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munsonfamilyband · 1 year

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So, since my last post kind of popped off, I decided to continue it. Here’s part 2 of the Different Meeting AU:

Robin knew within a week of that first hangout that Steve was interested in someone. She ambushed him at their new job, demanding he fill her in. What follows is a very awkward coming out on Steve’s part (“Why didn’t you say anything when I came out to you??” “I was still drugged! I forgot!”) and then an even more awkward explanation of who he is interested in and how they met. Robin was unsurprisingly supportive and helps wingman from the background, which mostly consists of getting Steve in progressively tinier clothes for his and Eddie’s now biweekly smoke sessions.

When they finally do get together, Steve clears it with Eddie before telling her the next day at work. She jumps up and down from excitement and demands to meet him. And just like that, Steve had two best friends who also get along, and one of them was also his crazy hot boyfriend. The next six months pass in a haze of happiness, until it pops on a particular Saturday morning in late March.

Spring break has just started, and Steve is only a little grumpy. Eddie had called Family Video yesterday around lunch time to tell Steve he wouldn’t be able to come over right after the game that night because he had a client coming over. This didn’t upset Steve, what left him so grumpy was that Eddie had said he would call after the client left and he never did. Steve isn’t insecure, after 6 months he is very secure in his relationship. No, Steve isn’t insecure, but he is clingy so he always gets a little cranky when he hasn’t seen Eddie in a bit.

Robin picks up on his mood as soon as he picks her up, because of course she does, and she spends the next couple hours joking with him to try to bring up his mood. It actually starts working a bit before his mood crashes back down when he tunes into the news playing on the TV. On the screen, grainy as it is, is a trailer he knows just as well as his own house, with a very familiar van parker outside it. The words “murder” and “Hawkins High student” sink into his brain and the panic starts to set it.

“Robin.” Steve calls her name, but she’s still busy sorting movies, so he calls her name a couple more times before reaching out to grab her wrist without taking his eyes off the screen. “Robin, I need-“ The panic leaking into his tone finally gets her attention and she spins around to look at the TV just in time to hear the reporter say that Eddie is currently missing.

“Oh shit- okay, Steve, I need you to take a deep breath for me. Come on, deep breath.” She turns him toward her, holding his face between her hands. “They said he’s missing, so he might be okay, we don’t know right now-“

“But he might be hurt, whoever did this, they could have taken him-“

“Steve, you need to breathe-“ Her attempts at calming him are interrupted by the bell above the door, getting them both to turn around and face Dustin and Max. The four of them stare at each other for a beat before Dustin speaks.

“How many phones do you have?”

“What?” Steve manages to snap himself out of his panic in the face of Dustin’s own fear.

“How many phones do you have?”

“Uh, Two I think? Why-“ Steve is cut off by Dustin throwing his bag over the counter and leaping over it, knocking tapes onto the floor. “Hey, dude, no! My tapes! Can you explain why you need our phones?”

“I don’t have time for this, Max, could you..?” Max rolls her eyes but turns to Steve and Robin to explain.

“Last night I saw Eddie Munson come home with Chrissy Cunningham, and then 15 minutes later I heard screaming and I saw Eddie run like hell out of his trailer. I was able to see inside this morning and Chrissy was laying on the floor with her eyes sucked out of her head. Now, we’re trying to find Eddie.”

Steve feels like his stomach has disappeared, replaced entirely with a solid ball of fear. He thanks whatever is out there for Robin, because she speaks up before he has to try.

“You don’t think- is this another mall situation?” Steve can feel his knees shaking and Robin grabs his hand tightly to support him.

“I don’t know, but it seems like it might be.”

Steve takes a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and pull his shit together before speaking up.

“Dustin, grab your shit, let’s go.” Without even waiting for an answer, he grabs his keys and starts walking for the door. As he’s walking he turns to walk backwards, seeing no one moving. “Let’s go! Do you want to find Eddie or not?” Continuing his path out the doors he hears Dustin yelling questions at him, but he can also hear him scrambling to get his stuff together. By the time Steve reaches his car everyone has nearly reached him and he doesn’t hesitate when getting in his car, starting it as everyone gets inside.

Robin sits in the passenger’s seat and keeps shooting his worried glances. Dustin and Max keep asking questions, but Steve ignores them, only listening to Robin.

“Are you sure you know where he is?”

“Yeah, we’ve been here a bunch lately. Rick’s in prison right now so no one comes around the house but us.”

“Okay, if you’re sure, then I’ll trust you.”

“The only other place I can think he would go would be mine, but he would have shown up last night-“

“I’m sorry, do you and Eddie KNOW each other???” Dustin’s words manage to finally pierce the wall of focus in Steve’s head, but Max responds before he can answer.

“Duh, Steve is at Eddie’s all the time.” Dustin stares at Steve like he’s grown another head.

“And no one said anything, why???”

“It was funny.”

“It was FUNNY?!?! What the hell, Steve?!”

“Language, Henderson.”

“Oh my god, now is not the time-“ Steve pulls into the driveway of Reefer Rick’s house, slamming the car into park.

“Shut up, we’re here. If you’re coming, then get out.” Without waiting for any answers, Steve climbs out of the car, rushing over to the front door. “Eddie? Eddie, are you here?” Peering through the windows Steve can see the remnants of the picnic they had at the house the weekend before, but no sign of Eddie. Dustin, as tactful as ever, starts banging on the door and yelling. “Dude! He’s in hiding, be quiet!”

“He needs to know it’s us!” Steve groans, leaning against the siding of the house.

“Hey guys, look!” Max yells over from her spot in the driveway, and Steve suddenly remembers the other part of the property.

“The boat house, how did I forget the boat house.” Their group run over to the boat house, pushing inside with Dustin calling out Eddie’s name. Steve grabs an oar, carefully walking around the boat house. Knowing Eddie, he would be terrified and when he’s spooked he gets aggressive. With this knowledge, Steve should have been more prepared when Eddie jumps out of the boat and shoves Steve up against the wall, broken bottle held to his neck.

Steve watches Eddie’s eyes flit across his face, watches the recognition down across his features and he watches as Dustin’s words sink into Eddie’s head. Steve just grins shyly at Eddie with his head tilted back to avoid to sharp glass.

“Usually I wouldn’t be opposed to this, but there are children here.” His joke does what Steve had hoped, making Eddie huff a laugh and stumble backwards to sit down.

“What are you doing here?” Steve feels his heart crack at the fear still lacing Eddie’s voice, and he carefully slides over to Eddie’s side. He holds a hand out to stop Dustin as Steve settle in next to Eddie, prying the bottle out of his hand and gently laces their fingers together.

“I saw the news this morning, and then Henderson showed up at Family Video looking to find you. I figured that I could save us some time and just come right here.” Eddie manages to tilt one side of his mouth up in a small grin, clearly happy to see Steve despite the anxiety of this whole situation. “Eddie, what happened last night? You said you had work, what happened?”

Eddie grips Steve’s hand a little tighter, his other hand coming up to rest on the back of Steve’s neck and takes a deep breath to speak, but because he has no filter, Dustin interrupts him.

“Okay, what is happening right now? Before today I didn’t know you guys even knew each other, and now you’re holding hands? Why are you guys sitting like that? How do you even know each other? Why did Steve know you would be here?” They both glance at each other, making meaningful eye contact before coming to the same conclusion. Eddie simply shrugs.

“Me or you?” They had thankfully discussed this before, and Eddie worked some gay couples into his campaigns to see how the kids would react. They all seemed okay with it, so they weren’t terribly worried about telling the truth.

“Who do you think he’ll be more mad at?”

“You, probably.”

“Fair, you should say it then.” Eddie grins and turns to Dustin to speak.

“I’m dating your babysitter, surprise. Now can we get back to the cheerleader in my trailer?”

“Yes-“

“No! You’re DATING??!?! And you never said ANYTHING?”

“Dustin, now isn’t the time-“

“Henderson, we have a much bigger potential problem and we need to figure out if that is what’s happening.” Steve levels Dustin with a glare, which seems to knock some sense into him.

“Fine, but we are discussing this later.”

“Thank you. Go ahead, Eddie.” Eddie leans his forehead against Steve’s temple briefly to stabilize himself before he launches into his explanation of the previous night’s events. As he tells the story the dawning horror in Steve’s gut grows stronger, knowing with awful understanding that the upside down was, in fact, back, and the one person he wanted to protect was now part of it.

“Okay, Eds, remember how you asked about my nightmares and I told you that you wouldn’t believe me if I told you?” Steve can see Eddie beginning to put the dots together, the same fear Steve feels being reflected back at him now.

“Yeah, and I told you I would always believe you.”

“Well, I’m gonna hold you to that now. It all started on November 6th, 1983, the night Will Byers disappeared.”

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I do have more ideas about this so if you want more, let me know.

#stranger things #eddie munson #steddie #steve harrington #Different Meeting AU #that last part became my most popular post in like a day so heres more lol

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sapppy-cocktail · 2 years

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Falling In Love With You - Part 2

Max Mayfield x Reader

Masterlist Taglist

Part 1

I make my way back to hospital 2 icecream in hand. Strawberry and cookies and cream. I open the door to see Max with her eyes closed. “Y/N?” She asks opening her eyes tilting her head in the direction of the door. “It’s me.” I say as out then down on the table before walking over to her bed. “Got you strawberry.” I say as grab a pillow near the bed. “Do you mind if I sit you up?” I ask looking at her as the pillows still in me hand. “Well I don’t want to choke on my ice-cream.” She says making me smile and put the pillow on her lap. “Arms around my neck.” I mumble as I lean over the bed and guide her hands to place them on me. Once she wraps them around my neck I place my hands on her waist and slowly pull her up. With my right hand i grab the pillow and place it behind her before laying her back down gently. “Comfy?” I ask as she nods. “Very.” She says as I walk back over to the table with the ice cream on it. “I got us cones if you don’t mind.” I say as I hold her hand and place the ice-cream in it. “Thank you.” She says as she brings it up to her lips. “I haven’t had ice-cream in over a year.” She says making my jaw drop. “What? Dude. How? I’d die before that happens to me.” I ask making her laugh. “Having no ice-cream is terrible, believe me I was going to kill myself.” She says as I take a bite out of the cone. “So what’d you do without me?” I ask as I look around to see any new gifts. “Nothing. Some of my friends came to visit.” She says as I nod. “That’s cool.” I say as she nods taking a bite out of the cone. “You ready to be with me for hours, days, weeks, months, maybe even years.” I ask making her turn my head in my direction and raise her eyebrows. “You’re gonna stay in hawkins that long?” “Well we did permanently move here, so yes, we will be.” I say as she nods taking the last bite of her icecream. “Do you wanna watch movie?” I ask as I get up to turn the tv on but then my eyes widen in shock as I realise what I said. “That was so insensitive of me. I’m so sorry.” I say whipping my head to see her reaction. She just smiles and laughs. “No, no. It’s alright. I just find it funny that you work with other blind patients. I feel bad for them.” She says making me pout my bottom lip. “I’m a good doctor.” I say as I walkover to her bed. “Time to put you down.” I say as she raises an eyebrow with a smile tugging at her lips. “Gonna kill me?” She asks as she holds her arms out as I put my head through and help her lay back down. “Yup. We hate you.” I say as she smiles. “How about I read some comics instead.” I say as I get ready to get up. “Which one?” She asks as I look through the box. “You a fan of wonder woman?” I ask as I pick the book up and hold it as I turn back to her. “Am I fan? I love her.” She says making me walk back and take a seat. She tilts her head and opens her mouth as if she’s about to ask something but then she closes it before opening it again. “Could… Do you want to sit on the bed next me?” She asks hesitantly making me get up and take a seat on the bed. “Here.” She says as she holds the blanket up for me to tuck my legs into the bed. “You alright?” I ask as I look down at her. “Yup.” She says as she closes her eyes as I begin to read.

Once I’m halfway through the book i feel an itch on my neck so I reach up and scratch it before putting my hand into my lap and that’s when I feel a hand snake itself into mine. I don’t question it and just take a glance and smile as I continue reading. I take a quick look at her and she seems to be content. I’ll take that. I continue to read until I decide to take a quick look at her and that’s when I notice her sleeping. Due to it only being 6:30pm she must be exhausted. But being in the hospital is draining whether your a patient or a staff member. Slowly and carefully I take her hand out of mine and get out of her bed once I finish the book I try to make her more comfortable in the bed before taking a seat on the chair beside the bed. Deciding to go through with my promise. Tapping my fingers against my knee I pick up the clipboard again reading information. Her arms seem to be fine since she can feel and move them but they’re just fragile and sore if she uses them to lift things which is unsurprising but definitely extraordinary considering how she came in according to the sheet. As I read further into the sheet I understand that we’d need to focus on her legs because she can barely move them. I listen to the silent hospital barley hearing the heart monitor beeping from the other rooms. Visiting hours were over and since it was night and surprisingly no emergencies it was dead silent. You could hear a pin drop. Throughout my whole life of being in and out of hospitals I’ve never heard it so quiet. There was no noise other than my breathing which was seemingly echoing in the quiet hospital. Hearing my stomach grumble I decide to grab something to eat and head towards the kitchen. I look back at her before walking out leaving the door slightly open before I walk away.

On my way back with 2 cookies and a plate of hot spaghetti in my hands I walk past the reception and go through the quiet hall, and that’s when I hear quiet but sharp, shallow breaths making my eyes go wide as I look for the source. As I follow the sound I realise I’m nearing Max’s room making my heart quicken as I begin running towards the sound. I take a right as the labored breathing is coming in that direction. I stop running as I almost pass the door it’s coming from. Realising where I am I open the door to see her hyperventilating. “Max!” I yell as I run into her room, rushing to put the stuff on the table before I turn back around and run to her bed and grab her hand placing one of them in both of mine. “Max. Max! Focus on my voice. Listen to me, okay. I’m gonna help you through this.” I say noticing her free hand is on her chest clutching her hospital gown as she quickly nods. “Do you feel my hand.” I say as give her hand a squeeze making her nod again as tears form in her eyes as she struggles to breathe. “Here, here.” I mumble as I rush to bend down and pull her hand to press it on my pounding chest. “Do you feel that?” I ask as she nods her breathing calming slightly. “Listen to my voice. Okay Max?” I ask as she nods again. “Try to breathe with me okay?” I ask as I take a deep breathe in. Her struggling to do the same. “In. Hold. Out.. Again.” I say repeating it until her breathing is slightly faster than usual. Her hand shakes in mine as I slowly release my grip preparing before her other hand latches onto mine. “Don’t leave me. Please.” She begs tears threatening to fall as she holds tightly onto my arm. “Okay.” I say as sit down, her hand still in mine. “You need a cookie.” I say as I lean over the chair stretching my arm as far as I can to grab it. “Got it.” I say as I attempt to open it with one hand. “For you.” I say as I tap the cookie on her hand so she knows where it is. “Thank you.” She whispers as takes it out of my hand before taking a bite. We sit in silence as she eats the cookie.

“What time is it?” She asks making me look at the watch on my wrist. “It’s 8:56pm.” I say as I look up from my watch. “You need to go now, don’t you?” She says sighing defeatedly as she hesitates to take her hand out of mine. “No, no. I can stay.” I say as I hold her hand tighter before she can take it out. “I’ll stay the night.” I say as I wait for her hand to relax in mine. “Are you sure? What about your mum?” She asks making me laugh. “Looks like she doesn’t have to wait for me to go to work.” I say making her crack a smile. “You still hungry?” I ask as her stomach growls. “Oh God. This is so embarrassing.” She mumbles as she raises her hands to her face, trying to hide herself behind her hands. “Well lucky you I went and grabbed some spaghetti.” I say as I slowly push my chair back and repeat the same movement I did to grab the cookie, except this time I grab the plate of spaghetti. I stand up and put it on my seat before stepping closer to the bed. “Looks like we’re gonna have to let go.” I say as I look down at her hands hearing her sigh defeatedly. “But I don’t want to.” She whines flailing her arms like a young child. My hand going flying around with her. “I’ll hold it again after I sit you up. Promise.” I say as she sighs before reluctantly agreeing. “Fine.” She says as I guide her hand to wrap them around me and lift her up placing another pillow behind her. “Don’t worry, I’m comfy.” She says reading my thoughts making me smile and turn around to grab the plate. “Here you go. A plate, fork and a hand.” I say putting the fork in her hand and the plate in her lap. She leans back as she laughs at what I said. “Do you need me to feed you as well?” I ask making her laugh harder. “I think so.” She says as she taps the bed around in search of my hand. She gives it a little squeeze once she finds it. “Do you think we could start the therapy a bit sooner?” She asks making me smirk. “Why? You enjoying my company?” I ask making her raise an eyebrow. “No, I think it’s cause I wanna walk again.” She says letting out a laugh. “I also happen to enjoy your company, slightly.” She says staring at the plate as she tries to grab the spaghetti. “Spin it a bit more. It’s gonna fall onto your pretty dress.” I say making her roll her eyes as she spins the fork before eating it. “So do you think you could?” She asks making me grab a paper out of my bag. “Yeah, I’m free tomorrow.” I say as I notice the blank page on my schedule. “We’ll get my mum to check you and make sure she thinks your body is ready for it.” I say as she nods. “Okay.” She says as she stares at the wall ahead. “Could… Do you think you’d be able to help me read?” She asks turning her head in my direction. “I know I’ve been asking so much of you and I’m sorry for that.” She says looking away from me. “Hey, Max. It’s okay to ask for help. I want to help you.” I say reaching a hand up to her face to make her turn back in my direction even though she can’t see me. “I care about you Max. I’ll do anything you want and I’ll give you anything you need.” I say as I give her hand a squeeze. She gives me a small smile in response. “Okay.” She says giving me a nod.

Part 3

A/N: Guys I’m sorry this one’s short and I’ll try to make the next one longer and more interesting. I’ve also started working on the next part of ‘I Like You’ and am writing another series called ‘All Too Well’ which the first chapter will be released soon. I need to be more descriptive with my stories, I’m working on that. Anyways, stay cool guys.

Taglist: @godofmischief08 @dawn-ace @fidelmao @the-sweet-destination @coreysam76 @scoobiessnacks @gayshyandreadytocry @gojosrug @babyfaberrylove27 @fall-08 @chlodog11 @stardustmars0305 @luciiiebld

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whydoyouwantmyname · 2 years

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Imagine life after the Starcourt Mall

Spoilers for season 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

6 months later

-Robin was insistent that you and Steve needed to get away for a weekend, she was even going as far as to suggest places for you to go.

"Robin... I can't just leave..."

"I will watch El, and on the afternoons I work late I am sure Mrs. Wheeler wouldn't mind her and Mike making out at their house."

"Robin it isn't just El." You smiled, "What would you do a whole 72 hours without me to save your sanity from the kids?"

"I would..." She started as you gave her the look, "I would beg you to never leave me again."

"Exactly, and besides Keith would murder Steve if he asked for a whole weekend off."

-That night while you were reading El Ronald Dahl, Steve stuck his head into Robin's room and whispered, "Any luck?"

"No, she saw my bluff, and pulled the what would you do without me with the kids for 72 hours."

"Shit." Steve hissed as Robin replied, "We'll figure this out dude, we always do."

-Steve's favorite thing to do when the kids were around was to walk about behind you and start dancing in the kitchen, normally to whatever movie soundtrack you had bought them that week. Whatever was cooking would be making background noise, as he twirled you around the kitchen, acting like he didn't have 5 sets of eyes on him as he dipped you.

-He did it cause he always wished he could have experienced a love like that, or that his parents had expressed to each other their love in that way.

-Dustin would tease Steve about it sometimes.

-Lucas always wanted to practice for Basketball, so you invested in building a mini basketball court with one hoop beside the trailer, the first time he saw it he gasped, as you handed him a new ball, "Steve can help you run drills, he might not look like it, but he is actually pretty good. You can come use it anytime."

-Lucas would groan when you would invite Erica to come play DND with the boys, and said that they were training the youth in the ways of the strong.

-When Lucas started to pull away from the group, he would still come to play. You would always bring him a drink to the court and talk, "You know Lucas, I get what you are saying about no longer getting bullied, but don't forget that these douchebags aren't really your friends."

-You and Max would always talk about music, and you would share with her all the different music tapes that you would find.

-You gave her the Hounds of Love cassette, "I thought you might like it."

-She came to your house often to avoid her mom, or to talk about her feeling. She also came to your house the night she broke up with Lucas.

-Max told you how she believed a part of her died the day Billy did, you were the only one who knew.

-After her and Lucas broke up however, she didn't come around as often, and would only visit you at the station, since she didn't want to see anyone.

-She always complained about the counselor, and how she just didn't understand.

-You were the only one who knew Max was still having the nightmares, and she was the only one who knew you were having nightmares too.

-She told you about her nose randomly bleeding in class, "It's probably just because of how dry the air was yesterday."

-You always thanked Max for bringing out the best in El.

-The three inches rule was still a rule.

-You always thought it was funny when the Boys would argue who had the best girlfriend, in which Steve would always interject, "I win, hands down, I have Hopper."

"You don't count." Dustin would say as you smiled, "I say he does."

-When he would have a day off, Steve would go to the cabin to fix it up for you. Sometimes you would go with him to help, but he wanted it to be a surprise, so he wouldn’t let you see too much.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love this trailer, but I want us to have a home that is all our own, and then the trailer can be their escape, and we will have our escape.”

-You would always host a girls weekend at the trailer every month, no boys allowed. Steve would end up going to his parents for a weekend when you had them.

-You would force Max to come, "Honey, even if you just stay in my room, and don't socialize with a soul, that's fine."

-She never did that

-The four of you would just gossip, and joke around about how idiotic the boys were. Robin would always show up with some sort of thriller and you would pick up whatever snacks and fast food the group decided on the week before.

-Steve would always come back and complain about his parents, so finally you looked at the girls and sighed, "Can Steve stay here for girls weekend, if he promises to not leave his room?"

-El convince Steve one girls weekend to let her paint his nails, which made you smile. She was so careful with the brush as she glided over each fingernail.

-That night after everyone went to sleep, you snuck into your bedroom where Steve was, he was still awake playing the Mattel Electronic's Dungeons and Dragons game that Dustin had gotten him for Christmas, "Thank you."

"For what?" He lifted his head as you leaned against the door, a smile on your face as you whispered, "For being so great with El, it really means a lot."

"She's your sister. Of course I am going to treat her right, cause her and her sisters are princesses that don't need a brave knight to rescue them."

"You know what I mean." You whispered as you gave him a knowing look, "Listen, all I mean is, it's nice knowing someone else cares about her as much as my dad did. He, umm, he would let her do his nails too in the cabin, and his makeup once." You giggled, "It was a disaster but he never said anything. Getting the lipstick off his checks though... that was an interesting adventure."

"Hey." You looked up, to see Steve walking over, his arms wrapping around you as he put his chin on top of your head, "He would be really proud of both of you."

-Eddie would come over sometimes for movie night with the kids, whenever he did you were always offering him extra snacks, and to do his hair.

-He was honestly surprised you remembered him, "You were always in the popular crowd with the pretty boy king, and all his little puppets."

-You made him a mixtape of songs you thought he would like, that way he had music to play at your house.

-You chuckled when Mike was telling you what his parents called Hellfire Club, "What your father lacks in imagination he makes up for in stale parenting."

-You always told the kids, "Make sure you are home from Hellfire by 10, nothing later, or else all of your parents will be mad at Eddie."

-You would always offer to host Hellfire Club, and sometimes Eddie would agree, however Robin would always complain about the music they played before a campaign.

-You were always trying to convince Eddie to let El in the Hellfire Club, however he always responded, "She just has to play for a bit longer, and master all the rules before I can allow her entry."

-Eddie would come over sometimes and just sit in your living room, while you helped him study so that he could succeed at his dream of flipping off Principal Coleman. Also however he would ask you advice about Chrissy, and you always thought it was cute that he was bashful about her.

-He invited you, Steve, and Robin to the hideout, usually only you would go, which Eddie appreciated.

-When the kids weren't at your house though the three adults of the house would always just hang out, and talk. Your head resting on Steve's shoulder as you watched bad tv and gave Robin dating advice.

-Both you and Robin would groan whenever Steve would say Boobies, however he knew that you found it adorable.

-You and Robin always would do your makeup when Steve was driving, which sometimes bothered him, "I swear neither of you listen to me when you have those stupid wands out." He teased as you joked, "Sorry babe, what was that?"

-You were in constant communication with Joyce trying to figure out when Will and Johnathon could come visit. You had both settled on Spring Break, and as hard as it was, you knew El missed Joyce as well, so you proposed El and Mike going to California instead of the boys coming to Hawkins.

-El was astatic when you told her. She immediately started trying to plan out what to pack.

-You were also invited to join, but you replied, "I can't, I need El to see that I trust her, and am trying to treat her like a grown up. And besides, Steve would drive Robin crazy if I was gone for a week."

-Joyce always told El that she loved her job when they would talk on the phone, but you knew the truth.

"Everyone is fucking idiotic, and so argumentative." She would sigh as you smiled, "That's telesales for you."

"Honestly I don't know why I took this job."

"Because in person sales is worse, and besides, you get to be a part of something revolutionary." You replied, as Joyce chuckled

"You sound like your dad."

-She would say that almost every call.

- Joyce never shared with you about the Russian Doll. She didn't want to get your hopes up, even though she knew you would be excited by the letter.

-You stayed up all night with El making her visual aid about her heroes, you were laughing while she painted the figure that represented your father, as you glued together the popsicles stick cabin.

"Thank you, by the way." She whispered

"No problem, honestly it brings back memories of when Pops helped me with mine." You smiled before continuing, "And Steve's."

-You took the week of their spring break off, and teased with the party that Steve and you were going to go on a adult vacation for once as a couple.

-You got mad at Dustin when he told you that he had Susie changing his grades, "Dusty Buns, that's not very nice to have your girlfriend do."

"Don't call me that." Dustin groaned as Steve clapped his shoulder, "Yeah Dusty Buns, why don't you just ask Hops here to help you study?"

"You two are insufferable." He groaned as you smiled, "It's almost like this joke is a never ending story."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh." Steve sang to the tune and Dustin facepalmed

"We do it because we care." Steve added as you looked at Dustin, "But honestly, just ask me for help next time."

-The day before Mike and El went to California, you took off of work, you not only wanted to clean, but also wanted to make sure El had everything she needed.

-You skipped the pep rally for the basketball team, and sent Steve in your place since both he and Robin had the morning off, and you stayed home to clean.

-Dustin called you to play in Hellfire, and you laughed, "Sorry Dustin, I can't tonight, and neither can El."

-Before El came home from school, you found yourself sitting on the floor in the living room, your eyes scanning over the piece of lined paper that had been folded and unfolded so many times from you and El rereading the handwritten scratches of letters on the page. Your mind clinging to everyone as you absorbed the words on the page.

The truth is for so long I'd forgotten what those even were, I mean I knew I felt something, I had [Y/N] to remind me that I had them, but other than the feeling I felt towards your sister, I had been stuck in one place, in a cave you might say, a deep dark cave, with occasional cracks of daylight created by your sister. And then one day, your sister talked me into leaving a pile of Eegos out in the woods, and you came into my life. You made it so that for the first time, in a long time someone other than my daughter made me feel something, you helped me feel happiness El, you completed my family. Lately however, I guess I have been feeling distant from you, like you're pulling away from me or something. I'm finding myself jealous even of your sister because I feel like you are more connected to her now than me. I mean I never experienced this feeling before with her, but then again, maybe I just ignored it, just like I did her profound relationship with Steve. Looking back, you and Mike remind me a lot of her and Steve, but with you, I feel more like I need to protect you, because she wants to save you from every bad thing in the world. I miss how the three of us would play board games every night, or watch movies while eating whatever unhealthy food we could find before dozing off. I miss making triple decker Eego extravaganzas at sunrise, and watching you and [Y/N] exploring the woods. I know you are getting older, that you are changing and growing into a remarkable young woman, and I remember faintly having this fear too the moment I realized your sister was growing up too. I guess though, if I am being honest with myself, that's what is scaring me the most, I don't want to lose my girls, I don't want things to change, and for you both to forget me, just like how I did my parents when I was grown. I think that's why I am more hard on you than I was her because I want to stop that change, however I can. I want to turn back the clock to before, when it was just us three, laughing and living life together in the woods, in our own paradise. I know that it is naive to want that, and that time is only moving forward, cause life doesn't work that way. And yes, sometimes time moving forward is painful, and sometimes it's sad, and scary, but sometimes it's surprising and happy too. You definitely were a surprise to my life, in the best way, and I know you have been such an impact on [Y/N]'s life too. I mean I haven't seen her smile so wide since Sarah, Steve never made her glow like you do. So you know what, keep on growing up kid, don't let me, or anyone else stop you, make mistakes, learn from them, and when life hurts you, because it will, remember the hurt, the hurt is good. The hurt means you're out of that cave. And know that I will always be here to support you no matter what. But please if you don't mind, for the sake of your poor, old, dad, keep the door open three inches, I don't need Mike moving into my house like Steve did.

-You had tears rolling gently down your cheek as you remembered the day your father told you that you didn't need to keep the door open when Steve came, because he figured you two would never do the stuff that Mike and El did. You didn't even hear the door open, or hear El's house keys hit the counter before she saw you crying.

"Are you okay?" She asked as she softly crouched down besides you, and placed a hand on your shoulder, your fingers wiping under your eyes as you sighed, "Yeah, I was just..."

"I miss him too." She whispered, as she put her head to yours, "Want to watch a western?"

"Yeah, I would like that." You smiled, "However we will have to go to the video store to rent one."

"That's fine, I like picking on Steve at work." She joked as you looked at her laugh at the thought of joking with your boyfriend, and best friend.

-You noticed that Robin loved to help El tease Steve, and occasionally you would join in too, however you always found yourself defending him at some point of the teasing.

-You noticed the visual aid was crushed when you were leaving, but before you could bring it up she was dragging you out the door.

-"How was school?" You asked as you both drove the truck into town, her head leaning against the window as she watched the trees whiz by.

"Good."

"El, sisters don't lie."

"Why are people mean to me?" She whispered as you put your hand on her leg, "Because they are jealous of everything you can do."

"But my powers..."

"El, you are more than your powers, you are smart, beautiful, creative, adventurous, you make the best Eegos, and you are the greatest mage I have seen in DND other than Will. You are fantastic at everything you do, and you have come so far in the past year. Like it's strange for me to remember that just a year ago we were living in a cabin in the woods, just the three of us."

"Now we live in a trailer with everyone." She smiled as you put your hand back on the wheel, as you pulled into Family Video, "And now we live with two people that can get us the hook up on whatever movies we want."

-When you got to the video store, El opened the door, and while she held it asked, "Can we also get the Black Cauldron, I know Will mentioned in one of his letters wanting to see it, but he can't find it."

"You might not be able to either, I think Steve said that one was a popular pick." You whispered as you looked to the empty counter.

"I swear they never do their job." El chuckled as you ruffled her hair, "It's probably over on the display, and if you have time, see if you can grab Silverado."

"Yeah sis, don't make out too much." She smiled before jogging to the display, however when you leaned over to ring the bell, you noticed it was gone.

-You causally walked behind the counter and peaked your head into the back room, where you found Robin fast asleep on Steve's shoulder, as he softly snored besides her.

"I am honestly shocked that this place hasn't been robbed yet." You stated causing both young adults to awake with a fright, as they looked at you, "Honestly, you heard that, but not El and I coming in?"

"We were busy." Steve whined as you walked over and plopped onto his lap, his hands going to your waist as you mocked, "Yeah, real busy."

"Where's El?" Robin asked with a yawn as you smiled, "She is trying to find Black Cauldron."

"I better go tell her where it is, Keith caught me trying to hide it in here for your children, so I hid it out there, with the adult films." Robin responded before jogging out and calling, "El, where are you?"

"Over by the westerns." She replied with a shout, as Robin walked towards that section, leaving you and Steve alone.

"Why the westerns?" Steve asked, as you put your head on his shoulder, his arms pulling you closer to his chest as you whispered, "Cause to celebrate her going to California tomorrow, we were going to watch one, in honor of Dad."

"And Black Cauldron?"

"Don't tell Keith, but she wants to watch it with Will."

"So she is taking it to California?"

"Yup." You whispered as he kissed your temple.

"So what's got you down sweetheart? You normally are more energetic when we are in this room."

"That's just because we are normally having sex back here, while Robin watches the front." You replied as he smiled, "It's nothing, I was just missing my Dad."

-After a few moments of silence you whispered, "Did you know that there was day when we were living in the cabin that he and I were talking about what a normal life would look like for El, and we were just rattling off all these different ideas and scenarios, like how she would be an A+ student, how she would be the fastest bike riders, Dad even said she was going to master her culinary skills and make the first gourmet Eego restaurant. However one idea he was dead set on, he always wanted to take her to see the ocean, and now Joyce is gonna be taking her, instead of him."

Steve tilted your head up towards him, and ran his thumb across your check, wiping away a tear that had fallen without your knowledge, "He would be okay with that probably, everyone knew he had a thing for Joyce anyway."

-When Robin was ringing her out, you asked Steve, who had joined her at the counter, "Do you want me to pick up pizza tonight?"

"Yeah, I don't know what time the game will be over, but I promise I won't be out too late." Steve answered as Robin rolled her eyes, "Oh that's tonight."

"Yeah, and you told him you would go with him."

-As you went to leave Steve stopped you, "Umm wait a moment, my two favorite Hoppers are leaving, and I don't even get a goodbye?"

-El ran around the counter and gave him and Robin a hug, as she released though, and headed back to the door you leaned over the counter and kissed him.

"I love you." He whispered after you pulled away.

"I love Robin more." You teased before walking out of the store, Robin chuckling as Steve stood there watching you leave, before sighing, "How did I get so lucky?"

"I don't know, honestly I am still trying to figure out why she loves you." Robin teased as Steve replied, "Yeah, me too."

-When Steve got home that night with Robin, he couldn't help but smile at the sight he saw, both you and El were asleep on the couch, her head on your lap as your head leant to the side, a quilt you had made El out of some of Hopper's old shirts thrown over her as she cuddled her teddy bear, reality tv playing softly, since you were waiting for Steve and Robin to watch Silverado. He let out a small chuckle as Robin closed the door, and saw the sight.

"Are you thinking what I think you are?" Robin whispered as Steve nodded, "We scare them awake."

-He snuck up to the couch, and screamed, "Baby! Wake up!" Causing you to jump, and wake up with a fright, El waking up as well from the movement and sound as you grabbed a decorative pillow and chucked it at Steve, "Fucking jerk."

-While you all ate pizza, M&Ms, and watched Silverado, Steve put his arm around you and pulled you into his side, "I'm sorry."

"You better be." You whispered, as he offered you a bite of his pizza.

-Steve excitingly told you all game, and how Lucas made the winning shot.

-That night when you were laying in bed with Steve he whispered, "This is going to be super weird."

"What is?"

"El is going to be gone for a whole week." He whispered as you snuggled closer into him, "Have you two ever been away from each other?"

"Not since she ran away." You whispered, "Like I always see her at least once a day."

"She's growing up so fast." He whispered, his response greeted by silence.

- "You know they brought up Hops at the rally." Steve whispered

"Really?"

"Yeah, they said they were motivated to win the game because of all the lives we lost."

"What idiots." You replied as Steve smiled, "I love you Hops."

"I love you too Harrington."

- You offered to drive Mike to the Airport, and you sat with the two while they waited to board, going over their plans, and some rules, "Now don't forget no kissing a lot in-front of Will, or going off alone."

"Yes mom." Mike groaned as you raised an eyebrow.

"Don't forget to give him my present." You called after El, as she waved.

-Once they were on the plane and boarded you went back to your car and just sat there for a while, letting the reality of the situation sink in. Tears slowly welling up in your eyes at the thought of how independent your sister had become.

"You were right Dad, she is growing up." You whispered to yourself before wiping the tears from your eyes and starting the car.

-"Hey, so you know how we always talked about the two of us, and maybe Steve if you thought you could tolerate him, were going to go to California one day, and you were going to show me ocean. You always said in school that I would love it there, and how a sugar mama like me would be the most desired babe on the whole coast. You wanted to show me all the places your mom showed you, and have me try a Fajita. You were joking too that when we came back to this dump of a town that we would open something similar to the California scene, if we didn't just decide to leave. But you always knew I would never leave, I could never leave my family, the kids, or my friends behind, I like to secretly think that's why you liked me, because I was undying loyal, and constantly there for the people I cared about. Which was something you were never used to. I fucking miss you, so much. I mean even know I feel like you are laughing at how loyal I am, because I turned down going to California, because I couldn't go without you. I'm an idiot, I know, but.... Sometimes things just happen, and you have to deal with it." You spoke to the stone, while your chin rested on your knees.

-After you went to visit Billy's grave you walked into work and sat down at your desk, as you heard Florence whisper to you, "Have you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"About the body found over in the Munson trailer, looks like your new little friend mangled the Cunningham's daughter and just left her to rot in his uncle's trailer. Powell was wondering when you were going to be in to question you to see if you knew where he might be."

"We aren't that..."

"I told him you weren't close with Munson, and you wouldn't be back in the office until Monday, because you were going on a weekend trip with your sister, go." She answered as you bolted out of the office and to your car, before racing to the Family Video.

-When you walked in, Robin and Steve were illuminated by the light of the TV, as the reporter stated, "We're in the Forest Hills trailer park in East Roane county, we don't have a lot of details yet but we can confirm that the body of a Hawkins high student was found early this morning, police have not yet released the name of the victim however we have been informed that the local authorities are notifying the victim's family."

"Holy shit." Steve whispered as you spoke up, "It's Chrissy Cunningham."

"What?" Robin asked as you continued, "Chrissy Cunningham's body was found mangled in a trailer early this morning. The trailer belongs to Wayne Munson."

"Wait, isn't tha..."

"Eddie's uncle." You cut Robin off, "They can't find Eddie."

"Has he tried reaching out to you?" Steve asked, now understanding why you were looking at him freaked out.

"No, Eddie didn't do this, you don't know him like I do, and besides.... Her body was mangled. Nothing human can do that."

"Calm down... I am sure..."

"I should have went to California with her, I shouldn't have left her alone." You were panicking now, Steve was quick to run to you as he grasped your arms, "Babe, breathe."

"Steve, she lost her powers, she can't... what if it's back, what if it's Billy all over again, and I can't protect her."

"Babe, we will find Eddie, and we will stop it, if it is back."

"But what if it's looking for her?" You whispered as he pulled you into his chest, "It can't be back, we killed it, your father and Joyce blew up the machine, there's no way..."

"Don't lie to me." You whispered as he kissed your forehead, "If it is back, we will find it, I promise."

"I have to find the kids." You whispered as Steve held you there, "Baby, I love you, but you can't leave."

"Why?" You gasped, "If that thing is back, then I need to make sure..."

"Babe, you're fully panicking, and I know that you are going to hate the kids seeing you like this, so go in the back room, take a seat, and I will be right there with snacks."

"Steve...."

"Go." He whispered, putting his forehead to yours, "I will be right back."

-Once you were in the room Robin whispered, "She's not wrong."

"I know. And that's what worries me." He whispered, "Don't let her leave."

-when Murray was talking to Joyce about the note and how they were trying to lure her in to kidnap her, he added, "If I am wrong, then why didn't they send his goodie two shoes daughter the ransom note? Wouldn't you think a KGB friend of Hopper would want to let his loving daughter know that dear old daddy is alive?"

"We are not telling [Y/N]." Joyce hissed as he laughed, "No shit."

-When Max told Dustin what happened he immediately said, "We need to find [Y/N]."

-Max and Dustin immediately went to your house, and when they saw it empty, they raced to Family Video. When they exploded in the door Robin immediately went, "The back room."

-When they walked in, you were standing in the middle of the room, your arm crossed over your chest while you chewed on the skin of your thumb, your eyes meeting theirs as you gasped.

"I know what happened, and I need your help." Max stated as Steve stood up, "Guys, I really don't think..."

"Shut it Harrington, Max, ignore him." You replied.

-After she told you everything she shared with Dustin you looked at Steve, his eyes wide knowing already what you were thinking.

"Baby." He started as you looked at him, "Baby, we don't know it was..."

"I do." You whispered, "I know it is."

"Baby, El is fine." Steve whispered, "I need you to take a deep breath."

"Love." You whispered, "She is all I have left as family, she is my little sister... and..."

"Baby, the best thing we can do is..."

"What do you need?" You asked Dustin, "Do you know how many phones they have here?"

"Three, why?" You asked as he set down his knapsack and pointed to the old computer in the corner, "Is that a working computer?"

"Yeah, why Henderson?" Steve asked as he raced over to it and started typing, "Welcome to HQ."

"Dude, what is it with you and turning my jobs into headquarters?" Steve groaned as Max walked over to you, "We'll figure this out, I promise. Maybe it's a good thing El isn't here."

"Yeah maybe." You whispered as Steve and Dustin bickered about Eddie.

-You helped Max and Dustin call leads while Robin and Steve ran the store. However Robin looked at him and whispered, "Hey, she is gonna be fine."

"You clearly don't know her then." Steve whispered, "After the first incident, back when Barb died, and we saved Will from those things, El was presumed to have gone missing, and Hopper... well she pulled away, and turns out she pulled away, because she was taking care of El. She chose El over me, and has risked her life more than once to save El, and protect her. I know her, and I am terrified she is gonna do it again, and this time, I don't have her dad to talk sense into her, and as you can see, she doesn't listen to me. I just.... I can't lose her."

"Steve, you aren't going to..."

"You don't know that." Steve whispered, as he quickly wiped under his eyes

"I got a lead!" They heard Max yell, as you all turned to her.

"Where?" You asked quickly as Steve and Robin entered the room.

"So apparently Eddie gets his drugs from a guy named Reefer Rick, and sometimes Eddie crashes there."

"Awesome, where does he live?" Dustin asked

"Well that's the problem, no one knows." Max replied, "He is more of a legend that a lot of people have heard about then a physical being."

"Do you have a last name?" Robin asked as Max shook her head no.

"Bet the cops would know a last name." Steve answered, looking at you, "I mean if this guy is an actual drug dealer..."

"I can't, Florence lied to them about where I am so that I won't get questioned."

"But he is in the system probably, I mean if he is an actual drug dealer, then he probably has a record."

"Really Steve, the cops, that's your suggestion." Dustin snapped as he looked to Steve, who replied, "Well at this point don't you think they should be filled in on what we..."

"No." You whispered, "This isn't like how it was 6 months ago, we go to the cops with this, they will drug test us all."

"Or reward us for helping them find Eddie."

"No cops." You sighed as he put his fingers to the bridge of his nose, "Listen I am all for innocent until proven guilty and all that constitutional bullshit, but we can't rule out that he did it."

"That's exactly what we are trying to do Steve." Max snapped as he snapped back, "And what if you are right and we get to Eddie and find out that the thing that was possessing Billy is back, what then?"

"We don't need them." Robin replied, running to the computer and typing in Rick, "12 Ricks have accounts here, and I can look at their rental history to narrow it down."

"You're a genius Robin, finally someone who works here who is willing to help." Dustin cried as you looked to Steve, "we kill it."

"What?"

"You asked what we do if it's back. We kill it, and then once it's dead, we leave."

"What, babe, you aren't making any..."

"We kill the monster hunting my sister," you whispered, "And then we leave Hawkins for good, and we never come back."

"What about them?" He whispered as you looked to Steve, "They'll understand."

-Your attention was pulled away as Robin celebrated, "I found it! Rick Lipton, he lives out by Lover's Lake, middle of no where."

"That's where he would hide, perfect place." You answered, before racing to your car, the kids close behind as Steve and Robin quickly closed the store, and all piled into your car.

-When Nancy was talking to Wayne, he brought you up, "You want to know who the real Eddie was, talk to anyone in the Hellfires, or Sheriff Hopper's girl."

"[Y/N]?"

"Yeah, Eddie was close to her, even if they have only been friends for a few months."

-When you got to the lake, you killed the engine, and looked at Max in the front seat. The whole place was dark, except for the light inside the house.

"I'm gonna go." You said as Steve laughed, "Alone, bullshit, I'm coming..."

"Eddie will talk to me and Dustin, that's it." You said, as Steve snapped, "We all go, or none of us."

"Fine." You groaned as you all got out of the car, and huddled on the porch, as Dustin rang the doorbell and pounded on the door, "Eddie! It's Dustin! Listen we just want to talk, no cops!"

-Peeking into the inside of the house you could see how empty it was, and started to round the side of the house, where you saw the shed.

"Oh my goodness is that a foot?" Steve asked, as Robin went, "No you idiot, it's a shoe."

"Hey guys, look what [Y/N] found." Max called as she snuck up behind you.

-Once you all were at the shed, you pushed open the door, "Hello?"

"Is anyone home?" Robin asked as she approached behind you, as each member of the group filed in one by one.

"This place is a dump." Steve replied as you looked around, not noticing him grabbing the oar, until his was stabbing it into the boat, "What are you doing? What are you even doing?" Dustin questioned as Steve looked defeated, "Just making sure."

"By violently stabbing a tarp?" You questioned as he sighed, "He could be in there."

"So just take the tarp off." Dustin pointed out as Steve lowered the oar, and said, "Okay tough guy, you take the tarp off."

"Well someone was definitely here." Max replied as Robin added, "maybe they heard us and got spooked, took off."

"Well it's okay cause if anyone is hiding under these tarps Steve will get them with his oar."

"I know you are being funny Henderson, but considering everyone in this room has almost died a million times, I personally don't find it the slightest bit funny."

-As he said it something jumped up behind him and screamed, causing you all to jump, however it was Eddie slamming Steve into the wall that got you, "Eddie, it's us!"

-You ran to his side and put your hand on his shoulder, trying to make him look you in the eyes, "Eddie, it's me... It's the girl that hung out with the pretty boy king and all his mindless puppets, okay, hey lower the knife from my pretty boy's throat."

"How do I know..."

"Eddie, do you really think Dustin and I would bring the cops here?" You asked as he started to lower the knife, "Eddie, look at me..."

As he did you saw the look in his eyes, it was the same one you remember El having when she saw Billy possessed, and you whispered, "What did you see?"

"You're gonna think I'm..."

"My sister.... She has seen it before too, if this is what I think it is...." You started, "We can help you Eddie."

"What are you even doing here?" He asked

"We're looking for you." Dustin replied, "We're here to help, and we're on your side, I swear on my mother."

"I swear on Dustin's mother as well." Robin and Max said, and Steve hissed out as you looked at Eddie, "I swear on my relationship, we are here to help."

-When he heard that he lowered the knife, cause he knew how important Steve was to you. As he did he lowered himself down the wall, as Steve gasped and bent away, your feet carrying you Eddie, "Now tell me, what happened?"

"You won't believe me if I did."

"Try me Dungeon Master Munson." You smiled as he let out a breath, and told you everything. When he was done he looked at you, "You think I'm insane right?"

"Eddie, we don't think you are crazy."

"I know how it..."

"Eddie, you know my sister, Jane." You whispered.

"Yeah, the one you always want me to let into Hellfire."

"Yeah, her name wasn't always Jane, it's Eleven, she was a test subject at the Hawkins National Laboratory. She escaped when she was 12 years old, and helped save Dustin's friends from a world called the Upside Down, an intergalactic gateway that she opened. After that she lived with my father and I in secret, until we had to defeat a creature called the Mind Flayer. Once we defeated that we thought it was over until a Mind Flayer possessed Max's brother Billy, and we once again had to fight it. I watched Billy die because of it... we both did. Steve, Robin, Dustin and Lady Applejacks were almost taken by the Russians, who were trying to create a gateway to use the Mind Flayer as a weapon. My father died blowing up that gateway, so trust me when I tell you, I believe you."

"So the curse of Hawkins is real then?" He asked as you inhaled, and whispered, "It is for me."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because if these monsters are back, we need to know, I need to know for my sister's sake. See the last time we fought them, in the Star Court Mall fire, my sister lost her abilities. I need to know if they are back, so I can protect her, because she can't protect herself without them."

"Did you see anything?" Steve asked, "maybe dark particles, almost like swirling dust?"

"No, it's like I said, she levitated, got pinned to the ceiling, and all her bones just snapped." He answered, and then he added, "You know, I tried to wake her, but she... she couldn't move. It was like she was in a trance or something."

"Or under a spell." Dustin added as you looked at Eddie and took his hand, "or a curse."

"Vecna's curse." Dustin piped up as you looked at the duo, "You're joking."

"I'm sorry, whose Vecna?" Steve asked as Robin asked, "Do you just not listen when they are at your house? Eddie is always telling your girlfriend about his plans for Vecna."

"Vecna is an undead creature of great power." You started

"A spell caster." Eddie added

"A dark wizard." Dustin continued

"Vecna is the final boss of Eddie's DND campaign, and now it looks like, a member of the Upside Down." You hissed as you got up slowly and looked at Steve, before whispering, "I told you."

"I know." He whispered, "I just wanted to believe that you and El were not in danger."

-Doctor Owens immediately tried to get a hold of you on a secure line, but you weren't home to pick up the phone.

-Murray was insistent that Joyce should call you and tell you about Enzo's letter, but Joyce refused, "I don't want to tell her until I know for sure I can bring Hopper back to her. I can't get her hopes up and fail her, she doesn't desire that."

-Jonathan and Will also refused to tell you that El got arrested when she was there, she had taken a skate and hit Angela upside the head when she was picking on Will for being different.

-When Enzo was talking to Hopper, Hopper reassured, "And my daughters?"

"Weren't even mentioned, my guess your little angels are still convinced Daddy went boom."

-The next morning you got up before Steve and went to the local grocery store, and picked up some food for Eddie, and drove it over to him. When you gently knocked he opened the door cautiously and smiled, "Hopper, aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

"You just saw me Munson." You smiled, handing him the bag, "I figured every mighty warrior needs his provisions, so I come bearing lucky charms and chocolate milk."

"You are a life saver." He smiled as you also extended him a coffee, "Also I brought the good stuff."

-As he ate you heard more car doors close and looked out the window to see the others, "Seems I have been joined finally by our accomplices."

"Greetings weary travelers, care to hold up for the day in my inn." Eddie joked as you opened the door to see them, before Max snapped, "Way to leave without us, we all had to cram in Steve's car."

"Sorry, none of you were awake when I left." You smiled as they all entered, Steve came into the shed last and leaned in to kiss you, "I was scared you fled to California."

"Hopefully, the Vecna doesn't leave Hawkins, otherwise I might just have to." You whispered as Dustin spoke, "So I have good news, and bad news, which do you prefer first?"

"Oh bad news, always." Eddie replied as Dustin continued, "Okay, so we might have hacked into the Hawkins PD database," which caused Dustin to then look at you, "sorry mom" he said before looking back at Eddie, "and there is definitely a warrant out for your arrest. Oh and they are pretty sure you are the one who killed Chrissy."

"Like 100% convinced." Max added

"And the good news?" Eddie asked

"They haven't released your name publicly yet, however when they do, I am sure others will be able to find you as easily as we did. And once that is released, everyone and their shallow minded mothers will be gunning for you more than usual." Robin spoke

"Hunt the freak, right?"

"Exactly. So before that happens, we need to find Vecna, kill him and prove your innocent." Dustin answered.

"That's not gonna be all Dustin." Eddie answered, as you added, "Listen I know it sounds crazy but we have done this like 3 times before, it works."

"Yet it keeps..."

"No, different creatures keep attacking, totally different." You cut him off.

"Listen I know it sounds delusional, but trust me, I have been doing this with them since '83, works every time." Steve added as you smiled

"However we normally heavily rely on Hopper's sister's powers but since she lost them, and is in California with her boyfriend we are kind of just in the brainstorming phase right now." Robin added as you looked at her and said, "Could you have sounded a bit more confident in the our brainstorming."

"Oh no, I am fully confident in yours, I mean you are normally with El when she saved the world, it's us I am worried about." Robin gestured to her and Steve, as you rolled your eyes, "Ignore them, we got this Eddie."

"There's nothing to worry about." Dustin said as you looked to Eddie and smiled, "Totally under control."

"Thanks, you guys sure know how to reassure a guy."

-When you heard the sirens you immediately went, "Under the tarp, quick."

-As you watched the ambulance and the cars drive by, you knew there was another body, "Fuck." You hissed

-They all took your car to go check out the crime scene, while you stayed with Eddie, "I promise, we know what we are doing."

"I know, I just...." He started, "I can't get the sound of her bones snapping out of my head."

"It goes away after a while." You answered, "Trust me, I can still hear my sister's screams of agony sometimes, or see her nose bleeding."

"Is that why you are so wicked protective of the kids?" Eddie asked as your feet dangled off the side of the boat, "Yeah, I ummm I started off as just their babysitter, mainly Will, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin's, and then one day Mike called me needing a dress and makeup. That's when I met El, and my life changed forever."

"Do you think you can beat the Vecna, like for real?"

"Yeah, I do, I mean if Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve can defeat a Demigorgon with fire, we can defeat a Vecna without Telekinesis."

-Before Steve went to go see the shrink he looked at Dustin and Max, "We are going to go get my girl, and then we are leaving. I don't think I can handle being your babysitter without her."

-Eddie was sad when they came, "It was really nice talking nerd with you Hopper."

"Likewise, I'm probably gonna grab burgers before I come back, hold the ketchup, as usual?"

"Yes please." He smiled, as you jogged to the car and got into the back with Max, "Dustin belongs in that seat more than me."

-They filled you in on the way to the counselor's office.

-While Max was talking you were sitting in the car with the boys, "So what do you think Nance's shot in the dark is?"

"No clue." Steve said, as Dustin looked at him, "Alright she's in."

"Thanks Steve, but if you remember, I'm missing collarbones, not eyes." Dustin groaned as a silence settled over the car, "So are we going to talk about this?"

"Talk about what Henderson?" Steve asked, looking at the saddened expression on Dustin's face as you leaned back.

"The fact that we didn't get ice cream before this, you know to relive the Scoops day."

"I agree with Dusty Buns." You answered as Steve smiled, "How about after we kill Vecna."

-When Max got in the car and demanded Steve drive you asked, "What did she say?"

"Nothing, but we need to go to Hawkin High."

"Why?" Dustin asked

"I'll explain later, just drive!"

-When the kids were going back and forth on the radio, you leaned forward, "Didn't you say that Lucas's basketball captain was dating Chrissy?"

"Yeah, why?" Steve answered, as you snatched the radio from Max, "Lucas, is the team looking for Eddie?"

"Yeah, and now they are looking for Dustin, someone spilled the beans that he was looking for him."

"Shit! Turn around!"

"What?"

"You just told them exactly were Eddie is, Turn around!" You screamed as you looked at Dustin, "I swear you are the smartest one in the room, but the dumbest at the same time."

-When Doctor Owens was talking to El about restoring her powers she leaned back, "I want my sister."

"I can't get a hold of her sweetheart, my guess..."

"She knows." El answered

"Yes, and knowing her, she is trying to figure out how to kill it, and I am terrified, it might kill her first. El, some think you are the cause of this problem, but me, I think you are the cure. If you want to do this, I believe it can work, but you must know, if it fails there is a very real possibility that you will never see your sister, or friends again."

"They are in danger, [Y/N], Steve, Robin, Max, Dustin, and Lucas right?"

"Yes, and so many others."

"What if I am the monster though?"

"Listen I don't know you that well Kiddo, but I do know one thing, your sister fought like hell to keep you in Hawkins after your father died, she knew I was developing this program, and she knew you were capable of using your powers to save the world. She believes that you are not a monster, and I have come to trust her judgement, I mean she is the one who convinced your father to adopt you."

"If it will save them, then do it." El answered

-You were driving back from checking on Eddie and making sure he was okay, when they shared they found what they needed

-Once you got there though, you pulled your radio out of the car, "Henderson, you copy?"

"Yeah, bad news though."

"What?"

"Max is next." The radio lowering as you heard him screaming your name

"How do you..." you started, picking it back up to your face as you fought back tears

"Max had a vision, she saw a grandfather clock in the wall."

"It's establishing authority over Hawkins." She whispered, "Vecna is trying to show us it is..."

"Baby." Steve took the walkie, "Where are you?"

"Parking lot, why?"

"I need you to come inside, right now."

"Okay."

-"Why would you tell her to come in, we are about to leave?"

"He is targeting traumatized people right, people who have had life altering events right? What's more traumatic then your father blowing up while saving the world? And then having your best friend die in front of you, and having a sister who had super powers, and then lost them fighting one of these assholes, a sister who all you want to do is protect her, and when they were younger their biological sister died slowly from cancer, and their mom just bailed."

"She's going to next.... Eventually.... She is on the target list probably."

-While you were entering Sinclair was coming in after you. You looked to him and asked, "I thought you were with those losers?"

"No, I just rode 8 miles back, I didn't tell them where he is, I took them somewhere else in the woods."

-When you reached the group you ran forward and hugged Max to you, as Lucas spit out everything he knew about the basketball team. As he did Max whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Hey, Hey, listen there is nothing that could have been..."

"It's my fault." She whispered as you got down to her level, "Listen, we will get through this, we always do."

"Are you still having the nightmares?" She whispered, as you looked at her, "Yes."

"What about headaches?" She whispered as you tilted your head, "Other then the mild one yesterday, no."

-Steve heard what you said, and just tilted his head back, and silently pleaded with God that you weren't next.

-As they caught Lucas, and you up on everything, you all went back to your trailer, the kids crashed in El's room, Robin in her room, Nancy slept in your room, and you and Steve were once again on the couch.

-Steve didn't sleep at all that night, he just kept looking at you, cherishing the way your chest slowly rose and fell as you slept. Every once and a while he would get off of the counter stool and push a strand of hair behind your ear.

"Please don't be next Hopper." He whispered.

-In the morning when you woke up, the whole crew had gathered in the living room, and were reading over print outs of the article, as you made waffles. The boys bickering over Victor Creel, as you spoke up, "Why don't we just go visit him?"

"What, are you mental?" Lucas asked as you shrugged, "I mean, he survived, maybe he can give us some insight about the Vecna."

"Baby, there is no way you are going to see this..."

"Nance is the journalist, not me." You interrupted, "Besides.... I don't want to leave her."

"Has she come out of the room yet?" Dustin asked as you shook your head.

-Steve was ready to fight Nancy on going with you, if she was insistent that you were going to visit Victor Creel instead of Robin, but she looked at Steve and whispered, "She isn't going to leave Max, I know her."

"Yeah, and you also hate her so it makes sense that you would try to do something.."

"I don't hate her okay!" She yelled, "I never did, actually I pity her, she was the smartest in her grade, and yet somehow she is stuck here because she befriended people who held her back, and is dating a boy who all he has going for him is his good looks, and ability to talk someone to death. Why do you think I want to get out of this town so badly, and start an amazing life with Jonathan, a man who encourages my dreams, and wants to improve his life? I agree, she is the best thing to ever happen to you, but you aren't the best thing that has happened to her."

"I am so glad that you only ever want to talk when the world is ending." Steve's voice was monotone as he looked at her, "And for the record, I see why she always disliked you."

-When Enzo made a remark about eating with his sexy woman, Hopper's response was, "No, I will be eating with my daughters, and my idiot son in law."

-When you were dressing Robin up in your clothes, you were smiling at how ridiculous she looked, "I hate this outfit on you, you look like a 10 year old being forced to go to Mass."

"That's how I feel." She groaned as you smiled, "As soon as you return, I nominate we burn this outfit."

"Agreed." She smiled as you leaned over, "Remember, kill them with kindness."

-When Max handed out the letters she gave you yours last, "And for you."

-She wrote mom on the front of yours, and Said, "I didn't write that either to funny, I mean it."

-She also gave you Mike, El and Will's to give once you saw them again.

-When the boys started to open them you snapped, "You can't open them yet, you have to wait until after we save her."

"Don't, just don't." Max snapped

"But Max, everything is going to work out." Lucas rebuttaled as she sighed in frustration, "I don't need you to reassure me that everything will work out, okay? People having been doing that all my life, and it never works out, and it's never true. I mean, of course this asshole curses me, should've seen that one coming."

-When she asked about East Hawkins you knew exactly where she wanted to go, and you grabbed your keys.

"Well come on fellow babysitter." You teased as the boys scrambled to get up.

#steve harrington imagine #steve Harrington imagines #steve harrington one shot #Steve Harrington oneshot #Steve Harrington one shots #Steve Harrington oneshots #stranger things imagine #stranger things imagines

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cody-apexart · 1 year

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Day 12

This is honestly more or less a shitting on apex post. I apologies, but srsly. My time in Saigon has been so enjoyable, I really love this city and most of the experiences I have had, but the organization and communication style implemented by apex is making this less fun! Im in a bad mood, and had a bad day. Here’s the play by play:

I feel like the zoom mediation class today really set my day up for failure. Ive been practicing mediation on and off for over half my life— at this point Im pretty particular about what I like, and have tried out a lot of different styles to figure out what I enjoy and what works for me. This zoom meditation class lead by some man in southern California really was more of an hour long lecture of this dude talking about how he used to be depressed but now he isnt, and maybe 15 min of mediation max. I was all about work, like work like jobs, like capitalist meditation. When he said the phrase “hiring managers read your energy body” I knew I had heard enough. Which was kinda for the best, because I started looking at my email and noticed two had just come in from apex! One contained information that said the pottery class on my sched started at 9am not 10am. I had been preped to get there at 10, and at the time I was reading that email, it was already after 9am. I called the studio and they said I could still attend, though I did miss an hour of workshop time. Also, once I got there they said the ceramics wont be ready for 2 weeks. In 2 weeks I wont be here anymore. Why wouldn’t yall schedule this class earlier in my schedule? Also it was noted in my sched that the class would cost 40000 VND, but it was really 400000 VND. I also got an email from apex that I was RSVPd for a tech company business mixer. I hadn’t noticed it on my schedule because it was set for the wrong time, the event was probably entered in EST, so it was coming up on friday instead of thursday and was kinda hidden by the other long event on my friday sched. This email was my first time hearing about it, and since I was already reeling from the meditation class and time change to pottery I was like wtfffff.

Like what type of weird ass shit is that? Send someone with no tech experience to an even that is intended for people working in tech and living in Vietnam? Its just like why send me to crash their party? I don’t really understand, there are so many other places I could talk to strangers without being so out of place, like out of place in a way that kinda feels disrespectful and disruptive to the event. I dont mind being out of place or having to talk to stagers, but it just feels rude to show up to an event I rly have no business being at. Since the story slam, anything that comes off eventbrite I am very skeptical of.

Idk why nearly everything on the schedule feels like its made out to be a riddle. The times are wrong, the addresses are wrong. I can never just do what the calendar says and expect it to work out seamlessly. I feel like I spend so much troubleshooting shit that should already be taken care of.

Also I still havnt been reimbursed for this plane ticket?! Even though I sent the necessary info twice, and it says in a number of places that I can request reimbursement whenever id like. Similarly, the agreement I signed notes 45 days will be given in advance to get a visa if necessary, I was given 6 six businesses days notice. Like all of this is just causes what feels like /unnecessary/ stress, unless that feeling is all part of the program too? Im trying to just learn a lesson in loosing control.

Anyway, I went a little rouge today and didnt go to capoeira. I was emotionally exhausted, and my ankle is a little weird and clicky from walking so much. This is the first activity ive skipped-- I probably wouldnt have skipped it if I didnt already do the class last week, but knowing how intense it was, and how bad I felt, it was the right decision for me today. I cant wait for this upcoming day off. Two weeks non-stop is starting to get to me.

I went to a later screening of the movie since my evening was free, and wow, another movie centered around a traumatic pregnancy experience. The main character miscarried during a robbery at 6 months. I watched the trailer this time to avoid this type of thing, but it didnt reveal that plot point. actually the whole movie was actually about really toxic abusive relationships, but the trailer made it seem like a comedy. Anyway this was less fucked up than the abortion horror movie, but still fucked up. okay, but also the main character did ceramics, and i did a ceramics class this morning...was that planned? how curated are these days? I think this trip is the only time I have ever been in a movie theater without a friend or companion. Watching movies alone is totally new for me, just like how ive literally never used a pottery wheel before today. Also mark making scares me so painting the ceramic bowl I made was notably difficult for me. I am incredibly grateful for these experiences despite everything i just vented about.

#Cody Herrmann #Outbound to Ho Chi Minh City

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kirstenlinae · 2 years

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Monday Night Ramblings

I have about 20 minutes before I have to pick up my boyfriend from work. I've been looking forward to making a post all day but, I'm having trouble deciding what to write about...

I accepted my first job offer today for the work-at-home position. I asked to see their benefits package before I submitted my response to their offer letter. I had my mom look them over for me. She said that they seemed like good benefits. I know that the health insurance company is the same as my Medicaid plan so, hopefully that means they will cover my surgery. If I truly take that job. I have 4 other interviews this week and one next week for jobs that I will probably be more interested over and above the one I accepted today. Their training starts on Nov. 7th, though so, I'm kind of under pressure to make a decision quickly. As for my two week notice to my jobs right now, that basically isn't going to happen if I take this work-at-home job. My two weeks notice would have had to have been submitted today. I don't want to resign from my other jobs until 1) I pass a drug test and 2) I see if any of these other jobs pan out. We will see how it all shakes out, I guess. I can't be twisted up in formalities if more lucrative opportunities present themselves.

I am tired today. I did spend 6 hours cleaning so, I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself. I was thinking about riding my bike for some additional exercise besides the cleaning but, my back really hurts today. It's not even a muscle thing, it's my sciatic nerve, I think so you can't do anything to rub that bitch out. I bought a hoodie online from Torrid, which essentially maxes out that credit card (Oops ><) and I went to Kohls and bought another hoodie because I had $20 in Kohls Cash to spend this week. I really needed some nice hoodies. I haven't bought any in a long time. In fact, I think I only have two right now and one is old and dusty. No appropriate to wear out in public. The other one is bright highlighter pink with a V-neck. Not my favorite piece of clothing my any means. I also attended an online OA meeting. Nothing special to report there. It wasn't an awesome meeting but, it did remind me of a recovery tool I was taught by my mentor years ago that I feel I should implement into my current recovery plan. More on that later, if I remember.

Either the dude outside my window has COVID or he doesn't know how to smoke weed or cigarettes or something because every couple of hours he'll come outside and hack his lungs out for a half hour straight and then go back inside. It's honestly very annoying. I never understood people to continued to smoke cigarettes when they're sick. When I smoked, I always had to stop when I was in the thick of my illness, even if I started right back up afterwards, I could never bare to sit there and cough up a lung for the sake of my nicotine addiction. People are weird. I wish I could yell "SHUT THE FUCK UP" out my window but, I'm not trying to live my life like that anymore lol.

If you read my ramblings, thanks. I know this isn't the best post I've ever made.

Until next time <3

#journal #personal

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conretewings · 2 years

Text

STORY MASTER LIST AND REQUEST STATUS/TERMS 📖 👀

Request Status: Closed :(

The rest of my rules are listed below, but some of the requests I've received demonstrate people don't always read them so I'll post this one here:

⚠️If you send me a request and I fulfill it, please please reblog.

I generally spend hours, days, or more on your requests and it's increasingly disheartening to see the lack of engagement from readers.

ORIGINAL FULL STORY LIST:

"Just a Taste" (Vander x OC) (mildly spicy 🌶)

"See Me After Work" (Vander x fem reader) (explicit nsfw 🌶🌶🌶)

"Bartenders Don't Dance" (Vander x gender neutral reader)

"Let the Sun In" (shenanigans involving mostly the kids but Vander is there too. Some fluff)

"Old Wounds and New Chances" (kind of Vander x OC with my oc Rosemary. Catching up after a couple years apart and misunderstandings)

"A Game for Two" (Vander x oc Rosemary. He brings a broken piece of equipment to her to fix. Lots of flirting. Mildly spicy 🌶)

"Better Left Said" (Vander x oc Rosemary. Set when they're in their twenties. A Friday night hangout with the gang turns very flirtatious. Quite spicy. Mild NSFW 🌶🌶)

"Crossed Lines" (Vander x reader. Reader is mugged by a group of robbers...then the old hound makes a return.)

"Love Song" (Vander x oc Rosemary. Teetering on the edge of friendship or more, Vander is reluctant to attend one of her concerts, but when he does he gets more than just a performance)

"Please" (Vander x OC Rosemary. In the middle of the night, she's awoken by some very interesting-and very lustful-attentions. VERY NSFW 🌶🌶🌶)

"The Paths We Cross" (young Viktor has a project and was told he could find the parts he needs at a certain repair shop. He meets my OC Rosemary and Vander briefly)

SHORT/MINI STORIES FROM ASKS:

A short SO trying to reach something high up

Reader gets their butt slapped and returns the favor

Reader is doing body shots and Vander does one off them

Vander invites reader to sit on his lap

Hot summer night cuddles

A drunk idiot tries to harass and grab the reader RIP DUDE

Reader and Vander enjoy some quality time 👀 (mildly spicy 🌶)

"Is that sexy piece of @$$ single?" (No)

Pre-canon AU where Vander actually drowned Silco and then a child shows up at his door (CW death)

Enforcers being a buncha pigs per usual, but Vander isn't taking their shit...nor is reader

ENTRIES FROM ARCANE PARENTING WEEK

Day 1: 'Building the Bonds' (fluffy Vander and Powder bonding)

Day 2: 'A Perfect Fit' (fluff-the kids make Vander a birthday gift)

Day 3: 'Broken Things Can Still Be Fixed' (angst-Vander and the kids have a fight)

Day 4: 'What Could of and Will Never Be' (AU where Silco and Vander work something out also Powder is being herself

Day 5: 'Both Are Possible' (Vander teaching Vi how to spar while giving advice)

Day 6: 'Even a Sleeping Bear is Dangerous' (a gang tries to kidnap the kids. It doesn't end well)

Day 7: 'Picking Up the Pieces and Making Something New' (headcanon of post season 1 with my OC giving comfort and advice at Vander's memorial)

-This list will be updated as stories are completed :D

Request Terms: 🖊

1. I can work on a max of 2 at a time to be able to give them the attention and energy they deserve as well as have enough for my own projects. Please check the status on this post as I'll update it as needed.

2. You can make your request via DM or Asks.

3. If you're requesting a certain canon character, I'll let you know if they're someone I can write for; if I don't feel I can 'get in their head' well enough to write them in character I may have to politely decline. It's no disrespect to you or your idea, I just want to be able to do my best for you.

4. If you're requesting an oc and/or a particular scenario, I'll need some details! Name, appearance, age, personality, background/motivations etc. Like with canon characters I want to be able to write them as well as possible. We'll discuss the details via DM.

5. I have no issues with writing NSFW material BUT. I will NOT TOLERATE MINORS ASKING FOR NSFW CONTENT. Right in my description it says 18+ ONLY and I stand by that. By requesting NSFW material you are certifying you are at least 18 and I am not responsible for your online experience or behavior.

6. Completion time will vary depending on the request itself, complexity, whether or not my muse is cooperating, and my available time/energy. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

#request rules #pinned post #writing asks #vander x reader #arcane vander x reader #arcane vander x oc #vander arcane #vander arcane smut #*conrete writes*#arcane vander #vander x you

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axwalker · 3 years

Text

Bad Timing: Kismet

Book: The Royal Romance (AU)

Pairing: Drake Walker x Alexis O’Brien (MC)

Synopsis: Alexis O’Brien is escaping a terrible past. After months of running she settles in Cordonia where she meets Drake at the bar where she works and they spend a passionate night together.

What happens when a one-night-stand turns into unexpected parenthood?

This chapter

MASTERLIST

WORDS: 3,890 🙊

POV: Dual

TRIGGER WARNINGS: None for this chapter. In the future, mentions of domestic violence, and explicit sex scenes.

ALL MY FICS ARE +18

A/N: I apologize for any grammatical errors.

I switch between Drake’s and Alexis’ POV several time in this chapter. I hope it’ll be clear enough!

PRESENT TIME Alexis

After a one-hour bus ride and a 20-minutes walk, I finally find the correct address. When I reach the massive iron gates, I punch in the code Mr. Beaumont’s assistant gave me on the phone and gape as the extensive estate comes into view when I walk through. Acres and acres of super green grass littered with pines surround the massive house in the distance. The closer I get, the more I feel like a foreigner. This might have been my world once, but my new reality couldn’t be further apart from all this luxury. I have fifty dollars left in my wallet, an eviction notice back in my 200 square foot studio, and to top it all, the worst freaking headache I’ve had in my life. Talk about a bad streak. Ironically, I’m happier than I’ve been in years. My life belongs to me; I don’t have to live in constant fear and –most importantly, I’m free. Unattached. I want to do a lot of things with my life, and no one will stop me. That’s worth the worst headache in the world or a few money problems.

I ring the bell, and a gorgeous woman opens the door. Her deep blue eyes scowl at me when I smile at her.

“Who are you looking for?” She doesn’t ask as much as she barks the question.

“Eh,” I haven’t been called shy a single day of my life, but her attitude it’s messing with the positive vibes I had coming up here. “I’m looking for Mr. Bertrand Beaumont from Beaumont Caterings.”

“This door is for house guests only. The help,” she says the word as if it tastes bad in her mouth, “must go around the house and ring the bell back there.” She’s about to close the door right in my face when two hot guys come to the door. Seriously, what do people eat in this country?

“Penelope, what are you doing answering the door like a simple maid? Where is Jessa?”

Penelope rolls her eyes. “She had to leave early. She said she asked you for the afternoon off.”

The older man nods as, the younger one grins at me. “We can discuss Jessa’s schedule later, Bertie. Please, come in, Ms.?” He asks me, still smiling.

“Ortiz. Alexis Ortiz.” I grin back, instantly liking the man with the kind blue eyes. “I’m here for the catering job.”

“I’m Maxwell Beaumont. This is my brother Bertrand—the owner and Penelope Brim, one of our party planners.”

I follow them to a huge office and give Bertrand the resumé I printed at the internet place next to my building.

“Is this all true?” He asks after a quick read.

I nod my head.

“Are you sure, Ms. Ortiz? It says here that you were working as a bartender, a barista, and a waitress in a very exclusive French restaurant, all at the same time.”

Penelope gives me a dismissive glare. “She’s obviously lying. That isn’t even possible. Unless she’s iniquitous.”

I know better than to interrupt a potential employer, even worse if it’s to correct them, but this woman is grating on my nerves. Plus, I had a lifetime of keeping my head down with Matt, and I just don’t have the patience for this kind of crap anymore. And she called me a liar. Hell no.

“No, Ms. Brim, I’m not ubiquitous.” Maxwell snorts, and I swear the other guy, Bertrand, smiles behind my CV. I refrain from telling her what iniquitous actually means because I do need this job. “I worked as a barista in a Starbucks from 5 to 11 am. Then as a waitress at “Clair de Lune” from 12 to 6 pm. Finally, as a bartender in an Irish pub from 7 to midnight or 2 am, depending on the day. You can call any of those places and see I’m not lying.” Just please, God, don’t ask for my papers.

Maxwell reads the resumé when Bertrand gives it to him. “Do you speak French and Spanish as well?”

I shrug. “I love languages, and I grew up in a house where my mom and grandmother only spoke Spanish. I learned French in school. I had an amazing teacher.”

Maxwell and Bertrand look at each other. The older brother, a younger, sterner version of Hugh Jackman, clears his throat. “I’ll be honest with you, Ms. Ortiz. Two of our waiters are absent, and tomorrow we’ll be catering to one of the most important events of the year. If everything in your resume is true, you can start training today --paid of course, and start working tomorrow.”

Paid training? Despite my throbbing head, I want to scream with happiness. “Everything is true.”

“That’s settled then. Penelope, please, darling, show Ms. Ortiz the kitchens and the ballroom. You can ask Naomi to train her for tonight. You know Regina, and she’ll want everything to go as smooth as possible.”

“Right.” Penelope turned at me with an uptight smile. “Come with me.”

I turn and beam at Maxwell, who’s giving me a thumbs up. “Thank you. I really appreciate this.”

Bertrand shakes his head. “Don’t thank me yet, Ms. Ortiz. Just do an impeccable job.” He glances at my Vans. “And for the love of God, only heels tomorrow.”

I nod and follow Penelope down the hallway.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DRAKE

“This is why you ditch your friends who get hitched to a relationship,” I grumble, sitting in my chair.

“He’s five minutes late,” Liam says.

Leo shakes his head. “Well, I want a goddamn drink. How come I can’t order one until he gets here?”

Liam pinches the bridge of his nose. “You two are acting like children. You can wait five minutes.”

“Maybe, but I need something, and fast.”

“Ah, there they are,” Max exclaims, hands clasped together, staring at us. “My boys.” Jesus Christ. Liam is scooped into a hug and then set back in his chair.

From over Liam’s head, Max points at me and shakes his finger. “Come here; you handsome Walker bastard.”

I hold up my hand. “I’m good.”

“Nope.” He shakes his head. “You don’t get to pass up Max’s snuggles.” Before I can move, he swoops to his knees, pulls me into a hug. . . and nuzzles.

“What the fuck are you doing, Beaumont?” I ask, my voice strong as I try to push him away.

“You smell like heaven,” he says, chuckling. No one likes to fuck with me as much as Maxwell Beaumont does. Unfortunately for me, he’s one of my best friends, and the bastard is well aware of it.

“Get out of here.” I palm his face and push him away.

Leo laughs. “Come on, man, you know Walker is a sour bastard.”

With another laugh, Maxwell retreats to his seat, unbuttons his jacket, and sits down. Hands-on the table, he looks between us and declares, “I’m in love.”

Christ. “We know,” Liam and I say at the same time, irritation heavy in our voices. Leo just rolls his eyes as he looks for a waiter.

Maxwell has only been dating Rashad for a few weeks, so it’s no surprise he’s like this—a hopeful idiot with a relentless smile. Hell, he’s been in love with the man for years. It took him a really, really long time to finally make a move. He adjusts his tie as he says, “You don’t have to be rude about it. I’m just sharing. Isn’t that what this is all about? Sharing?”

“Sharing? I thought this was about drinking as much as possible and hooking up with a hot waitress,” Leo says, flagging down our waiter.

When he arrives, I talk above the guys and quickly say, “Macallan, neat.”

“Dalmore, on the rocks, please,” Liam says, and Leo orders the same.

When the waiter turns to Max, he rubs his stomach and says, “You know, a hot cocoa would be perfect right now.”

What the actual fuck? “No.” I step in. “He’ll have an Old Fashion. Thanks.” A little confused and probably slightly disturbed, he takes off as Max complains.

“Hey, I really wanted a hot cocoa.”

“Not happening. First, because they don’t serve hot cocoas here and second because we’re supposed to be out drinking, Beaumont. And you fucking love Old Fashions. You order one every damn time. Stop complaining.”

“Sheesh.” Maxwell unfolds his napkin and sets it on his lap. “What’s up your ass?”

“Nothing.” I push my hand through my hair.

“It’s a girl.” Leo smirks, causing Liam and Max to practically jump out of their seats.

“A girl?” Liam cocks his eyebrow. “Surely not Drake --permanent bachelor, Walker. My fucking heart can’t take it.”

Fucking Leo. “It’s not what Leo is making it out to be.”

“He met her two months ago, and he’s been thinking about her ever since. Magical pussy right there.”

“I swear, Leo; I don’t care for how long we’ve been friends, next time you talk about her like that, I’ll personally break that shit-eat grin off your face”

The clown raises his arms. “I rest my case.”

“What?” Max’s eyes nearly fall out of their sockets. “Drake Walker doesn’t get attached, and he doesn’t duel his friends for a girl.”

Jesus. Thankfully the waiter brings our drinks at that moment, so I have a second to compose myself.

“You slept with her?” Liam asks after a swig of Dalmore. He’s been in a stable relationship with Hanna Lee for a year now. Once the most popular guy on school, he now spends his Friday nights curled up with her watching Netflix. I can’t even remember the last time he went out with us.

“I don’t want to talk about it. The only reason this fuckhead is bringing it up it’s because I went looking for her, and he saw it.” There I said it. Better me than Leo fucking Rys.

Max and Liam exchange a look, but Max seems too stunned to talk, so Liam asks. “You did what?”

I chug my whiskey and ask for another one. “I don’t know why. I just …” Tired of this fucking conversation, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We had a great time. That’s all.”

“How come Leo knows about this girl, and I don’t?” Liam complains.

Max complains too. “Dude, you know I’m the romantic one. Leo over here has a brick for a heart, and Li is too busy. You need to discuss these things with me.”

“I don’t have a brick for a heart,” Leo says, surprisingly offended.

“No, you’re just still hung up on Maddie,” I say with a smirk. He shifts in his chair but doesn’t say anything. What does it feel, Rys?

“So . . . who is the girl?” Maxwell asks.

For fuck’s sake. I might as well get it over with. “I’m going to say one last time that I’m not interested in her anymore, so before your little hearts starts beating wildly for playing cupid, it’s not going to happen.”

In a snarky tone, Leo replies, “Well, of course, it’s not. She left the country. Are you that bad, Walker? Because I can give you a tip or two.” He’s so fucking annoying.

“Oh.” Max sighs, disappointed.

Leo elbows his brother and says, “He hasn’t slept with anyone since.”

And there it is. The real reason why Leo is worried about this. He lost his wingman. “I’m not an animal, Leo. It’s not the first time in my life that I go two months without fucking. I’m not you. Anyway, all this is pointless. She’s gone.”

My friends grew up with me, so they know when it’s time to stop pushing. Max interrupts the silence that follows because nothing makes little Beaumont more uncomfortable than a gap in the conversation. “Everything is ready for the party tomorrow night. The thirtieth anniversary of Rys Corporation will be a success.”

Liam nods. “Regina talked with Hana this morning. It’s the first anniversary since I took over as CEO. I need everything to be perfect.”

“What about the staff, Max?” Leo asks, smiling. Having sex at every anniversary party is a personal challenge of his.

“We actually hired someone today. She’s gorgeous.” He turns his head at Leo. “But she’s off-limits.” Leo smirks, wiggling his eyebrows. “I mean it, dude. Bertrand said he’s tired of looking for new waitresses. Two quit yesterday morning when they found out that the event was for Rys corporation.”

“Hey, I never lie. It’s not my fault if they think I’ll call them anyway.”

“Whatever, just don’t mess with her. Plus, I got to talk to her after her training today. She’s super nice. She’s Am--. Wait.” He says when his phone chimes up. “Sorry, boys. It was a text from Penelope. Apparently, the Chablis hasn’t been delivered yet. I have to call Joelle before I lose my big brother over a wine crisis. See you all tomorrow.” He finishes his cocktail and stands up.

Liam stands up too. “I should go home too. Han arrived today from Hong Kong.”

Leo checks his phone. “Wait, Li. I’ll go with you. I have a date with this girl I met last night at Kismet. Do you want to come, man?” He asks me. “I’m sure she has a friend she can introduce you.”

I shake my head. “I’ll finish my whiskey and head home. See you all tomorrow.”

It was only one fucking night. Why can’t I get her out of my head?

It’s maddening. Or maybe it is a blessing. If I’m still thinking about her after one night, imagine how bad I’d have it after several. It’s best that she stays far the fuck away from me. I’m not interested in long-term attachments of any kind. I don’t want to think about Lexie Ortiz, but she’s infected my brain. The sound of her teasing laugh haunts me.

And I can’t deny it; it was one hell of a night.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ALEXIS

“This is a single girl’s paradise.”

“No,” I grimace, trying to clean the spilled tomato sauce from my shirt. “Paradise would be a tropical beach with a hot cabana boy giving us free massages... and an endless supply of piñas Coladas.” Naomi laughs, the sound almost lost in the chaos of the kitchen. Chefs shouting orders, Penelope and Bertrand panicking, plates being dropped—the world of catering is a noisy business.

“Cabana boys may have hot smoking bodies and virility, Lex, but they lack two essential qualities: prestige and money.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you’d prefer an old limp dick over a young hard one? Interesting,” I answer, teasing her.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, smart ass. I’m saying I’d take a solid bank account over a solid dick. Think about it—with all that money, he could never fuck me at all, and I couldn’t care less. And I’d be treated properly. Rich guys know how to treat a lady.”

“Trust me on this, Naomi. Money has absolutely nothing to do with how a man treats a woman.” I should know. “In any case,” I retort, grabbing another tray of drinks, “if you’re looking for old rich guys, there are tons of opportunities out there.” I laugh at the dreamy look on her face, partly because it’s hilarious and partly because I know she’s kidding. After my training last night, she invited me to her house, where I met Theo, her little boy. He’s eight years old and the absolute love of her life.

“Speaking of fucking,” she says, her eyes sparkling, “did you see the Rys brothers? One of them is taken, but the other two are single and oh so yummy. Especially the tall and brooding one. I’ll kill for those smoldering brown eyes looking right at my soul”

I snort. “You really should stop reading romance novels, Nao. And yes. I served one of them and his girlfriend champagne earlier, but he was blond and didn’t have smoldering, brooding eyes. I thought they were only two brothers, though.”

“Well, technically, yes. But Constantine Rys --the super-rich owner of Rys Corporation-- adopted two other kids. A boy and a girl. They all grew up together.” She uncorks several champagne bottles as she speaks.

Now that my uniform is clean, I grab one of the Veuve Clicquot bottles and help her pouring the cold liquid into the glasses on our trays. “How do you know all of that?”

“I’m Cordonian, girl. The Rys siblings are almost royalty in this country. The one that is not an actual Rys is the one with the smoldering eyes. He doesn’t work for the company, though. He’s a … a vet, I think.”

A veterinarian like Drake. My stupid heart flutters when I think about him.

“Do we pay you to work or to gossip, ladies?” Penelope screams from the kitchen door.

Naomi and I roll our eyes and grab our refilled trays.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DRAKE

“This is a huge night for Liam,” Regina says behind her champagne glass. Constantine has been telling everyone, especially her, that he’s ready and happy to retire, but she knows him better than anyone. Leaving Rys Corporation and pass the torch to Liam is much more difficult for Constantine than he cares to admit.

“It’ll be all right, Regina. Don’t worry. Liam is more than ready to handle the responsibility.”

She throws a glance at Liam, who’s standing a few feet behind me next to his dad. “I just hope he doesn’t forget that his personal life is equally important. He and Hana work too hard.”

I’m about to answer when one of the waitresses distracts me. Her back is turned to me, so I can’t see her face, but there is something incredibly familiar about the way she moves. She’s passing drinks amongst Regina’s friends. I want to go and see who she is, but Liam catches my eyes across the room. We exchange a look, one that we’ve exchanged several times over our lives. It was Liam and me when we were younger, walking into his father’s office after getting into a fight at school. It was the two of us when we came home late, and his parents were waiting in the living room as we walked in, drunk. It was the two of us when we wrecked Leo’s new Porsche when we were sixteen, and right now, I know he needs me. Constantine is a great father, but he has too many expectations for his younger son. Liam needs a break.

Regina sees the exchange and smiles. “Liam’s very lucky to have you, Drake.” She is not our biological mother, but she loves all of us as if she was. And she’s more my mother than Bianca Walker will never be.

A couple of men look at me, and I try to remember if I should know them from somewhere. I think they’re both on the board of directors at RC. As much as I love the Rys, I will never get used to this shit. Socializing and pretending to like a bunch of people that annoy the fuck out of me. Ignoring them, I make my way to my best friend. Liam is standing with his hands in his pockets, looking serious and put together like the CEO of the largest company in Cordonia should.

“I think it’s going well,” he says as I approach. “Father was driving me crazy with all his advice.”

“It’s not only the anniversary of the company, Li. It’s also his first one as the former CEO. It’s normal he feels out of place.”

Liam nods. “I know. I just wish he’ll trust me more.”

“He does, Liam. He’s just nervous.”

I’m cut short by Liam’s grin. His gaze slides right behind me and lights up.

“Would either of you like a glass of champagne?” a female, very familiar voice nearly whispers behind me.

“I’m good,” Liam answers, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “How about you, Drake?”

I turn around, and my heart skips a beat. Soft curves, tanned skin, and a few freckles across the bridge of her nose. The brightest, most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen. Alexis Ortiz tucks a strand of her rich brown hair behind her ear and takes a deep breath. Her eyes widen, and I see she recognizes me but doesn’t mention it. Instead, a faint smile ghosts her luscious lips, and she lifts her chin like she has a secret she won’t tell. A secret we share. Her gaze remains on Liam, almost like she’s afraid to look my way. Finally, she turns to me, and when she does, an adorable blush color her cheeks.

“Would you, uh, sir?” she asks, taking half a step backward.

“Would I what?” I press, enjoying too much the way her cheeks turn even pinker.

“Would you like a drink?” The words leave her lips fast like she wants to pronounce them and run away. I take a step towards her, remembering the night she spent in my arms and how damn perfect she felt. I know I make her nervous because I see little goosebumps erupting on her soft skin. I smirk at her. “That depends on what you’re offering.”

I shouldn’t be toying with her, but I can’t help it. I want to keep her talking, to watch her reactions, to see that sweet smile again.

“I don’t have much to offer,” she says, a hint of nervousness in her voice. “Unless you like champagne, sir.” She emphasizes the last word.

“I like all sorts of things.” I keep my gaze heavy against hers, not allowing her to look away. She fidgets with her tray and swallows hard but never takes her eyes off mine, too rebellious to look away. The longer our eyes match, the hotter my body becomes. She bits her delicious bottom lip slowly, her dark gaze boring into mine.

“Is that so?” Liam laughs beside me, and I watch her jump like she forgot he was there. Alexis clears her throat and glances around the room. She turns back to us again, this time a practiced smile on her face. The easy grin and soft laugh are both gone. She wants to get away from me, I can feel it, and I understand. She’s working; it wouldn’t be professional. This is not the time or the place to reconnect. Unfortunately for her, I have other plans.

“Gentlemen ...” With a nod, Alexis walks away as fast as possible. She doesn’t look back, but I watch her until she’s out of sight.

“What was that?” Liam snickers, loosening his gray silk tie. “I thought you were going to jump on her.”

I rub my thumb over my lip, still surprised as hell.

“That was Alexis, the girl I met a couple of months ago. Now, if you excuse me, Li, I need to go talk to Bertrand.”

@mskaneko @burnsoslow @gkittylove99 @kat-tia801 @no-one-u-know @thegreentwin @twinkle-320 @forallthatitsworth @kingliam2019 @marshmallowsandfire @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @princessleac1 @twinkleallnight @tinkie1973 @drakexwillow @moneyfordiamonds

@yukinagato2012 @alyssalauren

#drake x alexis #drake walker #drake walker fanfic #drake x mc #tw domestic violence

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featherthiefdean · 3 years

Text

Bruiser and the Yellow Bee Bin

Inspired by this hilarious video where a bulldog tackles garabge cans. Also, check it out on AO3 here.

It had been Sam's idea to adopt a dog.

"You'll need someone to come home to when I move in with Eileen," Sam said.

"I found a cute bulldog that would be perfect for you. Bulldogs are low energy and need like one walk daily max. I’ll even come over and walk him on your Saturday shift," Sam said.

"Dean, he has already been returned to the shelter twice. It can't hurt to go meet him," Sam said.

Sam talks a lot.

And that was how Dean found himself at the local animal shelter four months ago, face-to-face with Bruiser the Bulldog.

Bruiser was 60lbs of low-to-the-ground mass. A white stripe went down the left side of his face which offset the snaggle tooth poking out from his underbite on the opposite side. He breathed loudly, snorted often, and waddled like a pregnant penguin. About 2 minutes into meeting Bruiser, he flopped on Dean's feet with a big huff. Drool trickled out of his mouth onto Dean's shoe. Bruiser wagged his stumpy tail as both Sam and Dean bent down to give him belly rubs.

Dean hadn't been sure what to think of Bruiser but Bruiser clearly liked him.

When Sam asked why he had been returned twice, the adoption counselor grimaced.

"He has a lot of... quirks," she had said.

She was right. Bruiser had a LOT of quirks. The first night Bruiser huffed, snorted, and barked until Dean lifted him onto his bed. Satisfied, Bruiser plopped his basketball-sized head on to the pillow next to Dean's, smearing drool across the pillow cover. Bruiser apparently liked comfort.

On the second day, Dean found out that Bruiser would take a mouthful of food out of his bowl, spit it out two feet away, eat the pieces one-by-one, and then go back to the bowl to repeat the cycle.

Bruiser wouldn't eat treats that were green Dean found out on the fourth day.

Sam discovered when he came to visit on the fifth day that Bruiser had stolen Dean's used work socks and hid them under the couch. Unfortunately, the way he found out was when he went to retrieve the ball they had been playing with from under said couch and pulled out one of Dean's crusty socks instead. Dean thought Sam's face and screech of despair was hilarious at the time until he discovered the other 9 socks hidden under the couch.

All these quirks were manageable and, frankly, a little cute if Dean were being honest. Sam and Dean had discussed them each at length and they couldn't believe Bruiser was as much trouble as the shelter seemed to think he was. Dean didn't understand how two families had returned Bruiser after less than two weeks in each home.

Until Day 6: Trash Day. Then, Dean understood.

"Dude, you need to come over after work. It's Bruiser. I don't know how to explain it."

"Is he hurt?"

"No, he seems fine now."

"What happened?"

"This is gonna sound crazy."

"Just tell me, Dean."

"He attacks trash cans."

"He attacks trash cans?"

"Yes dude! We were walking on the sidewalk and then out of nowhere he hurls himself at a trash can and knocked it over. Like a full body slam. I pick it up and put it back just thinking that was weird and a one time thing but he did it three more times before I dragged him back home."

When Sam came over three hours later, Dean was waiting onside on his front step absent-mindedly scratching Bruiser's head with one hand and holding his leash with his other. Dean silently handed Sam the leash when he approached and held up 1 finger as a signal to wait. Dean dragged his large green recycle bin from it's location in the garage near the Impala to the middle of the driveway.

"Try to walk past it."

Sam thought his brother had been exaggerating but when Bruiser went to pass the recycle bin by something shifted. Bruiser rushed forward, tugging at the end of his leash, and launched himself at the container in what could only be described as an All-American football tackle. The bin toppled over a few feet from where it sat originally and Bruiser continued on like nothing had happened.

That "quirk" was the reason Bruiser had been turned into the shelter the first time and returned both times the receptionist told Dean when he phoned the following morning. His first owner thought it was hilarious when Bruiser did it as a puppy and encouraged it for a long time. When Bruiser reached 60lbs, it apparently lost its charm and took him the shelter when he wouldn't stop. Both of Bruiser's adopters thought that this quirk was just too much on a list of weird quirks and brought him back after short stays. The shelter receptionist said they didn't know how they were going to get him adopted at this point with his track record.

When the receptionist asked Dean when he would like to return Bruiser, Dean said he wasn’t planning on it. That was the truth. He never planned to return Bruiser to begin with but he had called the shelter looking for answers. After hearing more about Bruiser’s life, Dean knew he couldn’t abandon the poor guy like all the people did before.

Dean enjoyed snuggling on the couch with Bruiser after a long day at the fire station. Bruiser didn't destroy the house or have accidents when he went to work. Bruiser waited by the bathroom door for him every night while Dean showered before stretching out beside him on the bed. Sam adored him and Eileen loved his slobbery kisses. They loved coming over Saturdays to walk him while Dean worked his longest shift of the week. Sue him, he grew attached to the big lug and his quirks.

And wouldn't you know it, the neighborhood grew attached to Bruiser and his quirks too.

Every Wednesday, neighbors would move their trash cans and recycle bins to the curb for trash day. Every Wednesday evening Bruiser would tackle every trash can and recycle bin he would come across on his evening walk. Dean would hastily collect anything that fell out (trash and recyclables were collected in the morning thankfully but sometimes one or two were accidentally skipped) and right the trash can. Well, as much he could anyway. Bruiser would tackle it immediately once it was upright again.

Three weeks after adopting Bruiser, the neighborhood kids would gather to watch Bruiser demolish trash cans. Some would even walk and chat with Dean to witness the destruction up close.

Two months in and it was practically a weekly neighborhood event with Bruiser and an embarassed Dean serving as entertainment. Neighbors would come out to their front steps to watch Dean and Bruiser on their path of destruction. It was unusual but most people seemed to enjoy watching the bulldog in his element.

One of his neighbors even painted a bullseye on the side of his trash can.

Dean did try to avoid the bins at first but both sides of the street were lined with cans and bins. He tried every trick and tip he found online but Bruiser could not be swayed, bribed, or persuaded not to tackle. Dean even tried walking down the middle of the street which caused him to have to pull/drag his slow-moving bulldog out of the way every time a car came and Bruiser would tackle the closest bin anyway.

Only once did Dean not take Bruiser on his evening walk on trash day and it was then that he discovered another one of Bruiser’s “quirks”. When the bulldog had figured out he wasn’t getting a walk that evening, he started screaming bloody murder and did not stop until Dean picked up the leash.

Four months after adopting him, Bruiser found his sworn enemy at a newly purchased house just four doors down from Dean. The flimsy, yellow recycle bin with yellow bees and the quote "Bee Friendly!" painted on the side deserved the wrath of God Bruiser had decided. Bruiser didn't just want to tackle this bin. He sought to destroy it.

The first week, Bruiser tried to drag the recycle bin from the curb after tackling it. Dean fought to extract it from Bruiser's mouth and had to carry Bruiser away much to the delight of everyone watching.

The second week, Bruiser did the same but this time he tried to run away with it and Dean had to trap Bruiser between his legs to free the poor bin.

The third week, Dean walked on the other side of the street but Bruiser still growled as they passed.

The fourth week Bruiser succeeded in his mission. Which is how Dean found himself in his current predicament.

Dean would never let Bruiser destroy someone else’s property on purpose and steered clear of neighbor's trash cans and recycle bins who didn't enjoy Bruiser's antics as much as the rest of the neighborhood. But today had been a practically long day at the station. He had been called in for an emergency hours before his shift was scheduled to start. He is more tired than usual on their evening walk and isn't paying attention as Bruiser plows through the first neighbor’s plastic trash bin with glee. He didn't even change out of his station t-shirt because he had made plans with Sam and didn’t want to miss Bruiser’s evening walk.

It was only after Bruiser launches himself at the yellow bee bin and manages to crush it with a single, well-placed tackle that Dean remembers Bruiser’s hatred for the thing. Bruiser, satisfied his foe had been vanquished, picks up a large piece with his mouth and starts walking away like he had just successfully hunted a gazelle on the Serengeti.

Dean knew that something like this would happen eventually but did it have to be with a neighbor he hadn’t even met yet? He feels his pocket for his wallet and prepares mentally to write a check to replace the bin while apologizing profusely.

Dean checks his watch and realizes that he was going to be late to meet Sam back at the house. Sam had arranged a blind date/double date with Eileen, Dean, and a mysterious stranger. According to Sam, he doesn’t get out and date enough. Spurred by the success of getting Dean to adopt a dog, Sam had decided the next thing he would fix is Dean’s love life. Sam talks a lot so it didn’t take him long to secure him a date. Dean shoots off a quick text telling Sam what happened and promises to be home soon.

He stalls for a few more minutes while he thinks about what he wants to say. It’s probably going to be something along the lines of Please don’t call the cops on my asshole dog. He likes to tackle trash cans because his first owners were idiots. Here’s a check for 100 bucks.

Finally, Dean can’t avoid it anymore. He gathers the remains of the yellow bee recycle bin and walks Bruiser up the pathway of the two-story family home. After knocking on the front door, Dean is greeted by a pair of bright blue eyes and messy hair.

Dean stands there staring at the man in front of him. The man had obviously just gotten home from work because he is wearing a tan trenchcoat and suit. His tie is backwards and pulled down away from his neck. The man glances down at Bruiser and seems to notice what the dog was carrying in his mouth. He then smiles at Dean and Dean feels his brain short circuit.

"Hello, Dean. I take it you’re here because your dog was finally able to destroy my recycle bin?"

Dean is shocked. He has never met his new neighbor so how did he already know his name? Dean would have remembered meeting someone that looked- well like that.

"Yeah," Dean starts, clearing his throat, “Sorry, about that. I-um- well Bruiser- wait no- I’m sorry that my jerk of a dog-”

The man continues to smile as Dean fumbles through his apology. He steps onto the front steps and closes his door behind him with a soft click. He is only a few inches away from Dean as he bends down to say hello to Bruiser.

For as much as Bruiser hates the man’s yellow bee recycle bin, he sure seems to like this guy. Bruiser sits immediately within the man’s reach and happily leans against his leg to get attention.

“My name’s Castiel by the way but you can call me Cas. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from Sam.”

“You know Sam?”

“Yes, he and Eileen stop by with Bruiser to chat on Saturdays when I am working in my front garden. I’ve heard all about Bruiser’s escapades including his hatred of my recycle bin.”

Sam never mentioned meeting his new neighbor but then again sometimes Dean didn’t always listen the best after his double shift. Usually, Sam would drone on and on about how great Bruiser is, the boring cases at his law office, and that Dean needed to get out more. Most of the time Dean would try to listen before zoning out and nodding occasionally.

“Cas, I really am sorry about all of this. Please let me pay for the replacement.”

“I have a better idea,” Cas says as he stops petting Bruiser and straightens up. He meets Dean’s eyes with an intense stare before continuing.

“You can buy me dinner tonight instead.”

Yep, Dean’s brain is well and truly fried.

“Yeah sure, I can totally buy you dinner. Wait not tonight. I kinda agreed to this thing with Sam... So raincheck maybe?” That was as smooth as crunchy peanut butter, Dean thinks to himself.

Cas smiles even wider, “Good to know you weren’t going to skip out our date tonight. Sam warned me that you were unsure if you wanted to go at all but now that you owe me dinner, I’m almost positive that you’ll show up.”

“You’re my date tonight?”

“Yes. When I mentioned I was single last weekend, Sam asked if I would be interested in joining him and Eileen on a double date with his ‘single, firefighter brother who has a cute dog.’ You can, of course, back out if you are uninterested now that we’ve met.”

Dean had only recently come out as bisexual but trust his little brother to ally-up right away and secure him a date with the first single, attractive man he stumbled upon. Not that Dean is complaining.

“Cas, I would love to buy you dinner tonight and not just because of Sam- or Bruiser.”

Cas accompanies Dean and Bruiser for the rest of their walk after disposing of the remains of the murdered recycle bin. Bruiser carries his stolen piece of the yellow bee recycle bin with great pride and only knocks the occasional trash can over as they make their way back to Dean’s house. Conversation flows easier the more they talk and they seem to hit it off. Cas laughs as Dean works to straighten up the bulldog’s path of destruction and Dean laughs when Cas recounts Sam’s first loud conservation in his garden.

Sure, Sam talks a lot but Dean doesn’t think it’s quite so bad now that it got him a dog and a date.

#destiel fanfiction #destiel drabble #destiel ficlet #deancas #destiel #supportive sam #dean winchester #castiel #sam winchester #eileen leahy #alternative universe #my ramblings #my fics #featherthief writes

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elishamanning · 3 years

Note

Kramer: "Well, with us... we ask ourselves, how can something like (the Leverkusen game) happen, and we notice our surroundings asking that, we on the inside ask ourselves that, sometimes we come to a weird conclusion, what, do we have two faces? But we only think that because we only look at ourselves. But what do the Dortmunders think, winning 5-1 against Frankfurt, thus German champions obviously, then they lose 2-1 in Freiburg and everybody's thinking, well, they're not that good, are they. Will Bayern show their Supercup face, or their face-against-us, or against 1. FC Köln? The Leipzigers, do they show their Mainz-face or that outstanding show they put on against Stuttgart? These "problems of consistency" when you're a Gladbach fan, or a Gladbach player, you think 'these are Gladbach-only problems', but the others have them as well. It's always a matter of how you handle it and that you don't let it... well, tear you down emotionally. The important thing is to avoid a negative spiral, mentally, because, as everybody who's ever played football will know, in the end the decisive issue is always in your head (((aaaah, that's a bad translation. It's a mental issue, is what he says.))), and it always will be." Knippi: "Completely agree. And by the way, that's not limited to football." Kramer: "Well, exactly. It's not even worth discussing, when you enjoy doing something, when you're positive about it - it's not exactly a brand-new psychological finding - it'll always turn out better than when you're negative about it. So let's not, after the second matchday, tear everything down, and let's not, after the first matchday, praise everything to the heavens." Knippi: "Did you expect that? Becoming professional footballers, all that stuff that comes with it, besides playing football, all that stuff raining down on you?" Neuhaus: "Well, it just happens, it just all happens automatically. In the end, you become a footballer because you have fun playing football, and you don't much think about that kind of stuff that comes with it. You grow into it and you learn to handle it." Knippi: "So you're not actively getting prepared for that? Because in the last podcast you (Chris) said 'that's the guys from the NLZ' So it's not part of your training there?" Neuhaus: "No, it wasn't a subject in mine." Kramer: "Well to be completely honest, looking back, I thought football would be funnier, or at least less serious, and a bit more honest. That's also why I like this club so much, because I know that here at least you get an honest basis, like, I feel understood here, I have a certain relationship of trust to, for example, Max Eberl, but I wouldn't have imagined, without spilling any beans now, that football's such a not-really-nice business. So this is one of the best things here, for me, knowing that I have an honest and trustful basis that can be built on. And I really wouldn't have ever imagined it all to be so grossly serious. Sometimes I think inappropriately serious, because football is such a beautiful thing and when you get to do it as a profession, plaiyng football, there's nothing easier than joyfully going somewhere every day. These are the best conditions to have, the working hours, just turning your hobby into a profession - everything about football is 'geil', but still you get this completely inappropriate seriousness about it making you go, aw, it's tough. That's a shame I think, I wouldn't have thought so when I started out. I always wanted to be a footballer because, well, for one it's my passion, but also I thought every day would just be fun, and I think it should be, and that in the end that would be performance-enhancing, I'm quite sure about that. (laughing, saying that)." Knippi: "What do you think?" Neuhaus: "Always hard to disagree. The gist is we're all playing football because it's great fun being on the pitch. Of course there are always periods when it's a little harder but all in all and especially looking back you always regard things much more positive

than maybe you felt in that particular moment. (I don't really understand what he's saying there), but anyway the positives should always be front centre." Knippi: "What you just said, Chris, the seriousness, I also think it's too much sometimes. For example if a team's not playing well and the people on the pitch get personally attacked/insulted. I get to witness that when I'm down there, and sometimes I think 'what is wrong with you?', like, I get being unhappy when the team that has your heart isn't doing well, being unhappy, or sad, or disappointed, I get that, but not attacking the players personally. Well thank God that isn't an issue currently, and there's no reason why it should be." Kramer: "No, I don't think that's happened to me in my career... Well, once, playing with VfL Bochum in Aue, I was pelted with snowballs by our own fans but, in retrospect, that was quite funny." Knippi: "Like how?" Kramer: "Well, because we lost 6-1 playing in the snow. I'd say I'm a good player on snow, but, well, Ronny König is the best snow-player on this planet. He (literally he says 'he put four cherries into our basket', meaning he scored four goals... as you probably would have guessed.) So then our own fans, who'd travelled to Aue on a Monday night, threw snow balls at us, and we completely deserved it. And I do think every fan is right, and has the right, to use this outlet, that they're paying money for, to let off steam. Because football, in the end, is entertainment. Only, it doesn't help. What I meant with the seriousness is the whole stuff around it as well. Football is just a game. It's supposed to be fun, but sometimes I think, looking at the newspapers, all the sociopolitical issues, and seriousness... it's still football." Knippi: "Did I just understand you correctly, you're saying it's a fan's right to pelt you with snowballs?" Kramer: "Well... it gets its down dynamic, and it's not too bad. If someone insults me, say, I don't really have a problem with that. I don't take it personally because I don't think it's meant that way. It may not be the right approach and I may not understand their motive, but... that person is angry, they've had a bad week at work, then they come here, and we play badly ("nur hintenrum" - too defensively) so they have a right to...-as a fan, of course, you have to question whether that's doing any good. We've not really had that here in Gladbach and when there were beginnings of it, we had talks with the ultras, and stuff, we're quite close to the fans, so we don't really have that issue here, but you do see it with other clubs, and close friends of mine, they have had situations where I'd really say, now this is too much (I wonder if he's talking of Leon/the end at Schalke here), and that's just not on, but generally, we are an outlet for many and football is entertainment. When you're not being entertained you're entitled to boo. I don't mind. There's just this double standard - look at me, talking again for ten minutes straight (Knippi and Flo laugh), and you have to cut it all afterwards- once again I take ten minutes to get to the point, but you can't - you want to play with a young squad, and they'll make mistakes. You can't boo them. Or you can't say you want to play with a young squad. Very simply put." Knippi: "Tommy Schmitt, your successor at 11Freunde put it quite well there, I thought. It's very counterproductive to boo and whistle." Kramer: "Yes, well, you have to ask yourself, no matter what you do - I mean when you get to the office and everybody's scowling at you, thinking 'what an idiot!', you'll feel that as a person with empathy, like every footballer, and when you're booed, that does something to you... I can promise everybody: booing a player will never make them better, not ever." Knippi: "'Snow-player' you just said. You're not a good 'snow-player'." Kramer: "I'm a GREAT snow-player!" Neuhaus: "They lost 6-1, I don't think he's that great. They wouldn't have lost 6-1, would they?" Kramer: "Well Leon, Leon Goretzka

and I, we still talk a lot about that day. I'd say, Leon and I, we both have these long levers, we really are good snow-players, on a proper layer of snow, like there in Aue. But Ronny König! He's Messi on snow. Awesome, really." Knippi: "Wouldn't it be better to have short legs and a low centre of gravity?" Kramer: "I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, looking at Leon, and myself, AND Ronny König you can conclude the tall ones with the long legs are good on snow." (very scientific, this.) Knippi: "What kind of a snow-player are you?" Neuhaus: "There weren't any snow-games anymore in my time." Kramer: "NLZ, dude!" Knippi: "I know but..." Kramer: "No!" Neuhaus: "Climate change." Knippi: "But in your youth you must have played on snow once, haven't you?" Neuhaus: "Hardly." Knippi: "You're THAT young?!" Neuhaus: "At 1860 we had astroturf with undersoil heating." Knippi: "Did you ever play on clay?" Neuhaus: "...and anywhere in the stadiums today. There just aren't snow games like that anymore these days." Kramer: "He's from Bavaria, they don't have clay. They just have meadows and pastures, they play on the most beautiful pitches. Here in NRW when you're playing Galatasaray Mühlheim you know what's going down? You know what's going down, playing on clay?" Neuhaus: "I can just imagine." Kramer: "You take two weeks before you can go back to school because your legs - you simply can't walk anymore..." Knippi: "You've never played on clay?" Neuhaus: "No, never." Knippi: "You don't know that feeling when your grazed-open thigh is stuck to your jeans?" Neuhaus: "Yes, well, as a little child I played on the street..." (It goes on a bit yet, but I've already fallen asleep twice and I'm not sure these "translations" are making much sense anyway, so I'll leave it at this, now, alright? Flo played on asphalt, so he knows about open wounds from football. And Knippi claims he's still got remnants of clay in his thigh from decades ago. Hehe. I'll do the rest another time.)

first of all THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH

it's always interesting to hear about a player's mindset

it's really interesting to see how an athlete's relationship with their changes over time. like to have something that was for fun and a hobby turn into your job is a pretty incredible transition. it's something a lot of people experience to an extent, but to have it on this high a level is pretty unique.

Kramer: "No, I don't think that's happened to me in my career... Well, once, playing with VfL Bochum in Aue, I was pelted with snowballs by our own fans but, in retrospect, that was quite funny."

chrikra???? please??? what is this... snowballs???

i also agree that while fans are allowed to show their discontent, it does often cross a line. idk if he was referring to something like leon's ending with schalke, but that instance of schalke fans chasing and attacking the players is something that definitely comes to mind here. i think i actually draw a shorter line than chrikra here.

Neuhaus: "There weren't any snow-games anymore in my time." Kramer: "NLZ, dude!" Knippi: "I know but..." Kramer: "No!" Neuhaus: "Climate change." Knippi: "But in your youth you must have played on snow once, haven't you?" Neuhaus: "Hardly." Knippi: "You're THAT young?!"

omg flo please

i do love the idea of chrikra and leon reminiscing about their old games together... my heart

anyway i love this podcast and i hope they do more of it

and thank you again SO MUCH

#answered #anonymous #christoph kramer #florian neuhaus

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lihikainanea · 3 years

Text

Just (scrumptious) thoughts.

Alright so look, Bill kind of always gets cast to play similar types, right? Tall, creepy thin types. Dudes that look a little out of the ordinary.

But maybe to his delight, after an audition that he left kind of thinking he bombed it, maybe Good Dude Bill gets cast as something very different--a strong, alpha male, buff kind of dude.

And Bill is no stranger to the insane things he sometimes has to do for roles, so maybe when the studio connects him with a dietician, with a trainer who looks like Mad Max, maybe Bill is a little apprehensive but he just dives in full force because that’s what Bill does. And tiger, bless her heart, maybe tiger even books some separate meetings with his dietician just so she can understand what he needs to be eating and when, how she can prepare it for him, etc.

At first, the building stage seems fun. Bill gets to consume like, 8,000 calories a day and he’s even allowed some sweets and treats. It’s just about building mass onto his skinny frame at this point, and consuming massive amounts of calories seems like a lot of fun. But then he gets his meal plan, and he realizes that he just constantly needs to be eating, even if he’s not hungry. Part of his million calories a day means he needs to consume like, 6 chicken breasts. He’s eating every 90 minutes, and halfway through the regime he swears he hasn’t been actually hungry in like, 8 weeks. It’s just not a feeling he feels anymore, when he’s cramming that much food down.

Tiger does her best to make the meals appetizing within the limitations of his diet. And Bill is all heart-eyes, because he’s exhausted from the training and sleeping all the time to help his body heal, and tiger just spends hours in the kitchen food prepping all of his meals and packaging them up. She gets it all ready for him, puts it in little containers, and even goes as far as to put little sticky notes on them with the time that he should be eating which container. It takes her forever, but truth be told for as enthusiastic as Bill was at the beginning--she’s never quite seem him so down and out, so tired, so unenthusiastic about everything.

His last meal he actually needs to be woken up for, because it’s around 11PM when he’s already been asleep for like two hours. Tiger nearly gags for him in sympathy, watching as he attempts to chew a chicken breast and swallow it without hurling. It’s just so much food.

And it has other effects too--Bill always ran hot, but now his body is like a furnace to the point where tiger can’t even sleep with blankets anymore because he heats the whole bed. He’s beefing out like crazy--it’s not defined muscle at this point, more just sheer bulk, but he’s bigger than she’s ever seen him. He’s always tired and sore, training twice a day, and he just doesn’t have the energy for much anymore. He’s constantly stuffed and uncomfortable and none of his clothes fit anymore.

But you know, after the bulk stage, is the cutting stage. The stage where all of that mass needs to be sculpted and defined into carved muscles. And Bill doesn’t know which one was worse--being force fed everyday, or having his calories cut so drastically that he’s suddenly starving all the time.

Tiger does her best to support him. She doesn’t keep junk in the house, or if she does, she hides it. She tries desperately to add flavour to what little food he’s allowed to eat, but even she struggles to do that when things like butter and salt and oil are off limits. Bill’s diet basically consists of steamed salmon and broccoli, a half a cup of brown rice every other day, salad with cucumbers and no dressing. Tomatoes have carbs and his diet is so ridiculous that he’s allowed one tomato a week, as a treat. Sweets are off limits. Alcohol is off limits. Bill basically has only 5 things that he can eat.

Their weekly dates at restaurants are a dream of long times past--there’s nothing Bill can eat at a restaurant so even though he offers, even though he tells tiger he wants to take her out--she refuses. It would be torture for the poor bastard. Tiger doesn’t order in anymore, and when she wants pizza or junk she head’s over to another friend’s house and orders it there. Maybe they’ve even taken to eating at different times--tiger will sit with Bill while he eats the pitiful portion of bland food on his plate, keep him company, but she’ll eat after. Tiger is all for eating healthy but this is an extreme, and she can’t eat that way--so when Bill is done, hell maybe when he’s sleeping, she’ll sneak out and have her regular meal just so that she doesn’t tempt the poor bastard. The one time she ate a piece of heavily buttered toast in front of him, Bill’s jowls got all droopy and there was basically a puddle of drool on his place mat.

And like, here’s the thing right? Tiger tries her best to be supportive, but maybe one of her colleagues has a birthday coming up and tiger actually likes this colleague. So maybe one night, she bakes a cake--a decadent, fudgy chocolate cake. And she tells Bill to just go to the gym or something, or to lock himself in the bedroom or the office for as long as possible so the scent doesn’t get to him. And Bill has just basically lost his will to live at this point, he’s a walking, calorie-deprived zombie, so he’s completely resigned and he just tells tiger that he doesn’t care anymore. It’s okay kid, I don’t feel things anymore. Emotions require calories and he has none of those to spare. He goes to lie down.

Tiger makes the cake, ices it, covers it all up on the counter and then goes to bed.

But like...Bill is not made of stone. And he has been so good on this regime, but he has a breaking point. He is exhausted, he is sore all the time, he’s starving all the time, and he just...snaps. So maybe one night in the wee hours of the morning, tiger goes to snuggle into him and he’s just....not there. She rubs at her eyes sleepily, leans over the bed and she notices the light is on in the kitchen. Pushing the covers back, she stands and groggily stumbles down the hallway.

And there’s Bill, wrapped in a blanket, chocolate smudged all over his face, chewing calmly as he just digs his fork into the cake. He’s already about one quarter of the way through.

“Billy...” she says, shocked.

“Yeah?” he says casually. Another forkful crammed in his mouth, chocolate crumbs all over his chin.

“Should you be....” and she ain’t even mad. She ain’t mad that Bill is devouring the cake she made for her colleague. Tiger knows a man on the brink of insanity when she sees one.

“Nope,” he answers. Another forkful, another leisurely chew.

“S’good kid, well done,” he says with his mouth full.

Tiger could say a lot of things. She could tell him that he shouldn’t be eating this. She could tell him that it’ll be torture to try and work this out of his body tomorrow. She could tell him that his trainer and dietician will be furious. She could tell him he has worked so hard, that he shouldn’t ruin it like this, she could take the cake away from him and not let him sabotage his hard work.

But tiger knows her Big Dude--knows all the resolve and dedication he has, and she knows when he is at his breaking point. So instead of all the things she could say, she just reaches out and brushes the curl back from his forehead as he shoves in another bite.

“Want a glass of milk?” she asks.

“Mmph,” he grunts.

So she pours two big glasses of whole milk, cold from the fridge, grabs a fork, and she pushes at his blanket. Crawling into his lap, she loops an arm around him and then digs her fork into the cake.

“Oh that is good,” she says, “Damn.”

“Mmph,” he grunts in reply.

#bill skarsgard #bill skarsgard drabble #BFF!Bill #just thoughts

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somecunttookmyurl · 3 years

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I'm very curious about the research you mentioned concerning CYP2D6 metabolism. Could you post or DM the name of the study? Is your plan to inhibit CYP2D6 by taking CBD or an anti-histamine to increase the effectiveness of the anphetamine based ADHD meds you're taking? Seems like an interesting (and well researched) plan - I hope it works for you if that's what you're doing!

YOU ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD. I’m gonna put this under a readmore so as to not bore the other 3,066 of you with weirdly specific pharmacology and pharmacogenetics talk Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, or a pharmacist, or any sort of medical professional at all. I have absolutely zero qualifications in pharmacology I’m just a nerd with half a psychology degree, a talent for study design, and shitty fucking doctors.

So I first learned about CYP26D metabolism (and the broader P450 cytochrome) in like 2017 from a friend doing a PhD in things much smarter than me. I’ve always been a Feral Drug Goblin (resistant if not immune to a lot of drugs) and she seemed to think that’s what was happening. Which tracks because like. 90% of the stuff that doesn’t work on me is a CYP2D6 substrate (the rest are CYP3A4 so I might have more than one defect, but if there’s something funky going on on 3A4 the effect is less pronounced)

Later discovered I have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and like... many if not most EDS sufferers have *at least* one P450 defect . Around 80% or so of people with chronic pain more generally have at least one P450 defect. It’s not something I’ve been tested for because a) even though CYP2D6 metabolism and its effect on drug treatment has been studied for like 30 years, the NHS only started introducing genomic testing for it in 2019 and b) getting a referral would require finding a doctor who knows what it is which, like, lmao. Honestly though we can be about 99% certain I’m an ultrarapid metaboliser, all things considered. Mostly I want a genomic test to see if any of the others are broken.

Now, I don’t know why it took me four years to think of it but over the weekend at 2:30am (I’m not allowed to have a thought during daylight hours actually) that like... logically speaking... if you gave a potent CYP2D6 inhibitor to an ultrarapid metaboliser it would normalise (or at least improve, depending on how many functional copies of the gene I’m dealing with like people have been found with thirteen copies) the metabolic function. Absolute galaxy brain moment.

Of course combining a CYP2D6 substrate and a CYP2D6 inhibitor generally carries a “moderately severe” interaction warning because if you’re alrealy, like, normal that could be dangerous. So I had a dig around to see if anybody had studied that specific thing and whether it was actually safe.

It took me... a pretty long time because this concept is massively understudied. I mean there’s 1001 studies on “does being an ultrarapid metaboliser of CYP2D6 affect [x substrate drug]” to the extent it’s like... yeah dude. The answer is yes. It’s always yes. I think we’ve proved this concept. Don’t think you need to do it for every single drug. We get it. There are a couple though. Both of the studies were only 5 participants, and were done 20 years ago (2000 and 2001) but in both cases all participants showed... honestly pretty amazingly positive responses and no ill effects. Which is why I’m so baffled that seemingly nobody has studied it since. Like “well, this went fantastically well! We shall never speak of it again” The first study gave the participants debrisoquine hydroxylation, which is the substance they use to test the function of CYP2D6 when they do the genomic test. So they weren’t on a CYP2D6 substrate already they were given it specifically for the study. Then they were given quinidine (an anti-arrhythmic which has sadly been disconintues) as an inhibitor. Without quinidine, the metabolic ratio of debrisoquine in the participants after 6 hours was 0.01 - 0.07. Which is, like, fuck all. With quinidine that amount was 12.6, 10.1, 9.2, 2.4, and 2.2. Participants had 3, 3, 4, 13, and 13 copies of the gene respectively so the more copies you have the less improvement you see, but < 0.1 to 2.2 is still huge https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2014903/ The second study in 2001, also 5 participants, administered nortriptyline as the substrate and then used paroxetine (an SSRI) as the inhibitor. After taking nortriptyline for a week, all participants had very low subtherapeutic levels of the drug in their systems. Following 2 weeks of treatment with paroxetine, 4/5 participants had normally-expected therapeutic levels of noritryptiline. The other participant withdrew after 1 week of paroxetine treatment after getting side effects from it but still had an increase in noritryptiline levels in that time so it was working he just didn’t tolerate paroxetine very well. https://sci-hub.se/https://ascpt.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/S0009-9236(01)78384-1

Those are, to my knowledge, the only studies done specifically to test whether you can normalise liver function using an inhibitor. There is a case study from 2006 of a 6 year old boy with ADHD who didn’t respond to drugs and was confirmed to be an ultrarapid metaboliser. The authors recommend usage of an inhibitor in such cases

https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.lww.com/psychopharmacology/Citation/2006/08000/An_ADHD_6_year_old_Child_Ultrarapid_Metabolizer.25.aspx

I can’t have paroxetine or fluoxetine because I have a bipolar-spectrum disorder and historically me and SSRIs are not friends. However buproprion (wellbutrin) is an inhibitor which I was prescribed before to counteract a side effect from atomoxetine and like I was definitely more functional at the time? But that was way before I had this genius plan, or knew it was an inhibitor, so. There’s been a supply issue here for it since July. So yeah. I’m going to be taking CBD. Amphetamines do absolutely fuck all by themselves so like literally my plan is “taking weed pills to try and make my liver talk to meth properly” which sounds absolutely ridiculous. Gonna be hilarious if it fuckin’ works. I’m going to be doing a proper study and writing it all up and everything. Emailed the researchers involved in the 3 studies to see if they’re interested in my data like 20 years later lmao but if you wanna read the study outline it’s here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TOnToHMH7UhYMFM9qtv-4ZWmaV7Pr6IQeYv6QDAGVrQ/edit?usp=sharing Just gonna keep going unti it either works, or the amount of CBD required becomes too expensive (which would be like 9 weeks max bc I can’t afford to be taking more than 60mg CBD every day forever).

#thepropervillain #bet you regret asking now huh

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tellywoodtrash · 3 years

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Hi TT,

I'm so glad that your lbs are back🥳🥳.

So much has happened in immj2 land after the vihaan track.Your lbs were the only source of immj2 for me..so when u stopped the lbs at the point where vihaan was revealed to be vansh only and he started playing mind games and revenge revenge with a clueless ridhima...Uske baad kya hua till the events in this lb I have no idea.So can you pls do a KAHANI AB TAK from the point where the lbs were on hold till now?

Love

Ratna.

Hi hi!!!!!!!! 💖💖💖

Oh boy, tbh, this show is bonkers crazy and I don’t know how to sensibly explain what the fuck went down, but I shall tryyyyyyy:

Ok so we left off at Vansh telling Riddhima to murder Kabir. She obviously can’t do it coz she’s a weakass bitch (warna kab ka Vansh ko hi maar deti uske anginnath chutiyaape ke liye............) Kabir gloats about it to Vansh and also lets slip that they were in a relationship before she came into V’s life, and how he’s just not fated for love, is he. Vansh gets hella mad at this and instead of going to therapy about it like a normal person, decides ki I have to get revenge from Riddhima for this. They go on some dhaarmic vacation where he abandons her and when she finally makes her way back everyone’s like “Hein tum kaun????????????/ Vansh ki biwi toh Ahaana hai.” So basically Riddhima; whose whole identity is just being Vansh’s wife; ka account deactivate ho jaata hai, like Trump’s twitter. Siya meanwhile starts yelling in her coma for Riddhima Bhaabi, so Vansh has to let R stay. There’s some stupidass competitions and shit between her and Ahaana and R is finally like ok you know what I’ve had enough of this and leaves. Siya finally wakes tf up and tells everyone the truth. V like OHNOE!!!!!!! I’M A DUMBASS!!!!!!! (yeah, we know.) and runs behind R and stops her from leaving. R usse bhi badi buddhu and actually gets back together with this fucking crazy man and his nonsense family. Ab aata hai track where Kabir starts sending Riddhima clues about her past and R finds that her parents didn’t actually abandon her at the anaath-ashram but actually died in some accident. She finds that around the saaaaaaaaame time, teenage V was in juvie. Snooping around, snooping around, as per usual she wants to know if V’s connected to her parents. Because no one taught her ki correlation =/= causation. V plans elaborate second shaadi to keep her from snooping but Riddhima apni multitasker max hai! Manages to get through 4098340239480 shaadi rituals and also do her jasoosi, finds out he was in juvie for a car accident that killed a couple. V lies to everyone that the couple he actually killed was Kabir’s dad and aunt. Yeh sunke K ki khisak jaati hai, but then he actually overhears V and Ishani talking ki that was a lie and it was Ishani who killed Riddhima’s parents and V took the blame for her. Kabir doesn’t like being taken for a fool and is like bitch imma burn this shit to the ground now and get my girl back too. Meanwhile V is having issues with his diamond smuggly business and is like “omg I have such a dangerous line of work I can never have a family of my own.” Well, yeh khayaal thoda late aaya coz guess who’s been regularlyyyyyyyy tapping it without wrapping it??????? Yeah, this dumbass who doesn’t want kids. K ka dariya dil is like “arre waah ek se saath ek muft muft muft? I want R and baby also!” V is a pissyass bitch about R getting pregnant as if she did it all on her own with no contribution from him. Anyway, thanks to his diamond smuggling fuckery someone shoots during a family event and Ishani loses her baby. Not the best time for everyone to find out R is pregnant, and people start trying to murder her and baby. Someone keeps sending her warning letters about it tho. K keeps saving her ass and V is just like meh who cares, mereko toh bas apni padi hai. AnuMom makes a comeback here and adds to the fuckery and K is like SO HELP ME GOD, DON’T YOU HURT MY GIRL AND BABY, and she’s like “hein yeh kya ho gaya, I was literally not here for a few weeks and ladka haath se nikal gaya.” Anyway, long story short, turns out it was the random uncle (Aryan’s dad who shows up only once in 6 months) who was looking out for R and baby and saving them via warning notes. For that nek kaam, AnuMom murders the fuck outta him. Tbh by this point I stopped even keeping up with the show and someall fuckery happens with the diamonds and all, but at some point V realises ki “oh mere ko bhi chahiye apna crotch-goblin” and accepts the consequences of his non-condom wearing actions. By this point Kabir is trying to get the diamonds and the girl + baby and idk man.......... Kuch ka kuch ho jaata hai and they all end up in a forest where Kabir seems to have murdered V (but he’s saved by AnuMom who’s like FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH KABIR, NOW VANSH IS MY BEST SON) , and is all ready to marry R but V comes outta nowhere and haathapaai ensues and this leads to V/R jumping off a cliff and hiding but he gets shot and sends Riddhima off to safety.

Now we’ve moved to Voot. V wakes up 6-7 hours later in the forest to find Angre there; Angre says R is home and sent him to come get him. V comes home to find new and improved Riddhima who is veryyyyyyy horny all the time (not unheard of with pregnancy hormones.) Meanwhile entry of sasta!Vansh who R has some deal with and she keeps doing shit like steal the diamonds for him and some khaandani rifle (they keep calling it a “SNIPER RIFLE” but it legit looks like Vasco De Gama ki gun from Andaz Apna Apna.) Dadi on the other hand has turned into this major Gangster Grandma who’s ruthless as fuck and is all about the Raisinghania naam and power and mafia business or whatever and she’s like I can’t take it how V and R are fucking up the name of the fam for their do takke ka manhoos pyaar, I want them murdered, esp. R. V finds out that sasta!V’s wife (whom he claims to have murdered) looks exactly like Riddhima and is now convinced ki yeh jo mere ghar mein hai is a duplicate, and they have kidnapped my real pregnant wife. Anyway, he’s like fine Dadi, I’ll murder R for the khaandaan. Takes her to the jungle and shoots her in front of Aryan. But V is puraana paapi who is expert in making it look like he’s murdered the love interest of the season and hiding them from the whole world, so yeah............... Keeps R in some room somewhere and interrogates her every day but she’s like OMG *I’m* your wife, dumbass. Udhar Siya’s traumatised by bhaiyya’s wife-murdering ways and is now falling for sasta!Bhaiyya and gotten a makeover and discovered teenage rebellion; while Ishani’s realized how hot her husband is and is constantly wanting to sex him. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now the non-Rrahul dude has gotten COVID irl, so I guess he’ll be off the show for a bit, and my cyuuutoooo Kabir (who’s being kept captive somewhere by Riddhima????) will finally be back? One can hope. I miss Kabir and this show is absolutely nothing without him.

#immj2 #ratnas-musings #tt answers

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kittinsrkillers · 3 years

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So I'm a die-hard wonder woman fan, and I'll be honest, I'm super not into all these internet edge lords hating on WW84.

It came out yesterday my dudes, you can not feasibly have a fully fleshed out opinion on it yet.

Give it a few more days, talk to a few people about what they thought about it, I guarantee that you will view it much more positively.

That is, of course, if the conversation had isn't actively trying to tear it down.

This is made mostly in response to all the reviews that didn't understand either or both of the film's villains and about the magical McGuffin involved.

Actual spoilers below (it's where I start really complaining)

Now what I said above also applies to me, but I did spend several hours analyzing the movie with friends and family so there is that.

I'm going to be talking about things I've seen and how I think those opinions are one dimensional

1) Barbara did need to be in the movie and/or her storyline dragged

I think this is mostly clouded by the iffy cgi when Barbra becomes Cheetah, because her storyline actively parallels Diana's. Max Lord is not the antagonist to Diana but to Wonder Woman, Barbra is Diana's “antagonist”. She gives up her kindness to gain power and Diana gives up her power, her ability to help other, to gain Steve. Diana relinquishes her wish but we never have any confirmation Barbra does the same despite knowing it will only hurt her. One is willing to see the truth of their world, while the other let their desires consume them.

2) Max Lord doesn't have any clear motivations

Most of the complaints I’ve seen of this don’t understand how he could let things get so bad, as if people don’t dig their heels in and refuse to change plans when things go wrong every day. He is already shown to fall into that with his cooperation, he falls into sunk cost fallacy so easily, his greed blinds him to the cost of his actions, he just needs a little more power and then his son will be proud of him, he will be respected, just a little more, and then things go wrong so he needs just a little more power to fix them and the cycle repeats.

3) The villains' didn’t do anything that bad, they shouldn't of been vilified

They didn’t and they weren’t. I have seen posts addressing this but I’ll do so too, to be inclusive. The villains’ were just regular people blinded by the injustices of the world till they too became part of the problem

Max Lord wanted to be respected and successful so he “cheating” others like he felt life had cheated him.

Barbra was trampled on by people her whole life, so when she got power she trampled on others too. Though hers is harder to talk about because the dream stone stole her warmth and empathy, she no longer cared for other people the way she once used to.

Then they were “forgiven”, able to grow past their mistakes to try and be better.

4) Steve was forced into the movie and he didn’t add anything

This is where my personal opinions really start to show up because I personally don’t think that that was really Steve. I think he was Diana’s memory of Steve, the Steve she wished for.

But before I get into that, if you pay attention to Steve's timeline then he’s just come off major character development and is now more idealistic, he trusts in Diana's judgement and his already strong moral code, he doesn't even consider that Diana could lose because he’s already seen her fight a literal god of war. He has already made sacrifices for the good of mankind, he can and will do so again.

The next bit is connected to my “Steve is a memory come to life” theory so I’ll include it here.

Diana only knew Steve for like a week why is he the one thing she wished for

How could Steve fly a 1980′s jet

Diana left Themyscira for mankind, she attached to Steve so hard because he is one of if not her first love. He was the catalyst for her leaving her home, possibly forever, he was her connection to mankind, so she fixated on him. She is also much older than a human and has a much longer lifespan, theoretically, it could mean she views time as much less important, she can grieve over her dead boyfriend for decades because she will be alive for millennia's.

We do not hear the specifics of Diana’s wish. We do not know the wording used, thus we could hand wave away a lot of the weird bits about Steve. Diana first meets Steve when his plane crashes and she last sees him when he detonates the aircraft full of poison gas. He introduces himself as a pilot, but the lasso of truth compels his to divulge that he is a spy, the rest of the movie focuses more on his ability to spy than his ability to pilot, and with seventy years of nostalgia, Diana , who knew Steve for a week, likely only came to know Steve truly through the rose-tinted stories of his old friends and family. Thus, when he is returned to her, he is her perfect, idealized Steve. The one who she admired for his ability to fly.

Of course, I’m sure there is just as much, if not more evidence to indicate something else entirely, but it’s only been a single day since I saw the movie.

5) It is campy, cartoonish, and less impactful than the first movie

Being campy and cartoonish does not make it less valuable. What does cartoonish mean in this context? Does it mean childish? Does it mean silly or simplistic? Does it mean better actualized through animated film? Because this is a comic book movie. A Wonder Woman comic book movie to boot. It will be hopeful and inspiring, about an incredibly powerful, mythical woman who helps humans by inspiring them to be better. Though a crude comparison, she can be likened to a “Girl Superman” though the tone of the two heroes is drastically different.

I genuinely don’t know why people are criticizing the themes and message this movie is trying to make. People keep throwing around words like heavy and deep about the first movie because it talks about mankind's willingness to hurt others to achieve their own petty goals, as if this movie isn’t exploring how mankind will hurt themselves in their own misguided desire for what they don’t have, how their greedy desires will only hurt themselves and others.

Is it because this one doesn't have a war in it?

I’m getting petty now so I’ll only cover one more thing.

6) A lot of the plot is just handwaved away and we’re just supposed to believe things

This is particularly used regarded the dream stone, it wasn’t explicitly explained and the god that made it is only vaguely mentioned. This applies to all the magic and mythical elements of the movie. Magic and gods are often portrayed as based in belief. Wonder Woman has unwavering belief, belief in people, gods, truth, justice, forgiveness, honor. In return people believe in her. This belief is the main force behind the magic involved in the movie.

We the audience believe in this universe created -> this universe has gods in it capable of incredible feats of magic -> these gods do not always approve of or care for humans -> these gods do not necessarily force humans to participate in what they hold domain over -> A god of lies and deceit made a wish granting stone -> the stone shows the lies of human greed -> the lasso of truth is the embodiment of truth -> one is unable to lie in its hold -> one can “see the truth” in its hold -> the particle satellite thing was wished into working perfectly -> Now the particles “touch” all of mankind (though they can only understand Max Lord through their screens) -> The lasso of truth becomes part of the broadcast thus “holding” all of mankind -> all of mankind can mow see the truth (though the screens only show the magical golden light because they are machines without thoughts)

And though it does not matter if this fits into the DCEU timeline, by all of the other movies, 30 to 35 years have passed, it was a week of unexplained, but certainly not known to be magical, chaos when all of the rest of the justice league was either a child or simply not born yet.

I’m sorry for the crazy rant, but I feel like the internet is full of people who seek out reactions so I made this for people to read when they feel like WW84 is being clogged with negativity. You don’t need to give them the reaction, I already have.

(P.S. The Trump thing isn’t real, Max Lord is the 80′s archetype of the cooperate raider, I didn’t even make that possible connection till the bigots online with their ever present victim-complex started acting all offended)

#ww84 #Positive ww84 #Wonder Woman 1984 #only about the plot #in reaction to weird complaints about the movie #no negativity

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2manyfandoms2count · 3 years

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You can count on me (I will be there for you)

The chapters keep getting longer, you’d think I have control over them but obviously not, oops

New this week: More people join the scheming and the “we know who Chat Noir is” gangs (none of which are Marinette), Mayor Bourgeois cries, there’s background Lukloé, there’s the Nino-taking-care-of-Alya scene (if you can call it that) I talked about in the tags of this post, and we’re finally officially ready to roll into the Agreste Mansion.

Enjoy! xx

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Chapter 6

As Marinette steps back inside, she feels like she’s breathing a million times better than she has for the past month. She feels lighter, too. The upbeat music playing from the loudspeaker feels like a theme song, encouraging her to go forward. They have a plan, and it’s pretty foolproof at this stage; get all the necessary protagonists to the room acting as a backstage area for the band, and have a chat. No overthinking needed.

She spots Max in the crowd, in the middle of a discussion with Kim and Markov. The sentient robot is just as key to the plan as his creator, as she doubts that Gabriel Agreste would leave any numerical information lying around in the open, unprotected. Especially information that could tie him to a master criminal. She also has a feeling that they might have to deal with security cameras, which Markov and Max will probably know how to hack into.

A little to their right, Kagami and Nino are politely listening to André Bourgeois, whose glistening eyes scream his awe of the ceremony. Marinette can almost hear him gush about how he can’t wait for Chloé’s own big day to arrive.

“Looks like our friends are warming up for their duties.” Alya walks in behind her and they both observe the poorly disguised agony on Nino’s face, as well as the tension in Kagami’s shoulders. “You go and save them, I’ll get Max.” Alya pushes her lightly in their direction, and starts for the left.

Marinette stumbles forward, but turns back briefly as a thought crosses her mind. “By the way, did Adrien tell you what he was up to now? He didn’t come back earlier, which turned out for the best, and, well, it’s not that I want to avoid him, but…”

“...you don’t want to justify why everyone’s gathered without him if he walks in on us?” Alya smirks.

“Yeah.” The bride winces. She hates the thought, but she kind of hopes that Adrien will stay out of the way until they have to leave.

“Trust me, girl, he’s not going to show up.” Alya pats her shoulder in a highly suspicious manner. She’s beaming like she knows something that she doesn’t, and it doesn’t bode well. “Relax, he’s fine! Well, as fine as someone who’s been harpooned by a reporter and a photographer for a special interview might be, but it’s not like he’s been kidnapped or anything.” Alya makes a mental note to check if Mirages can be caught on camera when Ladybug is away, and if so, to maybe snap a few pictures of fake-Adrien for an article to support her lie. Just on the off-chance Marinette decides to follow up on it. There will no doubt be plenty of articles on the wedding itself, but since Adrien is busy running around in leather spandex, there probably won’t be that many one-on-one interviews with him in the press.

“Ouch.” Marinette winces. The thought that the man really deserves a medal for everything he went through, and everything he’s bound to go through before the end of the day crosses her mind. She’ll have to think of an appropriate gift to thank him.

“Don’t worry, he said he was used to it when they dragged him off.” Alya shrugs. “Anyway, let’s go, we can’t leave Chat Noir waiting out back for too long, he’ll get antsy.”

Marinette nods and makes her way towards the now crying mayor.

“Hi, Mister Bourgeois, thank you so much for coming today.” She pats him gently on the shoulder, and gestures for a nearby waitress to come around so she can grab a napkin off her tray. She mouths 'thank you' to her, before handing it to the mayor.

“It was such a wonderful wedding, congratulations to you two lovebirds.” He wipes his tears. “I’ve taken notes for Chloé’s wedding, I’m sure she’d love something like this, if she settles down. She works so much.” More tears spill over, and Marinette winces.

Chloé has taken after her mother and become something of a fashion mogul, although her relationship with Luka (which isn’t really a fling anymore at this point, since she’s been drawn back to him like a wave to the shore for the past five years) seems to keep her fairly grounded. She seems very relaxed when she’s with him, as happy as Marinette’s ever seen her , and she sometimes wonders if something very lavish like this would actually still suit her friend. Her money would be on something a little more bohemian (even though she doesn’t doubt that a lot of money would be spent for the wedding to look simple and ethereal).

“I wouldn’t worry about her, your daughter will get there when the time is right.” She pats his arm sympathetically, Kagami and Nino nodding along. Her gaze wanders around, searching for the blonde, and she spots her hanging just shy of the dancefloor, seemingly engaged in an intense staring contest with Luka while he plays on the stage. Marinette conceals a smile at the very obvious tension between the two. Something tells her she wouldn’t find Luka with his bandmates during Kitty Section’s break.

Maybe Chloé’s very obvious gawking is the first step towards making her relationship public.

“Anyway, I need to borrow these two for a bit, thanks again for everything!” Marinette shakes Mr Bourgeois’ hand before pushing her friends towards the back room. It doesn’t take much for them to start power walking towards the exit.

“Thank you so much for getting us out of this, dude, I thought I was going to pass out! It’s been over half an hour since he’s started talking to us. We just asked him to pass on some plates for the cake!” Nino whispers.

“I love Chloé but I was ready to tell him about Luka if it meant he would stop listing all the ways she’s so great and wondering why she’s still single.” Kagami lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Don’t thank me just yet.” Marinette grimaces. They might have escaped Bourgeois small talk, but they’re in for a far worse prospect; Agreste small talk. She doesn’t know which option she'd prefer: having to listen to someone blabber on, or having to make a distinct effort to keep the conversation going.

They enter the backstage room, which is full of lighting apparatus, music equipment boxes, and all sorts of cables. A small table is set up on the side with water bottles and a bowl of chouquettes, which, of course, has reeled in a black-clad target.

“Nino, Kagami, you remember Chat Noir.” She shakes her head with an amused smile at the sight of her partner, hunched over the bowl, stuffing his face. He looks up suddenly, like a deer caught in headlights, and gobbles down his mouthful.

“Hi!” He smiles a little guiltily, brushing stray sugar from his collar. “Cool to see you guys again.”

“Hey dude!” Nino’s smile widens as they fist-bump. Kagami nods at him as Alya, Max and Markov join and greet them.

They stand silently in a circle, the three newest conspirators looking at each other, then at the others, with a raised eyebrow.

“Guess why we’re all here.” Alya grins, barely containing her excitement, rocking on the ball of her feet.

Max clears his throat and pushes his glasses back up on his nose. “Seeing that Chat Noir is here, and that as far as we know, aside from Marinette, we all have a history of being picked as Miraculous wielders, I’d say there’s a 96.85% chance that we are gathered here for Miraculous reasons. And that being said, I want to say that there’s a 98.26% chance that Ladybug is nearby.”

“Nice deductive skills.” Marinette nods and Chat Noir lets out a low whistle. You’re correct on both fronts.” She stands a little taller, and looks at them all in turn as she speaks. “I’m Ladybug, and I need your help today.”

Nino and Kagami all but gape at the reveal.

Max’s smile is as smug as it gets for him. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Markov and I had calculated that there was a 99.45% chance that you were Ladybug, given that you’ve never been akumatised, that you always seemed to disappear during attacks, and that Ladybug always seemed to arrive very quickly when the akumatisation took place at school.”

“Affirmative. I would have checked with my facial recognition software but Max asked me not to.” Markov chimes in.

“That’s really impressive.” Marinette crosses her arms over her chest, thanking whoever was out there for not granting Hawkmoth a tech-savvy genius friend and robot, and half wondering whether she should ask them who they think Chat Noir is, and check their results with him.

“So Adrien and you both married your collège crushes then? That’s pretty nice.” Kagami smiles.

“Except that Ladybug is in love with Chat Noir, and they're dating. It’s been all over the Ladyblog for at least a year .” Nino frowns and looks towards Alya. He’s had to run after her countless times after the superheroes' relationship had become official, to make sure she wouldn’t fall from the rooftops when she chased Ladynoir dates. As ecstatic as she was when she came back with a couple of exclusive shots, there'd always been an ankle, or at least a scratch, he'd had to bandage. He'd once seen her standing on her tiptoes on a rather flimsy tree branch, and he'd thought his heart was going to give as she'd leaned forward, the branch wobbling menacingly under her, to snap a picture. He’d ranted about it to Adrien, and not too long afterwards, their favourite superhero duo had been spotted hanging out in much more accessible places, much to everyone's delight. Nino didn't know if it was a coincidence, but his blood pressure sure was thankful.

Chat catches Alya’s eyes before she can say anything. He shakes his head in warning. Not now. Her smug grin dies on her lips, and her shoulders droop a little in disappointment.

“Yeah, Adrien and I are… a façade.” Marinette’s lips spread into a tight smile. She hopes that her friends will understand.

“He looks so in love, though.” Kagami says quietly, and Marinette feels another wave of guilt hit her.

Her smile falters.

Alya looks at Chat Noir and raises her eyebrows; Nino and Kagami are very defensive of you, are you sure you want them to continue down this road without saying anything? He shakes his head, again. There’s another way.

“Trust me, guys, it’s 100% acting. Yes, maybe he’s tapping a bit from his Ladybug crush days, but he promised me that his feelings were gone. I think he’s secretly preparing to start a Hollywood career.” Chat Noir shoots everyone a dazzling smile, the one which has earned him millions of euros across the years, and which his father insured for about as much money. Nino twitches a little at the sight, squints, and Adrien knows he’s piqued his best friend’s suspicions. He winks at him, and watches realisation dawn upon his face.

Nino squints again, and nods towards Marinette. Chat shakes his head. On the other side of the circle, Alya beams as she observes the quiet exchange.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Marinette clears her throat, eager to change the subject, “I need you, and actually, so does Adrien.”

“Is he alright?” Kagami asks.

“He’s fine. Just needed a little dérobement from the press.” Chat Noir mimes a fencing parry, hoping she’ll make the connection. However much they trained, it always seemed like they came back to the Battez-Tirez when sparring together, and its effective parry, the dérobement. They hadn’t competed in public for a while now, preferring to rent out fencing halls when they were both in town, so they could catch up at the same time. Only the two of them would really know what he was referring to.

She nods in understanding, and he sees her shoulders untense as she turns towards Marinette with a small smile. “Understandably so. I’m guessing you have a plan, then?”

“Yes.” Marinette lets out a sigh of relief at her cooperation, and mentally thanks Chat for always knowing what to say to ease any tension. “Here’s how it’s going to go, if you’re up for it: Max, Markov, Chat Noir and I will head to the Agreste Mansion to do a little research on Gabriel Agreste and his possible ties with Hawkmoth. During that time, Alya will be hanging out with Adrien and Mirage-ing me so no one suspects that I’m gone.” She doesn’t pick up Nino and Kagami whipping their head in Alya’s direction, nor the latter’s smug grin. I know too. In fact, I was the first to know. “Nino and Kagami,” their heads whip back to her, “you guys are on Agreste and Sancoeur surveillance duty. They are not to leave this place before you get my signal. You’ll have your Miraculouses in case things get complicated.”

Kagami raises her hand. “If we’re not transformed, how will we communicate with you?”

Marinette doesn’t have the time to look stumped because Max steps forwards. “I got that part covered.” He digs into his pockets and pulls out seven earpieces, which he passes around the circle. They all look down at the simple yet clearly very sophisticated piece of equipment they’re holding, and Max nods to encourage them to put them in, Markov flying down to help them synchronise.

“Should I bother asking why you’re walking around with these?” Alya asks.

He shrugs and pushes his glasses back up. “It's basic equipment. You never know when it could come in useful.”

“Thanks, Max.” Marinette smiles.

She’s about to ask if anyone has any questions when Alix, Juleka and Rose stroll into the room. Marinette mentally goes through the wedding's timetable; this must be Kitty Section's break, if she can tell by Rose and Juleka's slightly sweaty appearance. The three ladies slow down when they see the group break the circle to face them.

“Hey everyone. You missed one hell of a performance out there. Luka was on fire on the guitar, and I think Chloé almost fainted.” Alix smirks as they approach. “Oh, hey Chat Noir.”

She reaches out for a chouquette, earning herself a vaguely threatening look from him, which she shrugs off. Marinette notes that she seems rather unsurprised that he’s hanging out with them. Her friend is actually very relaxed even by Alix standards, when she assumed any onlookers would deem their congregation at least slightly suspicious.

Then again, the woman has access to the Burrow of Time. Everything must be alright, if she’s not panicking.

“How come you’re here? Is somebody in trouble?” Rose asks the question Marinette expected, confirming that Alix must have been monitoring the situation, and takes a swig from her water bottle. Her voice is a little hoarse from the singing, but it still makes her sound like a slightly frightened child.

“Erm… Not really, except…” Marinette trails off, a good excuse eluding her as she’s scrutinised by two of the three ladies, Alix’s left eyebrow shooting up, as if she’s curious to see what she’ll come up with.

“Except for the wedding presents!” Chat Noir swoops in to the rescue, draping an arm across her shoulders. “Our lovely bride here is very tempted to open them without Adrien, but he knows her so well, that he hired me specifically to prevent from doing it.”

“Well, well, well, that’s not very cash-money of you, Marinette.” Alix tuts.

“Oh, I can put you out of your misery for ours!” Rose jumps up and down excitedly, and Juleka smiles behind her bangs.

“Yay!” Marinette exclaims feebly.

“It’s actually a joint gift from all of Kitty Section, and Mylène; we heard that you and Adrien were moving into a new apartment now that you’re married, and Luka thought a good sound system would probably be the last thing on your mind when you bought your furniture, so we went with that! And we also made you a playlist to slow dance to, it’s going to be so romantic!” She sighs.

“That’s so sweet of you guys.” Marinette looks at her friends and feels bad for lying to them when they’re so thoughtful. She hugs Rose and Juleka in turn, making sure they can feel how grateful she is. She’ll find Luka, Mylène and Ivan later.

“Want to hear what I got for you, too?” Alix asks with a smug smirk.

“Sure, if you feel like sharing.” Marinette’s smile is genuine.

“Right, so, I found this great mystery box online where they deliver you clues and then you have to solve it, a bit like an escape room, you know? Except wherever you want, at your own pace. I thought you’d appreciate it.” She shrugs, and pops another chouquette into her mouth.

Marinette and Chat Noir exchange a look. They’ve got their plate full with this mystery, and once it’s over, Marinette is pretty sure she’ll lay off the detective work. She might don the cap again for Adrien if he really wants to, but she isn’t even sure of that.

“That sounds amazing!” Alya answers instead of her, eyes glinting in excitement. “Would you send me the link? I’d love to do something like this too.”

“Sure, if you want!” Alix shrugs. “You could also hitchhike Adrien and Marinette’s game, you can participate with as many players as you want.”

Alya turns towards Marinette with pleading eyes, and her friend rolls her eyes with a smile. Of course she’d be welcome on her team. Isn't that exactly what's happening right now?

“Anyway, we should head back, the next set is starting soon.” Rose clears her throat. “It was nice seeing you guys! Stay strong, Marinette. Adrien will be back soon, you’ll open your presents together!”

“Good luck up there! Honestly you’re doing great, can’t wait for the dances!” Marinette hugs her, then Juleka, and holds Alix back.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” She pulls her slightly aside, and nods to Chat, who takes the lead of the group. He starts handing out the Miraculouses.

“Yes, boss?”

“You’re probably aware of what’s going on, what with the Rabbit Miraculous and everything…” Marinette gestures widely. “Would you keep an eye out in the Burrow, and make sure we’re not messing up anything, timeline-wise?”

“Yep, no worries! As of now, you’re doing great.” She grins.

“Super, thank you.” She sighs in relief and squeezes her friend’s arm. “I’m sorry I didn’t sound more enthusiastic about your present, earlier, I’m sure it’s amazing.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I know it’s not exactly what you need right now, but as you know, I see everything. It’ll be a hit.”

“Looking forward to trying it out, then!”

“Good. Now, go back to your scheming, I’ll keep an eye on things. I’m guessing Alya and the others have a way to communicate with you, if I see anything?”

“Yes.” Marinette smiles.

“Okay, well, I hope I won’t need it, but I’ll let one of them know if I do.” Alix pats Marinette’s arm and turns around. “Good luck out there!”

“Thanks!”

Marinette smooths her skirt, takes a deep breath and walks back to her schemers with a confident smile.

“Everybody okay?” She asks, and all nod. “Cool, because it’s go time.”

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krispydefendorpolice · 4 years

Text

The Demon’s Bride (6)

Yikes, anyone else having trouble posting new posts on tumblr. When I went to write this up literally the only option I got was a text post. Did formatting change on the apps? *shrugs* oh well. Time for the next chapter.

So it’s been a long while since my last update. Work drags me down and I didn’t have the energy to commit to writing the ideas running through my head. (Look forward to more of my Drabble ficlets because of that.).

A couple weeks (?) ago I asked for a vote and I got 2 out of 2 for Demon’s Bride so here’s the next chapter. Enjoy.

Beginning Previous Next Masterpost

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After Damian dropped Marinette off at the hotel she went inside and found a few of her classmates waiting in the lobby.

Nino was the first to see her. Standing up he called out, “Dude. Where have you been? We were so worried.”

Nino, Alix, Kim, and Max crowded around her as she entered.

“Sorry guys. My phone died on me,” holding up the dead phone for them to see, “so I couldn’t call for a ride or taxi. And I thought the hotel was reasonably close enough to walk. Forgot to account for Gotham’s Crime life though.” She added tapping her head with a closed fist to indicate the knucklehead move.

“You’re alright?” Nino asked.

Marinette hearing the unvoiced question nodded. “Fine. I had the criminal handled before the Bat and his brood showed up. Them actually getting there was what took so long.”

“Here Max,” Marinette said taking the glasses from her purse and handing them to the young man. “I also gave him some sugar cubes before and after our trip so don’t let him guilt you into believing I’m starving him either.”

“He tries it every time,” Max said replacing his frames with the pair Marinette handed him. A small ball of light briefly manifested before the small horse Kwamii hid in Max’s open bag.

“So what happened with Bustier after I left,” Marinette asked Nino as the group headed towards the elevator to take them to their rooms. Alix, Kim and Max fell back a step to follow behind the other two.

Nino pressed the call button before answering. “We told her you were still in the restroom before leaving the restaurant and again after boarding we told her you weren’t on. Markov even did a video recording of her reactions as well as a sweep of the bus to prove you weren’t on when we told her.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. Ms. Bustier had ignored all that from her friends and left her behind anyways?

“She’s even worse here than at home.” Alix voiced what they were all thinking.

“Did you...?” Marinette trailed off.

“Report filled out, sent in and as of five minutes ago reviewed and filed by the Commandant. He’s waiting for a follow up from you.”

Alix and Marinette got off when the elevator stopped. The boys would go to the floor above where their rooms were. “Thanks guys. I’ll do my check in before going to sleep and let you guys know about any changes in the morning. Do we still have a free day?”

“We haven’t heard anything about it changing but Juleka sent a text a few minutes ago that she thinks something might come up for the fashion district based on what she’s heard so far?” Max said.

Marinette whined to herself, “She would choose something I like to try and spoil. Night guys.”

The doors closed on their calls while Marinette and Alix walked to their shared room and opened the door.

Marinette used the washroom to shower first since she had just been fighting an Akuma. While Alix was taking her turn, Marinette opened her now charged phone and started a video call.

“Bonjour Commandant,” she greeted when the call was answered and an older Chinese man appeared on the screen.

“Bonjour Marinette. The team and I expected your check in almost an hour ago and the others on the trip with you hadn’t heard anything.”

Marinette shrugged one shoulder. “My phones battery was already low and Voyage travel tends to be a coin toss on how it affects electronics. When I got back to the restaurant my phone was dead and I had to walk to the hotel.”

“And it took over an hour to get there?”

“Well no,” Marinette admitted. “I ran into one of Gotham’s criminals and had that handled easily,” she said before the Commandant interrupted, “but the Bat-clan showed up and... I ran into an old friend and we took a moment to catch up.”

“You ran into an old friend? After the Bats showed up? This friend wouldn’t happen to be a Bat would they?”

Marinette shrugged but smiled so that the man knew he got it right.

“And you won’t say anything because it could compromise identities.” The Commandant finished for her. “Alright, does it change any plans for this week?”

Marinette paused thoughtfully reviewing what would be happening that week. “I don’t think so. I know him but he doesn’t know about me being LadyBug.”

She smiled brightly, “actually I would love to keep that a secret for now and surprise him with it at the meeting. Oh! Can we get Viperion, Ryuko and Abeille to come to the meeting as well? We can get them to come across using Voyage so travel won’t be a problem.”

“Do they know this old friend?”

“Yes. Well, Viperion, Ryuko and Jiuweihu do.”

“Ah,” he said with understanding at the mention of the others who knew the friend and sighed. “How likely am I to have a revolt if I don’t somehow get this approved?”

Marinette smiled mischievously. “Oh very likely. Viperion will let you know from the start what he thinks about missing this chance but it will be Ryuko you will need to watch out for.”

The Commandant shook his head tiredly. He remembered the last time Ryuko had objected to something and the entire team had faced her wrath over it. “I will do what I can. As for the trip, I would like the team to stay together in pairs or as a small group on the class free days and with the class on the group days. There’s no need to push even your luck in Gotham with the way that the teacher is likely to neglect to take your safety into consideration.”

“Bien Sûr. We’ll be on our best behaviors,” she gave him a cheeky grin and saluted before ending the call.

“You know, if anyone had told me you were like this when we first met all those years ago I would have called them crazy,” Alix commented as she left the bathroom, towel drying her wet hair.

“That’s because you only knew Marinette. Mari is only for family and the team,” Marinette explained as she sat on her bed and pulled out her sketchbook.

Alix tossed the damp towel in the bathroom before pulling out a couple cookies and some carrots from the hotels mini fridge they had stocked that afternoon when they first arrived.

After placing them on the rooms small table two small Kwamii’s flew from their hiding places, one from Marinette’s purse and one from the suitcases in the corner where the girls kept their things.

“So what did the Commandant have to say,” Alix asked as she jumped onto her bed.

“He wants us to stay in the group as much as possible during the trip. Pairs at the very least. And he told me to stay out of trouble. Not in those exact words but the intent was clear.”

“Now why he would think that LadyBug would need orders to stay out of trouble is beyond me,” Alix joked.

Marinette glared at her before turning it on the Kwamii’s where they laughed on the table.

“No respect. I get no respect,” she mumbled humorously before turning the book to Alix. “What do you think?”

“It looks like a traffic light,” Alix observed the costume. “I’ve never seen you use that color combination together.”

��It’s the characteristic colors of the Robin uniform. I don’t know why they’ve chosen those colors but every Robin used them in some variation.” Marinette went back to sketching and adding tweaks to the costume.

“So Robin’s the childhood friend?” Alix asked.

Marinette froze.

She didn’t hear Alix call her name two more times. It wasn’t until a hand in her face had her reacting (and boy would she have to apologize for nearly dislocating Alex’s shoulder for her concern).

“Ouch,” Alix mumbled rubbing her arm. “You could have just said I need to keep it quiet,” she added as she stood up from the bed.

“Sorry Alix,” Marinette apologized.

“Nah, this’s my fault,” she gestured to her arm, “I know better than to startle you or the others on Alpha team. You okay?” She asked. “You kind of spaced out on me.”

“Yeah,” Marinette said. She laughed at Alix’s disbelieving look. She cuddled Tikki and Fluff who had come to her after finishing their foods. “I will be fine,” she corrected herself. “I’m just so used to keeping identities a secret and I’m not sure how Da... How my friend would feel if his identity was outed without his knowledge. We sort of have plans to see each other during the class free days so you’ll probably see him without the mask.”

“I can get that,” Alix said remembering when the team was in the dark about each other’s identities just a year ago. It had been an added stress on top of fighting for them to worry about protecting a secret with no end in sight. If given a choice she would definitely choose what they had today over what they’d had before. She mimed zipping her lips and locking it with an imaginary key that she threw over her shoulder.

“So he’s a hero too?”

Marinette shrugged. “I think so of course but most of the research I did before the trip indicated that the city and the heroes’ themselves mostly consider them to be vigilantes though.”

“Is there a difference?” Alix asked.

Shrugging, Marinette closed her notebook and turned off the light. “Isn’t it an “In the eyes of the beholder” kind of thing. A “your hero is my villian and my vigilante is your hero” thing, at times.”

“Do you trust him?” Alix asked.

“With my life,” Marinette answered immediately. “I’m not gonna keep LadyBug a secret forever. Just timing the reveal for the best effect,” she pointed out.

Alix snorted, “please let me be there when you do. I want to see the explosion on Commandant’s face.”

Marinette laughed with Alix as night finally settled down around them.

————————————

No recommendations this week but go check out @bluerosette23 Daminette masterlists if this interested you.

@mellownieice @mystery-5-5 @indecisive-mess-named-me You three sent me votes or a really sweet ask that I appreciate so you get the first tags this post.

@mindfulmagics @ozmav @bluerosette23 @vivilakitty @actualaster @multifandomscribette @mochinek0 @inevitableenquere @zebrabaker @poshplumcot @tog84 @luciferge @sonif50 @ravennightingaleandavatempus @northernbluetongue @actual-human-disaster @clumsy-owl-4178 @aarushi-03 @g-arya @moonyloonyx @fertileleaf @shreky-boi @thanks-captain-obvious @panda3506 @hinata3487 @thequestionablyhuman @dontgiveaflyinflip @dast218 @chocolatecatstheron @asianfrustration13 @slytherinsheashire @weird-pale-blonde-person @yin-390 @mycupisbroken @vixen-uchiha @kuroko26 @autisticlinx @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @mariae2900 @zalladane @hypnosharkrebeldreamer @tbehartoo @novicevoice @violatiger8 @thebookish3lf @fandomkitty8 @redscarlet95 @gingersnapnoir @chewbaccaatemythoughts

That’s the end of the tag list folks. I will tag you first if you send me an ask or vote for the next weeks update. What will it be?

Demon’s Bride or Miraculous Future?

#daminette #maribat #marinette x damian #Betrothed AU #The Demon’s Bride #DLDR #dead dove don’t eat

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