#brain shuts down when i think of owen

[star-quill]

so, okay, i saw ur post about wanting to write some owen stuff and im totally here for it so i was thinking-

owen asks reader out on a date, and it goes great and they back to his place and the reader tells him that shes actually not that experienced and he just guides her through it-🫦🫦

I LOVE UR BLOG SO MUCH LIKE THANK U FOR EVERYTHING U DO FOR US I LOVE U🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

me when this is my whole brand !!!!!!!!!

(also mwah mwah ty i cant believe writing has made me so happy again 🥺🫶)

(kinda setting this during jw1 btw)

you honestly don't know why you said yes to the date with owen, he's probably only doing this to get into your pants. which a small part of you wouldn't actually mind, but you don't want to just be another girl in a long line of the ones he's slept with "just because". you know his reputation but neither of your friends have been out with him, so maybe it's slightly to brag about him having asked you instead of them.

there wasn't many options for date night on the island but you were just happy to be with him no matter what. he ended up taking you back to his place, starting a fire and cooking over the heat. it felt very him, he was totally in his element right now. and the food was delicious.

the sun was setting and watching it through the trees with him was so much better than you could ever imagine. and he was so much more charming than normal, his words laced with flirty undertones. you were having so much fun with him, you didn't want the night to end. then he nudged you off him and he stood up, holding his hand out for you to take. the fire had died down and he led you inside his bungalow. he left you standing in the middle of the joint bedroom/front room while he went over to the speaker on his coffee table. he pressed play and came back to you.

"may i have this dance?"

"of course.."

he was absolutely laying it on thick with you, but to be fair, you were letting him in so easily. he slow danced with you for a few songs, his eyes never leaving yours as he sang along to whatever was playing out the speakers. you stop moving for a second and he stumbles slightly when you stop, but still asks you if you're ok when he regains his balance. you don't say anything, you just lean up to kiss him and his hands immediately cup your face, pulling you upwards even more. considering his front room had his bed in it, you didn't have far to go before you felt the back of your knees hit his mattress. you broke the kiss only to lay down before he knelt down on the bed and hovered over you, searching for a sign in your eyes to kiss you again.

"i've uhm.. never really.. done this part.."

"you never fucked anyone?"

you shook your head. he just smirked.

"'s ok, baby.. i'll guide you through it.. you got nothin' to worry about.. ok?"

you nodded this time and he gave you a soft peck on your cheek. he adjusted your body a little, letting you wiggle out of your pants before he let your legs drape over his thighs. you immediately shoved your shirt off, discarding it on the floor near your pants. he brushed some stray hairs out of your face and noticed your eyes, looking at him hesitantly.

"you ok? need you to stay with me, ok?"

you nodded.

"need you to tell me.."

"i'm with you.."

"good girl.. any point you feel uncomfortable, you let me know, ok?"

you nodded again and he leaned down to kiss you again. he was treating you so good, maybe a little too good. you suddenly feel a little afraid you'll get attached and he won't, remembering his reputation. but then he kisses your cheek, your jaw, your neck, your collarbone and you forget all about that. his only intention right now was getting you off and making sure you felt good. and that you did.

you felt good when his mouth was all over you, leaving little marks on your neck and on the inside of your thighs. you felt good when he had his head between your legs, his tongue going deeper whenever you whimpered and tugged on the tufts of hair at the nape of his neck. you felt good when he kissed your neck afterwards, asking if you were still ok, still with him. you hadn't even noticed he'd undone his zipper until his dick was nudging against your thigh when he kissed your neck. then you really felt all of him, how big he was and you whimpered.

"you ok?"

"s'not gonna fit.."

"that's why i'm guiding you here.. we gotta work you up to make it fit.. i got you, ok?"

he took it slow, whispering sweet praises in your ear while he adjusted himself, the head of his dick already inside you.

"don't focus on anything except for how good it feels, ok?"

"mmhm.."

"good girl.."

he could call you that a million times over and you'd melt every time. he only got halfway inside you before your hands flew to his wrists, whining and squeezing your eyes shut.

"hey.. hey.. s'ok.. i got you.. just breathe.."

you exhaled, writhing against him and digging your head back into his pillows.

"gonna push deeper, ok? you ok?"

you nodded, feeling him slide deeper until his hips met the back of your thighs. he moved his arms to beside your head, leaning down to kiss you. your hands wrapped around his forearms, moving up to tug on the sleeves of his shirt. he got the message and leaned back, tugging it off and discarding it on the floor. his hands went back to beside your head and he leaned down once again to kiss you. he slowly dragged his hips back, then pushed back towards you, rocking into you slowly.

"you doing good? feeling good?"

"mmhm.."

"use your words, honey.."

"feels.. oh.. feels so good.. i feel.. mmf.. feel so full.."

his hips were grinding against the backs of your thighs and you could feel all of him. you felt so stretched out but in a good way, making you see stars. you were so close already, and you whined out.

"you ok?"

"so.. mmf.. so close.."

"let go, baby.. it's ok.."

you've touched yourself countless times before, had sex a few times too, but nothing compared to this. your whole body shuddered when you came, your hands gripping onto his forearms again. your legs writhed against his sides and he just laid a hand on your stomach, rubbing his thumb gently over your skin. he continued rocking into you, gently helping you through your orgasm. he wasn't far behind you and he pulled out just before, letting out his release onto your stomach. he leaned in to kiss your cheek, then your jaw and neck.

"was i good?"

"so good.. wanna do it all over again.."

that one time became a few more times. he had you in different positions every time, showing you more, teaching you more. and he took care of you every time. guiding you, checking in on you, telling you what he was going to do. his voice made your brain go fuzzy before he'd even touched you. he had you wrapped around his finger, knowing whenever he'd call you, you'd drop everything to be with him.

#brain shuts down when i think of owen #this request was my absolute fav thing ever fr #owen grady #owen grady drabble #owen grady headcanons #owen grady smut #owen grady x reader #jurassic world #jurassic world: fallen kingdom #jurassic world dominion #✎ owen grady #answered #anon

[koris-crumbs]

gimme td character headcanons. literally any.

RAHHH okay anything for you pookie. These are mainly for my favorite four but i probably have some more somewhere in this brain of mine

Heather:

Fem lesbian obvious

Her and Noah are best friends bc they both clocked each other IMMEDIATELY when total drama island first happened

By best friends I mean both of them only admit it internally and never to each other

Shitty, homophobic parents meant she ran away/got kicked out 😋

MAJOR mommy issues. her dad just was kinda there and didn’t do anything

despises her siblings but LOVES noah and his own family

Ended up moving in with Noah trust she’s basically his sister

LOVES babies despite what people may think

Immediately falls asleep after eating (yeah she’s one of those people)

Pretends she only eats gourmet food when in reality her fave is honestly just a good, greasy burger from some shitty diner Noah took her too

Since she got cut off she makes Noah, and eventually Alejandro and Court buy everything for her 😍

LOVES her weird off brand total dramaverse jigsaw movies but that’s about the only type of scary movie she’ll watch bc it has no jumpscares it’s just gore basically.

HATES HATES HATES JUMPSCARES she’ll scream

thinks noah’s crush on alejandro is genuinely the funniest thing in the world she never lets him live it down

was stunned into silence one time bc noah flashed a photo of her bald on facetime one night

Immediately clocked Alejandro as being a closet bisexual she genuinely probably knew he was a boy kisser before he did

Courtney followed her private account after the events of World Tour transpired and heather screamed when she got the notification

has a key to Noah’s house bc she lives there (this will come back later trust)

passenger princess every time

Noah:

Gay gay homosexual gay

after World Tour and swearing off of reality shows (for now) he gets a job as a barista at some shitty cafe near his house

he gives Heather free coffee bc girl can’t live without it

drove like four hours to pick heather up after she got kicked out

is the designated driver of the group

also usually pays for everything despite being friends with mainly rich (or previously rich in heathers case) kids

knew he had a crush on alejandro from the start and just kinda let it simmer bc he figured nothing would ever come out of it

he has a mom car. a beat up subaru. he is truly the mom friend fr

carries that photo of bald heather around as a way to get her to shut up if she says anything too mean (usually to owen or izzy)

had to be the one to ask alejandro out and literally rehearsed it for hours

is a surprisingly good cook despite being the youngest of nine children. him and owen cook together all the time as a sort of bonding thing

hes a mommas boy trust. both of his parents are great though

never really went all out for halloween until he was roped into a group costume with owen and team e-scope one year. after world tour alejandro convinced him to do couples costumes with him

the most ATROCIOUS fashion sense known to man

Alejandro:

the definition of bisexual

he has the absolute shittiest gaydar in the world though. I know it

didn’t even know he himself was bi until world tour

ALSO meant he couldn’t tell noah was gay (stupid) and it devastated him on that plane even though he had no idea why yet

THIS BOY HAS JEALOUSYYYYY PROBLEMSSSS

being the youngest and always second best to josé definitely contributed to that

the daddy issues to match heathers mommy issues

always wanted a sister

after courtney and him make up after the events of world tour he basically gets her as one

they shit talk people in spanish together trust

has one sided beef with one of noah’s coworkers bc they have a crush on noah

him and heather stayed close after world tour but he did NOT know she lived with noah. he didn’t even know they were friends.

was always confused on why heather made him drop her off like a block from where she said she lived

was scandalized when he found out heather did in fact not strictly eat gourmet food

hates Owen with a seething passion. this one isn’t even a hc honestly. the hatred after world tour mainly stems from jealousy bc owens so close with noah

“why is he here??” “he’s my best friend, alejandro” “i thought I was your best friend ☹️”

yeah he sticks to that “best friend” story a lot.

noah only starts getting suspicious when alejandro says it’s okay for best friends to kiss just for funsies

him, heather, and courtney have to take noah shopping bc of how atrocious noah’s taste is

doesn’t watch movies in general but he loathes horror movies with a passion bc he’s just like heather and hates jumpscares

noah and court put a horror movie on during movie night one time and alejandro literally almost cut off noah’s circulation from how hard he was gripping

for their first halloween as a couple he made noah dress up as a vampire while he was a werewolf (a better love story than twilight 🤯)

does not. know what to do around babies and toddlers. they make him uncomfortable tbh. what if one crawls over to him? he will kindly pass on that, thank you

one time one of noah’s little cousins waddled up to him and he went 😟 bc he thought noah was testing how good he was with kids

has a key to noah’s house bc he’s down bad and already spends 90% of his time there anyway

neither his nor heathers keys were given to them by noah himself

noah’s momma strikes again

whenever he sits behind her he kicks heathers seat in the subaru

Courtney:

lesbian in denial for a while (lmaoooo i’m dr seuss)

honestly wasn’t even that sad about duncan tbh she was DEVASTATED about gwen though

musical theater kid. probably music kid in general.

despite popular belief i actually imagine her parents being very proud and genuinely good parents. they adore their baby girl

definitely has a big photo of her as a baby hung up in like the main area in her huge house

after heather comforted her she honestly regretted not getting her contact info so she had to resort to finding her on instagram after like a month of searching

her and alejandro had kept in touch so she was surprised when she found out he was best friends with heather and noah as well

100% said the infamous heartbreaking quote to heather during world tour at some point

“why not?” “i wish you were a boy” (sorry)

is a beast and super fan for horror movies and noah’s the first friend she actually gets to enjoy them with bc he doesn’t get scared (unlike a specific two people)

ALWAYS dresses up as a princess or fairy or smth for halloween every year without a doubt. heather nearly had an aneurysm the first halloween they spent together

is scary when she drives solely bc of her road rage which is why noah’s the designated driver not her (heather and alejandro don’t know how to lmaooo losers)

that’s it for them for the moment. maybe i’ll do more for other characters if i think of anything ^^

#total drama #td heather #td courtney #td noah #td alejandro #td alenoah #heathney

[shelbgrey]

Next to me(Emmett Cullen)

Chapter 18: chess and suspicious minds

Requested by: @magical-spit

Table of contents

I tossed and turned in Emmett's bed. He was gone hunting with Jasper and we all knew he needed to blow off some steam. It didn't help the fact I sat there with millions of thoughts running threw my head.

After about ten minutes I claimed out of bed and walked down the flight of stairs that lead to the main room of the house. The house really was gorgeous, I've never seen a design quite like it.

I was quite as I traved through the house, not wanting to disturb anyone. I went to the unused kitchen and got a glass of water in hopes to calm my brain down.

“are you okay?” I soft voice said suddenly. I flinched and carlisle put his hands up with a soft smile. “sorry, I didn't mean to scare you”

He set his book down on the counter as I rinsed my cup out. “where is everyone?” I asked. “out hunting and my wife left to send some disings in for work”

I nodded softly, still slightly out of it. Carlisle titled his head as he studied my troubled face. “something on your mind?”

I didn't know what to say. Dr. Cullen was still a stranger to me but at the sametime I felt like I could trust him, but I shrugged. Carlisle nodded and set infront of me.

“perhaps would could play a game? It might take your mind off things”

“okay” I nodded. Carlisle smiled softly and grabbed a red and white chess board. We played in silence for a while, it was a comforting silence but enough was enough.

“I just got a little freaked out by Emmett's driving tonight is all... He was angry at some guys that tried to jump me and Rose” I said moving my queen towrds one of his pawns.

“Emmett told me... He was afraid he was gonna kill them... Fall off the wagon and drink human blood.” carlisle said.

“my parents died in a car crash... Me and Owen almost didn't make it our selves” I said, Carlisle's gold eyes traveled to me giving me soft expression. “I'm tired of feeling so crappy everytime I think about them... I try to think of the good stuff but it doesn't help”

“it will hurt for a while... That's a given, but after a while it'll hurt less when you think about them” Carlisle said.

“my mom passed away giving birth to me, so I can't really tell you I know how you feel” carlisle sighed. “as terrible as it sounds I gotten used to loss during my 200+ years of living”

“I'm sorry” I whispered. Carlisle smiled softly. “nothing to be sorry about... And you win” he said folding his hands on the table. Staring the the board that held my victory.

I chuckled. “yeah...thanks for the talk Dr. Cullen”

“please... Call me carlisle” he smiled. “and you have a lot of people still looking out for you including us.

~~~~~~~~(.......)~~~~~~~~

It was Saturday so I spent most of the day with the cullens. We didn't do much, mostly watched movies and talked. The best thing about today was when Edward showed me the song he wrote for Bella, Edward was a hopeless romantic and its adorable.

Later that night I came home to Charlie and owen watching the Red Soxs game “hey, how was the sleepover with the Cullen girls?” Charlie asked.

“it was nice” I said setting my bag by the door. “Bella's looking for you” Charlie said taking a sip of his beer.

Before I could move Bella called out from her room. “Y/n!” I rolled my eye and went up stairs to Bella's room.

“you bellowed?” I asked opening the door after entering. “I think Emmett and Edward are vampires... Or at least Edward” my eyes widened and I quickly latched the door.

“keep your voice down... And why would you think that?” I asked setting on her bed. She grabed her Labtop pushed in my face. “Edward has done all of this or he has one of theses traits”

“Bella this is insane” I said not wanting to out my boyfriend and best friend. Bella sighed and snapped her Labtop shut.

“Edward is your best friend and Emmett's your boyfriend, your telling me you haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary?”

“Edward is just out of the ordinary, we all know that” I joked. Bella sighed and grabbed a hared back book about the mine and Sam's tribe leadgens. “I'm being serious!”

“Bella, there are no such thing as vampires” Bella rolled her eyes. “I thought you of all people would believe me”

I couldn’t tell her she was right, I didn't even know if she would keep it a secret. She couldn't know about the creatures that roam our world.

I stood up with a sigh. “I'm going to bed Bella”

When got to my room I saw Emmett lying on my bed reading one of my Harry Potter books. I smiled closing my door. “making ourselves at home, are we?”

He smirked and snapped the book cosed. “I missed you” he said holding his arms out. I rolled my eyes and cuddled into his chest. “you saw me all day today”

“it wasn't long enough” he said wrapping his arms around me. “your such a sap”

“only for you” he said kissing the top of my head. “Bella knows” Emmett sighed.

“she's suspicious” I said into his chest. “we'll let Eddie deal with this one”

“agreed” Emmett said running his fingers through my hair. Before I knew it I was fast asleep on his chest with the thoughts of Bella knowing the truth running through my head.

A/n: sorry this was so short, but I promised I'd have a new chapter out.

#Emmett cullen #emmett cullen x reader #Emmett cullen imagines #Emmett cullen story #Twilight #New moon #Eclipse #Breaking dawn #Charlie swan x reader #Bella swan x reader #Edward cullen x reader #Carlisle cullen x reader #Esme cullen x reader #Rosalie Hale x reader #Damon Salvatore x reader #Stefan salvatore x reader #The vampire diaries #Jasper Hale x reader #Alice cullen x reader #The wolf pack x reader #Sam uley x reader #Twilight story

[flowercrowngods]

Steve is staring at the letter in his hand, the words blurry and trembling, but he knows them by heart. They’ve burnt themselves into his eyelids and wandered into his brain, leaving behind traces like bark beetles, eating into him until he’s forever marked.

August 23rd 1987

To: Mr. Steven Harrington

Bearing in mind that there is a promise to never reach out to any of you again, I cannot bear the thought of keeping this from you. There is a way for you to forget. To start over. A new identity we could help you create, a new chance at a life without nightmares and memories of the “Upside Down”.

An offer, if you will. A final peace offering, a showing of gratitude and the least we can do. There have been tests run for over two years. No damages to the rest of the brain, no future memory impairments; a selective memory loss, as we call it.

If you want to forget, you know where to find me.

Dr. Samuel Owens

Steve takes a look around, his hands still trembling around the letter, and he finds only good things. Pictures of himself and Eddie, of Wayne, of Robin and the kids. Sticky notes they left for each other and decided to keep as decoration in the kitchen, Eddie’s van out on the driveway he can see through the window.

Only good things. His. His life.

So why is he crying? Why has he been obsessing over this for two weeks when everyone else just dismissed their letter? Nancy considered it, he knows. But she told him that she refuses to forget about Barb, that she can’t lose her like this, too, and Steve gets it. Eddie sat down hard and frowned at the letter before loudly declaring bullshit. He has this thing about identity that’s linked too closely to memories, and Steve saw that coming, too.

But he can’t. He can’t just drop it, he can’t…

He can’t keep living like this.

Which is why he’s been talking with Dr. Owens. Which is why is hands are shaking so bad. Which is why, when he hears the front door falling shut, the sob finally breaks free from his chest. He’s nauseous, he’s scared, he’s so fucking terrified.

“Hey, Stevie,” Eddie is by his side in a second, crouching beside the chair and taking a hold of his wrists in a comforting manner. Eddie’s hands are always warm. Steve wonders if they will stay that way when he’s…

Eddie freezes, and Steve squeezes his eyes shut. The silence is never ending, and Steve’s going to throw up any second now.

But then Eddie speaks again, and his voice is so small, so kind, so gentle, it makes Steve want to tear himself out of this universe and far away from everyone who dares to love him. He doesn’t deserve it, not when he’s made his decision.

“You’ve made your decision, haven’t you?” Underneath all that kind understanding, Eddie sounds as terrified as Steve feels, and they’re both shaking now, both trembling, both fighting their tears.

Both, when soon it’s gonna be each.

Because Steve won’t remember there’s ever been a both. A they.

He won’t remember and it’s making him nauseous — but not as nauseous as his nightmares, not as nauseous as the guilt, the memories, the constant fear and obsession.

“Yeah,” he whispers, falling from his chair as Eddie pulls him into his arms, rocking him back and forth. “I’m so sorry, Eds, I’m so sorry.”

“Shh, shh, it’s fine, Stevie. You’ve… You’ve been there from the start. You’ve been there longer than me, I won’t understand the shit you’ve been through. You deserve to— to start over. To live your life, Stevie, because you deserve the best one, okay?”

Steve’s shaking his head against Eddie’s neck, holding on, breathing him in, and he doesn’t want to do this anymore. He wants to stay here for the rest of his life and make it count, make it be worth something even though he isn’t.

“How long do we have left?” Eddie asks then, hoarse, and Steve hates himself for stealing Eddie’s voice like that.

“One month, I think.”

God, he feels so hollow. Hollow is all he ever feels anymore when there’s not guilt or fear eating away at him. Eddie knows. Maybe he’s known all along.

“Let’s make it count, then, hm?”

And they do. But all of time runs out eventually.

#steddie #sad steddie #stranger things #memory wipe fic #post season 4 #i’m sorry #dio words #stranger things fic #steve harrington whump

[azrielgreen]

Touched 🦇CH8🦇 Preview

Steve’s shoulder hurts, his arm is tingling and painful but it’s much better, so much better in fact he literally couldn’t care less about it.

All he cares about is…

‘Eddie,’ he groans pathetically, trying to get into Eddie’s lap, needs kisses, needs love, needs that aching cavern inside to be filled until he thinks it’ll split him in half, he needs everything. ‘Alpha.’

‘Oh my god, are you fucking serious?’ Nancy hisses, trying to pull Steve away. ‘This is not the time!’

‘Is it the Thing?’ Jonathan asks in a low whisper.

Eddie grunts with the effort of dodging Steve’s kisses, in the end has to flip Steve around and imprison him in a wall of muscle, wrap him in tight arms with Steve’s back against Eddie’s chest.

‘Stop it, you have to be quiet.’

Steve can’t, he’s writhing with it. Doesn’t know if it’s the adrenaline, or the pain or what, but he’s… he feels like he is mid heat and Jesus Christ, he doesn’t care who sees it, but he’s gonna have to beg Eddie to fuck him right here, on the dead soil of this dead world.

‘Can’t,’ he whines, scrabbling for freedom. ‘Eddie, can’t control it. Use the voice, please.’

Eddie doesn’t hear him though and Steve’s facing away, so he dips into the bond, finds it scalding hot to the touch and fever-bright.

Use the voice to calm me down, please.

I can’t do that.

If you don’t I’m gonna lose it and get us killed. Use it carefully, I know you can. I love you. Please.

When he opens his eyes, he’s wet between the legs, he’s throbbing and desperate, his blood thick with itch and his body screaming to be filled, fucked, bred.

Eddie’s cheek is against Steve’s, holding him from behind when he drops his voice to that rope burn baritone, and says, ‘Be calm and quiet for me, Omega. Slow, deep breaths. Calm. Relaxed. You’re OK. Just for a few minutes then it’ll pass.’

Steve feels like someone cut his strings.

His whole body sags, his brain drops into bliss and he exhales a breathy sigh, feels so much better.

Everything’s fine.

He just has to breathe.

‘That’s it,’ Eddie says, kissing him, holding him tight and his voice cracks beneath the weight of a guilt that Steve doesn’t understand because everything is fine, it’s OK, it’s perfect. ‘That’s it, so good for me.’

‘Fucking hell,’ Jonathan utters, but it’s not about Steve. Everyone is looking up at the shadow passing overhead.

Everyone except Steve, who just needs to breathe.

‘What the fuck are they?’ Jason whispers.

‘Never seen those before,’ Hopper states grimly. 

‘They’re like bats.’

‘Owens said everything has a hive mind, so let’s make sure to stay out of sight.’

Eddie muses, ‘Like the Crebain?’

‘What the hell is a Crebain?’

‘He still can’t hear you,’ Chrissy reminds Nancy.

‘I can hear you through Steve,’ Eddie points out, sounds deeply unhappy about it though. ‘When he’s like this… he’s mindless. There’s no interference. I can hear through him.’

‘My god,’ Robin mutters.

Hopper turns to watch the last of them fly on. ‘They’re passing by.’

Steve is so relaxed.

So calm.

He could nap.

‘You’re doing so great, Little Fox,’ Eddie tells him, kissing his neck. ‘Just a few more seconds and then you’ll be back to normal.’

‘Are you controlling him?’ Jason demands.

‘Stay the fuck out of it, Carver.’

‘That’s gross, that’s like mind control.’

‘You don’t know shit, so shut your mouth!’

‘Guess you really are a monster.’

‘Hey,’ Hopper warns sharply. ‘Enough. Carver, don’t make me regret bringing you. Munson, sack up, I mean it. No bullshit in here, it’s too dangerous.’

Steve feels like he’s waking up, even with his eyes open. He can hear other sounds, he’s noticing things. It comes in a massive rush of pure overwhelm.

And the death right with it.

The smile in the dark.

The dead eyes.

I see you. I taste you. I know you, Steven James Harrington. I will find you.

#oonionchiver #steddie #steddie fic #fanfiction #my writing #onionchiver #askaz #touched

[brighteyedbushybrowed]

𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 - 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞

A/N: I can’t believe we’re already at the end of this series, I might actually cry. This one is a little more tame than the others because I was feeling soft and emotional and writing hot steamy stuff was just not smth I felt comfortable doing tonight. 

You know the rules, my gays. 18+ only, MINORS DNI because if you do your dad will be getting his back blown out by me 

Despite the fact that Billy was arguably the most intimidating person in the group, Eddie was the one you were most nervous about having to kiss in a closet. You’d seen the inside of his room more than once when you bought drugs from him, and his handcuffs and porn magazines hadn’t gone unnoticed by you. In fact, each time you’d been in his room while you waited for your baggie of weed, you had briefly flicked through a couple of his magazines. It all seemed to be hardcore stuff, something that was a little overwhelming for someone with little sexual experience like yourself. You didn’t think he’d try and get you to take part in that kind of stuff – not that you’d be opposed to it at all – but it did make you worry a little that he’d be rough with you in the closet. Sure, it was only a slim chance, but it was a chance nonetheless and you were trying very hard not to freak out over it or look as anxious as you felt.

Eddie’s ringed hand took hold of yours as he pulled you gently to your feet and led you casually into the guest room. You did your best not to think about the handcuffs or his dirty magazines, but it felt like the more you tried the more difficult it was because they just kept popping into the forefront of your brain. Fuck, why did the bottle have to land on him? You were going to be in that closet with him for seven minutes and instead of focusing on making out you were just going to fixate over his stupid paraphernalia.

“Hey, you okay?”

You blinked away your thoughts and nodded a little too enthusiastically. Thankfully he didn’t question it, opting to just quirk a brow at you as he opened the closet. You took the opportunity to practically jump inside and faced the wooden back so you wouldn’t have to look him in the face as he followed you in. The light was quickly extinguished by the door shutting and you released a breath you didn’t realise you’d been holding in.

“Listen, we don’t need to do this,” Eddie said. “You’re clearly nervous as fuck and the last thing I wanna do is scare you off or make you uncomfortable.”

Great. Now he didn’t want to kiss you because you’d been so preoccupied with thoughts about the contents of his room.

“No, no I do wanna kiss you,” you told him, wincing at the way your voice cracked. “It’s just… it’s silly really. I was just overthinking something.”

“Is everything okay? Anything I can help with?”

You couldn’t help but smile. He was always looking out for others and kind to everyone, even though he had more than enough reason to shut everyone out after the way the whole town had tried to hunt him down for murders that he never committed. It had taken a while to convince the townsfolk that Eddie wasn’t involve and, in the end, Hopper had to come out of hiding to convince Owens to pin the blame on someone else and clear the metalhead’s name. Only then was he free to roam the streets again without the worry of being arrested hanging over his head.

A sigh left your lips. “You have to promise you won’t laugh or judge me if I tell you. It’s really stupid and just… yeah.”

He hummed. “I don’t think there’s ever been a day where I’ve judged you for anything. I doubt now will be any different.”

Ignoring the way his words flooded your chest with warmth, you took a deep breath. “I guess… I’m just nervous because I saw the stuff in your room, and I got ahead of myself with my thoughts and started worrying that you’d want me rough.”

The silence felt heavy in the air, and you wished you’d lied or just told him you didn’t want to talk about it. You knew he’d drop it if he thought you didn’t feel comfortable talking to him about it, but no. You had to go ahead and say it and now he was going to think you were weird.

“You thought I’d ‘want you rough’? What made you think that I’d – oh. Oh.”

The ground opening up to swallow you and never spit you out sounded very appealing at that moment. Your neck and face grew warm with embarrassment, and you thought to yourself that it was probably a good thing that he couldn’t see you right now.

You felt him step a little closer to you, your body still facing the back of the wardrobe. His hand on your shoulder made you swallow anxiously.

“Unless you’re planning on wining and dining me and taking me to bed, I don’t have any plans on using my handcuffs on you, or anything else in my room. I definitely don’t plan on cuffing you to my headboard just because we’re playing seven minutes in heaven. Trust me, I save that shit for further down the line in a relationship.” The teasing tone in his voice made you shiver, but at the same time it reassured you. At least he wasn’t laughing or making fun of your bizarre assumption.

You slowly turned around so that your back was against the wood and clumsily tried to place your hands on his hips. His hands guiding yours to where you wanted them made you silently grateful. You felt the dull warmth of his rings against your neck when he held it with both of his hands.

“You know,” he started, his voice quiet, “you probably don’t remember this but the first day of your senior year you kind of made me fall for you.”

Your brows furrowed. “Wait, what? What did I do?”

“It was in the parking lot after school. Jason and his friends keyed my van and spray painted ‘go to hell’ on the back doors. I only found out it was them because you were yelling at him and threatening to fuck his car up if he didn’t clean the van and apologise. He didn’t do either of those things and the cops didn’t do shit about it either, but it meant a lot to me that someone was willing to fight in my corner and stand up for me.”

“How could I ever forget that?” you chuckled. “I couldn’t stand by and watch someone pull that shit. You always welcomed me to your table and made me feel like I wasn’t alone, even though we never really spoke or interacted much. I knew you weren’t what everyone said you were, and I was determined to make sure you at least had someone on your side so you knew that not everyone believed those stupid rumours.”

His breath fanned out over your face. “I just did what any decent person would do and made sure you knew you had a place you belonged if you wanted to belong there.”

You rested your forehead against his and closed your eyes. “Me too.”

The brush of his lips against yours was brief and fleeting until you leaned in to kiss him fully. Your lips moved slowly and in sync, neither of you moving to deepen the kiss as you relaxed into him. His thumbs caressed your neck as he sighed against your lips and his nose bumped against yours briefly. When you pulled your head back, you could hear the smile in his voice.

“I’ve kind of wanted to do that since that day too.”

You giggled and gently pecked his lips. “Can’t believe I was worried you’d wanna be rough with me in Steve’s closet. Feels a bit silly now.”

His laugh gave you butterflies as he squeezed your neck a little. “I can be rough when I want to. However, I’d much rather be gentle with you right now. Maybe take you out on a date if you wanted to. If you don’t that’s also cool. I’m okay with just making out in a closet and then never talking about it again if you’re more comfortable with –”

“Hey.”

“Mm?”

Your lips were almost touching his. “Shut up and kiss me again, pretty boy.”

Eddie didn’t need to be told twice. He sealed his lips over yours and moved his hands so that were cupping your face to keep you against him, your own hands joining behind his back to pull your bodies flush against one another. You felt his semi-hardness against your lower stomach and experimentally rolled your hips a little, committing the sound of the whine he made to your memory. His tongue hesitantly ran over your bottom lip, and you hummed as you granted him access. He tasted distinctly of alcohol, weed, and spearmint chewing gum as you prodded his tongue with yours. His high pitched moan as his fingers caressed your cheeks encouraged you to give his ass an experimental squeeze, giggling into the kiss when his hips bucked into yours.

“If you guys are gonna start fucking like rabbits, you can do it somewhere other than my closet. I’m not cleaning up your mess and explaining it to my parents if anything stains.”

Steve’s voice shocked the two of you apart, your lips already missing the contact. Eddie dropped his hands, and you reluctantly did the same so that you could both get out of the wardrobe. However, before you could go to re-join the group, the metalhead took hold of your wrist and turned you to face him. His cheeks were dusted a faint petal pink with blush, his lips swollen and wet.

“Do you, um, wanna get out of here maybe? Grab some burgers and go back to mine?” he asked, a hopeful expression etched into his features.

You raised a brow at him. “Trying to wine and dine me and get me into your bed, are you?”

“If that’s what you want, then sure. I will wine you. And dine you. And take. You. To. My bed.” Each pause in his speech was punctuated with a kiss to your lips, each one a little sloppier than the last.

You placed your hands on his biceps and bit your lip. “I think I’d like that. Especially the last part.”

The two of you grinning, you wove your fingers through one other and made your way out to Eddie’s van ready for you both hoped would be the best date, and possibly sex, of your lives.

Tagging: @soanis​ @okay-j-hannah​

#spicy content #stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #fanfic #my fanfic #mine

[rainchyna]

𓆩♡𓆪 episode nine: THE HEARTBREAK KID’S PLAN

i’m sorry for making y’all wait long for this garbage.

7:42 am, training.

you never understood why Summer Slam was held in August, August was the beginning of fall. why call it the biggest party of the summer when people are just beginning to over feed their turkeys?

Vince is a creative genius! they say, but June is the epitome of summer, why not do it then? you ask, shut up they reply. who are they? the little voices that cause your daily brain rot known as the WWF creative.

maybe the little voice in your head wasn’t the WWF creative, maybe it was Bret Hart, because it sure does sound like he’s talking to you. wait a minute…

“y/n! get up, what the hell are you doing?”. Bret wasn’t the only person in the ring with you, Owen was running all the ropes over you and you just laid there. you groan out loud and the brothers look at you. “you alright, bud?” Owen asked, “nah man!” you sit up. “what is it?” Bret sits next to you.

“Shawn Michaels!” you exclaim, Bret chuckles, “tell me about it”. you shake your head as it falls to your palm, “no, you don’t get it. we’ve been mostly hostile for the past two weeks, but apparently Shawn and peace don’t come together!” you explain.

“wait” Owen says as he sits on your other side, “what did he do?”

“I was going to the cafeteria earlier, to get coffee and what not, tell me why a staff member pulls me to the side taking ‘bout “oh Shawn’s been trying to get creative to change up the storyline of the y/n-Taker angle”” you say.

“what?” Bret asks and Owen frowns, “what does he gain from that?” he asks. you aggressively shrug before flopping back down, you were both pissed and confused.

why the hell would he be trying to do that? what was the reason? was it something you did? does he just not like you anymore? does he want out of it? because you sure as hell can replace him, and he’s not even on your team!

“you should talk to him” Bret said, you look at him. “and who the hell is he for me to talk to him? I’ll just go directly to Vince” you said. “matter of fact, I’ll go to him right now!”

it wasn’t that long after and you were already knocking on Vince’s door. “oh, y/n, well you’re here early” he smiles as you enter. “drop the fake nice act, you know why I’m here” you say and his face drops as he looks at the paperwork in front of him.

you sit on a chair in front of him and the place your championship on the chair next to you. “whatever it is that that boy Michaels is trying to do better stop immediately.” you begin.

“I don’t know what the hell is going through his head, but if tries fucking with my story, if he tries fucking with my money, he won’t be as pretty as he is right now”.

Vince was nervous, certainly not because he was scared of you or… anything.. but he already okayed Shawn’s idea. they talked about it over the phone yesterday and he thought it was brilliant, excellent even. however, your contact does end by the time it should be executed because it’ll happen on the last bit of your feud with Taker.

and if this is how you’re reacting to just the thought of the idea, you will one hundred percentage not resign if you find out about it.

and what’s he going to do? find another fresh face that the fans will support and go with fully? the fact he was even able to sign you is insane and the amount of money you’ve made for the company since your debut is even crazier. Vince literally couldn’t risk it.

or could he?

“out of everyone you could take ideas from, his?! you took his?! seriously what were you thinking? and why did I have to find out through a staff member? you need to get your priorities straight and make some changes ‘round here”

Vince nods, “yes, Y/n, of course”

“and speaking of making some changes…” you cross your legs as you pull your championship on your lap. “it’s my turn to give you some ideas”

8:27 pm, y/n’s locker room.

“what the hell…” you mutter, who did this to your locker room?

there were five -or at least what you can count- large flower bouquets laid out on the floor, more than fifteen smaller bouquets on your couch and a singular red card on the table in the middle of the room.

from pink to red, yellow, white, and orange, big, medium and small. roses, lilies, tulips, some you couldn’t even names, the room smelled like a freshly watered garden, it was absolutely lovely.

well, this was something!

you were excited because what if someone backstage had a thing for you? trying to be cute with their confession? hmm… but what if it’s an obsessive stalker is trying to kill you? and this was their of expressing their love for you?

you cringe at your own thought before picked up the card from the table.

you’ll find your way to me, one way or another ♡

xoxo, your backstage admirer.

you read the message over and over again, each time it got more interesting, but what got you the most was the perfectly drawn heart at the end.

okay…

but now what?

the girls need to see this!

you grab one of the bouquets and the card in your hand and walk back out into the hallway, only to immediately bump into someone.

“sorry!” you didn’t even see who that was, “whatcha got there, pretty girl?”, of course it was Shawn. “what do you want? actually! do you know who put those here?” you ask.

you push the flowers to the side, Shawn shakes his head. “I‘be been wondering why my allergies have been triggered, I see why now” he says, you rolled your eyes. “I didn’t ask all that” you say, “do you or do you not know?” you ask.

Shawn huffs and he faints being hurt, placing a hand on his chest. “you’re so mean to me!” you begin walking away and towards the dressing room when he says.

“what if I do know him”, you can practically hear his smirk. “then tell me”, he shakes his head again, “be nice to me!” he demands. again with the be nice to me shit, you are nice to him! sometimes!

“i’ll find out myself!”

oh find out yourself, alright.

Shawn knew what he was doing, why would he tell you who it was? as far as he’s concerned he was a part of this little plan, and he benefited from it. you can try as hard as you wanted to but you were never going to find out.

you didn’t need him, but you wanted to know who that is so badly. little did you know, someone was watching your little interaction from afar.

“wait so who…?” Chyna asked, “I don’t know and it’s killing me!” you head falls to your palm, “it’s probably your man” Lita teases.

“huh?” you look up, she rolls her eyes, “don’t act all dumb now, you know we see you and Hunter” Lita wiggled her eyebrows. wait, she’s onto something..

you didn’t even consider Hunter as an option because the card said “secret”, maybe you do know the person! maybe it is Hunter!

but why write secret admirer? and what were the flowers for? you have so many questions.

“what is it with you and Hunter by the way?” Chyna smiles, “oh, for fuck’s sake” you mutter hiding a smile.

you don’t know what you and Hunter are.

you really like each other but no one is making the first move, you find yourself tangled in his bedsheets more often that you should, he catches himself staring at you longer than appropriate, it’s the little touches and the stolen kisses, nothing ever goes further, but deep down you both want them to.

“I don’t know” you mutter as you walk towards the door, “where are you going?” Lita asks, “I got some digging to do! and some questions that need answers..”

10:18 pm, Raw <Live> w/ Y/n Y/l/n and Mr. Perfect on commentary!

the match you wrestled tonight was a bit upsetting to you, you loved working with Luna! you absolutely did, but you had to squash her on tonight’s Raw per Vince’s request.

he wasn’t budging so you just did what you had to do, it was a quick match and the crowd was puzzled as to why it went by so fast but at least you showed up tonight.

the highlight of the match however, was you and Gorilla Monsoon showing off the new women’s championship design, which the crowd popped massively for.

this morning you showed Vince a sketch of what you thought would look cool on a belt, and he liked it enough to were he said that he knew a guy that knew a guy that get the belt fully designed by the end of the day.

and here it was, propped up in front of you at the commentary desk as you sat next to Jim Ross and Jerry Lawrer. the match you were watching was Marc Mero vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley for intercontinental championship, the match was supposed to be between Hunter and Mr. Perfect, but alas, a match was booked.

“I really feel bad about not being able to perform in front of all of these great fans” Mr. Perfect said, you laugh. “it’s not like you’d be able to win anyways” you snicker, “I see you’re Hunter’s team, Y/n” Jim says, you nod. “have you seen Hunter?” you ask. “I definitely see him and OH! Hunter with a suplex!”

you didn’t know what to expect from being commentary, it was weird watching from outside of the ring, but definitely an experience.

Hunter pushes the referee into the the ropes to stop Marc from hitting “the wild thing”, in Japan it’s called a shooting star press but apparently no one has done it here before which in itself was a wild thing.

“we’ll that wasn’t gentlemanly of him!” Mr. Perfect bellowed, “oh he’s is a gentleman alright!” you defend him. “oh yeah? what do you know about Hunter?” Mr. Perfect asked, “a lot! and none of it is of your business!”

“you listen here, little girl-”

“or what?”

the crowd pops as Marc launches himself at Hunter from the top rope, he gets up after a bit and they begin throwing each other around and Hunter pushes Marc on the referee, Mr. Perfect stands up and Jim warns him to not interfere.

“he won’t interfere” you say getting up, “but I will!”, you rush towards the ring and the audience cheers again, you make sure the referee stays down as Mr. Perfect also rushes to the ring, steel chair in hand.

he hands it to you.

you walk towards Hunter, but hit Marc with the chair making him drop to the mat. Mr. Perfect drags the referee towards Hunter who now covered Marc to count.

1,2,3!

the crowd pops and Hunter’s music plays, he’s the new champion. Mr. Perfect hands him the IC championship and hands you yours. Hunter hugs Mr. Perfect, they he hugs you tightly, then picks you up over his shoulder as you both raise your championships.

this one hundred percent will intensify your dating rumours.

shenanigans, but at least you participated.

you barely made it back to the locker room area before Hunter was spinning you around and about, kissing all over your face.

“i’m so proud of you!” you hold him close, “now we both have gold” he smiles, “thank you, angel”. you giggle, “you already thanked me, Hunter. you’ve done enough” you say.

“by the way, what’s with the flowers?”

#rainchyna #rainchyna’s sour grapes #sour grapes #wwe shawn michaels x reader #shawn michaels x reader #hbk x reader #wwe fics #wwe headcanon #wwe fanfiction #wwf fics #wwf headcanons #wwf fanfic #wwf fanfiction #wwe headcanons

[lovebillyhargrove]

Happy endings only. Life's a quest, innit

When Steve arrives at the hospital at around 7.30 pm on August 27th there's unusual commotion at the reception. He sees a couple of doctors who are not normally here so late.

"Good evening, Mrs. Marshall. How are you do.."

The nurse glances at him nervously. One glance, and Steve's worried sick. Did something bad happen while he was away ..

"Is everything alright?"

"He woke up, Steve! He woke up!!"

"What..?? Wait, that's.."

Steve's heartbeat deafens him. Is it real, or is he dreaming? He literally pinches himself, hard, has to make sure he's not sleeping and imagining it all.

"That's .. Really?!"

"Yes!"

Steve exhales, there's suddenly too much air in his lungs. He's feeling dizzy. Oh my god, he's going to faint, he's fainting..

Steve's grabbing the counter.

"When?"

"About an hour ago."

"Can I go see him?"

"Well, doctors are with him now, and I .. I really don't think it's a good idea right now. He seems.. disoriented. And angry."

"Angry? At who?"

"At everyone? He keeps asking why nobody told him and something else about a huge alien .. or a monster that is going to infect all of us .. he's probably still not in his right mind. We really hope his brain .. Doctors must run some tests to .. "

Mrs. Marshall looks at Steve and stops mid-sentence

"Everything is going to be alright. We called Dr. Owens, the one who brought him here on July 4th? Luckily, he was in Indianapolis. He is expected to arrive shortly."

"Yes, yes of course. So .. I can't go in? I just want to see him, even if for a second."

"Oh I don't really know, Steve.. Well, definitely not right now because the doctors are examining him at the moment. Everyone is so excited. Poor boy .. But you can stick around for a bit?"

"Sure. Thank you. I'll just wait here."

Steve is sliding down on a chair near the reception. He wants to see Billy so bad, he's been hoping for this moment for so so long, and now.. he's definitely happy but he's feeling physically unwell.

Steve sees a doctor opening the door of Billy's room and calling Mrs. Marshall in. The doctor is looking a bit .. disheveled. How many people are in there? What's going on? When can Steve finally see him?

Ten minutes later people are starting to leave Billy's room. Three doctors and two nurses.

Steve is getting up and looking around. His legs are bringing him closer to the room on autopilot. He'll just get a peek, no harm done. Just to make sure Billy's really woken up.

Steve opens the door slowly and sticks his head inside. Billy's is propped up in bed with pillows around him, wild hair and wild tired eyes.

Holy shit, this is real. He's awake.

It's another miracle. Billy is so thin and pale and he looks like a sick little child .. But he's awake. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Steve's not sure what or who he's thanking right now, but he really wants to let it out in the universe.

When Steve moves a bit further and opens his mouth to say something, Billy turns his head slightly and the tormented and very unchildlike look is landing on Steve's face.

"Oh hey, Harrington. What are you doing here?" In a raspy voice,

And not waiting for an answer.

"Get the fuck out."

"But Billy I just want to .."

"I don't want to see anybody. Get the fuck out. NURSE!!!!!!"

Steve shuts the door quickly and gets back to his chair. That did not go how he'd pictured it would. Oh fuck. His hands are trembling.

Billy's voice sounded so husky, so rough, just on the verge of frantic

Yet it was like music to Steve's ears. "Harrington." He fucking missed it. No-one calls Steve "Harrington" like that. Only Billy.

Mrs. Marshall rushes into Billy's room. She only stays there for a couple of minutes. When she's out, Steve's already at her side

"Why didn't he want to see me?"

"Oh, Steeve .. give him time. Can you imagine being in a coma? .. You can't. I can't. Give him time, everything will get better." There's almost motherly concern in Mrs. Marshall's voice. "The boy has been through so much."

Steve wants to say "You can't even begin to imagine through what" but bites his tongue. He hates it, that he can't really talk about what happened with someone, except Robin, Nancy and the kids. He'd really appreciate adult perspective on all of this. He'd really like to just .. talk to someone older than him. Hopper is missing, believed to be dead, Mrs. Byers is gone. Steve likes Dr. Owens, but it's not like he can stop by for a chat any time.

Steve sits down on the chair again. He's clearly not welcome here, but he doesn't want to go home.

What he really wants to do right now is to get on the rooftop and shout till his voice gets hoarse.

In Steve's mind it was, of course, more like .. he would hug Billy or .. or at least talk to him. He certainly didn't expect to be told to get the fuck out. Ouch.

Steve decides to stay here some more, because he literally can't imagine going home now. To do what? .. eat dinner? watch fucking TV?

Owens does arrive soon. He goes straight to Billy's room, nodding at Steve as he's passing him by.

Steve notices that twenty minutes later all doctors leave Billy's room and Owens stays there alone with Billy. When he finally goes out and addresses everyone who's waiting for him, he says:

"Well, he is a handful. If there's anything you need, contact me right away. We'll send in our person tomorrow to start psychological therapy. Thank you all for your service, you've been doing exceptional work here. We'll keep in touch."

He shakes hands with every doctor and every nurse.

"Steve! May I have a word with you?"

Owens remembers Steve. They had so much to talk about after the 4th of July.

***

Next week Billy proved to be very difficult. He only talked to the doctors and the nurses of the hospital. The ones who had been taking care of him for the last two months.

He threw a crutch at the psychologist who was sent by the government to have sessions with Billy. Next time the man returned, it was an open cup of jell-o.

He refused to see Max. When his father and step-mother came by, he pretended to be asleep, so their visit only lasted two minutes or so. They came back a couple of days later but Billy just happened to be asleep again. The nurse didn't let Neil wake him up. "Sleep is very important at this stage, Mr. Hargrove. Billy's gaining his strength back."

Steve could swear on his life, Billy and the nurses were in some kind of conspiracy. Hospital staff seemed to have a strange kind of rapport with Hargrove.

Dr. Owens came by again and managed to stay for 30 minutes in the room with Billy and, apparently, have a decent conversation. However, when it came down to signing non-disclosure, even Owens couldn't find the right approach to Billy and left with nothing but Billy's promise "to keep his mouth shut."

Steve has heard from the nurses that Billy's body is very weak. Repaired and not majorly broken anymore, but the muscles have gone weak. Atrophy. There's a long way ahead of him. But he is a determined one. A fighter. He gets off the bed, has already started walking around the room. Refuses to be helped in the bathroom.

Steve? Oh, he still keeps coming by every day. Today is day 7 of his visits when he actually doesn't get to see the patient. Comes to the hospital to hang around the reception. He wonders if the nurses are fed up with him already.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Miller, can you maybe ask him if he will see me today?"

It's easier to get an appointment with the Queen of England, for fuck's sake.

Steve doesn't mind.

He firmly believes in miracles. The universe has not let him down so far.

Mrs. Miller returns back smiling.

"It's a yes! He rolled his eyes and said "Whatever". I guess he's in a better mood today," - she says encouragingly.

Well, this is it. Steve's running a hand through his hair. He hopes he looks good.

He opens the door and looks inside the room

"Billy?"

A pause.

"The book's overdue at the library."

"W .. what?"

"Were you reading Shakespeare to me, Harrington?"

"Uhm.. yeah? Yeah, I was."

"Are you out of your mind? They all died in there. Way to motivate a guy to wake up from a coma."

"Well, it's the book that you.. do you remember? Was it you??"

"I remember, Harrington. My brain is fine. And I said they lacked communication! Speaking of, why the fuck no-one told me Hawkins is fucked up to unbelievable levels, huh?"

Here it comes. Steve's made it into the room and is standing near Billy's bed, contemplating if he should sit down or remain standing.

Here it comes.

"Billy, we .. we weren't really.. friends. Besides, we thought it was all finished when El closed the portal a year ago."

"Oh so only friends are allowed to know the truth? Only the chosen ones?? What about the rest of us, peasant folk? Not privy to the Knights of the Round Table shenanigans?"

"What.. ? What round table? Billy, listen. I know it's fucked up.. there's government involved and it's not so easy. Like.. they make everyone sign these non-disclosure papers .. you can't walk around talking about it with anyone you want."

"And yet, a bunch of snoopy kids were in on it."

"Exactly. Snoopy. They were just .. in it together basically from the beginning."

"Even Max?"

"Well, she .." - Steve's scratching his eyebrow. "Not .. not from the very beginning."

"Thought so."

"But I, I did sign that confidentiality pledge. They'll make you sign one too."

"Fuck them. They tried. I won't sign shit."

"But they will .."

"What, Harrington? They will what? What leverage do they have on me?"

"I don't know .. your family? Your life?"

Billy laughs bitterly

"My family? There are certain things about my family, that make me really doubt it can be used as leverage."

Steve's registering the words. Definitely needs to come back to that later.

"My life? I just nearly lost it. They can have it."

"Don't! Hey don't say that."

It's now or never.

Steve takes a deep breath and carefully touches Billy's fingers with his own.

"Your life is precious."

"That's just bullshit."

Billy's tensing up. His eyes slowly travel down to the place where Steve's touching Billy's fingers

There are so many things unsaid, the air is galvanized. It doesn't make it less real though.

It makes it surreal.

Billy's looking

But doesn't say anything

Steve takes Billy's hand in his own.

"Don't touch me, Harrington."

Hargrove is a handful. Steve wants it, all of it.

"Why not?"

"Because."

Steve is still holding Billy's hand in his own.

"Okay, look. I'm sorry, Billy. I am. I'm sorry I didn't warn you about any of that. But I didn't even know you were involved in this whole mess. Until I saw you there. It's a .. fucking long story and if you'll let me.. I'll explain everything."

Billy takes his hand away. Steve doesn't stop talking.

"And please, don't be so hard on Max. Just let her see you. Talk to her. They are kids and they were all alone with what they were dealing with. Usually there are .. adults .. to uh .. help in such situations. Or me. But I was held captive in a Starcourt underground base, and Hopper and Mrs. Byers, they were .. somewhere figuring some related stuff out, so the kids.. They didn't really have any guidance."

"Yeah tell that to Heather. To her parents. To the fucking families, Steve, who got killed."

"Billy .. It's not your fault. It's not my fault either, or Max's or any of the kids' who were involved in that. It's .. just Hawkins, man. Evil. Horrifying shit happens here. Thank god you got out of it alive."

Billy is silent. His eyes are closed.

"Okay."

"Okay?? That's it?"

"I'm tired."

"Alright. I'll come by tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Because I want to see you. And I want to talk more."

"Bye, Steve."

"Yeah .. Sleep well."

Steve's leaving the room. He wants to stay, he wants to tell Billy how much he has missed him, he wants to tell him that he still keeps all the notes in the drawer near his bed, and he keeps rereading them, he's learnt them all by heart.

Steve wants to .. say so much. Do so much.

They have time.

***

"Listen! It's raining. September rain."

Steve opens the window and fresh fragrant air is flooding Billy's room.

Steve visits Billy every day. He stays late and they talk, hushed voices in the dimly lit hospital room. It even feels kinda nice. Feels a bit like home.

Billy inhales the sweet autumn air with his whole chest. Slowly lets it out. Looks at the wall.

"So what are we now, Harrington?"

Steve both expected and isn't prepared for this question.

"Uhm .. I uh.. I guess we'll have to wait and see."

Hargrove's chuckling.

"How soon you're gonna be able to walk properly?"

"Why? Don't want me as a cripple??"

"Not that, you idiot."

Steve is taking Billy's hand. That's really all they've been doing. Holding hands like dumb teenagers.

"It's just.. it's the hospital. Like.. there's no privacy."

Steve's looking at Billy's lips. He wants to kiss him so bad

But he turns away and looks at the door. It doesn't even have a lock.

"See, any second anyone can walk in. I don't want our first kiss to be interrupted by a fainting nurse or a shrieking Max."

"Maybe nurses here are way more chill than they look."

"Yeah maybe. But still .."

Steve's looking at Billy's lips again. He wonders how long he'll be able to fight the urge, really? They are so kissable. Magnetic

"You know, I uh .. Billy's closing his eyes and putting his head back on the pillow. "I want to thank you. For coming here. Harrington. When I was unconscious, I heard you. I heard your voice mumbling something and I even felt your fingers touching my skin."

Billy opens his eyes and looks straight into Steve's. Drawls

"C'mon let's kiss. Just a small one, c'mon Steve.." Smiles. Pouts his lips, just a little

Steve's giggling

"No, Billy, not like this. Oh my god, you're so .."

"So .. what?"

"When are you getting out of here?"

"I don't know. Doctors are always going on how unsure they are I can take care of myself on my own. But .. I'm planning an escape, Harrington. Can't stay here any longer. Enough."

Billy's eyes are closed again, his lips part a bit and it looks like he's dozing off. Steve's watching him and can't, he absolutely can't stop himself. Steve gets closer to Billy's face and kisses him lightly on the cheek.

"How's that for our first kiss, Hargrove? It's not much but.."

It's the most tender kiss he's ever had. The most meaningful one.

There's life and death in that kiss, and Steve's falling even further.

If he's losing his mind over a little kiss on the cheek, what would happen when he. When they .. You know?

He kisses him again. On the cheek. And this time? Billy moans. Just a slight moan leaving his lips, and he turns the head to the other side

And, excuse me, this quiet moan?

It goes straight to Steve's dick. Bypassing his brain, his heart, literally any part of the body that's supposed to be engaged in the chemistry of love processes

Just goes straight to his dick.

Billy's eyelashes are fluttering like feathery wings of an exotic butterfly.

"Didn't take you for a pervert, Harrington." - he's whispering.

"You don't know me, Hargrove. I'm a wild ride."

"Shit, and here I thought that my dick was brain dead."

The sheet on Billy is visibly tenting.

"Look how easy I am. When you're close to me."

Steve's in heaven. And they haven't even tried anything yet. Fuck. This is .. everything. Mind-shattering. Intoxicating. Magic potion is spreading in Steve's veins.

***

Billy definitely calls Steve "the pervert who first kissed me in my sleep".

Steve's defense is always the same

"You looked so beautiful. Like a sleeping beauty. I couldn't resist."

"You know there's a name for it. You're a somnophile, Harrington."

"Oh yeah? You fucked me last night when I was half asleep. I guess it takes one to know one."

***

Years later when they are older and have grown into each other's skin and flesh, Steve's thinking

Well. Who knew that having Billy as a boyfriend would be so much fun.

A lifetime of together with Billy fucking Hargrove is actually the best miracle that could've ever happened to Steve Harrington.

#harringrove #billy x steve #harringrove fic

[thaliaisalesbian]

i get myself twisted in threads

Chapter 6: with your golden notebook

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

“The kids are going home for the night, Steve.” She’s not sure why she’s telling him this. “Will’s staying, of course, and I think he and El would try to sneak in here to spend the night if Jonathan and I hadn’t already claimed it. Owens is coming tomorrow, he’s bringing another doctor, too. Just in case.” Nancy talks to Steve for another few minutes, running her fingers through his hair—if he were awake, he’d have a fit over it. It’s greasy and flat, and there’s Upside Down goo in it. She feels like she should pour shampoo over her hands and hope that it will help.

Maybe if he wakes up a little tomorrow, she can wash it for him. That might make him feel better. More like himself, at least.

Maybe he’s not going to wake up again. A little voice whispers, and she shuts it down.

She has to. She can’t think about him like that, not now, not ever.

Especially when they’re going to learn more tomorrow. Owens won’t be able to magically fix it all, but he’ll be able to do something.

“Nance?” Jonathan’s setting up an air mattress on the floor. It was either them or Joyce or Hopper staying in here tonight, and Joyce had given them a knowing look when they’d practically begged to stay. “Are you okay?”

She inhales, shakily, and realizes that she’d stopped talking and started crying.

“Is it bad? That I miss him while he’s still here?” She whispers. “It feels like this might be it. The plate, that was bad enough, but this—this feels more real.”

Jonathan knows she means more than right now. It's been months; months she can’t take back.

“I know.” He looks up at her, nothing hidden on his face, not the way Steve tries to hide what he's feeling with his sunglasses and snark. “He’s not going to die overnight.”

Hopefully. He might get a fever, though, or infection might set in, or any other number of horrible things that she knows aren’t likely to happen but her mind keeps coming up with them anyway, shoving them to the front of her brain, making it hard to think about anything else.

Owens will be here tomorrow. If Steve gets an infection, he’ll be able to treat it.

It’s the only good thing she has to think about right now.

She’s missed Steve for longer than just tonight. She’s missed the way he was so good at making her feel better when she didn’t even realize she was sad. She’s missed the way he talked to her, about everything, late at night when neither of them could sleep.

Jonathan doesn’t do that. Not the same way Steve did, and it’s different, a good different, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss Steve.

He’d made it all seem so easy, and in hindsight maybe it’s that she hadn’t seen him struggling because he’d been so focused on her, because he hadn’t wanted her to worry.

“Nancy, it’s late. We can sit and talk to Steve tomorrow.” Jonathan guides her down to the air mattress, holding her tight.

They don’t talk, but they usually don’t need to; it’s like one look explains everything.

Tonight, that’s more true than it’s ever been:  Limbs tangled together, faces wet with tears, a horribly injured Steve Harrington tucked into Jonathan’s bed above them—that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t need words.

finish on ao3

<- 5 7 ->

#stranger things #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #joyce byers #jim hopper #el hopper #will byers #dustin henderson #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #mike wheeler #hurt steve harrington #stranger things fic #whump #whump writing #nix writes #i get myself twisted in threads #ao3 #stoncy #stoncy fic #protective joyce byers #protective jonathan byers #st fic #the party #st s2 #post s2 #sam owens #dr owens #steve harrington whump

[rmd-writes]

Kiss prompt: Tarlos - to shut them up

I’ve assigned each kiss prompt I received a number and am using a random number generator to choose which prompt to write because I got quite a few from you all! As a reminder, I’m trying to keep these to around 200 words and I’m going to try and do at least one per day til they’re all done. If you’ve sent me a prompt, I promise I’ll get to it!

I give up on limiting these to 200 words lol, this is very obviously not 200 words but c'est la vie. Sometimes the characters write themselves.

Thank you Cee darling for the prompt! 💖

a kiss to shut them up

TK set the table but Carlos can’t help but walk over and check it anyway, making sure that the alignment of the cutlery and the glasses on the table is perfect. He wanders back to the stove, tasting the sauce before getting out the serving bowls he’s chosen for the evening. 

Opening the refrigerator, he checks that they have all of the drinks they need – and looks over to the bench to confirm – for at least the third time in thirty minutes – that they have limes this time. Carlos made sure of it. Should he cut the limes up now? He walks over and picks a couple up, before pulling a clean cutting board out of the cupboard. He hesitates, with his knife to the rind. Maybe he should wait. What if no one wants lime in their drinks tonight? What if they’d prefer wine? 

“Babe, I can hear you thinking from here,” TK calls from the bedroom.

Carlos doesn’t respond, still debating with himself over cutting up the limes. 

“Baby,” TK says, in the living room now, walking towards Carlos. “Breathe.”

Carlos looks up at him. “I just want things to be perfect.”

“And they are,” TK insists, sliding his arms around Carlos’ waist and pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “Your food will be amazing as usual. And it’s just our parents. We’ve had dinner with them before.”

“Not here, not since…” Carlos trails off. It’s the first time they’ve invited his parents and Owen over for dinner together since TK’s moved into the loft. Carlos just wants things to be perfect; to show their parents that this is right, that things are good.

He puts the knife and the lime down and turns around in TK’s arms, running his hands up them.

“I know, baby, and it’s so sweet that you care so much. But it’s our parents. They love us. They just want to see us happy and we are. You make me so happy.”

TK’s smiling softly and his eyes are crinkled at the corners. Carlos can almost feel the way his contentment wraps around them both in a golden haze. But still–

“Should I have made tamales instead?”

“No, baby, the mole is perfect.” TK laughs a little. He’s so beautiful when he laughs.

“Is your dad even eating carbs these days? Oh god, what if he won't–”

“Dad will eat whatever he’s served tonight because he’s not a monster.”

“I should have bought you something more special to drink, are you sure you’re okay with mineral water?”

“Carlos.”

“Oh my god, are you sure you took the lube out from behind the couch cushions? What about the bottle in the–”

Carlos is silenced by TK’s lips on his, and when TK licks into his mouth, all of the thoughts rattling around his brain are silenced because when TK kisses him, there’s no room for anything else in his mind except TK, the way that TK’s lips feel against his, soft and lush and demanding, the press of TK’s body against his own, warm and safe and here. TK’s heart beating steadily against his own, where it belongs.

(find all of my kiss prompt ficlets here or read them on ao3)

#carlos spiralled and so did my word count #so kiss me #tarlos fic #911 lone star fic #rmd writes #thanks for the prompt! #rmd writes: ls snippet

[welcometololaland]

Your turn, babygirl 💖

The scenario: A 24-hr Amazing Race-style challenge which includes booking travel and actually travelling from Tokyo to Kuala Lunpur which is approx 7.5 hours (why those cities? idk, they just popped into my head), with tasks to complete in each city

The prize: Something fabulous.

The players:

1. Nancy Gillian & Hunter Huntington III

2. Alex CD & Nora Holleran

3. TK Strand & Pez Okonojo

4. Zahra Bankston & Owen Strand

5. Henry FCMW & Marjan Marwani

6. Pearce Risher & Grace Ryder

7. Carlos Reyes & Andrea Reyes

8. June Claremont-Diaz & Tommy Vega

Notes: players cannot utilise their personal wealth to assist them, game provided budgets only. Assume there are several flights per day between Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur

Who wins? Who loses? What are their final rankings?

Oh fuck. I got hit with one of my own insane questions!!! Uno reverse has got me!!! Thanks to my beloved Rae and thank you to everyone who has amused me with answers to these I fucking love sending them 💕

The rankings: Tommy and June, Henry and Marjan, Owen and Zahra, Pearce and Grace, AGCD and Nora, Andrea and Carlos, TK and Pez, Nancy and Hunter.

The rationale:

1. Nancy and Hunter

A complete disaster. Nancy is fucking hilarious and very smart, but her sarcasm would go completely over Hunter's head. He would annoy the absolute shit out of her by talking about his personal wealth (which is absolutely worthless in this situation) and bring no practical skills to the table. Nancy would do her best, but she'd quickly find out that the only way she can help this idiot is by stitching him up when he pisses a fellow passenger / member of the airline staff off so significantly that they fight him.

2. AGCD and Nora

2 x very competitive, chaos bisexuals fighting it out. They are a naturally a formidable duo. Alex is very smart, but by his own admission, Nora is even smarter. They definitely have the brains and the physical prowess to take out the top spot but they're both prone to a hyperfixation and my suspicion is they would misread clues and go down a fucking rabbit hole OR forget to eat for days on end and pass out from lack of sustenance (I suspect the latter).

3. TK and Pez

How much fucking fun would these two have? Seriously, I would voluntarily elect to follow them around! Their great strength is that Pez is very well travelled and also super chill, and TK obviously has some pretty handy paramedic skills. I think their downfall is twofold: TK will (without a doubt) get into some kind of accident, and Pez will have no fucking clue how to deal with that except to maybe stick some glitter to him. Secondly, they would both get easily distracted (TK by any and all animals, Pez by anything eclectic or vaguely amusing - which may or may not be TK himself).

4. Z and Owen

If Zahra manages to avoid having an aneurysm from having to deal with Owen's fondness for a date and / or a meaningless side quest, I think they're on the money. Let's be real, Z is fucking scary. There would be an initial power struggle and there's a 87% chance Owen would try to hook up with her (which would be very quickly and viciously shut down), but once Owen accepts defeat, they are a good showing. Zahra is very organised, takes no shit and is very smart. Owen is very competitive and great in any and all stressful situations. Wouldn't count them out.

5. Henry and Marjan

Platonic power couple. Henry would almost immediately relinquish all power and control to Marjan, who would absolutely slay this challenge. She's smart, resourceful and physically capable. Henry is cluey, painfully polite, a fucking prince and...let's be honest he's just very hot. I feel like he could easily schmooze their way into the last two seats on the first flight out of Tokyo, even when the booking clerk initially said the flight was full. Plus, Henry is always seen as the more docile one, but I reckon he'd get a huge kick out of seeing Alex's pouty little face when he beats him. Their only hold back would be Henry getting recognised and being asked for an autograph.

6. Pearce and Grace

God, they're both very smart and capable people, but I just think the initial power struggle would complicate things. Pearce would be too much about reading (and then reciting) the rule book, and Grace would get very frustrated with him when he (initially) refuses to listen to her. They'd definitely work their way around it, but the initial speed bump would cost them.

7. Carlos and Andrea

Look, they'd work perfectly together. We know Andrea can be savage when she needs to be, and Carlos is very intelligent and resourceful. The problem is, he's only left Texas twice, so he's hamstrung by that. Andrea would be a little caught up making sure he eats properly, and when you eat 6 meals a day that's gonna cost you. Plus, Carlos would be acutely aware that TK is likely getting himself into some kind of NDE at any given moment, so that would be weighing heavily on his mind.

8. June and Tommy

The dark horses. They might not have some of the credentials of other players, but that's their strength. Tommy is fantastic at giving directions, June is a superb listener. They (like Andrea and Carlos) have the capabilities of communicating in two languages. Tommy is hyper competitive, June has incredible intuition. To me, they're the ones to watch. Girl power 🙌

#a different kind of character meta #rmd tag #chaos tumblr asks #911 lone star #rwrb #red white and royal blue

[twh-news]

Is There A World For ‘Loki’ Beyond Season 2? EP Kevin Wright Sheds Light

Warning: the following interview contains spoilers about tonight’s first episode of season 2 of Loki

After Loki’s amiga Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) opted to kill He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) spurring multiple nefarious versions of the newbie villain across several timelines, Loki was sent back to where it all started: the bureaucratic, office grind of the TVA — but a very different one; one where his new best friend Mobius (Owen Wilson) doesn’t recognize him. Out of touch with his soulmate, Loki is trying to find his way back to her. However, like Chicken Little, he’s trying to tell everybody that the sky is falling; that Kang the Conqueror is coming their way. We talk with Marvel executive and Loki season 2 EP Kevin Wright, who is with the series from start to finish, script to post, about the daunting task of living up to what was a spectacular season one.

EP and director Kate Herron left some big shoes to fill on Loki season one and I was shocked when she told Deadline she would not be returning for season 2. What went on there?

Kevin Wright: Throughout season one, I was constantly teasing her with, ‘Hey, when we come back for season two,’ and she said she made it very clear through shooting, she’s like, ‘This one’s it’ and I think it was purely from the…She really put everything into it, and look, COVID was right in the middle of shooting.

So, it was an even longer commitment than she had initially even signed up for, and while that was happening and while we were shut down, she was editing, and we were working together through that. I think she felt like she really put her heart and soul into it, and she wanted to be able to hand the storytelling reins over to other filmmakers, and her fingerprints are certainly on it, and she was somebody that, when we first met her, knew she was fully aligned with what we wanted to make.

So she departs, who do you go to from there? The new directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead? Were they driving the ship on season 2?

KW: There was a little bit of downtime. Before they even came on, (EP & star) Tom (Hiddleston) and I kind of recalibrated. Figured out what we wanted this new season to be. We spent a lot of time developing that. Eric Martin had come on roughly around additional photography on season one as our season two kind of lead writer, and so, the three of us just starting building out story.

And there was a long stretch of just writers’ room, developing these scripts, figuring out what it was going to be, while we figured out where we would go in the directing front. Pretty early on, we knew we were going to bump up (production designer) Kasra Farahani to direct, as well. He was with us in the writers’ room, so he had already taken on a big creative role there and had so much to do with the world-building in season one. (VFX Supervisor) Dan DeLeeuw even kind of came on fairly early just because he was with us in that post-production process of season one. And he’s such a storied brain, we brought him in, but yeah, we needed that captain. I had met with Justin and Aaron. I brought them into the studio before season one. We had met generally. I really liked them for Loki. We had already brought on Kate, and so we passed them off to another project, which ended up not working out, either, and then they ended up becoming Moon Knight.

So, they were guys who were in our system, that we liked and had been in the periphery of Loki, and while they were doing additional photography for Moon Knight, I recruited Kevin Feige, the big guns, to go in there and visit them on set and say, ‘Hey, we want you to take the reins of Loki and come in on that.’ So, it was like a meandering process, but it had felt like they were eventually going to come on and work on this.

Loki season one is perfect television in the Mr. Robot sense of the word. Coming off season one, what were the challenges? You’ve established this great world, great villain in Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains – was it a high bar to jump?

KW: Yes. Incredibly high bar. Partially, though, one of the biggest challenges was, early on, Tom and I just talking about not only was season one good, and then people liked it, which is not a given. We had a really great time making it, and it was a crazy time in the world, but it was, like, a really exciting, happy process for everybody involved, and coming back for a season two did feel a little bit like, well, how do we capture that lightning in a bottle again?

And so, we had a lot of conversations about we can’t just come back and try to play the hits and do what we did in season one, because even if we recapture it and do that again, it won’t be fulfilling, and I think there was a sense of we built something really cool, and the audience went along with it. It was big sci-fi weird stuff, and if they have bought it, it felt like we had a lot of, then, freedom to go further and deeper with these characters and not fast-forward. Like, it had this great cliffhanger.

Let’s pick up in that: what is the drama and the stakes of what is happening with Loki in the TVA with Sylvie? And I think anything that could be scary about picking up in a new season like this goes away when everybody just starts going, what is right for these characters? We’re not trying to build some bigger Marvel arc. We’re not trying to do this. If we’re true to these characters, we will deliver on what people liked about season one, and we can build the world out and dive deeper into these characters and their drama.

So, tonight we see that there’s cacophony. Loki returns to the TVA, Mobius forgets him. Sylvie’s lost. However, the TVA was destroyed in season one, and we come back to place where it’s still in existence. Was this just the best place to start with the mishegoss of timelines?

KW: I think, for us, the exciting thing then was, in that chaos of multiverse, to be able to play with those first few minutes of season two, being loose footing for Loki, trying to make sense of what is happening. Is this a different TVA, which shouldn’t make sense, because it’s outside of time? So, it’s not like it’s a different reality. Is this ours? Why don’t they remember him then?

And I think it just gave us a groundwork. We wanted to come in and not do the same thing in season two. We had a high bar that we wanted to hit, and a cyclical story structure is hard to do. Eric, our writer, even said, I think we can pull this off, but it’s going to be messy for a while, while we figure it out. That opening allowed us the tools and the groundwork to start telling this time-looping narrative, and it was sort of the mechanism to kind of get this whole thing rolling. That just gave us a lot of character drama.

Now Sylvie – we see her for a minute toward the end of episode one. That’s Loki looking into the future…

KW: Yeah. So, in the context of that, he’s been slipping in the past and to the present, and in that moment, he has slipped into the future, and so, he is seeing something in Sylvie that has yet to happen for him on his personal timeline, that will loop back around again.

Does Loki season 2 like other Marvel series bridge to another big movie in the near future? Clearly, the next Avengers: Kang Dynasty, but are there others?

KW: Nothing that I could say in the near future. The implications will ripple into other projects, though, certainly, and the TVA is an organization that will continue to have stories to tell, which is one of the exciting things about it to us.

Is there an arc here? Do you guys have, like, a five-season plan, a three-season plan, or do you take it season by season?

KW: We take it season by season, and there are certainly things that Tom and I and other casts have talked about of where we see this going, and I know there’s some excitement for that internally, but just from a storytelling standpoint, I think we always conceived of seasons 1 and 2 as a whole. That these are two chapters of the same book, and that season two is finishing that book, and there are other stories to be told there, but I think they would be new books, if that’s not too coy.

Are we going to be just as shocked as we were at the end of season one? I mean, season one was jaw-dropping.

I hope so, but what I will say is it’s not a cliffhanger. We want to be able to deliver real fulfillment in what we’re doing, but I do think it’ll be exciting and unexpected and everything people like about this show.

#loki #loki series #tom hiddleston #loki season 2 #loki s02 #kevin wright #article #deadline hollywood #loki spoiler #loki spoilers #spoilers

[belovedindierock]

Bent out of Shape

Cranky, playful, and maybe just a bit cracked, THOM YORKE has channelled his anxieties into a new solo album. Join him as he ponders the future of Radiohead and the end of civilization.

by Brian Raftery / Photographs by Jack Chessum

THE FLIGHT LAST night was torturous. He didn't sleep—he never sleeps, in fact, no matter what he tries. The herbal pills shut down his body but not his brain, and melatonin gives him wide-awake nightmares that he dubs "the horrors." Sometimes he works on songs on his laptop, but usually, by the time he's halfway through the air, Thom Yorke is silently freaking out. But this morning he woke up, put on a Björk tune, and got a massage. Sitting in an abandoned, librarylike meeting room at Philadelphia's Loews Hotel, he walks over to a window framing the skyline. The sky outside is a wondrous blue, and the 80-year-old Ben Franklin Bridge looks as if it could reach into heaven. Yorke takes it all in, sweeping his arm across the display of buildings. "You know, you land in the U.S., and you look out the window here," he says. "And all this infrastructure, everything that's going on... it will not exist."

He launches into an explanation of how it will all go down: The world's oil supply will be depleted, American won't be prepared, and the City of Brotherly Love as we know it could be gone in the next 100 years.

This is what Thom Yorke is like on a good day.

His malaise is understandable. Yorke is a few months shy of 38, and like most people who pay attention to what's going on in the world, he's scared shitless. Much of this fear is channelled through The Eraser, a heavily electronic side project—he bristles at the term solo album—that Yorke recorded with Nigel Godrich, who has also produced albums for his band Radiohead. Its nine songs are jittery meltdowns about alienation and anxiety, and it's hard to listen to it without thinking, Man, does his voice sound good when it's so far up in the mix. Also, is the apocalypse going to arrive before track six is over?

And yet, because he has a partner, Rachel Owen, and two young kids, Agnes and Noah, and because it's no fun to be a gloomy Gus all the time, Yorke remains a 21st-century optimist, one who believes that things are bad but we're not entirely screwed. Yet, "I have to be positive," he says, "because when it comes down to it—how do I say this without sounding really revolting?—you have to get up every day with love in your heart."

He pauses, his face frozen in a wince.

"There you go. I sound like some sort of lunatic. I'll just say I haven't slept much."

There is absolutely nothing surprising about seeing Thom Yorke in person. With the exception of the mid '90s Pablo Honey era—during which he rocked a blond shag that made him resemble Garth Algar after partying in The Dark Crystal—he's appeared more or less the same for over a decade: spiky dark hair, a flatlined gaze (the result of a lazy left eye), and some tentative stubble. He dresses his age, in jeans and a white short-sleeved dress shirt, but looks five years younger—not surprising, perhaps, since 33 is the scientific proven median age of Radiohead's fan base.

What is surprising, though, is that while Yorke sounds as tense as ever, he's looking relatively relaxed these days. The perpetually tortured glare that greeted reporters and hangers-on during the OK Computer era has been replaced by an occasional nervous laugh and some self-deprecating digs. "It's difficult to tell how people have changed," says Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien. "But Thom's been in a better headspace for quite a few years."

Part of the reason for this reversal, Yorke admits, was The Eraser. After Radiohead's exhaustive tour in support of 2003's Hail to the Thief, the band needed a rest. Yorke retreated to his home base of Oxford, England, gathering blips and beats that had been lying around for years and assembling them with Godrich's help. "After the last tour everybody decided to take a break and have kids," says Godrich. "But Thom had actually had his kids first, so he was given this space to think about what he should do. And he thinks very hard about that." Everyone in the band knew about the project, but when Yorke describes the recording, it's as though he's talking about having an affair. "We were getting together a week here and a week there, and it really wasn't a big deal," he says. "And because it wasn't a big deal, it was fun. It felt like nobody was watching."

What happened on that last tour that made you so anxious to work on The Eraser?

The last show was Coachella, and by the end of that, we'd completely lost interest and lost confidence. Part of the nail in the coffin for me, personally, was going on after the fucking Pixies. It's like going on after the Beatles. It was a massive big deal, and I really, really, really didn't want to do it. It was an odd situation, as well, because I think the Pixies misread it. They thought it was because we didn't like them. I lost sleep for a month. It was time to stop for a bit.

What happened when you stopped?

The interesting thing was the lack of momentum, the lack of doing anything. You just sort of go into this loop where you're like, "Ahhhh, fucking hell," because nothing's done. Unless you finish a song, you can't move on. That's what was the good thing about The Eraser, going bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and it was done. I want to get a bit of that bang, bang, bang, bang thing back again.

Making The Eraser may have been cathartic, but it's a very bleak record. There are songs about distrust, isolation, bombs in the Underground...

I have many bleak thoughts. Don't get me started, man, It's one f my specialties, apparently. I'm concerned for our future, generally speaking. I'm concerned for my children's future. The reason I called it The Eraser is because the whole thing was written just trying to forget all the things that scare me. For example, we've reached the point where the [oil] supply has peaked. So what's going to happen? It's this enormous fucking elephant in the room, and everybody in the Western world is ignoring it. It's insane. And me being me, I don't ignore it. I guess I have too much time on my hands. So yeah, big surprise that I happen to be writing about that.

How do you keep those things in mind and not have it weigh down your life?

I have periods like that, which probably means I should be [institutionalized]. But I'm not a pessimist. I've gotten involved with this Friends of the Earth [group]: in the U.K. they're a big thing, like Greenpeace. They have this campaign to get the government to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050 or something like that. And it's quite interesting to be sitting down with these people, and them actually saying, "These things are achievable."

We've got 50 years to reassess how we interact with the world around us. And it could be really exciting. It's not like this [points to window] is making us happy. Sitting in gridlock is not a blissful experience.

So what about stepping up your political involvement, like Bono or Bob Geldof?

I'm not capable of becoming a big spokesperson. I don't think it's a good idea for the sake of my sanity. You have to know what your limits or strengths are, otherwise you'll crack. And taking on the responsibility in that way is really tough. You have to retain your independence of mind because everybody has a different [opinion]. It's not good for you. It's purely self-preservation.

But you've spoken out against Bush and Blair in the past.

I have a problem when I make personal attacks. I always say, "Well, they don't make personal attacks on me." It's bad karma doing that shit. But at the same time, they're pretty good at racking up their own bad karma. I find it very difficult to worry about that level of karma when they're still preaching about democracy.

Do you ever wish you weren't aware of all this stuff? That you could shut it out?

I wish I could find the pill. Unfortunately, all the ones I've tried only make it worse. [Laughs] The stuff that makes it go away for me is listening to music. That's always going to be the best way.

Have you ever tried antidepressants?

Oh, no! GlaxoSmithKline's legacy to the world is these poor bastards who can't get off Prozac. That's a fucking evil organization. Oh, I can't say that, can I? [Pauses] That's a very astute organization. They obviously know exactly what they're doing.

IN NOVEMBER 2000 this magazine put the pouty faces of Yorke and his bandmates—O'Brien, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, bassist, Colin Greenwood, and drummer Phil Selway—on the cover, along with the question, "The world's greatest rock band?" At the time the answer was pretty easy: Sure, why not? They were only a few years removed from the laser-show vignettes of OK Computer, and they'd just released the successfully audience-segregating Kid A, the only chart-topping record to include a relevance to rampant lemon-sucking. Besides, the pickings were slim—other groups mentioned in that issue included Disturbed and the Insane Clown Posse—and so being the world's greatest rock band was about as admirable as being the world's most dazzling salt-rock formation.

Despite the good-but-not-great sales of 2001's Amnesiac and 2003's Hail to the Thief, the fact that they have released only one new song in the past two years, and the ascent of bands that sound more like old-school Radiohead than Radiohead do, the answer remains the same: Of course they're the world's greatest rock band.

Much of this has to do with Yorke being one of the last truly myth-shrouded frontmen left. Not to slag on the competition, but the Gallaghers no longer have the tunes, Bono isn't enough of a recluse, and Chris Martin still hasn't written a song as good as "Karma Police." Even musicians who aren't Radiohead fans speak glowingly of them. "What they're doing with musical ideas is really genuine and authentic," says Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. "They could really become super arena-rock, because they had that promise. But they take another turn with [their sound], because they want to do different things.

And like Moore, Yorke finds himself in the position of unlikely rude elder statesman.

Do you feel old?

I feel old. And wise. It's a fucking weird thing, because I've always wanted to do that thing of growing old disgracefully, one way or the other. It's a bad idea to say to yourself, "I wish I was 20 again." I hated it. I used to go through really bad periods.

What was going on?

I was—well, I am—sort of confrontational. If I don't agree with something, then I'll rant and rave about it. It was almost pathological. Early on I used to get into all these scrapes with people. I'm sort of proud of that, because it kicks up the dust. The Arctic Monkeys—they have a bit of that, which I think is good. I don't really understand the music myself, but they've been put in that position, and they're really young, and they don't give a fuck. There's all these people all over them like a rash, and I can remember exactly what that's like—all these people going [affects a sleazy coo], "Oooh, we'll have a piece of you." And I think biting the hand that feeds you is incredibly important.

Nowadays are you more comfortable with the inanities of fame?

They don't happen anymore. There seems to be this threshold, and during the OK Computer period, suddenly all this shit started happening, and you're this moving target, and weird people start attaching themselves to you.

With Kid A and Amnesiac, it was tough making those records, but at the same time, it was exciting to feel like you were basically jumping off: "Fuck the lot of you! We're off!" The most amazing thing about it was I remember sitting in Central Park, and Kid A was No. 1 for one week—like some sort of clerical error was going on. How the fuck did we do that? No videos, no bullshit—we minimized it as much as we could. Knowing that we'd never get away with it again was like our little proxy Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.

So do you have a normal life in Oxford?

It's fine. Really. It's good for the soul to see the same people walking down the street and not get hassled. I only get hassled once every two or three days—someone might come up, but it's usually a nice thing, a positive thing. So I cannot complain.

Are your kids old enough to know what you do?

My [five-year-old] son came to our first show in Copenhagen. I can't get anything about it out of him: "So what do you think?" [Mimes a childlike shrug]

LIKE SO MANY other easily distracted creative types with too much free time and too little restraint, Yorke started blogging last year. The posts? Strung-together rants, plus the occasional in-the-studio update (Radiohead have been recording a follow-up to Hail to the Thief since last fall, though Yorke says they're nowhere near done). Yorke's prose style is choppy and scattered, and his entries make for an often disturbing read: Extremely personal, grammar-be-damned lines like "I was struggling, feels like we been trapped for a long time" are posted with no additional details, leaving readers to wonder if Yorke has gone completely crackers (and also to ask, "When did he start using smiley-face emoticons?").

I'm going to read you a few of these blog postings...

Oh, goody.

"Have come through another crisis, shaky but intact." What crisis?

[Pauses] Just wondering whether [Radiohead] should be carrying on. I always wonder whether we should be carrying on. We all do, really. In January and February we were still trying to work out what was what. It just seems to take a monumental effort to get everything back in gear. We stopped for so long. You need to be hanging out a lot and sharing ideas without realizing it. You can't disappear for six months and come back and expect it to be wonderful. And by rights now, we should have split up. Isn't that what we're fucking supposed to do at this point? We're not fucking 20.

Here's another one: "I'm fucking tearing my hair out. Too much at once." It sounds like you put a lot of pressure on yourself.

The pressure's from all of us. There was a long period of time when we didn't have a producer. We didn't have someone external giving us feedback. And by default, that meant that I, for whatever reason, was the one saying yes or no, and I was tearing my hair out because I couldn't wear both hats.

How about "There are giant waves of self-doubt crashing over me."

Ah. There I go again.

Is this an allusion to depression? You've talked about depression in the past.

Maybe. I mean, I can never work out if it's depression or just lack of energy.

A FEW NIGHTS LATER, outside Philadelphia's Tower Theatre, a determined-looking teen stands on the corner, index finger in the air. Like so many other 'Headheads milling about, he has an almost zero chance of getting in; the Tower holds only 3,000, and the seats for tonight's show—the band's first Stateside concert since they were forced to headline over the Pixies—sold out in seconds.

So he'll miss out on the mad rush when the band takes to the stage with "You and Whose Army?" He'll miss the nine new songs, many of which sound like a return to the rock-oriented Radiohead of The Bends (especially the soulful "House of Cards" and the Wire-in-a-haunted-house "Open Pick"). And he'll miss out on one of Yorke's most physically animated performances to date: the frontman staggers, flails, and waves, and at one point appears to approximate Axl Rose's shimmying snake dance (thought the homage is probably accidental). To the casual observer, it could even look as if he's having... fun.

When you were in the studio earlier this year, pondering the breakup of the band, how serious did it get?

What will probably irritate me about talking about that is that people make a big thing out of it. Well, what do you want me to say? Do you want me to say it's all wonderful and that we never thought about it? I think it's good to be honest about wanting to still have genuine reasons for doing this. But when you say that some days it doesn't feel like the right thing to do, it's made into this big thing. But surely, that's fundamental. That's a fundamental part of the whole process of being a musician—choosing whether to work this way or that way.

How bad did it get? I don't know. Lots of discussions. I think we're a lot closer now than we have been for a few years.

Do you still enjoy being in Radiohead?

Yeah, I do. Ultimately, it's important to me to be sharing ideas with the others. That's the way we do it. You don't notice it until you actually decide to not hang out with each other for a bit.

You've been cracking jokes and smiling a lot on this tour. Do you think your reputation for being humourless is fair?

No. I think it's widely unfair. But it's out of my control. I'm humourless when I think people are wankers. I'm not tolerant of idiots.

What's the biggest misconception people have about you?

Well, that's the same as the previous question!

Johnny Cash Movies, Pixies Who Sing

THESE ARE A FEW OF YORKE'S FAVOURITE THINGS

Walk the Line

"Fucking hell, what a great film! I liked the way they were able to take the [characters'] biographies and dramatize them in a way that wasn't naff."

Liars, Drum's Not Dead

"My favourite record of the moment. I don't know what it is about it—when you have it on, you just zone out. They moved to Berlin, and they sound like they're smoking loads of ganja."

The Bug vs. the Rootsman

They're on Rephlex, which is Aphex Twin's label. It's all sort of bit-crushed, and I guess it's drum'n'bass. I don't know. I'm too old to actually know the difference between this and grime. I'm supposed to know this shit."

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kunstler

"It's an American book. [Album cover artist] Stanley Donwood lent it to me because we've been obsessing about suburbia. It's an analysis of the way America's developed since the first settlers. There was this period before and after the Second World War where America could have gone one way or another. And it chose to go [toward massive development]."

Björk, "Unravel"

"While you are away, my heart comes undone/Slowly unravels in a ball of yarn/The devil collects it with a grin." I'm trying to get Radiohead to do a cover, because I think it's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard."

"Ain't No Fat on This Record"

YORKE COMES CLEAN ABOUT HIS ALBUMS

PABLO HONEY

1993

"Some of the songs we did justice to, and some we were in a bit of a hurry to do. But I think we did a good job on that record, considering we were kind of wet behind the ears."

THE BENDS

1995

"I like the fact that The Bends was so direct, but it [required] a lot of aborted sessions and starting over. For 'Street Spirit [Fade Out]', we were bashing our heads against the wall for days and not getting anywhere. We had countless versions that didn't make sense. I was being impatient."

OK COMPUTER

1997

"The house [in Bath, where it was recorded] was the most haunted house we ever encountered. Some people saw things, some people heard things. What tends to happen to me with haunted houses is I hear the thoughts of this other entity. You can't determine what they're saying; they're not that specific. Unless you're under the influence, and it gets really specific!"

KID A

2000

"I often think about the horn section on ‘The National Anthem'. Me and Jonny were standing in front of all these players; Jonny was writing out scores, and I was going, ‘Just play it like a bunch of cars in a traffic jam! They're really cross!' I really didn't give a shit what they started playing. I was listening to a lot of Charles Mingus. I wanted to take that to the extreme."

AMNESIAC

2001

"It never felt right to make Kid A and Amnesiac all one record; they both have [their own] weird flow. Amnesiac has some good songs on it—we play ‘Dollars & Cents' a lot. And I'm really proud of ‘You and Whose Army?': Jonny was listening to [30s vocal group] the Ink Spots, and he and Nigel had a bee in their bonnet about how it should be done. And I was like, ‘Are you sure about that?"

HAIL TO THE THIEF

2003

"Of all the records we did, I'd maybe change the playlist. I think we had a meltdown when we put it together. ‘There There' is amazing, and ‘2+2=5' is good, but as Nigel says, I wish I had another go at that one. We wanted to do things quickly, and I think the songs suffered. It was part of the experiment. Every record is part of the experiment."

THE ERASER

2006

"Ain't no fat on this record — it's a lean motherfucker. Short records are a good idea—40 minutes is the length of a school lesson, isn't it? Besides, we didn't have a lot left over. There's a B-side called ‘Drunk Machine,‘ which was cool, but The Eraser has a nice sheen to it, and if we put that in, it would have been like putting a massive stink bomb in the middle of the record."

Troubled Man

Confusion reigns on the Radiohead leader's solo debut [3 out of 5 stars]

by Jon Dolan / Photo-Illustration by Joe Magee

Rock music is based on a symbiotic relationship between artist and audience: They do whatever they want, we think it's genius. Get coked up and drive your car into a rehab clinic? Genius. Sober up and sit around a castle IM'ing with the Dalai Lama while a sexy robot maid rubs your temples? More genius. But some rock gods don't play that game, and Thom Yorke is one of them. The career of the Radiohead frontman has been an ongoing process of building a strange, maybe unprecedented empathy between a musical icon and his teeming minions.

Throw on any Radiohead album since 1997's OK Computer rewrote the book on stadium-rock alienation. Each is a little black pool of prog-rock drift where Yorke marinades his ego until it nearly dissolves, leaving him and the listener in a liberating state of disorientation. The woozier the vertigo, the deeper the bond. Now he's also got a blog (www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/) where he can share his most personal, tortured thoughts. Celebrities get rich commodifying their elusive inner beauty, but Yorke's freebie outpourings are kind of subversive.

The Eraser, a stopgap en route to the next Radiohead album (due in 2007), offers nine excursions into ambient neurosis that only heighten that shared sense of confusion. The skittery, out-of-focus beats and electronica brutalism are unsettling, and Yorke's dire musings are more obtuse than ever. But for him, that's just honesy, and this is his most personal, confessional work (Yorke created all the songs with producer Nigel Godrich). Call it a blog with beats--low on guitars and high on abstract expressive moodiness. "The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear/The more I try to erase you, the more that you appear," he yelps above the blurry piano on the title track, before the tension breaks with an almost humane house-music groove. It's one of the few moments when his body takes precedence over his troubled mind.

These are the weirdest tracks Yorke has ever been a part of; even devotees of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's comparatively pleasant orchestral outing, Bodysong, may be a little freaked out at first. "Analyse" suggests Swan Lake performed on a hot plate, and "Skip Divided" is like an EKG machine humming old soul tunes. Echoing Radiohead, these songs dwell in the space where everyday communication fails, and we have to look deeper or look away. But Yorke's ability to make alienation seem reassuring--what he refers to here as his "elliptical caress"--always draws you in. Whether he's singing about his childhood or postmodern apathy or math or rain, his drippiest distress calls sound like gospel. Even if he's going nowhere in particular, you can't help but tag along.

#radiohead #indie rock #indie music #thome yorke #jack chessum #SPIN #spin magazine

[not-close-to-straight]

Blood drawn, but they needed extra vials for different testing in a different part of the facility where doctors in haz-mat suits performed tests on substances from behind unbreakable glass. Heart monitoring but with a heat component to see how fast his heart rate jumped out of control when exposed to varying temperatures. Brain scans when he woke up, after they’d drawn blood, after he’d been exposed to heat, after he’d been exposed to cold, while he was sweating next to a space heater cranked to a hundred degrees, while he was sitting in an ice bath. 

Torture is what it is, dammit! 😡 Poor Billy.

Soulmate. Billy found Steve’s eyes through the crowded room and locked on. Held on. Didn’t look away unless he had to and Steve didn’t look away either.

My heart! 😍😍

“You know what I think?” Steve turned from the group of nurses and stared the church counselor down. “I think until you’ve looked into your soulmate’s eyes and had a monster laugh back in your face while promising to kill you, maybe you should just shut the hell up.” 

“You do realize that me staying here another minute being used as a battery to keep someone else alive could directly compromise me, right?”

You go Steve, you tell them your truth! (Though in time I think he's really going to realise what the counselor told him. “And I’m telling you, if Billy wasn’t already fully committed to the soulmate bond, the monster would have killed you immediately." SERIOUSLY, STEVE! This is a big deal!)

“Shit.” Dr. Owens ran a hand through his greying hair and sighed. “Shit.” 

SHIT INDEED! That can't be good.

Steve's "A-HA" moment re: why Billy rejected him and the idea that Billy always did want him, just couldn't is so good. Like it's SO GOOD. It's one of the best chapters in the entire fic and I absolutely love it.

Plus it's the transition chapter from them just living together, barely being able to be in each other's space and certainly not talking about anything real or important? To them whole heartedly working towards a relationship. Obvs the steps closer to one another are a little slow at first but after the "turning point" every single chapter just moves and moves and moves and it's so great.

[hahaokayright]

A belated Kaimelia Halloween fic

**CONTENT NOTE: brief mention of gender dysphoria -- but I promise the point of this story is queer joy**

---

     Kai is in Seattle for the weekend for the first time in almost a month, looking forward to a no-plans Friday night with Amelia. “No plans” really means door shut the moment they get upstairs at Meredith’s, means Amelia pressed breathless against the door while Kai kisses down her neck. There’s not so much you can do in a house this crowded — someone is always home, with the potential to overhear. Making the most of that kind of situation requires creativity, and Kai appreciates a challenge.

     But tonight Amelia says, “Wait. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

     Kai straightens up, disappointed. Even if the tone of Amelia’s voice tells them that the bad news is nothing catastrophic, they know what they prefer. “Bad news first, always.”

     “We got invited to a party. Teddy and Owen’s party. And I wanted to say no,” Amelia says. She grimaces, “But Teddy was so excited and I … said yes.”

     Kai laughs. “Is that all?”

     “House parties with my exes haven’t been your favorite thing, historically.”

     Kai has to give her that.

     “We don’t have to stay long,” Amelia says. “I’d like to make it back here before everyone else.”

     “Oh,” Kai says. “Is that the good news? House to ourselves?”

     Amelia laughs. “We could get a hotel. You know, like normal?”

     “If I don’t stay here occasionally, your sisters start raising their eyebrows,” Kai says, half-laughing. It’s funny … but also a little mortifying.

     “Raising their eyebrows?” Amelia asks, sounding skeptical.

     “Yes,” Kai insists. “Last time I dropped you off, I came inside. And when they thought I wasn’t looking, they had this weird, silent conversation with each other. There was a lot of eyebrow-raising.”

     “Oh, baby,” Amelia says, chuckling. “That’s because your shirt was inside-out.”

     Kai feels their face go up in flames. They sit on the bed, raking a hand through their hair. “Oh, god. Meredith and I are colleagues — or, we were. Could be again, if David gets his way. And I walked into her house with my clothes on wrong.”

     Amelia practically waves the notion of propriety away. “Did I ever tell you how Meredith met my brother?”

     “No. Would it make me feel better?”

     Amelia shrugs. “Probably.”

     “Well — wait. You had good news.”

     “Oh,” Amelia says, turning on her heel and hurrying to the closet. She flings open the door, pulls out a garment bag, and spins around. “This is the good news!”

     She unzips the bag with a flourish, pulling out what looks like a pirate shirt, then a blazer that she might’ve Bedazzled. She looks at Kai expectantly, eyes practically sparkling. “What do you think?”

     “Did I … leave that blazer here?”

     “No,” Amelia says, like the idea is preposterous. “I ran to the store last night. I guessed the size, but it looks right.”

     “You made me a costume. And my costume is …?” They’re totally lost. “A glam-rock pirate?”

     “No!” Amelia says, flinging the clothes at them playfully. “You’re David Bowie in Labyrinth.”

     Kai laughs, holding the jacket out and looking at it again. They see it now, and a lump immediately forms in their throat.

     Amelia asks, brow furrowed, “Did I do that much of a hatchet job? I can fix a rare brain tumor, but I haven’t used a Bedazzler since I was Ellis’ age, so —“

     Something warms inside of Kai, and they fight the urge — a ridiculous impulse — to hold the jacket to their chest. They clear their throat and look at Amelia. “I love it. I just didn’t think you remembered, I said one time —“

     “That David Bowie has given you gender envy since Labyrinth. It was so specific and so you,” Amelia shrugs. “I wasn’t going to forget that.”

     Kai shakes their head. “This is the first time I’ve ever looked forward to party.”

     Grinning to herself, Amelia turns back to the closet, retrieving her own puffy white shirt — lotta puffy white shirts in Labyrinth, Kai realizes — and matching vest. “I know it’s not quite as good as having this place to ourselves for the night. But I think we might be able to swing that, too.”

     “Yeah?”

     “Ellis and Bailey are at sleepovers, Meredith’s with Nick. And Maggie and Winston are chaperoning Zola’s school’s Halloween dance tonight — Mer got asked, but Zo said there was no way she’d be going if her mom was chaperoning,” Amelia laughs.

     “I’m a little surprised Zola’s going to a dance at all,” Kai says, sliding one arm, then the other, through their white shirt.

     “Us too,” Amelia says. “With everything she’s been dealing with, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go. But she and her friends have had a group costume planned for months. So Maggie promised Zo that if she gave it a shot, she could sit in the gallery with us during this huge transplant next month.”

     Kai laughs. “Your family’s really something.”

     “If you’re in town that day, you can sit in on the surgery too,” Amelia offers.

     “And what do I have to do to make that happen?” Kai asks, pulling Amelia in by her hips.

     “I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” Amelia says, and then she sighs. “Later tonight, that is.”

     “Gives me time to think,” Kai says, like they don’t already have plenty of ideas.

     “We leave in half an hour,” Amelia frowns, stepping out of Kai’s embrace. “Which gives us barely enough time to get ready.”

     "You doing the crazy owl eye makeup for me, too?"

     “Only if you want."

     "Oh, if I'm going to do this, I'm doing it."

     "Alright." Amelia grabs an eyeshadow palette and an eyebrow pencil off of the top of the dresser and sits beside Kai on the bed, taking their chin in her hand gently.

     Kai says, “Must be some surgery.”

     “Huh?”

     “Next month. That’s got to be a pretty good transplant," Kai says, eyes still shut. "I mean, no one actually has fun at school dances, right?”

     “We were just talking about that, actually,” Amelia says. “Because Meredith, Maggie and I weren’t the most well-adjusted human beings before med school. Or after. But dances … they just seem like a thing Zola should try, right?”

     Kai shrugs. “I went to a couple of swim team formals just because you kinda had to. And I turned out fine.”

     “I know we shouldn’t be bribing her,” Amelia sighs. “But sometimes I look at her and I remember what I was doing at her age, and — I mean, it’s the same for Maggie but in the other direction.”

     She adds, like she has to talk herself into something, “Maggie also told Zola to come find her and Winston if she wasn’t having fun after the first half an hour, so, that’s something.”

     “I think that’s nice,” Kai says, thinking suddenly of the formal they’d skipped. Their sister Laura had been on the swim team, too, had spent hours on her own hair and makeup while Kai argued with their mother about what they would wear. And when Kai slid into the passenger seat of Laura's car, feeling wrong in ways they couldn’t articulate, Laura had taken one look at their face and said, Wanna go to iHop? Even though she was graduating that year. Even though she looked way too good for iHop. In spite of all that, she’d fished a sweatshirt out of the backseat and tossed it at her sibling, and hadn’t asked a single question for the rest of the night.

     “I just want Zo to try to do the whole normal kid thing, you know?” Amelia says, bringing Kai back to the present. “But I don't think she's feeling particularly normal right now."

     "That’s tough.”

     Amelia meets Kai’s eyes in the mirror. She sounds relieved when she says, “You get it.”

     “In a way, sure.” They’d known, for instance, that girls did not usually aspire to be the Goblin King. And they weren't sure, even now, that if they'd had the words as a kid to describe who they were, that they would've been ready to say them.

     “Me, too,” Amelia says. “In a way.”

     “Maybe that helps?” Kai offers. “Maybe it’s good for Zola to know that — I don’t know. That even if it wasn't for the same reasons as her, you’ve felt different, and alone. And now you’ve got this family, and all these friends. Does she know how many of your exes you’re friends with? Because it’s truly impressive, even by queer standards.”

     “It’s all fun and games having people until you have to wear real pants on a Friday night,” Amelia says. “Sorry I’m dragging you out.”

     “It’ll be fun,” Kai says.

     “Really?”

     “Yeah,” they say, and they’re surprised to realize they mean it. “Just … please don’t leave me alone too long. I’m scared Teddy’ll try to make me play Boggle.”

     Amelia laughs. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about Owen trying to pick a time for the two of you to jam. That's what he keeps saying. 'Tell them we should jam.'”

     “Well, tell him to stop calling it that, and I'm there.” Kai says.

     “Who are you, and what did you do with my partner?” Amelia asks, setting her hairbrush down and coming to straddle Kai’s lap. She runs her hands through their hair, sending shivers down their spine. “You’re staying in Mer’s house. You’re going to have bro time with Owen. Next you’ll join Link’s fantasy football league.”

     Kai wrinkles their nose. “Can’t watch football. The concussion protocols are —“

     “Abhorrent,” Amelia agrees. “I know.”

     “It’s actually nice,” Kai says. “Being part of your team.”

     Amelia grins. “It’s full of brilliant doctors with chiseled jawlines. You were kinda a natural fit.”

     Kai laughs. “And thank god for that.”

     "Hey," Amelia says, sliding off of their lap. "Go look in the mirror."

     When they do, she comes to stand beside them, and they pull her to their side, hoping she might not notice they've gotten choked up again. Their first instinct is to feel ridiculous, and yet ... for the first time in their life, they feel exactly right in an outfit someone else picked out for them. It's not nothing. 

     This wasn’t how they’d seen tonight going, sure — but being somewhere with Amelia is better than being anywhere else, with anyone else. It’s why they’d flown back to Seattle on that late night so many months ago, why they grow more and more sure every day that it was the right choice. Amelia embraces the sides to them that they thought no one would ever understand, let alone love. And to have the opportunity to do that for her, too? To be invited into her world, even though there’d been a time they weren’t sure they belonged? To know their place was next to her, and hers next to them?

     That was everything.

     They’d come back to Seattle for that over and over again.

#kaimelia #kaimelia fanfic #amelia x kai

[ramblingdisaster73]

Trying to distract myself so to make the wait for next episode go faster but unable to completely shut down my 911ls monkey brain... How long do you think the owen&nazis storyline will span? We know it will be till at least ep6 but will it be the last? Will that storyline be wrapped up by ep8 when supposedly him and tk will talk? Or it will be a season long thing?

Personally I hope it will end soon, I dislike when specific villains drag on for an entire season. And I also would like lighter and funnier stories for Owen, like wedding shenanigans. I'm also hoping to see again his brother Robert, ideally with tk too,but I know I'm probably asking too much on that front.

I am seriously hoping it is all tied up by the end of 4x06 – I am also hoping that we don’t see a lot of it in 4x05 – that the truly focus on the Marjan & Grace storylines for the bulk of that episode.

I kinda think there might be some kind of cliffhanger at the end of 4x05 – to lead us into the end of this Owen is so desperate for friends his age that he almost joined a group of Nazis for a cool new nickname arc (sorry that is pretty much how I refer to it in my head.)

There are some things I really have liked about this arc:

Showed how easy it is for groups to entice new members – Make them feel like they have a place they can belong – but that the groups will do so while they hide their true intentions. *Owen is WANTS friends his own age – he doesn’t tend to look below the surface of people until someone else (in this & a lot of other cases – that is Judd) open his eyes.

Showing how these types of groups want to appeal to & add first responders to their numbers – it gives them a sense of legitimacy in their actions & goals (at least to themselves). – O’Brien being a founder is something that didn’t shock me at all – I said all along he was higher in the hierarchy than we were being shown at first. While he may have gotten out – It's not really easy to leave a criminal organization – even if you are a cop.

BUT – I think it would be great to have an Owen arc where he realizes he CAN’T always be the ‘hero’, the one in the thick of it. Where he doesn’t save the day.

They have this weird obsession with making him this big hero type character – but, they do it in a way that makes him look so incredibly stupid and naïve about how people are. Every time I watch these first 3 episodes, I just think he is more and more stupid.

In 4x02 Owen asked the FBI agent if it was him, that when it came to him making male friends his own age & shit inevitably goes wrong – Is the problem him? I yelled “Yes, it is you.”

He needs to look around him – see that what he is looking for while he fucks shit up with people like O’Brien, Billy, & Red – he already has – just with a guy that is a bit younger (Judd), a woman who is closer in age (Tommy), and the twenty-something that he practically adopted (Mateo).

Owen/Rob absolutely kills the comedic scenes –I love those scenes – the one in 4x02 of him & Tommy in his office makes me tear up from laughing so much. For me, these are his stronger scenes/performances. But they built the character up as this huge hero – a lot from being a 9/11 survivor – that they keep throwing him in these plotlines that have nothing to do with being a fire captain – just a naïve adrenaline junkie – and they keep making them longer and longer.

I understood why they stretched out the ice storm in season 3, there was so much going on – FOR EVERYONE – that they had to stretch it out. But, for season 4, they started with 3 main storylines:

Tommy & Reverend Parks – This was one of the focuses for the 1st two episodes – and will be coming back – this I think is one of the 2 season long arcs – Tommy really moving on after Charles

Carlos is married/Iris & Carlos getting kidnapped – This arc will be wrapped up this week (TOMORROW!!!) – but it only a piece of what I think the other season long arc is – Tarlos wedding (I am really leaning into it being at the end of the season). We will be getting pieces of this arc until the end.

Owen & the nazis. – I don’t know why they had to stretch this one through six episodes – unless they are running out of ideas for Owen – which, if that is the case, I have some they can use.

*The stills for 4x06 show Owen, O’Brien, the male FBI guy in the hospital room of Red (that is who it looked like to me) – So I do think that ep ends it. (Or at least I am trying to convince myself that it does).

Owen being desperate for male friends in his age bracket that will instead, just help him fuck up his own life is the series arc. Really all this rambling to say that I really hope the nazis are gone by the end of 4x06 – like really hoping.

I don’t think I will ever be able to trust a dude that is roughly Owen’s age that wants to be his friend – his track record is not encouraging.

#valerileygreen #911 lone star season 4 #911 lone star spoilers #911 lone star speculation #Owen Strand