#but knowing her mom (this is the same lady i was ranting about before)

[kashmirichaiwithmehr]

.

#yall #my best friend tried to set me up w her family friend like a month ago and it was so weird and i said no like 10 times #without ever meeting him #bc i had my reasons #(no i didnt reject him on looks) #anyways she had an event the day after her engagement #and he was there #and long story short #i think he realized who i was and was being petty to me on purpose #i swear i didnt think he knew who i was bc i thought the idea of a potential rishta ended before he even knew #but knowing her mom (this is the same lady i was ranting about before) #i know for a fact he or his mom at least know my name #and i think he realized who i was after hearing my name #bc my sister was there too and she had no idea what the guy looked like but i did but i never told her that was him #and at the end of the night she was like #why was that guy so mean to u for no reason like why was he being petty #and then i told her he was that guy my friend tried to set me up w #and my sister was the one who was like omg i think he knows who u are then and is being like this no purpose #asdhksjlad;sadjsklad;asdkjlasdas #mans true colours came out <3 #either that or hes like misogynistic #mehrtalks

[hysteria-things]

ONE

ʚ♡ɞ 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 | 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 ʚ♡ɞ

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: chris x reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: guess who’s back in town: the sturniolo triplets. it’s for their birthday party their parents are throwing, the same party your parents force you to go to.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: swearing

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1,054

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: we’re locked in on the series, folks!

you can’t go a day without seeing something along the lines of the sturniolo triplets, and it fucking pisses you off.

your parents went to high school with theirs and were really close. your mom got pregnant with you around the same time marylou got pregnant with the triplets, your “best friends.”

the same triplets that left you months ago because of their career of being youtubers. the least they could’ve done was still message you, but no. they unfollowed you on everything.

you texted them multiple times, but all you got was one-word answers or no answer at all. as much as you didn’t want to, you stopped trying after a while because it was no use.

your parents still hang out with marylou and jimmy, sometimes even justin when he��s in town. at least you got one more best friend that you grew up with, nathan doe.

nathan is the youngest out of the four of you. nick, matt, and chris are turning twenty tomorrow and nate’s turning nineteen on the ninth. you’ve been nineteen since april, so you’re right in the middle.

you guys met him in elementary school and he was the last piece of the puzzle. you guys were even called the FOREVER FIVE, something you all made up at a sleepover in the fourth grade.

of course the three stooges didn’t drop him when they left. favoritism, i guess.

you scroll angrily on tiktok. it’s like the app senses your hatred for them and decides to put edits or clips from their videos on your for you page. this shit is definitely not for you.

then, there’s a knock on your bedroom door. “come in.” you call out, and your mother comes in. she sits on your bed and sighs. “what’s up?” you ask.

she gives you a face of sympathy, and it scares you a little. “the triplets are back in town.” she starts, and that gains your attention. “and i want you to come with me and your father to their birthday party tomorrow.”

“no.” you flat-out say. it’s no secret that your mom knows about your hatred either since you cried to her for a week straight about how they abandoned you.

“y/n, please.” your mom puts a hand on your knee. “marylou would love to see you there. she asks about you, you know. she misses you.”

frowning, you start to think. you miss her too. you never blamed her for what her sons did, but you haven’t seen her since they left. she is the sweetest lady you’ve ever met. “and they’re celebrating nate’s birthday, too. you have to at least show up for him, okay?”

you exhale sharply. “okay.”

you pull up to the party the next day with your parents, making your way to the backyard where it’s held. not a lot of people are there, just close friends and family. you scan the area at the top of the steps for nathan, getting disappointed when you don’t see him.

marylou engulfs you in a hug the moment you step on the grass. “hello, sweetheart!” she exclaims, pulling away with a big smile on her face. she places her hands on your shoulders. “how are you doing? you feeling okay?”

“i’m doing fine!” you reply in the same tone, putting on a fake smile.

“thank you so much for coming. i know it’s been a little… strange for you for the past few months. i’m sorry about that.”

“please don’t apologize. you did nothing wrong,” you say and she pulls you back in for another hug.

“if you want, the boys are standing by the chips and dip. if not, don’t be afraid to make yourself comfortable.” she points to the numerous folding tables set up.

god, you missed this woman. “i will. thank you so much.”

you walk over to the table where your parents are, placing your things down before joining them.

“twenty years old is fucking disgusting.” nick rants, dipping a chip in onion dip and popping it into his mouth.

the other two giggle. “yeah, well—” chris pauses when he turns his head and lands eyes on someone. “holy shit, guys.” he taps both of his brothers on the arm.

“look.” he continues, pointing at you from across the way when he gets his sibling’s attention. “we have to talk to her.”

“chris, no.” matt says. “do you not know that she hates us? it was shitty, what we did. that’s honestly my biggest regret.”

“we are petty losers for that.” nick chimes in.

chris crosses his arms. he would do anything to get you back into his life. there was no specific reason why they did what they did. they ghosted a lot of old friends ever since they moved to LA, and you got unlucky. “fine. if you guys won’t, i will. i want to get my best friend back.”

“chris, wait! that’s not a good idea!” the two scream at him as he starts to march over to you, who’s now pouring pepsi into a red solo cup.

you gasp out of shock when you turn around and see a brunette towering over you. “hi.” he says lowly. “i didn’t think you’d come.”

“i came for nate.” you say coldly. “where is he?”

“he has to do something before he comes.” you move over to start walking, but he steps in front of you.

“chris—”

“i’m so fucking sorry.” he apologizes. “we miss you.”

“should’ve thought of that before you woke up one day and decided to pretend i didn’t exist.”

his heart aches at your words. the three of them really are assholes. “can we just start over? please?”

“start over?” you scoff. “we can’t start over after all of that. i practically known you since birth, and you want to start over?”

“y/n, i’m—”

you peek over his shoulder and cut him off. “nate’s here.” you eventually get out of his way and start to head over to nate, but stop and turn back around.

there’s a hint of hope in chris that you changed your mind, but he was wrong. “i kept the note.”

he furrows his eyebrows. “what note?”

ouch.

you laugh to yourself. of course, he doesn’t remember. “never mind. happy birthday.” you mumble, walking off into the crowd.

𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭!

@bunbunbl0gs @lexisecretaccx @thy-mission @angelic-sturniolos111 @sophssturn @mattsneezing @janiellasblog @blahbel668 @meg-sturniolo @hearts4chris @mattslolita @sturnbaby @imwetforyourmom @tillies33ssss @sturnifyed @mayhem-72 @ripmattitude @p1xieswrld @alorsxsturn @txssvx @sttzee @multiluvr @delilahprentiss @matthewsspecial @idkhowtosleep @sturniolho

#chris sturniolo #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo imagine #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo smut #sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo fanfic #chris sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo fluff #[ ✿ ] promise?

[frogaroundandfindout]

Random highly specific dick grayson fanfics I’ve been craving

An exhausted 18/19 yr old Dick finding Jason trying to steal the wheels off of Nightbird (his car) and instead of reprimanding him he just launches into a really proud rant about his car and how much work he put into her and god kid you got a good eye for parts. I just replaced the tires with ones where the rubber self heals. And none of that commercial crap either, actual self healing rubber that could get a bullet shot through it and still close up a second later. Oh and did you notice the seats? Just polished the leather on em! Go on sit, sit! Comfy, huh? You wanna get a bite to eat? Cool. I think bat burger’s hero-meal comes with a bat-mobile toy. Not as cool as my lovely lady of course, but close enough. Jason is absolutely baffled. This is Nightwing? The one all those new gangs that moved from bludhaven decided facing was worse than fighting for territory in the narrows? Fleeing unsuccessfully might be add considering Nightwing’s presence in gotham. He was so…nice? In that weird slightly off putting way that most of the real good people he knows have.

Dick and Damian both longing for the days where it was just them: Batman and Robin. The best. Dick having a whole moment where he curls around nearly completed adoption papers and sobs because Damian was his. For a year Damian was his to protect, his to guide, his to love. But now they aren’t even in the same city and barely go on patrols together let alone have movie nights cuddled up on the couch (it’s only reasonable Richard. Penguins huddle to conserve body heat). And Damian in the manor staring blankly at his drawing of gotham that Bruce hung up in his office. He didn’t make it for him. He made it for Richard. But what was he supposed to do when Father saw a piece dedicated to “dad” while Damian was flipping through his sketchbook? Tell him it was actually for his oldest son instead of him? Tell him that sometimes Damian wishes bruce never came back so that Richard didn’t have step back from them?

Dick who cooks tons of different cultural dishes within the same meal (like rice and curry served at the same time as sushi and fried plantains) and when questioned about it he’s just like ???? That’s what my mom used to do??? We lived in so many different places it felt weird limiting our food to one culture per meal.

Dick being like Garfield Logan’s big brother long before Jason comes into the mix. Gar frequently turning into a baby elephant just because it makes dick coo over him more than any form. Even a kitten!

#dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #Dc au #Dc prompt

[captaindanvers89]

So we know Kamala’s forming the Young Avengers and so far, it’s Kate Bishop, Cassie, Kamala, I hope they get Peter and America too cause the chaos would be comedy gold.

The mentors: Carol, Clint, Stephen, Happy and Scott would have weekly drinking night outs to rant about the kids. And Carol who is basically immortal, started having gray in her temples because Kamala decided it was a good idea to see if she could fly.

She could not.

Imagine the possible convo:

Carol: I still can’t believe she hurled herself from the Avengers Tower.

Clint: My kid shot down a historical bell tower, a christmas tree and nearly got us killed by the tracksuit mafia. And that’s not adding Yelena to the mess. She blames me for not keeping an eye on Kate

Carol: She hates me, threatened to kill me just because I let Kate onto the team. Kamala’s mom already dislikes me for that same reason.

Scott: Oh the black widow lady? She’s really nice. She lent Cassie her widow bites and now Cass modified it into her suit.

Sam: Your kid is the reason why people now fear Ant Man. She used the widow bites to tase people she thought had a high chance of committing a crime.

Clint: And Kate did not help

Happy: At least your kid didn’t invite all the other spider-man villains and the other spider-men into this universe so that he could clear his name and get himself and his friends into college.

Stephen: Don’t remind me. I’ve have enough headaches dealing with America traveling to other universes because she wants to try their food.

Suddenly, their communicators start going off.

Carol: Oh come on!

Stephen sighs heavily, Scott slams his head on the table, Happy downs his drink in one shot and Clint looks like he’s about to die.

Clint: All in favor of grounding them once we get them back from whatever universe they’re in now?

They all nod.

Carol: I say we have an hour at most before Yelena shows up and makes do with her threat

Stephen: You’re a walking infinity stone, why are you so afraid of her?

Carol: Fight her and find out

#kate x yelena #yelena belova #kate bishop #hawkeye #carol danvers #captain marvel #stephen strange #dr strange #marvel mcu #clint barton #happy hogan #scott lang #america chavez #cassie lang #kamala khan #ms marvel #the marvels #marvel cinematic universe

[starfirewildheart]

Chapter 5

Scars and Souvenirs 

Summary: Sy and his lady both retire from the army but not before tragedy befalls Sy. He slowly tries to adjust to life again on their ranch.

Pairing: Sy / OFC

Word count: 1,568

Rating: some angst some fluff

(Personal note: real life has been kicking my ass lately and it's taking its toll. I struggled with this chapter. I hope it's OK. Also if you wanna chat about Henry, any of his characters, movies or even has out stories feel free to DM me.)

Sy laughed as his three year old niece gave Deb the third degree. Millie was completely enamored with Sy which he was so shocked by since he spent most of her life in the middle east but was incredibly grateful for it. 

"Why didn't ya bing mah unka Sy sooner. He coulda skeered da torm away?" Millie huffed at Debbie. She believed her Uncle Sy could fix everything, even bad weather.

"I'm sorry sweetie but he had to help your grandma with some stuff earlier," Debbie explained. Millie was the cutest little girl with blond hair and blue eyes and at three already had Sy's stubbornness and attitude. Seeing them together, Sy huge and Millie so tiny was cute but watching the big, bad, marine be bossed and pushed around by this tiny little girl was the most adorable thing ever.

"Why didn't you do it?" Millie pouted at Deb.

"Cause she didn't want me too. She wanted to spend time with Uncle Sy," She explained. 

"Why not?" Millie questioned. "You do it den Unka Sy be here wif me!"

"Cause she said she wanted him, not me" Deb shrugged. 

"Why?" She asked again.

"Stop bein stupid 'silly millie'." Amy and Mike's oldest kid, Robbie sneered. He was six and he thought little sisters were the worst. 

"Hey," Amy, Mike and Sy all said at the same time. "We don't call people stupid young man," Amy finished.

"Yea poopy head!" Millie stuck her tongue out at him.

"No ma'am," Sy shook his head. "You don't get to call him names either."

"Whhhhyyy?" She whined. "He is a poopy head!"

"Silly Millie, silly Millie," Robbie sang.

"Cause it's not nice," Sy explained while trying not to laugh. "But mostly because I said so." He pointed at Robbie. "That means you to."

"Otay," Millie nodded and played with the doll she had in Sy's lap.

"Fine," Robbie sighed.

Sy's phone rang and he looked at the screen before turning it to silent with a huff. Deb looked at him quizzically but before she could ask her phone rang. She looked at the screen and did the same thing Sy had done.

"What's going on?" Amy asked but just as she did her phone rang. "Hello?"

"Are they there?" Sara demanded.

"Hello to you too mom," Amy rolled her eyes as she excused herself to the kitchen for privacy. 

"Are they there?" She huffed again.

"Yes they are here. The storm was worse down their way and they couldn't get home. They were exhausted and not in any shape to be alone anyway."

"They were here but she decided I didn't need to have a discussion with my own son. She has no right to try to come between us. He's my son and I have a right to know what…"

"No you don't!" Amy yelled into her phone. "Yes, you are our mother but that doesn't give you the right to know every tiny detail of our lives. Whatever Sy went through over there we know it was awful and if he doesn't want to retell it or doesn't want us knowing then we should be ok with that. All that he needs from us is for us to love him just like he loves us. Is that not enough for you?" Amy was near breathless from her rant but when she heard the click of Sara's phone turning off her blood boiled and she growled rather loudly.

"Don't ruin your relationship with her because of me." Sy had stepped into the kitchen when he heard Amy's raised voice. "I don't know why she's being this way but she's dead set on knowing it all and I don't just don't think I can do it."

Amy hugged him. "You don't have to, Sy. If talking about what happened helps you I will gladly listen to every detail. I will continue to love you just the same if you never tell me anything that happened. You are my little brother." 

He walked over to the counter and leaned his hip against it, arms crossed over his chest. "I should just disappear.  It would make everyone's lives easier."

"You better not disappear! We need you," Amy insisted 

Millie came running into the kitchen ending their conversation.  "Unka Sy!" She ran up to him with her little arms in the air and he scooped her up.

"And what do you want?" He asked her as he tickled her and made her squirm and giggle.

"Come pay wif me!"

He sighed dramatically then flipped her upside. "I guess,  if I have to."  

They spent time playing with the kids before they had their dinner and got ready for bed both falling asleep after a story.

Once it was quiet Sy's mind started to go into hyper vigilance again and he was getting antsy. His eyes were darting to all the windows and doors searching for the enemy. When Amy came back downstairs and called them to the kitchen so they could all eat dinner Deb got an idea. "Amy, do you have any card games or board games?"

"I do!" She jumped up excitedly and went to gather them up.

"You did it now woman," Sy shook his head. "She loves playing games."

Deb held out her hand to him and tried to pull him up which was futile until he helped. "Games are a good distraction," She explained as she guided him toward the kitchen. Once he was in front of her she smacked his ass. "Woman?" She growled. 

He bit back a shocked squeak and spun on her quickly wrapping his arms around her and roughly squeezing her ass with both hands. "Yea, woman." There was a playfulness in his eyes as she reached back and swatted at his hands. "Mine", he growled deep in his chest as he pressed his forehead to hers.

"Only yours, always," She promised. He kissed her until she was breathless and leaning heavily against him. "Mmmm," She sighed contentedly.

"Found em," Amy held up the boxes triumphantly. 

Thirty minutes later they were deep into a game of 'Syverson rules Uno' which she learned ment the deck had three special make your own wild cards, one of which Sy made a draw 10 card and you could 'stack' draw cards. The first hand Debbie had to draw eight and Sy enjoyed that just a little too much. So now, about half way into the game, Debbie was in a fit of hysterical laughter, Amy was in tears from laughter, Mike was trying to hide his smile and Sy was cursing. "Biggest bunch of fuckin bullshit I've ever seen in my life." He grumbled. "You keep laughin'" he shook his finger at Deb. It only made her laugh so hard she snorted which led to Amy's hysterical laughter and poor Aika looking at them all like they were mad. "It's not that funny!" Sy huffed at his sister.

"You," gasp, "had to," snort, "draw," guffaw, "18!" Tears from laughter streamed down Amy's face.

He shook his head and glared at her before picking up a pretzel twist and throwing it at her head which Aika happily munched as soon as it hit the floor. "Play!" He growled. 

Deb tried to control her laughter but failed, earning her own pretzel to the head. "They're your rules Syverson! I'm just playing by them," she explained innocently. 

"Uh-huh," he nodded, giving her a look that was supposed to be of anger but he couldn't hide his grin. 

They continued to play games for a couple of hours before Deb noticed Sy starting to wear out. "I hate to end a fun time but I'm getting kinda tired. I think I'm ready to stretch out."

"Of course," Amy stood up and gave her a hug. "You know where everything is but if there is something you can’t find just let me know."

"Thank you again for letting us crash here," sis. 

"You know you're welcome here anytime. " She gave him a hug then shooed them off to bed.

~~~~♡~~~~

Deb made sure Aika had been walked then crawled into bed where Sy was already waiting. The coolness of the sheets was welcoming on her sore, aching body. She wasn't really sleepy but physically she was beyond exhausted. Sighing contentedly when Sy pulled her against his side she pressed a kiss to his chest. "You feeling better sweetheart? "

"Still not right but much better than earlier. I'm so sorry you have to go through this with me. You deserve so much better."

The sadness in his voice broke her heart. She raised up on her elbow and looked at him. "I'm sorry you have to go through it baby, that you went through any of it. You're wrong though. I don't deserve better because there is no one better."

He turned on his side and hugged her to him pressing a kiss to her head nearly purring as she ran her nails lightly up and down his back.

"Mine," She said softly.

"All yours sugar. Only yours."

Tag list

@shellyshellshell

@enchantedbytomandhenry

@mrsevans90

@summersong69

@mollymal

@warriormirkwood

@bloodyinspiredme

@kneelforloki

#henry cavill #syverson fluff #syverson x you #henry cavill fanfiction #syverson #henry cavill characters #henry cavill fanfic #captain syverson fanfiction

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I’m starting to think that the kid the lady is next to in that one painting (when the guest are chasing you) is probably not their daughter or someone important, maybe it was a promotional painting to show people thus “hey, look the lady is good with kids!” When the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

DUDE I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR CENTURIESSSS THAT GIRL IS NOT HER KID BROOOO

Look with all the evidence I've gathered atp I am very convinced that the girl in the painting is her. I am compiling everything in a post to answer another anon rn but I deadass started to dislike any theory involving the concept of the Lady being a mother.

I myself have done this in the past (the parallels between her and the Pretender were not lost on me), but tbh I think she works so much better without having a kid for a multitude of reasons.

She does not like people. She wants to be left alone. To go out there and find someone who would have a child with her -- no actually scratch that, FOR HER TO FIND SOMEONE SHE TOLERATES ENOUGH TO HAVE A CHILD WITH would be out of character considering what we know about her.

^ same reason as to why I think she wouldn't adopt under normal circumstances.

^^ a child under her care would last a maximum of 3 days.

None of the children that were indicated as having relations back to her look like the girl in the painting. RCG's hair are too brownish and too long + how would she leave the Maw? Where would she find a hot air balloon near/on a submarine?, the Pretender is albino + the developers went out of their way to make her face very different from the other kids, the Flashlight Girl looks like any other girl in the Maw because they reused her model + she has 0 relevance before and after that + I think the girl in the painting was slightly remodeled and differently rendered just for the pictures like the other Ladies were resized and had their hairstyles modified.

^ These are all great in AU context, but I think canonically none of them would work/line up. The best bet for daughter title was Six and the developers went out of their way to publicly state that they are NOT related in that way.

IN SAID STATEMENT THE DEVS SAID THAT THERE IS NOTHING MOTHERLY ABOUT THE LADY.

The fact that so many people want to push the mother theory onto her really sounds like a scapegoat to not explore her character further. I would not be as upset if I hadn't seen her be dismissed as just a "heartless mother who hates her daughter/wants their beauty/is envious of her child" and yadda yadda yadda so many times.

Do you know how many times that trope has been done? And for it to be applied to such a layered, complex character as her only traits? That and being vain maybe if you're feeling generous, when the truth is that she is quite literally the most complex LN antagonist -- much like Six is the most complex protagonist. Six and the Lady are/have both been victims of fandom misogyny and it kills me to my core send tumblr post

I'm sorry for the rant. Again, I do enjoy the thought of the Lady being in a motherly role (I HAVE MADE A LADY MOM AU MYSELF) but not if it means assassinating her character. The only Lady assassination I support is the one carried out by Six.

#little nightmares #the lady #six #{my most controversial post #LMAOOO #i am not trying to start fandom discourse by this or anything I am just very passionate about the lady (and six) #i do not mean to offend anyone who does have these theories bc at the end of the day who am i to tell you what to think #on the other hand i am tired of seeing my bbg get watered down... ily bbg you are so complex and so fucked up} #ln meta

[juliette-cai-enthusiast]

Ok Here's my Big Long Rant About Chloe Gong's Books

So I discovered These Violent Delights towards the end of 2021, just before Our Violent Ends came out. My ex-girlfriend recommended it (funny enough she also got me into Taylor Swift. She was super toxic and later cheated on me but she had pretty good taste all around) and I had heard of it before so I decided to give it a shot. I settled into bed that night, planning to read a chapter or two, and three hours later, I had finished the book and probably almost screeched at the cliffhanger, and then began the agonizing wait (it probably wasn't more than a month, but still) for OVE.

The entire time, I could not stop thinking about how much I loved these characters. The relationships seemed authentic and fleshed-out and every character was so unique, and it was just so well-written. I especially remember being completely obsessed with Juliette (hence the username) and loving Benedikt and Marshall, although I was so so worried it was going to be queerbait.

When OVE came out, I got it out of the library and once again read it one night. This time, I was in tears by the end. To this day, only 2 books have made me cry (the other being They Both Die at the End) and OVE is the only one that has made me cry every time. They became my new obsession almost instantaneously, and when Foul Lady Fortune was announced, I was completely ecstatic.

When FLF was released, I went to the book tour and actually got to meet Chloe Gong. I was fangirling out of my entire mind and was probably super embarassing, but she was super funny and down-to-earth. I cried (again) in the parking lot as soon as I stepped outside. A few months later, she announced Last Violent Call, and when I found out that Roma and Juliette were alive, I actually fell on the floor. I went to the Immortal Longings book tour, although I sadly couldn't go to the FHH one, and I'm currently scheming up ways to get tickets for Vilest Things (Miss Chloe, please come to Philly again, I don't know if I can drag my mom to New York twice).

There are so many reasons why this series is so unebelievably important to me. First of all, the queer representation is honestly unlike anything I've ever seen. The queer characters are fully fleshed out and have personalities and arcs outside of their queer identities, but their queerness is also not a footnote or shoved in for "diversity points." When Benmars became canon and got their "Because I love you!" moment I was in complete shock--I honestly hadn't allowed myself to hope for it to happen. As the queer representation carried over into FLF, I just grew more and more overjoyed with this series. These books also came to me right when I needed them. LVC particularly came out during a very difficult and stressful time in my life, where my mental health was very bad. I remember thinking to myself all week, "Just hold on until LVC comes out," and it really helped me push through that period of time.

Chloe Gong was also pretty much a realization of my dreams. I knew I wanted to be an author for a while, but I really had no idea how to get there. I always thought, "Go to college for something you don't entirely hate, get a real job for about 10 years, then you can start publishing books." Seeing someone only a few years older than me with the same dreams as mine succeed in bringing them to life has been almost a lifeline over the years. I'm no longer as scared of what my future holds, or whether or not I'll be happy with my life. I honestly read her blog posts about her publishing journey probably once a month, just to keep myself motivated, because if she can do it, so will I.

So thank you so much @chloegong for this amazing world you have created. These books really mean the world to me and have brought so many amazing people into my life, and I can't imagine who I would be without them. This is way too long and way too personal, but I just reread FHH and was deep in the SS feels, so I had to get it all out there.

#chloe gong #secret shanghai #these books mean the absolute world to me and are my entire personality so yeah #foul lady fortune #foul heart huntsman #these violent delights #our violent ends

[lindszeppelin]

I am the anon who sent you the long message, I am also a dude , Im of a rare breed in the fanbase , dont seem like there is alot of us here and thats ok lol I have sent you something before actually about how when men know we know. And I will say that over and over again. Seems like alot of the anons you get seem to be from people who are losing faith in that and think whatever Miss Gerber has with Austin is real. A man knows when he found his wife, not to get all preachy and sound like a religious crazy person but there is legit a whole bible verse in the book of Proverbs about it. I am 31, still young but old enough to know , especially as a married man myself when a guy has found his wife, he isnt hiding that shit. When i proposed to my wife we were on vacation and I legit facetimed my friends when she was in the shower and told them the news, up there squealing like a woman excited as hell LMAO. Austin is someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, if he saw that life with Kaia we would know it will show. So all that privacy BS is exactly that.....BS....like he dodges questions about her all the time and Kaia does the same, i personally have never seen celebs go that far to do that, even the ones who wanna be private. They still talk about each other. I think these shippers as I stated see themselves in Kaia,so when things are said about their relationship and lacking chemistry they take it as you saying about them and Austin...anyways I will stop ranting here but i wanted this to known and to give your blog a guy perspective

aaah welcome back in! nice to have you here. the fandom truly needs bit more guys in the fandom to balance out lol. and i think there are, but us women are a lot more vocal about it i'd say lol. and to each their own, it's so cool to have you here.

but i thank you once again for brining in the much needed male perspective on this situation. and coming from a man that is married and is Austin's age, that seriously should be everything that we need to heed your words.

i think a lot this discourse stems from the fact that the super young girls in this fandom closer to kaia's age clearly are showing that they haven't been in a serious relationship, or they don't have a lot of life experience. because a man should love his woman entirely and not be afraid to show it or talk about it. if a man hides his girl in any way then he's not happy with her. austin moves with kaia like a man that is not taking her serious. plus he knows she is too young for anything serious anyway. and when a guy TRULY thinks he has found his future wife, he won't waste time. i know this from personal family and friend experiences. i come from a parental background where my mom and dad got engaged after only 6 months of dating and they are still together 30+ years later. i know someone else where after only a week their man proposed and they are still together. like...it is what it is. a man can be just as emotional, clingy, and lovey-dovey to his woman than the woman is to him. ladies reading...if your guy doesn't act like the sun doesn't rise and set with you then he is not the one and he won't ever be. and that's okay. go find yourself a person that leaves no question as to their feelings for you. if you have to guess or question then, as the famous movie goes, he's just not that into you.

and you mentioned a verse in proverbs. i'm not necessarily a religious fanatic, however i am spiritual and i won't turn my nose up at acknowledging that stuff. . so if you would like to share the verse then go for it.

but once again, thank you so much for your insightful input!!

#lindsay's anon asks

[siriuslysatorusimping]

WHO FALLS FIRST?? GOJO OR RINKO!!!! Thanks for all the hard work we have all been so blessed by the consistent updates and the detailed answers it’s such a privilege!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHH

First off, hi sweet Anon and thank you for your question!!

I've been spending literally all my free time writing and my friends have been asking where I've been 💀💀 But this story is just too much fun to write to resist!

Answer is below the cut as always 😊

Read Another Level on AO3 :)

SUCH A GOOD FUCKING QUESTION BECAUSE WHO THE FUCK DOES FALL FIRST?

Sweet Anon, you made me really think hard for this one.

Because honestly? Who does fall first?

My first instinct is to say Gojo, but this isn't as straightforward as it may seem.

UGH okay here we go I'm gonna rant and breakdown a bunch of shit you guys probably don't care about...

Who falls first?

I think Gojo has already tripped and face-planted by the time we get to New Memories, tbh. If we take a teeny look at this lil bit:

A small smile was on his lips as he approached her. “What are you doing here?” He shrugged, kneeling next to her. “I remembered you saying you used to spend your birthday with your mom.” He wiped the tears from her face. “So, I thought you could probably use a distraction. When you weren’t home, I figured you’d be here.”

And this bit:

His small smile while he listened to her, chin resting against his palm with his elbow on the table, brought her to reality and she took a deep breath. “Sorry,” she said, suddenly uncomfortable. “You’re probably tired of hearing about-” “I asked, didn’t I?” he reminded her, his face shifting when he noticed her withdrawing. “Rinko-chan-”

And this bit:

He stood slowly, pulling her from her seat with a small grin. “Satoru?” “Hmm?” he hummed as they walked out, his arm around her waist. His eyes were shining behind his sunglasses, a small, surprised smile on his lips. “What’s up, Rinko-chan?” “Thank you.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and grinned at her. “Anytime.”

After dinner, how he has planned to take the bullet train with her back to Kyoto just so she doesn't have to ride alone, and then go back to Tokyo with zero expectations of anything. He had zero intention of staying over until she asked him to. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we know Gojo feels something for Rinko. Because you just don't do those kinds of things for someone you don't feel anything for.

And let's just talk about the sex they have before he leaves the next morning for a second. It's so fucking soft and you can just tell he's looking at her differently than he has during sex in the past.

BUT at the same time, this boy is fucking CLUELESS and he doesn't even realize what he feels. Because he's had so few friends in the past, he's kinda just assuming this is how it's supposed to be with friends because he's fucking stupid. lol

Rinko realizes pretty early on that she could fall in love with him very easily because of how he acts, so she essentially forces herself to pack everything away that could be interpreted romantically. By the time we reach canon (2017ish) she'll know she's likely in love with him, but she has accepted that they'll never be more than they already are.

SO short answer? MOST LIKELY Gojo lol

Who says it first though? GUESS WE'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE 👀👀👀

#gojo satoru x original female character #gojo x reader #gojo fanfic #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru fanfic #gojo satoru smut #gojo smut #jujutsu gojo #gojo satoru #gojo fluff #another level #another level ask #another level asks #sweet asks #sweet anons

[banannabethchase]

Adam's connecting flight gets delayed, and who else should be on the flight but Jon Moxley. They decide to share a hotel room, but, oh no, what could possibly go wrong? Or right?

~

Being in an airport really does inspire a person, doesn't it? Also this has been lingering in the back of my noggin for months.

~

Adam drops his head when the announcement comes on again.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he mutters. He should have taken the Bucks up on their invite to stay in one of their guest rooms – there’s no way he’s getting home any time soon at this point.

Stuck at the airport want to die, Adam texts Matt

It’s almost immediate that he gets back, told u so

Sometimes I actually hate you

<3 <3 <3 <3

He resists the urge to text Nick, who will probably be the exact same as Matt, just a little less overtly bitchy. He stretches out in the airport chair as he listens to the flight attendant repeat the announcement for the third time.

”Again, flight 1883 out of San Diego to Cincinnati is cancelled due to weather events across the Great Plains,” she says, sounding too chipper for the announcement. “We will be happy to help any stranded passengers make alternate plans.”

Adam curses the need for layovers as he gets up to the counter, Orville Peck’s newest album keeping him from losing it as he waits behind soccer moms and business professionals and, to his amusement, one of the crew guys from the night before. He doesn’t seem to recognize Adam, and Adam’s not going to get in the way of whatever he’s got going on in his headphones.

When he finally gets up to the counter, he exhales with relief. “Hey, there, ma’am, I was hoping you could help me out.”

“Certainly, sir,” she says. “Tell me what your situation is.”

Adam begins talking, and practically jumps when he hears an obnoxiously familiar voice go, “Oh, fuck me.”

Adam squeezes his eyes shut and exhales. He should have known this was coming. “Lord save me now.”

“I know,” says the counter attendant, sympathetic smile not helping in the slightest. “Flight delays are frustrating.”

“Oh, no it’s not that. It’s just – ” He stops himself from going into a detailed rant about just how perfect it is that he’s going to be stuck in the same airport as Jon Moxley for the foreseeable future. “Never mind. Regarding the flights, I have a connection that there’s no way I’m making.”

“Yeah, unfortunately that’s going to be the case,” she says, frowning. “How about this. We can book you a hotel room,” she does some clicking, “and get you a new fight for…well, it looks like, in order not to give you a 12 hour layover, we can get you out of here on a flight directly to Virginia tomorrow at 4pm.” She smiles at him. “Does that sound like it could work?”

Adam nods. “That sounds like a great alternative. I appreciate your help.”

She prints him out a boarding pass and a hotel receipt, only to turn to run smack into Mox.

“Jesus, you’re charming as fuck even in a stressful situation,” Mox says, grinning at him. “Ever turn it off?”

“You’ve seen what I do when I turn it off,” Adam says, refusing to meet his eyes. It’s unfortunate, then, that his gaze lingers on Mox’s lips. On the way his tee shirt gaps a little at the collar. “You get hung by a chain in front of thousands on a pay per view.”

Mox’s grin goes a little predatory. “Yeah. Anyway, hope your day sucks.”

“What? I – fine. You too. Prick.”

Mox winks at him and gets into line just in time for Adam to get a phone call he’s not going to be able to finish without plugging in his phone. So he, with CD on the other end of the line checking in on him, is privy to the shitshow in front of him.

“There’s no more hotel rooms?!” says the lady who had been standing a few people behind him. He remembers she was the one loudly listening to videos on her phone in between complaining. “Then find me a different one!”

“Ma’am, there are no more hotel rooms we are able to –”

“Well that’s your fault, isn’t it?!” she shrieks. She turns to the line of people behind her. “Aren’t you all just as angry? We want to get home! We paid good money for these tickets!” She turns back to the attendant. “Are you the most competent person I can deal with? Do they only hire idiots?”

“Chris, I gotta go,” Adam mutters into the phone. “I’m good, though, you don’t need to worry about me.”

“Alright, Hanger.” Chris sounds skeptical, which is fair, but he hangs up anyway.

Adam’s in the process of standing up to go give the lady a piece of his mind when Mox steps out of line to swagger up to the complainer. “Yo, lady, I’m not sure what your problem is, but you don’t see any of us acting like toddlers who didn’t get a cookie.” He does that stance, arms behind his back, like he’s daring someone to hit him. “Chill out.”

“I,” she says, “am a very important oil executive, sir, and I have places to be. People require my presence to complete their jobs.” She looks Mox up and down, taking in his ratty jacket, ripped jeans, and faded tee shirt. Her eyes linger on the scars on his forehead. “I can see you don’t have much experience in that arena.”

Mox scoffs. “Lady, I’m a wrestler. Like a pro one? Like on TV? Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty sure I’m just as whatever as you are and I’m not being a bitch.”

Adam snickers into his hand. It’s not quiet enough – Mox glances over his shoulder and grins at Adam. “See? That guys a wrestler, too. And he was perfectly civil. So you can grow the fuck up and act like a human or you can keep this up and I’ll put you in a headlock.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she says. Adam knows that face. She’s trying to call Mox’s bluff. Adam giggles again.

“Hey, Cowboy,” Mox says, “what did I do to you in that match?”

“Before I choked you out with a chain?” Adam asks. “You tried to break my hand between two bricks.”

“Right,” Mox says. He turns back to the lady, whose face has turned a weird shade of green. “So, like, if you’re gonna go after this nice person trying to help you, I kinda hope you go full on nutjob and jump the counter. I’d love give you a suplex onto the floor.”

Adam’s full on laughing as the lady sputters some nonsense. She snatches the boarding pass that the flight attendant had been holding out for her and stomps off. “I hope you get a concussion,” she snarls at Mox and Adam as she leaves.

“Been there, done that, lady,” Mox calls after her.

Adam lets the laughter fade. “You got a way of handling assholes, that’s for sure.”

“Only way I’ve survived being coworkers with you,” Mox says. “I’m fucked, though. Stuck sleeping on airplane chairs like it’s 2003 again.”

Adam practically sees his options scatter across his vision. Take the hotel room and enjoy a night to himself. Offer the room to Mox and be stuck here. Give the hotel room to someone else so they’re both miserable together.

Or.

“I mean, you can come with me,” Adam says. “I’m sure we can avoid killing each other for a night so we can both get decent sleep.”

Mox stares at him for a second. “What?”

“You don’t have to,” Adam says, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder. “Just saying you could be, like, not a weird martyr and take the comfortable option.” He’s about to walk away, hand on his rolling carryon, when Mox sighs.

“I like that you think spending time with you is better than being stuck in an airport,” Mox says, but he grabs his carryon and starts walking. Adam falls into pace next to him.

“Dick,” Adam says, grinning. “You look like you’re coming with me, though, so I’d say I’m better than an airport.”

“I’m too fuckin’ old to try and sleep on airplane carpet,” Mox says, rolling his shoulders. “Plus, I got that GCW match on Sunday and I really don’t want to be fucked up for it.”

“Oh, right,” Adam says, sliding out of the way for a family of what appears to be four thousand blocking the path, “because a GCW match requires tip top shape to get bludgeoned to death with a trash can.”

Mox stares at him. “We just bludgeoned you and your boys with worse than trash cans, so I have no idea where this high and mighty bullshit is coming from.”

Adam opens his mouth to argue before realizing, annoyed, that Mox is right. “Well shit.”

Navigating the airport to get to the hotel is easier than Adam had thought, but with a chattering Mox behind him making commentary on everything it’s less smooth.

“Do you ever shut up?” Adam asks as they settle in line at the hotel. “Seriously, I don’t think I’ve said anything in ten minutes, but you’ve spoken a novel’s worth.”

Mox shrugs. “I’m fidgety. I talk when I’m fidgety. That a problem for you?”

“If you talk in your fuckin’ sleep, it is,” Adam says, but he’s sure to smile to make it sound like less of a death threat. The people in front of them in line keep looking back at them, concerned. Adam doesn’t want the cops called on him. “Now shut up for, like, two minutes while I get checked in.”

“You better ask for two beds,” Mox says. “I ain’t cuddling with you, Cowboy.”

“I’m sure there’s two queens,” Adam replies.

Mox giggles.

“What’s so funny about that?”

“Just, if there’s two queens, it’s the Bucks, right?”

Adam kicks him in the shins.

~

“And there’s a king bed in this room,” says the attendant when he gets his key cards.

Adam blinks. “I’m – just a king bed?”

“Yes, sir,” she says. “It’s the only room left.”

“Alright,” Adam says. He’ll sleep in the bathtub if he comes to it. Anything to get this shit show over with. “Yeah, it’ll work. I appreciate the help.”

Mox steps in pace with him, like a puppy learning how to heel, as Adam makes his way to the elevator. “So, we gonna fight on who gets the bed?”

“I’ll sleep in the tub if it means you shut up,” Adam deadpans, pressing the button for the elevator.

Mox slides into the elevator, and grabs Adam’s carryon to move it with him. Adam’s…confused, but appreciative. “I was kidding about the cuddling bit,” Mox says. “I mean, you’re letting me stay in your hotel room. I’ll sleep in the tub or on the floor.”

“That can’t be much better than an airport carpet,” Adam says. He checks the key card – fourth floor, room 451. Before he can press the button, Mox has reaches out and practically punched the button for number 4.

Mox is quiet for a few minutes, long enough to make Adam wonder what he’s planning. “Or,” Mox says as the elevators doors open. He grabs Adam’s carryon again and hauls both suitcases down the hallway. Adam decides not to mention his has wheels – he kind of wants to see how long it’ll take Mox to notice. “I mean, we can share. The bed, I mean. If you’re okay with that.”

Adam considers it as they walk down the hallway. “You’re not gonna try and cuddle me, are you?”

“I – that was a joke, you fuckwit,” Mox says. “And you could thank me for carrying your bag all the way here.”

“First off, it rolls, so you didn’t have to carry it,” Adam says, sliding the key card into the lock on the door. “Second, I didn’t ask you to carry my bag.”

“I had to,” Mox says. Adam barely gets the chance to push open the door before Mox is hauling all their bags and throwing them into the room with zero ceremony or care. “It was the nice thing to do.”

Adam shuts the door behind the two of them. “You saying that right after chucking the bags into a wall feels weird.”

Mox shrugs and throws himself onto the bed, arms behind his head. “What, you want me to, like, apologize or something? Did you have something breakable in there?”

Adam shakes his head as he carefully unzips his boots and sets them neatly next to the desk. “Just wondering what the fuck goes on in that weird head of yours.”

“You don’t get to call me weird,” Mox says, and he’s grinning when Adam glances over at him. “You’re just as much of a freak as me, Cowboy.”

Adam throws the pillow from the chair at Mox and sits down. “Am not.”

“Oh, so the whole hanging me using a chain is normal behavior to you?” Mox shifts, grinning at Adam. “Wrapping barbed wire around yourself like a fuckin’ corset is vanilla in your world? I’d hate to see what you’d consider freaky, then.”

Adam adjusts in the seat, desperate to lay down but not ready to cross that bridge with Mox. “I’m sure you would Mox.”

They’re quiet for a moment, as Adam tries to figure out if getting up will be seen as an offensive maneuver. Then Mox groans and stretches, his arms above his head on the bed. He grips the bars of the headboard, which Adam tries not to think too much about. “Well, Cowboy,” he groans, “if we’re gonna act like an old married couple and share the same bed, least I can do is wash the airport offa me. I’m gonna go shower.”

Adam nods, because there’s not much else he can really do. “I, uh. Appreciate it?”

“You should,” Mox says, swaggering over to the shower. He pulls his shirt off and throws it on top of his luggage. Adam recognizes a fresh scar on Mox’s back as one he placed there with barbed wire. He ignores the voice in his head that growls mine at the sight. “I’m a fuckin’ saint.”

“I absolutely wouldn’t go that far,” Adam laughs, but he follows Mox with his eyes as he makes his way to the bathroom, allowing himself to look at the way Mox’s ass fills out the jeans.

~

Adam’s halfway through his compulsive daily email clear out when a noise jolts him out of his focus.

He looks around the room for the source, only to see an outdated phone buzzing on top of Mox’s bag.

“Mox,” Adam yells, “Mox, your phone’s ringing!”

Adam stands and walks over to the phone to pick it up. He wouldn’t normally impose, but he glances at the screen and it’s Tony’s number. “Dude,” Adam says again. “You’ve been in there for twenty minutes.”

The phone stops ringing and Adam relaxes. And then it starts up again.

“Asshole,” Adam grumbles, almost stomping down the short hallway to the bathroom. “Hey dickhead!” he yells, and he’s surprised when the door swings open under his grip.

He should have remembered he’s never been in this bathroom before.

He should have remembered this is Jon Moxley.

He should have remembered that boner he popped during Anarchy in the Arena.

The shower is in perfect view of the door, so he can’t even act like he can’t see what’s in front of him. He feels like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Here to join?” Mox asks. His hand is curled around his cock, grinning over at Adam through the water droplets on the glass shower door.

“No,” Adam says, averting his eyes, a little too late, “uh. Here.” He shoves the phone toward Mox. “It’s Tony.”

“Tell him we’re having a sleepover and he can wait,” Mox says. Adam can sense that Mox is moving, and he’s not strong enough to imagine the kind of movement. “I’m busy.”

“It’s the second time he’s called in, like, four minutes,” Adam says. He moves to stare at the wall, but all that happens is he locks eyes with Mox through the mirror. He fights the urge to run or whimper or something else he doesn’t allow himself to think about too hard. “Just fuckin’ answer it.”

Mox groans and turns off the shower. “Asshole.”

“Dickhead,” Adam replies, and he hustles out of there like his life depends on it.

~

Mox comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later followed by steam. Adam is unable to ignore the fact that he’s not wearing anything but a towel around his waist.

Adam had waffled between what to do, and ended up sitting on the bed stiffly, still fully dressed, with a book in his hand. He’s made it through two pages and didn’t understand any of it.

“Tony was just freaking out about if I was gonna get home or not,” Mox says. Adam intentionally doesn’t look at the way the water leaves trails down his chest, his back, his arms. He doesn’t look at how low the towel is on Mox’s hips, on the perfect lines of muscle making a V at the bottom of his torso. “Since he booked the flights he got the notification of the cancellation and I,” he rolls his eyes, “am the only one who didn’t check in with CD, so he was freaking out.”

Adam swallows, forcing himself to stare at the wall behind Mox. “You chill him out?”

Mox nods, stretching, and Adam’s eyes snap right back to that chest of Mox’s. “Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Mox says. “Freaks out about everything, Tony. Told him we’re bunking together.”

That’s enough for Adam to set his book down. “How’d he react to that?”

Mox laughs, twisting. Adam finds himself wondering how tightly the towel is tied, if Mox is still hard under there. “Tony freaked out, like always. Wanted to know if we planned on killing each other.”

“It’s not off the table,” Adam replies, adjusting his glasses and going back to the book.

Adam feels the bed shift as Mox sits at the foot of the bed. “Yeah? Planning on strangling me in your sleep?”

Adam looks up to see Mox grinning at him. “Already strangled you once,” Adam says, flipping the page like he’s been able to take in a single word since Mox walked out of the bathroom. “Figured I’d try something new.”

Mox huffs. “Yeah? You been thinkin’ about killing me?”

“No,” Adam says. He sets down the book. “But, you know. Always have ideas in my back pocket.”

Mox studies his face for a moment. “Ideas?”

Adam nods. He’s not sure where this is going. “Yeah. Ideas.”

The silence feels heavy for a second, and Adam’s pretty sure he’s seconds away from doing something stupid when Mox says, “I like the glasses.”

Adam blinks. “Oh,” he says, taken off guard by the compliment. “Uh. Thanks?”

“You don’t have to act all weird about it,” Mox says. “They’re – they look good. Real studious and shit.”

Adam laughs. “High praise from a man whose wardrobe is his own merch.”

“It’s my merch because I like it,” Mox says. He leans back on the bed. His head is level with Adam’s knees. “Course I’ll wear it.”

“You don’t see me in Hangman shirts all the time,” Adam says.

“No, but you were those, uh, those button downs. Very yeehaw. Cowboy shit, right? You dress the part.” He reaches out and pats Adam’s leg. “Even your jeans are all cowboy.”

Adam tries not to flinch or burn at the touch. “I – thank you?”

Mox rolls over. “Are you okay? You’re all tense?”

Adam opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again and says, before he can stop it, “What are you doing?”

Mox stares. “Huh?”

“Like, you talk all the time, I know that, but you’re like.” He wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know. Trying to be friendly.”

Mox’s face falls, and Adam practically watches him close in on himself as he scrambles to his feet. He can’t explain why his heart clenches at it, only that it does. “Oh.”

“No!” Adam says. “I – no, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just I didn’t expect it. Especially after I walked in on you –” Adam cuts himself off, because saying, ‘walked in on you jacking it’ feels a little too real for whatever’s happening.

Mox’s expression shifts incredibly slowly, from confusion to understanding to amusement. “Oh,” he says, drawing out the syllable. “Oh, you walked in on me with my hand on my dick and you freaked out.”

Adam wills himself not to turn red. He doesn’t think it’s working. “I didn’t freak out.” He forces himself to look up and meet Mox’s eyes, blue and bright. “I tried to be professional about it.”

“Yeah?” Mox says. “What if I didn’t want you to be professional about it?”

Adam’s eyes flicker from Mox’s eyes to his mouth before he can stop them. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Fuck a coworker in a hotel room. That’s great.”

“A coworker?” Mox says, pouting. He puts his hand to his heart. “I’m hurt. I’m at least an arch nemesis at this point, right?”

“Fine, fuck an arch nemesis,” Adam says, and he can’t fight the grin. “But that’s a bad idea, right?”

“Interesting,” Mox says. “You’re not saying no, you don’t want to. You’re saying no, it’s unprofessional? Weird stance to take when everybody knows what you and Cole were doing before your Revolution match.”

Adam shrugs and tries to act like he knew everyone was aware of what he and Cole get up to. “We have a history together. It’s what we’ve always done before matches.”

“You always blow him before a match?” Mox says. “I gotta get that on the schedule for our matches. Sounds nice.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you,” Adam says, but he can’t deny that the picture of Mox with his cock in his hand, that grin on his lips, is burned into his memory. “But I get what you’re doing now. This your seduction technique?”

“Not usually,” Mox says, and he stands, hand going to the place where the towel is tucked in on itself. Adam wants to pull at it. “But I figured, desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Adam licks his lips before he can stop himself. “Desperate, huh? You look it.”

“Excuse me,” Mox says, and he finally throws the towel to the ground. “You’re the one staring at me like I’m a piece of meat.”

“You walked out of the shower with nothing but a towel and started talking about our boss as a weird segue to flirting,” Adam says, and he hopes Mox doesn’t notice the way he spreads his legs, just a little. His hands are threatening to start shaking with anticipation as Mox climbs on the bed.

He is still hard.

“I’ll have you know my flirting is far more than just words.”

Adam can’t move and doesn’t want to as Mox leans in and kisses him, a hand on the side of his neck. It’s gentler than he would have expected, less insistent, and Adam rests a hand on Mox’s hip and pulls him down. His skin is damp and warm, and Adam grabs at it like a lifeline as Mox’s tongue slides across the seam of his lips.

Adam makes an involuntary little squeak and Mox pulls back.

“What?” he asks. “You good? Too much?”

Adam shakes his head. “No. I mean, yes. Jesus, ask one thing at a time.”

Mox grins at him. “Oh, I like you flustered.” He reaches out and brushes his thumb across Adam’s bottom lip. It’s devastating. “You good?”

Adam nods, Mox’s thumb catching on his upper lip. “I’m good,” he says. He’s already breathless, like he’s a horny teenager. This would be embarrassing if he weren’t so into it. “I just – not what I expected, you know?”

Mox shrugs. “Nah, but when the opportunity arises.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“Is that a dick joke?” Adam asks. “Of course you’d make a dick joke right now.”

“What, I should make a fuckin’ – what else rises? A sun joke?” Mox asks. “Stay in the moment, Cowboy.”

“You stay in the –” But Adam’s cut off by a kiss, this one a bit less gentle.

He grips at Mox’s sides again, then flips them before Mox can react. Mox makes a funny little sound and adds teeth into the kiss, catching Adam’s lower lip, and Adam can’t help it. He moans into it.

Mox’s hands slide under and up his shirt, scratching at his back in a way that makes him kiss harder, press his leg between Mox’s legs. He chances a hand along Mox’s thigh, not getting too close, not until Mox says so.

Mox pulls his mouth away. “Fuck, Cowboy, you a tease, too? Grab my cock already.”

“Jesus,” Adam laughs, “you could be, like, a little romantic about it.”

“Oh, and you walking in on me jerking off just to give me my phone with my boss on the other line is romantic?!” Mox says.

“Okay,” Adam says, reaching up to spit in his hand, “to be fair, I didn’t know that’s what you were doing.” He curls his hand around Mox’s cock, laughing at the way Mox’s face relaxes, the way his head drops against the pillows. “Believe me,” Adam says, lips at Mox’s ear. He catches Mox’s earlobe between his teeth. “If I’d know that’s what you were doing, maybe I would have joined you.”

Mox lets out a fascinating little whine at the way Adam twists his hand. “Oh, I like this side of you,” he laughs.

Adam strokes gently, careful not to give too much pressure, too much friction. He’s still fully clothed. He’s not going to let Mox have all the fun. “Yeah?” Adam says.

Mox nods. “Hey, wait, you – too much clothes. Get naked.”

“No fuckin’ romance,” Adam laughs under his breath, but he leans back and pulls his shirt off over his head. He looks down to see Mox staring at him. “The fuck’s wrong with you?”

“Just looking,” Mox says. “You got a chance to look at me naked, I’m just returning the favor.” Adam tries not to squirm under Mox’s gaze. “Hot. Alright, pants.”

With an eye roll, Adam unbuckles his jeans and rolls off of Mox, shoving his pants and boxers down his hips in one move. Mox stares at his dick and licks his lips. “Goddamn,” he says, voice low and pupils blown, “that Hung Bucks thing isn’t a joke, is it?”

Adam rolls his eyes and pretends he isn’t blushing as he gets back onto the bed and on top of Mox. As much as he didn’t see this as how his day would end, he’s enjoying it.

“Hey,” Mox says, grabbing a handful of Adam’s ass, “what if we take this to the shower?”

Adam pulls back from where he’d been working a bruise into Mox’s neck. “Shower?”

“It’s big,” Mox says, “Got some little seat things.”

Adam stares at him. “You don’t want to leave wet spots on the bed, huh.”

“There’s only one bed.” He wrinkles his nose. “We fuck here, things’ll get wet. One of us would be stuck sleeping in it.”

Adam pushes himself off the bed and walks to the shower. “For once in your life, you’re making sense.”

“You know this was my idea, right?” Mox says, following him. He puts his hands on Adam’s hips, half steering him to the bathroom. Adam finds he likes being manhandled like this a little bit. “You could be a little nicer about it.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Something tells me nice isn’t what you actually like.”

“Am I that predictable?”

Adam laughs as gets the shower started, the water turning warm quicker than he expected, and he steps under the stream. He hears Mox step in after him and then big hands span his stomach from behind him. He shivers under the touch. He has to fight the urge to push Mox off, used to those hands causing harm. But right now he’s gentle, warm, and Adam’s got to loosen up a little.

“Breathe, Cowboy,” Mox says into Adam’s ear, “not gonna hurt you.”

Adam laughs. “You sure about that?”

“I mean, unless you’re into it.” He punctuates it with a nip to Adam’s neck, sending sparkles through Adam’s vision. “But, nah. Just gonna do this.” He slides his hand down Adam’s body and wraps it around Adam’s dick. Adam drops his head backward, resting his head against Mox’s neck. A part of him is screaming to push away and run, but it’s a part that is way quieter than the part screaming fuck me.

“God, that’s good,” Adam mumbles before he can stop himself. He rolls his hips into the circle of Mox’s calloused fingers. “Fuck, it’s been a while.”

“Yeah?” Mox says, lips on Adam’s neck. “How long? With who?

“Me – fuck – me and Kenny used to fuck around a lot, happened once a few weeks ago, when – do that again, yeah – I went back with the Elite…” He trails off, eyes fluttering shut as he leans into the feeling, gripping at Mox’s hip hard enough to leave fingernail marks.

Mox laughs. “Maybe I bring you to the rest of Blackpool,” he murmurs. “I think you’d have a good time. Yoots might be kinda young, but he fucks like an animal.”

Adam laughs. “Yeah?” He turns to catch Mox’s mouth, pushing him backward against the wall of the shower. He’s grateful for the space, for the room in here to really move Mox around. “Knew I was right about that circle jerk shit, you horny motherfuckers.”

“Hey, you’re benefitting from this horny motherfucker, so you better not complain,” Mox says. “I’m gonna blow you now, okay?”

“Yeah,” Adam says, and he lets Mox press him up against the wall. “Fuck yeah.”

Adam watches as Mox sinks to his knees and grins up at him. He should say something, do something, but all he can do is breathe heavily and wait.

“You look good from this angle,” Mox says, and then his mouth is around the head of Adam’s cock and, frankly, Adam forgets how to think.

Mox is focused and determined as he works his tongue and lips around Adam in a way he hadn’t realized Mox could be out of the ring. Then again, he muses, as Mox reaches up to grip at Adam’s thighs, this isn’t far out of the realm. He giggles before he can stop himself.

“Are you laughing at me?!” Mox exclaims, pulling off of Adam’s cock. “Look, I don’t know shit about etiquette or whatever but I’m pretty sure laughing at the guy sucking your dick is bad manners.”

“Not at you,” Adam chokes out. “Just. Look, dude, this is a far cry from us and our friends trying to kill each other back at Double or Nothing, you know?” He runs his thumb along Mox’s cheekbone. “You look pretty both ways, though.”

Mox rolls his eyes at him. “You’re fuckin’ weird. I can’t believe I want to fuck you.” He shakes his head and dives back to wrap his mouth around Adam.

Adam closes his eyes and rolls into it, letting the feeling take him over. This is far different than what he gets up to with the other guys in the back rooms. This feels like they have all the time in the world, like they don’t have to worry or rush. Like Mox has all the time in the world, and he’s going to take it.

He pushes at Mox’s shoulder. “Get up here, I wanna kiss you.”

Mox stands and crashes into Adam, and Adam shivers a little at the taste of himself on Mox’s tongue. He reaches behind himself to get some of the cheap hotel conditioner and fumbles to cover his hand with it.

“Are you washing your hair right now?” Mox turns.

“No, dipshit, I’m gonna grab your dick,” Adam replies. He reaches down between the two of them. Mox is a little too far away, so Adam grabs his hips and pulls him closer so he can wrap a hand around both of their cocks at once. Mox lets out the prettiest little moan at it, a hand flying up next to Adam’s head to brace himself against the wall.

“Jesus,” Mox mumbles. He circles his hips in a way that makes his cock slide against Adam’s with just enough friction to make his head spin. “Kinda glad that our flight got cancelled now.”

Adam laughs, meeting Mox’s movements. “Yeah? There are definitely worse ways to spend a layover.” He glances up to see Mox’s tongue between his teeth, eyes locked on the way their cocks slide against each other. He can’t resist it – he leans in and catches Mox’s lips in his, swallowing the moan that follows.

He focuses on the sensations, the feelings, the sound of Mox’s breathing and of their dicks sliding against each other. That part of him that thinks this is a terrible idea keeps trying to get loud, but he shuts it up every time his lips meet Mox’s.

He feels it build slowly, like the water that trails down Mox’s forehead, in the base of his spine.

“Fuck,” Adam pants, “Mox, I’m close, I gotta –”

“Yeah, Cowboy, I got you.” Mox slides his hand around Adam’s, their fingers tangling, and that’s enough to send Adam over the edge.

He gasps, without meaning to, “Mox,” as he comes all over both of their hands, rocking his hips up to ride it out.

“God, that’s pretty,” Mox mumbles. He gets a little reckless and frantic, and he leans in to kiss Adam as he comes, biting down on Adam’s lower lip. Adam whines at it, and he has to work to make sure he doesn’t slip down the wall.

Mox rests his forehead against Adam’s and they stand there, gasping, as they come down from the moment. Adam realizes after a few moments that Mox is trailing his knuckles gently along Adam’s biceps. It’s sweet. It’s confusing. Adam doesn’t want it to stop.

“Cowboy,” Mox murmurs, pressing his lips to the side of Adam’s neck, “you fallin’ asleep or something?”

“No,” Adam says. He sighs before he can stop himself. “Just – enjoying the moment.”

Mox’s laugh is soft, almost sweet.  It doesn’t match the man Adam’s run into over and over again, but it feels right. “Yeah, me too. But we’re gonna get all wrinkly if we stay here.” He steps away, and Adam is suddenly very cold. It fades quickly, though, as Mox adjusts the showerhead to spray warm water on both of them.

“Gotta wash my hair,” Adam mumbles, fumbling for the shampoo.

“Let me,” Mox says.

Adam actually does get close to falling asleep as Mox gently massages his hair. “This soap smells good,” he mumbles. “Gotta stay in an airport hotel more often.”

Mox laughs and Adam’s pretty sure he presses a kiss to the back of Adam’s neck. “It’s probably just some sort of drug store shampoo, baby, don’t get too fancy about it.”

Adam sighs, just a little, at the nickname, and wants to hold onto it.

They finish washing up and drying off in near silence, a few words here and there scattered around, until they both drowsily curl into bed.

“Scoot,” Mox says, pushing his butt up against Adam, “we’re cuddling.”

“I thought you said no cuddling,” Adam mumbles, throwing an arm around Mox’s waist.

“That was before I saw what you look like when you come,” Mox replies. He sounds like he’s already nearly asleep. “Now we got a bond. So you gotta cuddle me.”

It’s not flawless logic, Adam thinks. But he’s cozy and warm, and he’ll let it slide.

~

Mini Playlist: Magnets - Lorde, Disclosure Familiar - Liam Payne, J Balvin I Want It - Two Feet Talking Body - Tove Lo

#HangMox #in which Sara writes #wtf i like wrestling now??? #Hehehe here have this #This is dumb #anxious millennial dreamboat #madly in love with leather daddy jon moxley

[gaylizzard070]

GuyS my Mom has the Scary Dog privilege

Mothers Day Special Rant

context: we at Samsclub getting Poool :D

ok so my Mom, Me, My Little Brother, and Dad, were at Samsclub getting a pool. My mom needed to get some other stuff so she went to get a cart. This nice old lady with a cane was trying to get by, so my mom let her. This guy comes up behind my Mom and hits her with his cart. Okok before I continue my mom is like- 5'1, the sweetest women ever. Ok ok and My dad is 6'3 and scary well built man who tallest in his family and a manager at a state park. Ok back to the story, my mom gets hit and she looks back at the man like "r u serious rn? On Mothers day" and the guy just glares at her and walks by. My mom tells my Dad and me what happened. My lil Bro on his Ipad busy being on my Dads back piggyback ride style UnU. (he is around 6-8 ps) but ye. Now fast forward a few minutes and I see my friend.. Imma call her Ava just cause privacy. So I see Ava and run up to her. But before I did this the SAME MF man nearly hits me with his cart. I glare at him and then go back to saying hi to Ava and hugging her. I glare at the man and say "Wow so nice" and my mom, whom knows Ava followed me to say hi says "You just nearly hit my Daughter". The man looks back at my mom and looks like he about to say something when... Guess what! My dad puts my brother down and comes up to the guy. Now this rude mf was probably the same height as me, 5'3 soo. Ye. Scary. My dad says " You got a problem? Go on say something to my wife and daughter I dare you." Mf man scared out of his hair (He was bald lol) and walked away. That's when I realized my mom has scary dog privileges. Oh and then we got the pool :) The End <3 -@gaylizzard070

Basically my mom and dad

#rant post #happy mother's day #mom ily sm #scary dog privilege #my dad chad frfr #creepypasta #probably gonna delete this later #oc #marble hornets #tim wright #creepypasta oc #dog #annie brown #alice bowman

[yourfavepookiebear]

Today was the biggest slap in my face in this whole month and that's a record I must say since every one of my days are horrible and tiring.

Rant because I wanna throw my chair at someone's head and throw my table on them so it crushes their ribs

First of all, I don't know how to organize my thoughts

Everything went well until third period, where I went to the bathroom and suddenly realized I'd been unknowingly free-bleeding all over my underwear and uniform

So I realize that, oh shit, I only have one pad and one pad is not enough for me. Not at all, one pad, no matter how long i wear it, I'll free-bleed since I always leak if I don't have double protection

So I hurry down three floors by the stairs ans run to the office where the nosiest shit asks me why I wanna call my mom

And knowing me, what's my answer ? I said "because I'm fucking leaking like the smell of gasoline in a gas station"

Not the best example but i don't give a fuck. So the fat lady calls my mom and I'm like "hey mom, I'm free-bleeding. Can you come to school and give me my menstrual panties so I don't leak ?"

And she's like "ok".

So I go back up three floors and to the classroom, where i sit down and patiently wait.

Reminder : our house is barely five minutes from school by feet.

And lo and behold, two hours and a half later, she finally comes. By that time, my pad is completely leaking and my underwear is all bloody.

And this bitch I'm forced to call mom, says "It's first me, then you. Im my first priority."

And oh boy you have no idea how pissed off I am.

So then, I change my pants and underwear (in the fucking school bathroom) and we're about to head home when suddenly my dearest lovable mother, decides that she wants to go shopping. So im like, I see this REALLY pretty skirt at an extremely cheap price and i say "what's the price ?" To the store owner, not outright saying I want it yet obviously interested. Keep in mind I have no skirts or dresses whatsoever. But then my mom grabs me by the arm and drags me away before I get the chance.

So I may seem like a spoiled brat but idc because that skirt was gorgeous and cheap and good quality, plus it was the first time I saw a skirt like that and It was exactly my size and it was in my favorite colors.

So I go "Oh then, I guess I'll just have to order one."

And she says "yeah, order one for yourself bur don't order one for me, it would be a shame for you to give me anything" sarcastically and i say "of course i don't want to buy you anything, it's not my job to buy you things, it's your job."

And then this absolutely buffoon has the fucking guts to say "Yeah right, first you prioritize yourself and then it's me."

And you have no idea how much I wanted to hit her. First of all, you won't believe this but I've wanted a skirt like that for a year and a half, but whenever i got to the store it was sold out, and no other shop had that kind of skirt.

Now it's okay, it's just a skirt, but the audacity this bitch has to have to say that to my face is fucking

She's my mother, she can prioritize herself before me BUT I CANT DO THE SAME ?????????

[serasvictoria]

Title: Show of Strength

Pairing: Eddie Munson & Female Reader

Summary: Hawkins has gone to hell in a handbasket and you might just be having what is quickly becoming the worst night of your life. Unfortunately, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Word Count: 7832

Content Warning: Language. Injuries and taking care of said injuries. Bad relationship with a parent (I don’t know if that’s something that needs a warning and it doesn’t get too bad, but better safe than sorry).

Notes: I first started writing this about a half an hour after seeing the last episode of S4, because stuff desperately needed to be fixed in my opinion. I’m actively rejecting what we were given and this is my take on an alternate version.

This is the same Reader insert as I used in Spellbound, but it is in no way to necessary to read that story first. I think that this works as a stand-alone as well.

Beta read by the lovely @adrille88, who had to change everything to the American spelling because I always write in the British spelling 🤣 Thanks again! Any remaining mistakes are all mine.

Tagging @quantumlocked310 @punkrocknpearls @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie

*****

Your mom was yelling at you to just pack your things and get into the car.

“But why?” You were still putting things back where they belonged. You were currently holding a broken statue of a sausage dog that you’d had since you were a kid, wondering if you might be able to glue it back together. It wasn’t that you had particularly liked it, but you were nothing if not sentimental. “Because of an earthquake?”

The quake hit about two hours previous. You could still hear the sirens off in the distance and could see the smoke that was painted orange from the flames billowing up into the sky in the city center whenever you looked out the window.

Some of the neighbors who had gone downtown to check on their family and friends, had come back looking terrified, lost, heartbroken and many other different things. They all looked like they had just witnessed the end of the world and that scared the crap out of you.

Bridget, a woman who was in your mother’s book club and who lived five doors down, had come back looking like she was on the verge of having a mental breakdown. Your mother had tried to speak to her, but it was like Bridget hadn’t heard her at all. She just kept walking to her house and everyone in the neighborhood must have heard her anguished howls as soon as she was inside. You knew that her sister lived downtown with their mother and didn’t even want to know what she had found there.

Then your mother started speculating about all the things that could be going on, and worse, what could have caused it.

“It’s that kid next door,” you heard her ranting at your father from your spot near the window, referring to your neighbor and how he and his friends played, what she liked to call, satanic games. Your mother had never struck you as being particularly religious before, but you could see her clutching the old crucifix that hung from her neck a lot lately. She gripped that thing so tightly that she was in danger of fusing it with her palm entirely. “Him and that cult!”

“Mom, for fuck’s sake,” you called out. Her increasing paranoia about what was going on in town ever since Chrissy Cunningham’s death was driving you up the walls. “Gareth is a total nerd. They just play games together.”

“That’s what they say that they’re doing, but I know better!” Your mother yelled back and threw in a quick, “Language!”

Your dad was unable to calm her down and merely stood by helplessly as she continued on her rant. The only way to silence her was to retreat to your room where you managed to have some peace and quiet until your mother burst in later, told you to pack and announced that you were going to visit your aunt who lived in Idaho.

“Mom?”

“Don’t argue with me, young lady, we need to go.”

“I can’t just leave! I have stuff to do!”

Your mind immediately jumped to Eddie. You hadn’t seen that much of him lately, seeing how he had gotten accused of murder not too long ago, but you just knew that he was laying low somewhere. After some of the basketball assholes had come over to Gareth’s house and had threatened to break his hand, it had made the threat more real somehow. It had served as a stark reminder, making it more apparent that things had changed so considerably that you weren't sure if they could ever go back to normal.

“Like what?” Your mother started throwing stuff into a suitcase since you didn't seem to want to move from your spot, picking things from your closet completely at random. “What could be more important?”

“I need to see if-“ You swallowed up your words. You’d almost told your mother exactly why you needed to stay and given all the insane shit that she had been spewing about Eddie and the Hellfire Club, it was likely that your mother wouldn’t have been particularly thrilled if you had finished your sentence. “Exams are coming up!” You blurted out the first thing that you could think of. “Graduation! I can’t go!”

“So? You can take exams in Idaho.”

“Yeah right. They’ll probably make me repeat the entire goddamn year. I’m not doing that.”

“Language!” You rolled your eyes when your mother raised her voice again. “Just start packing.” She walked over to you and took your hands in hers. She almost seemed normal for a few seconds. “We need to go, sweetie. Can’t you see that?”

“Mom-“

“Just do it. Please.” She let go of you, turned around and made her way back to the hallway. She paused in the doorway and said, “I’m not asking again.”

You looked at the suitcase on your bed helplessly, not wanting to comply with her demand, but feeling like you didn't have much of a choice.

It hadn’t always been this bad, but ever since the big town meeting that Jason Carver had interrupted, who was spewing nothing but insane nonsense about Eddie and the Hellfire Club, your mother had gotten more unhinged. She joined a neighborhood watch team and had gotten sucked in by some crazy theories that some of the other people there were spewing.

She had also forbidden you from speaking to Gareth, a request that you hadn’t exactly obeyed.

The second that his name popped into your head, you knew what you had to do.

Grabbing a backpack from your closet, you threw in some essentials. A pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, underwear, even a couple of much loved paperbacks, you know, stuff that you might need, and then you quietly snuck out of your window.

The only option that you had was to go over to Gareth’s place and ask him to hide you for a couple of days.

Your mother would never suspect you of breaking her wacko rule in regards to him. She had no idea that you’d already been sneaking out at night to sit with the boy that you’d known your entire life. The two of you would talk about what was going on and how everyone in Hawkins was collectively losing their mind.

When Jason and his stooges came round to Gareth’s house to look for Eddie, you had been so furious that they had come for your friend (and your boyfriend, naturally), that you had almost gone over to Hawkins PD to report it as a hate crime. The only reason that you hadn’t done that was because of Gareth’s refusal to come with you.

The walk from your house to his wasn’t far, about 60 feet, max. You’d never measured it, but you didn’t need to. Fact was, that you knew that short walk like the back of your hand.

Your bedroom windows had always faced each other, and when you had been kids, the two of you had developed an elaborate signaling system with flashlights. That very same battered old flashlight was now in your backpack along with all the other things.

Before you even had a chance to knock on Gareth’s bedroom window however, you heard someone call out your name.

You turned in the direction that the voice had come from and could see a kid emerge from the tree line that bordered the back of your house. You immediately picked up on his rather severe limp and how he winced every time his sore foot connected with the ground.

“You’re that Henderson kid. Dustin,” you said when he got close enough.

You’d seen him around Eddie a couple of times, but you had never really talked to him before. He was one of the kids that you had at one time lovingly referred to as “strays”, since Eddie seemed to have a tendency to adopt every single one of them. He had done the same thing with Gareth many years previous. Eddie had a thing for people who just seemed kind of lost, as if he had one day decided to start collecting them.

“Yeah,” he replied as he limped up to you. He repeated your name again when he was standing next to you, as if he was testing it out, just to check if he had found the right person. When you gave him a brief nod, he continued, “I was looking for you.”

“Oh,” you said, a little surprised. And then, when you had taken another closer look at him added, “Jesus, you look like shit.” It looked like he had dressed himself for an upcoming war. What on Earth had he been up to this evening? Playing war games in the forest with his friends? “Are you okay?”

“Fine, never better,” he replied hurriedly. “I’m going to need you to come with me right now please?”

His question took you aback since you didn’t really know him. You just knew how highly Eddie always spoke about him, how Dustin Henderson was going to be the one that he’d entrust the Hellfire Club to after he finally graduated.

“What? But why?”

“Because I was told to come get you.” He tried to grab your arm, but you pulled it away from his grasp. “I don’t have all night,” he sounded exasperated and like he was done with you, but you had no idea whether that was because he was annoyed with you specifically or simply because he had a very taxing night. “Please?”

“Lots of people pleading with me tonight,” you said under your breath. Dustin sighed deeply in irritation. Whatever was going on, it was obviously important and Eddie’s blind trust in this kid made you trust him too, even if his request was still weird, to say the least. “But fine. Tell me one thing though?” He gave you a brief nod and you continued. “Where are you going to take me?”

“The lake.”

Convinced that you were going to follow him, despite the fact that you hadn’t explicitly said that you would, the Henderson kid started walking in the direction of the forest trail that he had just come from.

You briefly wondered if you should be offering to support him since he looked like he could barely even walk at all.

“Lover’s Lake?” Why a young boy was even interested in taking you there was beyond you, but you followed him regardless. “Why are we going there? And can you even walk that far?”

“I didn’t walk all the way here.” It sounded like he was annoyed with you again, but you still had no clue why. “I drove.”

“You. Drove.” This was getting more ridiculous by the second. “How old are you exactly? Thirteen?”

“Almost fifteen actually.” He stopped and turned around suddenly. “Jesus, if I had known that you were this annoying, I would have asked someone else to take the honors of getting you.”

“I’m annoying?!” You couldn’t stop yourself from raising your voice at him, all the frustrations of the night suddenly spilling out. “There was a massive earthquake, the downtown area is on fire, my mom wants to fucking move to fucking Idaho as we speak, the phones are dead so I can’t even call my best friend to tell her what’s going on.” The words kept coming as if a dam had just broken. “I was just on my way to ask Gareth to hide me in his fucking house and then you appeared from out of nowhere and told me to come with you when I don’t have a damn clue why. If anyone should be annoyed, it should be me!”

You were out of breath when you reached the end of your rant. It felt like you were stuck in some nightmare and you pinched your arm in the vain hope that you might wake up.

You didn’t.

“You done?” Dustin looked less than impressed, more frustrated with you than earlier even, and jerked his head in the direction that you had been walking in before. “Steve’s waiting.”

“Steve?” You frowned, but followed him anyway. Whatever the hell was going on, you really wanted to know what it was now. It wasn’t like this night could get any crazier anyway. “Steve who?”

“Harrington,” he replied. “Steve Harrington.”

“Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington?”

“Yep. Come on. Keep moving.”

It was ridiculous that a kid with a limp was managing to walk faster than you, but here you were. You kept tripping up because you weren’t exactly paying attention to where you were going.

That was because your mind had gone into overdrive, trying to figure out why the hell Steve Harrington, aka ‘The Hair’ aka ‘King Steve’ aka ‘The King of Hawkins High’, even wanted to take you to Lover’s Lake to begin with.

Maybe he was trying to get lucky with as many girls as he could under the pretext of the world coming to an end? It wasn’t exactly beyond the realm of possibilities.

But if that was the case, why would he even come to you anyway? You barely knew the guy. Yeah, you’d crushed on him in school, but every girl had a crush on him. Yeah, he winked and tried to flirt with you whenever you rented a movie at Family Video, but he did that to every girl that set foot in the place. He wasn’t exactly picky.

You would have been flattered once, but you were seeing Eddie now so you had to figure out a way to let Steve down nicely. You didn't think that it was possible to do so, but it wasn't like you wanted to break the guy's heart.

There were no words between you and Dustin after his small revelation. You simply followed him in silence, while your brain ran at a million miles an hour, mentally rehearsing every rejection line that came to mind.

The two of you eventually came across a dirt road and you could see Steve’s burgundy car parked there. The man himself was leaning against it casually, looking too cool for his own good.

“Oh, hey,” Steve said when he saw you approaching. “You got her,” he addressed Dustin before turning back to you. “Great.”

You came to a stop a few feet away from him and you started twisting the hem of your faded yellow and orange hoodie between your sweaty palms. It felt like you were choking, your chest burning from the nerves.

Neither Steve nor Dustin seemed to notice your unease and they talked amongst themselves for a bit before Steve opened the door to the passenger side for you. He then looked at you, a slight smile on his lips, as if to say “what are you waiting for, get in.”

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” you blurted out suddenly. “But I can’t do this.”

Steve was looking at you as if your head had just caught fire, a frown creasing his perfect brow. “Can’t do what?” he asked, his hand still on the handle. “You don’t have to worry about anything. Yeah, sure, he’s a mess, but he’ll be fine.”

“The kid?” You pointed at Dustin, wondering what he even had to do with it. “Why’d you even send him anyway? You can’t use kids for your… your…”

“My what?” Steve looked at Dustin with his eyebrows raised and then back at you again. “Wait, what do you think we’re going to do anyway?“

“You want to take me to Lover’s Lake? Which is weird by the way! Hawkins is burning and you want to get lucky. Who even does that!”

“Henderson!” Steve smacked the back of Dustin’s head suddenly. It snapped you out of your weird train of thought instantly. “You didn’t even tell her?”

“Tell her what?” The kid rubbed the back of his head. “I was just supposed to get her. No one specified that I had to tell her anything. A lot of bad shit was happening, Steve.” The way that the annoyance just dripped into his voice hadn’t escaped you.

“Fuck’s sake, Henderson. You idiot.” Dustin looked insulted, but he managed to hold in the rest of his ire. “Look,” Steve addressed you again. “I’m not going to do anything weird or anything. Jesus, that’s the last thing that I’m thinking of right now. I’m just driving you to the lake because Eddie asked us to.”

“Eddie?!” When your voice shot up, you covered your mouth with your hand, shocking yourself with your tone. You were standing right in front of Steve a split second later. “W-why is he at the lake? What is he even- I mean, you know what I mean. And why would he send you?”

“Relax,” Steve said with an easy smile. “We’re friends.”

“Friends? But he never once mentioned you!”

“Yeah, so it’s a new thing I guess,” he scoffed with a roll of his eyes, as if that even explained anything. “Please get in the car. I’ll explain on the way there.”

You didn’t hesitate this time.

The drive to the lake wasn’t a long one and Steve gave you some details about what Eddie had been up to until tonight, with Dustin adding in some details as well, his voice noticeably calmer than before. Apparently Eddie had gotten himself injured during the earthquake earlier somehow. You weren’t exactly offered a lot of details in regards to how he had gotten injured, but you would see for yourself soon enough.

There were a couple of cabins dotted around the lake and hidden amongst the trees that lined it. Some modest ones and a couple that looked like they might fall apart if there was ever a brisk wind. The one that you were driving up to was clearly one of the more expensive ones. Two stories with a large porch, partly cladded in wood to make it fit into its surroundings, but also modern in a way.

You barely noticed it at the time.

As soon as the car pulled up outside, you practically launched yourself out of the car. You were on the porch in no time at all, wrenching the front door open and dashing inside.

“Past the kitchen, first door on the right,” Steve called after you when you stepped inside.

When you pushed the door open, it collided so harshly with the wall behind it, that you startled yourself. And also, inadvertently, Robin Buckley, who you knew from school and her job at Family Video. You had never actually seen someone jump a foot in the air before until then.

“Jesus!” Robin swore loudly, not even looking at you at first. “Couldn’t you have-“ When she saw who it was, her face fell and she launched into an apology. “Oh fuck, I’m sorry. I thought that it was Dustin, Nance or Steve, but it’s just you-“

She rambled on, but you barely heard her because your eyes were focused entirely on one thing and one thing alone.

“Oh my god,” you managed to choke out.

Eddie was laying on the bed, shirtless, with his torso and arms crudely bandaged up. The once white cloth had already turned red in several places. There were some clear patches of skin in between the tangle of bindings, but you had difficulty noticing them, too shocked to focus on anything apart from all the blood that you were currently seeing. It was incredibly obvious that he was in a lot of pain. When you had first been told that Eddie had gotten injured, you hadn’t expected that it would be this bad.

Eddie coughed once when he heard your voice and he grabbed at his chest while his features twisted into a painful grimace for a split second. Even breathing seemed to hurt. “Hey,” he croaked when he turned his face in your direction. “Trust me, it looks worse than it actually is.” He even had the audacity to smirk, an entirely vain attempt to downplay his current state.

A sob tore through you and you were sitting on the edge of the bed in no time at all. Your hand hovered over him, afraid to touch since he was so obviously in pain, and you ended up placing it on your lap instead.

Robin nervously exited the room behind you two, still apologizing, knowing that her presence wasn’t wanted and with no desire to want to stick around anyway.

“What happened to you?” Your vision was swimming, already beginning to fill with tears. You hated the fact that it made your sight clouded and blurry, unable to see him properly. “Was it those assholes from the basketball team?”

“Not exactly,” Eddie replied with a grim half-smile. “I’ll tell you someday.”

“You’d better,” you sniffled and looked down at your hands, still unsure what you should be doing with them. Eddie’s large hand covered yours suddenly and you were immediately struck by how dirty and bloody it was. “Jesus, Eddie, I need to clean this. I’ll go get some-“

“No,” he said firmly and you stopped your rise from the bed. “Just sit with me a bit first, okay?”

“Okay.”

Whenever he moved, you could see his muscles twitch. It physically hurt you to see him in this much pain and if you could have done anything to remedy it, you would have.

His grip on your hand was firm, squeezing hard whenever another wave of pain tore through him. You wiped at your eyes with the back of your free hand, desperately trying not to let any tears fall, but when you took in a deep shuddering breath, Eddie’s eyes focused on yours.

“Babe, are you crying?”

“No,” you muttered, but it didn’t sound very convincing, especially not since that was the exact moment that the tears did decide to fall.

“You are.” He reached up with his other hand and wiped it over your cheek, accidentally creating a wet stripe instead. “Why are you crying?”

“You look like shit, Eddie.”

“Thanks,” he couldn't stop himself from chuckling softly. “Good to see you too.”

“I’m sorry, but you do.” Eddie kept trying to wipe away every single tear that appeared and soon your cheeks were streaked with them. If anything, he had only made it worse. “I haven’t seen you in days and I was so worried.”

“I’m sorry, baby, but I couldn’t exactly get in touch with you.”

“I know. I don’t blame you for staying away.” You reached up so you could cover his hand with yours and you leaned into his touch. “And now that I’m finally with you, you look like this.”

“You don’t think I look good? Heroic, even?”

“You’ll always be my hero.” A small smile appeared on your lips. “You should know that.”

In a sense, he did know. It wasn’t like you had ever tried to hide how much you admired the way that he had taken all the shit that people threw at him, all their misconceptions, all their hate, and had turned it into a shield instead.

The two of you were silent for a moment, merely hanging onto each other, hands squeezing each other for comfort, which was something that you had sorely missed these last few days. You had missed him.

“I wanna kiss you so bad right now,” he eventually said softly. “But everything hurts.”

“Oh yeah?” You dipped your head down and ghosted your lips over his teasingly. “Allow me, sweet prince.”

The kiss was gentle and sweet. You could taste a slight tang of iron on his lips, dried up blood mixed in with weed (as a form of pain relief, you assumed), but you didn’t care.

This was the first time in days that you had kissed him and if you could have it your way, you’d make it last even longer. You attempted to pour everything into that kiss, every ounce of want, every shed tear,  everything.

But the spell was broken when you pulled your hand from his grasp and brought it up to his chest. Your fingertips gingerly brushed over one of the bandages, making him wince from your touch.

Eddie looked embarrassed when you pulled away, but you pressed your lips to his forehead instead and let them linger there for a short while.

“It’s okay,” you assured. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”

“Don’t say that,” he muttered. “Don’t apologize for touching me.”

“Okay, I won’t,” you replied. "Didn't mean to hurt you, that's all."

His face was the only spot that didn’t look quite as injured as the rest of him so you brushed your fingers over his temples, his forehead, his nose, everywhere that wasn’t scratched. Eddie settled into your touch, his eyes fluttering closed so he could focus on what you were doing more.

“That feels good,” he sighed. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too.”

Now that you were taking your time, you found more spots that were free from injury. There were still a lot of them there, but you did your utmost to concentrate on the good in between all this bad. Your hands were on his upper arms, still doing your utmost to keep your touch as light as possible, when you spoke again.

“I know that you don’t want to go to the hospital right now, because even I can see what a bad idea that would be, but some of these probably need changing” you said as you pulled away reluctantly. “So please, let me look after you, alright?”

Eddie opened his eyes when he didn’t feel your hands on him anymore and he looked at you as if he wasn’t entirely sure whether he was dreaming or not. He flashed you an almost pitiful smile and said, “What would I do without you, huh?”

“Be miserable.”

“Obviously.”

He reached an arm out, signaling that he needed you to help him. You were careful when you helped him up into a sitting position and you hated yourself when you saw his body tense up from the pain.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized. “About this.”

“Not your fault,” he said weakly. “I did this to myself.”

“I still feel bad.” You helped him to his feet, wrapping his arm around your shoulders to support him, and led him into the adjoining bathroom. There was a small stool there that you helped him sit down on. “I don’t like to see you get hurt.”

“You don’t?”

“Of course I don’t. I’m not some kind of monster that likes to see her guy get hurt.” You could feel yourself stiffening up momentarily. You’d never actually called him ‘your guy’ before. It felt like an oddly significant moment, and you had simply blurted it out like it was nothing. “I’m sorry I- that didn’t come out right.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Eddie’s beautiful brown eyes seemed to sparkle and you couldn’t help but blush when you saw how soft and full of love they were. “You thought that I’d hate being called that?“

“No, I-“ You started to talk, but then bit your lower lip nervously and averted your gaze. “I didn’t think that you’d mind. It’s just that… I dunno… don’t want you to think that I’m half-assing it. I mean it. Genuinely.” You felt his hand on your cheek, tilting your face back so you were forced to look at him. “You are my guy,” you repeated. “And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.”

“Well, it‘s working,” he replied. “Making me feel better, I mean.”

“Is that your way of telling me to say it more often?”

“Yes?”

“Fine. Don’t mind if I do then, but don’t blame me when you get sick of it.” You smiled at him and opened up some cabinets until you found an old first aid kit. You leaned over him and started to remove the applied bandages very carefully, your nose scrunching up in disgust when you saw some of the wounds up close. “Jesus, Eddie. Some of these might need stitches.”

“Could you…?”

“No,” you said as you shook your head. “I took first aid classes, but they failed to teach us how to stitch people up.” Your eyes fell on his trousers and then went back up to his face. “Are there some on your legs as well?”

“Is this just a trick to get me naked?”

“You caught me. I‘ve been dying to take advantage of you this entire time,” you laughed. “Nothing hotter than a guy who’s injured.”

“Chicks do dig scars.”

“These are a little bit too fresh for that, moron.” You started helping him out of his trousers. He lifted his ass up so you could remove them, and he promptly dug his fingernails into your shoulders when you slid them down his legs. “Looks worse than it is, my ass,” you said under your breath. “You liar.”

“Hey, what kind of guy would I be if I showed my girl that I was in pain?”

“Oh yeah, because you were hiding it so well up until now.”

He grinned wryly and watched as you removed the bandages from his legs as well. You had no idea who had put them on, but it was a good thing that you were here to redo them. Eddie could have gotten infections if they had been left on for too long and it could have gotten worse from there.

You took your time cleaning out the wounds with water, then with disinfectant. You did your best to make sure that everything was as sterile as possible, but you would probably have to clean and redress the wounds multiple times a day for a while.

Eddie, for his part, was a trooper about it. You knew that he was in a lot of pain, but he never once complained or told you that it hurt. He’d merely squeeze his eyes shut, breathe in deeply through his nose, and grab your arm or shoulder if it was particularly painful.

When you were done, you briefly considered cleaning his hair as well. His beloved curly mane was greasy and dirty, but that was the least of his problems right now.

Another time.

You helped him back to bed and while you had intended to leave him alone for a short while, feeling guilty over keeping him awake all this time, the fact that he opened his arms for you indicated that he didn’t want you to go just yet. So you lay down next to him, resting your head against a part of his chest that wasn’t quite as injured, and let him wrap his arms around you.

The two of you lay in silence for a while, neither of you sure what to talk about.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said after a couple of minutes. “For all of this.”

“Please don’t.” You reached for his hand on your side and gave it a comforting squeeze. “You’ve obviously been through some shit, no other word for it. So don’t feel bad, okay? Please?”

“Okay.” His reply sounded pitiful and you just knew that he was beating himself up over it in his head right now. “I’ll change the subject,” he said eventually. “How have you been holding up these last couple of days?”

You told him everything. Anything to get him to stop feeling sorry for himself. You told him about the most mundane crap that had happened to you, simply to keep his mind off of things, and you avoided what everyone in town had been saying about him and how much it had hurt you to hear all the lies. You’d been close to calling people out on spreading such vile lies about the person that you loved, but that would have brought unnecessary attention with it.

The events of this evening were what you ended with, the earthquake and how your mother seemed to have gone off the deep end entirely. You mentioned your plans, about how you were going to hide at Gareth’s place, but then Dustin found you and your plans changed considerably.

“That’s all,” you said at the end.

“Wow,” he replied. “So you were going to-“

“-run away, to Gareth's place, which is next door,” You finished the sentence for him with a giggle at the ridiculousness of it all. “This is a better hiding spot though.”

“I know. I was hiding near here for a couple of days myself." You were glad that you didn't know where he had been hiding at the time, because you knew that you would have come looking for him if you had known. "Was safe there for a while too, but they found me in the end.”

You had already heard the whispers around town about what had happened at the Lake. One of the guys from the basketball team, Patrick McKinney, had come to a grizzly end there and Jason Carver had claimed that Eddie had been responsible for his death. Despite that news, you had been glad that they hadn't caught Eddie and that he had managed to evade capture for a couple of more days.

“Why’d you come back here to begin with? You guys didn't think that it might be dangerous?”

“Dustin checked it out first and Steve’s parents know the people who own this place. They’re on holiday apparently so… no one here,” he replied matter of factly. “I dunno if the cops ever checked any of the other houses in the area, but they probably have other things on their mind than to pay attention to this place.”

“Probably,” you repeated. “Everyone’s downtown, but we should probably move eventually.”

“That’s my girl,” Eddie said with amusement in his voice. “Always thinking ahead.”

“That’s why you have me.” You squeezed his hand again and turned your head so you could press your lips against his chest. “So you won’t be miserable and so I can think ahead for you.”

Hearing him laugh in reply filled you with warmth and you snuggled a bit closer into his side. For the first time that evening, you were filled with a sense of hope that was flickering to life in your chest. It felt like a small flame that was growing in size and you hoped that you could hang onto it for a while longer.

You vowed to yourself not to let it slip from your grasp too easily. No, you would hang onto it with all your might. Letting go was not an option.

*****

It took some time, but Eddie fell asleep eventually. You could tell that he had been fighting it for a while, but exhaustion took over in the end.

Slipping out of his grasp carefully, taking care not to wake him, you sat on the edge of the bed and looked over him for a short while. You could feel the pricks of tears in your eyes already and tried to force them away, which miraculously seemed to work.

Getting to your feet, you decided to see if anyone was still up, see if they could answer some burning questions.

There were some hushed voices coming from the living room when you stepped out into the hallway, but as soon as your foot touched a creaky floorboard, it went quiet.

You saw Robin and Steve sitting on the couch, both of them looking at you wide-eyed. You couldn’t see Dustin around so you assumed that he had either gone home or was asleep somewhere else.

“What the hell even happened to him?”

Since Eddie wasn’t exactly forthcoming and you didn’t want to press him, they were the only people where you could get answers. The duo exchanged a look first, as if they were silently communicating with each other, as if they could get their stories straight simply by sharing a look.

“He had an accident,” Robin started saying. You almost scoffed, since it was pretty clear to anyone that Eddie had indeed had an accident. “He-he fell. Yeah, that’s right.” She sounded more confident then, as if she had just come up with the only logical way to explain away all this. “He fell.”

You dug your fingernails into the palms of your hands. This was pretty insulting since the degree of his injuries were not something that could be excused away by some random accident.

“Robin,” Steve cut her off before she could say that Eddie had simply rolled down a flight of stairs or something stupid like that. “Please don’t.” He said your name and got you to focus on him before he continued. “We were doing something really stupid right before the earthquake hit.”

“Oh yeah?” Inwardly you were slapping yourself, angry more with yourself than anything else. You should have been there for Eddie, should have been with him, maybe then this wouldn’t even have happened at all. "Like what?"

“Yeah,” Steve said with a quick nod. “You know those caves? The ones near Skull Rock?”

The caves. You did know about them.

Your older brother had at one time managed to convince you that a huge monster had made his home in those caves. It hadn’t been true, of course it hadn't, but he didn’t want you to go near there and that was the only way he knew how to keep you away from them.

It was one of the reasons why you still didn’t want to go near them today, all because your dumb brother had put the fear of God into you when you were little.

“You were in the caves?” The hairs on your arms stood up, making you rub your hands over them. “Why?”

“Because it’s fun?” Robin offered.

“Those caves aren’t fun,” you replied angrily.

“Henderson wanted to go,” Steve cut in. “He’s always building stuff, electronics, and he had some new device that he wanted to test.”

A frown appeared on your brow. This whole story was unlikely, but Eddie had mentioned before that Dustin was some kind of whiz kid so maybe it wasn’t impossible? You didn’t know the kid well enough to make any assumptions about what he liked to build in his free time, but plenty of people liked to build receivers and stuff so it could be true.

“And then what?”

“It was dark down there, obviously, so we took flashlights.” You were very much aware of the fact that Steve was making this up on the fly, but he never paused or wavered, seemingly used to coming up with quick excuses when he needed to. “So Dustin was setting up this thing, right? And then Eddie’s flashlight kinda stopped working. He starts hitting it with his hand, trying to get it to work again, and that was when he slipped.”

“But,” you were barely able to contain your anger over being lied to like this. “He has all these… these marks on his body. Some are bite marks.” You shuddered just thinking about it. You could see the marks every time you blinked, on the inside of your eyes, as if they had been burned straight into your retinas. “How would he even get those if he fell? I don’t believe that shit for one second-“

“Oh!” Robin suddenly exclaimed. She slapped her forehead hard, trying to make it seem like she had just remembered something, but her palm had connected with her skin so hard that she swore under her breath and started rubbing at the already redding mark. “We forgot about the bats!”

You blinked once. You could see Steve’s foot moving swiftly, the sole of his shoe making contact with Robin’s foot. She exchanged an angry look with him and Steve merely shook his head in response.

“Bats?” You rubbed your temples, not sure what you were hearing right now, but you could swear that this entire conversation was going to give you a headache.

“Yeah, big ones.” Robin kept talking and Steve groaned next to her as he ran a hand through his hair. “Like, really big ones.”

“Why would bats attack Eddie?”

“Because they were scared? Yeah, yeah, they were scared. So, Eddie just… just fell into their lair and then the earthquake freaked them out so they got pissed off and then they attacked him.” She looked almost pleased with herself that she had come up with this. “Because, maybe, they thought that Eddie was responsible for it?”

“You do realize that the bats that we have round here aren’t that big? You’d need something the size of a fruit bat or a flying fox to do that amount of damage.”

“Right! And that’s the kind that attacked him. One of those.”

“They live in Asia,” you said irritatedly.

“Maybe they got lost?”

“This is such a massive pile of bullshit. You expect me to believe that a colony of huge bats flew halfway across the world to relocate to Hawkins and then attacked Eddie?”

“Look, I know that it sounds weird, but it’s the only explanation that we’ve got right now," Steve interjected and it was made pretty clear that these were the only answers that you were going to get. "Let's just focus on what's really important here. How is he?"

“Someone had better fill me in eventually. I don’t like being lied to," you said with a sigh whilst shaking your head, even if it felt like you were never going to get any answers. "Eddie's alright, given the circumstances. He finally fell asleep."

“Good,” Steve replied before he got to his feet and shuffled off in the direction of the kitchen. “That’s good.”

When you watched him walk past you, closer than before, you were ashamed that you hadn’t noticed that he was a little worse for wear himself. There was an angry red line running over his throat that looked an awful lot like he had gotten caught somewhere and his head had snapped back at an uncomfortable angle.

You shuddered for what must have been the millionth time since Dustin had come to your place to collect you.

Sitting down next to Robin, who gave you an apologetic look, you looked out the windows next to her. You couldn’t see the smoke from here, but the orange glow was still present in the distance, painting the trees in a similar hue as if the sun was steadily rising beyond the horizon.

Your eyes darted to your wrist, but you weren’t wearing your watch. Maybe the sun was getting ready to start its ascent into the sky, maybe all of this was a bad dream and your alarm would be waking you up soon. You sure as hell hoped that that was the case. The desire to pinch yourself was present yet again, but it hadn’t helped before so you resisted the urge.

“Hey,” you started when a thought suddenly occurred to you and Robin’s head snapped in your direction. “If Eddie had gotten attacked by bats, shouldn’t he be getting a rabies shot or something?”

“That’s what I said!” Robin exclaimed suddenly.

You didn’t miss how her eyes darted over to where Steve was leaning against the wall. You thought that it was odd, but you didn’t get a chance to dwell on it because Robin was already launching headfirst into a lecture about the dangers of rabies.

When Steve rejoined you, he told Robin not to freak you out and their bickering eventually made you laugh. It almost made you forget about the events that lead to this moment.

Almost.

*****

A sudden movement to your side pulled you out of your slumber. You muttered something angrily, still caught in that space between sleep and waking with no realization of your surroundings just yet. Your first instinct was to roll over, away from the source that was trying to wake you, silently begging for just a few minutes…

It wasn't until you heard Eddie's voice, cutting through your dormancy, that your eyes shot open and you sat bolt upright on the bed.

"Get 'em off," he slurred from his sleep-addled state. "Get 'em off," he repeated himself with more urgency this time. "Hend-" The first syllable came out strained, half spoken, cut off because Eddie's hand took a swipe at something invisible on his chest.

Maybe the farfetched story about the bats was true after all.

"Eddie." Having seen enough, you decided that you needed to get him out of this nightmare, so you grabbed his hand before he could tear off any of the carefully applied bandages and gave it a firm squeeze. "It's just a bad dream, Eddie, so wake up, okay? Please?"

When he tried to pull his hand from your grasp, still trying to get invisible assailants off of himself, you started shaking his shoulder carefully as you repeated his name. You saying his name seemed to calm him down enough for him to stop, piercing through his nightmare and driving the demons away.

It only took a short amount of time until he was taking deep steady breaths of air into his lungs once more so you lay down next to him on your side, face turned in his direction and you couldn't help but reach out. Your fingers gingerly brushed over one of the wounds on his cheek, which you instantly regretted when he winced.

Before you could pull away however, Eddie instinctively wrapped his hand around your wrist, his thumb rubbing over your pulsepoint as if to test if you were really there by feeling your heartbeat.

“Baby.” His voice sounded pained, his eyes opening slowly, still slightly glassy when they focused on you. When he smiled at you, all that you could do was wrap your arms around him carefully and pull him against you. Eddie immediately buried his face against your chest. “You’re still here.”

“You thought that I’d leave?”

“Would be better if you did." He breathed in deeply through his nose, taking in your familiar scent. "Safer.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t care,” you replied bluntly. “I’m staying right here. With you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thanks, love.”

Your heart must have swelled three sizes in your chest, on the verge of bursting entirely. Eddie always called you ‘baby’ or ‘princess’, but never ‘love’. It was a nice new nickname to receive, and while you weren't entirely sure that you had earned it just yet, it was nice to hear just the same.

You ran your fingers through his hair and you could feel him relax from your touch. His breathing was still wheezy at times, but he was barely coughing now so he was improving ever so slightly. He let out a contented whine when you gently twirled a lock of his hair around your finger.

“You’ll be alright, Eddie,” you said softly with conviction as you kissed the top of his head. There was a long road ahead of you, but you’d manage. Somehow. “You will be alright. I’ll see to that.”

#stranger things #stranger things fic #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fic #stranger things au #mar writes #mar moodboards

[thesapphicowl]

Lillith X Reader - My Totally Platonic Roommate

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Prompt - Taking place pre-Day Of Unity, Lillith isn't as happy as she thought she'd be living with her mom. Being that she wants to feel independent, Lillith moves in with a lesbian witch who happily takes her in.

Reader Pronouns - She/Her, First person POV

CW - None

Note - Lillith is implied to have feelings for the reader, but nothing outwardly romantic happens...(or does it?)

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"...And that's why they should have funded me for a Deadwardian Era museum! Well, I'm guessing outlaws don't GET funding, but I digress!" That ranting? That's my roommate, Lillith. Ever since she became an outlaw, the pressure became too much for her family back home, so she came to an old childhood friend for help...

"I doubt Belos wants any witch knowing about that era anyways. Why would he fund a project that would actually educate everyone on something so sensitive?" I give her a comforting pat on her shoulder, the raven haired woman sighing heavily and pushing up her glasses. "I guess you're right, (Y/N). I just- it's so interesting to find out all these things about that time! About time pools too! Wouldn't you go to a museum about it?" "Lily dear, I would be a fool of I were to refuse such a wise and beautiful lady as yourself to educate me on such a wild subject." I bow gracefully, earning a giggle from Lillith.

"You're such a charmer, (N/N)! Please," She has to rub the blush off of her face. "Alright alright..." I wink playfully, bringing my focus back on the dishes. It's always nice to hear my roommate fawn over every little thing she can think of as I go about my day. While most would tire easily of hearing the same voice, I could sit for hours just listening to that sappy sweet voice... Watching how her eyes twinkle and sparkle like crystals... Holding her hand as she uses the other to gesture- but don't worry, it's totally platonic!

"But I guess that's enough history for you today..." "Aww, Lily! I'm not even done washing up!" "I have to save at least some new material for later. Otherwise I might actually run out of things to talk about." A little giggle and eye roll escape my lips. "You know (Y/N), I never get to hear about your interests... What exactly are you into?" I pause at her question. "Girls." "I know that!" She lets out a laugh, but her reddish eartips don't slip my attention. "But I never get to hear you go on about just what you do or like. My voice needs a rest from all this talking, you know."

I give the dishes a glance, then her, then the dishes. "Jeez Lily, I never actually thought of just what to talk to you about..." A lie. I could talk about Lillith until the sun dies. Everything that makes her perfect. How determined she is to help... Even if she kinda sucks at what's going on. How she curses out her long hair in the mornings while trying to brush out the tangles. How her black lipstick stains every cup she drinks from and yet... Well, I think these things are platonic.

"How about we watch a documentary together? That way a cool narrator can talk while we relax." I shrug, putting the dishes away. "Oh- uh- you mean now? On the couch? Watching a movie?" I can't exactly get a good glimpse of Lillith, but something tells me she has a smile on her face. "Yeah. I'll even let you pick out what we watch." When I turn back to her, the shine in her eyes could rival the stars of the cosmos. Titan help me, I can't help myself when she gives me those eyes.

"I'll get the movie in!" She rushes off to pick out something to watch, with me following behind rather slowly. It's adorable watching her scan the documentaries we have, with her picking the most surprising one. "You know, I haven't learned that much about what you like, so I'm guessing this is it?" She hands me my personal favorite to watch. "I... Wow, lucky guess. Yeah, we'll watch that one."

It takes a minute of awkward ad watching and couch settling before we finally get into the movie. It's almost surreal that she actually was the one to lean into my side. Today wasn't exactly a busy day, but the setting sun out the window makes it obvious that sleeping would be inevitable. I make her more comfortable by setting her on my lap and stroking her hair.

"Um... (Y/N)?"

"Hm?"

"Are we... Cuddling?"

"Yeah... But it's totally platonic, right?"

"...Yes... Platonic..."

#toh lilith #the owl house lilith #lilith clawthorne #lilith toh #lilith clawthorne x reader #lilith x reader #toh x reader #x reader #toh fanfic #sapphic #lesbian

[simstorian]

This upscale gated community offers its residents all the warm, wild benefits of living in the desert along with the luxury of endless green grass.

Still working on my savefile here and there and I have had some real CAS inspiration lately, so here are the sims from my version of the Skyward Palms neighborhood in Oasis Springs! Head-canon lore and mini-rant about the Calientes below lol:

At Sulty Springside, we have the Caliente household. On the latest Behind the Sims summit, the Sims team tried to retcon the existence of Katrina as Nina's and Dina's mother instead of/besides Nighat as Katrina being a clone they made bc they wanted a mom that was like them? So many question marks about that and so many other pieces of lore that don't really make sense if that is the case, but ok... My headcanon mostly places Sims 4 after Sims 2 in the timeline, even though I know that it is just an alternate timeline. In my mind, things got too messy in Pleasantview for the twins and for Don so they both moved away. Being the slow-aging alien-blooded gurlies that they are they partied and romanced around for a while before creating Katrina as the family matriarch to make the family seem more normal in their new environment of Oasis Springs, Cullen family style if you will. Two Calientes to romance and have drama is bad enough so I imagine Katrina moved out for a while bc it got messy, started dating Don, moved back in and brought him with her to mixed reactions from Dina and Nina, and that is where the save starts. In my mind Dina is more focused on romance as a way to get wealth whereas Nina finds enjoyment in all kinds of intrigue and drama, even with her clone-mothers boy-toy lol. This reflects in Katrina's new jealous trait and Don, well he is just Don lol.

In the middle we have the resident of Rio Verde, Gino Delicioso. Gino is in a similar way to the BFF household and DJ Candy inspired by a MySims character of the same name. I actually plan on including quite a lot of MySims characters in the savefile! He does not have a lot of lore of his own, so I made some up for him! Gino Delicioso is a world-famous pizza chef who has started pizzerias all over Simnation. He has the wealth and the fame, but has yet to be as successful in the romance department. Settling down in Oasis Springs and with a clear focus on his local Gino's Pizza and Pitstop restaurant, will Gino find a true love to eat pizza with forever or get stuck in the web of the ladies across the street?

Last but not least, living at Granada Place is the Aspir family. The Aspir's are a family from Desiderata Valley in Sims 2 Freetime I used to interact with a lot when I played Sims 2 as a child! I added some extra lore, did a little time-jump and wanted some extra toddlers in town so I added the little brother Darius, named after one of his great-grandfathers just like Pauline seems to be named after a relative. The Aspir family seems like the perfect multi-generational family from the outside, but in reality, they are falling apart. Crumbled under the pressure of her husband and stepfather Elizabeth had another child with Victor just like he wanted, but Elizabeth still secretly dreams of leaving it all behind to pursue her dream of becoming a famous actress. Victor still wants a bigger family and can not for the life of him understand why his wife keeps drifting further away from him. In the mids of this the couple's oldest daughter Pauline feels lonely and eager to grow, good thing she now has a brother to keep her company, as well as Victor's eccentric gadget-making father, Luis.

#sims 4 #ts4 #caliente family #don lothario #Gino Delicioso #Chef Gino #Aspir family #townie makeover #maxis match #simstorian #oasis springs #skyward palms #AllofItSavefile #cas #minimal cc #dina caliente #nina caliente #katrina caliente #elizabeth aspir #victor aspir #luis aspir #pauline aspir #Darius Aspir

[crymeariveronceagain]

k look my main problem with Turning Red(besides the sexualization of minors, which i could do a whole separate rant about) is actually that it was hailed as this "normalization of periods!!!! women's bodies that function!! positivity!!!" when in reality it was treated with a level of disgust, cringe, and horror that only 8th grade boys have about periods and period products

literally like from the very beginning the mom is shocked and horrified that her 13 year old daughter got her period one morning.

A adult woman. A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER. Look, idk when y'all got your lady days, but my mom told me about it when I was eleven. Because that's like the earlier end of the spectrum of when it can start????

Mei is just so embarrassed about everything, and the mom is so caught off guard and keeps referring to it as an emergency?? Like ma'am idk if anyone has told you but this is actually completely normal and a thing that every single woman in the entire world for the most part goes through once a month and the way your are acting right now is going to do negative amounts of good once your daughter actually does start her lady days and need your help, your embarrassing of her right now is also going to make kids in the audience believe that their own womanly weeks are freak-out worthy, and that their parents aren't going to understand or treat them like people when their bodies start changing.

And then, ugh.

Like, I get it. It's supposed to be realistic. But dear stars the reactions of the school kids to perfectly normal feminine products? Like for the love of all the stars in the sky, that's not a good reaction, and while it might be a reaction you could get in 8th grade, it's not what adults should be thinking, and the whole way it's handled is entirely disrespectful of Mei and her wishes and her body.

Like. Ugh.

And people were all so excited.

They were jumping up and down like "OOOOHHHHHH LOOK AT THAT THEY TALKED ABOUT PERIODS!!!"

Well, they didn't talk about them right.

Wanna know how my mom reacted? I was all embarrassed and she just smiled and said, "This is a day we should celebrate cause you're growing up." And like, we didn't. Because it was Thanksgiving. And we were at my grandparents'. But you get the vibe!!! She was quiet, and gentle, and she respected me and my wishes! She knew that getting your lady days for the first time is EMBARRASSING and you're NERVOUS and you don't know HOW ITS GONNA WORK!

You've never had to do stuff before and she didn't yell at my father or tell me it was an emergency. That's just.

It's not loving, it's not kind.

And it's not the response you want little girls in the audience to be watching and thinking, "Is that how my mom is going to react to me? Is that what's gonna happen? Is she gonna show up at the school? Are all my classmates going to laugh???"

THATS NOT GOOD! Stars above!!!!

Ugh.

Look, I know not everyone had the same experience as I did with their bodies and changing, but I'd like to think we all want our space and our privacy.

I'd like to think that if your lady days were embarrassing and your parents treated it like an emergency, you'd much have preferred the kind of calm of a woman who's had her womanly week every single month for over twenty years. I think you'd have preferred someone tell you that you're doing a great job and that it's normal and not an emergency. I think you'd have preferred being treated like a human and not a mutating creature from the red lagoon.

Anyways.

Them's my thoughts.

#if you want me to go more into my abject and utter hatred for Turning Red i will #not fandom content in specific #turning red #tw periods #periods #puberty #womanly week #female anatomy #female health #body positivity #thirteen years old i think is like the actual average age that a girl gets her period if shes healthy #so wtf was mei's mom on about??? #mei mei #mei turning red #rant