#a graceful belle prayers

[satorkive]

A MORTAL AND A GOD 𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒ SATORU

gojo satoru, the strongest and the most attractive man who graced this earth, thinks you’re the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.

and that’s objectively true.

when the ivory-haired boy first met your breathtaking face, he was stunned.

he was cracking a joke with suguru when you stepped inside the classroom.

and wow. you managed to make their breaths away by just existing.

he even heard suguru muttering ‘holy shit’ before he immediately closed his mouth. even yaga-sensei stared at you (not in a creepy way, no). he seemed in awe.

your teacher cleared his throat and gestured for you to introduce yourself.

your steps were light and graceful, like a ballerina dancing on a platform. your skirt bounced around your legs and it made you look like a girl getting ready for a dance.

you waved your hand and gave them a smile that could even save them from having expensive electricity bills.

“hi! i’m [name]! nice to meet you!” your mellifluous voice rang around the room and suguru couldn’t help but cursed again.

“holy fuck.”

“geto.” yaga’s deep, thunderous voice made the student’s face cold.

your giggles feel like a twinkling bells during christmas that satoru didn’t speak for the whole day.

that’s how impressive your presence affected him.

since then, he has found himself wanting your attention. he wants those pretty, pretty eyes of yours to always bathe him with attention.

his nickname for you was bambi.

you are like a deer—wide, expressive eyes surrounded by long lashes; nose that scrunches up cutely when he does something silly; lips that always seems to be pouting and begging to be kissed; and those freckles. god, those beautiful freckles that look like constellations and can probably map the universe if someone wants to.

he would gladly smooch that lips if only suguru and shoko stopped being hindrances!

suguru, the traitor, seems to be in competition with satoru. his upturned eyes crinkle at the sight of your beaming face whenever you talk about clouds, flowers, and nature with him. he also can’t take his eyes off you. you are like the sun—beckoning everyone to have a light of yourself. you are the only thing that put a smile on other people’s faces. you bless them with your unending kindness, stunning grace, and a heart of gold. if heaven is a sight, you surely are it.

shoko, the betrayer, wants to hog all your divine attentiveness. being the sole student in medicine, she finds herself being enamored at you when you asks her questions regarding her technique. how does it work? how sure are you it will work? can anyone do it? can i see you do it?

when she sees how celestial your presence emits around her, she now understands why suguru can’t stop staring at you and why satoru can’t stop rambling about you.

satoru. oh, satoru.

poor satoru who can’t still figure out why your lips smile brighter when you see him. he can’t still figure out why your steps are full of pep. he can’t figure out why you almost do a pirouette when you turn back to look at him. he can’t figure out why your cheeks seem to have a color on it.

poor, dense satoru.

all he wants to do is to be yours forever and ever; because no woman will ever be it for him as he is yours and you are his and he knows—he knows in his life that if a devil ever lays his eyes on you, he will bend on his knees and repent because—

you made a god like him leave the heavens and on bended knees; crawling to you and kissing your feet like a devoted prayer.

#🫧 — riri’s love letters! #i love ‘toru #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #gojo satoru #gojo x reader #gojo fluff

[inknopewetrust]

𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 [𝐀 𝐆𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐔𝐬]

Summary: Years after Hawkins was saved, Nancy and Steve’s wedding draws everyone back together and with it, you are reminded of the love you lost at the price of fame. [Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader; WC: 17.4k] Warnings: language, exes to lovers, mutual pining/yearning, frightened lil beans in love, heavy angst.

A/N: I worked on this for weeks. I am very nervous to post it, and I hope you enjoy it (excuse any errors, it's time consuming loves).

What is it like to be loved?

There was something in that room that made you question it. The palpable, sudden feeling that permeated around it like a fog; a special dance that so many would be able to feel, yet it seemingly evaded you.

Her dress was beautiful. An ivory lace with sleeves that covered her soft skin. The brown of her hair so vibrant against the spring flowers she held as the chapel’s old stones warmed with the feeling reverberated with the words of the priest.

He was tall and stoic; filled with a slight fear that his true colors would show in his dark suit and dotted tie. He was joyous; he was a radiant boy filling his father’s suit and marrying the girl of his dreams.

Nancy and Steve.

For a moment, while the priest held everyone’s attention in a moment of prayer, it was quiet enough to imagine love physically filled the space before you. Head lightly dipped, the bouquet in your hand distracting you from the eyes of every person in the chapel.

A silence was asked for and responded to with grace. The silence of baseless words washing over the room in a wave of down-turned heads and folded hands. However quiet, however peaceful the room had become, that floating feeling hung from the rafters. You felt your heart sink. That heaviness of sorrow that plagued beautiful moments from a pain buried in your bones that you weren’t even sure really existed. Love. A tragic thing.

All you could ask was:

What is it liked to be loved?

Maybe it was the wedding that made you teary-eyed and soft hearted. You weren’t a hopeless romantic. You weren’t searching constantly for Mr. Right because he didn’t exist. They had shown you that, he had shown you that. Not some Marilyn Monroe waiting for the next man to sweep you off your feet and carry you into a raging bloody sunset in Los Angeles. No. The cards were dealt with precision and meaning; each turned over when the time allowed and burned when the bells tolled.

Love brewed and bubbled; love ached and pained; love existed and diminished; love stood in front of you screaming to break free but the cries fell silent—dead on the cold, stone floor.

Steve’s eyes called to Nancy like a ship lost at sea. The tears that brimmed at the corners whispered to fall after years of trauma and resolution. But they were relieved and elated and somehow, Nancy returned the sentiments with eyes elated. And it hurt to see your closest friends happy when you couldn’t be.

‘And from this day forward they would walk hand and hand into everything that You have destined them to be.’

The words echoed and echoed. The priest as happy to say them as Ted and Karen Wheeler nodded as if it were true from the pews. Steve’s parents had actually shown up too, along with hundreds of other people. Friends, coworkers, and the guests each of them brought.

‘We give our hearts and beings to You now in adoration.’

People like you didn’t give their hearts willingly. Not like Robin, not like Nancy. You weren’t sure about Max or Eleven, but perhaps they gave theirs willingly enough too as they stood beside you up on the alter. And you wanted that. You wanted to give it willingly. As their heads hung and their eyes diverted from above, there was a calling. Probably not from some higher God you weren’t sure even existed, but something—a gut feeling. One that simmered and bristled against negativity and anxiety; the same one that painfully squeezed that arduous organ in your chest. That feeling told you not to bow your head. It told you not to close your eyes and whatever it did, it made you shift your head in the slightest.

The groomsmen were just across the way beside Steve. Dustin helmed them, walking you down the aisle and reminding you that as they embraced adulthood, you were also getting older. Over one age milestone of established adulthood and half of the kids you babysat as a teenager were closer to marriage than you.

Angled perfectly with your shoulder—bare from the design of your green gown. The shape of your nose and chin and the style of your hair falling sleekly into a perfectly haloed outline as though a magician had cast their greatest spell. And when it turned just enough, where the platform was illuminated by the rays of the sun, one other head remained as perfectly crafted as yours, looking back as though the universe said: here it is.

This is what it feels like. 

Those butterflies? Love. The heart bursting panic that set off inside you? Love. The painful realization that you could have it and you could nurture it with passion? Love.

It existed. 

And it did so in the cruelest of forms. 

Because the sheen of your eyes from the beautiful wedding and the widely spoken words of the priest meant more when staring back at the one thing you had always wanted. It was one feeling, one person, and that’s what you swore you couldn’t have.

He had chosen that for you. Six years ago in a tiny apartment on the west side of Chicago, he decided his career was more important.

He was him. He was a brilliant, foul-mouthed metal rock star with impeccable hair and sense of style that made your heart leap for quiet bursts of love. He was complicated and corny and filled with a truth you hadn’t been able to recognize because everyone else clouded life. What life could be and what it could hold.

Eddie Munson was a rock star. Eddie Munson was one of the most famous musicians in the world. Eddie Munson was a friend, a hero, and Eddie Munson was the man who broke your heart and it could never heal itself.

And yet love remained deep down.

It’s regretful nature resurfacing because love was tangible in the chapel in Nantucket.

It was love. It existed. It was real. It was palpable in that room, in his eyes, against the prayer, across the aisle and in all of the pews.

‘And we welcome Your Holy Spirit amongst us. Amen.’

And the chorus filled the room. The pews creaked and heads returned upright. You lost the sight as Steve and the others lifted their heads, but the feeling remained. It sunk to the pit of your stomach where the realization remained.

“Hey,” a hushed whisper sounded near your right ear as your body jolted minutely from the call. Robin’s head tried to follow your direction but couldn’t find the destination. There were hundreds of people in that room. But she should have known. She should have known. 

“Everything alright?”

Her concern was evident. Had you been that rigid the entire time? Was the look of love one of fear? Were the tears in your eyes truly that clear?

“I’m fine, Rob. Really.”

It hadn’t convinced her but you returned your attention to the ceremony instead. Robin waited, glancing over your shoulder again and again to try to find her answer. The sentiment of conflict appearing much faster in times of clear disruption than she remembered. The feeling of the world tilting on its axis for something you couldn’t control.

Her eyes looked for the answer. Searching the crowd with an unfathomable hardened gaze until it landed back to the groomsmen and she felt everything click back into place. You had reassured Nancy and Robin that everything was fine; that you were friends. That there was no animosity nor tension remaining over the years but it had. They just wanted to believe the best, yet all the signs were there. 

The way you stood so still; scared of yourself as emotions took their hold.

Six years of separation meant nothing. Its degrees scorching the earth every moment not together, bound by the universe yet torn apart by wants, not needs.

They had all believed you. They believed Eddie’s lies that he had moved on—the woman looking straight out of a Vanity Fair magazine in the fifth row the one he brought to prove such a tale.

No.

They had all been wrong.

The two of you had imploded the meaning of love because if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, it couldn’t exist at all.

Steve and Nancy wed on a Saturday in March. 

The morning had greeted everyone with golden rays. Sunlight streaming in from the curtains of the Wauwinet’s rooms waking its patron’s with a sprinkle of joy. Early morning glow; warm and intoxicating on a day such as that. 

You couldn’t see the beach from where you laid; the white comforter covering your shoulders high, eyes peeking out from the space between the blankets and your pillow. High above on the second floor, the sky reflected its yellow and pink hues until they faded to blue. Not a cloud in the sky. 

The two days you had spent on the tiny island thus far had been a reflection of that sunrise. An excitable shimmer of beauty and grace only to fade into a familiar blue–a melancholy gloom that you hadn’t expected to feel. You stepped off the plane only to be greeted with every feeling that ran in its opposite direction; Robin and Nancy clung to you with joy, Steve and the boys, who you should probably call young men now, hugged you tightly. 

And then a cloud formed. 

The cloud was ugly, gray, and filled with matter you had buried deep. Years of pretending everything in your life was going smoothly–that you were exactly where you wanted to be–lingering above you like a joke. Laughing, jesting you with the past as happiness was rubbed into a wound like salt. 

He had a smile plastered onto his face the first time you saw him that weekend–the night before the ‘I do’s.’ He was sitting in the wine cellar with Steve, reminiscing about the past as the future was gently placed on Nancy’s finger; sparkling against the shine of the hotel’s lighting as night had long fallen on a Friday evening. 

As the thoughts lingered in your mind as the sun began to rise, it hadn’t been seeing Eddie for the first time in years that had thrown your world off its axis. The woman, clad in the most casual New England fashions, who sat beside him with her arm resting on his, did. 

A petty, jealous feeling at the sight rose within you rapidly. 

You felt there was no right for you to feel that way. 

Six years. Six years had left an open season for both he and you to find new people to love, hate, and screw, but the idea that there was a reality that existed where Eddie no longer loved you was jarring. 

The fear of it became engrained in your bones. Tattooed onto skin that was untouched and permanently stained with words that hurt and stung and ultimately resulted in the reason you had come to that wedding alone.  

Eddie had scarred you–in a beautifully tragic way that you’d never be the person you were at seventeen when he asked you to go see Temple of Doom at a theater two towns over. It was a shame you’d always tie him to that film… because you really fucking liked the movie but all you could think about was how Indy left Marion in the dust and hell, you felt like Marion sometimes. 

He just sat there. A gorgeous woman on his arm and smiling at Steve as though not a day had gone by. He looked older, more sure of himself, and dare you think it, had a bit more style than he did before. Nice, in a ‘formal but not too formal’ kind of way. 

They were all sipping on some hundred-dollar wine. He could afford it now. Red-soled shoes, a jacket with no fringe, and a bottle of wine that cost as much as your monthly rent. 

Nancy had been perched on a stool at the high-top beside Steve. The two had been going over the rehearsal that Eddie conveniently missed as well as the dinner from hours before. From what Robin had divulged, he had a show in Boston and would make his way out to Nantucket after it was over. 

You didn’t think Nancy ringing your suite for drinks would mean he’d be there too. 

The thunder from the cloud above you rumbled when Nancy caught your eye in the entryway. 

Everything, from the clothes you wore to the company of the room, felt out of place. Like you were looking from the outside and into a world that was completely yours but never one you recalled. The people in it–sparingly familiar but strangers all the same. 

Nancy had taken a sip of her wine, swallowing quickly as she perked up and waved at you. The attention drawing each eye away from Steve and to you, unwelcome and afraid of familiarity. Two looked happy, one looked curious, and the other looked like the whole world had stopped. 

A moment in time paused. No calm waiters tending to guests, no heads turning toward him because he was identifiable; it was blank. Two worlds gone completely still because for the first time in six years, you and Eddie had finally converged to one place. 

Some expensive hotel on Nantucket Island for a wedding between two people you both held near and dear to your hearts. It took nothing to imagine that if things had gone right, perhaps it would not be Steve and Nancy meeting at the alter tomorrow afternoon. 

In the stillness, a reunion is not bound by the trivial “it’s good to see you” or “its been too long.” A mind playing funny tricks and sending you back to years before–the way his entire person disappeared beyond the bedroom door only to be followed by the slamming of the front one. An apology sputtered at the end of a fight that had been brewing for weeks. 

The last time you saw Eddie Munson he had come home from a tour with no direction but up. Up to a new place, to a new life, and one that kept the past behind. Questions of love, home, and loyalty tested two people who were holding onto a fine thread before it snapped. 

Now, its lingering shreds brushed together with an easterly wind. 

You don’t know what he was thinking when the words stopped fumbling from his lips. 

“Hey!” Steve cheered happily from his spot as Eddie went quiet. “Come on, join us!” 

You felt like a fool standing there idle. Feet glued to the floor, eyes trained on Eddie a moment too long because as soon as the fifth second passed, the woman by his side asked: 

“Who’s that?” 

Steve said your name, waving at you the same way Nancy had, “She’s Ed–“ 

“My Maid of Honor!” Nancy cut in, giving the woman a smile in reassurance that it was the description most accurate to who you were. Nancy didn’t know why she cut Steve off like that; the side-eyed glance she received from him as Eddie stared back at you should have told her everything. 

Not friend, not best friend, not former classmate, but Eddie’s ex-girlfriend. What a label to have. 

Your planted feet begged you to move. The awkwardness of standing still for lingering seconds in time drawing eye after eye, raising questions as to whether or not you were having a medical emergency or just plain stupid. Your feet took those commands and walked, before your mind could even process that the night had continued to move forward without being truly ready to interact. 

“I told you she’d join us,” Nancy hit Steve’s shoulder lightly with the back of her hand, “Can’t spend the last few hours of us together as an unmarried couple without those who brought us back together.” 

Steve gave her a smile, hand squeezing her kneecap under the table because in reality, there wasn’t an ounce of a lie there. Not that any regular person would understand, but Steve had always dreamed of this moment: the night before he went to sleep one last time as an unmarried man, sipping chilled wine in an expensive hotel with his bride-to-be, his closest friends, and the reason he and Nance were at this stage. 

One piece of that puzzle had gone mute, silent as though they never heard him talk. As you approached the high top that was tucked into a corner by the windows that looked out to the Atlantic Ocean, Eddie couldn’t form words. He had prepared himself for this moment for years and yet his mind had gone blank. Emotions barren from his chest like he was an empty, cavernous being and not a person. He felt nothing–like the world had been obliterated and there was only him in space; alone and helpless to save his sanity. 

And if it hadn’t been so long since he last laid eyes on you, perhaps he could have recognized the same emotions bleeding out of you. That the wound had never truly closed and there was much unsaid floating around the two of you that the air was hard to breathe. 

But against it all, it was you who offered the closed smile and a small: 

“Hi.”

Eddie’s relief that the first words weren’t “fuck you,” or “I still hate you.” Just a simple “hi” that replayed in his mind as the seconds transpired and the ball had fallen into his court. 

But those words were hard for you to even muster. 

“It’s good to see you,” he settled on, not leaving his chair to wrap his arms around you or whisk you away to hear how your life has been since he left. He sat there, as still as you had in the entryway, and let you take the spot beside Nancy because it was the furthest away from his own that you could take. 

Eddie had completely forgotten about the woman to his right. 

No one had thought anything of the interaction. In two minds, it played out differently because the truth existed somewhere between two people unwilling to face it. For people like Nancy and Steve, there had been one story that had been told yet no one questioned the absence of the other on specific holidays, birthdays, or more. 

“We broke up,” that was what you had told Nancy and he had told Steve. Word for word, the same story. “Distance was getting too hard and we thought we’d take a break. It’s better this way and we’re still friends–we we’re friends before everything so…” 

For every truth, there were two lies. 

Nancy flagged down the waiter, tapping on her glass and holding up two fingers. You shifted in your seat as one leg crossed over the other and glanced at the woman to Eddie’s right. 

She wasn’t familiar at all. Still hanging on Eddie’s arm and fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. In all of your years together, you had never seen Eddie wear a dinner jacket. 

And against your feelings, you extended your hand over the table toward her. Eddie didn’t know what to think of that. You introduced yourself. 

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he knew the voice. It was the kind someone would use on the telephone if they were talking to a co-worker or boss, not a friend. 

“Veronica,” she lifted her hand from Eddie’s arm and graciously shook yours over the wine glasses; a tiny set of flickering candles beside a small relish tray beneath it. “I hear you’re the Maid of Honor?” 

“As much as one can be,” you told her, eyes looking over her face and form. Eddie could see it now that you were comparing yourself to her, an unfortunate circumstance of choice. “The other bridesmaids have helped a bit with planning and what not… it’s not easy work,” you scoffed, tipping your head at Nancy and the bride shook her head with a grin. 

“I promise I’m not one of those crazy brides,” Nancy jokingly defended herself to Veronica who admired the friendship before her. She knew you all of two seconds and could see how comfortable the two of you were. 

“Yeah, sure…” you trailed off as the waiter returned with two new glasses of wine. You thanked him and took a long, needed sip as the white wine’s bubbles barely had time to settle. 

Steve cleared his throat as you drank, glancing at Eddie before turning to you. “We were just catching him up on what went down at the rehearsal. Told ‘em that Robin tripped down the aisle so he’s gotta hold onto her tightly.” 

You snickered at the memory. Robin Buckley couldn’t walk in heels even if she tried to. Nodding your head, you didn’t make eye contact with Eddie to reiterate the sentiment. 

“She’ll topple over if you don’t.” 

“Will do,” Eddie replied quietly, differently than he normally would have and Veronica put her hand on his arm again, rubbing it up and down as if she knew. For once, he just wished she would stop. 

“We’re going to–“ Steve’s voice drowned itself out as he rattled on about the plans of tomorrows festivities. 

Every now and again when you’d catch a word of Steve’s, you couldn’t help but look at Eddie. Those eyes still telling of his emotions rather than the words he spoke; wide and pupils blown from both the environment and alcohol. 

You weren’t shameless about it when he caught you looking. He couldn’t help it either; it was as though he was drawn to a magnet that kept pulling him in. Just as you had observed him, everything was familiar yet strangely different. The way you held yourself, the clothes you wore, makeup and hair just enough having changed to make him notice that he didn’t know you now as he had then. 

However, he still felt that hand on his jacket. 

Yet he was looking at you. And he felt like a coward for thinking he’d rather have you cling to him like that then her. She, Veronica, didn’t deserve to have a man think that of her. 

“Are you still in Chicago?” He blurted out over Steve’s talking. Like walking in a path of quicksand, Eddie did not want to drown before his life truly began. Steve stopped and glanced at Eddie as though his friend had a stroke. 

“Mhm,” you murmured over the lip of the glass Nancy had secured for you. “Still in California?” 

“Yeah, near Bell Canyon.” 

“Is that…” Of course you wouldn’t have known exactly where that was. It wasn’t like you had a map inside of your brain or tracked his every movement. Based on the question on whether or not he still lived in California, he wondered if you read anything about him at all. 

“It’s near Los Angeles… like suburbs of it.” 

“Ah, alright,” you met his eyes briefly before taking another long sip of your wine. He could see the way you practically folded in on yourself; anxiety and fears bubbling within you the same way they used to. 

“And you still live…” he trailed off in a veiled hope that the implication went unspoken. ‘At the apartment, our apartment.’

“No,” you shook your head, “I moved a few years ago… have a nice view of the lake,” the thought of it brought a small smile to your face. It was nice. It was nearly perfect. 

“No more of the ‘L’ ruining your sleep?” 

He saw the hint of smile play on your lips. 

“It’s pretty quiet now,” for a multitude of reasons he could think of. 

“That’s good,” Eddie nodded, glancing at Steve and Nancy who provided no support to make the situation any less awkward. 

“So,” Veronica began with a perky voice for eleven-thirty at night, “Eddie said you all went to high school together?” 

The model wore these big, curious eyes. She was kind, in a doxy kind of way but her sentiment’s with her words transcended through each of you. This woman, a date, hadn’t been a steady, familiar thing to Eddie. Anyone who knew him as close as a formal, long-term partner did, would have known about the crew from Hawkins. 

“Yeah,” Steve answered as a savior, “But we weren’t all friends then… that took some time. We were all pretty different.” 

Nancy hit his arm playfully, giving a scowl as Steve quirked his eyes at Eddie. The latter had simply taken the labels he was given and ran with them–a transformative play for the man with a lengthy petty crimes list and could out smoke Pablo Escobar. 

“It doesn’t matter what we were like! We’re all friends now and those three–“ Nancy gestured her hand over Steve, Eddie, and yourself, “were in the same class.” 

“Oh!” She beamed. “How cool! I don’t really talk to anyone from my class so it’s nice to see it works for some people.” 

Everyone just gave her tight smiles. Having friends from childhood didn’t make you less of a person. It meant stronger connections and the fact that no one could say why you were all bonded so closely made things more difficult. 

“And the rest of your friends?” Veronica turned her face toward Eddie who shrugged. 

“In their rooms, I’m guessing. I think we got here a little late,” he chuckled. 

“They know you had a commitment,” Nancy reassured him. “Besides, Dustin and the others will be just as thrilled to see you in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “After the bachelor party, I didn’t think half of us would even make it here so it’ll be a nice surprise.” 

Thank God for Steve and his stupid jokes. It broke some tension, a smile actually cracking Eddie’s face again and one that reached his eyes. The brown, doe-eyed ones that Robin once said made her sad were recalling that party like it was the funniest thing he had ever experienced. 

‘It probably was’, you thought, ‘Steve Harrington always knew how to party.’ 

“So,” Veronica interjected, pointing a finger between you and Nancy, “the bachelorette party wasn’t anything to write home about?” Quick judgement.

“We went wine tasting in the Valley,” Nancy’s eyes lit up at the memory, “and then we went hiking… which in retrospect wasn’t something any of us liked.” 

It was the end of summer when everyone could get together and the heat ate at each of you as the sun rose higher, the drinks flowed more, and the guides took in their amusement of each woman. 

“Went to some museums, ate too much food…” you said additionally. 

“El learned she was allergic to pears and Max got stung by a bee,” Nancy interjected, “and our heroes Lucas and Mike came to save the day when we got stranded in the middle of lake because the engine died on the boat we rented.” 

“I think we’ll stick to spa days and cooking classes next time,” you picked up your glass, a side-eye to Nancy as she quickly agreed. Veronica perked up, still clutching Eddie’s arm. 

“Who’s getting married next? You?” 

She meant nothing by it. Her eyes were friendly and voice high pitched, interested in the conversation to just be a part of something more than a two-person bubble. You choked on the wine, the question startled you because it hadn’t been something you thought of in a long time. 

You put the glass down as your hand went to your mouth, wiping it dry and you, unintentionally, looked from her to Eddie. Steve noticed, Nancy didn’t. 

“No!” You replied a bit too loudly. “Sorry,” shaking the embarrassment from you, “I just–no. Not me. I would put money on Dustin and Suzie once they’re done at MIT… He’s loved her since he was in middle school.” 

She smiled at the idea of everlasting young love. “That’s cute! Sometimes, if you know, you know, right?” And she squeezed Eddie’s arm the same way her hand squeezed your heart at the sight. 

Eddie dropped his arm into his lap after her grip loosened. Her hand fell onto the table and whether she realized it or not, the rejection she felt showed on her face. 

“How did you two meet?” Nancy picked an olive with a toothpick from the small dish on the table. Veronica peered at Eddie to answer but he wasn’t going to. 

“At an event for our agency a couple…three? months back.” 

Three months.

“Cool,” Steve mumbled as he followed Nancy’s lead and took one of the pickles from the tray. “So what are you? An agent? Model...?” 

“I model for magazines, yeah,” she nodded and focused her hands at the base of her wine glass. You watched Veronica tap her white nails on the table cloth before bringing them back to the foot. “Sometimes do commercials or videos and stuff.”

Steve sat back in his chair; a thought pondered in his mind as he watched your eyes divert from the table and out the window to your left. It was dark, you couldn’t see anything beyond ten feet. The arm that had been taken off the table now sat at Eddie’s side with his hand in his lap. He had taken his thumb and twisted at the ring that rested on his ring finger–the one with a dark stone he had worn since forever. 

The groom reflected back to his bachelor party, three weeks ago, and how Eddie made no mention of Veronica but very drunkenly admitted something he didn’t want to see the light of day. 

Buried; six feet deep with the memories he had locked away in Pandora’s box. There was key to unlock them, let them fly away and spread like stars in the sky but it was booze and a little bit of weed that truly let them sing. 

Steve wasn’t sure if Eddie realized what he had told him that night. 

The way he was twisting his rings made him think that if he didn’t, Eddie was at least thinking the same thing now. 

“You know,” Steve crossed his arms as he leaned back, glancing at Veronica first before allowing his eyes to wander to you, then Eddie. “If you asked me a few years ago if I thought that Eddie, Eddie Munson, would be dating a supermodel… I would have laughed.” 

Veronica chuckled, a light blush forming on the balls of her cheeks as Eddie shook his head. It was Steve’s tone that made you turn to him. 

“Not really your type, dude,” Steve said and the woman’s face went flat. The chuckle cease and Nancy forgot how to breathe for a second. Maybe Steve had too much to drink, maybe he was done for the night, and if she whisked him away now, he wouldn’t be hung over for the wedding. 

“Come on, man…” Eddie shifted his head to the side, glaring at Steve to knock-it-off before things crossed a line he wasn’t prepared for. Eddie thought himself a jackass sometimes but he never wanted others to feel uncomfortable. 

“No offense, Veronica,” Steve held out his hand as if saying ‘I don’t mean anything by it.’ “It’s just…” He clicked his tongue, “you want the best for your friends, right? And for the last decade or more I’ve never seen you fawn over the looks of a model.” 

“Steve,” you interjected, providing the same look Eddie had given him because he was trying to open that box. “Stop being an asshole.” 

You turned to Veronica, “he’s just a little drunk, that’s all.” Nancy supported it with a smile and put her hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve laughed at your words like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “That’s kind of rich coming from you.” 

“I think we should–“ Nancy began but Steve leaned forward on his elbows. 

“You like Lord of the Rings, Veronica? Or ever go to a thrift store and absolutely wreck the clothes you bought? Play D and D?” She looked confused so Steve stopped, “Dungeons and Dragons? Like the game? No? How about drugs? Do you do those?” 

“Steve! Fuck man…” Eddie hit Steve’s shoulder, “I think we’re a little past a buzz, huh?” 

“Tell me, Eddie,” Steve took the whack to his shoulder in stride, “You’re not thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” 

“I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ about.” 

“Okay,” Steve drug the ‘a’ out of the word, “fine!” He looked to you, “are you thinking what I’m thinking then? And when I said it’s funny, I meant in you defending her when–“ 

“Jesus Christ, Steve!” Eddie said loudly, “would you just shut the fuck up for once! I was so worried about us getting into it,” he threw a hand up and motioned between the two of you, “but you took that and ran right the fuck away with it!” 

As Eddie argued with Steve, you turned to Nancy. 

“I think you better take him to his room,” you saw how mortified she was, “or I can call up Lucas and Dustin to come get him too?” 

“I’ve got him,” she took your hand and held it tightly. “He’s just up-“ 

“—OH!” Steve’s voice cut through hers, “like you’re not giving ‘fuck me eyes’ to each other! Goddammit! It’s like living with divorced parents! No wonder you switch off holidays!” Steve pointed at you, “was that your idea? I bet it was.”

“Wait,” Veronica cut in after Steve’s ‘divorced parents’ comment, “did you two date?” her eyes flicking between Eddie and yourself. Her question went unanswered as Steve continued his tirade. 

“And Dustin reassured me there wouldn’t be an issue!” 

“There wasn’t an issue until you brought it up!” Eddie said pointedly. You downed the rest of your wine in one gulp and Nancy hopped off her chair as people started to go quiet at the surrounding tables. 

“Please!” Steve lamented, “you got fuckin’ plastered in Miami and told me and the boys that you wished it was you gettin’ married not me!” 

“When the hell did I say that?” Eddie furrowed his brows, voice still loud and defensive. Nancy shrugged on her cardigan that was on the back of her chair, Veronica looked befuddled, and you felt like you blanched. Even if they couldn’t see it, you felt it. 

“At the shitty strip club!” Not something he should have shouted in a place like this. “You got all weird and drank yourself to pieces because, and I quote,” Steve said crazed, “the wedding makes you fucking sad and you didn’t know how to handle it.” 

“Oh fuck you, man,” Eddie soured, rolling his eyes at Steve as Nancy grabbed his arm gently.

“Steve, come on,” she coaxed him, “we better get going.” 

“If you want to convince people you don’t still love each other,” Steve chided, “then maybe stop acting like the world will fall apart the moment you walk into a room.” 

“Wait,” Veronica added again, shaking her head in misunderstanding, “still love each other? When did this happen?” 

“We don’t love each other,” Eddie answered for both of you without a second to spare. “And it won’t fall apart! Look! We’re here now!” He motioned his hand between the two of you across the table again but didn’t look at the way you listened to every word like you had when you fought in the kitchen that horrible evening.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded as if he didn’t believe Eddie in the slightest, “Swear on Dustin? On your… shit… I don’t know, guitar!? Say that to her face and tell her like you didn’t just tell me you make a fucking mistake years ago.” 

Mistake. 

There were two paths of a mistake. 

One, where his choice to follow his career without you was a mistake because it wasn’t as it seemed or it wasn’t complete without you; or two, that being with you entirely was a mistake because it clouded his wants for his future. 

Eddie sighed, head bowing as he ran a hand over his face and through his hair before coming up again. 

“Do you really want this to be how you remember the night before you get married?” Eddie asked Steve as the groom sat there with his bride clutching his arm in a pleading motion to exit the wine cellar. 

“Do you want this to be how you remember the day you chickened out on being a man for once?” 

Steve knew it cut deep. The wound open and bleeding for all to see as Eddie’s face scoured into the in-between of pissed off and irate. 

“Go, Steve,” Eddie said flatly, “Big day tomorrow. Don’t want to be late.” 

Nancy gave you a supportive, closed lip smile as Steve finally got off his chair and walked to the door. She let him leave first. 

“I’m sorry about him…” She laughed with embarrassment, “He’s just overwhelmed with everything.” And Nancy wasn’t telling you or Eddie that, but Veronica. 

“It’s alright,” she told her kindly in reply, “wedding’s aren’t wedding’s without a little drama, right?” 

For that, Nancy was grateful. She looked between you and Eddie–still separated by the table yet the string still bristled. 

“Be in the bridal suite by nine, okay?” She told you, “and I think the guys are getting ready at like ten so, don’t sleep in.” 

“Got it,” from Eddie and a “yeah, okay,” from you. 

“Sorry again,” Nancy apologized, leaving to go scold Steve as the table now sat quiet and awkward. 


The flames flickered as the noises from other tables now filled the void of conversation at your own. Veronica tapped her glass, yours sat empty, and Eddie was still facing the empty seat where Steve had been. 

“So,” Veronica pursed her lips, “you two dated then?” 

You bit the inside of your cheek. It provided her the answers of why Eddie had been acting the way he had and the conciseness of dialogue that existed amongst you. The way he gazed, the way you diverted it; his own curiosity and knowledge of the sound of the elevated train that impacted your sleeping and the way the admittance that Eddie now lived in a suburb sent you the wrong way. 

Even then, you glanced at Eddie to see if he’d answer. She was his guest, after all. He turned back around in his seat–back flush against the chair, shoulders slouched. 

“Yes,” he treaded carefully, “we did.” 

“For how long?” It may have been worse that she said none of it with malice. 

Eddie flicked his eyes from where they were trained on the table top to you. And fuck, they sucked you right back in and spit you right back out. 

“About eight years…” You told her, ready to flee. 

“That’s a long time,” she nodded to reaffirm her words. “And you lived together?” 

“Mhm,” Eddie hummed as if he didn’t want her to know every detail of his life. He looked down at the table. “For four years of it.” 

“More like three,” you mumbled passively, pushing your wine glass forward on the table. 

“Four,” Eddie said firmly and his eyes shot back up to you. Sensitive subject, you suppose. He remembered every word you had said to him that evening and the comments about his time spent at home stuck. “Four,” he reiterated. 

“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?” 

You didn’t forget your words either. 

Your expression pinched; eyebrows shooting up for a brief second before your head cocked to the side with silent words. You weren’t going to embarrass yourself or this table any further by getting into a spat with Eddie over something as trivial as years spent in a shabby apartment in Chicago. 

The wine glass was already pushed; two chairs empty as bed appeared to be the best option to end the night. A soft, hotel pillow to help you replay every image your mind could remember from what you had, what you lost, and what had just happened. 

You hated that. But it was better than arguing with someone you didn’t want to argue with. 

Breathing in a deep, sharp breath, you retracted your gaze from Eddie and gave Veronica the softest one you could muster. 

“It was good to meet you,” you told her. It wasn’t her fault Eddie took your heart and ran away with it. “I hope Steve’s little scene didn’t scare you off. He can be a drama queen when he drinks.” 

“All good,” she gave a tight smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “Happens to the best of us.” 

“So it does,” you replied, giving her a nod before sliding off your chair and letting the space return to two. Eddie’s sigh was loud; the way he closed his eyes in frustration hadn’t gone unnoticed. 

As you passed on her side exiting the corner table, you put a hand on the table when your feet came to a stop. Veronica looked at you curiously and waited for another ball to drop on her toes but it didn’t. 

“Don’t let him smoke a whole pack, alright? Won’t do any of us good if he does.” 

And then you walked away. 

Veronica had only been romantically linked to Eddie for three months. She hadn’t seen any side of him that resembled the man sat beside her before and from what she knew, Eddie was not a smoker. The only comment that had surprised her more than the outburst from the groom was when Steve admitted Eddie had become hammered from the booze and weed at his bachelor party. 

But before you could escape the wine cellar fully, Eddie turned around in his seat and shouted your name across the restaurant. 

In a full, obnoxious manner that reminded you of the boy you had fallen in love with in high school. 

“I quit. Six years ago.” 

When the sun rose to its blue hue and the reminder of the night before replayed in your mind like a fresh, unadulterated film, there was a conflict brewing within you. 

The idea of love. 

Love was precious; an almost a forgettable thing when the daily grind became too much for simplistic thought yet it was what people craved the most. To love, to be loved. On a day like that–where there was not a raincloud in sight and when two people were joining each other in matrimony bound by the tethers of love–it was hard not to think about how the feeling evaded you. 

It touched you once. 

It gripped its claws into your flesh and left fatal wounds in its wake, yet you desired it so. Love, the splendid little thing that meant mountains but fell to cavernous trenches. 

You don’t know which part of Eddie you had fallen in love with first. Juvenile, childish love was innocent at seventeen. As you grew older and the complications of adulthood and circumstance of living in Hawkins transformed life, the reasons for loving him changed too. 

It wasn’t always about how he could make you laugh or the way his eyes were so expressive; the comfort he brought or the way he helped you love yourself through him loving you in return. 

It was doing the dishes together at the end of a long night. Falling asleep on the couch because making it to the bed after one of his gigs was too exhausting, but he’d wake up in the early hours of the morning and make sure you’d both end up there anyway. How Eddie made time for everyone and everything until life stopped allowing him to do so. 

It was moments where you and Eddie would be waiting for the train at Clinton station and he’d link his finger with yours because winter gloves constricted full hand movements. 

Those times made you hate what love often resolved itself with: pain and bitter resentment that life was cruel. 

And the clock ticked away as you thought of it. 

When Nancy put her veil on, Robin was the first to cry. Then Max, then Eleven, and Karen was close behind them all. You stayed for a few minutes before excusing yourself to the hallway because the sight painted you blue. 

You felt horrid for feeling bitter when Nancy’s fairytale was not an hour away. 

In the hallway, there was a series of doors that led to varying rooms. Ones that held the groomsmen and Steve, one for the flower girl and ring bearer’s families. It was decorated with seaside decor of light yellows, blues, and whites. A table down ten feet and across the way had a mirror hung above it cased in gold. 

The woman in the reflection was one you neglected to see for a long while. The apparent dissatisfaction of your own circumstance on a day filled with joy riddled on every feature. A necklace clutched in your palm feeling the brunt of sweat and aggravation as Eddie filled your thoughts again. 

You wanted to love him, to be loved by him. You tried to hook the clasp. Missed. 

Why couldn’t you just move on and be happy with someone else? Again, the clasp dug into your finger. Missed. 

Could you even remember what it truly felt like to be loved? 

The clasp evaded you. It was mocking, laughing as you struggled in the hallway mirror and began to sweat the idea that you’d never be able to secure it. Heaving a deep sigh in the mirror, you clutched the necklace in your hand and leaned against the table with two fists. 

“Get it fucking together,” you told yourself quietly. 

Regaining your posture, you tried again, ignoring the sounds of a hall door opening and closing down the way. Your fingers trembled as the clasp caught air once more. 

“You need help with that?” 

You stared at your reflection and pretended not to see where he had stopped. Jaw tense, you shook your head and attempted the connection for the tenth time. 

When you missed again, he scoffed. 

“Give it to me,” he held out his hand palm up, ready to take it from your timid fingers and do it for you. “Come on,” Eddie egged on.

“I don’t need help,” you told him.

“Yes, you do,” he said pointedly. He could see the indentations of the small lever on your index finger. “Just let me help you.”

He wasn’t going to leave. Your eyes met in the mirror and he rose his brows expectantly. More hesitantly than he wished, you held out the necklace and let it ring into his palm. A nod from your head gave him the assent he needed.

In the silence of the hallway, you felt squeezed—both your mind and heart. Eddie moved to stand behind you and you could barely breathe; the simple gesture of helping you put on a necklace far more harrowing than previously realized. He was so close. So close. His fingers trailed to the back of your neck, brushing away the hair with his fingertips and letting it fall where it would not infringe the task.

You couldn’t bear to look at him. Focused on the sconces beside the mirror, you tried not to enjoy the feeling of his hands on you for the first time in half a decade. You tried not to remember the way his touch intoxicated you; every stroke and graze intentional as his eyes watched you struggle.

Eddie lifted his arms above your head and let the jewelry fall onto your collarbone. You wondered if his heart was beating as fast as yours.

“How does she look?” Nancy. His voice was low, quiet in the hall to not disturb the others getting ready. You hadn’t even taken him in yet.

The suits Steve chose were all black, form-fitting with ties instead of bow ties. The pocket squares were filled with a white handkerchief, and the shoes were a clean, shiny black. On his lapel, a single rose was pinned.

“She looks beautiful,” you replied but still wouldn’t look at him. You heard the clasp make it. The necklace sat firm but his hands did not move. They lingered, tracing the line of the back of your neck to the tops of your shoulders.

“You look beautiful.”

You didn’t want him to say that.

“Don’t say that,” you replied morosely. 

“Why?” Eddie’s fingers brushed the necklace’s golden chain. “It’s true.”

The bottom of your lip trembled dangerously.

“Because you can’t say that.” 

“But I did,” he sounded hopeful which dug into that wound a bit further. 

“You brought a date.”

“Why won’t you look at me?” He whispered, fingers still gliding. He said your name softly, “look at me, please. Talk to me.”

You felt your heart constrict, sending a shuttered breath through you and your eyes blinked rapidly. There was no way in Hell you would let Eddie see you cry. He had moved on. He brought a date. A goddamn runway model that, in your opinion, ran circles around you in every way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

“I need to go,” you stepped away from him, shaking your head and jetting off down the hall. “I’m sorry.”

He called your name once, twice, but you ignored him. You grasped the golden handle with a heavy hand, breathing unsteady as he stood in the distance in your peripheral. As though the world stood still again, Eddie felt that he had broken through. You would turn, talk to him, and let him relish in the company of you. 

Yet, you grasped that handle tighter. 

But, you did turn. 

And when you opened the door back to the dressing room, it wasn’t only you whose memories transported you back to the night in Chicago that plagued your mind, but Eddie too. Straight back as he made his way to the men’s dressing room in the opposite direction. 

“Stop being such an asshole!” You stood in the kitchen, hands clutching the sink as the anger seethed out of you. Eddie paced in the living space just beyond the island to your right. 

“What do you want me to say, huh?” He threw his arms up in defeat. “For once in my life things are finally looking up and people just don’t get signed to a label and expected not to do—” he fumbled his words, “everything that comes with it!”

“I’m not asking you to give up music, Eddie!“ 

“Then what are you asking me?” He craned his head to the side, hands on his hips and breathing hard. “I can’t work from here. I have to go there and the least you could do is come with me.” 

The least you could do. The least you could do. 

You tossed the dish rag that had been strangled in your grip into the sink, focusing on the window positioned across from it and scoffed. A view of the goddamn ‘L’ train tracks you despised.

“Well I can’t just get up and move,” you said as calmly as you could. “Why is it so easy for you to ask that of me but when I bring up what I want, it becomes a problem for you?” 

Eddie shook his head, hair mused as he ran a hand over it. “I don’t make it a problem, baby.” 

“Yes, you do!” You laughed exasperatedly. “You just fucking said—“ a frustrated groan left your lips and you bounded off the sink and faced him from behind the counter. “It’s not like this is Hawkins; it’s goddamn Chicago and I’ll be dammed if there isn’t a music producer in one of those skyscrapers.” 

“They’re not like they are out there. If we want any chance to make music–actually make music of our own that sells platinum records and wins awards–those producers are out there,” he pointed to the door as if it signified a world beyond this one. 

“What? So, it’s all about money?” 

“No! But hell, if that isn’t a major part of it I’d be lying!” 

“And what about our home here?” You put your hands on the counters ledge and the nails on your fingertips motioned against it with rhythmic clicks. “Everything we’ve built here goes to shit because of one possible record deal?” 

“It’s not just one deal,” Eddie groaned your name in frustration, “It’s the only deal and this… this here,” he motioned around the apartment, “was only ever temporary.” 

News to you. 

“Like Hawkins was. This isn’t really home.” 

“Not home?” You furrowed your brows at him. “Then where the hell do you think it is? You bolted from Hawkins the second you got the chance and as far as I am concerned, this is my home. You see those pictures on the wall?” 

You tipped your head in the direction of the wall that the couch sat up against. Above it was a collage of frames that held so many memories. From Nancy to Max, from Steve to Mike, everyone was on that wall. 

“Those people helped us find this one.” 

“Well,” he shook his head, “they can help us find another in California. There are people out there, baby. Real goddamn people that know just what we need.” 

Not you, Corroded Coffin. What they needed. 

“It’s not going to find us all the way out here.” 

“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?” 

He had been traveling the world with Corroded Coffin for a year and a half. In all of that time, he had come home for approximately two months. Eight weeks out of seventy-eight. This wasn’t the first fight about it; he had changed. The stronghold fame was suffocating him and was the very thing drawing you apart. 

“Hm?” You hummed as he diverted his eyes to the apartment door. 

“I’m here now.” 

“That wasn’t my question, Eddie,” the ground rumbled beneath you. The way his eyes darted to the door as if it were calling him to leave. Foundation cracked and crumbled, fragmenting as the words threatened to tumble out. “Do you even want to be here?” 

“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here, yeah?” He looked annoyed, lips nearly flattened. That’s how you knew he was angry. Angry at life, at you, at the world. 

“Eddie,” you pleaded softly in one last attempt to salvage the broken platform, “stop lying to me.” 

“I’m not lying.” 

“Yes, you are!” You breathed in deeply, thinking of the unthinkable questions that pondered in your mind. “I’m not asking you to stay because I don’t want you to follow your dreams—you twisted my words—but why can’t I be the selfish one and want to stay here? You’ll have more money, you can visit and we— “ 

Can work it out. It was already over when he said he had been signed that godforsaken deal. 

He said your name dejectedly. It hung there in the air as if saying ‘stop trying.’ You felt a lump form in your throat as you looked him, already decided in what he wanted because he was going after his dream. Halfway there, this was his out. 

The tears gathered at the sides of your eyes, “you don’t even try.” 

Eddie always had something to say but he couldn’t form words in that moment. 

“What?” You steeled your wet eyes on him, “can’t even say that you had? Or that you were? Eddie, I’ve been doing this alone for so long that I don’t even remember the last time you told me you loved me and you meant it.” 

That set him off. He pointed a bitter finger at you. “I always mean it when I say it. Don’t play that card.” 

“Card!?” You cried, “I’m not trying to guilt trip you into staying but you don’t mean it! Eight weeks! Eight weeks in a fucking year and a half and you expect me to get up and throw my life away for you?” 

“I was on tour! Halfway across the goddamn world!” 

“Exactly!” You exclaimed, turning away from him and trying to escape to the bedroom but you could hear his heavy feet following. 

“Stop it,” he said your name over and over as you gripped the door and tried to close it. He pressed his palm against it with a hard slap and pushed it against the wall with a deafening thud. “Would you just stop!” 

“For Fuck’s Sake!” You yelled, “I can’t move! I don’t want to move! I have a lease, a good job, and I want to stay here and build my future!” 

“You can have that in California!” He yelled back. 

His eyes were wide, trying to pretend the antithesis of the fracture was anything less than his career. 

“No, I can’t!” 

“Why not!?” 

“Because of you! You don’t want what I do!” You screamed at him, voice breaking as you cried and realized that this was the end. Eddie would move out to California and you’d be left in a tiny apartment in Chicago alone. 

“I want a family, Eddie. I want to raise kids here or in the stupid suburbs, and grow old here. You want to be a—” you swallowed hard, cheeks wet and eyes getting puffy, “—rock star and those lives don’t mix. They just don’t.” 

He was only twenty-five. He didn’t really know what he wanted from life. 

“You don’t want to be here. That’s why you haven’t come home and I get it, I do. The band is growing, you’re popular, you have a million women to choose from, but I can’t keep pretending that my wants have to be ignored for you to succeed.” 

“Are you saying I’ve ignored you?” 

“You tell me, Eddie,” you shrugged, “how would you feel if the person you loved most was gone for months only to be reassured that everything was fine by a phone call every few days?” 

He let his head tip to the floor, eyes closed because although many of the cracks stemmed from his choices, this wasn’t what he wanted. Eddie wanted to be happy, to be in love and be loved. But he was at the precipice of being what he always wanted and decisions had to be made. 

Callous and resentful decisions. 

“Do you hate me?” Eddie’s eyes spurred something in him. A hatred for himself, a despised feeling growing that a part of him that had always been missing—family—was being ripped away for a dream. 

“I don’t hate— “ 

“Yes, you do,” he looked up, giving you a knowing look as his bottom lip trembled. 

“No, I don’t. But I’m hurt and I don’t think you see that.” 

“So,” he cleared his throat, breath hitching in his chest, “this is it then? We’re just going to give up?” 

“I didn’t give up, Eddie,” you needn’t say the rest to indicate that he had. “We just want different things.” 

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do,” you shook your head, sitting down on the edge of the bed with your face turned away from him. “Right now we do and it’s not doing anything for either of us.” 

It was quiet for a few minutes. Minutes. A thick fog fell over the room; marinating in every picture, the clothes folded away in the dresser, the shampoo in the shower, the two dinner plates half-cleaned in the sink. Domesticity wasn’t enough. Love wasn’t enough.

You weren’t sure how long it had been, but Eddie’s socked feet moved from the spot he stood in and approached the bed—carefully and freely. He knelt down, hands on the outsides of both your thighs and his thumbs rubbed the tops of them gently, the pressure soothing when it shouldn’t have been through your jeans. 

“I want you to be happy…” he swallowed thickly as he chose his words gently. There was no point in trying to stop you from crying when he couldn’t do so himself. “I want you to have what you want, sweetheart… and if I can do that… someday… we’ll find each other again.” 

“Eddie…” Your heart ached as you shook your head. Hope was the killer of it all. 

Hope that perhaps one day you’ll find each other again; that you’d both be free to choose the paths that crossed while maintaining your own personalities and careers without giving one up. Hope that a future existed when the flame was extinguished on a cold evening in Chicago. 

“I’m sorry,” he rubbed your thighs tenderly. 

“Me too.” 

“I love you,” he said softly as if were one last confession. The tears were quietly flowing when you leaned forward, cupping the back of his head with your hands and resting your forehead on his own. 

Just to hold him one last time. 

“I love you too.” He left the apartment an hour later and it was the last time you had seen him. No contact, no cards, and no one, in the group of friends you shared, brought up the other on purpose.

The reception was noisy. 

Like a zoo full of animals that were awakened by a whistle only they could hear; sounds of song’s you hadn’t heard since high school played from the small band the Wheeler’s had insisted on just beyond the designated space for dancing. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will were losing it on the floor since the second a Michael Jackson song emitted its first few strings. 

Steve and Nancy were hand in hand greeting guests at their tables as others made their way to the bar, dessert table, or chatted with drinks in their hands. 

At the head table, El and Max were positioned at the end talking in whispers about the people in the room and you sat like a lone duck near the center of it. An abundance of flowers in white and yellow flanked the table before you, empty dishes and scattered bags and goods littered its table top. Mike left a pack of cigarettes in his spot while Dustin’s best man speech was crumbled in a quarter-fold beside his sweating glass of coke. 

Time had left you behind; sitting solemn at your best friend’s wedding while everyone else put on their best smiles and grinned their way through the evening. And maybe that’s what observation had led you to believe, that you looked as though you were wallowing in self-pity for an absence of love in your life. Loveless at an event so full of it. 

You fiddled with the necklace absent mindedly. 

The room of excitable tunes slowed. 

Couples–married and not, grabbed their partners for a dance. Robin and Eddie were standing near the center of the room beside the table that all the parents were at when Veronica slid next to Eddie, her hand slinking down his arm and into his palm as she nodded to the growing group on the dance floor. 

Hours ago, you had looked back at him when he pleaded with you to stay. Now, as his hand was gripped by a woman he wasn’t sure why he had even invited, Eddie looked back from the center of the room and to the head table where you sat. 

Veronica pulled him away before he could make a choice. 

Robin leaned against one of the chairs, watching as Eddie trailed behind the woman in orange. She did not realize Joyce and Hopper were still sitting at the table she rested against. 

“What the hell was that?” Hopper voiced, hand pointing in Eddie’s direction like a finger gun. He had a mustache that was perfectly trimmed and highlighted his frown well. Joyce crossed her arms with scrutiny.  

Robin shrugged, sighing as she turned around and pulled out a chair to sit at the table. “Two idiots in love, I think.” 

“Jesus,” Hopper scratched his forehead, “I knew it was a bad idea…” he mumbled as he watched Eddie pretend to be interest in what the woman was telling him as they danced. 

“What?” Robin shook her head, “What was a bad idea?” 

“Them breaking up!” He said as if it were obvious. “I got a call from one of the bartenders at The Hideout that there was a scuffle goin’ on one Friday night a few years ago and when I got there, Eddie was there just fuckin’ bombed on the sidewalk.” 

Joyce nodded along to his words because she had heard the story before. Robin listened intently as Hopper continued. 

“I couldn’t understand a word he was sayin’ so I put him in the truck and offered to drive him to her parents’ house because that’s where they always stayed when they came to town and he just… cried. Drunk and sobbing his goddamn eyes out in the front of my truck.” 

“Was this recent or…?” Robin pondered. 

“No,” Hopper shook his head, “years back but he was goin’ on about how he was a bad boyfriend and they broke up and he was moving to California in a few days… I just thought to myself ‘shit, man, I have never seen someone so bent out of shape from a breakup.’ Those two… If it weren’t Steve and Nancy gettin’ hitched, I would have bet money on it that it was them instead.” 

“Every Tuesday he’d pick her up from Melvald’s and take her out. He had flowers for her every time,” Joyce recalled. “I asked her about it once,” she nodded and looked at how you watched Eddie with the other woman, “she said that he never had a good example of what it meant to be a good boyfriend. I guess his dad was a piece of shit,” Hopper hummed a knowledgeable assurance that she was right. “And he wanted to be the only example he could think of–be that good guy that she deserved.” 

“I didn’t know that,” Robin said quietly. 

“I told him he needed to fly back to Chicago and fix things,” Hopper added, “but I guess he was too beaten up about it; probably thought she’d slam the door in his face.” 

“Doubt it,” Robin snorted, “I don’t think they’re idiots,” she corrected herself, “I think they know exactly what the other one is thinking but are too scared to get hurt again if it doesn’t work out.” 

Hopper scooted his chair back, adjusting his pants and jacket as he stood from the table. “Well, then we’ll just have to make it happen–or,” he clarified, “get them in the same spot.” 

Robin swiveled in her chair as Hopper rubbed Joyce’s shoulder as he passed behind her, heading straight for the head table and directly to you. 

Jim Hopper wasn’t a man that could be missed in a crowd of hundreds. His bulky frame that towered over guests and moved about the room like a boulder in grass drew your eyes to the movement immediately. He passed by Max and Eleven at the end of the table, never missing the opportunity to pat the girl he raised into a wonderful young lady on the head. 

It was a nice distraction from Eddie and Veronica swaying to a melodic tune. 

“Hey kid,” Hopper pulled out the chair beside you labeled with a table marker for ‘Robin Buckley.’ 

You gave him a closed smile. “Hi Chief.” 

“I guess I can’t really call you ‘kid’ anymore,” he groaned, chuckling as he sat down with an ache all older men his age did. “I blink and you all grow up… makes me feel like a real old man,” and then he gave you that sly, side grin that made you wish Hopper was your dad instead of the one you had. 

“You’re not old, Hopper,” he managed to pull a small laugh from your lips. The dejected film washing away for a brief second in time. 

“Well,” he cleared his throat as he put an elbow on the table and adjusted himself in the seat to face you, “that makes me feel a little better about my age. So,” Hopper gave a pointed look that answered the hundreds of questions as to what Robin was chatting to him and Joyce about, “what are you sitting all the way over here for? Don’t want to chat or dance?” 

“Just tired,” you told him, “Nance didn’t pick the most sensible shoes.” 

“Robin took hers off; I’m sure you can do the same.” 

“And walk barefoot on this floor?” You snorted. “Never.” 

He shared the amusement before turning his gaze to the groups of people beyond the tables as they danced. A goddamn direct view. ‘Cruel,’ he thought. And surpassing the stone of the church from hours before, the beach where it trickled rain as photos were snapped for scrapbooks forever, and the smells of delicious food filled his belly before reaching his mouth, Jim Hopper felt the love that filled the room. 

It touched him, as it had you and everyone else on the wedding weekend of Steve and Nancy Harrington. 

Joyce was attempting to occupy Robin in conversation but every time Jim’s eyes met hers, he knew they were both far too curious and nosey to not be gossiping about longstanding drama that befuddled even the most romantically inclined. 

The woman that restored his faith in the prospect of love and devotion had witnessed the earliest of your own. Tuesday’s at the local mart, the way Eddie would hold the door for you and attempt to steal magazine’s off the rack just to get your attention. How Eddie drove you around when your car was in the shop and eventually, would take the little rascals of Hellfire with for soda and snacks before their campaigns began–but also because he wanted to see you if even for a minute. 

Although people often judged the idea of love at a young age, Jim and Joyce both recognized its honesty between Eddie and yourself. It was pure, unadulterated, and basked in a light that only belonged to the longevity of companionship. 

“You know, the moment I knew I loved Joyce, I thought I’d never get her.” 

Hopper could see Eddie and his date having their own conversation, whatever it may have been, because a blank face melted from one of an increasing lack of emotion, to one of strife. 

“And when I did, I thought she’d see a different man than the one I believed I was.”

“She would have been blind not to see the real you, Hopper,” Joyce smiled at you as you caught her eyes. “You always tried to help us be the best versions of ourselves and she did too. If that’s not a perfect match, I don’t know what is.” 

“Are you the best version of yourself now?” He questioned, tapping his finger onto the white tablecloth of the table. “Weddings can be… sobering… but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person look as distant as you.” 

“Flattery never was your strong suit, Hopper,” you grimaced, “and I’m fine,” you weren’t fine. “You didn’t have to come save me from myself.” 

“So, there aren’t a million thoughts swimming around in that mind of yours? I know I’m not the most intuitive dad there is but believe me when I say I’ve been trained to know when somethin’ just quite ain’t right.” 

“I have hundreds of thoughts racing through my brain. ‘Why is the cake so far away?’ ‘Rob and Joyce can stop staring at me any second now,’ and perhaps my favorite thought, ‘why does Jim Hopper care about my state of mind?” Combative. He knew the signs. 

“Maybe Jim Hopper knowns that the girl deep down inside of you just needs to heal,” he said honestly. “But there is only one way to heal what’s been lost and let me tell you, it’s not going to come waltzing on down here as you sit and mope.” 

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” You scoffed at yourself, “that this wedding has only made me jealous about what I don’t have.” 

“I don’t think you’re jealous, kid,” Hopper deflated, “I think you’re realizing a mistake was made somewhere along the lines of your own life.” 

Mistake. It was that goddamn word again. 

“There’s been no mistake,” you shook your head at him, “everything has played out the way it was meant to.” 

“And you really believe that?” 

“There had been nothing in my life to prove me otherwise.” 

“And lying was never your strong suit, kid,” he put on his ‘dad’ face. “You don’t have to talk to me, fine, but if I asked to be the first person to ask for a dance tonight, would you say no?”

How could you deny Jim Hopper, Police Chief and hero of Hawkins, Indiana? You couldn’t. Even if you were flailing for support in an ocean of heartache, sparing one dance for the man was cinch. He rose from the chair, holding out his arm in hopes that you would link yours through his and entertain him one dance as Steve and Nancy added themselves to the pairs on the dance floor and swayed gently to a new song. 

His stature would block a view you’d rather not see. 

“You may be the only person to ask me to dance,” you joined him on your feet. “I can’t say no to you, Chief.” 

“That’s the spirit, kid.”

“Why did you bring me here?” 

Veronica’s voice cut through the music as couples and pairs settled onto the dance floor with the melodic hum of a song playing through sets of speakers. Instead of dancing like an adult, she had flung both her arms over Eddie’s shoulders and linked her hands behind his head. He had no choice other than to put his hand at her waist; the fabric of her orange dress was coarse under his fingertips. 

“I asked you to come,” Eddie replied. “I thought I told you that last night.” 

Ah, yes. Last night; where Steve made a scene about Eddie’s lingering feelings of letting another woman go while she sat beside him with the best intentions.

Veronica did not know Eddie Munson–the guy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks by fate, the one who had a strange group of friends that shared varying interests and ran in different social circles, or someone who threw everything he had into a career he realized wasn’t as glamorous as the cameras and magazines made it out to be. 

He cursed those Rolling Stone magazines he scoured when he was a bit too early for closing time of Melvald’s. 

“Yeah,” Veronica said as if that hadn’t mattered in the slightest, “and here you are, barely even touching me or sparring me a second look. You know I had to sit by some stoner guy for dinner and they didn’t believe you could bring someone like me.” 

Eddie narrowed his eyes, taken aback by her comment. “What’s that supposed to mean? Those are good people. And I was a huge fuckin’ stoner once too.” 

“That’s not what I meant,” she shook her head, “I mean, they didn’t see me with you. Not because of who I am or who you are, but because it wasn’t right.” 

“You know,” Eddie lowered his voice when he caught the eye of Dustin dancing with Suzie not two feet away from him, “you’re sounding an awful lot like someone who’s about to dump someone else.” 

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Her eyebrows quirked as she tipped her head to the side. “Why waste more time on me?” 

Even if his heart raced in another direction, the sound of someone saying that to Eddie was bothersome. 

“Please don’t say that,” he said, “you’re not a waste of time.” 

“But for someone else’s love, I am,” Veronica’s lips extended into a thin line. “That’s not a bad thing, Eddie… It just means I’m not the one for you.” 

The chords of the music sobered him. 

Across the room, sitting desolate at the dinner table, his heart called. 

“Afford me this dance,” Veronica continued, “and when the time comes, do what makes you happy, however difficult that may be. She may not run into your arms as she once did,” as the motions swayed the pair, she faced the table as Jim Hopper approached. “That doesn’t mean love doesn’t exist.” 

She felt Eddie’s shoulder’s deflate from the tension he had been holding in the entire day–nay, two days–since the prospect of you had become a reality. 

“I abandoned her,” Eddie admitted quietly to her, “like a fucking ragdoll for some dream that really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” 

Veronica did not know every detail. She did not know the exact history, nor did she fully grasp the levity of a near decade of love being tossed to the side for a pipedream. But she did know what it was like to leave an abundance of life behind to chase a want. 

Yet the model had never seen a group so peculiar as the one he belonged to. The tightknit communal that leaned on each other like family even though many were from different corners. She had seen the binds of friendship like never before. She had seen a broken love bonded by pain from across a candlelight tabletop and wondered why she had ever been invited if that would always have been the outcome. It was as though two ships hadn’t sailed passed one another but docked; lengths of a life finally running out of individual ink before relying on two for competition. 

“You both hurt each other,” she settled, “that is what separation does. But…” she chuckled, “I have been in love before and I’ve never witnessed such a feeling when being in the presence of the two of you–and I don’t even know her…” 

“She won’t talk to me,” Eddie confided. “I tried, earlier today because she was on the verge of a breakdown over a necklace and she could barely look at me.” 

“Don’t you think it may be because if she did, she’d fall all over again?” 

The song was coming to a close. 

“There is nothing wrong with pain, Eddie. Feeling pain, wanting to be healed, and being scared of that healing… and maybe she’ll need time. She loves you. I know she does because when women know, they know.” 

Jim Hopper stood from the chair. 

There was a comradery he felt in Veronica. Romance beside itself, the woman was a chakra. She had looked into a future he could barely imagine himself and pulled the heroic card before it was dealt. These cards overturned like quicksand settling between his toes. 

“You know,” Eddie gave her a sly, friendly grin, “you sound an awful lot like those odd fortune tellers that sell their services on the strip.” 

Veronica laughed; whole-heartedly, warmly. “Maybe in a previous life I was,” she played, “but in yours, there has always been one path and I guarantee you, from one romantic to another, loneliness was never an option for you. It’s what kids dream about–that ‘fairytale…’ Even if it is a little bit messy.” 

You linked your arm with Jim’s. 

“I’ve always been a little too messy,” Eddie said sheepishly. 

“I can tell,” Veronica groaned, “You don’t have to be perfect for her. Imperfection seizes our hearts faster than perfection… it’s enough to haunt us when perfection tears that apart.” 

“El isn’t dancing with anyone.” 

Jim Hopper held one hand in his and the other on the upper half of your back. It was as though he was dancing at an elementary father-daughter dance than anything else, stiff in his hulking frame. The music did nothing to silence your rapidly forming thoughts that Eddie and Veronica were feet away; Eddie’s eyes caught yours as Jim helped you to the floor, an anguish in them acted as a puzzle waiting to be pulled apart. 

In the eyes that watched Veronica rip the persona he had gathered for himself in the years past, Eddie could only imagine you. He waited for them to turn into your own, for her laugh to morph into yours, for her hands to run through his hair as yours once did, and the comfort of her presence to become you. Looking for that glimpse, Eddie found it inside of his imagination; searching every corner of it to find a home for his torment–self-inflicted and its mortal consequences bleeding life from him like a sieve. 

“It’s those sensible shoes…” Hopper joked. “Her feet are killing her. A couple blisters later, she’s sworn them off forever.” 

“I don’t blame her,” Lucas and Max joined the pairs beside you. The red-headed girl rested her head on his shoulder, eyes closed in the utmost content state she could be in. True love. 

“How many dances do you have in your feet?” 

“Why?” You questioned. “Am I a better partner than Joyce? She was always rather clumsy.” 

“No,” he laughed but could not disagree, “I just think those boys won’t end the evening without asking you. I think Dustin’s always had a little crush on his former babysitter.” 

“I don’t think,” you tipped your head at him, “I know he’s always had a crush on me.” 

Dustin Henderson had always been a cute boy. His pure child-like imagination and motivation had inspired you to explore your own interests without fear. You had watched him from five until his mother decided he didn’t need you anymore, but you were lucky to call him a friend now. 

“But he’s got Suzie,” you could see the two giggling as everyone danced around them. “And I can’t think of a more natural person for him. I think they’re next,” your eyes moved themselves around the room, “to get married.” 

“Too many childhood sweethearts in my opinion,” Hopper’s gruff voice was certain in that. “Not everyone is meant to be with their first loves.” 

“I think they are… just like Steve and Nancy, just like Max and Lucas.” 

“And you and Eddie.” Not a question, a statement. 

It was the scoff that left your lips that made his hopes for you feel weak. “That chapter ended, Chief. He’s moved on, so have I.” 

“No,” he clarified, “you haven’t. You wouldn’t have been moping around your best friend’s wedding if you were.” 

“I wasn’t moping,” you defended, “Jonathan was moping. I’m pretty sure he cried and had decent reason to but I was just… people watching.” 

“Person watching. You were watching Eddie and there’s nothing wrong with it,” he asserted. “You love him. There is no shame in it.” 

“Why is everyone so interested in how I feel?” Your face put on the mask of a scorned lover. Eyes drawn narrow and brows forming a crease in its center. “This is Nance and Steve’s wedding, their only wedding if they’re lucky, and I’ve had person after person question how I feel about something I no longer have.” 

“Maybe it’s because for once we all see the truth of it all…” He had seen the truth as a washed-up Eddie cried in his truck. “That the pain of the past isn’t worth the loneliness of the future.” 

“A true poet,” you mumbled, “but I’m fine. I promise you, I’m fine.” 

“I’ve said it before,” Hopper chuckled, “and I will always say it to you, but you’re a terrible liar.” 

“Lies be lies, Chief. But there’s no point in trying to make me feel better about feelings I can’t control.” 

“No one is asking you to control them,” you turned your head away from Jim’s and clocked Lucas eavesdropping. He gave a strained, tight smile before resting his cheek onto Max’s head. “That isn’t what we’re trying to do… I want the kids I watched grow up to be happy and you’re not happy, he’s not happy. I don’t know if the answer to that equation is the two of you finding each other again but I’ve never been a man capable of understanding the love you had. And that sound ridiculous coming from someone as old as your old man.” 

“I can’t even be in the same room as him without feeling like breaking down,” your voice was quiet, a mere whisper of what it was because the prospect of Eddie still having feelings for you was frightening. You didn’t want to end up becoming a ghost again. 

“It’s like I’m a nobody in a room full of somebody’s and they can’t see me.” 

“Someone will always see you,” his eyes were gentle. “He saw you when he couldn’t see himself.” 

“Then why did he leave?” 

And the way Hopper’s body stood taller, his gaze no longer meeting yours, and turning you cold told you the world was ending. This love, imploded if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, was bubbling to the surface like a volcano. Here, on the island of Nantucket, a tsunami couldn’t save you from emotional ruin. 

“I think that’s a question you’ll have to ask him.” 

Veronica’s hand extended into your peripheral vision. She held it out to Jim like a lifeline. 

“Do you mind if I steal him?” Her body came into view and you needn’t know the conversation the two had to know she had led Eddie back to you. “I need to hear all about this ‘hero of Hawkins!’”

“I’m not the hero,” Jim said rather sheepishly. “That’s all him.” 

You could feel Eddie’s presence in a room of hundreds of a room of one. It enveloped you into a cocoon against your fighting mind. 

“Those are strong words coming from you, Chief.” His voice rung out against the music. Eddie had been on the poor graces of Chief Jim Hopper for many a year before the man had seen Eddie for what he was: a good, kind man with a fierce complex.

Jim looked to you. “You got this, kid. I’ve got another partner now, so do you.” 

He took Veronica’s arm and linked it through his arm like an elderly man who needed help walking. He wasn’t that old. She took him away without a glance back at the one who had asked her to come. 

“Now,” Eddie cleared his throat from behind you, “I could ask you to dance or,” he had put on that voice like there were more options than he had, “we can go outside, sit down, and maybe you’ll talk to me.” 

‘Look at me. Why won’t you look at me,’ his words echoed in your mind. 

When you turned around to face him, he got his wish. 

Eddie looked hopeful, as if it were the permanent face he wore. His eyes were the smallest bit glassy, hands stuffed into his pockets, and the shine of his shoes to the wear of his tie was different than he had ever worn before. He was still him, yet so different all the same. 

“If we talk,” you felt like you swallowed a frog, “no lies. I don’t want to hear any lies.” 

“Wouldn’t think of it.” 

The night was cold. 

Springtime enfolded the shores of Nantucket; cattails and tall grasses billowing, soft sounds of ocean waves lapping muted the music from inside. Adirondack chairs lay vacant, pillows dewed and their wood smooth. 

You couldn’t bear to sit down. 

Allowing the night air to take you, Eddie shut the door behind him and felt the scene before him play at the edge of a cliff; every piece of you blowing away against a yearning to stay. He began shrugging his jacket off and you held out a hand in front of you. 

“I’m fine,” the frost bit at your voice. “Keep it.” 

“You’re freezing,” Eddie continued to remove his piece. “I’m not going to be an asshole and let you freeze to death because you’re stubborn.” 

You scoffed. “I am not stubborn. I don’t need it, end of story.” 

He tugged it off, folding it in his hands before tossing it on one of the chairs that separated the distance between you. His tie was long undone, the two buttons at the top of his shirt undone but the cufflinks remained. You wanted to take the jacket. You wanted to recall his scent and warmth but your stubbornness in protection vexed you. 

“Fine,” he huffed. 

“Fine,” You replied in kind. 

Only the note of waves filled the stillness. You both looked at one another as though a million years had gone by in the blink of an eye. Not unlike the seconds passed in the wine cellar the night before, the world seemed to dissipate to a single existence of two former lovers. Two people, in spite of themselves, who haven’t felt whole since a single moment six years before. 

Goosebumps raised on your skin, the jacket appeared delectable yet an item of fear as it sat, calling to say ‘put it on,’ only to be followed by a whisper of ‘forgive me.’ 

“I can’t imagine that small talk is what you wanted to discuss,” you started. 

“I don’t believe it’s what you would want either,” he countered, “and we both know that would get us nowhere.” 

“So, what?” You lightly shook your head. “You want me to ask how your life has been and catch up on all I’ve missed? There’s a reason I don’t read gossip magazines anymore… I don’t need to see beautiful women rubbed in my face or success showing me that my pain was worth something more.” 

“A lot of those things are lies,” Eddie walked his icy path with steady feet. “You don’t need to read them, no. But I would hope you still cared enough to ask about me when you visit Rob and Nance, not to mention Steve never brings you up to me.” 

“Oh, you mean the literal effort they all put in to never mention you around me?” You gazed at him as though the reason you never asked about him, or they never spoke about him, was obvious. It hurt too much. “It’s not exactly a cake walk, Eddie, to hear about your fantastic life when I could barely hold my own together.” 

“It’s not fantastic and if you asked, you would have known that.” 

“And it’s my responsibility to learn that? Did you want me to reach out, ask how you’ve been, and get lunch like you didn’t fucking break my heart?” You gawked. Eddie took his hands from his pockets and put them on his hips–a Steve move he had taken upon after establishing their friendship. “If I couldn’t talk about you, I don’t know how the hell I would have talked to you.”  

“Then maybe I should have called,” like an easy solution, “and maybe instead of… what was it Steve said? Trading holidays liked a divorced couple, we could have been civil and spent time with our friends together.” 

“Was that when you were traveling the world or recording records?” You pursed. “Or when you moved out to California and visited once a year? Tell me, Eddie, is a hypothetically cordial relationship something you really want with me? I can barely feel the world turn as it is when I’m in your presence, I doubt I would be able to have a good time with our friends.” 

Eddie laughed savagely. “I didn’t know all the fun had been sucked out of you.” 

You took a step back, careening your head out toward the ocean as you bit your cheek. He had gall. He was bold and unflinching, but his eyes told the truth. His own pain and suffering at the consequences of his actions had let the light leave him for so long. When pain overtook a person’s being, anger and callous language followed. 

“If you’re going to be an ass,” you looked back to him, “I don’t want to talk to you.” 

“It isn’t the truth, though? I’ve at least tried to have a halfway, goddamn decent time at this wedding and every time I looked at you, you’ve been nothing but bitter.” 

“No one asked you to look at me, Eddie. You brought a date. You should focus on her.” 

“How could I!?” A dam had broken inside of him. He couldn’t not look at you. “Every time I think I’ll give someone else a chance, it’s like seeing a fucking ghost in my mirror! I have to look at you. I need to look for you.” 

“No, you don’t!” You exclaimed with as much passion. “You lost that when you walked out! I am sorry that I am so shitty for being sad at a beautiful wedding. I am sorry for wishing that this time, maybe it was me walking down that goddamn aisle. And for fuck’s sake, I am so sorry that I am fearful that you’ll finally move on and want to marry someone else! Jesus fuck! It’s been six goddamn years and I still think that you’ll come walking through the door and say you made a mistake but I don’t want to hear that tumbling out of Steve’s mouth. I don’t want it to be based in lies because you feel bad I am sad at my best friend’s wedding.” 

“I love you,” he blurted out without reason. 

“Don’t say that!”

“Why!?”

“Because it isn’t true! IF I was, you never would have left! You wouldn’t have asked me to throw my life away and follow you to the ends of the fucking earth! If I wasn’t just some body, maybe somebody would love me enough to stay,” You argued loudly. 

“I do love you,” He argued back with the same ferocity. 

“You did. You don’t anymore.” 

“I do love you. I do. I haven’t fucking stopped loving you since I was seventeen and I don’t think I ever will stop. I will always love you, I have always loved you, and I know that when I am dying, I will die loving you,” he was breathless. Angered and pent up with emotions he had buried deep where his eyes were fiery and his tone was firm. 

“You can’t say things like that…” Fuck the tears that loved to threaten to fall.

“Why!? Tell me why I can’t tell the truth. You asked me not to lie and I wouldn’t do that to you!”

“Becau–” you stammered the word as your mind racked itself for answers, “because it’s not fair to me! I can’t live another day knowing that someone else out there loves you in a way that I do. I can’t keep waiting around in my shitty, fucking life for someone who walked out of it for something bigger than me.”

“And it was a mistake! I will never forgive myself for it but please, even if it’s the last thing you do, please believe that it was. I never should have asked that of you, I was selfish. I knew what I wanted in life then because it hasn’t changed. It existed deep down but was scared to come to the surface and I needed to be pulled under to see that. I love you. I love you so goddamn much that every day without you has been the most unbearable few years of my life. I want you, and only you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” your lip trembled, face hot. 

“I’m not lying,” his own eyes watery. “Please, I am not lying to you.”

“I don’t think you know how much you hurt me, Eddie,” you shook your head at him. “There are times when I don’t feel like myself because you took that away from me. I don’t depend on anyone; I’d never say that I lost everything when you left but you cracked me open, slaughtered me in the place we shared because of a dream. And believe me, really, that I am so happy you found that life but how can I know that my suffering was worth it? 

“You don’t think I suffered too?” He exclaimed loudly at the sky. “I went to Hawkins, you know, after everything because I didn’t have anywhere to go.” You didn’t know.

“I got so fucking drunk at a bar that Hopper had to come scrape me off the sidewalk and from what I remember, I exploded in the truck when he tried to take me to your parent’s place. Do you know what he did? Let me sleep on the couch and when Eleven got up the next day, she held my hand and told me that I’d be okay and I haven’t been okay. I’ve never been okay without you and I’m not scared to admit that. You are my lifeline, sweetheart. I have tried to replace that feeling but I can’t.”

“Do you know how long I wished for you to walk through that door?” You pointed to the door you walked through as if it could transform itself into the one of the apartment you shared. “I sat there, waiting for you because I barely remembered a life where you weren’t part of it and that was hard enough to imagine when it slammed in my goddamn ears,” you huffed, eyes nearly ablaze as his committed declarations of love echoed through every vacant place inside of you and right back to the moment he left. 

“There is not a day that goes by where I don’t question why you let it go so easily.” 

“It wasn’t easy,” Eddie stressed your name exasperatedly, “nothing about that choice was easy.” 

“You made it seem like it was.” 

Eddie felt the grounding he had built in his mind with his vow of love was strong. He felt the ghosts of the past begin to grip his feet; haunting and pulling him to the depths of his former despair to face a choice chastened by ambition. On the cold, concrete sidewalk and the airy Nantucket patio, it ruptured in spouts. 

Pain, longing, abjection tied to every word; you had tried in obstinate strength to keep the fortress from becoming invaded. That somewhere in your heart there was a knowledge it was stronger than the force of the man that had left you to bleed but it wasn’t. It felt his bullets like bandages. They neither wounded nor massacred its path forward, binding the holes left behind with attestation.

“When I said we wanted different things, why didn’t you tell me what you wanted?” You asked in a voice wavering. “I thought you wanted this life,” a hand painted his figure against the night, “he one with the glitz and glamor and women like Veronica. If you wanted what I did, why toss it to the side?

Eddie shook his head, backing away from you and throwing his hands on top of his head in a connected grasp. He looked out to the water so dark he couldn’t see yet heard. “You remember what I told you about my parents?”

After a second, he returned his gaze to you and in return, you nodded. 

Eddie’s perception of self was deeply rooted in the disjointed childhood he had been forced to experience. Every feeling, every action questioned by himself as to whether the receiving party had viewed it as strange, difficult, or simply heartless. He kept his heart on his sleeve, however, he kept it tethered there. When someone tried to hold it in their own palms, Eddie pulled away. 

It had taken years for him to be comfortable enough with himself to be willing to be someone he liked. 

“It doesn’t just go away with time,” he sighed. “I will always doubt myself. I always fear that I’m one step away from becoming him even if I know I’m nothing like him.” 

For a child of a loveless marriage, a brutal life, the most fearful thing they could imagine was not whether or not they could be loved later in life, it was turning into the people they hated most. 

“It’s not every day that someone comes to your concert and wants to sign you without so much as a demo session… and that overtook me. I know that now, and I knew that the second I walked out the goddamn door. I will apologize for the rest of my life if it means you know how I feel.”

Eddie let that sit. 

“You can hate me forever, I don’t mind. But don’t convince yourself I never cared enough about you.”

“I don’t hate you. I never hated you. And I’m sorry if I made it seem that way.”

Perhaps he would have to convince himself that you never hated him just as you would that he loved you.

“Even when I left?”

“There was not a piece of my body strong enough to feel anything more than empty when that happened.”

“I felt it too, you know,” his eyes shimmered in the lamplight. No joy, no hilarity–just hope that you knew the truth. 

“I do now,” you told him. 

“I’m not asking you to give me a second chance,” Eddie shrugged his shoulders lowly. In a nearly defeated sigh, he took the words he replayed in his mind for two thousand, one hundred and ninety days, “but fuck… I told you I’d find you again if the time was right and the minute I saw you in the archway I knew that was my shot… you’re the same but different… I loved you then and I love the you that you are now. And I’m sorry that it took me that long to realize it.” 

“What did you feel in that church today?” 

A cosmic connection, a fleeting moment he wished to hold onto forever. 

“Eddie,” you took a step forward, closing the distance, “tell me what you felt.” 

“I felt…” He paused. Breathing in deeply, it was not his admissions of love that proved to be most difficult. It was the regret of letting it go that scarred the deepest. “I felt… bitter.” 

“Bitter?”

“Because I don’t have what they do,” he threw a lazy arm toward the door. “Or I did have that and I let it go because of a silly dream.” 

“I don’t think your dream was silly,” you admitted, “it worked out of you in the end.” 

“But at what cost?” Eddie took a step closer to you; the chair with this tuxedo jacket the space that separated you. “Why do those dreams take everything away to make them happen? I didn’t want to do that, this, alone. Not without you.” 

“I felt helpless,” you disclosed. “In that church with the sun streaming in… like a fucking… higher power was saying to me that the way I loved you still existed inside of me. It hasn’t ever truly gone–as much as some moments I wish it was–yet it stays.” 

“Helpless because you love me?” 

“Helpless because I can’t have you.” 

“And why can’t you have me?” Another step closer. “Why do you, the only woman I have ever truly loved, feel you cannot have me?” 

“Because someone else does,” your eyes flashed toward the doors as if Eddie’s proximity and both of your vulnerabilities were forbidden. “Because someone else loves you.” 

“She doesn’t love me,” Eddie’s fingers eclipsed your own. Fanning in a light flutter, it was discovering touch again. “She isn’t mine and I am not hers.” 

He stepped closer again and every one of your senses went spiraling. Eddie leaned his head forward and rested his forehead on your own. Two sets of eyes closed at the sensation. 

“You have all of me. Every part of me since the moment I saw you.” 

“And what do you want?” 

‘I want you to have what you want, sweetheart,’ his words were distant from the past.

“What do you want now?” you asked him, breaking away as your eyes shone to his. His free hand cradled the back of your neck gently, he rubbed his thumb over your cheek. “I know what I want, but I need to hear it from you. No lies.”

“No lies,” he repeated, a quick glanced down at your lips had him soaring. “I want you, baby. I’ll only ever want you.” 

“Good,” you whispered, lips barely tracing his for the first time in six years. “Because we’re not letting this go this time.”

“Never.”

And he pulled your lips to his.

To answer the question the chapel had asked you, ‘what is it like to be loved?’, there is only one answer: 

This is what it feels like. Pain, beauty, and joy. There is no bind without strife, nor is there passion without sacrifice. 

And in the years in between said sacrifice, the tethers of a string brushed together until they found one another again on a little island off a blustery coast for the wedding of Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler.

A/N: As always, comments, reblogs are kindly encouraged :) thank you for reading!

#eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie x reader #reader x eddie munson #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #stranger things #x female reader #stranger things 4 #joseph quinn #angsty as hell bitches #sunday saddies on

[vvynia]

abby and your family’s thanksgiving

pairing: a. anderson x black southern belle!reader

genre: fluff w/ brief mention of smut (mdni)

word count: its headcanons so its short but idk the specific number sowwwy

warnings: not beta read, brief mentions of homophobia but only bc reader’s family isn’t like that, mention of family drama, pregnancy mention, brief moment where religion is talked about (saying grace/prayer)

synopsis: this is literally just headcanons of what would happen if our beloved abby anderson attended your family’s thanksgiving/reunion if you don’t celebrate. very much black reader-centric, but anyone’s welcome to read it esp if you’re from the south cause this is also heavily southern reader coded.

bringing abby anderson to your black (southern) family’s thanksgiving would be a sight to behold.

and imagine its everyone’s FIRST time meeting her too. assuming everyone is super cool and unhateful, i just know she’d have all the aunties’ attention. they see her height, her build and turn to you talkin about, “now, where’d you find her?”

abby would 100% be in ya grandmama’s backyard huddled around the grill with the uncles and dads. she’s got a lil beer in hand (she probably doesn’t even like beer but she likes fitting in and it isn’t all bad when the bonding is genuine) one of em goes “mhm that turkey bout done smokin” and abby is taking mental notes cause one day, she’s gonna smoke a turkey for you two’s family, in your backyard, and your grandkids are gonna be running around

the kids are OBSESSED with her. they climb her like she’s a jungle gym, ask her to throw them in the air, ask her all types of questions. “ABIGAIL! come play with us!” and she does, but the whole time she’s wondering how they discovered what her full name is cause she sure ain’t tell em lool

sometime after, she gets together in the livingroom with you and your cousins, then that one uncle or aunt comes in, says a few words, then leaves with a plate. the gossip commences lol and she’s so in tune to what ya’ll are talking about. she thought her family could dog somebody out?

all that pales in comparison to yall’s words. these sly (and sometimes even blatant) insults are unhinged, the storyline is juicy. she feels like she’s listening to an audiobook of lore. and whenever she asks a question for clarification, someone is always ready to start from the beginning with “see, what had happened was” and “to make a long story short” (the story was not made short)

then it actually comes time to eat, time for her to have her taste buds born anew

your family has whipped up some southern classics: sweet potato pie, pig feet, neck bones and collard greens, cabbage, pound cake, and every other dish you can think of.

you were in charge of the sweet tea, but this year you made a peach batch cause you know abby likes peaches 🥰

ya’ll say grace cause lets be real, if this is the south, somebody baptist and its probably the family matriarch lol

abby is respectful about it whether she believes in god or not cause your family has treated her with the most open of arms and she can feel the love and hospitality all around (if god is real, she thinks, he would’ve wanted everyone who believes in him to be like my sweet girl’s family)

when ya’ll are done and everyone has plated their food, they’re all silently waiting for the white girl’s reaction. they’re trying to play it off, be casual, not stare LOL but they know what’s coming i must admit

and abby doesn’t disappoint cause as you’re sitting next to her, soon as she puts some of them collard greens in her mouth and a couple candied yams and your grandaddy’s secret cast iron skillet macaroni recipe in her mouth, the satisfaction is written all over her face

everyone starts laughing when one of the kids say, “damn, girl, is it good?” to which they’re scolded lol but ofc abby nods like she’s trying to shake the hair follicles out her head

after everyone has ate and said what they’re thankful for (she says she’s thankful for you ofc but she leaves out how thankful she is for getting to strap you down at least twice a week), you two go sit on the porch alone.

you’re leaned against her in a two-seater rocking chair, bellies impossibly full, enjoying the gentle breeze and setting sun and the scent of food that is still wafting from the house

one of your cousin’s kids runs up from the backyard, comes up to you asking for help with opening a new toy, so you help

abby sees how cool you are, how in your element you are with your family, and this moment truly solidifies how much she wants this with you too. ya’ll have had the kids conversation before, so she knows you want at least one

she can’t help but think how gorgeous you’d look bein her housewife, barefoot and pregnant and divine and ethereal, starting a family, never having to worry for a thing bc she’s gonna take care of you

and she knows, when she needs it, you’ll take care of her too

I LOVE LOVE

#abby anderson x black reader #abby anderson x reader #abby x reader #abby headcanons #abby anderson #thanksgiving #tlou 2 #tlou #lesbian #wlw

[talonabraxas]

Mass of the Phoenix Hail Ra, that goest in thy bark Into the caverns of the Dark! East of the Altar see me stand With light and musick in my hand! I strike the Bell: I light the Flame; I utter the mysterious Name. ABRAHADABRA Now I begin to pray: Thou Child, Holy Thy name and undefiled! Thy reign is come; Thy will is done. Here is the Bread; here is the Blood. Bring me through midnight to the Sun! Save me from Evil and from Good! That Thy one crown of all the Ten Even now and here be mine. AMEN. I burn the Incense-cake, proclaim These adorations of Thy name. Behold this bleeding breast of mine Gashed with the sacramental sign! I stanch the Blood; the wafer soaks It up, and the high priest invokes! This Bread I eat. This Oath I swear As I enflame myself with prayer: "There is no grace: there is no guilt: This is the Law: DO WHAT THOU WILT!" ABRAHADABRA. I entered in with woe; with mirth I now go forth, and with thanksgiving, To do my pleasure on the earth Among the legions of the living. --The Mass of the Phoenix (technically called Liber XLIV or 44) is a eucharistic ritual written by Aleister Crowley, which first appeared in The Book of Lies, Chapter 44, in 1913. The Mass of the Phoenix is an official ritual of the A.'.A.'.

[ladystarksneedle]

Darkly, delicately

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Original Character

Warnings: Minor character death, mentions of period typical crimes and their punishments, prostitution, implied smut.

Word count: 4.7k

Summary: All her life Meynara has struggled to belong. Captured and taken to a land far away she's made her place in the world of Westeros with allies she can count on one hand. With the siege of Duskendale by the army of King Aegon II, she finds herself facing odds that change the course of her life once again, weaving her fate to the tune of the dragon in a dance hidden through time, as the war between the blacks and the greens rages on.

Link to read on ao3: here

She hears the bell ring twice as the castle erupts in chaos. “Noom, Narrah, Nyel” she chants to herself as the third dong reverberates through the wind drowning the screams around her before she's shoved hastily to the safety of the dingy cellars below. The scent of sweat fills her nostrils as she navigates the musty cramped quarters, filled to the brim with anxious ladies clasping their hands in prayer as they kneel together trying to stifle their whimpers. Lady Meredyth wrings her hands nervously as she stares into the distance, somber in demeanor. A moment of recognition seems to pass through her eyes as she spots her near the hastily barred door, before she turns abruptly to question her ladies maids’ who bow their heads in response. She finds her place near one of the walls, turning away from the woman reprimanding those around her to assess the scene in silence. Ever since the war began she knew the siege was inevitable. The family of the dragon had torn themselves in two embroiling most of the realm in their chaos and it was about time they too were hit with the consequences of their support. One of the dragons would soon grace their skies, she only hoped it wasn't their queen. Rumors of the kinslayer had wafted through Duskendale these past few moons. Round the winding harbor and the cobbled streets, onto the market square threatened over a bargain gone wrong, passed around taverns along with a drink in hand all up to the Dun Fort and it's gates in hushed whispers carrying over inwards to the pale walls enclosing winding threads weaved together for their lady, his name had evoked fear, disgust and surprising wonder alike. As the clashes of metal drew nearer to them she wondered how long it would take for him to finally reach his mark.

Seven blows was all it took to bring down the giant gate of the Dun Fort. The irony of the number isn't lost on her as they are rounded up in the central courtyard by noon. Captives surround her in haphazard lines along the posts and below the outer gate manned by armed men in green, their banner of the three headed dragon glinting maliciously in the sun. Some of the women struggle to stifle their sobs as they watch their husbands and sons being rounded up for slaughter before being hushed with a shove and a sharp word. She cranes her neck to see an older man at the head flanked by two heads of silver around a familiar face kneeling in chains.

“People of Duskendale, you face the price of your betrayal! Lord Darklyn has condemned you all but the King is just and merciful. Whoever wishes to make good on their vows again and pledge allegiance to the true heir to the Iron throne need only speak it now and his grace shall consider their folly pardoned” booms the older man, his tanned skin streaked with the blood of the burning ports. She hears a few whispers of indignation and fear before a handful of knights step forward to pledge their allegiance. It is a meager number which she realizes dissatisfies them deeply.

“Very well then” murmurs the King before they hear a shrill roar near the top of the castle. There in all his glory, perched atop the highest parapet, she sees a beast so beautiful, unworthy of the carnage it has wreaked, yet as it growls and makes its way towards them with its scales of shimmering gold she feels the true power that the men before her yielded. More of the folk around her now rush to bend the knee, hastily murmuring their pleas and apologies as the men in green smile haughtily. A lone eye, stern in its gaze, catches her unmoving. She suppresses the shiver that runs through her as she curtsies in response. The urge to live has long outlasted whatever moral code runs through the heart of the realm and it does not fail her today. Somewhere to the side she hears a familiar scoff of distaste. “It won't be my head on a spike when they're done with us” she thinks as she stares at her rival in defiance. Lady Meredyth scorns her in response as she's dragged off to witness the event of the day. Lord Gunthor kneels a few paces before her, locking eyes with their captors before turning to face her with hurt and disdain. She sees him gaze at her for a moment before offering a few words of comfort to his wife along with affirming his allegiance to the Queen with pride. She feels a quiver of fear pass through him, a cry of anguish a few feet away and an unrelenting stare on her as he's beheaded. A hush falls over the courtyard as the deed is done and the guffaws resume their way to the main hall shoving all in their path. Somewhere in the distance her heart leaps, far away across the fishing villages dotting the skyline towards the ruins of Hollard castle near the fork of the Crownlands. Duskendale would face a similar fate tonight.

She wastes no time in making herself scarce. She trains her ear on the whispers clinging to the walls as she makes her way downwards. They have been sacked by a little under three thousand men amassed during their journey through Rosby and Stokeworth that are to stay on till further word from the King. The lower kitchens and the halls are filled to the brim and are easy to blend into as she hurries towards her destination. She finds herself taking the familiar flight of stairs past the makeshift bakery to wind down to a hidden door below. Exactly three knocks later it opens to reveal a harsh face staring right at her.

“You are late”

“Forgive me for trying to stay alive” she huffs in return.

“Did they hear you?”

“Not yet”

“Let us keep it that way then.”

She knows he means to assess the threat before them both before feeding her to it. That is how it has always been, her body for the price of their safety. For all her bravado she hasn't been able to escape the clutches of home and the thread that ties her to it remains the one that cuts her the most.

“I know what I have to do”

“You move on my command Meynara, not before, nor after. We've made a decent life for ourselves here, do not go ruining it now.”

“I suppose the head of the lord staring at us as we walk through the hallways is enough of a hurdle in our path” she retorts shakily.

“As if you were ever fond of him”

“No, perhaps I wasn't. Doesn't mean I wanted him dead either”

“Life and Death are right around your corner”

“Faith shines the ability to prevail in both” she finishes turning away from him. Those were his father's words, ones that he'd told her on the boat to Westeros as they lay together shackled and starved. She remembers his eyes shining with a promise in the dark, willing her to forgo her fear. It seems a lifetime ago yet the man before her stares at her just the same. It is her gaze now which is filled with apprehension rather than the faith she's long left behind and no feelings of ardor can bring back the naive trust she has lost.

There is a feast to be held in honor of the King as Duskendale had yielded with ease, unprepared and caught off guard. Perhaps if Gunthor had insisted on better fortifications and riders rather than her religiously mounting him each night, his head wouldn't be hollow and unattached at the moment. She finds herself slinking into the shadows, with that thought, trying to keep an eye on the party at hand. The ale flows freely in the lower halls with the men getting handsy with the serving girls despite their indignation. Her only option is to reach the upper halls unnoticed hoping the stronger wine would dull them long enough to be done with her faster. She spots him in the distance as she makes her way up. He stands still near a burly man, eyes as empty as the dead hanging outside. A brief flicker of warning passes through to her before he's consumed to his farcity. Faith shall have to suffice for both of them tonight.

The main hall is decorated with banners of gold yet much sparse compared to the mess below. Anyone with a title should occupy the benches ahead of her, some newly appointed lords and generals, who all sit jesting and drinking below the dias as the men of the hour watch on. She watches the King engrossed with the head cook’s daughter fully partaking in the merriment. She sees her blush and smile coquettishly turning a lock of her hair as she entertains him and wonders how much persuasion it took for her to be offered up on a platter. Freshly plucked and naive, innocence was always coveted first at the altar, of worship and sacrifice alike.

Next to him sat two men with equally stern faces. She recognised the first with the booming voice, still in his armor refusing woman and drink alike, surveying the crowd for an imminent threat yet the man flanking the King's left drew her attention the most. To see him in person after their loss at noon made her skin tingle and the rumors had not done him justice. He sat poised, with his hair still braided for battle, eye lazily surveying the crowd like the elder man next to him, sipping from his chalice at ease. His gaze seemed unfocussed, unwilling to seek out anything in particular yet she saw through the haze. A predator responds only when it spots a worthy threat.

“What's a pretty thing like you doing all alone” she hears someone say before being grabbed by pudgy hands. The man near her reeks of nauseating sweetness. Arbor red she discerns as he leers close to her.

“Apologies my lord, I was on my way to serve the King” she lies promptly.

“Perhaps you might serve me first then. His grace would not refuse his loyal subjects tonight” he spoke earning a few jeers.

“Wait” she hears a crisp voice break through the crowd. “That one is mine”

There is no room for argument as she's pulled by two armed knights towards the dias, under the eye of the dragon.

“My my brother, you've caught a pretty one. A shame she's too old to be plucked” smirks the King playfully biting the girl on his lap.

She sees the prince ahead of her regard her with interest before beckoning her forwards with his finger. It isn't long after his appraisal that he takes her by the arm retreating to the sounds of muffled cheers. She feels him make his way around the castle assuredly, neither in haste nor at leisure, before he pulls her into the nearest chambers he can find.

“What can you do for me?” he asks abruptly, leaning against the door as he surveys her again.

“Whatever you desire my prince” she responds, as demurely as she can muster.

“I do not wish for pleasantries”

She balks at his refusal as she stands before him, tilting her head to observe him closely.

“I meant what I said”

“Are you a whore?”

“I am what you want me to be”

“If I wanted a whore I'd find one more willing, you may quit your farce”

“And what if this isn't one” she finds herself saying.

“Then I have wasted my time and I do not wish to be proven wrong”

She stares at him in bewilderment and defiance meeting his gaze as he turns to pour himself another cup of wine.

“I can entertain you to your heart's content”

“I am not a man who revels in the pleasures you seek to offer”

“You are hard to please, as any prince should be, yet I am not one to yield. Allow me to show you instead” she says confidently walking towards him. He looks at her skeptically, before his eye widens slightly upon hearing the clinks that follow her. He lets her lead him to the chaise nearby, raising an eyebrow at the sound that clings to her while she smiles at his astonishment, ready to finally play her part.

She keeps her gaze on him as she begins her routine, serpentine and sinuous, twisting her arms above her head with precision entrenched in her bones. She feels his eye take in her form, the flow of her wrists twisting like waves to the swell of her breasts rising and falling with each turn, moving in tandem with her hips all while the room jingles with the ring of threes; Noom, Narrah, Nyel. He continues his trail along her frame trying to match her pace and she sees him relax through her lids, taking in his enraptured face.

“Is this to your liking, my prince” she smirks as the ringing comes to a halt, the chanting of her soul, awake at the appraisal in his gaze. She finds her answer soon in the nights to come.

“You move to the sound of the gods” he says as they lie together, sweat clinging to them as the wind wafts through the open windows. It is the second night under the new command of Duskendale and all seems to be at rest, lying in wait for the bells to strike.

“Do you believe in them?” she whispers back, turning to regard him with mirth “I thought the Targaryens fashioned themselves as gods”

“The blood of Old Valyria leaves little to imagination.”

“But Valyria is gone and all you have left in this strange land is the power you wield through the skies” she continues stroking his bare arm.

“Which strange land should I thank for gracing me with such beauty tonight” he whispers, turning a lock of her hair between his fingers as he gazes into her eyes.

“Norvos, across the narrow sea”

“Norvos” he repeats, rolling the syllables around his tongue regarding her with awe. “Are all Norvoshi so,”

“So?”

“Quiet”

“I thought you found my chatter incessant”

“I never heard you” he stops her, “Not once as you crept around the castle all the way into my bed”

“You wish to know my secret?” she asks him playfully “Perhaps my blood is as special as yours”

He scoffs in turn earning a crease to her eyebrows which does not go unnoticed. “We are not so different, you and I. We both seek to soar far beyond what fate plans for us”

“Your riddles can exhaust a man far more than your movements” he huffs petulantly.

“You are only displeased because you cannot decipher this one” she hums thoughtfully earning her a pinch to her hip which she swats away promptly.

��Careful, I am not fond of that wayword tongue of yours” he warns her with a smirk.

“Why when it has given you such pleasure? What is the use of depriving yourself of such an investment” she finds herself giggling in return to the bashful pout of his lips.

It has been long since she's been so enamored with a man. There have been a few, young and beautiful, not immune to the charm she summons at will but none so rigid yet tender that makes her heart want more.

“Dance for me” she hears him say as he lies back, hair splayed around the pillows like a halo.

“As you wish your grace” she responds devilishly, slinking away from his embrace to twinkle under his eye.

Their nights continue with well practiced rhythm as their days stretch on. She finds herself at the precipice of good fortune, confined mostly to his chambers as his prize, content to stay hidden till she's displayed with pride. The King she learns takes offense to her growing presence in his brother’s life yet is dissuaded to take action by his elder hand, his disapproval making itself known in its own way.

“My lady, the prince is betrothed to Lady Baratheon of Storm's End and is to be married in a few moons”

“With the tide of the war changing ever so often I feel it best to practice restraint Lord Hand. I'm playing my part just as everyone, as a loyal servant to the crown won't you agree?”

“As I am certain you are” he responds with distaste.

“The prince seems quite sated does he not? What then I wonder, merits such growing concern. As long as your plans come to fruition I am sure a woman such as me should hardly pose a worthy obstacle” she bites back eager to send him away from her new chambers. Victory in the face of adversity tastes almost as sweet as the dreaded wine she brings to her lips, sipping at it with mock delight as she watches the commotion enfold out her door. As he walks to give way to someone, she hears a familiar scream of anger grace the threshold. Lady Meredyth barges in, red faced and fuming. She finds her predicament almost hilarious were it not for the state she's in. Dressed in mourning for a neglectful husband who managed to give her a daughter too young to give away for the dwindling power she now tries to hoard, she tries to muster whatever pity she can find for the woman, before she opens her rotten mouth.

“You seem mighty pleased with your situation, finally living up to your true potential as the whore you are”

“Widowhood suits you my lady. The black brings out your eyes” she responds back sarcastically.

She sees her spit at her feet before she's escorted away, spewing curses through the halls. There is no greater joy in watching the old crone claim her late husband's chambers where she rode him to death while she lounges on her very own bed waiting to be taken in the arms of pleasure at night.

“What did I tell you about that tongue of yours” he retorts as he pulls her into an alcove at midday.

“To use it more often” she whispers, running her lips along his jaw. The walk she'd managed to take away from her confines had proved to be a welcome change after that harrowing ordeal in the morn.

“You wanton thing. Do not vex me outside of these walls”

“You have my word” she says flightily resuming her course along his neck.

“And much more” he breathes, palms burning through the blue she's clad in. She finds herself smiling as she pulls him closer, enjoying his proximity during the quiet of the day. Perhaps nights are not the only thing to look forward to anymore.

She feels his presence in the hallways later, long before she turns the corner, trying to rid herself of the evidence of her dalliance.

“You've lost your faith” he remarks somewhere behind her.

“I've simply found it around another corner” she replies, turning to face the judgment in his dark eyes. There are bags underneath them, weary with doubt and the wisdom he seems to wield like a weapon.

“He is a dangerous man to be around. Someone who kills his own is not one to be trifled with”

“And yet we've faced far worse”

“Worse than treason?”

“Tell me you don't mean to support yet another foreign queen”

“You've grown slow” he states glaring at her. She finds herself at a loss of words. Her old self would have caught on to what was spoken almost instantly with an equally sharp retort in tow. Shame creeps up on her at being caught off guard, vulnerable and at his mercy.

“I will not fail you” she says, turning to avoid his eyes, tears glistening amongst her own. “I am only doing what I think best”

“And therein lies the problem”

“Lady Meynara” a voice cuts through the silence suffocating her as she turns to face the source of her shame. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back regarding her companion with distrust only for her to turn around to find him gone.

“Do all of you possess such talents of evasiveness” he questions her as she sighs and makes her way towards him.

“It has served us well”

“On the contrary, it makes you noticeable. The very thing you are ever so keen to avoid”

“I think you happen to have a keener eye than most, my prince. Do not fault the entire realm with the same flaw you possess.”

“I would hardly call it that”

“A flaw?”

“More of skill honed and fortune bestowed” he smirks leaning towards her.

“Something that earned you your birthright” she questions back impudently. “I've heard the rumors”

“I didn't think you'd put much stock in them”

“One tends to learn a lot through tales, true and false alike. Besides aren't rumors as such keeping your plan afoot”

“You know far too much to be jesting as such. Do you not fear for your life?” he asks her, eye glinting in the light.

“You'd have me hanging near the gate by now if I was such a threat”

“By your feet” he replies, watching her face darken. “You needn't worry as long as you serve me.”

“That is a threat my prince, far worse than what I'm accustomed to”

“Good, my intentions must be made clear then.”

“And what exactly might they entail”

“Your faith for a price” he says regarding her in earnest. The promise of more lingers on her lips as he leaves her wondering what it is she plans to do about it all.

“You mean to leave” she asks him on the third night they're together, with the moon at its height bathing them both in its embrace. He's reclined on the bed, one arm resting behind his head as he listens to her, eye closed in sequestered bliss.

“Rumors can only serve their purpose with cause to back them”

“You are to leave at dawn then?”

He hums in response as she fidgets with the sheets around her.

“Do not fret, I shall ensure your safety for your word”

“That is a hefty promise”

“And one I intend to keep”

“You will tire of me soon enough.”

“Perhaps,” he says, opening his eye to look at her. “Yet I'm certain it won't be so soon”

She feels the sheets pool at her feet as she rises to sate him for the night, eyes trained on him as she watches him cock his head in piqued interest. There is an unspoken understanding between them as she glides by the bed, running her fingers over the wood to stand in the center of the room, the light from the candles illuminating everything she wishes for him to see.

“Not tonight” she murmurs, running her hands over her hips.

“You'd deny the man who holds your fortune” he asks incredulously.

“I'd offer him something far sweeter”

“And what is sweeter than your company my lady”

“Joining me in ways a man would take his woman”

She sees the bed dip with his weight as he rises, moving with agility to stand before her. She cranes her neck to see him peer down at her, eyebrow raised at the game she wishes for him to play.

“In Norvos, we move like this to show our feelings. For emotion sometimes is best expressed through something tangible” she says reaching forward to steady his arms.

She feels him follow her movements with ease, twisting and turning with surprising accuracy never letting her out of his sight.

“You are a trained warrior”

“So are you, it seems. This is much like swordsmanship”

“All art is said to be inspired”

“What inspires you tonight little soldier” he rasps as he spins her around, arms enclosing her as she stares ahead. She feels his breath against her neck, her back pressed against the ridges of his body leading her to exhale before she writhes in his embrace.

“I do not wish to be a piece in the war you play at”

“We are all pieces to be moved about, each for a different purpose”

“It seems you've mastered my tongue in these past few days”

“I've only claimed what's mine” he says running his hands along her waist.

“Your plan will only work on trust, something the people here lack in abundance. Faith, which you scorn me for holding on to, is only meaningful if adhered to in earnest”

“I don't begrudge your faith” he whispers, turning her around to face him. “Just who it's tied to”

She finds herself mesmerized by the blue of his eye, so still yet violent, unrelenting yet open to the words that spill from her lips. “He is what connects me to who I am”

“To cherish something so deeply is a suffering in itself that I've come to accept. I think you understand that very well, Aemond.”

She feels him stiffen at the mention of his name, fingers clasping her arms tighter before he turns her around in a pirrouette, bowing before her as he ends their performance.

“Always your way, yes” she responds breathlessly.

“I do not wish to mold you Meynara, only to make you realize how well you belong. I can offer you something far more than the life you wish to subject yourself to”

“Wealth and power?”

“Purpose” he says with finality.

“Then I ask one thing of you. Bare yourself to me, in good faith” she whispers, watching him carefully “and I shall do the same.”

“Haven't I seen all of you?” he questions, removing the barrier across his face.

“Not without adornment” she says, reaching down to remove her restraints. “They are as much a part of me as this is of you” she finishes reaching up to cup his face. The sapphire glistens brilliantly as she stares at the angry scar accompanying it, intensifying his beauty.

“Is this what you've heard of” he remarks, gritting his teeth at her request.

“Indeed” she replies, reaching up to stroke his face. “We wear our shame and pride on our sleeve. It is time to embrace it together for the purpose you so wish to achieve”

“It will require much more than I've since asked from you”

“I think it is time I left the chains that bind me my prince, yours will have to suffice for now”

They wake again at the crack of dawn to the domestic bliss of togetherness. There in his chambers she experiences what it means to be a wife at last. The euphoria of nurture, she'd long dreamed of since she was a girl, envelops her in a sense of longing and nostalgia. As she bathes and readies him for battle, she finds herself gazing at him wistfully.

“I shall return soon”

“I am aware. I did not forgo my bindings for a lie”

“You wished to soar did you not.”

“You know, the Norvoshi do not trust a man without a beard. They say one as such lacks the honor to defend and the foresight to lead” she responds by running his blade across his face as he turns away from her.“You have your own honor though”

“Many would disagree. I am said to be cursed ”

“One man's curse is another's blessing. You shall return a King”

“Because I've given you the freedom you desire?” he jests “Your faith is truly boundless”

“As is your routine. Hold still while I finish or they'll have to wait the whole morn for you to ride out with glory”

It is an hour later after she meticulously braids his hair and secures his armor, over his eye and body that she finds herself truly bogged down with the weight of his departure. He kisses her temple as he leaves, the act too chaste for her to protest before he's gone. As she sits ruminating on her time spent with him, she hears the flap of the great wings of Vhagar, leathery and forceful as she rushes to spot her out of her window. A shadow falls over the Dun fort as she flies past, giving way to three rings of the great bell of Duskendale, thrice for the sound of freedom that soars through her heart.

Taglist: @arcielee @succnfuccubus @barbieaemond @watercolorskyy @paprikaquinn @witheredoffherwitch

#house of the dragon #aemond targaryen x fem!oc #aemond targaryen x ofc #fyeahhotdocs #aemond x oc #aemond x fem!oc #hotd fics #zae's fics #aemond fics #aemond targaryen x oc #aemond targaryen x original character #aemond targaryen x original female character #hotd fic #fyeahgotocs

[ghost-proofbaby]

Ok hear me out. . . 👀

Good Girls by 5SOS Eddie

‘Good girls are bad girls that haven’t been caught’

I was listening to it otw to work this morning and I just IMMEDIATELY thought of you lol

you can’t just SAY SHIT LIKE THIS TO ME.

because it’s fucking TRUE.

because that would be the vibe of sneaking around with eddie in his final senior year. being the girl everyone thinks is so smart, so proper, so good. you speak your foreign language fluently, you make excellent grades, you’re in the good graces of all the teachers. you spend most of your time in the school library. you even fucking volunteer for extracurricular activities. the most scandalous thing about you is the fact that you wear skirts, but even those can be passed off as modest, just brushing over your knees.

and that’s what eddie fucking loves. he loves that it’s all a front, an innocent image to cover up something more wild. he loves that fact that no one else sees you the way he does. you’re fluent in that foreign language, yes — fluent enough to learn every dirty phrase you can get your greedy hands on, whispering them in his ear when you two sneak off to the back of his van and you let him have his way with you. and he never can tell what you’ve said until you explain afterwards between quick redressing and shy smiles, but in the moment he just knows it sounds fucking good. being a teacher’s pet will always come in handy, none of them blinking an eye if you occasionally show up to class with messy hair and swollen lips. completely unaware of eddie down the hall, still catching his breath in the janitor’s closet and painfully hard from all your teasing during those stolen minutes. no one ever cares to check up on you at your usual table hidden in the back of the library, just assuming you’re studying. and you are, you suppose — studying every reaction of eddie as you’re on your knees below the table, memorizing which twist of your tongue along the veins of his cock make his hands curl into fists as he tries to hold back every moan. learning how your name sounds as he whispers his prayers to you in quieted chants. and those skirts. modest to the unassuming eye, but a dangerous game to someone like eddie. someone who sees you wearing one and immediately imagines how pretty you’ll look when he whisks you away to lover’s lake after that final bell and has you straddling him in the driver’s seat of his van, pressed against him as you ride him and that pretty little skirt flares out to hide the mess you’re making of yourself and him.

and when your noises turn downright sinful, your grip on his shoulders digging in so deep it’s becoming painful with each prolonged whine, he’ll lean in to whisper and remind you of just what a good girl you are for him and only him.

#THERE I FINISHED MY THOTS #GOD #thank u ily <3 #eddie munson smut #damn

[azlrse]

➳ pater noster (a yandere!om!belphegor x gn!nun!reader) w/ a hint of solomon x reader

synopsis: some faces are not meant to be trusted but what if your faith towards father himself was just a mere illusion? or is it perhaps that the prince of sloth took a liking for you and do whatever it takes for your innocence to be tainted.

cw: yandere themes, religious au, gore (includes mutilation and blood), minor character death, manipulation, fic has a cliffhanger.

a/n: happy halloween everyone! this fic has been kept on my notes for over a year now and publishing it in the spirit of halloween (also college has been killing me slowly so this is the reason why I am not that active here anymore ;_;;).

No one knew how humankind can feel the sense of paranoia when attending the church’s grounds, despite it’s gruesome and horrid history from the 18th century. Some say that it’s because of the church’s dark history while the others passed down the same story that you heard from your childhood that several unrested souls had haunted these holy grounds you stood above since the day you’ve arrived. Thus, beginning your mission as a devoted nun to the high divines.

You didn’t blame those people. After all, the church had stood from thousands of years ago as many of your ancestors were executed for the sake of appeasing the gods, or perhaps is it the demons who are offered these so-called sacrifices. You didn’t believed the words from that crazy woman you’ve encountered this morning that a demon took it’s residence in the catacombs below the old ancestral chruch, knowing that those words are nothing but blasphemy, words that could taint the same people you’ve worshipped and adored.

As the bells of St. Michael Parish had rung, signifying that the mass (which had begun an hour ago) had concluded. Many of the people (who attended) and your peers had left, ready to celebrate grace together with their beloved families, going out to eat or spending time alone in the covenants while a certain nun had stayed behind to make up for the missing prayer they missed this morning.

Speaking in the words of old religion, they closed their eyes and began their session alone to give their thanks to Father himself. The empty church had given (M/C) the sense of peace and quiet they needed after hearing such loud noises during the day, preventing them from having a peace of your mind and soul. They firmly gripped the small rosary that they’ve kept on the side of their habit as they spoke the prayer that indicates the beginning of their daily prayer.

“In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti”

As you lit the candle, you think about your own family. How are your siblings doing? Are your parents doing fine since your departure? Are they well? Do they missed you terribly?

They prayed for an hour, forgetting about the concept of time and was contented with Father hearing their prayers. Each hail mary’s and our father are spoken many times and it finally concluded with a small “amen.” You feel the soreness of your knees from kneeling on the tuffet as you stood up and make the sign of the cross while staring into the giant cross you say your prayers with. Before you went back to the covenant to join the others, you lit a candle and spoke a small prayer before you make your way towards the others.

Of course they are. After all, you almost recieved countless of messages from your family about your well-being. You spoke your prayers towards them for they will have a good and lasting life, away from the dangers lurking around their lives. You’ve closed your eyes for a bit until a voice interrupted your alone time. “Making up for the missing prayer for this morning, (M/C)?”

“Ah!” You jumped from the voice behind you. “Father Solomon! I didn’t know that you’re here for your nightly walks. You scared me for quite a bit and yes, I did make up for this morning’s prayer.” He replied with a soft hum and lights up another candle for him to say his thanks before he calls it a day. The looming light for the tainted windows of the solemn adds some light aside from the many candles that was lit as the buildings source of light. You find peace within these walls and the peaceful silence doesn’t even bother you, contented with your closest friend by your side.

Speaking of your friend, he breaks the silence and asks a single question that sparked up your curiosity. “Say my friend,” He solemnly spoke, lighting another candle but this time, the color of the candle he lit up was black. “Do you believe these rumors that the demons roaming this sacred grounds? Aren’t you afraid of such creatures who would lured humanity into an endless pit of sin and everlasting pain?”

Hearing that question makes your skin crawling and feeling uneasy. Speaking this kind of question during night time is kinda scary and quite unnerving at the same time. You didn’t want to upset your friend and just went with the flow upon answering his question. “While I do believe in the concept of those creatures, yes. I believe that the demons are still roaming around these holy grounds, tempting for us to succumb into their sin and no, I am not scared. Don’t you forget that one of my closest friends is an exorcist?” You patted his back as you refer to the young priest as your closest friend. The old bell rang from the tower above, signifying that the time for prayer and seclusion has been completed and what better way to call it a day was to eat dinner together with your fellow nuns.

“Now, come along now, Father Solomon. We don’t wanna miss out today’s dinner special won’t we?” Before you make your way towards the kitchen, Father Solomon stopped you on your tracks, held your hand and gave you something. “Wait, my friend. There’s something I should give you.” He handed you an item that was small and light, the first thing you thought that the item you hold was a small jewelry of some sort. “Think of this as my gift of appreciation for being one of my most trusted friends.” The priest then opens his hand and showed you a ring. The ring looks really minimal with the exception of a purple gem on top of the small jewel.

“I found this while I was tending in the gardens the other day and it turns out that this precious gem doesn’t have an owner. Plus, the color kinda reminds me of you and I want you to have it.” Speechless, you took the ring from his hands and slipped it right into your ring finger. It was a perfect size! It wasn’t loose nor tight. You loved this ring but you’re still hesitant upon accepting your friends small gift. Solomon noticed that you were nervous and hesitant on wearing that ring. “Don’t worry about that ring being cursed. For I have already blessed it with the blessings from the celestial realm. That ring definitely can protect you from any harm.”

His words convinced you that this ring wasn’t cursed but just an ordinary ring. You slipped it right back to your ring finger and thanked your friend for the small gift he gave you. “Now come on, let’s get to the cafeteria first before we ran out of those delicious juice they served!”

“You can go first, my friend. There’s something I need to tend in the gardens. I don’t want the children to be playing outside of the gardens this late.” You nodded and proceeded to walk towards the dining area where the rest of your peers gathered. It was quite unusual for your friend to tend the gardens this late, considering that the children are given strict rules when it comes to them roaming around the grounds without adult supervision. Plus, Father Solomon only tended the gardens every Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Today was Thursday and it was supposed to be his turn the next day, which is strange to say the least. As oblivious as you are, you shrugged it off, thinking that it was just a mishap or just a mere coincidence that happened today.

The dinner was good and not long after you finished your meal, everyone in the room heard a scream from the outside. Children are escorted and ran outside from the dormitories, which is led by the nun who took charge in watching over them. “What happened?!” The reverend mother spoke as the young nun shook in fear while trying her best to answer her question. “The demon attacked them! I saw the creature devouring the poor child in front of my eyes! A creature surrounded by darkness as their teeth feast on the poor child!” You hugged the shaken nun, collapsing into your arms as she sobbed and sobbed, knowing that she failed her duty in watching over the orphans, now paranoid and scared due to what’s happening outside of their dorms.

You quickly ran outside towards the scene of the crime and what came out from your mouth was a gasp and felt the feeling of dread and nausea seething through your stomach; a child’s mangled form is laying on the floor, lifeless as blood continuously flow from it’s main source, staining the dirt below. Their eyes wide open, mouth distorted into a scream, as if they had called for help. A bite wound can be seen on the side of the child’s stomach, exposing their remains.

Colors of red and blue, flashing throughout the entire grounds, despite all the noise and commotion the police made, all you can hear was a deafening ring on your ears. Your legs gave out after you knew which child is assigned to this gruesome fate. It was none other than the child whom you’ve taken care of ever since their infancy, the same child that gave you the brightest smile you’ve ever seen and the one who made your day even better. You began to cry hysterically, catching the attention to your closest friend as he gave his shoulder to cry on.

“There there, it’s okay (M/C). I know it’s hard for you to process what happened and I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect them in time.” Solomon rubbed his hand back and forth on your back while watching their body being placed in a body bag and placed on the back on the ambulance, ready to be examined by medical professionals to see who’s the main perpetrator of this horrid crime.

You couldn’t sleep that night after you went back to your residency alone (due to Solomon being one of the people being questioned). The more you blinked, more tears slid from your cheeks, staining your pillows, thinking on what happens if you rescued them in time. Will they still be the same child you took care of? Will they grow up and obtaining their dream profession after they graduated college?

You wished those events can happen in real life but alas, they couldn’t because they finally succumb to their untimely death. You felt the numbness coursing throughout your body while staring towards the dimly lit ceiling of your room.

Despite trying you best to fall back asleep, you couldn’t shake the vivid and gruesome scene. You became scared for a bit but prayed to the celestial beings that you and the others are guided to a safer path. You prayed and prayed until you couldn’t feel your knees anymore as tears continuously poured down your cheek. After what it felt like hours, you lay down on your bed as eyes finally closed, taking a good night’s rest for tomorrow’s occasion.

. ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

You woke up on a strange environment, standing barefoot on the stone cold ground gave you goosebumps throughout your entire body. You’re still wearing the exact same clothes you went to bed but didn’t remember that you put on the ring right before you went to bed. It’s strange to say the least, you remembered that you took off that ring and placed it right on your bedside table.

The ring itself began to glow, bright violet specks of light flickered as more fog appeared in this strange place. The more you walk in this endless loop, the more the temperature became colder and colder to the point that your body began to shiver. The thin clothing that clings to your skin doesn’t help and you felt like you’re about to pass out due to hypothermia.

Out of nowhere, a voice called out for you.

“(M/C)”

It was a man’s voice. It echoes across the void. You whipped your head back and forth to see who’s the owner of that voice. At first, you thought that it was Solomon’s voice but it isn’t or wasn’t it Simeon to begin with? No, it’s not the same person who spoke your name.

“Come home to me. For you have committed such crime and sin, a sin that belonged to one of my brothers.”

There it is again! And what crime is he talking about? You? A nun who’s devoted to Father himself, committed a sin that belonged to the 7 deadly sins? That’s absurd! You never commited such acts, not after you became a nun in the first place. “What are you talking about? Who are you and what crime did I even commit? I’ll never turn my back against God and commit a sin!”

The voice chuckled and that’s when you felt your ring finger began to tighten up. You tried removing the ring in your finger but it felt like it was glued on your poor finger. A bruise began to form on your finger as it cuts off the circulation. “Who I am doesn’t matter, little one. After all, you’re gonna meet me soon.” You screamed as the ring began to bury deep within your skin, blood dripping from the newly formed wound. “As for your crime, well. You already know what that is, my dear. You’re gonna find out about that soon. But for now,” You screamed in excruciating pain, more blood came rushing from the cut as your finger was completely cut off, laying lifelessly on the cold stone ground.

Before you know it, a shadow looms over you. Ram like horns on each side of it’s head and it gave you a eery smile, taking pleasure on the pain you just went through. It’s violet-pink eyes stared into yours and in response, you gave this malicious entity a sharp glare as you bare your teeth, both in pain and to show your bravery despite being in pain.

The demon surely loves your bravery towards him and it amuses him. He picked up your severed finger, keeping it as a souvenir and leaned in closer towards your face and spoke,

“It’s time for you to wake up.”

A sudden jolt of energy woke you up, sweat dripping down from the top of your head while the beating of your heart becomes faster and faster the more air you breathed in. You look around your room; the light of the sun seething through your window as the fresh breeze of cool air makes its way to your room. In a panic, you checked your ring finger. To your relief, it wasn’t severed nor wounds appeared around the finger. As for your ring, the simplistic jewelry is still on the same area you’ve placed since last night.

It felt so real. The pain, the blood dripping from your wound and the way your ring tightens up. You thought that when you woke up, all that was left on your finger was torn up muscles and blood staining the comfortable bed sheets. Not to mention how that mysterious entity pinpointed a crime that you didn’t even committed, let alone considering that it was also a sin.

A sin that belonged to one of his brothers.

Instead of becoming scared due to your horrible nightmare, you’ve become even more curious not only towards that entity but also to the ring Father Solomon gave you yesterday. And it looks like you have something to talk about to the young priest himself.

. ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

“Solomon!” You called out to your dear friend from afar, seeing him reading the sacred scriptures underneath a tree that’s located from the outskirts of the old church. “There you are. I was searching for you everywhere and it’s unusual for you to be alone in this tree since you almost spend your time in your office.”

The priest only hums softly, moving aside to indicate that he’s inviting you to sit with him, which you gladly accepted. “I hope you’re doing well since the incident last night. Condolences to you and the others.” You smiled in sadness from the words you heard from him. “It’s fine, friend. They’re still trying to find the killer. I hope they caught them fast and finally have some justice to [c/n]. Poor child, may God let them rest in peace.”

You wiped off your tears, still remembering the sweet, innocent smile the child gave to you. They’re such a good kid, taking the role-model as an older sibling to the other orphans and even taking some of the blame if one of the orphans made a mistake. The thought quickly subsided, shaking your head and a serious look appeared on your face. “The kid’s not the reason why I’m here. May I ask you something, my friend?”

Solomon placed a bookmark on his book and placing it over the soft patch of grass. Wait a minute – you noticed that his eyes are quite strange; eye bags and the soft color of purple and pink hue over his brown eyes. You saw how his eyes twitched as if he didn’t sleep well last night. You’ve become so distracted over the color and the eye bags of his eyes that his voice broke your trance. “Ask away, (M/C) and I’ll try my best to answer those questions of yours.”

“Do you know this ring’s origins?” You showed him the ring around your finger. His smile widen when he saw you wearing the ring. “Quite beautiful, isn’t it?” He took your hand on his, inspecting the piece of jewelry he gave you yesterday. “Yes, I agree with you but I have a dream- nightmare rather, about this piece of jewelry.” The priest’s giddy expression suddenly dropped as soon as you mentioned the term ‘nightmare’. This concerns Solomon and he felt the atmosphere between the both of you became serious.

“What nightmare, (M/C)? Please do tell me what happened there?” You hesitated at first, still vividly remembering how a demon appeared out of nowhere as the ring began to sever your poor finger. The lingering pain still subsided within your mind, for the pain you felt was too real in the awakening world.

You randomly rubbed your hand against your ring finger while looking at the green patches of grass, noticing on how each sway of the individual leaves was caused by the cold winds blew across the courtyard. After what felt like hours, you’ve spoken about this gruesome dream of yours. “I’ve encountered something…evil from this dream of mine. I saw an entity that we feared and loathed, it’s horns are long and twisted, a tail which can choke a mere human to death in under a minute and his white sharp eyes.”

You shivered alone by just describing the demon’s features but it didn’t stop you from telling your close friend what such events had left you shaken since this morning. “I also remember how the ring you gave me tighten and remembering the pain I’ve endured as I try to pry off this cursed piece of jewelry. Believe me or not, this caused my ring finger to be severed, blood dripping non stop from my veins as I screamed in agony and pain while that demon watched me cry in satisfaction. What does that filthy creature even want from me?”

Solomon only listened to your words with a fixated expression on his face. “So your saying that this ring I gave you is the main reason why you have a nightmare last night?” You nodded, still feeling the your body shaken a little after you told your horrid story of a nightmare. “I thought this ring was blessed by you, father. Isn’t the blessing by the celestial beings cleansed this ring from the likes of 'it’?”

“I did blessed this ring. In fact, I performed a ritual that has been done way back thousands of years ago. I thought that the ring couldn’t be possessed by any entity unless..” Your priest of a friend suddenly stood in silence and after what felt like hours, he finally break the silence. “I did blessed this ring. In fact, I performed a ritual that has been done way back thousands of years ago. I thought that the ring couldn’t be possessed by any entity unles..” Your priest of a friend suddenly stood in silence and after what felt like hours, he finally break the silence.

“I think that the ring isn’t the target to begin with.” His words send chills down your spine. Hands are sweaty from paranoia and nervousness, eyes widen a bit from the words his spoke and your mouth wide agape; no words are even coming out from your mouth. Solomon looks at you in a serious manner for he knew that your life is in danger.

“The demon wants you, my friend. You are in grave danger…”

Do not republish, edit, or repost to other websites.

Reblogs and likes are appreciated! 💕

#tw yandere #obey me shall we date #yandere obey me x reader #yandere obey me #obey me x reader #om belphegor #obey me belphie x reader #belphie x reader #yandere belphegor #obey me one master to rule them all #obey me fic #obey me x you #obey me x y/n

[fallingtowers]

a sword made from an angel's pinion, set into a hilt of gold and gray chalcedony etched with words of prayer. in its immediate vicinity, on the faintest edge of hearing, a carillon of bells hangs in the air. it is a graceful and deadly weapon, and its cutting edge never dulls—but if you knowingly speak a lie while holding it, your tongue will turn to black mud in your mouth.

#swordposting

[mysteryshoptls]

Glorious Masquerade Episode 5-17 Rhythmic Lyrics

LET'S GIVE A PRESENT AT THE BALL!

Let My Wish Resound

Malleus: Frightened by the daybreak, I would wish countlessly, Idia: To say farewell to the lonesome sky, Azul: And for love's salvation.

Malleus: My prayers reach far and wide, Malleus/Azul: Illuminating the crimson flowers.

Malleus: O bells, resound, Malleus: Please deliver my wish. Malleus: Today, I reach my hand out high once more for a warm dream. Idia/Azul: Aah, if only I were allowed, Idia/Azul: I would live alongside those joys and sorrows.

Malleus: All those glorious people's voices, those radiant smiles, Malleus: Please, if you will, guide that light to me.

Malleus: To that spectacular morning that I long for, Azul: Once I wake, I'll start walking, Idia/Malleus/Azul: Together alongside my dreams.

Malleus: O bells, resound, Malleus: Please deliver my wish. Malleus: Today, this splendid city once more sets my heart alight. Idia/Azul: Aah, just now, it has all bloomed beautifully. Idia/Azul: I would sing with everyone of these joys and sorrows.

Malleus: That shared love I saw once upon a dazzling dream, Malleus: Please, if you will, guide that light to me.

Malleus: Towards the future!

Let My Wish Resound (Translyrics)

Under the cut, the following English lyrics should match the Japanese lyrics fairly well. Some liberties have been taken to make the rhyme and rhythm work, but stays true to the core of the song. It may take a few listen and read throughs to sing it just as I’ve envisioned it. I’ve also spaced them out slightly separately from the original written lyrics in-game to help with figuring out the beat.

Affrighted of the coming dawn, Time and again I'd wish and pray. To finally be free to flee from the lonely sky And for the grace love conveys

My prayers fly out far, thus Shining down on the crimson lotus

Toll the bell, Hear it knell, Echo out my dearest wishes loud and well. Today I reach out my hand up high, Once more for the chance at a warm dream.

Aah, if I, could only be allowed to All of the joys, All of the woes, It'd be worth living through.

Every shining person's lovely voice, All their smiles as they walk past. I beg of thee, Hear my plea, Guide that bright light towards me at last.

To that glorious, morning I forever longed for, I'll awake and go, right out the open door, Yes, with those deepest dreams I adore.

Toll the bell, Hear it knell, Echo out my dearest wishes loud and well. Today this spectacular city, Once more makes my elated heart teem.

Ahh, see now, the gorgeous bloom of emotion. All of the joys, All of the woes, Let's sing with everyone.

That warm, shared embrace of true love that, I saw in a dazzling dream past. I beg of thee, Hear my plea, Guide that bright light towards me at last!

My future's vast!

#twisted wonderland #twst #malleus draconia #idia shroud #azul ashengrotto #twst malleus #twst idia #twst azul #twst translation #twst glorious masquerade

[ssaeri]

your god won't hear you

☆ tags: m!sydney x gn!reader, just a little fallen!sydney, slightly corrupted!sydney, he’s still strawberry blond because I don't want to dye his hair, it's that temple scene where he gets protective of you, I cut out the good night scene because I got lazy, SFW, but the game itself is 18+ so might be suggestive due to the nature of the game, ft. f!jordan, ft. m!sirris ☆

The temple is quiet at night.

During the day, there is always movement: supplies to be transported, shrubs to be cleared, sheets to be washed. But once the sun slips in the sky, a sigh of silence settles over the space, and one by one, robed figures roam along the perimeter, leaving flickering candles in their wake. Sometimes, you sought solace in the embrace of the holy, letting the murmured prayers wash over your frayed nerves like a soothing balm; other times, you skirted around the edges of the temple, the weight of sin heavy on your skin.

Today is an instance of the former. You get to the corner of Wolf Street when the warning bells start tolling, signaling ten minutes before the start of the evening service, and you watch as temple members rush to complete their chores. For once, you're not among them. One lithe initiate pulls sun-dried habits from the laundry line, rolls them into a pile, and stuffs them into her basket in a rush. The head nun of housekeeping is not going to appreciate the unnecessary wrinkles; you've earned her ire enough times to know that ironing out every individual crease is another form of earthly torture. Meanwhile a tall monk hefts bags of hedge trimmings over his shoulder to deposit by the roadside, and when he sees you, he waves with a shy smile.

Cute.

You wink back. You don't know his name.

A line of initiates not much younger than you push open the wooden temple doors with a loud creak, and you cut across the street to trail in behind them, smoothing down the tattered remains of your overalls and hoping that you’re decent enough to not draw stares. A chant has already started. Half of the candles are lit. You're afraid to make a sound.

Like you said, the temple is quiet at night.

Your eyes strain to scan the pews until they land on a familiar figure in a corner of the main hall, knelt in prayer, head bowed over clasped hands. Strawberry blond hair—colored burnt umber in the low light—spills over one shoulder.

Bingo.

The monk to your right greets the entrance with a murmured Welcome to the temple, his eyes closed, his steepled fingers pressed to his lips. You side-step him. You also tiptoe around the sleeping drunkard in the back pew who clutches an empty bottle to her chest, the rumbling exhales smelling of liquor.

Your boyfriend doesn't greet you when you settle down near him—a respectable distance of two and a half feet minimum—but he’s fighting back a smile and you wait patiently for him to finish reciting his lines. As Sydney mouths the last few words, his eyes flutter open and crease at the sight of you. You loved his glasses, but you must admit that he looks better like this, adoration for you unfiltered.

“Good evening, my love,” he whispers, reaching across the space to brush the back of your hand. You catch it in his retreat and intertwine your fingers. “What are you doing here?”

“Praying,” you say simply, though you are clearly not.

Still, he hums in accord, squeezes your hand, and resumes his previous posture. At the altar, Jordan finishes setting up the religious artifacts and does a sweeping glance of the space. You wonder what she sees. Monks on the side processing with a sweet-smelling thurible. Initiates carrying the remaining piles of scrolls to the back rooms. Nuns walking around with a donation basket. Temple-goers lining the wall to confess their sins and seek grace. Jordan’s gaze eventually lands on you, and you swear you see an infinitesimal nod of approval before she descends to her usual place in the first pew, pearl-white and spun-silver robes setting her apart from the rest.

Jordan leads the congregation into the next set of prayers by chiming a golden bell that echoes eerily in the space. The temple isn't empty, but the vaulted ceiling, extending into darkness, morphs the sound into something resembling the pained groan of spirits. You kneel, too, feeling wood against bare skin, the holes in your overalls fresh from a forest adventure. You wouldn't call yourself a believer, but you'll take all the help you can get in this town.

You pray for salvation. For the orphanage. For the math project that you still haven’t finished. Sydney’s expression is concentrated now, troubled by the thoughts that plague his mind, but you can’t spend too much time dwelling on it because your own thoughts drift to hopes for the future and how things could be better. The next hour passes quickly behind closed eyes, and with every exhale, you feel your burden lighten.

The calm is interrupted by a nasal:

“A token of appreciation from the faithful, hm?”

The voice comes from a stout nun who stops in front of you, holding out a donation basket and barely missing your elbow. While her smile is neutral, she scans your outfit with thinly veiled contempt, and it's in that judgmental expression that you realize why she's so familiar—it's the one who always has a bone to pick with you and your faith. She swears that you're a fraud (you are) and that you treat the temple like a playground (you do) and that you’ve been tempting temple members in the chambers (you have)—but honestly, that is beside the point. As a woman of the veil, couldn’t one expect more grace from her?

Sydney reaches in front of you to drop in a crumpled £10, which the nun accepts with a sniff of her upturned nose. Tacking on your best customer service smile, you make a big show of rummaging for your wallet and pulling out the crispest £100 you have, courtesy of your last customer at the massage salon.

“Of course, Sister. Anything to support the temple,” you say with conviction you do not feel. “Perhaps this can help buy new curtains for the west wing.”

At your emphasis, the nun flushes down to her neck and stalks away without another word, coins rattling in her basket. You swear she's muttering something about you under her breath, but it doesn't matter; you've clearly won. There’s a beat of silence before Sydney leans over, shoulders shaking.

“Did you know the curtains were burned down last week because she knocked over a candle in her sleep?”

“Why do you think I said it?”

A suppressed laugh that makes his eyes twinkle.

“Oh, you are bad,” he says, and his mirth makes your skin tingle pleasantly.

“Thanks, I try.”

The golden bell rings again, and as one, the congregation sits back onto the pews to shift into the next prayer. It’s one that you kind of know. The language is foreign, some ancient tongue that you never learned, but the cadence is almost melodic, so you mumble along and hope that it’s enough. Their god is a forgiving god, right? Surely your intentions will win over your execution.

.

.

Another hour or two passes in this way. At some point, during another break, Sydney turns to you and asks what you're praying for. For peace, you reply vaguely. Honestly, as it grows later, you've just been trying not to nod off, the lingering effects of treasure hunting in the lake wearing down your muscles. Your watch reads almost midnight, and soon Sirris will emerge from a hidden corner, offering you a ride home before he returns to the Danube mansions with his son. You're banking on it; walking home at this hour would probably invite some unwanted encounters.

Suddenly, there’s a new warmth at your side. A slender man, dressed in a monk’s habit, leans in close and sneers as his chest brushes against your shoulder. A light but intentional caresss. You tense, biting back a yelp of surprise. He takes that—your silence, your stillness, your deer in headlights look—as a sign to continue, resting a hand on your exposed thigh. The tattered overalls. The bastard leans closer still.

“Don’t cause a fuss,” he murmurs, his sickly sweet tone edged with the promise of threat, “or I’ll say you attacked me. Who will they believe?”

Certainly not you. You've been carefully balancing your notoriety; photography sessions with Niki are now monthly instead of weekly, chef shifts at the local café are limited, no more cabaret shows on Friday nights—you’ve even started wearing conservative clothing to keep a low profile. But none of it feels like it’s enough, especially when you still get recognized on the street for your nightclub shifts and the growing list of crimes that have you in hot waters with the police.

This guy? He has a golden pendant around his neck, the center inlaid with a blue gemstone. You're not familiar with the colored rankings, other than the fact that Jordan’s pure diamonds denote her as the head of this temple, but just having a gemstone places him higher than your initiate level, marked by the plain gold cross pendant that dangles on a simple chain.

Before you can say anything, though, Sydney lifts the hand off your thigh, holding it in a crushing grip. A smile is frozen on his face. Despite not being directed at you, the barely masked fury and crazed eyes send a chill down your spine.

“Belief won’t matter because I’ll attack you for real,” he says lowly. Slowly. Letting the words sink in like stones in water.

And unlike yours, Sydney’s reputation does hold weight in the temple. There’s rumors of him being Jordan’s successor decades down the line, but even without the help of those rumors, you know that Sydney is ready to send this man to hell and back for daring to touch you, much less threaten you. Sydney’s grip is steady; the man’s fingers tremble and redden, seconds away from snapping. Sydney’s hand has been around your neck before, but it was always gentle, never more than a loving pressure. Now you lightly brush your sternum, wondering what it would be like to have this energy turned on you.

The man’s life must flash before his eyes because suddenly he has the strength to rip his hand away and scurry to the back of the temple, the worn monk habit swishing at his ankles. Smart move. You don't know who he is, and honestly, you can barely recall his face, but you doubt that he'll be bothering you for a long time.

“Fucking heathens,” Sydney spits at the retreat.

He waits until the man’s figure completely disappears into the shadows. Sydney isn’t much of a fighter, but from the straight line of his shoulders, you don’t doubt that it’d change in a heartbeat.

Then his attention is on you, and his anger crumbles. “Are you alright, love?”

He cups your face in his palms, and you lean into the touch.

“I’m okay,” you say, giving him a tight-lipped smile.

If this happened a year ago, you would’ve been shaking in your boots, bewildered at the audacity of the stranger, but ever since Bailey insisted on weekly payments, you’ve…seen the world. For better and for worse.

Right on time, Sirris strolls over, blissfully unaware. He swings his car keys from a finger. “Ready to go, kids?”

#degrees of lewdity x reader #dol x reader #dol sydney x reader #degrees of lewdity scenarios #dol scenarios #dol sydney scenarios #saeri writes;

[mask131]

The myth of Dionysos (2)

If you haven't checked the first post, this is a vague translation of an article originally written in French by Alain Moreau for the Dictionary of Literary Myths. Its subject is the identity and depiction of Dionysos/Dionysus in Antiquity.

III) The shapeshifting god

A god with such elusive origins, and such an ability to easily cross the limit between life and death, will of course be difficult to depict visually. Ancient sculptors had selected three main appearances for Dionysos: as a child, held within the arms of Hermes or of a satyr ; as a large, imposing bearded man (this was his usual depiction during the Archaic era), or as an effeminate teenager with shoulder-length curly hair and graceful, sensual gestures (this appearance became the dominant one from the 4th century onward). When it comes to prayers and hymns to Dionysos, he receives many names: Bakchos, Bakcheus, Iakchos, Sabazios, Bromios, Zagreus… G. Wentzel collected more than a hundred and thirty name variants for the god.

But how can one describe a god who spends his days transformed or under a disguise? Before the giant Rhetos, he is a lion (Horace, Odes, II, 19) ; when he flees from Typhon he is a male goat (Antoninus Liberalius, Metamorphoses, 28 ; Ovid, Metamorphoses, V) ; at Nysa he is a baby goat (Apollodorus, III) ; before the terrified Tyrrhenian pirates of the Homeric hymn he becomes a lion and a bear ; for Pentheus he was a bull and a ghost ; for the Minyades he was a bull, a panther and a lion (Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 10). Dionysos keeps shapeshifting, becoming a ghost, becoming a reflection or creating doubles of himself – and in this sense, the mirror that the Titans offered to the child they were about to kill becomes a very important symbol. In the “Bacchants”, the audience slowly sees Pentheus transformed into a tragic double of Dionysos: both are young, beardless and with beautiful blond hair. However in the beginning of the play, those similarities only highlight the differences. Dionysos is effeminate and his long curls flow over his shoulders, while Pentheus’ hair is braided and wrapped around his head – as Jeanne Roux notes, it was the typical hairdo of aristocrats that regularly practiced sports and wrestling. The virile king of Thebes disdains the foreigner because he has perfume in his hair, Aphrodite’s charm in his eyes, and something feminine in his appearance. But to better destroy Pentheus, Dionysos will turn him into a copy of himself. To spy on the Bacchants, Pentheus will put on a woman’s dress, unbraid his hair, cover himself with a fawn’s skin and hold a thyrsus. (Here the author notes that the translator of the Belles Lettres edition of the play made a mistake by writing that Pentheus put on a “wig” as part of his disguise – no, he actually simply unbraids his hair). With this new appearance, and soon succumbing to the delirium, Pentheus imagines himself cradled within the arms of his mother, just like young Dionysos disguised as a girl was cradled by his foster mother Ino. But by identifying with the god, Pentheus marks his own destruction: the “agreus” of the verse 1192 reminds us of “Zagreus”. Pentheus will live the fate of Dionysos-Zagreus: killed and dismembered, but without the resurrection. Supreme though futile identification: Agave holding the head of her son believes she is brandishing the corpse of a lion… the lion being one of Dionysos’ favorite transformations. When playing double, Dionysos always win.

IV) A complex personality

In his childhood, Dionysos is presented as a frail and defenseless being. He flees in terror the hatred of Hera and Lycurgus ; he naively falls into the trap of the Titans. However, once he is an adult, it is him who entraps those that refuse to recognize his divine power, and he takes his revenge with an horrifying cruelty. The Minyades are plunged into a sacred madness and rip to pieces Hippasos, one of their sons, while believing him to be a young fawn. Pentheus falls from the top of a pine-tree and is ripped apart by the Bacchantes, among which are his aunts, and his own mother Agave. As for Lycurgus, poets and mythologists are constant rivals in the game of who will describe the most atrocious torment. In Eschilus’ Lycurgy, Dionysos turns him mad and he kills his son Dryas with an axe, believing him to be a vine. According to Hyginus, Lycurgus also kills his wife and tries to rape his mother, before Dionysos abandons him at the top of a mountain where he is mauled by panthers. According to Homer, Zeus makes the king blind, while in Apollodorus’ tale he is tied up to the mount Pangaion and devoured by horses. And for Diodorus of Sicily, he had his eyes pierced by Dionysos, before a long series of tortures culminating with a crucifixion.

However this bloodthirsty god of tragedies can easily become a god of comical fables, or of fairytales. It is Dionysos that brought back Hephaistos to Olympus so he could deliver Hera from the magical throne he had trapped her in – to do so, Dionysos made the smith-god drunk, placed him on the back of a donkey and dragged him in such a parade to the realm of the gods (this was a frequent motif of Ancient Greek art). The donkey is strongly associated with the parades of Dionysos: either it is the ride of the god himself, either it is the ride of big-bellied Silenus, so heavy the beast clearly has troubles carrying him. The donkey is an ithyphallic animal: sometimes, baskets are depicted hanging from his phallus, or Silenus is depicted trying to rape it. This is all within the context of grotesque pranks and caricatural jokes – a carnival. This carnival-nature of Dionysos explains why he appears, with frequent mentions of his donkeys, within Aristophanes’ comedy “The Frogs”, where he is depicted as a farting and cowardly buffoon.

But the jester can become a lover. Dionysos is the lover of Ariadne. According to the most ancient versions, they were united by a “hieros gamos”, a sacred wedding – Ariadne being an ancient goddess of vegetation. In more recent tales, the hero Theseus becomes the third part of a love triangle – and Dionysos either recomforts Ariadne at Naxos after she was abandoned by Theseus (Catullus wrote a beautiful poem on this subject), either is neglected by Ariadne and out of jealousy uses the arrows of Artemis to kill his unfaithful companion (Odyssey, XI).

But even in his loves, Dionysos stays elusive. A curious tale, most developed by Clement of Alexandria in his Protrepticus (II), transforms the heterosexual lover of Ariadne into the homosexual lover of Prosumnos. And this is the result of a bargain: if Prosumnos gives Dionysos the means to go into the Underworld, the young god promises to become his “eromenos” (teenage lover) – but when Dionysos comes back from the Hades, Prosumnos is dead. So, going to his grave, he cuts a fig-tree branch, sculpts it in the shape of a phallus, and uses it to “fulfill his promise to the dead”. And according to Clement of Alexandria, it is in honor of this legendary episode that in some cities there are parades of phalluses organized in honor of Dionysos.

Naïve child and manipulative adult, a god as cruel as buffoonish, heterosexual and homosexual, Dionysos’ personality is just as multi-faceted and impossible to simplify as his physical appearance.

#dionysos #dionysus #greek gods #greek mythology #pentheus #ariadne

[admrlthundrbolt]

Sweet Tooth (Iruka x Chubby Reader)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iruka has a morning routine that includes your bakery. What will happen when a certain knuckleheaded ninja tags along?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey guys, I'm back at it again. I was recently rewatching Naruto and it resurfaced feelings for favorite characters. I thought that sweet Iruka would fit this idea perfectly.

I have an idea for a longer story for the 20th fanfiction. It's a concept I've been thinking about for a while, but will take a bit of research.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

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

With a heavy sigh of exertion, you dropped your hands from the whisk and bowl. While being a early bird, transitioning into the baker life was fairly easy. Mixing made up more of your prep than you’d like to think about though. But the happy looks on your customer's faces made up for it.

Especially a certain scarred sensei's.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Naruto, you seriously need to get your act together. A ninja must live a life of honor and sacrifice, not of childish pranks.” Iruka shook his head as he reprimanded the troublemaker. Hands on his hip, he leaned down to his eye level. “You need to take training and school seriously. It may seem like a game right now, but your future depends on your present actions.”

The blonde shuffled his feet and pouted at the ground. “It was just a prank.”

Shaking his head, he sighed. “No matter how innocent a prank may start. It can turn into a dangerous situation.” Putting a hand on the boy shoulder he said. “Do you understand.”

With a sullen nod he finally met his sensei's gaze. “Yeah.”

Patting the boy’s back, he let his stern expression drop. “Good.” Looking at his watch he cringed at the time. Glancing between the time and his pupil, he realized there was a decision to be made. If he escorted Naruto to class, he wouldn't have time to go by your bakery. Which would put a major damper on his day. On the other hand, he could take the troublemaker to the bakery. But what kind of mischief the blonde could get into, especially in your shop.

“OK Naruto, I’m going to make you a deal. “ He pinched the bridge of his nose at even the thought of what he was considering. “If I treat you to breakfast, do you think you can behave until we get to the academy?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically.

With a prayer the duo headed to your bakery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bell rang and you turned to the door. Smiling widely at the sight before you. “If it isn't my favorite customer.” A beeping came from the back and you clapped at the sound. “You guys couldn't have come at a better time. The Anpan is ready to come out of the oven. Excuse me while I go get it.”

Iruka could feel the heat building on his face. A love sick smile graced his mouth as he stared at the door you went through. He couldn't get over your kind nature and luscious full body. It was like you were crafted by angels themselves.

He was broke out of his fantasy by Naruto failing to hold back his laughter. “Wow sensei, they should change the name of the bakery to blush blush bakery.”

His blush spread even farther at the comment. But he didn't have a chance to reprimand his student.

You return with a tray full of red bean bun that smelled heavenly. As you faced them your eyes widened a bit. “Now Naruto, what have you said to make your sensei so flustered?”

Now the blush had crepted all the way up his ears. He quickly out his hands over the boy’s mouth. This kind of thing was exactly what he was afraid of. “Oh, trying to talk his way out of punishment. When sometimes the best thing to stay out of trouble is to just stay quite.” He gave the boy a pointed look to try and get his message across.

The blonde nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah yeah. What he said.” He rushed over to you and grabbed a bun. Then yelped when he realized how hot it was, juggling it between his hands.

you squinted in suspicion between the pair as you gave him a napkin to hold the treat in. “Uh huh.” Wrapping a second one you passed it to Iruka. “By the way.” You have the blonde your full attention. “What did you think of the milk bread with?”

His eyes sparked at the memory of the delicious bread. “It was so good! Did you makes any today?” Craning his head around the counter, to peak into the back room.

Swating your hand at the boy, you shook your head. “Not today, but I’d be more than happy to send you to class with lunch.” Facing Iruka your smile widened. “In fact, I would love to give you both lunch for the day.”

He waved his hands in front of himself. “We couldn't possibly take advantage of you like that.” His flush, that was starting to fade, flared back to life. Forget angel, this woman was a goddess. He had no idea that she was feeding Naruto. Though he had noticed his lunch containing baked goods more often than not.

With a hand on your hip you frowned. “I’m the one offering, so it wouldn't be putting me out.” Tapping your chin, you slammed a hand in your fist. “What if you paid for lunch, but I throw in desserts for free. That’d be fair, right? “

Seeing that you weren't going to back down without sending them off with free stuff, he nodded.

Clapping your hands together, you were beaming. “What sweets are you boys in the mood for?”

The blonde squinted at the display case. “What’s the sweetest thing you have?”

Without missing a beat, Iruka's mouth was faster than his brain. “She can’t put herself on the menu Naruto.” His blush had somehow doubled and migrated to you as well. “That is to say that you're the sweetest person in the village!”

“Oh.” You weren't sure how far the flushed travel, but your entire body felt as if it was a flame. Busying yourself with wrapping the lunches, with as many extras as you could sneak in. Including a note for Iruka to read later.

Thankfully by the time you had everything packed away, you both had calmed down a bit. “I hope you boys enjoy these.” Handing Naruto his along with a pat on the head. Then facing Iruka, you gave him another dazzling smile.

Your hands brushed as he took the box, they were as plush as the rest of you and warm. He fought off a shiver and gave what he hoped was a handsome smile. “Thank you.”

“Anything for my boys.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was glad that it was finally time for lunch. With the way his day was going, a break and your cooking was just the pick me up he needed.

Once he got over the shock of how much you had pack in the box. He noticed a note tucked into the corner.

Dear My Favorite Customer,

I mean it everytime when I call you my favorite customer. I was wondering if you would be interested in taking that relationship in a different direction. Call me when you're ready. XXX-XXX-XXXX

Love Your Baker

Rereading the note, he pondered if giving you a call tonight was to soon.

#naruto #chubby reader #iruka umino #chubby reader x iruka umino #naruto uzumaki #mutual pining #fluff #baking #caring

[petrorabbit]

(The Gung Ho Guns are sitting down for a nice team dinner)

Legato: My Lord, would you do us the honor of saying Grace?

Knives: Of course. *clears throat* I'd like to thank our sponsor, Audible, for making this dinner possible. Please like, comment, and subscribe, and don't forget to hit that bell on your way out. Amen.

(Very long pause)

Livio: That... was an interesting Grace?

Knives: It's an Old Earth prayer. I'm afraid its true meaning has been lost to time.

#trigun #millions knives #legato bluesummers #livio the double fang #wolfwoods grace is: #we love our bread we love our butter #but most of all we love each other

[silentmagi]

Rising Star

Happy New Years all, when we last left Star, she’d drifted off to sleep, and before there was a figure. Your votes determined who it was, so let’s find out who.

Before her, there was: 4 Luna in a lovely gown inviting her for a dance.

Strange perhaps wasn’t the right word for what was before her, for before her, in her resplendent glory was Luna in a gown that shimmered like starlight with delicate gold filigree around the cuffs and hem. Speaking of the hem, it was cut to give Luna plenty of room to move, showing off those curvy legs and the cleavage line that Star had caught herself ‘observing’ before.

Long, skillful fingers hovered just outside of her vision, waiting, inviting her.

Despite the knowledge that this was so far out of her league, she chose to believe this fantasy and take up the dance. The music was a familiar, distant tune that was enveloping her in a sense of comforting warmth. Instead of her normal awkward and stilted performance, she felt like she was floating, graceful, and the belle of a ball.

True the ball was just the two of them dancing in a sea of stars, but was there anything more she needed? This was a celebration, so she obviously had saved the day, restored magic, and the world was back to normal. She had been victorious and Luna was guiding her through the celebration, giving her the strength and confidence to face the public while they celebrate the return of magic.

In the distance, she could see the cute little cabin on the top of a hill, with a lightning rod several feet from each of the four corners of the property. The reward that she felt would be fitting to ask for, A well stocked library, privacy, and no lightning trying to bring the building down on her for building too high into the sky.

Yes, she could learn from other people’s mistakes. A cozy little research cabin, not a tower that she’d have to climb stairs to get anywhere. Nor some grand castle that she’d have to hire others to clean. No, a simple and cozy cottage where she could grow spell components, a stone bunker for experiments, and someplace she could keep clean with simple cantrips.

There was even the cozy hammock swing that she could sit in and read while Luna played her music in the gazebo between her adventures.

Wait… how was she over there and here, at the same ti- oh…

Snorting awake, Star blinked around the dim living room, a blanket covering her as she dozed in the chair with the embers of the fire keeping the room warm. Looking around, the place was cleaned up, and Luna had claimed the loveset next to her chair to sleep in, covered with another blanket. A faint echo of some beautiful woman wrapped in a dress that flowed into a sea of stars flashed through her mind, causing her to smile tiredly.

It was a nice dream, but she didn’t want to tell Luna about it, not yet. Some part of her told her it was just because she was scared of putting unrealistic thoughts out there, another part told her that she didn’t want to tie a wandering bard down like that. One final part snarled that she was a coward, hiding her feelings.

Glancing out the window, she found the moon hanging in the sky, with a field of stars beyond it. Silently, she sent up a short prayer for courage to finish the journey, and to know what she wanted in life. Because even in her silence, she couldn’t admit that she didn’t want things to go back to the way it was.

Turning back to the room, she nestled down into the chair and closed her eyes, letting sleep claim her again. She’d worry about that when she could spare the time. They had an early morning to catch the carts, so she’d sleep now.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

#Story #My Writing #Rising Star #My Polls #Star #World Building #Please Participate #Star Main

[xappetites]

sort of a continuation of this w/Frank and fBell

Frank is no stranger to barbershop banter, he might not spend all that time in town, even when he’s home, but he’s been getting semi regular post-mission cuts here for long enough to be counted as a regular.

So he doesn’t really mind the ribbing, his barber poking fun at how he should let his hair grow out like the youngins do, and he’ll throw in a perm for free. That is until the grocer down the street, currently getting his beard trimmed, makes an off hand comment about Bell.

“Doesn’t seem like the missus would be a fan, though.”

And it isn’t like Frank’s fucking bothered, it’s just this is the first time he thinks of the situation with Bell —living in his house and sleeping in his bed, making his coffee and strong arming her way into paying at least the electricity bill— as something that might stick. And he needs a minute to sort through the ache in his chest.

A forfuckingever thing, instead of the vague suspicion that he won’t find her there when comes back stateside, the bracing himself for an empty house he’s been doing for the better part of two years now.

“What?” the barber stops, kills the trimmer even, so he can be heard loud and damn clear. “If you ain’t planning on marrying that pretty thing living with you, better break it to her soon then. She’s started raising chickens.”

“Not sure she’s the marrying type.”

It’s not a lie, Bell’s quicksilver in Frank’s mind, half a cool little stream after hoofing it across the jungle for days and half forest fire. The word ‘wife’ itself feels weird, no matter how many times he’s let her know that he loves her as he comes.

The barber drops it, thankfully, though he shakes his head at Frank like he’s the stupidest son of a bitch that’s graced his chair today.

But it distracts him, the whole fucking thing, nags at him like a mosquito bite in the crack of the ass. So he has to bring it up, and he’s sure he sounds annoyed as hell about it, because he is.

Bell laughs —easy, without mockery—, perched sidesaddle in his lap, because of course she does. This is why he preemptively imagines a world without her, practices losing her in his mind so it doesn’t kill him when it happens for real.

“You ever think about tying the knot?”

“I’m legally dead Frank, I don’t think I’m allowed to get married anymore.”

“But you would, if you could?”

“I’d walk my ass hand in hand with you into city hall tomorrow if I had a valid ID, love”

She kisses him to make her point, in that mesmerizing fucking way of hers, and she rides him half to death that night, fingers interlocked and mumbling his name like a prayer.

So Frank calls a guy, someone he trusts to take his payment and keep their mouth shut. An old CIA contact who minds their businesses.

And he thinks he could make it romantic, should probably; he just— can’t wait.

All he does in the end is slide the two cards over the table towards Bell one morning, as soon as they arrive. Valid, legal, forged by the best: a driver’s license and state ID for his best girl, with her name sitting pretty on them, joined by a simple, solid ‘Woods’.

To call her his wife still feels weird, but this is right. As right as her laughter, bright and so sudden it almost makes her choke on her coffee. Right as the way she fits in his arms, talking about rings and looking at him with eyes half closed, like she’s looking at the sun.

#m: cod #r: fluff #frank woods x bell #frank woods x reader #the man is a romantic! 🥹 #thought i had gotten these two out of my system but #love writing Frank’s pov cause i can pull out some absolutely unhinged turns of phrase

[itz-stus]

Helloo!! Namasteee!!! I wanted to request for Gojo x reader, a scenario where the reader is like a huge devotee and like has done like really hard worship and got like vardan from vishnu bhagwan (Like remember that cartoon roll no. 21). And like she has like a divine power. And like in general is like really playful and calm. You get what I mean. Like in her presence, there is like pureness and mischief. But she's like always believes in what the god tells her to do. Like to be righteous. Get what I mean. Like in a fight!! Hope you respond to thiss I would love to see your take in this!!!

Ohh my god!! It was soo soo much fun to write thank you for this request anon. So I wrote is as a mix of head cannons and scenarios like little parts of Satoru's life and let me know if you'd like a part two!

Masterlist

His Devotee Lover

"I am time, today I'll narrate the story of the devotee sorcerer and her beloved Gojo Satoru…I have seen everyone from her gift to her relationship with her friends…Her honesty and devotion…I have seen through it all…every incident unfolds before me. I am Gojo as well as Geto. I am the Shibuya battlefield…This story will last till I'm am and I…I am eternal…endless…"

You were a devoted devotee of Lord Vishnu from the beginning, worshiping him wholeheartedly. Your unwavering devotion brought happiness to Lord Vishnu, who granted you a divine boon—a mighty bow. With this divine gift, you embarked on a righteous path, using the bow to protect, uphold justice, and fulfill your spiritual journey. Grateful for Lord Vishnu's blessings, you vowed to serve him faithfully and follow his guidance with the utmost loyalty.

You joined Jujutsu Tech to protect people from curses and perform exorcisms for the greater good. Your classmates included Gojo, the strongest sorcerer; Geto, a curse user; and Shoko, a remarkable healer. You underwent training together, faced potent curses, and created deep bonds while executing your objective to ensure the well-being of humanity.

You and Satoru were close from the beginning of the year in your class.

Gojo Satoru entered your dorm room early in the morning, following the sound of jingling bells. He discovered you engaged in a serene pooja, offering prayers before a grand statue of Lord Vishnu. Captivated by the scene, Gojo silently admired your devotion, recognizing the power of faith and spirituality.

You turned around after finishing "Oh, I didn't realize you were here, Satoru-kun" You smiled calmly.

God, it was something about your smile. It was just so calming that it never failed to cause havoc in his stomach

"Here, have some" You gave him the Prashad, at this point he was pretty used to this.

"Thanks, Stuti"

Your technique enamored Gojo Satoru, falling even more for you. Your playful smile carried a sense of determination, adding to your allure. The elegance and divine grace with which you exorcised the curse left him in awe. Using your bow with a calm smile, you displayed a unique blend of strength and serenity.

When you'd play with the animals in the school, he would always sneak up on you to see your graceful smile.

You played the flute under a tree, surrounded by cats and dogs. Suddenly, someone poked your shoulder, and as you turned, you discovered Gojo hiding behind the tree. It became a playful game between you two. "Oh, look who it is, my dear Satoru-kun," you chuckled as he joined you, sitting beside you.

You two could talk for hours and never get bored with each other.

You always listened to his rambling and always showed an interest in his talks. It touched his heart how much you cared for everyone. Specifically for him, Geto, and Shoko.

Even though he was not a fan of mythology but he found it so fascinating when you told him stories of Lord Krishna, Lord Ram, and so on at night.

He loved it when you always tried out new sweets with him.

As Geto was preparing to leave, he decided to visit your dormitory. Upon entering, he noticed you diligently mending and sharpening your arrows. Intrigued, he approached you, causing you to look up from your task.

"Oh, Geto-kun, when did you arrive? I didn't even notice," you chuckled, pleasantly surprised by his presence. Putting aside your work, you offered to get him a glass of water as a gesture of hospitality.

"Don't worry about it. I just wanted to meet you," Geto responded, declining your offer and emphasizing his genuine intention.

Curiosity sparked within you as you realized the significance of his visit. "I see. Is there anything I can help you with?" you asked, attentively listening to his words?

Geto took a moment, contemplating the appropriate time to ask his request. Sensing the opportune moment, he paused and proceeded, "I was wondering if now would be the right time to make these two wishes."

Recalling the previous discussion about granting wishes, you nodded, acknowledging his intent. "Oh, yes, do you want to ask them now?"

With a determined gaze, Geto revealed his first wish, his voice unwavering. "My first wish is that you would always forgive me and anyone who works for me until they have committed 10,000 crimes. However, if the crimes are similar, they won't count."

His request struck a chord within you, causing your eyes to widen. A warm smile spread across your face as you responded, "Alright, and the second?"

Without hesitation, Geto proceeded with his second wish, his resolve unyielding. "The second wish is that you won't fight against me or anyone who works for me until those crimes are complete."

The weight of his wishes did not go unnoticed, yet you remained steadfast in your principles. Understanding the gravity of your promises, you replied, "Well, since you've asked them now, I promise that until the end of time, I will follow your two wishes."

Geto, aware of your unwavering determination and commitment to honoring your promises, recognized the advantage this granted him. He noted your pledge before departing from Jujutsu Tech, knowing that you would uphold your word.

Gojo Satoru, saddened by his friend's departure, couldn't sleep that night. The sound of a soft flute outside caught his attention. He found you playing the flute under the moonlight, offering solace and connection. This encounter became a source of strength, guiding him forward.

That night he just laid on your lap hearing your peaceful voice and flute lulling him to sleep.

When Gojo was going for the fight (the one where ijichi calls him in JJK 0), he came to your as he found you sleeping soundly. The sound of the door woke you up, "Are, Satoru-kun when did you get here? Is there something I can help you with?"

He just smiled and replied, "Just wanted to know if you were free"

"Well for you I always am so what is it?"

Gojo Satoru, seeking guidance and trust, approached you and asked you to be his charioteer. He expressed his desire for someone he could rely on to keep him grounded and prevent him from losing his way.

"But Satoru-kun, Mind that in this battle I won't pick any sort of weapons or use any techniques. It'll be all on you" She sternly said

#anime #anime x desi reader #desi reader #jjk x reader #jjk x desi!reader #gojo x reader fluff #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo sensei #gojo satoru #gojo x reader #jjk gojo #gojo angst #gojo imagine #jjk imagines #Geto #geto suguru