#I had a dream with them in it alongside other things it was fun we bounced on some weird wire trampoline

[frostbite-the-bat]

Thinkogn abt the thems

#These are my best friends #I had a dream with them in it alongside other things it was fun we bounced on some weird wire trampoline #Suuuper high up #Then there was a scene drawn by an artist i like where k_k does turn into a car #Fun!

[loveinhawkins]

Robin’s always had a soft spot for Eddie Munson, but up until recently it had been in a distant kind of way; she appreciated his class clown act, the way it had a domino effect of keeping the heat off the band kids, how he hogged the spotlight for any passing douchebag’s attention.

But then they both literally dive into The Upside Down, and her appreciation reaches a whole new level.

They’re in the Wheeler’s garage, thanking their lucky stars that four bikes exist in 1983 (and yeah, Robin’s sure that if she thinks about the whole time thing for half a second more her brain will promptly melt, so she doesn’t).

Each of them are pushing their chosen bike down the driveway, in a dazed sort of silence—the high of the Lite-Brite worn off in the face of another grim journey through The Upside Down.

Steve is flagging, Robin can hear it: his breathing’s growing laboured as he walks, an occasional unsteadiness to him that’s setting her anxiety off all over again, because what if they were wrong, what if it’s really rabies, and it’s too late, it’s coursing through his veins, and he’s—they’re gonna lose him—

“Hey, Harrington,” Eddie says, swinging a leg over his saddle, “wanna race?”

“… Hmm? Sorry, what?” Steve says.

There’s not even that long of a delay in him speaking, but the pause still has Robin’s heart in her throat.

Eddie’s got one foot on a pedal now, ready to set off. He looks back at them with a shaky grin—like he’s terrified, but he’s still gonna have some fun anyway.

“I’m throwing down the gauntlet, King Steve. Bet I’ll be faster than you.”

Steve scoffs, stands up a little straighter before he mirrors Eddie, balancing on the bike with one foot on the pedal.

“How much are we betting?”

Eddie huffs. “Oh, no money involved,” he says nonchalantly. He raises an eyebrow in challenge. “This is just for the glory.”

And God, there’s that spark back in Steve’s eyes; it’s like Robin can physically see his competitive streak giving him strength.

Eddie Munson, you beautiful soul, she thinks, I could kiss you.

“Faster than me? Yeah, maybe in your dreams, Munson,” Steve says.

But Eddie’s already speeding off with a comical whoop; Steve curses as he hurriedly tries to catch up, yelling, “You dick, that’s cheating!”

“Not in my rulebook!” Eddie says with a cackle.

And for a little while, that’s enough to put Robin’s mind at ease: watching the pair of them taunt each other like kids—hearing Nancy laugh at the spectacle as she bikes alongside her.

But then she falls through the Gate, Eddie close behind her, and they freeze when Steve screams Nancy’s name with such fear.

Robin’s plunged back into a mind-numbing panic; she’s sure that her heart doesn’t even begin to slow until they’ve left the trailer park, until Steve’s control of the RV switches from ‘holy shit, we’re on the run, what have our lives become?’ to something more normal—the reliable, measured driving she’s familiar with, taking her to and from school or work.

Finally, she has time to, um… take stock. Of… things.

She wobbles her way over to Eddie, grabbing onto his elbow as Steve takes a turning.

Eddie instantly holds her up, a steadying hand around her waist. “Oh, hi. I’ve gotcha—” “Your music isn’t actually shit,” Robin says in one breath. “I know, um, on balance, it’s probably not the worst thing I could’ve said, but the delivery was—but, you know, considering I thought Nance was literally about to die, I’d say it was, like, kinda calm all things considered, but—”

Eddie’s chuckling. “Yeah, on balance,” he echoes teasingly, “you were pretty damn funny, actually. Uh, sorry for. Um. Screaming at you? Basically?”

“Basically,” Robin agrees. “Yeah, you were like impressively loud. Not quite eardrum-rupturing level, but y’know, I don’t actually know anyone who’s really had that happen to them; Amanda Wallis said she ruptured hers at the pep rally ‘cause she was standing too close to us—the band, I mean, but—”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Oh, that’s bull, there’s no way that’d be loud enough to—”

“—I think she just had a grudge ‘cause David C on mellophone got literally the tiniest bit of spit on her, and he was only—”

“Yeah, well, everyone knows you sit in the splash zone at your own risk.”

“Exactly! She’s had plenty of time to learn marching band protocol.”

“Uh-huh, protocol,” Eddie echoes again, with a giggle.

He’s got a nice kind of laugh, Robin thinks: one where she’s never in doubt that he’s laughing with her rather than at her.

“That stuff you do’s pretty cool,” he says; with his free hand, he actually imitates her mime of playing a trumpet. “You must have good, uh…” She can see the exact moment that he’s having second thoughts about saying it, but he forges ahead anyway, with a hilariously uncertain, “Good… lungs?”

“Fascinating attempt at a compliment,” Robin says. “Luckily for you, I accept insults as, like, equal tokens of friendship.”

Eddie does a double take. He doesn’t go so far as letting out a questioning, “We’re friends?”, but he might as well have said it anyway: his eyes widen for a moment, like someone who’s just been unexpectedly asked out to prom.

Steve takes another turning; he does it smoothly enough, but even he can’t stop the RV from moving with it, and Robin stumbles again, very nearly ends up repeating how she toppled right onto Eddie in The Upside Down.

“Woah there, you’re good,” Eddie says, “just gotta find your, uh, what’s it called? Your equilibrium.”

“I don’t have any,” Robin says, all theatrical devastation, and Eddie snorts.

“Sure you do, Buckley. Look, just take my—yeah, that’s it, then just kinda straighten up… yeah, you’ve got it.”

And yes, after a minute or so, Robin’s footing does feel more certain, but she still keeps a stubborn grip on Eddie’s elbow, just in case.

“God, d’you know what I’m gonna do when all this is over?” Eddie says.

“Pray tell.”

“I’m gonna make a list. What was it you said, Madonna, Blondie…? Whatever, I’m getting all of them, m’never getting caught out like that again.”

“I’m hoping that needing music to evade the clutches of a serial killer from an alternate dimension is, um, strictly a one-time thing.”

“Don’t care,” Eddie says. “Still buying those tapes. Just in case.”

And yeah, it’s said partly in jest, but Robin can hear that he means it. Still, it’s the most optimistic that she’s heard him be so far: making plans for after, like he can really see a way through this. Like maybe he finally knows that they’ll help him get there.

“Need a list of tapes from you too, Buckley. You and Harrington.”

Robin smiles. Her first thought is of singing Total Eclipse of the Heart from the dirt-ridden floor of a mall bathroom, but then she thinks of every car ride with Steve, every time they’ve turned up the radio to belt along, and she knows that there are way too many songs to count.

“Forget a list,” Robin says, “I could fill a book. Same for big boy over there.”

Eddie blinks, like he’s suddenly taking stock, too. “Oh yeah,” he says, laughing lightly, “I did say that, huh?”

“Sure did. I was doubting my ears, too.”

Robin had been hoping they’d long since reached the point of being able to joke around with one another. But while Eddie does laugh again, he also starts biting at his thumbnail, glancing over at Steve in the driver’s seat.

“Um, hey.” Robin manages to keep her balance, briefly pressing her knee against his leg. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Eddie.”

“No, I know.” Eddie huffs self-effacingly. “I’ve kinda got permanent foot-in-mouth disease, my report cards would tell you that.”

Well, if he wants to pass it off as sometimes I just say the darnedest things, Robin would be a hypocrite to deny him.

It fascinates her in a sad sort of way though, how he veers between joking and nervousness—like he’s worried he’s intruding on their group, of overstepping somehow.

She wants to tell him: Look, we all got dragged into this, but we chose to stick around, and you’re no different.

But she no longer has the aftermath of Russian drugs to help bypass her own nerves, to kickstart her sincerity.

“Hey, you’re awfully quiet back there,” Steve calls, and Eddie startles.

Robin shakes her head. “Not us, that’s his—”

“Hello? Henderson, I’m talking to you.”

“We’re not even doing anything!” Dustin shouts back in exaggerated affront.

He’s sat on the backseat of the RV, peering out the window along with Lucas, Erica and Max. Robin stifles a chuckle at the sight; they look like they’re on a field trip—the cool kids at the back of the bus.

“Yeah, well, just checking,” Steve says, amused. “For all I know, you coulda been building a gigantic radio again on, like, the roof of this thing.”

“Cerebro,” Dustin says, just as Eddie lets out a baffled, “Uh, again?”

But then they’re pulling into The War Zone’s parking lot, and any chatter abruptly dies.

Afterwards, Steve gets off the road to park in a reassuringly deserted field. They don’t head outside right away (Robin’s not exactly looking forward to prepping Molotov cocktails), instead staying in the RV to eat junk food they’d grabbed beforehand.

Robin discovers that Dustin’s somehow bought five more cans of Pringles and snorts, declaring, “You’ve got a problem.”

At some point, Steve tries to sneak off to the bathroom so he can change his dressings—“And use actual proper bandages!” Robin calls to him; no offence to Nancy’s resourcefulness, but the torn shirt strips only do so much good.

It becomes a more comical than horrifying event, although she’s sure that’s down to Steve deliberately making it so, like a sleight of hand trick: playing it down as he keeps talking to the kids throughout, never wincing even once.

He ends up having to keep the bathroom door open to continue an argument with Erica over which Scoops Ahoy sundae was the best of all time—then figures that he might as well just step out into the open anyway.

At least the wounds have stopped bleeding—although the sight of Steve cleaning around them with bottled water is one that Robin could personally do without.

The kids are entirely unfazed. They flock to Steve, peering at the glimpses he lets them see like he’s just got a cool tattoo. Robin supposes that after El and whatever nightmare wormy thing was in her leg, they’ve seen everything.

Eddie, however, is another matter. He keeps quiet about it, not obvious at all, but Robin watches his face grow paler and paler before Steve wraps the new bandages around his stomach.

Dustin, bless his precocious little heart, must also notice, because he quickly starts up a seemingly impromptu game of charades, meaning that Eddie is soon distracted by his ridiculously over the top gestures.

“No, Steve, how are you not getting this?”

“I thought the whole appeal of this game was that you’re not meant to talk, Henderson. Dude, watch it, you nearly took Max’s eye out with… whatever the hell that was.”

“Oh my god, it’s Back to the Future, obviously! Ow, Max, I didn’t mean to—uh, yeah, the mime needs to be that big, how else am I gonna project what—”

“Dustin, I swear to god, I’m about to project you out the window,” Steve drawls.

Eddie laughs, hides it behind his hand.

But Steve must catch it, because he glances over at Eddie and winks before he’s dragged back into guessing another movie title.

And Robin’s obviously seen Steve wink before—he does it all the time, so much so that she’s become quite adept at reading when it’s a friendly one for her, or if he’s sharing some kind of in-joke with one of the kids.

She’s also seen his attempts at a ‘smooth’ wink towards some girls at work—and look, he’s Steve Harrington, it’s not like he’s going to be bad at it.

But if you ask Robin, it’s never looked quite right, like he’s always performing to an audience he’s unsure of.

But this wink doesn’t look like it belongs to either of those categories. Well, it’s got something in common with the first: that it looks entirely natural, as if he’s doing it almost without thinking. Like it just feels right.

They go through some more rounds of charades—Dustin’s gestures, if possible, getting even more dramatic—and Eddie gradually goes from contributing a few guesses to none at all, curling up on the backseat. He looks utterly wiped out.

Robin tries to catch Nancy’s eye, and after a few attempts, she gets the message, stands up with a nod.

“Okay, let’s take this outside, guys.”

“Spoken like a true camp counsellor,” Max says.

Nancy acts like she’s offended, but her lips keep twitching into a smile. “Max, never say that to me again.”

“There’s more space outside,” Erica says, “so we can duck out the way of Dustin’s windmilling arms.”

“Hey!”

“I’m bored of charades,” Lucas says. “We could do another competition? Like, I dunno, cartwheels or handstands or something?”

“Oh sure, so I can show you up?” Max returns, grinning.

Steve scoffs. “Uh, if you’re doing a cartwheel competition, I would win.”

“Since when?” Dustin says, an obvious taunt that Steve predictably rises to, flipping him off.

“Save your athletics for Vecna, please,” Nancy cuts in dryly.

“It wouldn’t be a fair fight.” Lucas gestures to Steve’s stomach, a little uncertainly. “You know, considering…”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Under normal circumstances, I would kick all your asses.”

“Sure,” Robin says brightly, “but Steve, if you do literally anything more strenuous than sitting down right now, I’m gonna—”

“Uh, Steve would kick your asses, actually,” Eddie says slowly. His voice is muffled from the way his hand’s holding up his chin, partly covering his mouth. “He did gymnastics.”

Robin, surprised, looks to Steve; he’s doing that thing where he scratches at his cheek unconsciously, seems to be a mixture of embarrassed and pleased.

“How’d you know that?” he asks.

Eddie shrugs. “We didn’t have a cover for gym one time, remember? There was a whole group of us slacking off but you just kept doing, y’know,” he twirls his fingers, “tricks on that box thingy.”

“Vaulting box,” Steve corrects like he can’t stop himself. He’s sporting an almost abashed little smile that Robin’s never seen before.

Eddie shrugs again. “S’all Greek to me,” he says, interrupts himself halfway through with a deep yawn.

Steve’s eyes soften. And then he’s ushering the kids outside, “C’mon, you can do whatever competition you want for thirty minutes before we get to work.”

“Got it, coach.”

“Shut up, Mayfield.”

“I’ll be your stopwatch if you’re doing handstands,” Nancy chips in, bringing up the rear—she catches Robin’s eye again, subtly tilts her head in Eddie’s direction and mouths Stay?

Robin nods.

“Uh, that won’t be accurate at all,” comes Dustin’s rebuttal—he’s outside now, but his voice still carries. “Unless you can like accurately keep time in your head down to the second—”

“Oh my god, Dustin, you’re such a shithead.”

“Nancy Wheeler, I’m heartbroken.”

Steve’s chuckle floats through the open door. “She said it, dude, not me.”

“You say it all the goddamn time!”

And then the voices fade away until all Robin can hear is distant laughs and joyful screams. It’s relaxing, in its own way.

“No gymnastics for you, Buckley?” Eddie says.

“Nope, not since 7th grade. Managed two cartwheels before I broke my wrist.”

Eddie winces in sympathy. He’s slumping a bit more; Robin makes herself comfy in the opposite corner of the backseat, gives him the most space.

She feels a weird lump at her back, behind one of the cushions. A quick investigation reveals an issue of TV Guide Magazine.

“Ooh, we can find out what we missed while on the run,” she says, waggling it in front of Eddie.

He smiles with a small huff. “Doubt it. Says 1981 on the front.”

“What’s a little more time travel?”

Robin flicks through to the crossword. She’s all too aware that Eddie’s still sat more stiffly than anything else. With Steve, it would be so easy; she could prod him in the thigh with her toe, light touches until he took the hint and relaxed.

But even before they’d really become friends, they were tactile: a tap on the shoulder to grab attention, bumping hips to move each other out of the way whenever they were scooping ice-cream at the same time. It’d been done so unconsciously, like they were already learning to read each other’s minds.

With Eddie, it’s clear that a different approach is needed.

Robin had caught onto that after her misstep at the boathouse, a pit in her stomach at the sight of Eddie’s hands shaking.

But her instinct to reach out, to soothe, made her unthinkingly try again; as they walked in the woods, she’d heard his breathing quicken, and her hand lightly brushed his back. She drew back as he instantly flinched at her touch.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said hurriedly. “Just—just checking you were okay. Sorry.”

Eddie just stared at her before nodding hesitantly.

And Robin wanted to tell him that it wasn’t by chance, that he had people who cared about him; that she did, and it wasn’t a fluke or an accident—she was choosing it.

She keeps her eyes on the magazine, jots down a few crossword answers. It reminds her of summer days spent reading on her grandparents’ porch, not wanting to startle a cat her grandpa had rescued as it approached her. It was always so spooked.

“You’ve just gotta let him come to you, sweet pea,” her grandma would say.

After a couple minutes, she hears Eddie breathe out, the creak of the seat as he lies down. He rests his head right next to her thigh.

“S’good?” he asks, pointing at the magazine.

“It’s pretty easy.” One of the crossword clues is ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the?’ which isn’t exactly taxing. “I’m used to doing the cryptic ones.”

Eddie laughs. He kinda sounds fond. “Of course you are.”

“They’re not that hard, once you know how to read ‘em.”

“Hmm, I doubt that. Lay one on me, Buckley.”

She purses her lips in thought. “Oh, I got this one last week. Condition of Wyoming, five letters.”

Eddie lifts his head ever so slightly to give her a blank look. “Not a fucking clue.”

“State. Get it? ‘Cause ‘condition’ is the definition, and Wyoming is literally—”

“God, I’m surrounded by geniuses.”

“Well, I’ve got the advantage of a summer of code-breaking.”

Robin slowly raises her hand as she speaks—makes sure to do it in Eddie’s line of vision, spots that he doesn’t pull back, that he even gives the tiniest half-nod. She pats his head twice.

Eddie scrunches up his nose. “Sorry, my hair’s gross.”

“It’s not that bad,” Robin says honestly. “Y’know for being on the run, it’s holding up pretty well. I’m getting whatever shampoo you use.”

Eddie smiles. “Sure.”

“Yours is looking way better than mine did after, like, one day getting wrapped up in all this.” Again, without really thinking, Robin adds, “I had all this sweat and blood and puke in it.”

Eddie’s eyes are closed now. He makes an unhappy sound, prods gently at her knee. “You’ve all gotta work on telling me horrific shit. That should not be casual for you, Buckley.”

He sounds emphatic—protective, even. Robin feels unexpectedly emotional.

“Yeah, sorry. Bad habit.”

Silence falls, and by the time Steve enters the RV, Robin has filled in the whole crossword, Eddie dozing by her side.

Steve’s getting another bottle of water—actually drinking it this time. He’s got grass stains on his knees, and he’s sweating slightly, like the ‘stay still’ advice hasn’t once been taken.

His eyes soften again when he sees Eddie sleeping—he doesn’t need to linger, but he does.

Robin watches.

We need more time, Steve, she thinks suddenly. For you to keep looking at him like that—for him to be awake to see it.

Steve tears his eyes away. Lands on her.

She smiles, mouthing What?

Steve rolls his eyes. He imitates her ‘what?’ mockingly, but then he smiles back and taps at his wrist, mimes winding a watch on. It’s what they do whenever they’re slammed at work, wanting to talk, but only able to briefly catch each other’s eyes in the rush. Later.

She taps her wrist. Later, she promises.

He gives her a double thumbs up—what a dork—before heading back outside.

Robin quietly puts the magazine away. Ever so carefully, she lightly strokes Eddie’s hair, feels her heart swell and break at the same time when he sighs contentedly in his sleep.

You’d better look after yourself, Eddie Munson, she thinks. You’ve got people here. People who really want you to stick around.

#on newly forming friendships and love ❤️ #eddie and robin #robin buckley fic #eddie munson fic #pre steddie #steddie #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steve and the party #steve and dustin #robin buckley #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #steve and robin #eddie and robin fic

[lavendermunson]

i want you, bless my soul - eddie munson

from the candy cane box at leia's christmas tree farm

summary best friend au, with the prompt “So, um. That was something. Should we do that again?” for the one and only @onegirlmanytales thank you for requesting my love, I hope you like the direction I took and enjoy it so much!!

cw FLUFF. best friends to lovers. two oblivious idiots in love. r's first kiss. brief mention of insecurities. steve and robin cameo!

w.c 1.7k

“No one has ever kissed me… let’s just forget about it!”

You sigh, placing the freshly baked cookies on a beautiful porcelain bowl Eddie gave you last Christmas. Their scent calming every nerve your best friend decides to play with today.  All of your friends are arriving in a couple of minutes for the annual Christmas party.

“You are telling me no one has ever kissed you under the rain?”

“Eddie please, just stop it”

“No one has ever kissed you under the moonlight!”

He tries to guess. You regret telling him about your first kiss. It hasn’t happened yet… but he thinks it has, he just thinks it was bad or embarrassing because you’ve never told him. And you tell him everything, he is your best friend.

“You are never going to guess, I'm tired of this now”

He chases you around your house, as you walk with the bowl of cookies in your hands. You place them on the coffee table of your living room, alongside all the other snacks and drinks to enjoy the night. 

“I know! no one has ever kissed you under the mistletoe. That’s why you don’t have one” 

Eddie thinks he hit the jackpot, smiling brightly at you. 

“No one has ever kissed me, okay!” you snap, tired of his games. “I haven’t had my first kiss yet” 

You throw your hands in the air, standing in front of him. Eddie was the only one who didn’t know about this. The rest of your friends know, because you know they weren’t going to laugh or make fun of you. But Eddie is capable of it, not because he is mean. His personality is just like that, he is the joke expert and the prank master. This was a serious topic to you, something that kept toying with your self-esteem.

Your arms fall to the side, your hands close on a fist, white knuckles and eyes shut trying to hide the embarrassment that’s eating you alive as you wait for Eddie to laugh at you and make a hundred jokes about this. 

You wish the floor could swallow you whole.

Eddie notices the way you tense up, confessing the secret you’ve held for a long time. He thought there was some catch to it, but there wasn’t. Who the fuck can live without ever kissing your lips? he asks himself, when he has been dreaming about it since the first time he met you at the arcade. 

You were babysitting the kids, holding their quarters for them as you paced around the sticky carpet. Back when Eddie’s ears got used to quieting down everything around him except your sweet voice. 

He didn’t want to lose you, he could never. And he was sure he wasn’t your type, with your room having a Karate Kid poster and a picture of Michael Schoeffling ripped out of a magazine.

Missing the picture of Eddie Van Halen on your jewelry box, he knew your type was far away from him. 

You were never going to like him, his friends would tease him about it. They would fill Eddie’s mind with ideas that tormented him before going to bed. You are way too out of his league.

He is happy with the best friend title because he gets the best friend treatment. He gets to hug you when you see him, cuddle with you on movie nights, and hang around his trailer all day. He would never trade your presence for anything, not a metal concert, not even the fame some rockstars get overnight.

For Eddie you are everything, you mean everything. His life is so much better with you around.

But he doesn’t laugh or start making a full comedy show, instead, you hear the thump of things falling out of his pockets. His lighter, a pack of cigarettes, previously chewed gum wrapped in a piece of paper, and his van keys. He empties his pockets trying to find what he has been looking for and when he finds it, he goes around your house looking for tape.

“What are you doing with that? no one is coming here to kiss me, only our friends” 

“Well? m’lady. I doubt you want to spend another Christmas unkissed” He takes your hand, guiding you closer to him until you are both under the mistletoe. “This is how it works, you stand here, and as the rule says you kiss the person in front of you”

You watch as Eddie taps the branch with his finger. Pointing at it, then at him, and finally at you. You are exactly in the spot, you look at him. Begging him to kiss you.

You've thought about it for a while. What would it be like to kiss him? Not someone random, not a guy who coats your ears with sugar at work. Just Eddie.

The guy who sits on the edge of his bed, shirtless, and while his fingers are gentle with the strings of his guitar you can’t do anything else but admire. Trying to memorize all of his features and tattoo that scene on your head for the rest of your life.

The guy who asked you to color his tattoos, trusting your artistic eye and trying to kill time before the pizza got to his trailer. You asked for a rain check that night, knowing you’d lose your mind the second your fingers touched his bare chest.

“And who’s gonna kiss me?” you ask. 

“Uhh, Jonathan?” Eddie asks, raising one of his eyebrows. Trying to question you to see who your type is.

“I pass” 

“Steve?” Eddie’s voice cracks. If you passed at Jonathan, there’s a high chance you could say yes to Steve and he would fall to his knees, defeated. 

“I don’t think so” 

His brown eyes are wide open. Shit. Not even Steve?

“Let’s just enjoy our evening…” Unless you want to kiss me, you think.  “Let’s forget about it”

You try to escape from the compromised positions, but your legs feel heavy as you step aside. You thought Eddie was going to kiss you. 

When you try to escape, he wraps his fingers around your wrist and pulls you back to him.

“Wait”

You feel a jolt of electricity, his touch being hard on you yet not hurting. His eyes looking for yours and when you finally lock your gaze with his. He takes a deep breath, ready to risk it all.

Eddie pulls you to his chest, resting a hand on the small of your back. You feel the goosebumps all over your body, his breath tingling your lips. He notices the shine in your eyes, pleading for him to do something because you are too nervous to move.

If he wanted to kiss you, he would kiss you. That’s what you believe. 

He looks at your eyes, at your lips. Impatient, he is making you melt under his touch, and you feel your insides are screaming at him to do something. You decide to wrap your arms around his waist, afraid of him slipping through your fingers and regretting this moment.

You capture him. As he looks down at you like a starved man. 

Eddie’s mind is clouded with hundreds of thoughts. This could be so good, this could get bad and ugly. It’s your first kiss, it should be special. It should be with someone you like, Do you like him? Do you want him?

He snaps back to reality when you reach for a strand of hair that fell to his face. Tugging the curl in the back of his ear. Your fingers send shivers through his spine, feeling your gentle touch against his skin. He melts under your touch too.

“Let’s get this over with” he breathes out, digging his fingertips on the small of your back to keep you close. His lips press against yours, you close your eyes enjoying the moment. 

But it’s your first kiss. You don’t know what to do, but just as you start to panic Eddie cups your cheeks, his thumb pressing against your warm skin. 

“Relax” he whispers on your lips, taking control of the situation. You feel his lips crash with yours, dancing against them as you try to keep up with the pace.

Is this how it feels? To kiss someone for the first time, or even better, to kiss the boy you love for the first time. Your mind is in the clouds, every part of your body feels lighter as a feather.

His lips are so soft. What the actual fuck? How were you able to survive so long without this?

It’s your first kiss. But it feels like it’s Eddie’s too. He can feel his body fill up with electricity, his heart thumping against his chest – just like yours – He has kissed girls before, even boys. But this feeling is new, he is finally kissing someone he loves.

“WOAH! They are kissing” You break away from the kiss as you hear Robin’s voice. She looks at you then at Eddie, a smile showing off on her face. “Sorry, keep doing that!” 

“Good job, guys!” Steve says, pushing Robin to the kitchen as she keeps her thumbs up in the air.

Eddie shakes his head, looking down at you. Seeing that smile he loves so much as you giggle, with your body so close to his. You try to catch the air he knocked out of your lungs, keeping him pressed against you.

“Woah indeed” His eyes look at the mistletoe, at your puffy pink lips, and at your flushed cheeks. He grins proudly. 

“That was… something” you smile, scrunching up your nose as you look at his matching pink lips and cheeks.

“Should we do it again?” he asks, his chest heaving up and down. 

“Please” you whisper, feeling your body yearning for more of him.

“Anything you want, princess”

He kisses you again, this time he quickens the pace of it. You feel his tongue brush against yours causing you to whimper. He giggles at your reaction, groaning for more of you. Eddie is addicted to your taste already. If the smell of your chapstick made him crazy, this sure is going to kill him.

You start to move your tongue, feeling the closure as your teeth crash with his, and the mix of chapstick and saliva, with a touch of cigarette coats your bottom lip. You can’t get enough of the feeling of his lips keeping yours warm and nice.

“Fuck, you taste good” his shaky words come out as he takes a breather, inches from your lips. His teeth find your bottom lip, nipping at it as you open your mouth for him once again.

You won't be spending Christmas unkissed.

reblog to support your creators! comments are appreciated !! ♡ thank you for following my christmas event, your support means so much to me  🎄

#leia writes ⊹ #leia’s christmas tree farm #eddie munson x female!reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x oc #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader fluff #eddie munson x fem!reader ants #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson au #eddie munson fluff #st x reader #st x y/n #eddie x y/n #eddie x reader #eddie x fem!reader #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #stranger things x y/n #eddie Munson x reader angst #eddie munson angst #best friends to lovers

[matrixbearer2024]

Clubbing Catastrophe

Vox x CollegeStudent!Reader

A/N: Direct continuation to "Roller Rinking, Dancing And Dreaming" Vox and Reader are still on their "date"(?) I say that with heavy quotations because they are moving slower than a frickin snail- not to mention that it's practically like a group outing at this point LMAO- I think this chapter is actually pretty fun and we see some flirting? Or at least very very odd attempts at it- Also we get some protective Voxy! Before he unceremoniously almost puts himself out of commission because we playin with him too much HAHAHAHA also there's been requests in the past for Reader to get flustered- so here it isss!

A/N: This interlude probably isn't as long as the other ones- but I had fun writing this and I'll be back with other ideas pretty quickly too. As always, I hope you guys enjoy the story and Happy Reading!

It didn't take long for you to find your groove in the music that blasted through the club.

Twirling around on your feet and dancing to the beat alongside the other partygoers.

Vox had wandered away from you a little while ago to get himself a drink, even if he was hesitant at first to leave you.

"Are you sure? I can just get it later-"

"You worry too much dude! I'll be fine, it's just a few minutes!"

It took a bit of convincing before you managed to get the overlord to stop worrying and he disappeared into the crowd.

You couldn't help feeling flattered that he cared that much though.

Even so, you wouldn't be surprised if it was leftover nerves because of the scare you both had a few days ago with you dying and all-

"Hey cutie~ What's a pretty little thing like you doing in a place like this?"

A slurred voice came from nearby, great- just another wasted idiot.

A frown formed on your face as your ears pinned backwards, a taller sinner moving to approach you with a sinister grin.

You stopped dancing, crossing your arms and glaring at them.

"I'm just here to enjoy with my friends, I'm not interested in any of your crap."

"Aw come on doll, don't be like that~ let me take you out for some fun~"

You cringed at the petname and just moved backwards as the stranger reached out towards you.

It was never really an issue when Vox did it, but it felt abhorrently disgusting hearing it from someone else's mouth.

There was just none of the charisma and all of the revulsion.

"Uh, no thanks and don't call me that."

"Aww, why not doll~?"

"Because only I can do that, got a fucking problem?"

You felt the buzz of static charge before Vox suddenly appeared in front of you with a swift bolt of blue electricity.

It was shocking to see him return so quickly but you felt relieved nonetheless.

Curious at the sudden silence, you peeked from behind your techno companion to see the sinner that was earlier trying to pull a move on you look like they were going to shit themselves on the spot.

You couldn't help but giggle when they immediately mumbled apologies and just ran off, tail between their legs.

Maybe having an overlord for a buddy really did have it's perks-

"Did they do anything to you?"

You snapped out of your cheeky headspace when you realize Vox was giving you a once over.

His concerned gaze meeting your own when he couldn't notice anything physically out of sorts.

Did he always look this good?

You could hear your pulse ring in your ears, a fuzzy warmth blooming in your chest that seemingly came out of nowhere.

The overlord simply raised an eyebrow when you suddenly looked away, shyly tucking a strand of hair out of your face.

"I-I'm good! Thanks for the save... I could've handled that- you know."

Huh.

How cute of you.

Vox couldn't help the smug smile when he realized you'd gotten flustered over his chivalrous gesture.

It really wasn't much of an effort on his end but he figured it wouldn't hurt to prod you juuuust a little.

"Suuuure you could, but don't you think I should get a reward for protecting you?"

The overlord was almost concerned that you hurt yourself with how quickly your head turned to look at him.

Almost.

"H-huh?! Oh fine... what do you have in mind?"

Your tone feigned annoyance but your eyes told a completely different story.

What was with that eager gaze?

Vox really didn't expect to see that from you, this was just supposed to be a harmless game!

Yet now you were starting to make even him nervous-

His TV screen buffered slightly before Vox collected himself, he couldn't tease you properly if he was embarrassed too.

"It's nothing big, just- zZzST- buy me a drink?"

You merely raised an eyebrow at him before rolling your own eyes, where did all his confidence just go?

Hm... that meant the ball was in your court now.

Let's see just how far you could push it.

With a subtle smirk, you grabbed the lapels of Vox's blazer to pull him down to be eye-level with you.

That really caught the overlord off guard, his wide eyes seeming to question your intentions.

Well, that was before his processing immediately screeched to a halt when you pressed a chaste kiss on the side of his screen where his cheeks would be.

"I'll be at the bar, don't keep me waiting."

He kind of just stood there dumbfounded when you let go and sauntered away, just earlier you'd been flustered and shy???

What the hell was that?!

His screen immediately tinged red and he had to reboot several times to avoid crashing entirely.

Seriously what the FUCK was that?!

Thank goodness for the colorful flashing lights though because he wouldn't be able to disguise his screen freaking out hadn't there been any.

You found yourself covering your face as you went over to the bar and ordered a margarita for yourself and just some rum for Vox.

You internally panicked while just watching the bartender prepare your beverage.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-

Just what in God's name were you bloody thinking?!

"Heya shortcakes, been enjoying yourself?"

"Kind of? I feel like I did something kind of stupid though-"

"Uh oh, what did you do?"

You looked at Angel apprehensively, should you tell him?

Ah whatever, just a little chat while waiting for Vox wouldn't hurt.

"I- It's just a game- right? Like, I mess with Vox and he just does it back- so it should be okay??"

Angel just nonchalantly watched you practically fall at the seams, for someone so confident and sassy-

All it took was a certain mister tall and electric boogaloo to have you all over the place.

"Toots, you're actin like you poisoned him or something."

"Angel, I'm pretty sure what I did was worse- way worse."

"What the fuck could possibly be worse than tryin to kill someone?"

You rapidly mumbled out a reply, practically eating your words when the bartender placed your ordered drinks in front of you.

Angel just couldn't understand what your issue was though and asked again.

"Seriously! It can't be that bad?"

"I may have... sortakindakissedhim-"

Angel did a spit take on the cocktail he was drinking.

"YOU DID WHAAAAT?!"

You had to cover your ears and just shush the hell out of your spider companion when he was immediately all over you.

At this rate from how loud the arachnid was being you wouldn't be surprised if nearly everyone around you could piece what was going on.

"Oh my god- WAHAH- and Husker was sayin it would never happen!"

"It was just on the cheek Angel! Now fucking shut it already!

"Am I... intruding on something here?"

Oh god-

Couldn't the timing have been any worse?!

You wanted to crawl into a hole and die again.

Angel just laughed at your embarrassment and Vox's obvious cluelessness.

The overlord was only able to approach a little while ago, so he didn't hear much of the conversation.

And that totally wasn't because he had to reboot himself up several times.

Yeah that totally wasn't because he was busy trying not to crash his systems after what you did.

"Well, I'll leave you two ta figure things out. It's like watching a shitty romcom but live!"

You just shoved Angel off his chair with a grumble, making the spider simply laugh once more at you before disappearing into the crowd on the dance floor.

Seriously-

This was real life, not a fuckin romantic drama-

Eughhhhhh-

"Do... I even wanna know?"

"I'd honestly rather you didn't."

You slid Vox his drink when he sat next to you, taking a sip of your cocktail to try and hide the blush on your face.

For once, the two of you were just silent.

Neither knowing where to even start a conversation when you just decided to throw caution to the wind anyway.

"Look, about earlier-"

It didn't occur to you that the technology overlord sitting by your side was seriously finding amusement in your embarrassment, just watching and listening to you ramble on and on like a fool.

Well, a cute fool.

Swirling the drink in his hand, Vox used his other hand to push some of your hair away from your face.

The fact you were so worked up about the kiss you gave him was just hilarious.

You didn't even comprehend what he was doing until you felt a slight electrical jolt to your forehead.

It didn't hurt, but it was noticeable enough for you to suddenly stop talking.

"There, now we're even."

You looked at the technology overlord with wide eyes as he just sipped on his drink so casually.

Did-

Did this fucker really just-?!

You could feel your face just explode in a blush, your heart absolutely beating in your ears as the club seemed a bit too warm now.

You threw your hands over your face and just made some unintelligible noise in utter embarrassment.

Vox couldn't help but chuckle as he glanced over at you.

Suffice to say, he wins this round.

#vox x reader #hazbin hotel #vox #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin vox #hazbin vox x reader #vox x you #hazbin hotel vox x reader #get off my screen series

[upheavalofmemory]

PAC | Your Love Story in Song

Someone who received a reading from me once said that I tend to write scenarios as if I'm writing a whole fanfic. While I'm not a fanfic writer, I do love writing so... This pick-a-card is about your future love story based on songs!

This can apply to your future spouse, for your future partner, etc, although it is intended to be the most impactful relationship you have. I will be using shufflemancy and intuition, plus there is a bonus moodboard/image section!

♢ There are three piles to choose from, all are CDs with writing on them/quotes. Pile one is "Songs to listen to when you're in love", pile two is "You're the only thing in life that I got right", and pile three is "Everything I could never tell you." ♢

Pile One ♢ "Songs to listen to when you're in love"

Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun

C'mon - Single Version by Panic! At The Disco & fun.

Capsize by FRENSHIP & Emily Warren

A heaviness. Two people who refuse to believe that they're in love, but rather continue to wallow in their own problems until they realize that there was someone there all along. Youth. They both take baby steps until they realize that someone has been there alongside them the whole time and together they bring themselves up. Unfortunately, the highs are high and the lows are low, and sometimes it leads to explosive fights, crying, and the neverending cycle of breakups.

It's blue. It's in the dark, two lovers holding hands as you both sob over the destruction you have caused together. You both think to yourselves "Maybe this is why we are meant to be?" A combination of hail and rain, the worst thunderstorms, and the brightest sunny days after them, but mostly because you know that others would not be able to handle your violence (not literal).

On the worst days, you almost melt into each other. On the best days, you blend and ebb with each other's flows. There is no fear in either of your depths. They can get terrifying, yes, and from an outside perspective it can be seen as a toxic, violent cycle, but it is far from the truth. It's bittersweet, it's growth, it's pulling out hair like pulling weeds and sharpening knives to cut out rotten flesh. It's painful, yes, but it's the most invigorating ride you both have ever been on, and it's the most growth you've ever had. You trigger each other in the best and worst way possible.

It's pain and ascension. Growing your wings, pulling out the flightless feathers. Scratching away dead scales, shedding and spitting up venom. Like an animal learning how to breathe again. Poetic misery.

Pile Two ♢ You're the only thing in life that I got right."

Nineteen by Dylan

Joan of Arc by Arcade Fire

Stop Making This Hurt by Bleachers

Good morning kisses and back hugs. Shared memories and shared coffee mugs, cuddles, and long movie marathons, but something is changing.

The love you shared is changing. Neither of you has gotten this far, you have no idea how to react. The passionate morning kisses become awkward side steps, the cuddles become awkward and suddenly you hate the color of the walls. You still love them, yes of course, but it's changing it's hue. Your chameleon lover is changing its colors and you haven't adjusted to the change in saturation. The giddiness goes away and becomes...comfortable. You fear that the passion is gone, you've never felt this way before. You're afraid they'll leave you.

You both lay on the duvet, staring above at the ceiling fan. Suddenly, you're both older. "How did we get here? Where has the time gone?" You both look at each other with a somewhat sad, but tender smile. The love hasn't gone away, it's just changed forms, and you're finally adjusted to the slower love you always deserved. You kiss, it's awkward and cheeky, but it brings a warmness to your body you've never felt before, a warmness you want to keep forever, and so you both do.

BONUS: While looking for images, Boreas by the Oh Hellos was playing in my head, it definitely matches the warm energy of this pile.

Pile Three ♢ "Everything I could never tell you"

East of Eden by Zella Day

Oh No! by MARINA

Mine Forever by Lord Huron

It was a hook-up, it was a fling. You never pictured that you'd actually love your goofy lover. You couldn't imagine them being serious about anyone until one night you looked into their eyes and realized it wasn't lust. Out of fear, you left, and you were terrified.

This wasn't the type of person you would bring home to your family, but rather show off to your friends and your Instagram stories, but now things are changing. They aren't the person you expected to be, and you're slowly falling in love with their dopey smile and messy hair. "Nothing can get better than this," they say with a smile, and fall asleep in your arms. You feel the same way and it scares you.

You run from it, you ghost them and break their heart just for a moment until you look at yourself in the mirror and see the person you've never wanted to become. You take off your mask and realize you're just a scared child who never knew you were worthy of love or desired love. You put in the work, you change your face, and break your old mask.

You show up to their house to apologize and try to start fresh again, and whether or not they accept your apology is up to them, but you'll never forget them regardless.

Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to check out my masterpost with more readings, or you can support me by purchasing a reading by clicking here. Thanks for the support, let me know which pile you picked and if it resonated or not :)!

#pick a card #tarot reading #oracle reading #pac #pac tarot #pick a picture #pac reading #tarot pac #pick a pile reading #love tarot free #love reading #fs reading #future spouse tarot #future spouse pac #future spouse pick a card #upheavalofmemory #uomTAROT

[lineffability]

For the sharing a bed prompt list...2 and 8? As well as any others you want to include because they're all delightful XD

"Did you know you talk in your sleep?"

"I- what?" Crowley, drowsy, blinked against the light coming from above. For a moment he thought it was Aziraphale, but it was just the lamp on the ceiling. He sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Right. Bookshop. Lots of alcohol. Late, probably.

Wait. Did you know you talk in your sleep? Oh fuck. Oh Satan. Oh hell. Oh no. Slowly, carefully, Crowley turned his head towards Aziraphale, making sure to avoid his eyes.

"Ah? What'd I sa- I mean. Sure, I guess. I mean I didn't know. How would I?"

"How would you," Aziraphale repeated, suddenly looking a little sad, and Crowley wondered if the angel was still drunk. How long had he been out?

What had he said?

He forced himself to look at Aziraphale. The angel looked normal. Not devastated, or embarassed, or ready to flee and deny and forgive. So maybe it hadn't been so bad. He tried to remember his dream. He coudn't. It was unfair - shouldn't he be able to recall his dreams at will, as a demon? But the realm of dreaming seemed as off limits to him as that of Heaven. (Even the nightmares. Maybe that was a mercy.) Well - he remembered dreams like the humans did, anyway. In shambles.

He wondered if Aziraphale could remember his dreams: access them, rewind them, play them back and forth like a video - then again, the angel rarely slept, he was quite sure. Maybe that was better.

"Do you dream?"

"Me?" Aziraphale looked surprised, and considered the question alongside his wineglass. There was a little bit of liquid left in it. So he had been drinking, alone, while Crowley had drifted off. Oh dear. Maybe he was drowning his sorrows in alcohol, the things Crowley had said. "I prefer not to dream."

"Huh." Crowley sat up. "Why? It's fun."

"It's dangerous." Aziraphale studied his glass more intently, downing the last little gulp and abandoning the empty vessel on the desk.

"Right." Crowley swallowed. Well, he was right about that. "What... what did I..." He looked away. "...say?"

"Huh?"

"You said I talked. In my sleep. So."

"Ah."

"Anything I oughta know?"

"Oh, it was only... you seemed to be in an argument."

"An argument?"

"Yes. Yes - with me, I think."

"With you." Crowley's voice thinned. He miracled his hangover back, the light pressure on his head, as if it might take responsibility for the words that had been uttered. "Makes sense. Who else would I argue with. You're very... arguable."

"You mean I am a worthy opponent. A great interlocutor. A beacon of goodness against your vile--"

"Yeah. Sure. So we just argued, huh." His shoulders relaxed a little.

"It was about pigeons, I think. You said something about no, no pigeon pie, no eating, and rats with wings and God's ugly angels and protection and-" he added a rather dramatic little whine to his voice, not like Crowley at all: "misunderstood."

"Oh." Crowley thought he remembered, now, with Aziraphale's help, a slice of the pigeon pie dream. Aziraphale chasing after the poor pigeons with cutlery in bis hands and a napkin tucked into his shirt collar. Good. Excellent. A harmless dream. Pigeons. Wings. White-ish grey wings, everywhere, he remembered that, and then when the wings had cleared there had suddenly been no more pigeons or pies - only another misunderstood messenger of peace. His angel. So beautiful, amongst all the wings. And then he had--" Oh no. Oh, oh. Then the dream had shifted. He remembered now, and wished he hadn't.

"And that was it, right. Nothing else. Yeah. Pigeons."

"Well, then you said my name."

"Mgphm."

"You said Aziraphale." Aziraphale spoke his name neutrally, without much intonation, and Crowley was glad, because he knew that was not the way he had said it.

"Sure. We were debating pigeons. In my dream. So of course I said it."

"Yes..." Aziraphale was looking at his hands. He seemed to be debating something other than pigeons. "Only it was... ah. Nevermind."

Crowley almost asked. He didn't want to: he knew he had only said Aziraphale's name, and nothing else. He had sighed it against his lips, softly, tenderly, again and again, as he had kissed him, and the wings enveloping them were grey and safe, pigeons and peace. Old messengers, dreams.

He didn't ask.

The moment passed. Aziraphale smiled, congenially, and Crowley couldn't quite parse it.

(Much as Aziraphale couldn't quite parse the way Crowley had spoken his name, in his sleep, the soft tone and the pained, peaceful expression on his face. Much as he didn't want to ask, either. It had been too... It had been too much, too nice. Too good to be able to hold on to it. It was only a dream: it would be forgotten soon enough.)

"It was only my name."

"Yeah. Only your name."

#good omens #ineffable husbands #inefficable #good omens faniction #my drabbles

[piratekane]

Beatrice sighs as her pen runs out of ink. This is the second pen today and she’s starting to feel like there is something working against her. But, that seems illogical. The more logical conclusion is that Ava has used her pens. She has a tendency to use them until they’re nearly dry and put them back in Beatrice’s backpack, thinking she’s doing a good job returning them to where she found them.

Not maliciously. There’s nothing Ava does that is malicious. Beatrice knows she’s probably thinking: I borrowed this. I need to put it back. And then she does and Beatrice opens her backpack at the student center the next day, intent on getting some work done while she waits for Ava, and finds her pens dry.

She looks through her pencil case but there isn’t another pen, just a precisely sharpened standard pencil, two black mechanical pencils, a yellow highlighter, a soft white eraser, and her red pen - used to make corrections only. She debates using it.

No. It would ruin her notes.

Instead, she pulls out her laptop. She’ll just continue her notes there and transfer them to her notebook later. The extra repetition will be good for her. Her professor asked her a question she wasn’t quite prepared for and she knows she’s going to be thinking about it all week until she has a chance to redeem herself in the next class.

Her screen comes to life and she sighs. This one isn’t born from frustration like her last one; this one is an acceptance, an admitting to herself that, despite what she’s looking at, she can’t help but feel a rush of affection for it.

Ava has changed her desktop background again. This time, it’s a picture Camila took last weekend. Ava is in a white shirt and white shorts, a white sweatband around her forehead. All of it is stained in neon paint. She’s holding a fake plastic trophy high above her head with one hand, the other looped around Beatrice’s neck, the two of them squished into the frame. Her own clothes are soaked with the same bright colors.

How she agreed to something called a Color Run... The idea of running through cannons of color had not sounded appealing, but Ava had come home with a flyer she found on the bulletin board outside the cafeteria and presented it to Beatrice alongside a bulleted list of reasons why Beatrice should say yes.

She let Ava go through the list: one, you love to exercise. Two, it’s advertised to make the world ‘healthier’ and you’re always telling me I need to start making better choices. Three, imagine if we got Lilith to agree to come and someone blasted her with a color cannon?

The third one hadn’t been convincing. Lilith would never agree to something like that.

Beatrice didn’t tell her that the list didn’t matter; she was going to say yes the moment Ava handed her the flyer and looked at her with those eyes, the ones that always made Beatrice feel like she could free fall and not care what waits for her at the other end of it.

And she had to admit, it was rather fun. The white clothes they bought were completely ruined, but it had been worth it to see the way Ava beamed the whole run, sprinting ahead to circle back around her. She had thrown her arms wide when the color cannons went off, soaking in the powder. Beatrice soaked in her happiness in return.

It hasn’t been long. Spring is fading into summer quickly and Ava has been living with her for two months and every single moment has been filled with the kind of happiness that Beatrice could have only dreamed about when she was younger. The kind of happiness that made each day feel like it was worth waking up for.

She hadn’t gone looking for this, hadn’t expected something like this to just fall into her lap - or literally crash into her table. It’s illogical to think fate sent Ava into her orbit, but if she was pressed, she could admit that each of them must have been in the right place at the right time. Serendipity, Ava said with a rakish smile. We were destined to meet.

If there was such a thing as serendipity, it must be working in her favor.

She opens a word document, the cursor blinking at the top of the page. She titles it Anthropological Theories of Religion and flips through her textbook until she finds the correct page. She likes this class, likes how as she continues through her degree program the class gets smaller, more intimate. She typically likes the professor, though she feels thrown off by her now.

Halfway through a word, her world goes dark. Warm hands slide over her eyes, fingertips pressing against her skin. 

She smiles nearly instantly. “Ava.”

“Not Ava,” says a low voice. But it’s clunky, a poor imitation at something deeper.

Beatrice plays along for just a moment, indulging Ava and a part of herself that likes to make Ava happy. “Oh? Well then. I suppose a stranger has found it appropriate to put their hands on me.” She curls her fingers around a thin wrist, one her hand already knows the shape of, and tightens slightly. “I do know how to disarm you.”

“You could try.”

Beatrice tightens her grip in response and hears a slight exhale that glances against the shell of her ear. A fingertip skates across her brow briefly and then Ava is letting go, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before she sits down heavily in the chair next to Beatrice.

“How did you know it was me? What if I was… Mary?”

Beatrice spares Ava a glance. “Mary knows better. You, on the other hand…”

“I’ve never known better.” Ava says it with pride. “Especially not when it comes to you.”

Beatrice feels her chest tighten. She wonders if Ava knows, if Ava understands how something so simple unspools the tight loop Beatrice keeps around her heart. A part of her thinks Ava must. Ava is able to read her so thoroughly. From the moment they met, Ava has seen through her so effortlessly. It’s thrilling, to be seen like that. 

And it’s devastatingly terrifying.

“Yes, well,” she says quietly.

“One day, you’ll use that to your advantage.” Ava spins Beatrice’s textbook towards her, reading a few of the section titles before she turns it back towards Beatrice. “But you’re also too nice for that, so who knows.”

Beatrice straightens out her textbook out of habit more than anything else. “You’re late.”

Ava smiles sheepishly. “I got caught up.” She doesn’t give an answer past that.

Beatrice nearly frowns. Ava doesn’t owe her any more of an explanation. She just usually gives one.

“But I’m here now!” Ava takes off her backpack, resting it on the floor before she opens it and takes out her own laptop. “I thought you didn’t like typing your notes? Muscle memory or something, right?” 

“My pens are out of ink.” 

Ava’s cheeks flush. “That’s my fault, isn’t it.”

“It’s certainly not mine.” She says it without any malice. “I just need to start carrying more pens.”

Ava still looks guilty. She fishes into the pocket of her jean shorts and unearths a stick of gum, three paper clips, and an uncapped pen. She spreads them out on the table and nudges the pen towards Beatrice. It’s not the tip she likes, thicker than she usually uses, and it’s blue. If red would ruin her notes, this would change the physical shape of them.

She takes the offered pen and closes her laptop. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you.” Ava smiles and scoops the paper clips up, putting them back in her pocket. 

Beatrice will find them later when she does the laundry and she’ll add them to the jar of pocket-trinkets she keeps of all the things Ava leaves behind in her clothes. It’s made up of coins and paper clips and pen caps - all things that Ava swears she’s going to put in proper places but never remembers until Beatrice is pulling them out of the washing machine.

Ava takes the gum and breaks it in half, offering it to Beatrice. She has coffee and this gum is spearmint. The combination will taste horrible. But she puts the gum in her mouth and smiles when Ava does.

“So, listen to what MacKay did today.” Ava tells the story animatedly, face shifting as she plays each character. Beatrice doesn’t catch every word, too focused on the rise and fall of her voice and the way her hands move as she goes on. Beatrice finds herself smiling along, not at all caring about some girl named Carina or Professor MacKay and whatever argument they’ve gotten into this week.

Ava is halfway through her story, body gearing up to drop the punch line, when her face shifts and her eyes cut over Beatrice’s shoulder. Beatrice frowns, turning to look. A boy is approaching their table, hands locked around the straps of his backpack as he strides towards them.

“Hey, Ava!” he calls.

Beatrice looks back at Ava. She knows this boy, at the very least. But her face is unreadable - a feat Ava doesn’t manage to accomplish very often. He comes closer and Beatrice’s frown deepens.

“Ah,” Ava says quietly.

Ah?

The boy slows as he reaches their table, a smile on his face that someone might find charming. She studies Ava’s face. Does she find it charming?

“Hey, Ava,” he repeats. His voice is smooth, slightly accented. A traitorous part of her thinks of the time that Ava said she liked accents. “I was hoping to catch you after class.”

Ava smiles. “Sorry, JC. I was in a hurry. Had a lunch date.” She hooks a thumb in Beatrice’s direction. “JC, meet Beatrice, my best friend. Beatrice, this is JC. He’s my biology lab partner.”

JC. She’s never heard of him before. Ava talks about everyone and everything. Some nights, she talks until she falls asleep on the couch, her Hobbes stuffed animal clutched in her arms. It’s almost as if she collects stories all day just to tell them to Beatrice later. She knows about every one of Ava’s classmates, is - secretly - invested in her Literary Theory classmates, Robert and Nayara, and their on-again, off-again relationship. She knows about the librarian Ava likes, who doesn’t mind her iced coffee, as long as she uses a paper towel and keeps it away from the books.

But she’s never heard of a JC, or anyone who might use the initials JC.

And it’s not that Ava isn’t allowed to have friends. She is. She has plenty of them. She always says hello to at least fifteen people when they go out, either here to their favorite table in the student center or in the library or walking to the cafeteria if they’re getting lunch between classes. Ava loves people, loves knowing things about them. Beatrice loves that about her.

She just thought she knew all of them. Or has heard of them before. She certainly thinks she would have remembered hearing about Ava’s lab partner. It's odd, now, that she hasn't.

JC smiles at her, his eyes taking a moment longer to shift away from Ava. “It’s nice to meet you. Ava has talked a lot about you.”

Beatrice hides her smile at that. “Nice to meet you,” she says politely.

He completely turns from her, his job of mirroring her politeness gone, his job done. Beatrice finds herself studying him. He’s attractive in a conventional sense. A strong jaw, a good smile. Camila would have many things to say about him and Beatrice works to keep her voice out of her mind. She focuses on Lilith instead. 

Boys, she would probably sneer. Beatrice agrees.

JC runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back a little. Beatrice watches Ava’s eyes follow the motion and fights a visible frown. JC notices, though, and seems to preen a little in a way only university-age boys can when they find themselves to be attractive. She takes a centering breath. She doesn’t know JC. She’s sure he’s a nice person. She’s also sure he’d be a nicer one if he wasn’t standing at their table right now.

“I just wanted to know if you gave any thought to my question.”

“Ah,” Ava says again.

Ah?

JC doesn’t seem bothered. “I know your rule on dating your lab partner. It’s a very specific rule but I think you should give me a chance.”

Dating echoes in Beatrice’s head like a slow siren, like the slow spin of a lantern in a lighthouse. It illuminates JC, floating in the ocean in her mind, with his charming smile and his hopeful eyes. Ava appears next, face unreadable. They rotate around and around until they’re in the same frame.

She blinks and Ava is staring at her, a slight wrinkle in her forehead.

Beatrice keeps her face neutral, unsure of what else to do with it. She certainly can’t shout no. She absolutely will not encourage it. She’s stuck in a sort of limbo where she isn’t sure what comes next and so she waits, poised and ready to do whatever is needed of her.

Ava’s frown deepens.

JC takes the silence and runs with it. “If it’s because you’re worried about things being awkward if it doesn’t go well - and that’s a big if - then you don’t need to worry.” His smile widens and he leans one hand down on the table, his whole body angled towards Ava now. “What do you say?”

Say no, she thinks. Tell him to go away.

Ava has been living with her for two months and Beatrice has been in love with her for at least half of that.

It took some getting used to, this feeling. It took many nights laying in bed staring at the ceiling and pretending like the feelings she had for Ava were just a friendship. An intense one, born of their proximity and Ava’s natural affinity for people in general. 

But love is friendship caught on fire, she’s read before. And her friendship with Ava is a living, burning thing. She knows their love would be incendiary, scorching everything she thought love looked like before.

If - and it’s a big if - Ava ever wanted to love her back.

Why would she? Why would she give up a world of possibility for Beatrice? She’s certainly nothing special. She’s disciplined, polite, considerate to the needs of others - all the things her parents wanted her to be. Ava wants someone free, a little brash, selfish in the right ways. Beatrice is none of those things, can’t even begin to think of how she could be. But Ava deserves to get what she wants after all those years of being denied even the simplest of things.

Beatrice just doesn’t have the qualities Ava could want. Friendship is one thing. Being in love with someone is another. Beatrice is hyper aware of the difference.

It doesn’t stop her from dreaming about it, though. It doesn’t stop her from wishing for it.

“What’s the worst that could happen? We spend the rest of the semester ignoring each other?” he asks, smile charming.

Yes, she thinks. What’s the worst that could happen between them? They could spend the rest of the lease ignoring each other. Ava would never look at her the same.

She’d have to go back to living her life the way it was before Ava - not the worst, but not as great as this.

“I don’t know,” Ava finally hedges.

Yes, Beatrice exhales in her mind.

JC leans forward a little more. “It doesn’t need to be anything big. We could go for one of those iced coffees you like. At the cafe near Venable?”

“She likes the one near the English department.”

Beatrice frowns. Surely that wasn’t her voice. But Ava and JC are both looking at her. So it must have been her. There’s a slight smile on Ava’s face, a slight frown on JC’s. Beatrice clears her throat.

“I’m sorry. I just…”

JC recovers. “The one near Eldridge Hall, sure. I know someone who works there. She can sneak us a pastry.”

Ava hasn’t looked away from Beatrice. “I don’t know,” she repeats.

Beatrice swallows. It’s fine. Ava is - well, not quite a grown up, but certainly not a child. Despite her propensity for Saturday morning cartoons on Beatrice’s Hulu account - which is ruining the algorithm of her suggested shows - and sleeping on the couch upside down like a toddler and eating, God help her, shredded cheese out of the bag after finishing half a gallon of milk without even pouring herself a glass, she is not a child. 

She can make her own decisions. And if that decision is- If it’s- Well. Beatrice swallows past a knot forming in her throat. Well. She can do what she pleases. Including this probably-very-nice-boy in front of them. She’s allowed to do that.

So she smiles tightly, her lips pressing together thinly, and tells herself to get it together. She keeps her focus on Ava and loosens her mouth and it feels a little more natural. She inhales through her nose. She can tell Ava that she’s free to do whatever she wants with whoever she wants.

“You do like a free pastry,” is what she ends up saying.

Ava’s forehead pinches, the corners of her mouth crinkling. “I do,” she says slowly, confused.

“An iced coffee and a pastry.” Beatrice says it just as slowly. “Both things that you enjoy.”

“I do,” Ava repeats.

Beatrice nods encouragingly. Her head feels like it’s on a spring, up and down and up and down. She’s worried it’s going to roll off. 

JC looks between the two of them, confusion on his face. Beatrice sees him out of the corner of her eye and her smile tightens again.

Ava is still staring at her, still frowning slightly. Beatrice forces herself into her most diplomatic smile. 

Don’t you get it? she wants to ask. Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say?

But Ava misses it. Because she breaks Beatrice’s gaze and focuses on JC instead. Beatrice thinks her smile is slightly dimmer. Or she’s just hoping it is. But it still doesn’t ease the pain of knowing there is a smile and it’s aimed at JC. 

She opens her mouth, but he beats her to it. “Listen, you have my number. I’m done with classes this evening. And then you’ll meet me for coffee, okay? And you won’t regret it.” 

Ava says nothing. JC pushes back from their table and smiles, hooking his hands back around the straps of his bag. His eyes wander to Beatrice and he nods politely before turning in a lazy circle and heading back through the crowd as the student center starts to fill up as afternoon classes.

Beatrice looks away instantly, busying herself with adjusting her notebook. It doesn’t need to be straightened out. In fact, she pushes it out of place and the pen Ava loaned her starts to roll across the table towards the edge. She reaches for it at the same time as Ava does.

Their fingers tangle and the pen is trapped under Beatrice’s palm. She pauses, every nerve exposed, and looks up to find Ava already looking back at her.

She smiles, mouth still wound too tight. “I’ve got it.”

“Do you?” Ava asks curiously.

Beatrice frowns, looking down. Their fingers are still slotted together, still laced over the pen. Of course she has it. It’s right there, scratching blue ink against her palm. 

“Because it seems like you’ve lost everything else,” Ava continues. “Like your cool, for instance.”

She pulls back minutely. “My-” Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean by that?”

Ava shrugs a shoulder. She only does that when she has a secret, when there’s something that Beatrice missed, a cue she didn’t read. “You do like a free pastry,” she mocks, her voice pitched low in a terrible approximation of Beatrice’s accent. “What gotten into you?”

“Oh.” Beatrice bristles. “Well, you do.”

“I know that. You know that.” Ava pauses. “Why does JC need to know that?”

Beatrice doesn’t have a good answer for that. So she makes one up. “Your potential suitors will need to know things about you. That is less a trivia fact and more of a necessity.”

Ava snorts loudly. Beatrice looks around, but no one seems bothered by the sudden noise. “My potential suitors?” She shakes her head. “Bea, honestly. No one talks like you do.”

She doesn’t make it sound like an insult. She never does, never has. She seems more entertained than anything, but not in a way that makes Beatrice uncomfortable or self-conscious. It makes her feel seen. And she loves to be seen by Ava. It uncoils some of the tension in her shoulder that she knows is radiating into her hand, tense under Ava’s touch.

Ava doesn’t move her hand. “Well, thanks to you, I think I’m going on a date tonight.”

Thanks to me. Thanks to the way she said Ava would enjoy herself. Thanks to her, Ava is meeting someone who isn’t her for a coffee at Ava’s favorite cafe where she only brings Beatrice. One of our places, Ava always tells her with a smile. 

“You can say no,” she reminds Ava, her whole body locking up again.

Say no, say no. She feels each word burn in her throat. But why would she? Why would she pick someone like JC over me?

Ava is still looking at her curiously, head tipped slightly as she studies her face. Beatrice holds still, face perfectly impassive from years of practice. She doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, doesn’t open her mouth and tell Ava that JC seemed nice but she deserves something better than nice; something spectacular.

Then again, she’s not sure that Ava would feel that way about her.

So she forces her face to relax. Works through each muscle until she’s smiling slightly and nods encouragingly. “But if you like him and can see yourself enjoying your time, you should say yes.”

“Do you want me to?”

The question cuts through her with the intensity of a perfect lightning strike. She pulls back slightly, the only indication Ava’s hand tightening over hers when it starts to slide away. Ava’s face has gone from curious to a level of seriousness usually reserved for her more difficult homework assignments, or when she’s trying to figure out something Beatrice said. 

“I don’t… I don’t think that’s my decision.”

“Well, you’re my best friend.”

Beatrice has never hated a description more in her life. She fights the visceral reaction she feels come alive in her chest. She is Ava’s best friend. She’s admitted that more times than her parents have told her they love her. The first time had been a surprise to both of them, almost too soon after Ava moved in. But it felt natural. Ava slotted into the unknown hole in her life like she had always been there.

But she’d set their whole foundation on fire if it meant one day she could be Ava’s best friend and, and, and.

She widens her smile, feeling like she’s playing a part. “Of course. But I suppose… Well, there’s no harm in trying, is there?”

Ava’s hand slides away now and the feeling that she said the wrong thing rushes in on her. 

“A very diplomatic answer, Beatrice.” She pats the top of Beatrice’s hand before she pulls it into her lap. “Remind me again why you’re not running for student government?”

Beatrice doesn’t smile. She simply touches her notebook, arranging it’s already perfect line. She looks down at the chunky-tipped blue pen sitting on the page, so out of place against the neat, thin, black lines of her notes. Suddenly the idea of writing with it feels overwhelming. 

“I think we better get to lunch.” She puts the pen in front of Ava. “Camila said she was going to meet us there.” 

She needs the buffer, needs to put space between them. Camila is the perfect distraction. Mary and Shannon would know instantly that something was wrong - and they’d corner her until she said what. But perhaps they might not; Shannon seems supernaturally in tune with her and there’s rarely a thing she needs to tell her. Lilith would read Beatrice’s hesitation and be annoyed. Or think it’s Ava’s fault and be cagey when she doesn’t need to be. Camila would be too polite to acknowledge the tension Beatrice knows is radiating off her.

Ava, mercifully, doesn’t argue with her or point out that Camila isn’t meeting them for another 15 minutes and the walk only takes 5. She pockets the pen again and packs her things away, waiting for Beatrice to zip her bag closed.

They walk inches apart, shoulders to themselves. It’s the longest 5 minutes of Beatrice’s life.

~

The door opens slowly. Beatrice looks up from her book, the one she’s been reading since Ava left; the one she hasn’t been reading at all. Ava slips through it, back turned to close the door quietly behind her. When she turns to the living room, she gasps.

“Beatrice.”

Beatrice blinks. “Why are you sneaking back in?”

Ava is still taking deep breaths, hand pressed to her chest. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”

“At…” Beatrice checks her phone, frowning. “Eight o’clock in the evening?”

The tips of Ava’s ears go red just enough for Beatrice to notice. “Well. I didn’t look at the time.”

Beatrice looks out the window at the golden sunset. “It’s still light out.”

“You’re an early sleeper.” Ava sounds like she’s grasping at straws, the pitch of her voice rising.

“Not that early,” Beatrice says flatly. She slips her bookmark into her book, grateful to be closing it. “8 hours a night are important, but if I went to sleep at this hour, I’d be up at four in the morning. That’s too early, even for me.”

Ava toes off her shoes, kicking them towards the shoe rack at the door. One of them lands on the rack but the other bounces off it and away. Ava sighs, fixes it, and runs a hand through her hair when she straightens up.

“How-” Beatrice stops. She suddenly needs to be busy, needs to have her hands moving. She could open her book again, thumb through the pages. But tea sounds better. She stands, crossing to the kitchen and filling the electric kettle.

“I got you a coffee.” Ava pulls out a stool tucked at the breakfast bar, leaning forward with her chin in her hands. “But some kid on a skateboard crashed into me when he cut a corner and took the coffee down with him.”

Beatrice pulls two mugs out the cabinet, dropping a tea bag in each. “Are you okay?” 

“Just my pride.” Ava shrugs when Beatrice looks back. “But I’m disappointed. I got you a mocha chip frappuchino. Lucy put in extra chocolate chips.”

Something flutters in Beatrice’s chest, a sudden thought that overwhelms her: maybe Ava does these things because she feels it too. She pushes it down and smiles. “I do like when Lucy makes my drinks. But, maybe next time.”

Ava is quiet long enough that Beatrice wonders if she left. The kettle starts to whistle and she fills the mugs, balancing them carefully as she carries them to the counter Ava hasn’t moved from. She’s just uncharacteristically quiet. She hums a thank you and curls her hands around the mug, hissing when she finds it’s too hot.

Beatrice can’t help the fond smile; Ava is always rushing into things.

It’s why Beatrice knows Ava doesn’t feel the same way. She’s not rushing into this, not caught up in a whirlwind like she is with everything else. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me how my date was?” Ava finally asks.

I don’t want to know.

“How was your date?” she asks politely.

Tell me it was the worst date you’ve ever been on. Worse than the one you told me about where the boy slurped his pasta and sauce got everywhere; worse than the one where the girl tried to cast a love spell on you.

Ava shrugs. “It was… nice.” She blows on her tea. “JC is a good guy. I knew that already. But it wasn’t… groundbreaking.”

Beatrice is patient, letting her tea cool on its own. “Does a date need to be groundbreaking?”

“World-breaking.” Ava says it so quickly and fiercely, Beatrice has to blink. “It should be life-altering.”

“That seems like a lot to expect for a first date.” Beatrice points out. “At a coffee shop. With your lab partner.”

Ava shrugs. “Maybe I just have high expectations.”

Ones Beatrice can never live up to, it seems.

She smiles, hoping it looks warm and friendly. “You’ll have a hard time finding someone with an outlook like that.”

“I don’t know.” Ava takes a sip of her tea, hisses again. “I mean, a lot of things in my life have been like that. Getting out of the orphanage. Getting into school. Meeting you.” She’s staring at Beatrice now, a smile on her face.

She curls her hands around her mug and fights the way it burns her skin. She’s hardly earth-shattering, hardly worth that much. There’s no way she could be. But Ava is so earnest all the time, means things so completely. And if she’s saying that, Beatrice has to acknowledge that Ava considers her something great. A great friendship that Beatrice could never, ever risk.

But she feels herself flush all the same. “I’d hardly call it that.” She hedges around her next question. “So, no second date?”

She wonders if Ava hears the way her voice trembles; she can certainly feel it in her chest. 

But Ava doesn’t seem to, too focused on taking another, slower, sip of her tea. This one apparently doesn’t scald her tongue. She grins up at Beatrice, hunched over the steaming mug. She’s brought her legs up on the rungs of the stool and her knees are around her ears. Ava clutches the mug tightly to her chest.

She’s in love with a menace. 

“I don’t think so,” Ava says after a minute. “I mean, I don’t really have a reason not to, but…”

Beatrice breathes in deeply, steadying herself. She’s not a reason for Ava to say no. She knows that. “That’s not very encouraging,” she says instead.

Ava shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not looking for anything to change right now. I want things to stay exactly as they are. Things are perfect. And if I went out with him again, I’d just be, I don’t know. Pretending.”

She takes another measured sip of her tea. She feels like she’s walking in the empty space between the points of knives. “You wouldn’t be happy.”

Ava shakes her head softly. “No, I wouldn’t be. How could I be happy if I was pretending all the time?”

Beatrice knows. Because she is. She’s pretending from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep alone and all the seconds in between. She’s pretending that everything she’s feeling isn’t consuming her from the inside out.

All the books she read as a child, all the romances novels she devoured in her bed with a flashlight illuminating the pages - none of it described the way it feels now. Love is friendship on fire had seemed like such a childish thing to say. Something arbitrary and insignificant. But now she understands what it’s supposed to mean, what she could never understand before with anyone else.

“You couldn’t,” she admits. She’s not lying.

Ava’s eyes are still piercing, still searching her face. She wonders what Ava is trying to find and she keeps the truth as far away from her as she can. Either she finds something else or she gives up, because her face breaks into two and she’s grinning.

Ava slurps her tea, smiling wider when Beatrice looks mildly disgusted. “Alright. The way I see it, we have two options: we have a sleepover night where you let me braid your hair and I let you paint my toenails.” She laughs when the mild disgust turns into outright horror. “Or, I get you back into that really nice sweater you were wearing earlier and we got off in search of a replacement mocha chip frappuchino?”

Beatrice abandons her tea almost immediately. “Do you know what time Lucy’s shift is over?”

Ava jumps off her stool, landing lightly on her feet. She doesn’t bother with sneakers, socked feet sliding into sandals. Beatrice thinks about telling her how ridiculous it looks: her mid-calf socks usually hidden by her high-top sneakers, and a pair of black slides; her jean shorts where the pocket hangs just a little too long past the hem; her crop top with How you lichen me now? hand-stenciled on the front, from the one botany club meeting she attended; her hair half-pulled back in a high top-knot; a crooked grin on her face.

She’s the most beautiful woman Beatrice has ever seen in her life.

And one day, someone else is going to get to call her theirs. Beatrice will be left with the empty space where Ava used to be, her own space in Ava’s life filled up with someone else. Someone better. Someone she wants to rush headlong into the future with. Someone she sees a world of possibilities with.

Beatrice will be happy for her. Or, she’ll exhaust herself pretending.

“Milady,” Ava says, mouth tripping over the sounds. She holds out her arm. “Will you accompany me on this chip?”

Beatrice rolls her eyes. “You hardly made an effort that time.”

Ava’s smile doesn’t falter. “One of these days, I’ll impress you, Beatrice. You’ll see.” She wags her finger at Beatrice. “And then you’ll realize how special I am. You’ll never want to lose me.”

“No,” she says quietly. Ava slips away to grab her phone, abandoned on the breakfast bar. Beatrice waits by the door, holding it open. “I don’t suppose I ever will.”

It’s inevitable. She’ll lose Ava to someone who loves her out loud, someone good enough for her. But she’s going to bury greedy hands into the moments in between and hold on for as long as Ava lets her.

“I think I’m going to tell JC it was nice, but we won’t go out again,” Ava says conversationally as they exit their apartment building, headed towards campus. “He was nice, but… I’m looking for better.”

“You’ll find it,” she says, believing it wholeheartedly. She unthinkingly maneuvers Ava around a crack in the sidewalk. “You just need to be patient.”

“Patience isn’t my strong suit.” Her hand slides to Beatrice’s, their fingers slotting together for a fleeting moment. “I don’t know how much longer I can wait. But I'll try.”

Just keep waiting. Wait forever, her mind screams. Don’t find anyone before I can be who you need me to be.

Ava takes in her silence and laughs. Beatrice frowns, not in on the joke, but doesn’t protest when Ava laces an arm through hers, pulling until their pressed together from the shoulder to their elbows, digging into each other. There’s no space between them, not for a slip of paper or a secret.

Ava hums softly, some tune Beatrice doesn’t know, but would guess is some new song on the radio that she’s never heard. Beatrice lets it bubble in her chest, sinks into it’s familiar warmth, and hopes that whatever God is watching over her lets her keep this moment for as long as she can.

And if he isn’t, she hopes he’s just not paying enough attention to realize she’s living on borrowed time and that she’s running out of it.

#warrior nun #avatrice #ava silva #sister beatrice #forever roommates #jealousy turning saints into the sea #but also poor bea? #(as if i didn't write her into this corner) #everyone say thank you kay thank you kay #anyway let's try for a little less next time yes?

[markiemelon]

can u please do more jisung ?? 😞🩵🩵 i love ur work

tangerine love

genre fluff ! no warnings

^_−☆ 🍊

pairings gn!reader x jisung

2:34pm ─ ੈ♡˳

“jisungggg, are you ready?” you peeped your head into your best friend’s room to see him scrambling around in a panic.

“i can’t find it!”

“what is it?”

“your present. i just had it last night and now i can’t find it.”

“oh.” you sighed in relief. “it’s no big deal, ji, let’s just hurry and go.”

it was your friendiversary, so for fun, you two usually just went to the park where you met as kids. normally you didn’t get each other gifts, but this year, jisung insisted.

you brushed off his concerns. “im gonna leave you here!” you threatened as you made your way to sit in the passenger’s seat of jisung’s car.

jisung hopped in and sulked. “i couldn’t find it… do you at least have the tangerines?” he looked over to you.

in your lap was a basket of freshly picked tangerines from the tree in his backyard. you planted it when you were younger, since you two have always shared a love for the fruit.

you got to the park and laid out a blanket on the grass. you set the basket down and signaled jisung to try them. “are they sweet?” his eyes lit up as he tore into the peel. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried them yet.”

he popped a slice into his mouth and immediately his eyes became squinted and his nose scrunched up. “eugh it’s so sour.”

“seriously? that’s too bad. I guess they aren’t ripe enough yet…” you picked one up and tossed it right back into the basket.

“oh right.” you remembered. “your gift.” you reached into the pocket of your sweater that was lying alongside the picnic blanket. you pulled out a little white box with orange ribbon around it tied in a bow.

jisung’s eyes widened. “wait. that box-”

before you could even hand it to him, he snatched it from you.

you rolled your eyes at his impatience. “geez, you could at least say thank you.”

inside the box was the exact thing jisung had lost. a little tangerine keychain charm. “where did you get this?”

you rubbed your neck nervously. “oh, well it’s a funny story. see, i actually forgot about the present thing, but this morning when I was walking to your house, i found it on the sidewalk around the corner. isn’t that weird? it was like a sign from the universe.”

jisung looked at you in disbelief and started laughing out of nowhere.

“what?” you laughed along. “sorry, i seriously forgot.. but it’s cute, isn’t it? put it on your bag! i’ll take it if you don’t want it…”

“yn.” jisung smiled. “this is for you. he handed it back to you. “i bought it on my way home last night so it must have fallen out of my pocket then. i just can’t believe you found it…”

“wait, really?” you clapped your hands in a fit of laughter. “you’re too cute, jisung.” you threw yourself onto the boy sitting beside you, now his head is resting on the cushioned blanket, and you’re lying across him. his arms instinctively wrapped around your back to hug you into his chest.

“don’t call me cute.” he said in his low voice. you can’t control your cuteness aggression when it comes to jisung, so you pinched his cheeks and pretended to bite him.

once you sat up, jisung followed your movements. he positioned himself behind you, so he could rest his chin on your shoulder, and hug you.

from the looks of it, you’re a couple.

“yn” jisung broke the silence. “look at the way we’re sitting right now. we might as well be a couple.”

“sure.” you shrugged in response.

“im just joking.” he hugged you tighter.

“no, really. we should try it. see what happens.” you leaned your head against jisung’s, still resting on your shoulder.

“seriously?” he laughed.

“yeah,” you hummed, “but what are we gonna do with all these tangerines?”

hi anon, so glad you requested! sorry it took forever. thank you for reading ♡ ps im too lazy to proofread this properly LOL

- 🍉

————————————————————————

#nct blurbs #nct drabbles #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct soft blurbs #markiemelon #nct fluff #nct soft hours #nct timestamps #nct dream #nct dream timestamps #nct dream soft hours #nct dream blurbs #nct dream drabbles #nct dream fluff #nct dream imagines #nct jisung #jisung soft thoughts #jisung soft hours #park jisung imagines #park jisung scenarios #jisung fluff #jisung imagines #park jisung #jisung x reader #jisung blurbs #jisung drabbles #jisung timestamps #jisung scenarios #nct

[theghostcreator]

Here are the things that making a Fire Emblem hack has taught me about both Fire Emblem and the community.

1. Writing a Fire Emblem story is incredibly difficult.

The format of Fire Emblem stories is incredibly hard to get a grasp on when you're designing around permadeath. Once a character joins your army you either have to completely take away any truly meaningful impact they have on the story or have their death just have them retreat, which a lot of players don't like. It's also very difficult to have story directly be integrated with the gameplay, and most often you have to settle for most of the story happening before and after the chapter's gameplay.

2. You need to accept that complete balance is impossible and often times more boring than the less balanced decision.

The FE community gives broken units and strats a hard time a lot, however it's important to consider that those things are only as broken as they are because of all the information available about them. It's also worth noting that incredibly strong units or items can be fun when not being so absurdly busted that you have to actively try to not let the game break itself. We often times get so obsessed with having every unit, weapon type, and item balanced that we forget that perfectly balanced games aren't always the most fun, these are strategy games at the end of the day yes, but they're also supposed to be enjoyable games.

3. Sometimes you just need to ignore people.

This is Subaru. And Subaru is an incredibly good earlygame cav in the second part of my romhack. He has great stats all around except for his strength growth which is a measly 15%, despite this being a setback that in reality can be easily overcome through powerful axes and doubling that 15% growth really throws quite a few people off and they end up immediately benching him and calling him a meme tier unit. Feedback that you know is ill informed like this example can end up being detrimental to your work if you listen to it at face value, Subaru originally had a much higher strength growth and was obscenely broken as can be seen in this video of an earlier build of the game.

https://youtu.be/gclC4RfD_vc

So essentially sometimes you just need to be confident in your own ability to tell when something's good and when something isn't. Of course don't just write everyone off, but do be sure to know when it's time to just dig in your heels and say that you know what you're doing.

4. The Fire Emblem community is incredibly talented.

I've made it clear before that I'm not really good at art, I hardly even know how to edit portraits by a slight bit and yet my romhack is able to have all of these wonderfully made custom portraits, battle animations, tilesets, and songs because of how amazing this community is at making and sharing their work. Within the Fire Emblem hacking community there's a resource known as the 'graphics repository' which holds things like community made battle animations, portraits, and tracks for anyone to use for free as long as credit is provided. I can't explain enough how invaluable of a tool this is to both new and experienced romhackers and it really speaks volumes that the FE community can be very helpful and inclusive when it wants to be. Alongside that there's FEbuilder, the amazingly intuitive all in one romhacking tool created by 7743 that other romhacking communities could only dream of, it's insane how advanced these tools are, I don't even know any C+ or ASM and still have completed an entire romhack with a sequel in the works.

Alright I think that's about everything... I was just sorta bored and figured I'd talk about romhacking for a bit, anyway if anyone's interested in my romhack I'll post a link to it here, it uses FE8 as a base and is fully complete with 25 chapters. It's missing a lot of supports and paired endings but other than that you can play it to the end.

https://feuniverse.us/t/fe8-complete-host-of-the-dark-1-4-25-main-chapters-3-gaidens/12731/1

#fire emblem #fire emblem 8 #fe8 #rom hack #rom hacking #rom hacks #fire emblem the sacred stones

[midwesternvibes]

Time for more Seperated Leo Human AU! (I really need a name good lord-)

As promised, we now get to look into Leon's lore! He's a funky little guy, and shockingly well adjusted!

Lore drop under the cut!

His full name is Leonardo Tomás Esposito, and he is quite proud of it! He picked it out himself when he was about 10 years old, and he's happy to say that he still loves it to this day! (Fun fact: all of the names have double meanings to them hehe)

But anyways, his Mamà is in fact, NOT Big Mama (but it was a solid guess!), her name is actually Mia Esposito! (+10 Fandom points to anyone who can guess her full first name) She is a full time nurse and used to travel around the several NYC hospitals as an on-call nurse, but once Leon was born she stuck her roots down to one and has been there ever since!

She's actually an incredibly interesting character (with her very own arc!) with a lot of depth and meaning. She grew up with her Puerto Rican mother and Italian father, but after a series of misfortunes and despair, she ended up immigrating to NYC to start a new life for herself. About 10 years later she began raising a baby all on her own as a single immigrant mother in New York City (Sound familiar?). Whenever Leon asks about his father she tells him that she doesn't remember his Papá, only that he had the same almond-shaped brown eyes as her baby boy....

But ultimately she doesn't remember him hahaha maybe Leon should stop asking questions and get back to studying!

(Leon knows that she's hiding something, but ultimately he doesn't care about his father that much, he just assumes that he did something to hurt his Mamá and wants nothing to do with the man at all)

Leon and his Mamá are very close, they're very similar to Percy and Sally Jackson from the PJO series, and they would definitely fight God for each other.

Leon was raised very much with the mentality of "It takes a village" and has many aunts and uncles and relatives in the hospital staff that he considers family. Mia couldn't really afford childcare as Leon grew up, as it often came down to food or rent for the month. The hospital staff saw this and absolutely adored little baby Esposito, so they were more than happy to raise him alongside their own children. Mia owes her life to this staff and considers them her family through and through.

As he grew up, Leon saw all his favorite people as nurses and doctors and considered each and every one of them heros. He decided very early on that he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, and after a terrible injury when he was 14 it cemented the fact that he wanted to be a pediatric surgeon, to help kids just like him.

But the issue is, Leon and Mia definitely do not have enough to cover medical school for Leon on a single nurse's income, even with all the jobs that Mia and Leon have taken over the years. That's why Leon NEEDS the athletic and valedictorian scholarship, without it he won't be able to achieve his dream. The only thing standing in his way is.....

THE HAMATOS

(Except Michael, he's a gift)

Leon is willing to do ANYTHING to get those scholarships, but his Mamá always reminds him that the Hamatos might need it just as badly as he does, and that's about all that's keeping him from REALLY doing anything to hurt/sabotage them. His Mamá has instilled a really strict moral code into his psyche and he won't actually do anything to them, he just....really wants to give his Mamá a better life, one she deserves.

Although, he is kinda curious as to why the Hamato brothers have the same eyes as him......

First // Previous // Next

Whew! That was pretty much just a really intense ramble, sorry there was no actual structure to that, I just really wanted to talk about my Leon lore! Props to anyone who figures out the significance of all the names, and to clear up any confusion, Mia is Half Puerto Rican, half Italian, and Leon is 1/4 Puerto Rican, 1/4 Italian, and 1/2 Japanese (but shhh he doesn't know that yet) and obviously he's got that amazing vitiligo (shout out to anyone and everyone with vitiligo, y'all are amazing and beautiful)

Thanks for reading my lore dump, see ya next time for..... huh idk yet, vote ig

See ya next time!

#Leonardo rottmnt #Leo rottmnt #Rise Leo #Leonardo #separated leo au #seperated au #Mia LMA #Leon LMA #rottmnt #rottmnt leo #rise of the tmnt #tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #Tmnt #rise of tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise donnie #rise mikey #rise of the turtles #rise raph #trans leo #transmasc leo #trans leonardo

[arachine]

do yk what i would give to have mike slender fingers wheeler finger me?? i would give my life. like i will hand it over to whoever to make it possible because it’s not even a want at this point it is a need.

no bc nonnie you get me. all i think about are his fingers…and how’d they fill you up so good ;((

mike is 18! + vaginal fingering, semi-public (at work), a messy stream of consciousness that i started writing out half asleep

not to go on a tangent but i hc that mike would’ve hated them growing up. i mean, it’s no secret that he was bullied, and we all know one of the things that the bullies made fun of him for was how freakishly pale and bony he was. it isn’t until the summer before college, when he starts to think differently of them.

he’d taken up a job to help save money for school, and who does he end up working alongside? none other than you, the former queen bee of hawkin’s high.

the two of you didn’t really talk in high school, something about cliques and hanging out with the opposite crowds…or something like that—but you knew of each other—well, he knew of you. and while he’d never spoken to you directly, he had heard enough stories from the nerds and outcasts about how…mean you could be.

and that’s how he came to the presumption that summer was gonna be absolute hell with you. endless bickering. endless insults thrown back and forth, followed by mean scowls and scolds…but there was none of that, surprisingly.

to his dismay, you were all smiles, and sunshine. a giggly thing that liked to talk, and crack jokes, and throw out random compliments. it was unnerving, weird. because here he was, with this made up version of you in his head, this mean-spirited, bitchy, bratty version of you that…didn’t even exist! it was just hatred fueled by word of mouth, and years of watching you from the sidelines but never talking to you. he thinks he’s the biggest idiot, and rightfully so.

the first thing you said to him on the job was how pretty his hands were. it was a simple comment, just something said in passing as he stocked the shelves, but it stuck with him. and at first he was confused because…they’d always been something he’d hated about himself? he thinks they’re just hands, just bony, pale things, but you were insistent—adamant, and everyday you’d never fail to let him know how much you liked them whenever you were in his presence.

and after some time of knowing you, somehow it’d gone from ‘your hands are so pretty’ to ‘i want them inside of me’ and he can’t fucking believe it, the poor boy doesn’t know what to do or how to respond.

but he let’s you use him. let’s you guide his hands to your pretty little cunt and fuck yourself with ‘em. and god, are you a sight to see. the faces you’re making? the things you’re babbling to him as you thrust his fingers in and out of your folds? are quite literally wilder than anything he’s ever made up in that head of his.

“been dreamin’ about this for so—shit—long, mikey,” your voice is breathy and straggled, words spilling from your lips like smooth honey. “always liked your fingers, think they’re so pretty.” your honest confession sends a flood of warmth straight to his cheeks, and he prays to a higher power that you’re so busied with his fingers, that you don’t notice.

“yeah?” his voice is soft, uncertain, like he can’t believe a girl like you would ever dream of wanting a guy like him. you were from different worlds, different universes. it didn’t make sense. but then again, none of this did. here you were—the two of you—in the inventory room, with his hands stuffed down your panties and, fuck, he was so hard.

he wanted so badly to touch himself, wanted to assuage the dull ache that he was feeling in his balls and his throbbing cock, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of you—couldn’t take his hands off of you. self-restraint was something foreign to mike. he’d always been one to take what he wanted, do what he wanted, and say what he wanted, but right now? right now he’d just watch, and if that meant creaming his pants, then so be it.

“mhm, ‘m always thinking about you,” you start, “had my eye on you since sophomore year but you paid me no mind. did everything i could to get your—your attention.”

“really? but you were popular, i didn’t think you noticed me,” he unconsciously syncopates the last word with a thrust, and this makes you preen, all short and breathy.

for a second his brain stops functioning, and he has to literally force the gears in his head to start turning, to move so he can find the words to speak. he wants to hear that sound again, and again, and—

“mmm, feels s’good. do that again, mikey,” you ask him with those pretty puppy-dog eyes, but he doesn’t exactly know what he did because he didn’t mean to do it. he indulges you anyway, though, even if his approach is hesitated and inexperienced.

“i mean…’m nothing special,” he begins to move, “so what did it for you, what made you fall for the loser?”

“d-don’t be stupid, i tell you everyday. you’re so—shit, pretty.”

his obsidians are trained on your own, fingers moving in and out tantalizingly slowly as he processes this information. sure, you may have made it known on multiple occasions that he had pretty hands or whatever, but he thought you were just fucking around with him? because that’s just the type of dynamic the two of you had established—friends, acquaintances, fuck, amiable associates that joked around to pass time at work?

“you say my hands are pretty, though. never heard you say i’m pretty. do you really think that?” it takes all of your strength to not slap him silly, so instead, you shut him up with a kiss. it’s slow and soft, and the two of you groan into it—he groans because your cunt’s squeezing his fingers, and you groan because you’ve been waiting to do that for so long.

“god, mikey…your fingers are stuffed inside of me and you have the nerve to ask if i think you’re pretty?” you pull away from his face, hands still tugging on his uniform shirt. “let’s make a deal. if you make me cum before our manager gets back, i’ll tell you all the times i tried to get your attention in high school. deal?”

the brunet studies you before answering, “deal.”

#mike wheeler x reader #mike wheeler x reader smut #mike wheeler x you #mike wheeler x you smut #mike wheeler x y/n #mike wheeler x y/n smut #stranger things x reader #stranger things x reader smut

[oleander-nin]

This is for the follower Special!

Rise Donnie

6. Jealousy

1. “Well that wasn’t very smart”

Romantic, maybe Reader is jealous because Donnie has intelligence for what they wanna be smart with

Idk I'm doin my best sifusufd

A/N, not important: Sorry if I made it too sad, I tried not to. This was very fun to write, and I liked it a lot. Thank you for participating in this special! Any criticism is welcome, constructive or not. This is supposed to be a gender neutral reader, so if I screwed up somewhere, please tell me.

-Ollie

Tw: jealousy, feelings of not being enough, talking about your emotions, hand holding, bad writing, barely edited

Words: 2159

Prompt(s) requested: 6(Jealousy) & 1("Well That wasn't very smart.")

Summary: Donnie notices somethings wrong, leading to a small talk about your jealousy of his intelligence and your feelings of unworthiness.

The door to Donnie’s lab beeps once before the light turns green, notifying my allowed entrance. The door opens with a quiet hiss, my eyes admiring his lab in awe once more. I close my eyes, sighing. Everything in here was so… Advanced. It was incredible, Donnie had made things current scientists couldn’t even dream of. And he did it all on his own, no teachers, no mentors, just him. I couldn’t help the bite of jealousy in my stomach and I did nothing to stop the guilt that soon followed. Loving Donnie was easy, with his cocky attitude and his bright eyes. He was passionate, a true scientist. A Genius. He was so much better than me, and it killed me a little more every time because I knew I would never match up to him, never be able to stand on the same ground as the man I loved so dearly.

I sigh, moving further through his lab until I saw him at his computer, working his fingers off once more. I smiled sadly at the bags under his eyes, the fabric usually skewing them from view being set off to the side along with his goggles and wrappings. I move to sit in my usual chair next to him, watching as he works through his code. He glances at me, smiling softly before returning to his work. We both sit in silence for a while, the sound of his fingers typing and the ever present hum of the technology around us filling the empty space between us. It was nice, the familiarity of just existing by his side, no need for us to talk. We only needed to be near each other, and that was enough for us both.

“How long have you been up?” I ask softly, watching as the code flys across his screen, taking mental notes for my own projects later. I may never be on his level, but I could at least learn from him. He was brilliant and I was simply someone watching him succeed from the sidelines, hoping one day I could work alongside him. I’d leave the actual engineering to him though. I never did like building bots and such, coding them was much more fun.

He hums noncommittally, his fingers hesitating for only a second as he thinks. “Just since this morning. I need to get this done soon. I promise I’ll sleep once I’m finished, okay?” His voice is soft, his eyes not leaving the screen. I didn’t mind, this is how it always went. I wouldn’t want to stop either if I was him, if I could do the things he could do. My brain never made the right connections, the pieces never snapping into place. 

"Okay. As long as you promise. You know I worry." And worry I do, unable to think anything without constantly checking to make sure he was okay. He looks exhausted, his purple hoodie draping over him, the sleeves bagging at his elbows from his pose. His hood was up, most likely to try and muffle the sounds of his lab. His legs were crossed in his gaming chair, his back hunched even more than usual. I wondered how his back could even stand it, how his posture was so good otherwise. Maybe the curve of his shell just made it easier to manage. I’d have to ask him later, when it wasn’t so late. When he wasn’t so busy.

A line of code I didn’t recognize catches my eye, a call I couldn’t figure out. My eyes scan the screen as I lean on his desk, my eyes scan his computer, trying to decipher the line's purpose. My eyes narrow as I frown, unable to make the proper connections in my brain to understand it. I grumble a bit, pointing at the line. Donnie stops for a moment, looking at me. He was always ready to explain, ready to waste his time on talking me through something he found so simple, something that was as natural to him as breathing. He waits patiently for me to ask my question and I can’t help but feel like I was proving how beneath him I was, proving how every thought my mind made up was true. “What does this part do?”

I listened intently to his explanation, my head resting in my arms on his desk, curled up in the chair that was almost solely occupied by me. His explanation was clear, scrolling though his hundreds of lines of code to show me what parts it tied back to, talking of the parts he needed to add to make it completely smooth. My mouth was set in a smile, admiring his passion for the science of it. I ignored the pang in my chest, ignored the way my heart craved to be the same, to be able to match his intelligence. Even if just for a day.

“I wish I could do this as well as you.” I say, my voice is quiet due to the time. It was late at night, when my visits usually were. Donnie would text and I would show up, never wanting to miss a moment I could spend by his side. Donnie glances at me, his fingers finally leaving his keyboard as he turns his chair so he could face me. I sit up a bit, my elbow off the desk as I set my hands in my lap. Donnie scans my face, his lips pressed into a line. I scan his back, trying to decipher what he was thinking, to take a look inside his head. Maybe he was trying the same, to try and look into my thoughts, to read me without needing to ask for clarification. Unfortunately for us both, we couldn’t read each other's mind, couldn’t dive into the deep abyss that was our subconscious without taking the time to ask.

“What do you mean? You’re getting so much better at coding and I thought I was helping. Did something happen?” His eyes hold a kindness I never understood, one that should have never been directed at me. I couldn’t help but feel as if he would be better off with someone more on his level, someone who could match him pace for pace. Donnie was the brightest star in the night and I was just a mirror, stealing his light and passing it off as my own. I wanted nothing more than to be like him, my fingers itched to code the way he did. So seamlessly, completely flawless. Most of it had been from years of practice, but the way his brain just… Clicked with the code. It made me all the more envious. 

I shrink slightly, his words weighing me down. I didn’t want to feel this way, not about him. It wasn’t fair. I should be nothing less than ecstatic towards everything he does. There shouldn’t be this disconnect in my brain, it was all so straight forward. He was my boyfriend, my best friend, and my favorite person in the world. I hated feeling jealous because I wasn’t mad about his success, I was just… I wanted it for myself, to be able to have it with him. I wanted to be just like him. “No no no no no, of course you’re helping! I just… I’m not progressing very fast.”

“Of course you’re not. This stuff takes time dum dum. You can’t rush this.” His tone is very matter of factly, his smile wide as he relays the information. His eyes scan me once more, pupils shrinking as they narrow. His fingers tap on his desk, my body shrinking under his unrelenting stare. “Something’s wrong. Spill. According to Mikey, communication is key to all relationships and I’m not letting you leave until you talk.”

I huff slightly and he just raises an eyebrow muscle, waiting for me to talk. I run my fingers through my hair, slumping back in the seat. Knowing it would be pointless to lie or argue, I spill the beans. “I have been a bit… Jealous of you lately.” I admit, not meeting his eyes. Donnie waves his hand in a circular motion, prompting me to continue. “You’re so much smarter than me and it’s just… I can’t help thinking about how you’d leave me for someone more on your level. I just want to be as smart as you, but I’m not.”

“And you didn’t come to me with this, why exactly?” He asks, his arms crossed over his chest. I pat my thighs awkwardly, still not meeting his gaze. He was upset, that was obvious, but I didn’t know how to explain my feelings in a way that would make it all go away. I wanted nothing more than to be normal about his success and not have so much jealousy over his accomplishments, but the feeling remained.

“I uh… I thought you’d get mad, and I didn’t want to risk losing you over some stupid way I felt.” I admit, rubbing the back of my neck. I stare at the floor, rocking the chair back and forth to try and let off some of the energy coursing through me. My fingers danced across my legs, tapping out nonsensical rhythms to accompany my shame.

“Well that wasn’t a very smart way to think.”

I look up at him, his eyes still narrowed at me and his lips pull into a small frown. I chuckle nervously, not sure how to respond. He was right but I felt like I would be dragged to Mikey if I said the wrong thing. I really didn’t want to wake the poor guy, he was always grumpy in the morning. “What?”

Donnie sighs, pinching the bridge between his eyes. He takes my hand and brings it to his chest, holding it above his heart. "Hear that? As long as that beats, I'll love you."

His face is stern for just a moment, not having fully processed his words. As soon as his words sink in, his face slowly goes red. I let out a small laugh as our hands interlock, swinging side by side in between the chairs we sat on. Donnie had pulled the strings of his hoodie tight, covering his face as he sank into his chair. I squeeze his hand lightly, grinning at the sight. His head shakes a bit, loosening the strings so he could look at me once more. His face is much less flustered now, his cheeks only slightly tinged in color. He clears his throat, looking into my eyes and squeezing my hand back. "As cheesy as that was, my point still stands. I don't want you thinking like that. You may not be as good as me yet, but I truly believe you can catch up soon. If you want to, that is. Plus, you’re much better at other things than I am. I can’t talk to people like you can, and you’re much more in tune with your emotions.”

I look at him, smiling warmly at his words. “Thank you,” I say sincerely, squeezing his hand once more before letting him go. "I really needed that."

Donnie puffs out his chest proudly, beaming. “Of course! This just proves I am the superior boyfriend! Now if you could just let me record you saying that so I could shove it in Leo's face, I would be very appreciative." His words hold a small tease in them, a smug smile on his proud maw. His face softens again, patting the arms of his chair. “I am going to ask you to talk to me more often about this, okay? I don’t need you thinking I’m going to leave you just because you can’t keep up with me tech wise. Do you understand?"

I nod, sighing. I pull my knees to my chest in the chair, puffing out my cheeks. "Yeah, that's fine. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You told me what was wrong, and now it's going to get fixed. I have no reason to be mad." He turns back to his code, pulling my chair closer to his. He starts to type again, settling back into his own little world, me by his side. I lean on the desk once more, watching him instead of the screen. His eyes were focused, lighten up by both his own mind

and by the light of the screen in front of him. I could see the reflection of the code in his iris', lines upon lines being written in mere moments. My eyes close, a large smile on my face as I settle my head in my arms.

“I love you.” I mumble out, starting to fall asleep to the soothing tapping of his keyboard. My heart flutters in joy when I hear his response.

"I love you too, you dum dum. Go to sleep, I'll be here when you wake."

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt donnie x reader #tmnt donatello #donatello #rise donnie #donatello hamato #donnie x reader #donnie rottmnt #donnie tmnt #rottmnt donatello #donatello x reader #hurt/comfort #donnie #rise donatello #tmnt 2018 #tmnt x reader #tmnt donnie #donnie fanfiction #tmnt fanfic #fanfic #rottmnt fanfiction #fanfiction #donnie fanfic

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: conarcoin

today's interviewee is conarcoin, runner in the 2020 MCYTblr elections, founder of gay castle, mod on the mcytblr-confessions blog, and MCYTblr veteran! below is a transcript of the questions and answers.

Q: You’ve been in MCYTblr for a long time, and participated in a lot of MCYTblr events, so let’s work our way through them. Can you tell me a bit about what 2020-2021 MCYTblr was like for you, or anything that immediately comes to mind when you think of it?

A: 2020-2021 MCYTblr was a shithole, but it was a shithole I made some really good friends in and I don't regret that period at all. I regret some stupid posts I made, sure, but overall? Nah. 2020 MCYTblr was always filled with drama as it was a transitional period - it was primarily made up of what we now call "truthers" and the scattered remnants of SMPblr, and that sort of caused a culture clash. I'm immediately reminded of the time I got into a huge drama for having the url "transtubbo" in 2020, which one ex-SMPblr user was not fond of. Also a lot of posts made by straight up weirdos like that one infamous "sex god whore" post.

(the url "transtubbo" was not a truthing thing, but a DSMP thing, but this was a time when truthers were still everywhere in MCYTblr and the divide between RP and real life wasn't as clear, which is how I ended up in hot water)

Q: I understand that you started and ran the “gay castle” discord server. Why was it created? What was your experience running it?

A: Gay Castle's still alive and well after 3 years. Me and a friend made the server in September 2020 due to being tired of the drama in another server we were in called Sleepyheads. It's a personal friend server, so we just invited people we thought were chill to hang out and have some laughs. I honestly would call Gay Castle my internet family, they're a wild bunch and we've had so many great times over the past 3 years.

Q: What was it like running the mcytblr-confessions blog? Do any confessions stand out to you from memory?

A: mcytblr-confessions is the child of me and like 10 or so other members of Gay Castle. The experience is mostly mundane, just queueing and deleting asks. We do get a lot of asks that get deleted due to breaking the rules and such, but it hasn't been particularly drama-filled or anything. There's way too many confessions that stand out to me, but personal favorites of mine will always include the Foolish peas anon, the Highcraft church anon, and the one about AustinShow calling anon Greg instead of their actual name.

Q: If my memory serves, you ran in the October 2020 MCYTblr elections. Who did you run as? What was your experience being a part of it?

A: I did, alongside a friend at the time who went by Fakenoblade. I don't remember too many details from that period of time. We ran as "Potato2020" and didn't get very far but we had fun. Cecilia (bless her heart, we're still mutuals even though we don't talk often) can do a really good Technoblade impression, so in call we had her say some funny lines that we edited into a promotional campaign video. Fun stuff.

Q: Are there any other events that stand out to you?

A: The day a bunch of content creators joined in 2021, mostly smaller ones. That was around the same time I became friends with Erin (@itselectralive), who is still one of my closest friends to this day and an absolute sweetheart. She got me onto a SMP she helped run called Balls SMP, which crashed and burned, but I had fun and met some cool people.

Q: Do you remember any of the main discourses/dramas that went through the community?

A: Apologist discourse, obviously. I didn't engage with it - I honestly didn't care for either c!Tommy or c!Dream - but it's hard to avoid it. Shipping discourse and boundary discourse. Honestly, I can't remember anything more specific besides the more general dramas.

Q: What do you remember most fondly from that time?

A: Honestly? Just early Gay Castle and also liveblogging the L'Manberg Election. That night was so much fun, one of the most vivid memories of that time period I have.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A: You guys should watch SMPLive. Not really, it's aged like piss and several creators ended up being freaks but it's still got a lot of funny jokes and interesting lore (believe it or not). From what I have seen, its fandom is the root of a lot of MCYT fandom's most obnoxious behaviors, but the people who are left and still care about it are really cool. It turned 5 this month!

#early mcytblr interviews #Volume 8 #conarcoin

[thesugarsoiree]

Savior Of Dragons | CHAPTER TWO

The years had been kind to Y/n Cargyll. The beginnings of her plan had started beautifully. It took a few months to amass a full suit of armor alongside a helmet to mask her identity as a woman, but once it was done the real fun began. She trained by herself, along the part of the coast where no one bothered to go because no fish lived there. She watched the boys train in the courtyards and watched the knights battle at tourneys. She bruised herself, fought with herself, but she always picked herself back up again. For five years she repeated this, fixing her armor and sword until she looked on par with a real knight of the seven kingdoms. She practiced manners and other forms of weaponry, collecting skills as fast as she could think of them.

Finally, Y/n said goodbye to her parents and her little brother who was born a few months after she had ‘arrived’. At least they wouldn’t be alone, although Y/n’s father did slap her when she told them she was going to leave. She set out on her journey to Dragonstone, a young 17 year old maiden with the willpower only a dead woman could possess.

So now here she was, in her sixth year on this journey of a dream and finally at the  gates of Dragonstone. The massive stronghold was a sight, obsidian spires entering the clouds and dragon heads snarling down at her. Gaggles of people swarmed into the palace with her, excited for the day's tourney. The town right below Dragonstone was affluent and the Targaryens enjoyed paying them tribute; almost as much as they enjoyed watching the tribute. There was a tourney every few weeks to entertain the royals and the people; knights fighting and dying for the pleasure of the future Queen.

Y/n had fought in two so far, succumbing each time. Since then she had gotten better armor thanks to her job as a different blacksmith’s assistant and she had trained under real knights while in disguise. This time, Y/n was sure she would win.

“Ah, the prodigal son returns?” She felt a clap on her back as she entered the knights tent, shaking her head with a laugh.

“And he is ready to win, Harlik.” Y/n smiled but Harlik couldn’t see it, the northern knight putting on his own helmet.

“Sure, kid. That's what you said the last two times.” Harlik laughed, walking with Y/n.

“I’m sure of it this time, I can feel it.” Harlik laughed harder this time, holding onto his metal covered stomach as he practically crashed into her.

“Oh! Is that so? Well then fuck this tourney because we already have a winner, Ser Alren Cargyll of Shit’s Bottom!” Y/n shoved Harlik off of her, sighing.

“Suck a cock, Harl!” Y/n tsked, and she would never admit it but she enjoyed the way Harlik treated her. It made her feel welcomed, a part of something, like she wasn’t just some rookie knight who mistakenly wandered into Dragonstone. Twice.

“Aye, if I had the inclination I would but seeing as a cunt is so much better, I’ll stick with them.” He mused, shouldering Y/n with a snicker. A horn sounded from outside the tent and the rest of the knights put their helmets on.

“Let the games begin!” Harlik shouted, the knights hollering back as they made their way to the different arenas. Some were wrestling, others were sword fighting, but the bravest were jousting. The jousting was watched by the nobles while the other fights were left to entertain the small folk. Y/n had wormed her way into the jousting pit after convincing Harlik to put in a good word for her the last time.

So now here she was on a black mare with a black lance entering behind her opponent onto the field. The crowd cheered as they entered, her opponent being announced as, “Ser Bronn Torrent of House Torrent!”, a real knight unlike Y/n. She was introduced as, “Alren Cargyll of Kingslanding!”, nobody in the grand scheme of things. That's what everyone thought, anyhow.

Bronn galloped his way towards the royal family, offering his lance to the Lady Rhaena Targaryen, her sweet smile a contrast to her fathers solemn demeanor.

“My Lady, I ask for your favor to get me through the many fights I am to face on this day.” He grinned, his helmet comfortably on his lap. Rhaena placed her favor onto Bronn’s lance, a ring of silver sea-vipers falling gracefully to its hilt.

“I wish you good luck, Ser!” She waved, Bronn rounding to his end of the field. Y/n slowly approached the royal family, looking at them through the gap in her helmet. Daemon Targaryen sat beside Rhaenyra, her three sons nearer to Rhaena as they watched with bated breath what Y/n was going to do. She raised her lance towards the Princess and heir, the woman she came here for, the woman she would fight for.

“My Princess, I ask for your favor so that I may serve you with your blessing, and win on your behalf.” She spoke, bowing her head low. Daemon glanced towards Rhaenyra, the woman smirking in beguiled amusement.

“You wish for my favor, fair boy?” Rhaenyra asked, the crowd growing quiet.

“I do, your highness.” Y/n swallowed down her fear, looking back up at Rhaenyra’s piercing violet gaze.

“Prove yourself. Win this first round against Ser Bronn and I shall give you my favor.” Rhaenyra sat straighter in her seat. She would not give her favor to any common boy off the street, especially one she thought would not survive past round one.

“As you wish, Princess.” Y/n bowed, steeling herself as the crowds roared to life again. Once her and Bronn were settled and had their lances ready the overseer blew his horn and their horses took off. Y/n steadied her hand as Bronn came nearer but it was futile, both of their lances only grazing each other while the crowd’s awe’d in disappointment. Get it together! Y/n scolded herself, Bronn’s shining blue armor like a target that haunted her eyes. Y/n didn't have the money like he did to dye his metals, she wore pitch black armor that melted into her horse's coat; barely glinting against the glare of the sun.

They charged again and Y/n took a deep breath, closing her eyes and tightening her grip. She felt the impact of her lance on something hard, opening her eyes and looking back to see Bronn collapsed on the ground, his horse being wrangled by the tamers. He groaned, Y/n watching as he took off his helmet and called out for his squires. She silently cheered for herself, going back to where Rhaenyra sat and offering her lance again.

“Your highness, I ask again for your favor and one request. If I win all rounds of this tourney, I ask that you swear me in as one of your knights. I wish to serve and protect only you, my future Queen.” Y/n lifted up her eye coverings so that Rhaenyra could meet her gaze, the Princess looking down at the girl critically. The woman stood, taking out a ring of sweet-scented red and black roses. Rhaenyra tossed them onto Y/n’s lance, staying silent for a few moments.

“You have courage, asking for such a thing,” Rhaenyra congratulated, looking back at her husband who had not taken his eyes off of Y/n since she first asked for Rhaenyra’s favor.

“I accept. If you win against all of the opponents pitted against you I shall make you one of my sworn knights and you will be granted the ability to serve me.” Rhaenyra smirked, holding her hand out so that the crowd would quiet.

“We seem to have a brave boy in the ranks today! The rest of this jousting will be him against the knights of the seven kingdoms! Let the tourney begin!” The audience seemed to have no problem with this sudden change, screaming louder than Y/n had ever heard them scream before. She went back to her side and prepared herself, for this was going to be a long tourney.

*

Y/n, or as the crowds began to chant, Alren Cargyll was a force to be reckoned with. She had almost lost a few times but so far she had prevailed against each foe the Princess had pitted against her. In the current moment, however, Y/n began to doubt if she would win after all. Her and her final opponent, a six-foot-something knight from the Princess’ own guard, had knocked each other off of their horses and begun to fight on the ground. She had been handed a sword while her opponent took a hammer instead. Y/n was swift enough but he was well trained, it was to be expected. He had knocked her down multiple times but she always got back up before he could finish the job. Y/n hadn’t got too many hits on him yet, and her grip was beginning to become lax. She was beginning to become lax.

The screams of the crowd were mixed, some cheering for the man while others screamed for Y/n to get back up and fight. She rolled out of the way when he swung his hammer down, her head crashing against a pole that held up the jousting divider. Y/n barely had time to lift her sword to block his next attack, holding off the hammer mere inches from her face. Her opponent's helmet had come off ages ago but hers had yet to falter, his wild eyes and sadistic grin widening when her arms began to give out.

Shit. Was she about to die again? At a fucking tourney? Y/n gripped onto her sword harder, gritting her teeth as she did so. No, absolutely not. She was going to win, and she was going to save the entire fucking Targaryen family line while she did it. It was like a fire had been lit within her, Y/n kicking up her feet so that the man was tripped up. He faltered for a moment but that was all it took, Y/n tossing him over and throwing the hammer from his grasp. She took her sword and held it against his neck, panting as the crowd's ear splitting cheers rose for the final time that day.

Suddenly Y/n’s arm was grabbed and she was hoisted up, the overseer naming her the winner. Y/n stumbled her way back in front of the royal family, collapsing onto her knees. Only her sword held her up, Y/n’s head hanging low as she attempted to catch her breath. The crowd quieted and Y/n looked up to see Rhaenyra standing once more.

“May I present the newest knight of my guard, Ser Alren Cargyll!” The audience hoorahed, Y/n holding back tears.

She had done it. She had finally done it.

#x reader #x fem!reader #hotd x reader #house of the dragon #hotd #game of thrones #asoif/got #saviourofdragons

[bluesylveon2]

A Whole New World

Remember how I said I was taking a break? Well that lasted for a day lol. This is a follow-up to my previous Jamil drabble. This was requested by @ghostercy. I hope that you enjoy!

Note: set during the Al'ab Nariya event, amiriti means princess in Arabic (I used Google Translate), FLUFF, lots of handholding, dance scene is inspired by Aladdin (2019). How many times did I watch "A Whole New World?" Yes

Word Count: 1187

Warning: not beta read, possible ooc characters, and a possibly badly written dance scene

Masterlist

"How did you get Kalim's magic carpet?" Yuu asked while staring down below. Silk City reminded her of Christmas lights with all the lights and festivities happening. The light gave the carpet a beautiful glow as they weaved through the buildings. It was an amazing sight to see. It felt almost romantic witnessing it with Jamil, aka the guy she had a big crush on.

Not that he needed to know that. Yuu decided to focus on her trip instead. She was finally exploring something new, and she was alone with Jamil.

Jamil chuckled and placed a finger on his lips. "That's a secret for me to know," he teased, causing Yuu to huff in annoyance. "Why don't we go down there?" Jamil said while pointing down to a crowd. 

"Lead the way," Yuu nodded, and Jamil maneuvered the carpet. He softly landed it on a random alleyway, got out, and held a hand to Yuu. The girl blushed at the sight. Jamil looked the way he did when he invited her to their adventure. "Like a prince…" she whispered.

Jamil raised an eyebrow, "What?"

Yuu let out a cough, her face red with embarrassment, "I mean, thank you." She placed her hand on his let stepped out. 

Jamil silently thanked the carpet and watched it fly off to who knows where. He turned to the Prefect. Their hands were still connected, "You ready?"

Yuu nodded her head, prompting Jamil to navigate his way through the city. They landed far from the crowd Jamil pointed to earlier, but reaching it took little time. "Whoa…" Yuu's mouth opened in awe. Multiple pairs of people danced together in a circle around a water fountain. The women were in the outer circle, and the men were in the inner circle.  

"There's a legend where a prince once danced with the princess during a party she hosted. She initially doubted him, but he moved so expertly that he impressed her." 

"But I don't know the dance."

Jamil squeezed Yuu's hand for reassurance, "You did well earlier with everyone. Plus, you have me. Just mirror my movements, and don't forget to move your wrists." 

Yuu took a breath and squeezed Jamil's hand back, "Well then. What are we waiting for? Impress me," she teased. 

Jamil smirked. "As you wish, my princess." He said and quickly joined the crowd, with Yuu following. The two positioned themselves like everyone else and began to move. Despite Yuu doubting herself earlier, she kept her eyes on Jamil and followed his lead. The Prefect could not stop her smile from forming. She was having too much fun and did not want it to end. 

Yuu spun around while Jamil bowed. Now watching the other women, Yuu grabbed the silks in her outfit and held them up, spreading the fabric like she had wings. It reminded her of the peacock design on Vil's throne in Pomefiore. She moved her body to do her dance before stopping to let Jamil do his own. The two continued exchanging dances until they both danced together. Yuu almost laughed at how easily the movements were, almost like Jamil was using his signature spell on her. The thing was, he wasn't. He danced alongside her and stared at her with an unrecognizable expression. 

Yuu was too lost in her joy to realize the dance was done. The crowd clapping pulled her out of her dream world. Suddenly, an arm wrapped itself around her waist and pulled her away. 

"You did well," Jamil's voice murmured next to her ear, and then she realized how close he was to her. 

"Where are we going next?" Yuu managed to say and took a step away from Jamil's grasp. Her heart was going a mile a minute, and Jamil's charm was not helping it. 

Jamil's eyebrows furrowed slightly. "Whenever you want. Are you hungry?" Right on cue, Yuu's stomach let out a loud growl. Jamil chuckled, "There's your answer." He gently grabbed Yuu's hand for the nth time that night and led her through a nearby market. The two had tried and retried a variety of Scalding Sands' food. Now they could have a bigger portion without worrying about a certain cat monster eating everything. 

Yuu and Jamil continued exploring on foot up until now. The duo was flying on the magic carpet again. 

"I will never get tired of this view," Yuu said while staring at the same romantic glow as before. She turned to Jamil with a smile. "Thank you for bringing me here. I had fun."

Jamil smiled. "Your adventure is not over just yet."

Yuu raised an eyebrow. "It's not?"

Jamil chuckled. "Do you trust me, princess?"

There was the same nickname again! Yuu was internally screaming. How can a guy with a handsome face like Jamil's call her that so casually? It's like he could read her mind and knew she liked him!

"I do," Yuu said, and suddenly the carpet was moving very fast. Yuu instinctively closed her eyes and held on the carpet for dear life. 

"Don't close your eyes!" Jamil called out and gently placed a hand on Yuu's shoulder. She opened her eyes at his touch. "You're going to miss the view." He whispered. Yuu immediately turned to see it. 

Gone were Silk City's lights, but the calm ocean was in its place. Yuu was so stunned by the sight that she didn't realize the carpet had slowed down. 

"It's beautiful…." Yuu said, unaware of the grey eyes staring at her. 

"It really is," Jamil added. 

Yuu leaned forward and stared into the water. Her eyes widen in excitement at the familiar shape swimming below. 

"Dolphins!" She turned to Jamil and grabbed his shoulder, "Dolphins are swimming below us!" She went back to her original spot and looked down at the animals. 

Jamil only smiled as Yuu let her fingers graze the water. He found her excitement adorable. 

"It amazes me just how beautiful Twisted Wonderland is. There are so many amazing cultures and lands. I want to see it all."

Jamil chuckled. "I want to do the same, but we must return to NRC tomorrow."

Yuu sat up and turned to Jamil. "Is there any place near here?"

Jamil nodded and pointed to the left, "If you fly here, you can reach the Sunset Savanna." He then pointed in the opposite direction. "If you fly here, then you will reach the Shaftlands."

"That would be nice to fly there." Yuu sighed.

"I can take you there one day if no one else does."

Yuu chuckled before leaning down, placing her head on Jamil's shoulder, and intertwining his hand with hers. "That doesn't matter. Anyone could take me anywhere, and I would still want to experience it with you. We can visit it as many times as we want."

Jamil smiled. "I would love that. I promise to make your dream a reality, amirti." He brought their joined hands up and kissed the back of Yuu's hand to seal their promise.

A promise that became more later on, such as going on an adventure as husband and wife. 

Disclaimer: I do not own Twisted Wonderland and its characters. Those belong to Aniplex, Walt Disney Japan, and Yana Toboso.

©: This story belongs to bluesylveon2 2020-23. DO NOT modify, republish, or plagiarize my work.

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #jamil viper x reader #jamil x reader #jamil x yuu

[mxtantrights]

the greatest hits

got a request for a Jason todd x reader and this turned into a behemoth. if you want a part two to this let me know. it was super fun to write!! this is an au where all the bad things that are canon didn’t happen and we can have fun and everyone’s famous! 

to the anon who requested: I hope this is what you were looking for and thank you for the request!! 

Everything came to a head by the time you turned twenty one. At 18 you were already doing commercials and advertisements but when you turned 21 you finally got offered something. And you didn't know exactly what until you were sat in a room with a few executives, your manager and your agent.

A book cover deal. They wanted you to be the face of an author's character. Or, well, the author had seen your face and liked you so much that they wanted you to be the face claim of their character in the rom-com novel.

For you the answer was easy, it was yes. You signed on to do the photoshoot alongside a partner for almost double your rent. Gotham hadn't squandered all of your dreams yet.

Soon enough your face was on the book, and that book was almost everywhere. National, international, online, etc. It was a great opportunity for you to branch out and do the things you wanted and maybe do things you could've never dreamed of.

Like now.

Right now you're sat in a room with your agent outside talking over some finer details about a contract. And sat across from you is the one and only Jason Todd. You'd be a fool to not know him. He can do practically anything. It's why he, out of all the other Waynes, has more followers online.

He does poetry from time to time when he's not modeling or being the camera himself. He dances and he owns a chain of car shops. The man can do it all. Except maybe not everything. That's why you're here.

Jason Todd wants to venture into acting. It's something that his other siblings (namely Dick and Duke) have a handle on already. He wants to be like them, you guess.

The silence in the room is cut short.

"I think your agent wants to you close the deal, but I can't get a read on you." he says.

You can't understand it. You can't understand a lot of things in Gotham but this right here, Jason Todd sitting across from you and asking for you to star side by side with him in a feature film is one of them.

"I just don't understand, why me? I haven't even acted before. I could totally tank your movie and get you, and myself, blackballed from everywhere." you answer.

He chuckles, "I don't think that's true."

"You don't know me."

"But I want to, is that so bad? and at the very least you could get something from this too."

"oh what, a kiss from you?" you joke.

Jason crosses his arms against his chest. You can't help to think the shirt he's wearing is way too tight for him. But you can't focus on that right now. You cannot focus on the strong arms underneath the black tee. You can't.

“You still with me?” he asks.

You clear your throat, as if something suddenly got stuck in it. Not like you were checking him out. No definitely not. You are a professional. This is work. This is just work. 

As you’re about to reply with something witty that will make him lose that damn smirk of his, your agent and his step back into the room. Your agent looks over at you and with a simple nod they agree to the deal.

You're gonna star opposite Jason Todd in a feature film.

JASON TODD AND HOLLYWOOD NEW COMER SET TO STAR IN UPCOMING ROM-COM DIRECTED BY HARVEY DENT!

WHO IS JASON TODD’S NEW LOVE INTEREST?

-

Sitting across from Jason a couple of months ago was different. There was less tension then. Or there was a good amount of tension and a door clearly marked exit. Now you were sitting next to him in hair and makeup getting ready to film a scene.

Delores, ever the great artist, is doing her best to make Jason fit the role of ‘Mr.Corporate perfectionist’. Which includes a lot of concealer and a bit of mascara, which apparently Jason isn’t used to.

“Don’t they apply mascara when you model sometimes?” you ask.

You were annoyed at how long it was taking to coat his lashes. And it wasn’t even Delores’ fault. He won’t stop fidgeting in his seat whenever the wand comes even an inch near his eye.

He lets out a huff, “Not really. I’m usually good with eyeliner though.” 

“Business CEO’s don’t wear eyeliner in this movie, sorry Mr.Todd.” Delores speaks.

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles in your throat. And you don’t miss the snide eye that Jason spares you in the mirror. 

“You know I can met you on set right?” he asks you.

You turn to him fully. He’s sitting down normally, two pairs of clips hold back his hair from his face. Purple and pink. It would be adorable if he hadn’t become such a thorn in your side these past few days. Who knew?

“Oh but I'm gonna tell this story to UsWeekly, get a big payout and everything.” you remark.

Jason holds up the middle finger to you, playfully, and you return it back. Delores smacks his hand down and tries the wand again and this time he seems to let it happen. You watch as she coats his lashes once, twice and then three times.

“Done! Okay get out of here! Both of you!” Delores shouts.

You are the first to get out of your chair. Then Jason is hightailing it behind you. You hold open the door for him, he mumbles something of a thank you but it’s so low and quick.

When you two are walking to set in silence, under black Canada goose jackets Jason brings your hood up over your head. Almost destroying Delores’ hard work on your hair. You almost yelp at the action.

“Dude!” you shout.

“Paps.” he says simply.

And you follow his eyesight to a gaggle of photographers about twenty feet away to your left. You weren’t used to the sight yet. It freaked you out honestly. You were used to coming and going as you pleased. Maybe someone recognized you from close up. But not from a far. And not like this.

“Just make sure you’re walking with someone when you’re going somewhere” Jason says.

His words almost make you stumble. But you catch yourself in time. Thankfully you won’t look like an idiot to media royalty today. You look over at him, “Wait-why? is something gonna happen?” 

“No,” he looks at you for a second, “it’s just safety in numbers and all that.” 

“Oh. Got it. Thanks.” 

“No problem.

About a few steps away from set you realize something and look over at Jason.

“Why didn’t you put your hood up?” you ask.

He smiles, “Gotta give them the goods.” 

You groan and walk away from him then. Yeah, he’s gonna be more of a pain in the ass than you thought during filming. And then you’re gonna do promotion for the movie for the premiere with him. The pain was just beginning.

GETTING CLOSE? CO-STARS ON SET OF DENT’S “LOVE IN PEICES” CAPTURED ON SET!

JASON TODD AND CO-STAR FLIRTING ON SET? SEE PICS BELOW!!

-

Night shoots are impossible. They drain you and drain you and you’re still required to bring an award winning performance every time. Both you and Jason have struggled so much tonight that the director decided to call it a night and send everyone home.

Yet here you were, laying face down on the coach in your trailer crying. Yes sometimes challenges are fun. But most times they are exhausting. And you have to come back tomorrow and do the same thing all over again. Your chest and your head feel hot from embarrassment and nerves.

A series of knocks arrive on the door to your trailer. Your lights are on so whoever is looking for you must know you’re here, or that you don’t care about electricity and harm tot he environment. 

“Hey, are you decent in there?” 

It was Jason.

You picked yourself up and wiped the tears from your cheeks. But as you did you could see yourself in the mirror directly in front of you. Red cheeks, red eyes. Puffy eyes. Hair in complete disarray. 

“No..” you answer.

Somehow, the door opens anyways. You sigh and shut your eyes. Of course. You can hear Jason let himself in and walk your way. At this point you don’t know what to expect of him. Somedays on set he’s a bit standoffish, and others he can joke around and make it al feel normal.

You wonder what you’re about to get.

“Have you been crying?” he asks.

“No.” you like.

He scoffs. That’s when you feel a plop right beside you. You open your eyes and look over at him. He’s out of costume already. With the signature look of a brown leather jacket, a black tee and black jeans. 

“Today was hard for me too.” he speaks softly.

As if he were afraid to say it. Out loud. To you. You can’t believe he said it either. It’s not like him to admit defeat. Not in the time you’ve known him. He attacks everything with such passion and never gives up. 

“Maybe we just need to relax. Not be so in our heads so much for a couple of hours.” Jason offers.

You can’t help the smile that forms, “Are you-do you want to hang out with me outside of work hours-”

He holds out his hands in front of you.

“Alright don’t make it a thing and declare your love for me just yet. Let’s just see what happens.” he says.

It’s funny. You laugh a bit and he eases up and begins to laugh too. It’s the first time you see the crinkles around his eyes appear. Like in some of the photos that were taken by his brother, Tim, those seem authentic. Like him.

You’d like to get to know the real Jason.

SPOTTED: JASON TODD AND CO-STAR OUT FOR DRINKS!

COUPLE ALERT?! SEE PICS OF THE STARTS OF “LOVE IN PIECES” NOW!

CHEMISTRY READ: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT JASON TODD AND HIS CO-STAR!

-

It’s the last day of shooting and everyone is doing fine. Well almost everyone. Not you. You are an absolute mess. You’ve managed to befriend a lot of people on set and you don’t wanna have to say goodbye to them after spending months with them. 

Especially Delores. 

Which is why you brought her a bouquet of flowers. Or, you had them ordered and you picked them up at the front gate of the lot so you could deliver it to her by hand. 

As you round the corner to the makeup trailer you come upon Jason. He’s got a bouquet of flowers in his hand as well. They look equally as good as yours. Probably better because he’s rich and knows what to spend money on.

When he sees you he looks like a deer caught in headlights. The sight is equal parts cute and hilarious. 

“Todd you can’t be trying to upstage me right now.” you joke.

It takes a moment for him to walk up to the door as you do. When he does he smiles at your bouquet which would have been nice if you knew he wasn’t trying to subtly make fun of your flowers over his.

He laughs, “We’re not even competing, hun. I’m gonna win every time.” 

You gasp and at your state of shock he opens the door first. You lunge after him and get inside. There’s Delores setting up some stuff for later today. When she sees the both of you she lets out a delightful noise, her hands clap together.

“Oh you both shouldn’t have!” she says.

You nudge Jason out of the way and embrace her. The flowers still in your hand. 

“We probably could have brought a whole flower shop and it still wouldn’t have been enough to thank you for all that you did.” you say.

She rubs your back, comforting you. And that’s when your can feel the water start to cloud your eyes. You pull away with a sad smile. She cradles your face in her hands.

“You’re gonna do great things, I just know it.” she whispers.

You nod and thank her again, offering her the bouquet. She takes it and then you move out of the way for Jason to give over his. You don’t notice how he seems to eye you a bit before he does. You’re too busy sipping the tears away.

“Whenever I do one of these or I need a stylist I’m calling you personally.” he chides.

Delores yelps at how he hugs her. He basically lifts her off the floor. You knew she was a small lady but Jason made it same like she was even smaller than that. You laugh at the way her legs dangle in the air for a moment before he puts her back down.

“Jason!” she laughs.

He offers her the bouquet. She takes it as well. 

“I’m gonna miss you two.” she says.

SPOTTED: JASON TODD WITH A BOQUET OF FLOWERS! GIRLFRIEND?

CHECK OUT INSTA FOR TOUCHY LAST DAY SET PICS FROM CAST AND CREW OF “LOVE IN PIECES”!

-

Doing interviews back to back is slowly rotting you from the inside out. Including the fact that you were expecting an important call from your agent who was out scouting for you. 

And maybe it was the outfit you were wearing too. Not that it was uncomfortable, you had the guts to say when things didn’t feel right on you. But this contraption you were in was about ten degrees too hot for a hotel in California. Even the air conditioning couldn’t help you.

Yeah, maybe it was the outfit making you sweat.

“I think we get a break after this one.” Jason says from your side.

You hear the tail end of his sentence, too busy in your own head worrying about other things. You turn to face him.

“Huh?” 

He lightly chuckles and places a hand on your knee. You hadn't realized you were bouncing it. Now you’re wondering if you were doing that the whole time. If you were, did you look like an asshole? Or just a nervous rookie?

“I said we’re getting a lunch break after this.” he repeats.

You nod your head, “thanks Jay.”

“Oh by the way, we settled on Thai.” he adds.

Since the press tour was majorly compromised of you, Jason, three other actors and the director you all wanted to go out to lunch today. Catch up on things, spend some time together.

You had told everyone before you didn’t mind what you ate, you weren’t picky when you got hungry. Any food would do.

“Is it close or are we getting a car?” you ask.

Jason arranges himself in his seat and it all kind of clicks in your head. You have been looking at him differently for a while now. Ever since that night he found you in your trailer crying and hung out with you. At first you thought it was just a friend thing, but now you’re realizing it’s not.

Definitely not when he looks good with the clothes his stylist picked out for him and his thighs-

“You’re doing that thing again.” he says.

You shake your head, “what thing?”

“The thing where you get in your head. Something I can help with?” he asks.

And in your dirty mind the answer is yes. But you don’t say that. You keep that thought and all the other ones you had before to yourself and you smile lightly at him.

“Just waiting on a call.” you answer.

Jason hums a noise. Before either of you can say anything the next interview steps into the room. And just like that both of your smiles are turned back on and you're greeting and waving, shaking hands and introducing, the works.

JASON TODD BEING A SIMP FOR FIVE MINUTES AND TWENTY SECONDS!

DENT TALKS CHEMISTRY BETWEEN CO-STARS!

SEE CO-STARS FOR “LOVE IN PIECES” SHARE SOME FLIRTY BANTER!

-

Well it’s not like you weren’t expecting to run in to him at the literal carpet premiere of the movie you filmed together. Okay, who are you kidding? You checked his socials and the cast group chat and heard that he might be working on another project and might not make the event.

And you were able to breathe a little. After not seeing him for a couple more weeks you were able to talk yourself out of the whole ‘maybe I don't think of him as a friend I think of him as more’ thing that was going on in your head.

It was good. 

Until it wasn’t. Until you were standing in front of a swarm of cameras about to bolt because your outfit felt a bit tight even though it fit you perfectly when you put it in hours ago, and your heart is beating out of your chest and reporters and photographers are calling your name and shouting directions.

Then the funniest thing happened. You heard it.

“Jason over here!” 

You’re pretty sure that if someone had recorded you, the video would’ve shown how wide your eyes got. And how quickly your head turned. 

He’s here.

Your eyes meet his from a few feet away. He’s already looking at you. In fact he’s not really looking at anyone else, or paying attention to the cameras for that matter. No he’s staring at you dead on.

Now he’s walking over to you. You try to keep it together. Know that with him so close the cameras will be back on you like they never left. You’ve seen the articles, the pictures that were taken out of contexts, the videos. 

You let out a shaky break and smile once more as he nears you.

“And to think I almost missed this.” he says.

You hum, “thankfully you didn’t. I’m kinda struggling here.”

“Let me help, sweetheart.”

Later in the night is when you realize he called you sweetheart. Your way too busy right now trying not to do something embarrassing in front of all the cameras.

He wraps an arm around your waist and faces the cameras. Which was not what you had in mind when he said help, but sure. You look over at him once, and that's all it takes for the photographers to shout at you to keep that pose. 

You bite your tongue from saying something foul. But before you can even swallow the words down in your mind Jason is in front of you. Standing right in front of you. None of the cameras can see you clearly.

“You hangin’ in there?” he asks

Nodding your head you try to take a breather. But then Jason Todd is leaning closer to you, his face next to yours as the breath from his mouth hits the side of your face and your ear.

“We can walk into the theatre if you want. You don’t owe them anything.” he says.

He pulls away and looks for your answer, as if it were in your eyes. And you knew right then and there that as hard as you tried to tell yourself that your feelings for him were totally platonic, they weren’t. You were an idiot for even trying.

“I thought you’d be too busy to be here tonight.” you answer.

“And miss this?” he repeats.

The way he says it send a shiver down your spine in the most infectious way. Because he’s not looking at anyone else, or anything else, but you. And you can’t help the way your lips spread into a smile at the thought. Or how much you like it when Jason smiles back at you.

You were so done for.

JASON TODD AND CO-STAR CARPET PHOTOS! 

HARVEY DENT AND BRUCE WAYNE REUNITE AFTER FIVE YEARS!

AFTER PARTY FOR “LOVE IN PIECES” PREMIERE SHOWS CO-STARS CLOSE AND PERSONAL!

SEQUEL TO “LOVE IN PEICES” ? DENT SAYS IT’S POSSIBLE.

#dc imagine #dc fic #dc x reader #Jason todd imagine #Jason todd fic #Jason todd x reader #dc #Jason todd #famous dc!au