbellecerise

You’re not sure what to say at first when Coryo proposes this idea to you, but you have to say that you’re shocked

You’re nothing more than a district girl, having been raised in not quite poverty but not abundance either

You’ve never had anything other than the bare minimum, so when Snow offers to give you the world and to take care of your family as well?

Well, it’s obvious what you choose

Quickly, you end up being transported from your district to the Capitol in no time. While your family is given a high rise apartment and grocery deliveries every month, you’re given your own space; a house not too far from his own mansion

Snow likes to keep you close, as he does with all of his prized possessions

And first things first, you’re spoiled

There’s no one in Panem that has more than you, no one that has more jewels, clothes, makeup, etc. Not even Coriolanus himself

He takes such good care of you, making sure that you want for nothing and that you have everything you need

He’s surprisingly generous; but you both know that it doesn’t come without a cost

The world outside of the capitol is a harsh one; one that you desperately don’t want to experience again. You’ve seen people starving to death or being maimed by wild animals in your district and you do not wish to live that kind of life. You’re content, comfortable with how you live so any price he states, you pay

Usually it comes in the form of Coryo being on top of you, a hand around your pretty little neck while he fucks you on his desk

Or, sometimes it’s in his room, with your face stuffed into his luxurious pillows as he fucks you from behind

One way or another, he uses you like you use him. Whenever and however he pleases

You don’t mind of course, loving the way you’re bouncing on his cock one minute and then the next he’s buying you a diamond necklace

He likes for you to get dolled up for him, so he can show you off and make everyone around him jealous

He sees the way they look at you, and the way other men and even women envy him. He knows that they’d give to have you but they can’t. They can’t afford you

Sugar daddy!Coryo that always makes you call him ‘sir.’ He tell you that it’s the proper way to address him as he is the president, but really he just likes the way it sounds coming from your pretty little lips

Often times, he’ll call you nicknames such as ‘Doll,’ or ‘Pretty Girl’

They’re fitting seeing as you’re always dressed up, whether that be in fancy dresses or silk night gowns that he’s specifically picked out for you to wear

Sugar daddy!Coryo that takes you out for fancy dinners, only to end up fucking you in the bathroom like he’s a commoner. He always hates when he looses his self control like that but fuck—sometimes you just look so good that he can’t help but to stoop to that level

Sugar daddy!Coryo that kisses you desperately in some random bathroom stall, that has you pressed up against him and can’t stop rambling about how hard he is

Coryo that has you stepping out of that expensive dress in no time, even tearing it a little so he can reveal your pretty cunt

You’re always wet for him, always so eager and that’s what Coryo loves

He loves the feeling of you wrapped around him, moaning his name and begging him to let you cum

Of course, before it even reaches that point, he also has you on your knees, sucking him off to try and relive some of his desperation

Even after everything, Coryo likes to think that he’s a gentleman, so of course he lays his jacket on the floor so your knees won’t be hurting

It’s the least he can do because fuck—you always have him cumming in no time, and again once he’s fucking into your tight cunt

He never cums inside of you, always on your tits or in your mouth

He just loves the way that you look up at him, pretty face coated with his seed. He always take a few seconds to admire you before cleaning you up, making sure you’re presentable once again before finally settling down at your table, thirty minutes later

And of course, before he takes you home for the night, he also makes sure to fuck you one last time in his fancy limousine, windows fogging up and all of Panem having no clue what’s happening behind those tinted windows

[crystallinestars]

If They Were Your Pet Cat (Part 2)

Headcanons for what Aventurine, Argenti, and Jing Yuan would be like as your pet cat.

This is a part 2 because I have a part 1 with Genshin characters here.

Part 3 (Gepard, Ratio, Dan Heng, Sampo)

-------------

Aventurine:

🦚 Is a domestic shorthair.

🦚 You picked him up as a stray off the streets. Aventurine looked so pitiful in his dirty and starved state, that you didn’t have the heart to leave him like that, so you brought him home. Initially, he appeared nervous and quiet during the first few weeks. Once he became accustomed to living with you, you discovered that the little, scrawny feline has a big personality.

🦚 Aventurine loves to be pampered. He always purrs whenever you brush or pet him, give him belly rubs, or chin skritches. He simply adores your attention. When you coo that he’s such a pretty kitty? Aventurine looks as smug as a cat can possibly look and follows you around the house while affectionately rubbing against your legs.

🦚 He’s very loyal to you. Anyone that comes to your house and tries to coax him to come play or get pats, is promptly ignored by the feline. The ability to cuddle and pet him are luxuries he reserves only for you.

🦚 You’d think starving out on the streets would have made Aventurine eager to eat almost anything, but no. The little rascal only eats the most expensive cat food brands and turns his nose up at anything else. Either that, or he will steal your food off your plate when you’re not looking. He’s a spoiled cat.

🦚 Aventurine likes to sleep next to you. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing—he will saunter up and lay down somewhere close to take a nap. It’s also a given that he sleeps cuddled up beside you in bed during bedtime. He simply likes feeling your presence since it makes him feel safe.

🦚 As such, Aventurine hates when you leave him home alone for extended periods. He’s surprisingly clingy and gets lonely easily. If you’re gone for most of the day, he’ll be very upset by the time you get home and might tear up a pillow or the curtains out of spite. If this this pattern continues for a long while, one day you’ll notice that your keys are gone. Aventurine is a smart cat and quickly figures out that when you leave the house, you always bring your keys with you. To make you stay, he’ll hide them in a spot that only he can reach with ease. Good luck getting your keys back…

🦚 That said, getting another cat or pet won’t cure his loneliness. If anything, Aventurine will become possessive and jealous because he hates having to share your attention with another cat. He’s a bit territorial of you. Similarly, he dislikes you coming home smelling like another animal, so expect him to rub against you to overwrite the scent of that other animal.

🦚 Most of all, Aventurine hates it when you get mad at him. He always looks guilty whenever you scold or yell at him, and immediately flops over onto his back to expose his furry belly to you. It’s his attempt to placate you and ask for your forgiveness. He anxiously follows you around the house and rubs his body against your legs until he’s sure you’re not mad at him anymore.

Argenti:

🌹 An Ocicat breed.

🌹 Argenti is the most photogenic cat you’ve ever encountered. He always looks graceful and dignified no matter what he’s doing or what angle you take photos of him from. Every picture comes out looking lovely. Anyone who sees your cat always says that he looks beautiful.

🌹 To keep such a gorgeous appearance, Argenti often grooms himself. He does a very good job of it, too, which is why you barely have to groom him yourself. The most you have to do is give him the occasional bath, brush out shedding fur during shedding season, and clip his claws.

🌹 As gorgeous as he is for a house cat, Argenti is a free spirit who doesn’t like to be cooped up at home for long periods of time. Whenever he wants to go out, he’ll paw at the door or windows to signal for you to open them. You were nervous about letting him out at first but soon learned that his desire for the great outdoors was unstoppable. He would venture outside one way or another, much to your befuddlement. He enjoys exploring the neighborhood but always makes sure to come home before dark. As much as he loves adventuring, he loves being in your loving arms more.

🌹 Argenti has the temperament of an angel. You could do whatever you wanted to him, and he would gracefully take it without complaining or struggling. It makes doing things like taking him to the vet, bathing, and grooming extremely easy. You could even make him wear different outfits, and he won’t mind at all. He might even like wearing some of them.

🌹 Is very friendly. Whenever you have guests over, Argenti greets them at the door and purrs while rubbing against their legs. He also readily engages in play and comes if they call him. He does this with everyone who comes through your door, so he’s pretty well-liked among your social circle. However, he doesn’t sit on your guests’ laps or cuddle with them since he’s too active to be a lap cat. Such privileges are available only to you.

🌹 His overly friendly and affectionate personality extends to more than just people. He can purr for other animals he finds during his little excursions outdoors, or even inanimate objects. You once caught him rubbing up against one of your potted plants…

🌹 If you’re scared of insects, then Argenti is the cat for you. Whenever he hears you shriek because you saw a bug, he runs over to your side and promptly fends off the heinous critter. He easily catches and kills any insects so that you, his owner, don’t have to be scared anymore. You can sic him on anything, and he’ll get rid of it for you.

🌹 Argenti is sensitive to your emotional state. Whenever you’re upset, Argenti brings a toy over to you to try and get you to play with him and take your mind off whatever is bothering you. If that doesn’t cheer you up, then he lays down on your chest and licks at your face with his rough tongue. It’s his way of soothing you. He’ll purr on your chest until you feel better.

Jing Yuan:

🦁 A Maine Coon.

🦁 Is a big and lazy cat. Jing Yuan will chase a toy around the house if you play with him, but he generally prefers to snooze by a window while catching some rays of warm sun. He can more often than not be found napping in some cozy and warm corner of the house. When you’re not home, he’ll also sleep in your bed under the blankets.

🦁 Jing Yuan has a calm temperament. He’s very well-behaved during grooming and handles bathing, drying, and brushing like a champ. He’s chill as a cucumber and doesn’t put up a fight while you do your thing in maintaining his long coat. In fact, he’s so laidback, that you could squeeze and rub him all over and he won’t lash out at you, instead tolerating everything with what you can only describe as a smile.

🦁 As accepting as he is of all your affections, he has boundaries. Jing Yuan is generally not fond of being squeezed and terrorized, especially by people who invade his personal space (like rambunctious children or people who bury their faces in his fur). If one such person is in your home, Jing Yuan will vanish without a trace as soon as he hears their footsteps. He only tolerates such treatment from you because you’re his beloved owner.

🦁 Jing Yuan likes being petted and praised but prefers it if these affections come from you. He especially enjoys being brushed by you, and purrs when you comb through his fur. He can even fall asleep on our lap during brushing since the process relaxes him so much.

🦁 He’s a very intelligent cat. Sometimes you talk to him as if you were talking to a friend or family member, and Jing Yuan would meow back in response at appropriate times during the conversation, as if he were replying to your comments. He also has this intelligent look in his golden eyes, as if he understands everything you’re saying. It can be a bit uncanny at times.

🦁 On top of his ability to respond appropriately to your speech, Jing Yuan also easily senses whenever you’re upset. If you feel down, he will stick to your side or lay on your chest and purr until you feel better. If you cry, he’ll lick your tears away. He remains by your side until you’re all better, and won’t leave you alone for anything.

🦁 Is very curious about everything that you do. When you cook, Jing Yuan sits somewhere in the kitchen and watches you busy yourself with whipping up a meal for yourself. He likes to sniff the ingredients you’re working with, either to identify them or discover a food he hasn’t encountered before. Rest assured that he won’t eat anything without you explicitly offering it to him. However, if you have something yummy like fish or chicken cooking, he expects you to share some of it with him once it comes time to eat. He wants to eat delicious things too, not only cat food.

🦁 Frequently sees you off when you leave the house. Likewise, he patiently waits for you at the door when it’s time for you to come home. He’s a bit like a dog in that way.