#they called lucas fucking Midnight ?

[newtkive]

sweet tooth | luca drabble

just thinking about luca w a partner who has a crazy sweet tooth (like i do) and you never asking for a sweet treat but mentioning it nonchalantly but still not expecting luca to make you something.

first of all, your nickname would probably be sweet tooth or smth similar, let’s be so real. it would start by luca calling you that affectionately, but then it catches on w friends and family and you’re just dubbed sweet tooth.

in general, if you saw some type of dessert on a commercial or a tiktok that had you going ‘oohhh’ luca would scrunch his brows and almost seem jealous. “they used meringue, they should’ve used icing sugar.” he’d scoff judgingly and just see it as a challenge. after he would deem it doable, he’d store the information in his brain and literally make it better at work the next day.

just say the word and he will make it. telling your friends on the phone that macaroons sound good? cool, he wants to practice his piping technique with the biscuits anyways.

a japanese fruit sando? awesome he can make the sweet bread so fast, and the cream is no big deal. in fact he can just whip it up for lunch.

want a hersheys bar? first, that chocolate is trash don’t ever mention it to a european, especially your european chef boyfriend. second, he’ll make you the best stack of milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and cookies n’ cream bar you’ve ever had (the cookies n cream one is so good, and you’d always say that and it would piss him off). anything to get hershey’s out of your brain.

you see those viral crunchy chocolate and pistachio filled croissants in new york on your phone and groan abt them? he can research the recipe and workshop it for a day or two in the restaurant kitchen, find a cute take out box to present it to you with to give you that full experience you’d get from the real bakery—you just gotta wait. even if it’s a couple days later, it’ll be waiting for you on the table, or pulled out from behind luca’s back as he walks through the door.

to be more specific, maybe at midnight when he doesn’t have work the next day, you guys are up watching a movie or just having pillow talk. saying smth nonchalant abt your cravings like “cookies sound so good right now luca.. don’t they?” your cheek is smushed against his bicep (which you’d much rather eat) so your voice is all cute and mumbled making his heart race.

“mhm.” he’d say. he’s got a lazy smile n a deep chuckle, voice laden w sleep since you’re the night owl and he’s just staying up to spend time with you. “you wan’ me to make some right now? that what you’re saying?” he’s clearly amused, knowing that you don’t expect him to but teasing you nonetheless.

“nono, it’s too late. you’re not allowed to leave anyways.” you would mumble again, arms tightening around his own in a hug. humming happily, a kiss from the chef would land on your head and you kinda forget about the dessert you want but luca doesn’t because he’s a chef and his literal profession is making desserts so why wouldn’t he?? when you want something he can easily make?? like his love language is giving, especially if it’s baking something for someone he loves.

the next day you’d still be asleep and wake up to the smell of cookies. savory was your forte in the morning most times but who could say no to starting their day with a yummy sweet when it’s presented to them, right?

it would take you a second to realize that 1. luca wasn’t wrapped around you like usual, etching a frown into your face, and 2. luca had to be the one making cookies. and he made the best cookies. you’d waste no time in grinning and hopping up to drag yourself to the kitchen. even more of the smell would welcome you, transporting you into some kind of dreamland—and if you really were dreaming you’d be so pissed bc the cookies being pulled out of the oven by your blond messy haired boyfriend look so fucking good right now (aside from the aforementioned boyfriend who is just as, if not more scrumptious than the cookies with only his flannel pants on).

arms would wrap around his waist from behind and luca would laugh muttering “hot pan” but you don’t give a fuck because you want him and those cookies now. if anything your arms tighten and you rub at his stomach sweetly from behind, a sign of affection.

“you made me cookies!” the grin would be so evident in your voice and so infectious that luca beams as he transfers the said cookies onto a pretty dish.

“and who said they were for you?” the tease is obvious and earns an eye roll. you don’t fall for it and he doesn’t expect you to, but you gently nip at his shoulder nonetheless. a dramatic ‘ow!’ comes from the tall man, laced with laughter. you snicker evilly, standing on tip toes to rest your chin on the same shoulder (no matter your height you still gotta do tiptoes bc that man is tall).

soon enough he’d plate the perfect chocolate chip cookies with a dash of sea salt that you spotted, and turn around. it would be your turn to be wrapped in a hug by strong arms, even lifted up a little just to hear your laugh. luca also likes to hear how surprised you get that he can lift you, even though to him you’re weightless.

it wouldn’t be long until you’re begging for a cookie even if he sets you on the counter, stern look as he assures you they’re still cooling off. like hellooo?? who cares?? but he distracts you with soft kisses on your cheeks, leading down to your lips until he pulls away and leaves you wanting more. the mumble from him that, “the cookies are probably cool enough now” has you forgetting your desire for him and replacing it with the golden saucers just waiting for you to demolish them.

hands on his shoulder, you’d firmly push him to the side and hop off the counter. the roll of luca’s eyes would be affectionate and endeared, since you were this excited for his cooking. you were his best customer after all.

your feet would have a mind of their own, floating towards the cookies like a cartoon man levitating towards a pie, lured by the aroma. you start ravaging like a hungry creature. one turns into three as you face your boyfriend, moaning with closed eyes at almost every bite inbetween telling him about what you two did in your dream (he baked you brownies laced with a golden syrup in your dream so you accredit your subconscious to manifesting this).

he would just stand there with a grin, hands on the edge of the sink behind him while leaning on it. usually dreams would be so boring to talk about, but luca swore he could stand there for an eternity just watching you eat his creations and talk about any dream you wanted to share with him.

of course, those cookies would be gone in two days. and in place would be brownies drizzled in a golden syrup that luca took home from work. the surprise would earn him a watery eyed smile, and he’d just shrug and say he had extra time to kill on the evening shift.

#do y’all know the croissants i’m talking abt?? #theyre in the pic at the top #i need them so bad theyre in nyc and dubai idk #always on my fyp i want them frrr #i need a baker bf #my sweet tooth is insane #also the brownies w golden syrup are inspired by ambrosia from percy jackson books lmao #i’ve always wanted those fr #chef luca #chef luca x reader #will poulter #the bear #the bear imagine #the bear imagines #luca x reader #the bear luca x reader #livvy’s drabbles #the bear drabbles #luca drabbles #carmy berzatto

[bludnik-a]

mature/explicit byler fic recs??? 👁👄👁

hi nonni!!

quick disclaimer that if ur not comfortable / not ready to explore this type of content u can just scroll past this post. I'll hide fics under the cut.

let start with explicit

"Pink in the Night" by yamilumen. Winter break after first semester of college. Will is drunk, and Mike takes care of him. The morning after, they must face the consequences. TW for dubcon ig. One of the first that I read and still one of my faves. looove byler dynamic in this one.

"in the midnight hour" by @wisehearts. He takes note of the way Will paws at his dress shirt, needy and not entirely aggressive, pressing into kisses in a way that feels like he’s asking for more rather than taking it. Persistent, but pliable if you touched him right. Red wine was fucking magic when it came to Will Byers. if u want smth sweet and hot.

"Hands" by midnighteverlark aka The Parent of byler smut. Mike doesn't like his appearance. Will wants to help out with that.

"A caged bird stands on the grave of dreams" series by AabH. Slavery AU. TW for a lot of violence and abuse.

"the feminization of michael wheeler" by one and the only lawofmurphie. how a bundle of lace and a lifelong crush distract mike from the inevitable implosion of his family unit as he knows it. not only really really hot but also great mike character study. it's more about mike's desires and acceptance at first and u have to wait till byler a bit but it won't disappoint u i promise!

"Conceived in Sin" by eternalwinters, floralsun, keeksbyers. In which Will Byers has a reputation as a bit of a prude. But Mike Wheeler, a guitarist with distinctly the opposite sort of reputation, can't seem to stop thinking about him. good boy/bad boy au we all is lacking.

"i'm starving, darlin'" by id_rather_be_home. Mike and Will are sexually frustrated eighteen-year-olds, sick and tired of having absolutely no privacy in their homes. The hand-jobs and the blow-jobs are fun but Mike will go crazy if Will isn't able to fuck him again before they leave for college in five more months. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

the whole section with my favourite trope "we pretend like it's nothing but it's actually everything". I love every fic Dearly and I would recommend to start with one of this :)

"the thing about illicit affairs" by problematicbyler. Will and Mike become friends with benefits. Which is a totally reasonable arrangement that they’re both completely content with, obviously.

"Privacy" by BottomWillByers. Dustin and Lucas were on night watch so it’s just him and Mike in the room. Having fallen asleep early, both tired from the supply run they were on earlier today, Will passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow only to be woken up a couple of hours later to pressure on his ass. It took a moment to orientate himself. Used to waking up to noise and vibration but not touch. He was pressed up tight to the wall like usual, which usually gave him inches of space between himself and Mike. But not right now. Because Mike had scootched across the bed and was spooning Will from behind. His bare chest pressed alongside Wills exposed back, one arm slung over his waist as he mumbled into the back of his head. Will’s about to ask Mike what was going on when he felt it. The consistent thrusting of Mike’s hips against the swell of his bum. His words die in his mouth as he registered that Mike was asleep. Soft moans spilled from his lips and the hard pressure of his dick stuttered against Will.

"After Hours" by pterafractal. A recently out Will Byers begins his freshman year at Indiana University, with his childhood best friend (and roommate) Mike Wheeler. Between learning to navigate the campus and keep his head above water academically, Will struggles to reconcile changes in his relationship with Mike.

"The Open Door" by Mylesime. He’s too close, too handsome, too real. And Will wants to cry because the shield has almost completely collapsed. “Mike,” he says or begs, he doesn’t know. Mike stares at him and he has never looked so serious. “I really want to do this with you.” The shield breaks. Will feels his mana bar diminish by hundreds of points. He's out of it. It will take weeks to recharge, months even. “Now?” he wails and he hates how frail he’s sounding.

"Pressure Points" by honeytart. College roommates Mike and Will begin a friends with benefits arrangement with one very important rule—absolutely no kissing.

"asking too much" by kissingpractice. Will is struggling. Guys who are nice, hot, AND good in bed are apparently non-existent at their university. Frustrated, he complains to Mike - who makes him an offer he can't refuse. Unfortunately, there's always an aftermath to hooking up with your best friend. Meanwhile, Mike has some realisations.

and mature for anyone who is not ready to deep dive yet

"Touch Me Like You Know Me" by @starsarefire824. Mike doesn't go home anymore, not unless absolutely necessary. Instead, he stays far away from Hawkins, quietly shutting himself off from the world, and burying the pain of the things he never said to the boy he'd left behind. But when his mother convinces him to return home for his thirty-fifth birthday, Mike is finally forced to confront just how much he'd given up when he runs into Will by accident. Mike-centric. Estranged Byler reconnection fic. Soft and Sweet.

"Broken Wings" by Turning_tides. Mike returns to Hawkins after his freshman year of college, riddled with regret and eager to make up for the biggest mistake of his life - hurting Will. He quickly learns, however, that his estranged best friend is being kept behind a locked door. A locked door named Keith. Now, Mike finds himself in a race against time to locate the key, desperate to free the boy he loves from the prison his abuser created just for him. TW for abuse and drug addiction.

"the comforts that make us feel numb" by @newlesbianprideflag “No, but really. If I were a girl,” Mike presses on, looking up at Will with red-rimmed eyes through dark lashes. Leaning in. Somehow, fully unaware that this line of questioning has Will's heart climbing up to his throat. “Would you want to kiss me?” Will and Mike get high in the desert.

"any semblance of touch" by stella :) Mike’s still new to this whole smoking thing. Will has a few ideas.

"In Undertow" by olliecoddle. four months after one byers/wheeler couple breaks up, another gets married. and, of course, will and mike are both the best men. and, of course, there is a plot to get them back together. nothing goes to plan.

***

there're a lot more then i thought ‪😭‬ there're genuinely so many good works. i could look for just one and stumbled upon three other I wanted to include in the list. and i think it's pretty obvious what kind of dynamics i prefer. anyway.

i hope u'll find smth new to u anon but if u won't u can drop ur fic recs in my inbox. love u <3

#byler #fic rec #byler fic #will byers #mike wheeler #stranger things

[artaxlivs]

Ooh I love it!

It's already past midnight here and I really should be in bed already but I had to send in an ask!

I'll ask for a treat! 🍧🍩🍪🍬🍯🎂🧁🍫🍭😘

Anything is fine by me I don't think I have any hard no's and any rating is also fine!

Can't wait for the ooky spooky/Halloween vibes!

☠️⚰️🎃👻💀🕷️🕸️😈🗡️🖤

Treat it is babes!

"Steve, come on," Dustin wheedles, "You promised!"

"I know, I'm doing it, I just think you should have warned me there would be a wig." Especially since he could have saved the 30 minutes it had taken to make his hair look this naturally perfect. Steve sighs and pulls the scraggly brown wig on. "Who am I again?"

All four of the boys are barefoot, wearing pants cut off at the shins, button up shirts and suspenders. Dustin and Lucas are in vests. All five of them warm against the autumn chill in thick capes. Most of Steve's outfit is in varying shades of dark brown. The boots are kind of fancy and the fake sword on his hip is kinda cool. He's not gonna admit that part but it's bringing out some long forgotten little boy urge to have a pretend sword fight on the front lawn.

Sighing, Lucas says, "You're Aragorn, the rightful king of Gondor. In the Lord of the Rings books. He's the badass." He clips a smaller sword to his own belt, "remember we told you about Gondor?"

Sort of. Steve was only half listening.

Mike yanks open the basement door that leads to the side yard, "Let's go, I heard Eddie's van pull up!"

The boys all excitedly race out, empty pillow cases flapping behind them. There's so shrieking and Steve hears Robin excitedly shouting about hobbits. Steve's pretty sure that's what Dustin said the boys were. Finally he heads outside, pulling the door shut behind him.

He doesn't even make it around the house before Eddie's grabbing his arm and dragging him back inside to shove him against the basement door. "Harrington. You need to warn me if you're going to dress up like every wet dream I've ever had." The kiss is too wet and too aggressive but Steve's very into it.

Between one breath and the next Eddie is dropping to his knees and pulling at the fastener on Steve's pants. "Oh my god, Steve, I can't - fuck, Jesus, this is, oh my god, just shut up." '

"I haven't even said anything." Steve gasps as he dick is freed from his pants.

"Boys? Are you still down there?" Mrs. Wheeler calls down from the top of the stairs and Steve immediately stills.

"It's just me Mrs. Wheeler, I needed to fix my costume before we start walking around." Steve calls up, pushing Eddie's hands off of him and tucking himself back in carefully. "Headed out now, I'll keep an eye on them." He smacks Eddie's roving hands and drags his boyfriend up to shove out him out the basement door.

Pulling Eddie along behind him, Steve says with a smug little smile, glad he at least remembers this part, "Come on, Gondor calls for aid."

"Oh fuck you, Harrington." Eddie growls.

#trick or treat asks #LOTR #stranger things #steddie #hobbitses #Eddie was dressed as Faramir

[bitchinbarzal]

it’s the way mama f could actually get gigi taken away from luca in this moment. he left gigi alone with a woman who’s not her guardian. his gf put the car seat in wrong. i’m sure that’s child endangerment. he’s terrified now that he’s going to lose his daughter especially now that mama f has gone back to toronto.

He’s really scared, he’s so guilty.

He doesn’t go to Toronto he knows that’s a bad idea but he does call her.

“What Luca? It’s almost midnight-“

“I love her so much” he’s crying

“Luca-“

“No, please! Listen, we are her parents and we’re supposed to protect her and I fucked up but I’m begging you not to take her from me… I don’t think I can handle losing both of you”

#luca and mama

[adelacreations]

antis be acting as if Troy and that other boy in season one don't exist cause they were an example of actual racist bullies? (And honestly the one plotline that actually went well for the Duffers)

Troy the same bitch that called Lucas "Midnight"? But sure Billy is the evil one. They always "try" to address the situation in the Byers which will forever be nuanced as fuck but then ignore the racism in season one

Gatekeeping "hate crime" and "racism" from yall. I'll say it once and I'll say it again, yall with the white saviour complexes only care about racism when its being perceived as violent. You only react when it's getting physical.

But name calling via using Lucas' skin colour? You hear that? That's the sound of antis not saying a single word about that. Or the fact that the bullies in season one PULLED A KNIFE on Lucas and his friends

#tdlr shut the fuck up cause everyone is tired #and yalll always mention lucas when it's in conjunction with billy #which to me is discrediting lucas as his own character and as a plotline for both billy and max

[daydreamgoddess14]

Everything More Than Anything pt. 1

Sydney Adamu x Carmy Berzatto, R rated in future chapters.

Syd works out what she needs to do to get those stars she's dreaming of. Carmy works out what he needs to do to support her.

Full Masterlist

Sydcarmy Masterlist

Chapter 1

In case there’s ever any doubt, knocking on your boss/partner’s door at 3am is never a good idea. Especially when you didn’t actually say goodbye until way past midnight. And he drove you home, and you’ve since undone that goodwill by getting up and walking to his apartment in the middle of the night… Syd considered. Sure, she had pepper spray and a swiss army knife, but she knew this would make him mad as hell. Still, she didn’t care. It wasn’t just a spur of the moment decision either. She’d undertaken specific, strategic research… and then she’d also tossed and turned for the best part of three hours until it became crystal clear what she needed to do, and she didn’t want to wait til 7am to have to tell him.

She’d taken food to Marcus. Trying to make amends, bury a hatchet, get back into his good books… whatever it was, she did it via the route she knew best. Through food. She’d taken the most gorgeous tagine over, warmed it for him, and sat while he ate. Still stilted, their conversation didn’t flow as naturally as it usually did. Their silences stretched out into awkwardness rather than comfort. She was almost relieved when he went to check on his mom, leaving her alone in the kitchen and nursing a mountain of couscous. His phone on the counter had rumbled across the surface with a call. LUCA, the screen flashed. She answered it almost on autopilot, “Hey man, how you doin’?” The figure on the phone wasn’t looking to the camera but at what looked like a tray of perfectly identical pastry cases. He did a double take at the sound of her voice.

“Uhhh hi. Marcus is just out of the room, he’ll be back in a sec?”

“You must be Sydney?” He grinned, she could have cursed, another pretty blond boy and their… eyes. Excellent.

“I am, Luca? Nice to meet you, kinda.”

“You too. Kinda. Have you been looking after my good friend Marcus?”

“Well. I’m trying,” his frown matched hers,

“Everything ok?”

“Long story. I’m sure you’ll hear his side of it.” “I already have.”

“Ahh,” 

“He’ll be ok.” He assured her. She suddenly felt a desperate need to change the subject, 

“So you knew baby Carmy, huh?”

“Yeah, we were just scruffy kids. I was scruffier.”

“I find that very hard to believe.” She replied with an arched eyebrow,

“S’true. And I got more deranged the harder I tried to keep up with him.” He laughed. Something fired in Syd’s brain,

“Say more?”

“I was telling Marcus when he was here. I thought I was the shit, y’know? The golden balls. Then, I had a few days trying to keep up with Carmen, and I was in pieces. Spent the rest of my time watching, learning… trying to keep up with him. It made me a good chef, and I got a really good mate out of it as well. Eventually, anyway. Once we’d stopped trying to kill each other.”

“You didn’t get better than him?”

“Nooo, god no. Not better than him. No one is better than him. Except maybe you, from what I’ve heard.” 

“Heard from who?” She asked curiously.

“Marcus, Terry… the man himself.”

“Now I know that’s a lie, he doesn’t answer his phone.” She cackled.

“He does to a select few. The important people in his life.” She thought back to the last few times she’d called Carmy since he’d emerged from the walk-in. Just stupid ‘what about this?’ kind of calls. He’d picked up before the first ring had even completed every time, answered every text. “We all talk, you know? Not all that often, but we keep up. It’s one thing we’ve never lost from our time with Terry. It’s like she honed in on the fact that we both had shit relationships with our parents and made sure we had her instead.”

“She sounds nice. I was really fucking jealous when Richie got to stage for her.”

“Nah, you should catch her for a cuppa - it’s much more fun. No milk, no sugar.” He advised. “So, I also know through the grapevine that you’re chasing stars?” Syd rolled her eyes, making a mental note to kill Marcus. Or Carmy. One of them, at least. 

“He’s such a little gossip!” She grumbled, “I just think it would be nice.”

“It would, you should go for it. And from what I’ve heard, The Bear is capable of getting them. I’m looking forward to a visit - there’s only so many times I can listen to how good you are. Plus it’s been a long time since Carm cooked for me.” Marcus came back through and took in Syd on the phone to Luca,

“Well, you’ll be welcome anytime. Marcus is here, I’ll let you off the hook now. It was good to meet you.”

“You too. Good luck with the stars.” She handed the phone over to Marcus and went back to her couscous, her mind ticking over.

~~~~~

The conversation with Luca had set things in motion in her brain. Three days later, she found herself loitering outside Ever on her way to work. Every day for a week she took the same route until she saw a figure emerge.

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t have any job openings. Check the website.”

“I’m not here for a job. My… friend, Richie, did a week here a few weeks ago? And my business partner, Carmen, knows Chef Terry and -”

“You’re Sydney?” Her jaw dropped,

“Uhh… yeah? I mean, yes, I didn’t mean that as a question,” she stammered, “that is me, I am her.”

“Richie talked about you a lot, and of course I know of Carmen. I’m Garrett.” The young man held out his hand and shook hers. “You coming in? I take it you’re here to see Chef Terry?” He asked, holding the door open on his way back inside. Though taken aback, Syd didn’t hesitate in following him. He gave her a whistle stop tour of the restaurant and kitchens before leaving her with Jess briefly.

“How’s Richie?”

“He’s good. Really good, actually.” “We miss him. Tell him I said hi?”

“Of course. You guys should come for dinner?” Syd invited,

“Oh god, absolutely. Garrett, Syd said we should go to The Bear.”

“We definitely should. Terry can’t see you today, she said she’s sorry, but she’s got a free hour tomorrow morning if you wanted to help her prep?” 

“Yes. Of course, I’ll be here. 6am?”

“Perfect. I’ll meet you outside.” She gave Jess a small wave and continued on to The Bear to start her day. The conversation with Luca and the quick preview of Ever buzzing in her mind, she felt like a bundle of nerves all day.

“Cariño, you good?” Tina asked as Syd’s knife narrowly missed her finger on its way to the onion she was making a poor attempt at chopping.

“Yeah, T. I’m fine.”

“Boy trouble?” She could feel Carmy, Richie and Ebra all raise their eyes as inconspicuously as possible. Thank fuck Marcus was at an appointment with his mother and Fak was under the pot wash sink.

“Fuck no. No time for that, mama.” She smiled down at Tina who was glaring at Ebra.

“Baby, you should make time for that. You’re like… buzzing. You should get laid.”

“Maybe she should keep buzzin’ an’ that’s the answer!” Richie called over,

“Ay, mind your business Richard! I ain’t talking to you right now, I’m trying to make sure this lady is getting what she needs.” Tina pointed at Richie with her knife.

“I’m just sayin’! She don't need a man, right Syd? Just some decent batteries.”

“Richie, shut the fuck up please. Tina, can we not be having this conversation right now?”

“Hey, it’s all good - you have needs, we all have needs. Might help you relax a little, y’know what I’m sayin’? You're very on edge.” Tina clicked her tongue between her teeth with a wicked grin. Syd scooped up her onions and dumped them into the empty container. 

“Behind.” She stuck her tongue out childishly at Tina and moved around her to the walk-in. With the onions on a shelf, she brought her hands up to her flushed cheeks. Eternally grateful her blushes weren’t broadcast to the world, only she could feel how hot her face felt. She fanned herself with her hand and took a minute.

“Behind, Chef.” Carmy stepped into the chiller with a container of mushrooms. “You ok?”

“Yeah, fine. Good to know there’s no escape from the probing mother figure. Poor Louis.” She grimaced at the thought of Tina’s teenage son trying to hide his sex life from her.

“She’s just looking out for you.” 

“I mean, I’m pretty sure then that she wouldn’t be encouraging… the things that she’s encouraging. But whatever. Either way, I still have no time.” Syd mused before realizing that they were still on Tina’s topic of conversation. “Thank fuck no one knows when I’m blushing.” She muttered, hand on the door to leave,

“I do.”

“Sorry?”

“I can tell when you’re embarrassed. You uhh become very interested in your shoes, and you pull your collar.” He explained, reaching out to put her jacket collar back into place. Her hands were fighting to stay away from it. True to form though, her shoes became very interesting indeed. 

“Didn’t know you were some kind of fuckin’ body language expert,” she huffed a laugh and left him in the walk-in.

~~~~~

The following morning, Syd waited outside with three takeout cups. As Garrett pushed the door, she handed him one.

“Coffee, to thank you for this.” “Nothing to thank me for. Come with me.” He raised the cup in salute and guided her down the previous day's familiar corridors.

“Sydney Adamu. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” A cheerful voice said as she rounded the corner. Garrett had disappeared already.

“Chef Terry, it’s… it’s an honor to meet you.” Syd put the takeout cups down and held out her hand, only to be pulled into a warm hug.

“You too, darling. Grab a sprig, we’re doing rosemary and basil.” She pointed to the bench where there was already a space out for Syd. 

“Thank you. I got you tea - no milk, no sugar.”

“Then it’s perfect. And very kind of you, thank you.” Syd picked up a bunch of rosemary and set about plucking the tiny leaves from the stalks. “I don’t pull them or drag them, I want the leaf to remain perfect.” Terry explained to Syd. “So tell me, how’s my boy doing?”

“Carmy? Well, I don’t know what your baseline is -”

“He was working for me shortly after his mother drove a car into their dining room.”

“Oh,” Syd realized she didn’t know that story, that there was so much she didn’t know. “Pretty low then?” “Pretty low,” Terry smiled.

“He managed to get locked in our walk-in on our soft open night a few weeks ago.”

“An interesting ploy to get out of appearing in front of the diners.” She chuckled. “Hmm. Broke up with his girlfriend while he was in there.”

“Ouch.”

“And since then, touch wood,” Syd brought a hand to her head like her mother had used to do, “he’s been better, I think? Calmer, more present. Like he’s really trying.”

“There’s a very big difference between the way he used to work in New York to the way I know he wants to work.”

“Yeah, we both don’t want that toxic, shouty,”

“Aggressive, demeaning,”

“All of that - we don’t want that, like, at all.” Syd emphasized, “sometimes it feels impossible, but we’re trying.”

“He’s told me about all of you, you know? How much he cares for you all and believes in you.”

“I think he needs to understand how much we want that for him too?” Syd paused with a sprig of Rosemary in her hand. Terry did the same with her knife hovering over a bunch of basil. “I swear he thinks he’s still alone, and he’s trying to keep all the plates spinning and… it’s a lot.”

“I agree.” She said finally. “It’s hard to convince someone they deserve to be loved or that they're not alone.” She said ruefully. “Is that why you’re here?”

“No. Yes? I’m not really sure. Luca suggested I meet you.” Syd shrugged,

“Ahh, my other brilliant young man. That reminds me, I need to call him.”

“He’d heard that I want us to go for stars at The Bear.”

“Well, I can’t advise you on how to get them, exactly.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to.” Syd assured her, “I guess I want to understand Carmy better? We seem to have this… unspoken language, and I want to build on it, and there’s so much I want to learn from him, but also I want him to learn as well? Sometimes, I feel like I should try and be more patient with him, but then he does stupid stuff that makes me want to kill him.”

“Oh I know that feeling all too well! The best thing you can do is to make your relationship airtight. The stars we earned here were earned together because we listened to each other and learned from each other.” Syd nodded in agreement,

“Exactly. He kept telling me the stars were bullshit, we didn’t need them, and why would I want them. Like I’m the only one who wants them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ambition, Sydney. In fact, it suits you beautifully.” Syd smiled, bashful under Terry’s praise.

“I want them for both of us. I kind of want them so that I can use them to beat Carmy with for the rest of our lives to say, I dunno, ‘look what we can achieve when we believe in each other’? Because I do, I believe in him.” She said earnestly.

“I can tell.”

“He spoke to everyone I’d worked for in the past to understand why I wanted to work at the Beef.”

“Did he find the answer he was looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what is the answer?”

“I wanted to work with him.” Terry smiled knowingly.

“Yes. He certainly has that effect.” She set down her knife and picked up her tea instead. “Keep doing what you’re doing, Sydney. He’s a total pain in the arse sometimes, but he’s worth the work.”

“Oh he is absolutely the biggest pain in my ass. Even more than Richie most of the time.” Terry laughed,

“You seem to have a good handle on them. Here, come and see this before I have to go,” she took Syd’s arm and led her down a walkway between the kitchen areas to a photograph on the wall of Carmy and Luca. “My lost boys. I am immensely proud of them.” She said fondly.

“He’s worth the work.” Syd said firmly, mostly to herself.

“He is. And so are you. I cannot wait to try your food. He tells me you’re the best he’s ever seen.” Syd scoffed,

“Oh, be serious right now.”

“I am, darling. I promise. He believes in you. I don’t think those stars are too far out of reach.” She patted Syd’s arm. “Now, I have to get back to work. Thank you for the tea. I hope you got what you needed from our time together?”

“I think I did, thank you, Chef Terry. Thank you for making time for me.”

“I would say anytime, but we both know that’s impossible in this profession. I’ll just say don’t be a stranger instead.”

“You too. He’d love to see you at The Bear, we both would.” As if by magic, Garrett appeared at the end of the corridor. Terry hugged Syd once more and disappeared around the corner. 

“Nice morning?”

“Why does it feel like I just met the Wizard of Oz? Or, like, Willy Wonka? How is she so cool and mysterious?” He smiled as he showed her out, 

“She’s Terry. She’s the best and she likes looking after the people she cares about. It was great to meet you, Syd. We’ll see you again soon.” He closed the door, leaving the building looking like an impenetrable fortress.

~~~~~

She rattled through another day at The Bear on edge, trying to decipher the things she’d learned over the course of the last couple of weeks. On the third attempt of placing a tiny flower onto a starter plate, she threw her tweezers with a groan of frustration.

"Ugggh, fuck me!"

“Breathe mija, breathe.” Tina set a hand on her arm. Syd nodded and stepped back while Tina gently dropped the flower into place. 

“Hands please.” Syd called out once the plate was completed, throwing a grateful look to her Sous.

“Try tellin’ me you don’t need an earth shakin’, mind blowing -”

“Tina, I beg you, do not finish that sentence.” Syd dragged her collar away from her neck, 

“Works wonders for your concentration.” The older woman wiggled her eyebrows.

“Please. Stop.” Syd hissed as Tina moved onto her next task. With a heavy sigh, she locked eyes with Carmy on the expo as he tried to hide a smile behind his hand. “Don’t you fucking start.” She warned.

And now here she was at 3am on Carmy’s doorstep. Another night owl had let her into the main building as they headed out for a run so she’d tiptoed up five flights of stairs and knocked loudly enough to wake him but not so loud it was disruptive to anyone else. The door flung open before she’d dropped her hand and he was pulling on a jacket,

“Woah, fuck -”

“Are you… are you going out? At 3am?”

“I was coming to see you. Wait, how’d you get here?” “Walked?”

“At 3am?” He pulled her into the apartment by her elbow. “Anything could have happened to you?”

“Why were you coming to see me?” She asked defiantly. “Why were you coming to see me?” He replied, avoiding the question completely.

“I need you,” she pleaded. His eyebrows shot up to his hairline,

“Is this… is this about what Tina was saying?” He asked quietly.

“What? No! Oh my god, Carmen! Is that why you think I’m here right now?”

“It’s 3am, Syd. It’s a pretty reasonable guess?”

“No, it is not a reasonable guess! There is… there is nothing reasonable about that guess!” Syd looked mortified.

“Well, look. Okay, thanks for that - thanks a lot -”

“Wait, I didn’t mean that it would be, like, horrible or anything! I didn’t say that, I’m sure it would be great…” She wrung her hands and sighed, trailing off into embarrassment. “Let me start over?” He nodded. 

“Good idea.”

“Hi, sorry to disturb you at 3am. I had an epiphany, and I needed your help.”

“I was up anyway. What can I do?”

"I know what I need to do for us to get those stars," she held her hands up as he started to protest, "I know, we don't need them, they're bullshit, blah blah blah."

"Blah blah blah?"

"I know what you're going to say, Carm. I know you think they're worthless"

"You know a lot, huh?" He said with a smile. 

"More than you give me credit for." She retorted. 

"Syd -"

"Carm. Please. I don't want it for me, I want it for us. I want it because we deserve it and we worked for it."

"What's your epiphany?"

"I need to care about everything, more than anything,” He arched an eyebrow,

“Well… yeah, I distinctly remember telling you that already?”

“I need to learn from you. Like, not just learn, I need to do what Luca did. Get better just by being near you." Both of his hands threaded through his hair and came to rest behind his head. She felt her stomach swoop. “I need to shadow you or something -”

"You are better. You don't need me, Syd."

"I do. I really do. I want you to help me make sure that we do this right. I get you've done the whole suffering for your art thing, but I want us and our team to thrive, not suffer." He fell quiet and watched her closely. "I don't want us to go through the same shit we went through before. We do this right and learn from each other and that is how we care about it more than anything else - by caring for everyone in it." He nodded. 

"Family style. A good, supportive family."

"Yes!” She beamed, “Yes, exactly.”

“OK.”

“And I'm gonna pretty much live in your pocket and you're gonna get so sick of me spending every fucking waking hour with you -"

"I said OK. And I won't get sick of you. Fuck, move in if that's what it takes." 

"Seriously?"

"We will do whatever it takes and we'll do it together. But I swear to god, Syd, while you're watching for fucking stars I'm gonna be watching you. Y'hear me? The second you're not eating or sleeping, I'm gonna be on your ass and we stop. And it takes as long as it takes. It’s not a goddamn race."

"Fine, yes. I'm in."

"It's not gonna be easy?" He warned. "Gets harder every year."

"Good. I know we can do it." He dropped his arms to his sides with a shrug. 

"Ok. Where'dya want to start?"

~~~~~

Phew! This is probably the longest I've gone without posting anything since the early summer! 😅 I couldn't hold off any longer. Fandom seems so quiet at the moment with shows finishing and others on a break... Just trying to keep us all busy and content until we have news!

Let me know what you think, would love so much to hear from you! 💜

#the bear fx #sydcarmy #sydcarmy fic #sydcarmy fanfic #syd x carmy #carmy x syd #carmy x sydney #carmen x sydney #sydney adamu #syd adamu #syd x carmen #sydney x carmy #carmy berzatto #carmen berzatto

[astorytotellyourfriends]

2023 fic roundup

(last year's post)

completed:

1.01 need to make you mine (chrissy/eddie, rated m, 4k)

Everybody knows about what happens when you kiss someone at midnight on New Year's Eve, but Eddie's not exactly in his right mind when he kisses Chrissy.

1.02 hold me like you'll never let me go (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 17.8k)

Having the middle seat on a long flight is never easy, but having a handsome stranger next to you certainly makes it better.

1.14 just say i do (chrissy/eddie, rated t, 2.8k)

The day Eddie proposes starts out like any other normal Thursday.

1.15 you can have more than one (chrissy/eddie/steve, rated e, 7.6k)

She could play it off, just say she was thinking about nothing at all or make up some random thing to tell them. Or she could tell the truth and maybe get what she's been wanting, been craving.

1.15 always have & i always will (chrissy/eddie, rated t, 1.7k)

Even on days when the fog lifts, when the grief doesn't weigh his bones down so much that just breathing takes a herculean effort, the pain remains. An ache he can't escape. A phantom limb that he wishes he could get back more than anything else in the world.

1.18 under control ('til you're in front of me) (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 8.1k)

The day they've both been waiting for is finally here.

1.29 in my defense (i have none) (chrissy/eddie, rated t, 6.6k)

Lucas and Dustin hatch a plan to help Eddie ask Chrissy to the spring formal ... but they're never gonna get anywhere if Eddie doesn't actually try.

2.05 the trigger (chrissy/eddie, rated e,  2.4k)

Eddie knows that fucking smell. He'd know it anywhere.

2.09 maybe next time (chrissy/eddie, rated m, 2.5k)

All Callahan wants on his night off is a little peace and quiet, but instead he finds Eddie and Chrissy.

2.14 something else when i see you (chrissy/eddie, rated m, 4.1k)

On the red carpet for the Golden Globes, there's no telling what might happen.

2.15 in plain sight (chrissy/eddie, rated t, 11.1k)

Chrissy and Eddie meet in a random Omegle chat one night over winter break and hit it off, but neither of them are comfortable giving out their public Twitters, so instead they make private ones just for the two of them. Five months later, they're still chatting every night and have no idea they go to the same school... until prom rolls around.

2.16 oh, but you're good to me, baby (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 4.5k)

Chrissy's just helping Eddie study, it's not a date. As long as he keeps telling himself it's not a date, he'll be fine.

2.28 if we don't leave this town (we might n ever make it out) (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 52.3k)

Chrissy finally finds the strength to leave a terrible situation, only for her getaway car to break down just over the Illinois border. Now she's stranded, as well as broke, and has to rely on the kindness of strangers. The mysterious mechanic who takes pity on her may look mean and scary with his wild hair, calloused hands, and grease stains, but Chrissy quickly discovers that underneath all of that, he may as well be a teddy bear.

3.21 just the thing (chrissy/eddie, rated t, 3.2k)

They were alive, they'd made it. Eddie wouldn't have called them friends before that, not really, but the way Steve clung to him that night made Eddie rethink a lot of things he thought he knew about Steve Harrington.

4.05 gentlemen don't ask questions (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 15k)

The first time Eddie runs into Chrissy at a metal show, he thinks he must be seeing things.

4.06 if you go down, i'm goin' down too (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 1.5k)

cunnninghams asked: because i’ve wanted to write it but i’m too lazy — hellcheer getting either drunk and/or stoned and having a competition of who can go the longest without touching the other. 😇

4.14 imagine being loved by me (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 7.6k)

She could play innocent. She could just forget all about it. Or she could stay right where she is and watch.

4.24 i think you have a type (and it's not me) (chrissy/eddie, rated m, 33.4k)

Eddie tries to help Steve woo Chrissy, even though he's been in love with her since they were kids. or ... a HellCheer Cyrano de Bergerac AU.

5.01 play me better (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 15.5k)

Chrissy wants to get better at talking about sex, and Tammy knows just the person to help.

5.10 roll for orgasms (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 17.8k)

"So… the dice do everything?" / Eddie laughs. "Yeah, kinda. I mean, they decide everything, more or less."

5.17 savor the moment (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 1.9k)

I can't wait to memorize this day / Oh, a picture could not contain the way it feels

5.20 the dark caress (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 2k)

Chrissy can't sleep until she gets what she needs.

6.08 you know better, babe (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 36.7k)

Chrissy moves to Hawkins just after her sixteenth birthday, having only ever kissed one boy. Before school even starts she falls head over heels for Eddie, who falls just as hard but he has some reservations about their relationship.

6.29 she's gonna save me (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 12.3k)

Eddie can think of a billion things he'd rather be doing than spending his Saturday night in the emergency room, but after meeting Chrissy while they're waiting, that list quickly dwindles down to just one.

7.12 a better fighter than her fear (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 6.6k)

Chrissy takes refuge in the drama room while running away from her ex-boyfriend, thinking she'll just give him the slip and be able to go home in peace soon enough. But nothing ever goes according to plan.

7.21 you can buy love (from a payphone) (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 9.8k)

Calling up a phone sex hotline instead of finding some random stranger at a bar to go home with seems like a good idea when Eddie's struggling not to ask out Chrissy before she's ready for a new relationship, but he'll be damned before ever admitting it to his friends.

8.13 you still have my heart (chrissy/eddie, rated t, 3.1k)

Chrissy hates the night shift.

8.29 a tender age (chrissy/eddie), rated e, 16.2k)

There's no fanfare. No fireworks. No heavenly beacon of light shining down as soon as she opens her eyes. The morning of Chrissy's eighteenth birthday feels like every other morning before it, but she knows the moment she goes downstairs is the moment her life is going to change.

9.01 let me put my lips to something (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 9k)

Chrissy can't seem to find the nerve to tell Eddie that she wants more, so she hatches a plan to steal one of his porno mags for some research.

9.12 when we begin again (chrissy/eddie, rated g, 1.2k)

A few months past where If We Don't Leave This Town (We Might Never Make It Out) left off, Eddie surprises Chrissy with a gift.

9.13 the only proof that i need is you (chrissy/eddie, rated g, 2.1k)

Eddie is supposed to have a solo interview with Vogue but it turns into a family affair.

9.16 as i get older, i get more afraid (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 19.1k)

"Hello, Chrissy!" She pulls up a chair close to the examination table and taps Chrissy's chart. "What brings you in today?" / Chrissy draws in a deep breath. This is it, she thinks. Now or never. / "I want to have a baby."

10.10 livestream: stardew valley co-op! (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 5.2k)

Eddie has not one, not two, but three surprises for Chrissy on the day they play Stardew Valley live on stream, but two of them are for after the camera is turned off.

10.13 so pure, so electric (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 13.5k)

Chrissy's happy with Jason. Sure, things could be a little more exciting. They're in college, it's the perfect time to try new things! Learn new skills, meet all sorts of different people! They both should want these things, but it seems like only Chrissy's willing to (or, at the very least, wants to) actually try. But... she's happy with Jason, right?

10.19 be there in five (hyperbolically) (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 3.6k)

A perfectly normal conversation about Halloween costumes devolves into Eddie and Chrissy playing hooky. (They just can't help it.)

11.24 a king beside you, somehow (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 5.2k)

Chrissy finally convinces Eddie to come to a basketball game to see her cheer and rewards him handsomely afterwards in the girl's locker room.

12.15 before i bury you (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 43.5k)

When two counselors turn up dead at Camp Hawk and the camp leaders are forced to leave to get help from the police, it's up to the remaining counselors to try and keep both the campers and themselves alive.

12.24 never thought you'd happen to me (chrissy/eddie, rated t, 6.8k)

Eddie's watch beeps at the same time every day so he can be sure to catch a glimpse of his pink princess walking by the shop windows, none the wiser that she works right next door until one fateful day…

wips:

01.16 if the fates allow (chrissy/eddie, nancy/steve, rated e, 13.5k)

The best way to spend Christmas is 3000 miles away from home, right?

2.23 lost boys like me are free (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 16.2k)

Chrissy stows away on a pirate ship to reclaim the family heirlooms that Captain Eddie Munson stole from her, but she soon discovers that maybe going back home isn't what she wants at all.

09.04 i lied to you (but i never needed to) (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 18.3k)

After an accident that almost cost him his life, Eddie needs to heal a lot more than just his broken bones. He needs to face the demons he's been hiding from for years, keeping them at bay with drugs and alcohol. When Chrissy signs on to be his physical therapist, she knows from the get-go that this isn't going to be easy, but she's determined not to let Eddie give anything less than 100%. What neither of them expect is for Eddie to help her heal, too.

12.06 last night's clothes & tomorrow's dreams (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 27.9k)

Eddie's no stranger to the life of a rockstar and all that goes with it, including having his pick of pretty much any woman he wants for a night. Chrissy, on the other hand, has no idea what she's getting herself into when she joins her friend backstage at a Corroded Coffin gig.

12.19 love is just a currency (chrissy/eddie, rated e, 103k)

When she graduated high school, Chrissy Cunningham thought she knew how her life was going to turn out: college, marriage, the whole nine yards. But now it's five years later and nothing in her life went according to plan. Least of all running into Eddie Munson in a way she definitely never saw coming. or ... a HellCheer OnlyFans AU.

total fics: 43

total number of words: 608,877 (according to AO3 stats, but really it's 539,937 if i subtract the chapters of WIPs i posted in 2022)

going through the list this year made me realize just how much i'd actually posted!! thank you so much for supporting my silly little ideas through another year 💛 next year i hope to FINISH MY WIPS FOR REAL and maybe get a little better at balancing my schedule so none fall to the wayside like they did this year 🥲 but here's to another year in the books!!

#fic roundup #about my fic #hellcheer #eddissy #chrissy x eddie #hellcheerington #stranger things #this is me telling myself not to post anything new for the rest of the year

[stevesjockstrap]

Eddie Month Day 9

prompt: cowboy & cavalier | rated: T? language and substances a/n: based on the Buffy episode where everyone becomes their Halloween costume

Steve was in hell. There was no other possible explanation. This might’ve been worse than the upside down. That at least he could do something about. 

Something had happened, not something inter-dimensional but something weird or magicky. Hell, he’d think this was all a big practical joke, if it wasn’t for all these seemingly real soldier memories and facts that he couldn’t shake that kept popping into his head.

They’d all gotten Halloween costumes from this new store that popped up downtown. Ethan’s Costume Shop was quaint and this older gentleman had helped pick perfect costumes for all of them.  

Eddie wanted these leather chaps so became a cowboy. Robin was a witch who kept trying to do spells and setting small fires. Nancy was a princess who was scared of everything and kept screaming bloody murder at the kids. 

The kids were the worst part. Max, Lucas and El were zombies who kept biting everyone, thankfully not hard enough to actually eat them. Dustin, probably the only one who would actually know what to do in this situation, was an ogre who just grunted and whacked people with his club. Mike was a werewolf and kept trying to escape to howl at the moon. Will had dressed as a ghost and had turned invisible. Thankfully Steve had made everyone take glow sticks trick or treating so they could follow his green glowing necklace. 

Somehow Steve had convinced cowboy!Eddie to help corral all of them to his house when the streets became mass chaos as everyone transformed to their costumes. Jonathan and Argyle had decided dressing up was too pedestrian and they’d been extra hands, but as high as they were, Steve wasn’t sure if they even knew what was happening. 

He leaned against the kitchen island and hung his head in his hands. All he wanted to do was to take the kids trick or treating then come home and have a relaxing evening. The kids were all supposed to be going to the Wheelers for a sleepover.

“Why the long face, darlin’?” Eddie asked with a terrible southern accent. And this. If he called him darlin’ or puddin’ or fucking baby cakes one more time he was going to go find his nail bat. 

“Eddie, for the last time, stop with the names. And I think it’s perfectly reasonable, actually, for me to be upset right now. Look around!” 

Steve felt bad instantly when Eddie looked down and started to walk away. 

“I’m sorry, Eds. I don’t even know if you’re actually even Eddie in there. But for the record, this is not a nice normal night for me. How many times have you corralled ghosts and zombies, man?”

Eddie nodded and looked around. The kids had resorted to chasing each other around the house, which was honestly an improvement to them trying to get out of any available door or window. They’d put Nancy upstairs in a bedroom away from anything scary. Steve had taken Robin’s wand away and hidden it and she was searching the place for it. 

“I guess you’re right, there.” Steve winced at the accent. 

They just stared at each other for a moment. Steve sighed. “You want a beer?”

Eddie shrugged and nodded. They ended up sitting on the island, so they could keep an eye out for the kids. Somehow it became a drinking game. Drink every time one of the zombies bites someone. Drink for every grunt. Drink for every time Argyle giggles at nothing funny. Soon they were giggling at nothing themselves, leaning into each other and almost falling off the island. 

It was someone’s idea to relocate to the couch. They threw a movie on and weirdly all the creatures flocked to the light or the sound or it was just background neurons firing that they go watch the tv when it’s on. They all piled in a little nest of blankets like puppies and nodded off. 

Close to midnight, something snapped in his brain, like a rubber band. He looked at Eddie. 

“What the fuck?”

“Oh you’re back?” He yawned. 

“Back? Where did I go?”

“Do you remember being a cowboy and the kids were zombies?”

Eddie’s eyebrows went up under his bangs. “Jeez, that wasn’t from my stash, right? That must be Argyle’s-“

“No, man. I don’t know what happened but everyone became their costume. You’ve been talking in a terrible southern accent all night and calling me- never mind. Will was invisible!”

Eddie smirked. “Callin’ you what?” The accent was even worse now, combined with the slurring. 

“That’s the part you’re worried about?”

“That’s the part you’re gunna tell me first.” He leaned in close. “Was it sweetheart? Was it pretty boy?”

Steve shivered. “Uhhh, nope.” Eddie sat back and put his finger to his chin, thinking. It made Steve huff a laugh at him. “Think more southern, more cowboy, Eds.”

He nodded, leaning back in. “Buttercup? Sweet pea?”

Steve laughed and shook his head. 

“I dunno, darlin’, I guess we’ll never know.” Eddie pulled him close and their lips met.

@eddiemonth

#Eddie month #eddie month fic #steddie #Stranger things #stranger things fic #Mine #stranger things and Buffy tho amirite #Eddie Munson

[aria-ashryver]

on the one hand, I haven't technically even written ten fics yet -- on the other, Snow In Crimson, Starlight In Gold (Explicit) is already over 250k words. So... here's a weird and appropriately humungous list for Choices International Fanworks Day!!

Top Ten Times I Made My Characters Cry in Starlight (ID Longfic)

(Snippets below the cut are all SFW)

10. Clements Girls Night (bc Nicole's ex sucks)

Nicole hiccuped a laugh between her tears. ‘Okay, I have ice cream,’ Harrison said, shutting the door to Nicole’s bedroom with his hip as a cream-coated pug came barrelling past his feet. ‘I have tissues, I have chocolate, I have Teddy the Pug, I have a very expensive looking bottle of 1998 Sassicaia Bolgheri, and Jennifer’s Body on DVD.’ Harrison let the jumble of items fall out of his arms and onto the bedcovers, scooping up Nicole’s dog so he could come and snuffle at her outstretched fingers. ‘All the ingredients we need for a good night in. My suggestion is we sit here and don’t move for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.’

9. The Venandis grieving as Cas spraypaints a portrait of their late friend Rory on the water tower

He’d always been smiling. Even up until the end. It came together in small details, abstract, at first, until it snapped together and Delphine sank back against the railing with a quiet ‘oh’. ‘Cas,’ Delphine whispered, one hand to her mouth. ‘That’s really— fuck, dude.’ Sinking down against the railing, Delphine started crying in earnest.

8. Gabriel finds the strength to talk about his family with Luca

Gabriel felt warm hands cradling his face, Luca’s thumbs brushing away his tears. ‘Tell me about them, as they lived,’ they said. ‘I’d love to know about them, if you’ll let me. Do you think you can, Gabriel?’

7. Gabriel and Luca cry into their pizza post-Autumn Festival reveal

‘What would have happened to you, if you’d exposed yourself as a vampire and I couldn’t keep you safe? I —oh, fuck, cool— Margherita pizza tastes good with tears. Good to know. Probably all the salt.’ Luca scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, and Gabriel felt the periphery of his vision turn to static. He couldn’t have torn his eyes away if he’d tried, his gaze locked onto the tears spilling down Luca’s cheeks. Crying. Luca was crying, for him. Because they were worried about what it would have done to Gabriel if he’d hurt them. If his secret had been found out by the humans. Numbly, Gabriel handed them a napkin, his mind a screaming void of white noise.

6. Terri tries to sacrifice herself to save Luca

Snarling, suspicion in her eyes, Astoria shook Terri roughly, but she didn’t let up. She never had. No matter what she had faced, Terri O’Rinn had never once given up. A sob caught in Luca’s throat. ‘You run, Luca, and don’t look back. I’ll try and buy you as much time as I can. I love you, my darling. Never forget that. You are so loved. On my signal, be ready.’

5. Viktor is wasting away from a disgusting lack of attention

‘I’m calling from a payphone,’ Viktor sighed, his voice muffled as he rattled about in the booth. ‘I have lost both my cell phone and my will to live! Literally no one on the planet has suffered more than I am suffering at this very point in time! I am the Bezos of suffering. Except instead of odious amounts of money, I have tears.’ Luca bit down on a fond smile. ‘Did you actually lose your phone, or do you just like the aesthetic of being a drunk, broken-hearted musician crying on his own in a payphone booth at 2am?’ ‘Um, rude,’ Viktor scoffed, immediately sounding less watery.

4. Cas and Gabriel watch on as Luca dances through a breakdown

Luca was a ghost drifting quiet through a field of wildflowers, and a fury of lightning arcing over midnight sands, and every broken sob that ever choked up Cas’s throat at 3AM beneath the harsh, halogen glare of streetlights. Before he even really understood what was happening, Cas was blinking furiously. Blinking through wet, refracted shards of light as tears spilled down his cheeks. Luca took Cas’s pain and tore him apart with it. They gave him permission, they made him understand, in some deep part of himself that his conscious mind couldn’t reach. The way Luca moved gathered his soul together. They somehow found those scattered fragments and brought them home again.

3. The trio re-unite after the attack on the hunting party

‘Hold my hand,’ Luca sniffled, blotting at their tears with the heel of their hand. Cas chuckled. ‘I promise I’m not going anywhere, babe.’ ‘I know,’ Luca said, flailing their hand insistently. ‘Just hold my damn hand anyway!’ Cas stared at them, his face lit with something ageless. Eternal. ‘I’ll hold your hand every fucking day for the rest of my life.’

and

Cas tensed. ‘Why are you crying?’ ‘Because you won’t.’ Gabriel turned to face him, his thumb tracing tenderly over the inflamed skin at Cas’s neck. ‘So I’m doing it for you.’

Okay, just… *gestures broadly at all of Augury Pt II*, you know? Mmm, delicious near-death situations and characters being overwhelmed with how much they care about each other, my beloved.

2. (It's a tie!) The first "I love you" confessions

[Luca x Gabriel]

The starlight fractured him, cradled him, and reformed him whole. ‘I love you, too,’ Gabriel gasped, startled to feel the coolness of tears sticking to his eyelashes. ‘With all my heart Luca, I love you.’ ‘You don’t have to say it back just because I said it,’ Luca said, his fingers skating feather-light against the fullness of Gabriel’s bottom lip. ‘If you’re not ready—’ ‘No, I am! I do! I…’ An elated laugh burst from Gabriel’s lips.

[Luca x Cas]

Cas’s eyes were intent; he gazed up at Luca like they’d hung the moon for him. His fingers clutched at their thighs, as if the strength in his grip might hide the fact that his hands were shaking. ‘Please…’ Cas whispered. ‘Luca, tell me. I want to hear it again.’ Luca swiped a thumb across Cas’s cheekbone where a shimmering tear had slipped free from his eye, and fell in love with him all over again. ‘I love you, Cas Harlow.’ Cas surged up to meet them in a kiss.

Cas grieves finally his mother (with help from Terri)

(yes I'm dropping a 300 word "snippet", I freaking love this chapter lol. Cas Harlow + vulnerability? That's my JAM)

Cas took the brunt of those gentle words like a baseball bat to the ribs. The air heaved out of him, and quite suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. ‘What did you say?’ ‘It’s not your fault, sweetheart.’ ‘Sh— shut up…’ Terri’s voice grew firmer when he would have up and ran, broken leg or no. ‘Cas. None of it was ever your fault.’ ‘Shut the fuck up!’ His chest was nothing but acid and knives, burning silver wire coiling around him tight. ‘Don’t say that shit!’ ‘Cas…’ And it was just that one little thing, wasn’t it? Cas was almost mad at how easy it was. It was just that one little gesture, as Terri reached out to place her hand on his knee, that caused all the pain, all the misery festering inside of him to come unstuck. His eyes were wide open when the tears fell. He didn’t even have to fucking blink; one moment he was sucking in a sharp gasp, the next, his tears were overtaking him, cold on his skin as they spilled, the dammed-up weight of it all just too fucking heavy to hold in any more. He could feel it building as Terri shifted closer and folded him into a hug. The tremor in his chin. His lower lip quivering. The tight constriction as phantom hands squeezed his airways closed. One word tore past his lips. ‘Eomma…’ And then he was breaking. A howl of pure agony shredded through him as he curled into Terri’s shoulder and sobbed. His tears were so hot they were scalding; the weight of his anguish suffocating as it was crushed out of him; Luca’s mom’s hands so gentle as they stroked comforting circles on his back —Luca’s mom, their mom, he’d never had a fucking mother before, never known how it would feel to be held like this while he cried— ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ Cas hugged Terri back and cried even harder.

@choicesfandomappreciation

Happy International Fanworks Day!! (I say, as my characters are sobbing in the background lmao) 💛💛💛

#SICSIG #ChoicesFanworksDay #choices immortal desires #immortal desires #cas harlow #gabe adalhard #luca o'rinn #new drinking game: #take a shot every time the blorbos get soggy #emotional healing?? #in my good smutty vampire longfic?? #its more likely than you think

[fizzyxcustard]

New Year's Kiss.

Masterlist of this series

Comments/Notes/Housekeeping: Thank you to everyone who reblogged and commented on my last of the RA Character Headcanon Series. I appreciate it very much. I know I sound like a broken record, but please do consider a reblog if you like a post, and if you wish to be added on to my tag lists, please let me know. You are also very welcome to request head canons as well, so I can continue on with this series and open it up to a lot more scenarios.

This head canon post was requested by @sweetestgbye Thank you very much, hun. You're very welcome to request head canons with these 9 characters. Just send the request via my ask box, please. This instalment will focus on how all the characters handle a New Year kiss more precisely, a kiss which involves you, the reader. Enjoy!

GUY OF GISBORNE: Guy takes you to a secluded area, wanting to get you out of the way of everyone. He takes your hand and begins talking about new beginnings and asks if you'll begin a new adventure with him. Then the two of you kiss beneath the stars.

RAY LEVINE: Ray is nervous as hell around you. He's liked you for as long as he's known you. The two of you are at his flat, watching the countdown on TV, and as it happens and the party-goers on the screen start screaming "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" you think to yourself, "Fuck it" and pull Ray in for a kiss.

FATHER LORENZO QUART: New Year means very little to Father Quart. It's just another day of the week for him, but he knows you love celebrating the change of the year. He breaks open a bottle of champagne and just as the clock strikes midnight, you clink your glasses together and lean in for a kiss.

THORIN OAKENSHIELD: The Dwarves know how to party and as midnight begins to roll around quickly, you and Thorin notice that there are fewer Dwarves still standing, and even less sober. But when the moment arrives, you realise how Dis and Dwalin have purposefully moved you both closer together, manoeuvring you across the hall, until you cannot escape that New Year kiss. Thorin knows the tradition and with flushed cheeks, he offers you a sign of his intention to court you.

FRANCIS DOLARHYDE: Francis spends the evening with you as he lives alone. You've invited him to your apartment to see in the New Year and, as you stand in your garden and the fireworks begin to soar into the sky and burst open in an array of colours, you place a gentle kiss on Francis' lips.

JOHN THORNTON: The two of you are at a large gathering of people whom your families know, as friends and business partners. It's getting closer to midnight and John knows he wishes to kiss you, just not in front of all these people. At a minute before midnight, he checks his pocket watch and asks you to accompany him to his balcony, and there as the local clock strikes midnight, he offers you a kiss.

RAYMOND DE MERVILLE: Raymond has no interest in the changing of the years and seasons. But when the two of you are at his father's annual feast, which welcomes in the change of the year, you go to him and kiss him with no warning. He scowls at you at first, wanting to know what the kiss was for. But as you smile at him, he can't help but reciprocate that smile.

JOHN PORTER: John has had enough of partying in his younger years and wants to spend a quiet night in front of the TV. So he invites you over, his colleague. You're excited for the night ahead; the two of you have fancied each other for months. And as Big Ben chimes 12 on the TV, John sees his chance and sweeps you into a kiss.

LUCAS NORTH: The two of you go for a drink after work together. Lucas has been invited to a work party with some of his colleagues who aren't on call, but he's made an excuse, just so he can be with you instead. The two of you are close friends, and after your drink, the two of you walk together, not realising the time. Fireworks begin to bang in the distance. Lucas stops. You stop. He smiles, and then cups your cheek, drawing you into a kiss.

***

Follow Forever tag list: @lathalea @i-did-not-mean-to @xxbyimm @middleearthpixie @meganlpie @linasofia @knittastically @luna-xial @asgardianhobbit98 @guardianofrivendell @sunflwrnsunnieshine @msjava1972 @rachel1959 @eunoiaastralwings @lemond57 @tschrist1 @quiall321 @evenstaredits @missihart23

Guy of Gisborne tag list: @puggledy-huggledy-is-not-a-pig @whoooooisthis

Thorin Oakenshield tag list: @braidedheart

#Richard Armitage #Guy of Gisborne #Robin Hood #Ray Levine #Stay Close #Father Quart #The Man From Rome #Thorin Oakenshield #The Hobbit #Francis Dolarhyde #Hannibal #John Thornton #North and South #Raymond de Merville #Pilgrimage (2017) #John Porter #Strike Back #Lucas North #Spooks #New Year Kiss #Prompt

[chronic-ghost]

Chapter 3 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 7266

chapter summary: dieter and natalie finally figure out why the hell they can’t seem to get along.

chapter warnings/tags: masturbation, discussions of addiction/rehab/drug use, angst, discussions of shitty parents, cursing, discussions of infidelity/cheating

a/n: i've finally put together a taglist request form if anyone wants notifications about this fic or any of my other series! This fic will update every Thursday now!

▲ Series Masterlist | Previous | Next

▲ AO3 Link

Somewhere, out there, in some sliver of the universe, someone might possibly– curiously– be looking out for him. 

The five days, counting down to the possible end of his life, extended into a week. Then two. 

While most of the shooting had taken place at the soundstage in south LA, the new director – Scott Manley – had found a new location out in a real desert in New Mexico where some of the beginning scenes could be reshot without adding too much to the budget. Maybe he agreed too quickly to getting out of the city, but Dieter put up no argument against the reshoots. Two weeks to do his scenes again with Mark, play the guitar, maybe finally get that drink with Mark he’d been meaning to. He even paid for the AirBnB just outside of Albuquerque for himself. Hell, he rented a car without telling anyone. He got up there a day early to drive the 511 all by himself. 

Scott even seemed like a reasonable guy. Not possessing an ounce of Heidi’s creative talent, but all he had to do was stick to her notes and not fuck it up, and he seemed to be capable of that. 

For a few brief moments, it seemed like things were back on track.

And then the universe forcibly reminded him exactly what it thought of him.

“Close quarters character work?” Dieter parrots back to Scott, who nods seriously. “What the fuck – sorry – what is that?”  

Scott always wears a black ball cap and thick 70s glasses. He looks like he grew up on too much George Lucas and too little social interaction. He knows how to run a set, and aim a camera, but human emotion seems like a foreign concept to him. Dieter vaguely wonders if his good behavior got him here; if it was the old Dieter, then maybe they would have sent someone who could carry a conversation instead. 

“Close quarters character work is designed to enhance chemistry and create a sense of comradery between otherwise antagonistic talent,” Scott says with all the inflection of wet cardboard. 

Dieter sputters. “‘Otherwise antagonistic talent’? What are you talking about?” 

“You two fight a lot. I need that fixed.” Scott’s expression does not change. 

Fuck, maybe they did send the right guy for the job. 

Dieter swallows. 

He couldn’t exactly disagree with the man. Since Heidi left, the barrier between whatever was going on between you and Dieter had completely disintegrated. 

But better way to phrase it might be: it burned up in a colossal fire of rage, yelling, and walk offs. What had been subtle and hidden arguments behind stages had ignited into almost knock-down, drag-out fights. 

Everything you did irritated the shit out of him. The way you walked. Your voice. Even the way you breathed. Every single goddamn thing you did was wrong and he was going to let you know it. 

You still showed up casually high to most scenes, and because he was such a fucking upstanding guy, he never brought it up in public once. 

You fought and you yelled and you screamed at each other. Which worked for a while because that’s what the characters were going through. But then the arguments continued past when Scott called cut. They continued over the crafts table, at lunch, into the makeup rooms. You’d stand in the parking lot until midnight to finish an argument that started at three that afternoon. You made him want to claw his own eyes out. 

“We’re getting complaints, Dieter.” Scott continues, just as deadpanned as ever. 

He cringes. “From the crew?”

“From the janitorial staff.” 

“Got it.” He fiddles with his ring. Not the gold one. Another black one. “Okay, what does this close quarters character work look like?”

“Two hour sessions every day until we get things running back up here. Shouldn’t be more than a week or two.” 

He runs his tongue against the back of his teeth, trying to ignore the high-pitched screaming in his ears. 

“Okay. Where?”

“Anywhere you want. Just have to clock in and out with one of the PA’s here.”

“That’s it?” 

“That’s it.” 

“Does she know about this?”

“She does.”

“How did she take it?” 

“About as well as you are.” 

Fuck, he wants to be more obviously casual.

Dieter twists his jaw and scratches the back of his neck. “And if it doesn’t work out. If we keep fighting?” 

For a man with little social skills, the look on his face clearly reads, you know exactly what will happen. 

“Okay, then, when do we start?”

The air is warm and he tastes the desert sand in his mouth. He’s got the top down of the blue coup he rented and his hair is longer than it has been in years. Sweat sparks along the back of his neck, but the sensation isn’t unpleasant. There’s something about the sun, the sand that makes him feel alive, that whatever out there is also in him and it’s more ageless than the world itself. He wants to rub himself in sunlight like a cat. 

If he imagines with his whole heart, he can picture himself alone in the car. 

But he’s not. His rings on his fingers knock against the hard black steering wheel. 

Neither one of you has so much as looked at the other since leaving the parking lot.

He thought you’d scoff when he drove up to the temporary studio the project was using in New Mexico with the top down – my haaair, he imagined you screeching – but you just threw your purse over the lip of the car door and dropped down onto the waiting leather seat. 

At least, this time, you had the decency to wear pants. Jean leggings so tight he was sure he could see your thong, but whatever. He floored it so hard, the tires squealed, smoke fluttering into the face of the bewildered PA left behind.

He drives north, towards the mesas and the open plains. The road curves up, and around, and around, and around, Albuquerque a small bundle of toy buildings over the edge of the cliff. It’s about two in the afternoon and he’s pretty sure this is already the longest day of his life. He fears he might stall out the clutch at the speed he’s going but he’d sooner drive you both off this cliff than slow down. As if that would somehow shorten the time he’d have to spend near you.

The car swerves into the white stone driveway of his AirBnb and he cuts the engine. He probably should have spent the drive thinking of ways to somehow talk to you like a normal person, but his brain was just a static hum. Not quite rage but the two seconds before it where everything goes white and blank and you exist only in a void. 

Calling Chloe wouldn’t help with this one. In fact, he scowled at the mere idea you’d ever hear her beautiful voice. He’d smash his phone before he let that happen. 

Dieter slams the car door shut as he shoves the keys into his pocket. He taps the code in the keypad and strides in, not looking back and not holding the door for you. If you fell off the top of the mesa, that was hardly his problem. 

This is the part where he’d pop open a stopper of outrageously expensive whiskey and drink until his body released the tension, until the white noise in his head quieted. But he’s not that Dieter, so he goes right for the fridge. He snatches out the carafe of orange juice, pulpy as it was legally allowed to be, and takes three gulps. Sometimes, ice water didn’t burn enough. He needed something acidic. 

He breathes. The knot in his chest eases. 

Fuck, if you had fallen off the edge, they would assume he pushed you. 

He calls out for you, licking the last bit of orange juice off his mustache. He calls again, when you waltz in. 

You’re no longer scowling, which is an improvement from when he picked you up, but you look about as comfortable as a tomcat that’s been out on the streets suddenly forced to live indoors. You seem eager not to touch anything, your eyes roaming every square inch of the room.

“You want anything?” He asks gruffly. “Soda? Water? Sparkling water?”

“I’d kill for a shot of vodka and a lime.” 

He glares at you. “Fresh out.” 

You nod, as if this confirmed something for you. You wander to the edge of the long white marble countertop, eying a brass bar cart with every single bottle empty. You stand up right and look at him.

“I Googled you, you know.” 

“Congratulations on being able to work technology a five year old can do in their sleep.” 

“I know you went to rehab after you got arrested for possession of illicit substances, in amounts that would make Escobar blush,” you continue as though he hadn’t spoken. You slid into one of the black and gold bar chairs at the island countertop, your hands folding over one another as you lean forward into your shoulders. “I know you’ve been doing movies and television every year since you were twenty-five, whether or not you were as high as a kite. I know Heidi thinks very highly of you, even if she won’t give me a real reason. He’s talented, she says, but I don’t believe her.”

He lowers the carafe. “You don’t think I’m talented?”

“I think you owe your life to Heidi Morgan,” you snap, but then recoil your fangs. “But you’ve been through hell to get your life back. 

“And . . .” you add begrudgingly, “I think you’re an insanely talented actor. Sometimes I’m actually intimidated by you.” 

He swallows. “Thanks. Uh, you too. You’re good – great – I mean. You’re a natural.”

You smile smugly because you cannot take a compliment. “I know.” 

He rolls his eyes.

A moment passes and he knows Heidi would want him to figure this out. 

“Look, you saw the arrest photo, right?” He works his jaw and you nod. “So, no, I don’t drink. There’s not a drop of alcohol anywhere in this house. No uppers, no downers, either. Nothing.” 

You nod again, glancing up to the top shelves of the cabinets as if there might be something stashed up there. 

“And I know how quickly things can get out of hand,” he says slowly. You tense, perched on the chair, your gaze still up turned. The golden desert light from the window behind him makes your throat glow. “I know some good centers nearby. They can get you help. They’ll be discrete–,”

“And I know I don’t have a problem,” you say, your voice raising. “I don’t need your help or anyone else’s for that matter.”

Maybe this can’t be solved. Maybe this would end in a murder-suicide. He does think about the inside of your skull, sometimes, before he drifts off to sleep. 

They were having problems with scenes of vulnerability. The rage, the hatred – that all came naturally. But when he exposed himself to her, or she let the truth filter in, everything came off stilted and wrong. 

And maybe all that came down to the fact they’d never once had a normal conversation. They weren’t coworkers, or friends. They weren’t even castmates. They were something else. 

“Is that why it started?” He asks, gently because he knows you’re not afraid to pull his hair if he pisses you off enough. He runs his thumb against the cold bottom of the carafe, not looking quite at you. “Because you want to do everything on your own and the drugs keep you awake. Keep you going. Keep you from thinking.”

Your eyes narrow at him, black holes inside your skull. He definitely found a nerve. “Oh, fuck off, Dieter.” 

You stand up and push away from the counter, stalking off to some other corner of the house. “That’s none of your goddamn business.”

“It doesn’t have to be, but you’ve gotta give me something.”

He follows you to the living room. You’re standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the canyon below, your arms bunched up around yourself. He can’t see your face, but he knows your mouth is contorted, knotted. You want to crawl into yourself, he knows it. 

“Either we figure out how to work together, or we’re both out of a fucking job. More than that, my career is over and so is yours, even before it really began. We don’t even have to like each other, but we do have to work together.”

Your fingers wrapped around your bicep clench. “Jesus Christ– and I have to do this sober?” 

Dieter snorts, unable to help himself. “We both know you aren’t sober right now so let’s not start with that.” 

You whirl around, fists clenched tightly. “I don’t even need the drugs, you know? I can quit whenever I want.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it. Take whatever you’ve got in your purse and flush it down the toilet right now.” 

There’s a flicker of hesitation across your face before your scowl tightens. “Fine.” 

He watches you stride back to the kitchen, low-heeled black boots clicking on the tile. Glaring at him, you snatch up your purse and he waves down the hall.

“Go on. Bathroom’s right down there.” 

He leans against the doorframe as you kick the toilet seat – bamboo lid – up with the toe of your boot. Your hand dives into your purse and pulls out two orange prescription pill bottles. You rattle them once for good measure, smile deranged, and then with a flick of your thumbs, you pop the caps off and pour the contents down the porcelain bowl. 

He does not break eye contact with you as the blue and red pills swirl down and away in a rush of water. 

“Satisfied?” You bark. You almost bare your teeth at him.

He is waiting for you to drop to your knees and stick your hand down the hole to grasp at the pills before they’re all gone. 

“No,” Dieter snaps, crowding you against the sink. “Empty your pockets.”

“Do it for me,” you reply, your smile so flat and broad you look a little bit unhinged. 

“Fine.” Without further prompting, he shoves his fingers into your front pockets. The lip of your pants sway and rub against your skin as he digs in. That delirious smile still plastered on your face is going to haunt his dreams. He thinks he feels the line of your panties. 

Finding nothing, he then cups the meat of your ass, his fingers diving into the back pockets of your jeans. He takes his time molding and squeezing your ass, the real search of his conquest only vaguely in the back of his mind. 

Pills. Find pills. 

He pulls his hands off you, your gazes connected as if tied by string. 

It could be sunburn, but he swears your cheeks are pink. 

“Want to check my bra next? Since you’ve already copped a feel and a half.” 

“Give me your purse.” You shove it into his chest, but do not step away. You’re both pressed up inside the small bathroom and he doesn’t even think about breathing in deeply.

He digs around for a bit, before rattling it. There’s a clear metallic clacking – his chest sparks at the way you go slightly pale – and he pokes around until he finds the hidden pocket. Triumphant, he plucks the silver compact out your purse and drops the rest onto the ground. He opens the compact over the toilet, and a dozen pills tumble out into the stagnant water. 

You watch the pills break down and disappear as the water rushes down the hole. There is concern, uneasiness, in the rims of your eyes. Your mouth is soft, parted. All at once, he feels sort of guilty – but it had to be done. 

“Now will you get off my dick?” You glare at him, the softness gone and that distinct displeasure at his mere existence burning in your eyes. “Now that you’ve gotten rid of any chance that this will be tolerable?” 

For the first time around you, he smiles. “Buck up, buttercup. How about I make you dinner, so you stop trying to think of ways to kill me in my sleep.” 

He leaves the bathroom, the air less stifling. He hears you snort behind him.

“That wouldn’t happen even with a birthday cake shoved up my ass.” 

*~*~*

It’s not dinner under the stars, with fresh pasta and mozzarella and basil, with a smooth glass of red wine to top it off. 

It’s not that. But it is something. 

Turns out when you’re not at each other’s throats, you’ve got a lot in common.

“No fucking way, I love Coney Island too.”

You smile and lean back in your seat, the heels of your bare feet balancing on the edge of the white patio chair. You both are sitting outside on the second floor patio, the great black maw of the canyon in the distance below. The sun is fading fast and the air is growing colder by the minute. But he doesn’t mind and, it seems, neither do you.

The ivy around the back patio pergola shudders in the faint breeze. Water from the pool below laps at the edges of the white concrete, the sound soothing like a rhyme. The plates of arroz con pollo are empty. He was quite sure if you were alone, you would have licked the plate clean. 

You prefer sparkling water while his is still and ice cold, but that’s at least something else in common. 

“Yes, Coney Island is the best! We went there one summer as a kid and I’ve dreamed about it every day since.” 

He smiles and drinks from his glass, legs spread wide as he rests comfortably in his chair. “So did you see the rest of New York when you were there?”

“God, I love New York,” you groan, grinning widely. “I’d live there if I could, but everything filmed is out in LA. Would love to do theater again, someday.”

“Fuck, I know what you mean. Six months of production, live shows, all of it in one place.” Dieter shakes his head. “I used to do a bunch of off-Broadway stuff up there. I really miss it sometimes.”

You jerk an eyebrow at him, that grin turning warm. “Yeah, I know. I told you I Googled you.” 

He twists his mouth, fighting between a smile and a scowl. “I Googled you too.” It feels like a confession when he doesn’t want it to be.

“Oh my God, really?” You clutch the glass to your chest, toes flexing on the edge of the seat. “What does it say? I am wildly curious.”

“What do you mean? You’ve never Googled yourself?”

You shake your head as you take a sip. “Nope. I lived it. And the internet always takes things and twists them. Make the good things bad and the bad things worse. Plus, I don’t need to know how many photos of my ass there are online.”

“If you wore pants, that might not happen as much.”

“Ha, ha, Bravo. Don’t slut-shame me when I’m this close to having a good time.” 

Something passes between your gazes and it makes his heart flutter. He drops the connection like it burned him.

“But seriously, what did you find out about me?” 

He shrugs and leans forward onto his elbows on his knees. “If it helps, I only looked at Wikipedia.”

“Yeah, and? C’mon, man, I’m in suspense here.” 

“You worked in smaller parts in the early 2000s. Mostly movies where they needed a cute kid to save or have a line about the big scary monster. Then, when you were in your early teen years you got that part on Red Money with Sean Connery, as his daughter. That was big. Lots of articles about that. You got a few, higher profile roles – Helen Miriam’s niece, Gerard Butler’s step-daughter – you’d hit the big leagues. There were talks of you getting an Oscar but then . . . it all just stopped. The entry ends with, ‘she lives in California today’.”

He stops, waiting to see if you’ll yell at him or throw your glass of water in his face. Instead, you nod and drink slowly. 

“Does it say my father is Henry Milklen?”

His eyes go wide. “No. No, it doesn’t. Your father is the Henry Milklen, the CEO of MaxWide Entertainment?”

“Biologically, yes,” you say, a bit prickly, “but I haven’t seen him in-person since I was eight. Mom kinda went off the rails when I said I wanted to do acting, but unfortunately for her, I was really fucking good. I think she thought I wanted to do it to be close to him.”

“Did you? Did you want to get close to him?”

You shake your head. 

“Nah. If anything, I did it in spite of him. I wanted to know if I could do this without his help.” You hold up your glass like an award. “‘You didn’t give me shit growing up and you didn’t give me my first Oscar,’ – because I plan on owning several – ‘so, eat shit, old man.’”

He grins in spite of himself. “Winning an Oscar is definitely one way to tell your old man to fuck off. There might be other, easier ways to do that, though.”

“C’mon, don’t act like you don’t do it all for that moment. That moment of standing on stage, in front of all your peers – in front of everyone who told you you couldn’t do it – and be recognized as someone of value, of real talent.”

You’re close to touching something very close to his heart. He drinks from his ice cold water. “Nah, it’s always been about the money for me.”

You roll your eyes and he chuckles. 

“Sure, I do it for that,” he says softly, thumb nail scraping against the glass. “The art, that’s what really matters, but having other people see value in your art . . . it’s a good feeling.”

“Cheers to a night on stage.” You raise your glass to him. Something was fundamentally different about the way you looked at him. “Hope we see each other there.”

He accepts your toast with his own, his heart beating mildly faster, as he thinks of a way to steer this conversation back into something he’s capable of handling.

“So your mom had some issues with you acting –  how’d you end up back in LA then?” 

You smile wryly, your defenses going back up so quickly, he was surprised he didn’t hear a clicking sound.

“She got over it pretty fast when she realized she never had to work again, once things started going well. I think she liked being a sugar mama to men half her age. Men that never hesitated to hit on me while she was out of the room, even when I was fourteen. The money was coming in, but not as fast as she was spending it. I wanted a way to hide in my own room so I didn’t have to hear her literally fuck my money away . . . So, drugs. Got caught twice drunk driving but Dad managed to get all blown away — without ever actually having to see me. There were no real consequences in my life so it felt like I didn’t have one. The day I turned eighteen, I left and never went back. Pulled together the scraps she left me, got a place on my own, and now I’m trying show biz again.” You roll your bottom lip between your teeth. “But I don’t really blame her, or my dad, you know. They were forced to be parents when neither of them have a nurturing bone in their bodies. Anyways . . . does my drug use have to be their fault? Can’t I just be fucked up on my own?”

Dieter snorts softly. He taps your glass with the rim of his. “Cheers to being fucked up on our own.” 

You both drink, letting the ding of the glasses ring out into the night air. His bare feet are starting to get cold but he doesn’t really want to go back inside. Not yet.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” You ask and drop your arms over your knees, glass dangling from your fingertips. 

“I think that’s the whole point of this, so sure. Fire away.” 

“What’s with you and drugs, man? You gotta know everyone’s on something in this town.” You say, without a hint of malice. “And more specifically, why are you always on my ass? Roxie and that gang do shrooms in the back lots all the time but you never go after them about it. Why me?”

He chews on his lip and sits back in his seat.  

“Because I’ve been where you are,” he says to you under his eyelashes. “You’re too fucking talented to throw your career in the garbage because you’re too high to show up to casting on time. I know you think you have it under control, that you can stop when you want, and maybe you do. But there’s too much at risk to go fucking around with shit like that.” He drops his elbows onto his knees. “And to be entirely honest, because I don’t trust you when the parking brakes are off.” 

It’s a bigger admission than he means it to be, but it’s there and he can’t take it back. He looks up at your face from his bent-over position. 

Your eyebrow twitches as if you want to frown from confusion, but are actively fighting it. You want to ask just what the fuck he means by that – he can tell – but for once in your life, you keep your mouth shut. Instead you throw back the rest of your water and stand up.

His mouth is inches from the seam of your pants.

“Wanna watch a movie?” 

“Okay, his stuff is good but it’s not the pinnacle of acting, alright?”

“I never said it was but it’s raw and real and every single performance he gives everything,” he says adamantly as you step over his legs stretched out on the table in front of him with a bowl of popcorn on your hip. You had insisted on the popcorn, even though you both just ate. What the fuck is the film experience without buttery popcorn? You asked him indignantly and he found he couldn’t argue with you. 

You huff as you settle in next to him on the black leather couch in the living room. The lights are off and the TV screen glows in the dark. 

“And, you know, art is subjective. Who's to say what the ‘pinnacle of acting’ is anyway?” He snatches up a handful of popcorn as you narrow your eyes scornfully at him.

“That is such a cop out. You’re just saying that so I don’t have an argument against watching Vampire’s Kiss.” You say as though the name of the movie burned the inside of your mouth. “It’s a thought terminating cliché, most common in cults.” 

“I’d gladly join the cult of Nicolas Cage,” Dieter admits, his mouth half full of popcorn, as he clicks the remote to play the movie. 

“Okay, but this is your one freebie.” You say as you dig into the bowl yourself. “Next time I’m gonna make you watch Amélie or some shit.”

“I happen to love Amélie,” he says, eyes still on the screen. 

You’ve gone quiet, which is never a good thing, so he glances over at you. 

There’s something soft about your face. Your mouth hovers open, lips parted and warm. This is the look you should have been giving him at the table read.

When you begged him to never, ever leave you. 

His blush is so hot and fast, it shoots down from his ears into his cheeks before he can stop it.

“What?”

Slowly, you blink. 

“Sorry . . . it’s just . . . I really love Amélie and I couldn’t imagine you’ve ever seen it. It just . . . surprised me, I guess.”

“What can I say, princess?” He folds his arms over himself to ensure not a single patch of skin touches yours. “I’m surprising.” 

He can hear you swallow as you turn back to the movie. 

It's the 80s and it’s trash and Dieter can’t remember the last time he had this much fun. Chloe was never a big fan of movies, didn’t like to sit still that long, and all of his other friends hadn’t been around since the arrest. 

He can’t remember the last time he was this relaxed. 

So relaxed, in fact, he falls asleep before the third act, his head dropping to the back of the couch.

He’s crawling out the depths of a warm, plush sleep when he hears it. 

At first, he’s not quite sure what exactly he’s hearing. It’s familiar, he knows he’s heard it before, but it’s at the same time foreign, too. Like he’s never heard this exactly before.

His eyes flicker open. The room is pleasantly warm and his back doesn’t ache as bad as it usually does when he falls asleep on the couch. 

His gaze focusing, he realizes something’s different about the TV. The movie is no longer playing – rather Vampire’s Kiss is no longer playing and instead, it’s one of his old movies. Back when he didn’t need to exercise to have v-lines in his hips and his skin was naturally sun-kissed. It’s the high fantasy one where he kissed so many men and women during shooting, he found out he definitely wasn’t straight by the end of it – and –

You’re moaning. 

That’s what that noise is. Moans. Stifled, but high-pitched, breathless, tense moans. 

He knows exactly what that sound is, but he had never, ever heard it come from you before. It’s not him, it’s not the movie, so it has to be – 

You are arched against the back of the couch, chest rising and falling, with your hand down your pants. The buttons are undone and the zipper is halfway down and the fabric bunches and twists against your knuckles.

You’ve got your lip between your teeth, cheeks flushed, air rushing out of your nose, and your eyes are glued, attached, bound to the screen.

To him. 

You lick your lips as his character takes off his cloak, revealing a broad, sculpted back and you whine, almost panicked. Your mouth falls open, eyes falling shut as you work your hand faster in your pants. There’s sweat on your forehead.

You’re masturbating, right here on his couch.

You’re masturbating to him. 

He’s on top of you before he knows what he’s doing. 

His fingers dig around your wrists, pinning them above your head, your tits inches from his chest. You look up at him in bewilderment and beside his head, your fingers glisten in the light from the screen. 

You were using three of them, judging by the shine. 

He drops his head, fighting the body-wracking groan that’s pulsating in his throat. 

God, he can fucking smell it, you, from here. If your fingers are anything to go by, your panties must be drenched. 

He’s shaking– actually shaking – from restraint. 

He cannot look at your face, cannot see what’s in your eyes. 

The word ballistic is knocking around in his brain. 

I’m gonna go ballistic. You’re making me go ballistic. This is the night I go ballistic. 

He might actually drool. 

You breathe in and he squeezes your wrists harshly. No, no talking from you. But of course, you don’t listen. When in the history of the fucking world did you ever listen to him?

“In my defense,” you begin slowly and he can picture the shameless coy smirk on your face, “I thought you were asleep. I checked. Twice.”

He doesn’t know whether he’s going to kiss you and fuck you, or split you apart with his bare hands.

“FUUUCK!” Dieter roars and physically shoves you deeper into the couch. 

He bounds up, and snatches your purse off the floor. He’s rifling through it as he slams open the sliding door to the pool so hard the glass shakes. He finds what he’s looking for and chucks your purse behind him. 

His hands are still trembling as he lights the cigarette in his mouth.

He inhales so deeply, he can’t breathe right. 

It doesn’t slow the hurricane in his mind, but it does ease the knife wound between his ribs.

His feet are cold against the concrete by the pool.

Water laps behind him and the stars above are indifferent to one man’s plunge into insanity.

“What’s got you so wound up?” You come out from the open door, with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. It might be cold, if his skin wasn’t burning from the inside out. You’re scowling as this is somehow his fault. 

“No. Fuck off. Go back inside. I’m not talking to you.” 

“What’s your actual fucking problem, dude?”

His eyes grow wide and he plucks the cigarette out from between his teeth. “Are you fucking serious? Is that a real question?”

“Look, I figured out why we can’t have a scene together that even fringes on vulnerability.”

He huffs darkly. “Since you’re not going to leave me alone, feel free to fucking enlighten me.”

“You see this project as the be-all-end-all to your career, right? And you’re afraid you’ll screw things up with your wife permanently if you have one more fuck up. That’s why you can’t be vulnerable with me, because you’re scared someone will see the truth in it. Well, baby, the truth is a matter of perspective.” 

He balks. He can feel the heat of the cigarette burn his skin but he doesn’t care.

“‘Truth is a matter of perspective’? What the fuck are you talking about? Do you hear what comes out of your mouth sometimes? Nobody talks like that! That is not how normal people talk!” 

“If it’s not that, then what? Tell me, Dieter! What are you so fucking mad about?” 

“You were masturbating– to me! That’s like some kind of violation, right? I should call the fucking police on you.” 

“Why does it bother you so much? You’re an actor, you've gotta know people do sick shit online all the time!” 

“Yeah, but I don’t know them. I don’t. . .” He swallows. “I don’t know– it doesn’t bother me so much thinking about the nebulous them.” 

“Then what the fuck is up your ass about . . .” You trail off. His heart by his ears, he turns to you. You’re watching him, your eyes the size of silver dollars, your earrings glistening like diamonds in your ears. “Oh my god . . .”  

He doesn’t like that tone of voice at all, doesn’t like the look in your eyes. You step closer and he steps back. You take another step and he almost falls backwards into the pool fully clothed.

“Oh my god, Dieter . . .”

“What?”

A smile breaks out across your face. Relief. Hope. Shock. Delight. A joy that verges on cruel. 

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” 

He turns his shoulder away from you, trying to wiggle out from under the pin of your eyes.

“The fuck are you talking about? What’s it?” 

You stepside him and he catches your wicked smile again. Your eyes are glittering. Victory.

“You’ve masturbated thinking about me, haven’t you?” 

“. . . no. What?” He turns away towards the house, but you block him. He could pick you up and just move you, but he doesn’t. “Get out of my face.” 

Triumphant, you snatch the last bit of cigarette out of his fingers and inhale. Your hip cocked, maroon shirt trembling in the night air, you look like you own the mesa and all the stars in the sky. You lick your bottom lip, transcendence shining in your eyes.

“You’ve totally jerked yourself off thinking about what it would be like to fuck me,” you whisper, a secret just for the two of you. “Was it big? Was it messy? Did it go everywhere?” 

Dieter nearly snarls again and claps his hands over your shoulders. He wants to shake some sense into you or pull you closer. 

Despite everything, having his hands on you is a balm. It quiets some part of him. 

“For the love of God, stop fucking talking. I am literally begging you to. stop. talking.” 

You don’t say anything, but that boastful grin is still on your face. He doesn’t drop his hands and you don’t step back. You are farther apart than in the bathroom, and somehow, out in the open air, it feels even tighter, enclosed. He can see the individual lashes around your eyes, the barely-there wrinkles forming at the corners. You’ve got freckles in places that he’d very much like to taste. 

God, how you love a challenge. You bring the cigarette to your mouth. You inhale, then slowly dip your head forward to his mouth. You don’t go any further, but then you exhale, smoke escaping past your lips and dousing him. His eyes flutter shut from the heat, the warmth, the burn of the smoke. He thinks he can smell bubble-gum. The smoke kisses him on the lips, gentle, inviting. A promise of many, many possible futures. 

The smoke passes, flits away on the desert wind. And there’s your face, emerging from behind obscurity. The smirk is gone. Instead, you’ve gone soft, wanting, full of desire. Your eyelids are halfway closed against the smoke and the flood of need scorching you from head to toe. He thinks you and hurricanes share the same sort of powerful, thunderous beauty. 

It would be easy.

It would be so easy. No one else had to know. 

But he would know. He wasn’t quite there. 

Not yet. 

He takes the cigarette back from between your fingers, careful not to touch you. 

“That one’s mine,” he murmurs, hoping his words land where he wants to put his mouth. “Almost gone anyway.” 

He flicks the butt across the white concrete as he goes back to your purse. He gets two this time, the lighter in his back pocket, and he sits at the edge of the pool. He rolls his jeans up to his knees before easing his legs into the cool water. The pool light below him throws constellations of blue-silver onto his calves. 

You sit next to him, after a moment, the blanket still around your shoulders. You roll up your jeans just like he did and find a matching position next to him. He offers you the other cigarette wordlessly and you take it and light it. Faint smoke trails waft up into the night sky from between your fingers and his, inches from each other. 

“If it isn’t entirely obvious, I wanna fuck you too,” you confess to your thighs, voice small and edged. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I was that you didn’t take me up on my offer at the hotel.” 

His eyebrows slowly rise. “You remember that?” 

You nod. “I was ready to kick out those other two assholes if you had said yes. I wanted you all to myself.”

It was out there. You knew his secret and he knew yours. A monumental weight had been shifted and Dieter no longer feels like there is a burning knot of metal wool in his chest.

The paper crinkled as it burned. 

Still, something lingered.

“What do you want to do about it?” You swing your ankles through the water. It catches the light and your skin glows.

“About what?”

“About this. About us.”

“Nothing,” he says. The hand at his lips trembles. “Nothing can happen and it never will.” 

“Because you love your wife so much.” You make it sound genuine. But there’s enough bitterness inside of him to know it’s not.

“Because I can’t do that to her. Not again. She’s a better person than I am. A better person than I will ever be. I don’t know why she loves me but I don’t deserve her and I’m not putting her through that again.” 

You sit quiet for a moment, your mouth puckered and cocked to the side. He thinks– just for a moment, for a minute, as you stare out into the night-blue abyss– he thinks your eyes are wet. 

His heart, his whole chest, aches deeply. Just for a moment.

“Seems kinda fucked up to stay with someone out of guilt,” you say finally. Your voice is clear and maybe he was just imagining things. He swallows and smokes some more, hoping the burn in his mouth will somehow give him the right words to say. His fingers drum on his knee. 

“You only get two of those a day. From now on. Only two.” 

“Two what?” 

He grins because he really does like spending time with you. 

“Comments that make me feel like an asshole. You get two a day. That was one.” 

You scoff, tossing your hair over your shoulder. “Four. I want four.” 

“You get two.” 

“Three.” 

“God, you are bossy. Three and that’s it. You go over and I’m throwing you off this mesa.”

You smirk, and he lets you have this victory. You need it, he knows. 

You wade your feet some more, ankles spinning out in slow, small circles. He watches your thigh muscles move. How soft the backs of your knees are, he can only imagine.

“So, was this all worth it?” He waves his hand around, smoke trailing from between his middle and index finger. “Close quarters character work or whatever. Are we friends?”

His smile is teasing, but it falls off slowly when you don’t smile back. Your face is blank, but your eyes are dark as they stare, heated, at the water, a storm brewing in your thoughts. You pick at your nails, resting on your knee, the cigarette weakly chuffing silver smoke.

“I don’t want to be friends,” you murmur softly.

“Natalie, I —” 

“I don’t want to be friends.” You say louder, forcefully. You turn your gaze to him and he sees that girl on set that’s always a word away from pushing him over the limit, towards the edge of his sanity. “And I know you don’t want that either.” 

He works his jaw, buckling under the weight of your desire. He looks away. Your ankles are sparkling. 

“That’s all I can offer. I’m sorry.” 

“An apology. Wow.” You scoff scornfully. “You know, Dieter, I think that’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

Your voice is strained, grated, unpolished. Your face is tragically beautiful, even when it’s holding back tears. 

“This is the way it has to be. Do you want me in your life or not? Can we be friends?” 

He doesn’t know what he’s gonna do if you say no. He hadn’t really considered a life without you in it, in some shape or form. But the dread he felt when he made it an option, it was overwhelming.

He can’t swallow air right. He rubs his chest, suddenly light-headed from the smoke. He wants to lie down somewhere warm. 

Slowly, thankfully, with a grace he didn’t think you possessed, you nod. You switch the cigarette to the other hand and lift your palm. A greeting. The waving of a white flag. A rain-soaked battlefield full of ghosts and dreams. 

He takes your hand and shakes it once.

“Friends it is.”

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo x f!reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo x reader #the bubble fanfic #the bubble fic #the bubble fanfiction #the bubble 2016 #dieter bravo/f!reader #dieter bravo/you #dieter bravo/reader

[evita-shelby]

Incantatrice

Chapter 13

Taglsit:@thegreatdragonfruta @zablife @babayaga67 @wandawiccan60

Gif by:@hicktown-orchestra

Eva is better now that she has their sweet Rosalba in her arms.

Things have been better, too good if you ask her.

Even if Eva has not had an episode in months, she acts as if it will all come back the second she drops her guard.

But she is better, happy and Luca is relieved to know the worst is over.

Perhaps in a year or so they’ll break the tie and have another baby. This one born in Birmingham or London while they rule the empire his father lost thanks to Angel’s lack of ambition.

“What happened to the nanny?” he asks when he finds his maga changing into a different dress after their sweet Rosina threw up on the previous one.

They were running late for their dinner reservation, and while he did not mind getting a quick look at what he’d be taking off her when they got back, Luca needed to confirm why Carmen is gone.

“I fired her.” she answered as she shimmied into a burgundy velvet dress that matches the shade of lipstick she wears and the red roses holding her low bun.

“Why?” he asks as his show ended when his wife slid the diamond encrusted dagger into the black leather sheath on her garter.

Luca knew the answer lay in Carmen being young and pretty and suggested by the Family who wanted to remind Eva what her place is.

Spinietta was growing tired of Eva’s influence and Luca’s growing power.

Unlike the rest of the consiglieri he can’t replace them by voting in a replacement.

If they get started on taking England, Luca won’t have to worry about anyone giving his maga the kiss of death.

“I do not share, something Carmen did not understand.” She gave him a wicked smile.

Dinner had been perfect, sure there had been no wine due to the presence of undercover cops, but what did they need wine when Luca is enough to make her feel drunk.

It’s been two months since Rosalba was born, but it feels like ages ago when she tries to remember when the last fucked.

“We’ll ruin the sofa, Luca.” She wouldn’t mind ruining the velvet sofa, but she does hate having to stop because Leonardito heard noises in the living room.

At least in the bedroom they can lock the door.

“I’ll buy you another one if you’re a good witch for me, mia vita.” He guides her on top of him, not at all surprised to find her garter hooks undone and her as willing as always.

“What if I want to be a bad witch tonight?” she asked coyly as she slowly undid the rest of his shirt buttons and got rid of his vest, Luca loves being in control and yet she’s never heard him complain when she takes the reigns.

Besides, she needs to remind him he is hers and hers alone.

“I’ll get you a whole fucking new set of couches then.”

It is barely midnight when the encore is interrupted not by a six-year-old boy nor a two-month-old infant, but by a telephone call.

“Let it ring, Eva. ‘s not important.” He said that and in the next heartbeat his wife lost all interest in letting him know she owned him in this life and the next.

“It’s your father. Somethings happened to your family.” Her warm skin goes cold with goosebumps under his touch.

And sure enough, Luca picks up the telephone and hears the last thing he had thought he would ever hear.

“Angel is dead. They killed him, those fucking gypsies killed him!” his father is stone cold on the line, and yet Luca knew Vincente Changretta had been crying even if nothing betrayed the steady voice vowing fire and brimstone on the Shelby Family. “We are leaving for New York once he is buried. I know you loved your brother, but I cannot lose you too.”

“I am so sorry, Luca. If I had known this would’ve happened, I would have not let them leave.” Eva holds him as he cries for the first time in years.

This time, she is the one holding him together.

This time, he is the one broken to pieces.

“I will kill the bastardo who did this, an eye for an eye, a life for a life.” He vowed vengeance and she didn’t dissuade him from it.

“You will avenge him; I have seen it. John Shelby and his family will pay for what they did to your brother.”

A week later, only Audrey Changretta arrives in New York.

His father killed by the orders of Thomas Shelby; Audrey escaped because his brothers had the mercy he had not.

Shelby claims one of them killed his wife so he killed Angel in his hospital bed, Audrey says they never sent an associate to his party and if they had had, they would have gone for John Shelby never the puttana Shelby married.

Who’s to say Shelby didn’t frame them to wipe us out? A man like that is never satisfied with what he has, Audrey said, and Eva stared at her in horror.

Eva who knows what they do and accepts it, and yet cannot stomach all the blood he will spill in this vendetta.

“The Shelbys will pay for this.” Luca vows to his stepmother and put on the signet ring his father wore until he died.

#luca changretta x eva smith #luca changretta x oc #eva smith changretta #incantatrice fic

[flowers-that-sing]

stranger things as things i or my friends have said

mike: why cry when you can die?

dustin: [mike] we’ve been over this

lucas: but i just think if you gave it a shot-

erica: was that a basketball pun?

lucas:

lucas: it was a vaccine pun

robin: you’re such a dumbass

steve: choke and die egotistical genius

robin: love you

steve: love you too

lucas: GIMME GIMME GIMME-

max: a FUCKING BREAK

will: not to be gay or anything but i just think you’re so.

mike: you’re not gay? then what in the fruitcake mcnugget am i?!

will: arent you a girl today

mike: …WAIT…

el: whoa ive never heard this song before whats it called?

dustin: …we like to party?

mike: THE VENGABUS IS COMING-

el: and you ruined it for me.

joyce: so, my old girlfriend-

jonathan: wait your WHAT

joyce: my girlfriend?

jonathan: YOU’RE GAY?!

joyce: i’m bi, i thought you knew this

jonathan: NO WONDER YOU KNEW ABOUT MY BOYFRIEND

joyce: no, everyone knew about your boyfriend. no gaydar required.

argyle: dude, how are you high right now

eddie: i’m not

argyle: …are you sure?

eddie: how are you NOT high right now

argyle: it was catnip.

hopper: …i mean i guess i can’t be mad about that.

side note: none of these friends do drugs. i do not know what was going on. there is no context that can help

steve: are you drunk right now?! how?!?! theres no alcohol here! how would you even get alcohol?!?!

eddie: i thought the vanilla extract was alcohol free

steve: WHY WERE YOU DRINKING VANILLA EXTRACT

eddie: IT WAS FOR TUMBLR

(at around midnight)

argyle: bro… you know the saying bros before hoes

jonathan: yeah bro

argyle: but what if your bro IS your hoe…

jonathan: bro…

argyle: hoe…

el: sorry i was just being silly

hopper: you were in the washing machine

el: it reminds me of the womb

#stranger things #incorrect stranger things quotes #jargyle #byler

[domesticblisss]

midnight love

steve harrington x female reader (mentioned billy hargrove x reader) rating: nc-17 word count: 2360 summary: reader is in a rocky relationship with billy and steve, her best friend, hates that he can't do anything about it. warnings: angst, a whole lot of angst and fluff. friends to lovers, mentions of domestic violence (nothing explicit or graphic), cheating, name calling, self image issues, dustin being a little shit and pet names (sweetheart). i guess that's all, hit me up if i missed anything. inspired by girl in red's "midnight love"

“Steve… Can I come over?” his best friend sobbed on the other side of the phone. 

“Yeah.”

Steve got that call at least once a week. Well, at least since when she started dating Billy. 

Steve hated seeing his best friend being treated this way. 

He had lost count of how many times he greeted his friend crying, how many times he held her in his bed while she sobbed to sleep, or how many times she promised it would be the last. 

It broke him. 

The doorbell rings and Steve knows it’s her. As he opens the door, he takes in her image. Her usually neatly styled hair was a mess, her sparkly eyes were filled with tears, mascara running down her beautiful face, lips swollen from biting them too hard, and she held her left arm, finger shaped bruises already forming. 

Steve let her in silently, guiding her to the kitchen where he already had prepared some chamomile tea, in hopes that the warm drink would calm her down. 

She sat on the table, warming her hand on the teacup before drinking it. She couldn’t look at Steve. 

“Billy cheated on me with Carol. I went to his place and Max tried to stop and warn me but I found him in bed with her,” she sobbed, “he started screaming at me like I was the one doing something wrong and…” Steve’s mind was going 100 miles per hour, her voice completely muffled by his thoughts. As she went on, his body filled with rage and resentment. 

“Steve, are you listening to m–“

“I can’t do this anymore.” he interrupted her. 

“What?”

“I said I can’t fucking do this anymore.” The tone of his voice startled her and tears soon filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for raising my voice. But I can’t do this anymore, sweetheart.”

“Steve–“ her voice was timid. 

“I can’t be your second best. I can’t be the one you come to whenever you have a fallout with Billy, only to watch you go back to him again. I can’t! This hurts me too and I’m tired.” He sighed. “I’m so fucking tired. How many times have I told you he’s a piece of shit? He’s hurting you, sweetheart, hurting you! And still you go back to him and every time it gets worse and worse and I can’t do anything about it. It hurts me too and I’m tired… I’m so tired..”

She nodded and got up, her shaking hands cleaning the tears that had started to spill.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry.” he said as he tried to hold her hand. 

She shakes her head, stopping him, “It’s okay, Steve. You’re right. I’ve just been blind this whole time hoping Billy would change.”

“I won’t bother you anymore.” 

“Sweetheart, please–“

“Bye, Steve.” she said as she left his house. 

꙳⸌♡⸍꙳

Two months.

It has been two long months since she and Steve had last spoken. Two long months of Steve watching her sit alone in the cafeteria during break, two long months of only getting any news of her from the kids. 

“Erica said she has been a little off lately, she’s barely even playing with her anymore, Steve.” Lucas told Steve when he asked if she still babysitted for the Sinclairs. 

“I don’t know, Steve. Ask her yourself! She hasn’t been around since the whole Carol incident, Billy even tried to go after her a few days later and nothing. I think they are done for real this time.” Max told him one night while he dropped her off. 

He even went after that Buckley girl she always hung out with during P.E. “Depends on the day, Harrington. Sometimes she’s fine, we talk about random things and watch a few movies, somedays she’s quiet and all she can think about is you, and if we end up talking about you, she goes to the bathroom to cry.” 

“She refuses to sit with anybody else during lunch, it’s insane!” Robin sighed and continued, “She misses you and is terrified she might have lost you… fuck, she’s going to hate me for this so please if you do talk to her, don’t tell her it was me who told you, but she loves you, Steve. Like love love, nothing platonic.”

“But– I thought– Billy–“ Confusion took over Steve’s face. 

Robin let out a chuckle “God, you really are just as clueless as she says you are. It’s not on me to tell anything else about her feelings, but Billy was just a distraction.”

“Distraction?”

Robin laughs.

“Look, Steve, I’ve got to go,” she got up, gathering her belongings. “But talk to her, okay?” she squeezed his hand hard, “Promise?”

Steve nodded. 

꙳⸌♡⸍꙳

Thursdays were ice cream night for Steve and Dustin and for her. Well, at least it used to be since everything went down. 

These past few months Steve tried to keep some sort of normalcy to it, he would go out to Scoops Ahoy with Dustin, grab the biggest ice cream available and talk the night away with the boy just like they always did. The only difference was that Steve would always buy her favourite flavour to go and give it to Dustin so the boy could give it to his neighbour. 

Dustin had been going on and on about the summer camp he would be going to this year for at least half an hour, and Steve couldn’t pay attention to one word the kid had said, the only thing in his mind was Robin’s voice saying “She loves you.”

“Earth to Steve! Earth to Steve!” Dustin said as he snapped his fingers on the older boy’s face. “Have you listened to one word I’ve said?”

“She loves me.” Steve said, his eyes and voice looking and sounding completely lost. 

“Who?”

“Sweetheart.”

“Yeah, no shit Steve!”

“How did you kn–“ Dustin cut him off. 

“Anyone with two eyes could see it, Steve!” the kid said exasperated. “Who told you this? Did you finally talk to her?”

“I talked to Robin today an–“

“Who’s Robin?” Dustin cut Steve off again, his mouth full of chocolate ice cream. 

“Jesus, Dustin will you let me fucking finish?” 

The boy motioned for him to keep going. 

“Robin does P.E. with her, anyway, I talked to Robin today and she told me.” Steve’s hands goes to his hair, making a mess while he sighed, “I fucked up, dude.”

“What are you waiting for?”

Steve raised an eyebrow at the boy. 

“Do I have to explain everything to you? Get her favourite and go talk to her.”

“Now?”

“Now, Steve! Let’s go!”

The ride back to her place was quiet except for the sounds of Steve nervously drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. 

Steve parked between hers and Dustin’s house and panic slowly set in. 

“Here,” Dustin said, interrupting the imminent panic attack that was coming, and handed him the ice cream tube. “She’s probably waiting for me to bring it to her, so it probably shouldn’t take long for her to answer.”

“Okay, okay.” Steve nodded. 

The boys got out of the car and Steve slowly made his way around it to get to her pathway. Dustin stopped him. “Her mom is now taking the night shifts at the hospital, so you don’t have to worry about her getting in the way.”

“Was that supposed to make me feel better? I don’t know if I can be alone with her.”

“Steve, go! Everything will be okay!”

“Okay, yeah! I’m going.”

Steve finally made his way to her door and knocked on it. The ten seconds it took her to answer the door was the longest one of his life, as his throat was dry and his hands sweaty. 

“Dusty– oh.”

“Hey.” Steve said, nervousness clear in his voice. 

“Hey.”

“I got you ice cream.” Steve brought the tube to her eye level. 

“Thanks.” she said as she took the tube from his trembling hands. 

They kept staring at each other, her grip on the door handle so tight her knuckles were turning white, and Steve’s mind going miles per hour, the speech he had formulated on the way to hers completely scrambled. 

“Can we– umm, can we talk?” he asked. 

She nodded and told him to come in. “Just let me put this in the fridge.”

Steve sat down on her kitchen table’s chair as she put the ice cream away. 

“So…”

“So…” they said together. 

“You first.”

“You first.” they spoke together once again, earning a shy smile from both of them. 

“You first, Steve.”

“What happened to ‘ladies first?’” Steve joked, making her giggle. 

“Well, you’re the one who came around asking to talk.”

He nodded and laughed a humourless laugh. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I acted that day, I shouldn’t have talked to you that way, I shouldn’t have pushed you away.”

“Steve–“

“Please, please, let me finish.”

She nodded. 

“I had this whole speech planned out, you know.” Steve laughed. “I just– I love you, I’ve loved you for so long and never did anything about it because I was terrified of losing you, you know?”

“And then Billy came along and a part of me was pretending it would be okay because then I could move on, but god I was so jealous of you, and even more so, worried. Worried because you wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to warn you about Billy… and then I became your second best, I became the one that you ran to when shit happened. And don’t get me wrong, I loved that you trusted me enough for it, but it hurt me so bad seeing the way I did, seeing you crying, seeing you bruised.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay, sweetheart.”

She sat down next to him, taking his hand on hers, playing with his fingers. 

“Billy started out as a distraction, you know? You were always going out with other girls, prettier girls, and you always made sure to state that we were just friends,” she wiped a tear before continuing “and you know I’ve never been a hit with boys so… so you can only imagine what went on my mind when this super hot dude from California arrived out of nowhere, asked me out and showed some interest on me.”

“I love you too, Stevie, so fucking much. I’ve loved you since fourth grade, when I fell from the jungle gym and you ran to help me and take me to the nurse’s office.” They laughed at the memory. “I just… I felt like it was too late, you know… so I just kept going back to him. You kept going on dates and in my mind you would find someone nice and settle with them, so I just took what Billy had to offered and ended in this fucking cycle of– of whatever the fuck that was.” She started crying and Steve pulled her into his chest. His lips found the crown of her head, depositing little soothing kisses and shushing her, promising everything would be okay. 

Her arms found their way around his waist as she rested her head on his chest, his steady breathing helping her calm down. 

“I haven’t seen him since that day, I mean, anywhere outside of school at least. He came around one day and tried to talk to me, but my mom was around and told him to leave, and that if he tried to come around here again, she would call the police.”

“Good.”

Silence engulfed them and Steve cherished the moment. She was sitting on his lap, hugging him. His arms holding her tightly to him, as if she would run away if he let it a bit looser. His left hand held her shoulder, as the right caressed her back, inside her shirt. Steve could feel the goosebumps form on her skin, and he relished the way her nose bumped on his throat and neck as she looked up at him. 

“Can I kiss you, Stevie?”

Steve nodded and silently closed the gap between their lips.

The kiss was shy at first, just two best friends finally admitting their feelings towards each other, but it wasn’t long before it got full of passion and urgency, full of need to make up for lost time. 

Soon the need for air came and they broke the kiss, Steve resting his forehead on her own. 

“Hey.” He said, a dopey smile adorning his beautiful features.”

“Hey, Stevie.”

“Sooo…” Steve stretched out the syllable, hinting that he was nervous with what he was about to do. 

“Yes, Stevie.” She said playfully, giving a little love bite to his chin. 

“Does this” he motioned with his hands to the state they were in “mean that I’m yours and you’re mine?”

She laughed, not a mean laugh, but a happy and emotional one. 

“I’m yours, Stevie. Only yours, always yours.”

Feedback is welcomed and appreciated 🤎

#x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fluff #stranger things #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things fic #db writes #db fics

[nancywheeeler]

your cosmic call sign

pairings: steve/eddie, steve & the party; background relationships: dustin/suzie, mike/eleven, lucas/max chapter count: 2/6 rating: t summary: Steve looks up at the sky and sees stars. Eddie looks up at the sky and sees alien spaceships. It’s going to start with a graveyard shift, a midnight radio hour, and Dustin Henderson. It’s going to end New Year’s Eve, 1985—one way or another. read on ao3.

“Ground Control to Major…” He leaves off finishing, prompting whoever is on the other side to fill in their name. In the background, Steve hears the same song as is playing through his radio, the music layering like a strange echo. “Hey, it’s—”

“Captain Steve!” he interrupts cheerily, a grin trilling in his tone. “Wasn’t anticipating a check-in from you today. Wait, shit—is Family Video closing at 1AM on Wednesdays and Thursdays now, too? That’s too much, man. You’ve gotta fucking unionize or—” A second voice, reaching Steve’s end garbled, calls something to Ground Control. The guy exerts minimal effort covering the speaker while he answers the complaint with, “Simmer down, supergenius, the mic’s off and you know it.” To Steve, he says, clucking his tongue, “The tone of the youths these days.”

#my writing #chapter two has arrived very late into night #once more who is ready to learn more than they care to know about montauk new york #stranger things #steddie

[slikbedding]

my freedom

Steve Harrington x fem reader

warning: fluff. 

There you are, pinned to the door of the creel house, he’s got you now. You’re screaming for help, for Steve, not like it’s much help. There they search the house, your bag, everywhere looking for your Walkman and your favorite song. “Y/N! HURRY UP ALREADY!” Dustin yelled out from the living area of your trailer. Nancy and Robin are searching through your bras and panties, Eddie and Lucas are searching through boxes in the hall closet, Erica and Max are looking in your actual closet and under your bed, and Steve is trying to help but he’s more worried about you. “I FOUND HER WALKMEN!” Max yelled running to Dustin placing the headphones on your head. “WHO KNOWS HER BEST!?” Eddie yelled loudly at everyone. “F/S! I FOUND IT.” Nancy screamed running to you quickly putting the tape in the Walkman. Vecnas close telling you it’s time when you hear your song playing. Sigh of relief washes over you, Vecnas turns and sees an opening and your friends standing at the edge of it screaming your name. And a brief moment you swing your legs and kick Vecna. He releases you from his grasp, and you start running towards your friends. You screamed as soon as you got close enough to where your friends are. When you return to your friends You fall into Dustin’s arms, crying. “Shit, first Chrissy, then Fred, then Patrick, he almost got max, now me.” you sat on the floor next to Dustin. Steve just watched from the hallway as you talked to the group. Explaining why vecna was after you, the trauma you went through. Steve just watched you talk about your mental and physical, how you used to blame yourself for not being able to save your younger siblings. After a while your voice had vanished from his ears all he heard was silence as he watched you. All he thought about was protecting you. “and they died shortly after I left in a house fire. And I blamed myself for so long. So vecna is feeding off that, the guilt and hatred i have.” you spoke, catching Steve's attention, finally. “He won’t touch you," Steve smiled slightly, which made your heart flutter, he wanted to protect you. “ both of you, we won’t let him.” he added, looking at you and max. Of course he says that. you thought you knew he would never show his feelings for you. “Comforting Harrington, really comforting.” you had said sarcastically. Everyone and their parents knew that you and Steve were crushing on each other hard ,however you and Steve were oblivious to your feelings for one another. A few hours had passed Steve was driving you, Eddie, robin, max, Lucas, Erica, and Dustin were on your way to Steve's house. robin was sitting in the passenger seat, in the back seats were max, Lucas, and Erica, and in the trunk basically was you and Dustin. Eddie was laid down next to you with a blanket covering most of him. “How did life get so fucked?” you half joked, talking to Eddie and Dustin, tiling your head up slightly leaning it against the window of the car. Steve had blocked out everyone and everything while he drove, thinking about you. Your eyes, your smile, your laugh, your voice. He looked at you in his rear view, he watched you as you talked to Dustin and Eddie, only for a short while. Pulling up to Steve's house it was around midnight, the kids snuck Eddie in, robin, you and Steve stayed outside catching the crisp cool air. “I'm gonna make sure they don’t fuck anything up.” Steve smiled walking inside, leaving you and Robin alone. “Robin, don’t start.” was all you could say at the moment. ”I'm going to start, Steve likes you a lot Y/N. He always stares at you, when you come into the store, I make fun of him for it all the time. As a matter of fact, he often calls me at like 3am to talk about you and how pretty you are, how your eyes shine in the sunlight, or how nice your hair looked that day. Honestly, it's annoying.” she ranted. “Robi, I like him so much. However, with everything going on I can't act on my feelings yet. I have a target on my back now from vecna, I live in a trailer with my ex boyfriend, I have severe trauma from my childhood, i lost everything already, but i refuse to lose Steve. he's my safe space, my home, my heart, my love, My freedom.” you finished your speech, you hadn’t even realized that you were looking at your feet, or the tears falling from your eyes. That was till robin placed her hands to your face wiping the tears that had fallen away. “Oh honey, there might never be a good time to tell him how you feel or a good way to say it. You just have to do it.” Robin smiled, you were quick to hug her. It was around 2am and everyone was asleep, except for you. You were sitting outside on a pool chair headphones on playing your song. You felt a tap on your shoulder. you turn to see Steve, shirtless and in sweatpants, he smiled slightly at you. “Why are you still up?” he asked, he sat next to you. “Thinking,” you said. “About what exactly?” he asked. “You, no time will be right for this but who knows when or who vecna is gonna go after. So, I might as well speak now or never speak again.” You said looking over at Steve, he had a look of concern and confusion on his face. “I am in love with you, why did it take me this long? I have no idea, but I'm glad I've held my tongue this long. Why? Because I feel like now would be the best time. Steve, you are everything to me, you are my safe space, my home, my heart, my love, My freedom.” you finished and looked over at Steve. “Finally, I have been wanting to tell you my feelings for months now. I'm glad you said something first, because I know that I would most likely start rambling like an idiot.”  he smiled and leaned in close. His breath is warm, lips barely touching yours. It was a form of torture to you, he's so close and so far. Finally, you had enough and closed the small gap between you both. He placed his hands on your waist pulling onto his lap and one hand left your waist and made a claim on your neck. Which deepened the kiss, his tongue slid across your bottom lip you pulled away to catch your breath. “ Let's save that for another time, Harrington.” you chuckled, Steve laughed with you. “I've waited long enough to kiss you, I can wait a little longer for that, Y/L/N.” he smiled. He soon picked you up and took you to his room. “Now, lets get some sleep.” he said, putting your cassette in his boom box to play your song. Steve laid next to you and kissed your forehead and soon you fell asleep. Yeah this is your freedom.

#steve harrington smut #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #stranger things #fanfic