#day 14: tick | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whatsnewalycat · 2 months

Text

RUTHLESS

Stepdad Joel Miller x Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Word Count: 5.1k+

Warnings: DDDNE, literally just a fucked up stepdad/mom's bf fantasy, could read "mom" as tess but I don't name her or assign physical features to her or reader, post-outbreak, reader is def over 18 but not by much so yeah age gap, NON-CONSENSUAL, power imbalance, unethical d/s dynamic, slapping, spanking, punishment, orgasm delay/denial, humiliation, degradation, face fucking, anal sex, little to no aftercare

A/N: Category is "That old man would fucking never... but if he did..." Please be mindful of the warnings and don't read if it might trigger you. Sorry, mom. Sorry, God.

[ my masterlist ] [ taglist ] [ AO3 ]

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Within the secluded world of your big noise-canceling headphones, you scan through silence on the CB radio, pausing for a few seconds on each channel before moving on to the next.

Channel 11: Nothing.

Channel 12: Zilch.

Channel 13: Nada.

When you turn the dial to channel 14, though, you pick up chatter and start transcribing.

Channel 14 7/17/22 19:56

—got a bundle of carrots today. Budaydas, onions, too. Want me to come by tomorrow and make some stew? Over.

Got enough for the kids? Over.

And leftovers. Over.

I’ll be at Margie’s around supper time. Over and out.

The air goes silent.

After a minute goes by with no follow up transmissions, you glance at the clock. 7:58. Almost time for check-in.

You tune the radio to channel 32 and review your transcription.

Many people speak in code, encrypting their messages in seemingly benign conversations. To the untrained ear, they’re normal exchanges, people making small talk about jobs and rations and kids. Goodnight calls and check-ins that use predictable inquiries to convey messages.

—got a bundle of carrots today. Budaydas, onions, too. Want me to come by tomorrow and make some stew?

Most of it you can translate from memory. The drug traffickers that use channel 14 have frequented the same lingo for years. Likely because of the high turnover rate of personnel. There’s less confusion that way. Confusion in communication raises more alarm bells for eavesdroppers than using the same code words across the board.

You flip through your cipher for channel 14, searching for budaydas, but find nothing. Scrunching your nose up, you say the word out loud, “Budaydas. Buh-day-das.”

Carrots, onions, budaydas in a stew.

“Oh,” you nod in understanding, then jot down your translation, muttering under your breath, “Fucking Boston accents.”

(Someone) picked up tranquilizers, benzos (budaydas = potatoes), and opioids. The caller wants to meet up and trade as previously agreed.

The rest of it is easy enough to interpret without the use of a cipher. You probably don’t need to write down the translation, but do it in case your mom or Joel need to reference the notes at a later date.

There’s enough to distribute product across their network of dealers in Boston QZ, plus more to stockpile. They’ll meet at their hub in Area 1, Margaret St, at midnight.

You exhale through slack lips, glancing at the clock as it ticks over to 8:00, then pick up the microphone and hold down the speak button.

“Radio check.”

A few seconds go by before you hear a familiar gruff voice crackle over the radio waves into your ears, “Loud and clear. Over.”

Your nostrils flare when you hear him. Joel Miller. The bane of your existence. Your de facto stepfather, only because you don’t really remember life without him by your mom’s side.

This isn’t to say he’s a father figure to you by any means. The two of you never shared the kind of heartwarming paternal bonding moments you read about in books. That would require warmth and vulnerability, which he distinctly lacks.

Once, when you were maybe 11 or 12, you made the mistake of calling him Dad. The way he looked at you made you feel like dirt. Fire burning behind his dark eyes, he corrected you with one stern syllable that taught you your place: “Joel.”

You sit up straighter and take a moment to gather yourself before responding.

“Did you get your message from Uncle Paul? Over.”

“I did. Over.”

“How’s the weather in Kansas City? Over.”

“Cloudy. Over.”

Fuck.

You swallow around nothing, then clear your throat and ask, “And Grandma, how’s she? Over.”

“Fine, just busy is all.”

You exhale a sigh of relief that melts the tension between your shoulders. Joel continues.

“Anything new with you? Over.”

Tapping your fingers on your notes, you answer, “Rumor has it the market is gonna be busy tomorrow. Harvesting time, I guess. Other than that, same old same old. What about you? Staying out of trouble? Over.”

It feels strange, having a casual conversation with him like this. Even if it’s just a data exchange dressed up as a casual conversation.

There’s a long pause, then he says, “Fine, yeah. Well. See you soon. Over ‘n’ out.”

Stiff as a board. Cold as ice. Joel Miller, everyone. Round of applause.

You snort, rolling your eyes as you unplug the headphones and toss them on the table. It takes a moment for you to re-acclimate to your surroundings.

The dingy two-bedroom apartment is quiet and still. Outside, the setting sun casts the world in a dark golden haze. A FEDRA patrol vehicle roars down the street, broadcasting the curfew alert from a loudspeaker. Faint shouting from a few units down momentarily piques your curiosity before you decide it’s none of your business.

You stand from the chair and reach your hands above your head, lungs expanding in a powerful yawn, then take a lap around the apartment to stretch your legs.

Something catches your eye when you walk by the entry. A note slipped under the doorframe. On the outer fold, your name is written in a familiar scrawl.

Your heart skips a beat.

You pick it up and unfold the paper, revealing an invitation.

I miss you. Come over when you’re done surfing the airwaves. XO, Bert.

Warmth trickles down between your thighs. A smile spreads across your face. You glance up at the door, then to the CB radio and scanner on the desk.

Indecision churns in your belly.

You are explicitly forbidden from leaving the apartment while your mom and Joel are out on runs. A safety precaution you’ve protested dozens of times to no avail. They expect you to stay put and warn them if you notice any signs of potential danger. In return, you receive a cut of the profit and a roof over your head. Security, in short. Which is more than most could say.

That being said… You break this rule from time to time, when the circumstances allow.

Like when the Fireflies and FEDRA have been quiet for weeks and there are no smoke signals in sight. Like when you’re five nights into a seven day seclusion and think you might die of boredom if you don’t get the fuck out of here. Like when your boyfriend slips a note under the door and asks you to come over.

You look down at the paper in your hands, re-reading the words I miss you.

Fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen?

—

Just before midnight, you wander down the hallway to your unit, jelly knees wobbling with each step. As you absentmindedly trace your tingling lips, still puffy from kissing, you unlock the door and push it open, then frown.

The lights are on.

They were off when you left, you’re sure of it. When you step further into the apartment, your foot catches on something. A backpack. This faint buzzing starts behind your ears as you blink at it, wishing it would go away.

Motherfu—

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Your stomach plummets to the floor when you hear his voice. A thick knot of panic tightens around your windpipe as you look up to find Joel standing just a few paces away in the living room.

He stares you down, dark eyes glowing with fury, and questions you again, “Where were you?”

“N-nowhere.”

The blatant lie sits sour on your tongue. His lips purse, so you fumble out another, “I went for a walk.”

“A walk,” he repeats, tone disbelieving, “You went on a walk after curfew wearing that?”

You look down at your clothing. A short skirt and tank top. Your throat bobs in a guilty gulp, then you meet his eyes again and nod.

“And when did you leave on this ‘walk?’”

Your mind whirs as you try to come up with an answer. It feels like a trap. You try to calculate an answer that will provide minimal blowback.

“I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes ago?”

“Try again.”

The electricity humming through you takes on a red, frustrated edge, and you snip, “I don’t fucking know, dude. It was a while ago, I wasn’t paying attention. Where’s my mom?”

“Your mom sent me here to make sure you were alive,” he says pointedly, taking slow, deliberate steps towards you, “We’ve been tryin’a reach you for three hours. I got here an hour ago. That’s a helluva lot longer than twenty minutes, ain’t it?”

Shrinking into yourself, you search his face. Jaw set, eyes boring into yours. Waves of anger roll off him as he approaches, and you remember all those rumors you heard about him on the radio. The fear you heard in grown men’s voices when they recounted run-ins with that bitch and her guard dog.

You remember what Bert said about him: He’s fucking ruthless.

“You aren’t supposed to leave the apartment when we’re outside the QZ.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you?”

Your heart thuds against your ribcage.

Joel has never directed this kind of outright anger towards you. Sternness, sure. Contempt, maybe. But this is different. You’re in fucking trouble.

There has to be a way out of this conversation.

You drop your gaze to the floor and ask, “Is my mom ok? Did something happen to her?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Righteous indignation straightens your spine and wills you to meet his eyes again, “I’m not saying shit until you tell me what happened to her.”

“She sprained her ankle, but she’s fine. She’s safe,” he tells you, then takes another step forward, “Why did you leave?”

You respond by rolling your eyes.

“Answer the question.”

With an irritated sigh, you search his face, then tell him, “You don’t know what it’s like to be here. Isolated for days or weeks at a time. I fucking hate it. It’s so lonely and boring, I feel like I’m losing my mind—”

“Oh, cry me a goddamn river.”

You scowl at him, staring him down, “Fuck you.”

“Watch your fucking mouth, you disrespectful little shit.”

Red flashes through your field of vision, hot and angry and defiant. You gather the moisture in your mouth on your tongue and spit at him. It splats on his cheek.

His face twists up with fury for one second before he charges, closing the distance between you. The impact pushes your back to the door with a thud.

He grabs your jaw, fingers digging hard into the soft flesh of your cheeks. His eyes are hot coals, burning into you. The muscles in his jaw twitch, nostrils flaring, breath shaky.

When he speaks, it’s through gritted teeth, “You don’t know what it’s like out there.”

“No, because you won’t let me fucking leave—”

“You should be fucking grateful, you know that? Being here is a fucking cake walk. Your mom ‘n’ I have seen things, done things—horrible things you couldn’t even imagine,” he husks, searching your face, grip tightening so hard it makes you whine. “We keep you safe, and all we ask is that you stay put and keep a lookout for us when we’re gone.”

Even if you wanted to respond, you can’t. The vice grip he has on your face renders your mouth immobile.

All you can do is stare back at him, studying his furrowed brow and clenched jaw. Full lips pinched thin as he glowers at you.

You notice how close his broad body is to yours. The heat radiating off his tightly-wound muscles onto your skin. His ragged breath scatters across your face and wafts into your open mouth. You taste the bootleg whiskey on his breath and your pulse jumps.

Warmth drips down your spine and pools at the center of you, a horrifying sensation that makes you squirm.

“Were you with your little boyfriend? Hmm?” he asks, eyes darting around your face, trailing down to your body for a moment before returning, “That boy downstairs? Figure you musta been, on account of how you’re dressed.”

You don’t say anything. You can’t. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s not really a question.

“Abandoning your post to go out and get fucked, is that it?”

A whimper slips from your throat as heat swells beneath your skin.

He wouldn’t be treating you like this if your mom was here. He wouldn’t say these things or be this close to you. Knowing this, you understand that whatever is happening right now is wrong.

You also understand that you like it.

You hate that you like it, and hate him for making you like it, but you like it all the same.

Letting go of your face, he demands, “Answer me.”

“Fuck you.”

Before you even realize what’s happening, you feel a sharp, hot sting on your cheek and yelp.

He fucking slapped you.

“Wrong answer.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you retort, bringing your hand to the welt forming on your cheek, “I’m gonna tell her.”

“Yeah? You gonna tell her I found you sneaking in at midnight, too? That you compromised our safety to go out ‘n’ get dicked down?”

You harden your gaze on him, lips pressing together with disdain.

“She wouldn’t like that, would she?” he asks, the smallest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, “She’d probably kick you out on your ass.”

“She wouldn’t. You guys need me.”

“And you need us,” he counters, searching your face, “So what do we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Hmm?”

A dozen inappropriate images flash through your head, each more lurid than the last. An electric, tingling feeling shoots out from the base of your spine and works through your extremities.

You swallow hard and shake your head, “I won’t do it again.”

“If I don’t punish you, you will. You’re fucking disrespectful. Selfish. You need discipline.”

Again, a flash of frustration taints the world red. Crossing your arms over your chest, you scoff, “Just because you’re fucking my mom doesn’t mean you’re my dad. I am an adult and you are not the boss of me.”

He sighs and takes a step back, planting his hands on his hips. His gaze drifts around the empty apartment, jaw gnashing back and forth for a moment before he returns to twist the deadbolt closed and grab your arm.

“What the f—” you swat at him and dig your heels into the floor, but it does nothing as he drags you by his steel grip, pulling you stumbling along behind him into the living room.

He sits on the couch and forces you to lay over his bent knees, one big hand securing your wrists behind your back while the other flattens against the swell of your ass cheek. As soon his touch leaves, it returns, a sharp snap tingling across your skin.

Shocked doesn’t even begin to describe the chaos throbbing through you.

“You’re right, you’re an adult. And I’m not your dad,” he asserts, lifting his hand. Your whole body clenches in anticipation. “But as long as you live here, I am the fucking boss of you,” he slaps your ass again, “Do you understand me?”

It surprises you when you hear yourself sob, “I’m sorry—”

He does it again and again, hissing, “Yeah, you’re fucking sorry now, aren’t you?”

Each firm slap he lays down is firm, unflinching. Ruthless.

It overwhelms your senses and becomes the only thing you feel. The universe world narrows down to just his palm on your skin. The reliable and exquisite pain ringing through you. Smack. Smack. Smack.

Every time he draws his hand back, you don’t think you can handle it again. But you do.

Soon, you start to crave the impact. His skin on your skin. You can’t feel the start or end of it. It’s just him and you. Pain and pleasure. Sobs and moans, all blended together.

Far away, you hear him chide you for not wearing underwear beneath your skirt. Then he asks, “Are you fucking enjoying this?”

Too ashamed to admit it, all you do is whimper in response.

Smack.

He sucks in breath through his teeth, then grabs the meat of your ass and rumbles, “You do, don’t you?”

When his grasp on your wrists releases, you pull your elbows beneath you and look over your shoulder at him, watching as he spreads your cheeks apart and stares down between your legs. You’re probably shiny and wet with the evidence of your desire.

His lips form an ‘o’ when he kneads you back together and spreads you apart again. The motion teases all your hungry nerves and makes you moan. It feels so fucking good.

You realize then that he’s grown stiff against your belly, hard cock leaving no mistake.

“You fucking like it, too, don’t you?” you ask him, your voice breathy and amused, “I can feel how turned on you are.”

Slipping a hand between your bodies, you press against his strained zipper. His cock jumps at the contact, and he groans, dragging his fingers through your slick lips.

“Oh my god,” you gasp, eyes fluttering closed as you nod in approval. He works your clit in steady, firm circles while you smooth your hand along the big bulge in his pants, letting out a string of whines at the bubbling pleasure inside you.

You lose yourselves here, both of you squirming and panting and petting the other. So wrapped up with how fucking good it feels that you forget to feel ashamed.

When he smacks your ass now, you croak through clenched teeth, “Fuck yes.”

He likes that you like it. You can tell by the way he groans and throbs beneath you. This knowledge inspires your pulse to pound and your muscles to tense.

“Joel,“ you whimper, opening your eyes to meet his heavy-lidded gaze, “I’m gonna fucking come, don’t stop—”

“Did I give you permission to do that?” he asks, slowing his touch to a torturous rhythm, “Did I say you could come?”

You shake your head and whine, “Please, Joel, please—”

“Are you sorry for what you did?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Are you gonna do it again?”

“No no no, I won’t, I promise, I’ll be a good girl—”

He groans, tossing his head back as you frantically rub at the bulge in his pants. Your palm chafes against the stiff denim, but you don’t stop. You would do this for eternity if it meant he’d let you find your release.

“Oh yeah, you’ll be a good fucking girl for me?” he asks, touching you just soft and slow enough to twist your nerves ragged, but keep your orgasm out of reach.

“I will, I promise. Please, Joel,” you whisper, holding his gaze as your face gets all hot, “Please make me come, please please—”

“Show me you mean it.”

He doesn’t need to explain what he means. While he takes off his jeans, you scramble off his lap and kneel between his spread knees. His eyes stay glued to yours as you slide your hands up his thighs.

Batting your lashes at him, you wrap your lips around his swollen cock. He fills your mouth. He feels smooth but hard against your tongue. He tastes salty and heady and when you inhale the musk of him, you moan around his girth.

Nodding, he anchors his grip behind your head and bucks his hips, forcing his dick down your throat. When you gag, he doesn’t let up, but thrusts into the sensation, grunting, “Fuck. Yes,” before letting you pull off, gasping for air.

You wrap your hands around him, all shiny and slick with drool, and pump his length for a moment while you catch your breath, then take him in your mouth again.

This time, you sit up taller. You relish the stretch of your lips as you bob up and down. Savor the tug of his fingers curled tight in your hair. Memorize the sound of his huffs and grunts as he fucks your face. The wet squelching gurgle of his cock squeezing down your windpipe.

“Look at me,” he orders, so you do.

He’s all blurred from your watering eyes, but you can make out the dark irises and stay locked onto them while relaxing the muscles of your throat to take him easier. When you make an enthusiastic humming noise, he groans. It’s wanton and lusty and lights a fire in your belly.

Joel has never treated you this hard or soft. His regard for you has always been callous. Closed-off. Indifferent. With your assistance on the radio, he treated you like a tool for survival. Before that, or even in-between smuggling runs, he treated you like some kind of a household pet he had little regard for. Your mom’s responsibility, never his.

For years and years, you ached for more.

When you were younger, you used to sit up nights and wonder if he’d ever consider you his daughter. He wouldn’t, though. He won’t.

But this is something.

Distinctly, you want to please him. Be the best he ever had. You want to sink your claws into his brain and leave your mark for years to come. You want him to look at you after this and feel a flicker of desire and self-loathing. You want him to think of you when he fucks your mom. You want him to hate how you made him feel.

When you pull off him and start to work his soaked length with your hands, you pant, “Does that feel good? Am I doing a good job sucking your cock?”

“It’s good,” he nods, lets out a groan that pinches his eyes shut, then meets your gaze again, “So fucking good, Jesus Christ. Is this what you were out doing tonight? Sucking cock?”

“Not tonight.”

“But he fucked you, didn’t he? That boy?”

You nod, stroking him slower. His eyelids flutter.

“Did he fuck your pussy or your ass?”

The question sends a jolt through your middle. You recall the sex you had with Bert. Barely an hour has gone by since he pulled out of your cunt to shoot his load on the mattress, but it feels like a lifetime ago.

“My pussy,” you answer, then gather a thick, hot wad of saliva on your tongue and spit on his cock. You spread it with a slow churning motion, watching Joel’s face twist up with pleasure.

“Were you bein’ smart about it at least?” he asks, studying you, “We don’t need you getting knocked up.”

“He pulled out,” you shrug.

He grunts in acknowledgment, then sits up and pulls on your arm to join him on the couch, “C’mere.”

You follow his guidance, lying back on the cushions as he strips off his shirt.

The only times you’ve seen him shirtless were accidental and slightly embarrassing for both of you. But now, you notice how his smooth chest glows in the dim light. Now, when you drink in the sight of his big arms and broad shoulders, heat bubbles up your spine.

While you pull your tank top off over your head, he tugs your skirt down your thighs, asking, “You ever taken it up the ass?”

You shake your head.

His eyebrows jump a little like he’s surprised. A sadistic kind of smirk plays across his lips as he pushes your knees up to your chest, then spreads you apart, the head of him nudging at your backdoor.

He doesn’t ask for permission. He doesn’t ask if you want it this way, or if you want him to be the first. He doesn’t even warn you about the initial shock and pain you experience when he rocks his hips forward and breaches the tight hole.

You yelp and try to lurch away from the sharp pain, but he grabs you and holds you there.

Sitting up on your elbows, you cry, “That fucking hurts, Joel.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a punishment if it didn’t hurt a little, would it?” he murmurs, disinterested, watching your asshole stretch to accommodate the head of his cock.

The sensation is overwhelming. Like being stabbed or split open. At first, you hate it. You sputter and gasp and shake your head as he pushes himself in further and further.

Then he pauses the invasion, releasing his steel grip on you to tilt your chin up and meet his gaze, “Just relax.”

His eyes burn into yours, making your pulse jump. You bear witness to his heaving chest and parted lips and feel him twitch inside you. Sparks sizzle across your body, but you still scowl at him.

“It hurts, I don’t like it.“

“It’ll get better, you just gotta relax,” he coaches.

“Why can’t we just have normal sex?”

He grunts, thinks about it for a moment, then tells you, “First off, this is not normal sex,” he points between your chest and his, “This will not be a normal thing, you understand?”

It stings a little, if you’re being honest. But you nod, “I understand.”

Nodding, he licks his lips. He throbs inside you, hips jerking a little in reaction. This time, the friction feels good enough to make you whimper.

“Second, we don’t need another mouth to feed around here,” he says, searching your face, “We’re stretched thin enough as is. You know what I mean?”

“But if you—”

“Pulling out can still stick. This way’s tried and true, trust me.”

“Trust you,” you scoff under your breath and roll your eyes.

“What’s that?”

You meet his hardened gaze, feeling emboldened enough to ask, “Do you fuck my mom in the ass?”

“That’s none of your business,” he warns.

“So, what, you can interrogate me about my sex life, but I can’t do the same?”

“That’s right,” he barks, “Know why?”

In response, you glare at him.

He takes this moment of bitter silence to drag his knuckles up your slick, swollen lips. The light touch branches out beneath your skin and makes your heart pound. You gasp a little, but try to hide it. He clocks it immediately.

“There we go,” he murmurs under his breath, almost as an aside, smoothing the pad of his thumb in soft circles on your clit. Pleasure churns beneath the touch, hot and hungry for more. When you whimper, Joel’s eyes go wild for a second, then he says, “I am the fucking boss of you, understand?”

You swallow a moan as he arches forward and starts to roll his hips. It feels better now. Good. Fucking amazing, almost. Electric and gooey. He fills you so completely with each thrust, you wonder how you can even breathe.

“So if I tell you to be home, that’s where you’ll be. If I ask you where you’ve been, who you were with, what you were doing—you tell me the truth. Understand?”

Nodding, you gasp, “I understand.”

“You don’t get to ask me about your mom. You don’t tell your mom. You don’t sneak out to go get fucked by some boy who doesn’t even know what to do with you—”

“Holy shit, Joel I’m gonna—” you gasp at the pressure building at the base of your spine, spreading thick and hot and delicious across your body.

“And you don’t come without my fucking permission. Understand?”

“I understand I understand,” you cry, literal tears burning behind your eyes at the ache of trying to keep the ecstasy at bay, “Please can I come, please please please—”

“Are you sorry?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again—”

“That’s right, you’ll never fucking do it again. Why’s that?”

“You’re the boss,” you beg, your voice so raw and pleading it sounds foreign. He pounds into you now, a wet slap that echoes off the apartment walls. It takes all your concentration to keep your pleasure contained, to not spill over the edges, but you hear yourself babble somewhere far away.

“You’re the fucking boss. I’m sorry I’m sorry I won’t disobey you again I’ll be a good girl I’ll do anything just please give me permission to come daddy please please please—”

When he moans, loud and depraved, it just about breaks you, but you manage to keep your resolve long enough for him to pant, “Go ahead, let it go.”

With a choked sob, you untether your pleasure and allow it to expand, growing hot and wide and unlike anything you’ve ever felt. Every muscle in your body tenses up as the sensation swallows you whole, then spits you back up, sending wave after wave across your body.

“That’s it, that’s a good girl,” he grunts, taking his hand from your clit to hold your knees down and fuck your ass hard and fast and ruthless.

It surprises you when heat starts stretching out from the middle of you again. Your heart starts to race as the feeling grows.

“Ffffuuuuck,” you whimper, “That feels so fucking good—”

“I told you, didn’t I?”

“You did you did holy shit,” you meet his eyes and nod frantically, “I love it I love it—please can you come in my ass?”

“Is that what you want? Want me to come in your tight little asshole?”

A feral noise escapes you, and you sob, “Yes—”

“Do you wanna come too?”

“Yes—oh my god, yes, please please please daddy—”

“Come with me, baby.”

You let the feeling overtake you again, gasping out, “thank you thank you thank you,” as it takes you strong and fast. Pleasure pulses through your body, causing you to convulse and strain against Joel’s grip spreading you open. He releases a moan from his belly and gives you a hard, deep thrust that he holds for a shuddering moment. After emptying himself inside you, he pulls out, falling back to his seat on the couch.

Chest heaving, you prop yourself up on your elbows and study him. He pinches his eyes shut and catches his breath before meeting your gaze again.

His expression goes soft long enough for something dangerous to flicker between you.

Then he turns away and starts getting dressed.

“Get yourself together, I’m gonna go get your mom.”

As you sit up, you fold your legs into your body and watch him button his shirt.

“Joel—”

He looks at you, searching your face expectantly, but your brain goes static and you’re not even sure what you were going to say.

“This stays between us, understand?”

His tone is firm but gentle. You swallow hard and nod, “I understand.”

Nodding, he glances down at your lips, then back to your eyes. He rises to his feet to leave, but before he does, he leans down to press a kiss into your forehead.

“Good girl.”

[ NEXT PART ]

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yvonnefoy · 1 year

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Day 14: (the) Tick.

#art #artists on tumblr #femaleartist #artists #inktober #ink #pen and ink #artist #inktober 2021 #inktober day 14 #tick #the tick

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threeartistsandapen · 2 years

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#inktober2021 #day 14 #prompt: tick #jay

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pshcomforts · 1 month

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➳ afterglow | psh. — requested

non!idolsunghoon x olderfem!reader (feat. mark from nct)

“tell me this love is worth the fight”

synopsis: you forgot a special celebration with sunghoon, leading you guys to argue.

warnings/content: written in third pov. angst to fluff! slightly suggestive at the end (but nothing happens). age gap! (sunghoon’s 21, and reader’s 23). cursing! not proofread. sunghoon doubts himself :(

comments, likes, and reposts are appreciated :)

word count: 3.5k

a/n: message request.

༘˚⋆𐙚｡masterlist⋆.✧˚

current song playing: afterglow by taylor swift

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

1:28 ───────|──────────── -2:14

tick. tick. tick.

the clock ran faster within each minute y/n glanced back at it.

a sigh left her throat as she focused back onto her computer — typing in data to keep the files updated.

the girl worked an office job in her early twenties. it wasn’t as ideal, but for a paid internship, she had to take it.

months had passed since she started the job, and whispers of a promising position had been hinted each day she walked in.

and since then, y/n’s attempted to keep her score of being a trusting employee on a streak by staying past office hours.

she was a workaholic, if you will.

but who could blame her? the pay was good, and the work was her field of interest.

however, today was not one of those days she was willing to stay late for.

it couldn’t.

today marked her 1000 day anniversary with her boyfriend, park sunghoon.

her lovely, patient boyfriend who was younger than her by two years. the boy was in his early twenties, barely getting the hang of life with college.

a few significant dates had already been missed with the internship in the way, so she couldn’t possibly miss this one.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

a quick buzz formed in y/n’s pockets, allowing her to take a swift glance at her phone.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ 1000 day celebration with hoonie ੈ♡˳ ࿐ྂ

she groaned out a sigh as she felt a sudden pressure weigh in at her heart.

“just a little longer,” her voice mumbled before staring down at the time.

[ 4:37pm ] — it beamed.

just a few hours left and she’d soon be in sunghoon’s forgiving arms.

“hey y/n,” a deep voice called out to her, snapping the girl out of her guilt-eating thoughts.

she turned to her superior, mark, who was wearing a friendly smile.

“yeah?” she tried to sound cheerful.

“i know you get off soon, but with your hard work noticed, i was wondering if you could help out with a little more paper work?” he uttered with puppy eyes. “it’s just.. the way you file and organize suits how i usually go in on it. would it be okay?”

y/n froze in her tracks, conflicted with her options — leave work as planned for the important date with sunghoon, or further impress the manager for a permanent job.

“it wouldn’t take long, would it?” she chewed her cheek, lips almost bleeding with how much she awaited for an answer.

mark gave a light chuckle. “no, i wouldn’t make you stay too late, y/n. you always do that to yourself.”

the girl awkwardly laughed in return, murmuring empty words of how much effort she was willing to put in for the company before he left her with the paperwork.

her original plan of leaving early from such an exhausting shift had taken a pause as she huffed at the amount of files in front of her.

“shouldn’t take too long..,” she tried to

reassure under her breath.

in seconds, y/n dove into the piles of paperwork — attempting to finish on time.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

[ 6:48pm ]

time was slipping through her fingers and the girl wasn’t even noticing it.

minutes passed within each time she glanced back at the clock, irking her to go quicker.

she had to finish on time, she just had to, at least before 9:30pm.

[ 8:21pm ]

coworkers around were now finishing their shift, leaving their cubicles to clock out for the night — leaving y/n with a few others.

“come on, i’m almost there.” she whispered to herself, sweat nearly dripping down her face with how much work she was powering through.

“good night, y/n!” — a few workers would beam to her, causing her to give a quick wave before going back to her job.

[ 9:18pm ]

the whole building was nearly abandoned now. the only remaining employees were mark, y/n, and about two more workaholics.

she was almost done. almost.

with such little time left, panic began to exude in the girl’s body.

“12 more minutes.. please,” she sighed.

a quick glance to the time was made before she decided to shut down every time displayed in front of her.

it was risky, but looking at the clock would only emit more anxiety to finish.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

soon enough, the filing job had run its course, and y/n was done.

“finally!” she beamed, stretching out every bone in her body.

her tired eyes glanced everywhere for the time before she realized her method of avoidance from earlier.

“did i make it..?” she questioned, but with every nervous breath she took, it was obvious she had no hope she did.

slowly, the girl lifted her phone to check the time.

[ 10:03pm ]

her fatigued body froze at the bright screen before feeling it defrost with a shiver to the spine.

she felt her breath get heavy as she searched for a message from sunghoon — just anything that may ease the guilty pressure on her heart.

but nothing.

no messages, no calls — nothing.

y/n bit her teeth together, clenching her jaw in regret.

sunghoon had been looking forward to their 1000 day celebration, and she failed him.

a shaky sigh left her throat as her hands fisted in shame.

“hey y/n,” a voice spoke from behind, causing her body to tense.

“oh, hey mark.” she murmured back, mind still flooded with sunghoon.

“you’re still here? i got your files, you’re good to go,” he responded. “by the way, i really appreciate your work here. i hope the ceo considers you here long term.”

y/n sighed in relief as a reply, body taking its final hit of exhaustion from sitting all day.

“you’re a great worker,” mark continued with a polite smile.

a few rewarding compliments remained to run through his mouth, allowing her to get a slight ego boost.

she beamed a smile towards him, truthfully forgetting about how much she had failed sunghoon.

“i hope to see more of this from you soon, y/n. we’re the last here so i gotta lock up.” her superior uttered to her.

the girl nodded her head before gathering her things and leaving for the boy to do as he said.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

the drive home from work was quiet.

y/n was worn out from the constant piles of paper work and to be quite frank, all she wanted was some peace and quiet.

the only thing that ran through her mind was how much mark had sweet talked to her about her work skills.

it was promising to hear all of that, and she couldn’t wait to tell it to her boyfriend — her boyfriend who waited hours for her.

but her energy was still wearing thin. every muscle movement she made in the car caused an aching bruise to form.

so when she arrived home, her hands slowly creaked the door open.

a sigh left her throat as she entered in.

everything was quiet and sunghoon couldn’t be found until she glanced to her left. the boy was sitting on the couch in silence, eyes lost in a daze and face blank with no expression presented.

then it hit her.

her blameworthy actions came back to guilt her once she found her person stiffly sitting down.

y/n took a gulp. she was the older one, but she knew how he was during arguments like these. she knew he was one to stay silent just to keep his emotions together.

“hoonie..?” the girl nervously mumbled, almost a whisper to his ears.

sunghoon only stood with a click to the tongue, jaw firmly clenching as he walked to the kitchen.

the atmosphere was quickly filled with tension in how much he ignored her.

“hoon?” she called out once more, only to get a slight glance back as a response.

the boy continued to gulp down some type of beverage, actively letting her presence go unnoticed.

y/n groaned in return, watching his petty efforts become the consequences of her own actions.

but truth be told, she was tired.

she was working all day, back to back with no break whatsoever and all she wanted was to get some sleep.

“sunghoon,” she sighed. “please, i’m sorry. i’m exhausted and work just kept pulling me back. my superior wanted me to file more before my shift ended and i-“

“work this and work that, that’s all we’re gonna talk about isn’t it?” hoon angrily spat, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. the boy ignored the mention of mark with how pissed he was.

✩ ‘fighting with a true love’ ✩

all y/n could do was pause at his outburst.

“i’m sorry, sunghoon, i’m tired and-“

“and i was waiting for you all day to come home for our celebration.” he cut off once more, teeth biting down to mush away the heart aches.

✩ ‘is boxing with no gloves’ ✩

sunghoon finally turned after softly slamming the drink down onto the counter. his darkened eyes met hers, burning holes before quickly tearing up.

“i know..,” she bit her lips, shutting her eyes to avoid her heart breaking at his gaze. “i’m so sorry, sunghoon, i am. i just couldn’t leave, staying after hours just promised me a permanent position. please understand, this is what i’ve been working for.”

hoon scoffed. “are you in a relationship with me or your work?”

she exasperated a sigh before walking to the living room and slumping down on the couch. almost instantly, her body felt the soft, cushioned seats that welcomed her — allowing her to feel drained again.

“please, hoon, i’m tired-“

“that’s how our arguments always end, doesn’t it? you forget a date of ours, then you come home and you say you’re tired, then we’re fine the next day.” the male ridiculed, walking to the living room as well. “when is this gonna stop, y/n?”

“sunghoon..,”

“no, you’re saying you’re tired but i’m the tired one.”

y/n sighed as she sat up, body becoming depleted of energy. “i’m sorry but this internship is worth everything right now, and i’m doing so well with making an impression.”

“worth everything?” sunghoon reiterated with a shaky tone. “even our relationship?”

✩ ‘chemistry till it blows up, till there’s no us’ ✩

“what? no, hoon, that’s not what i meant.”

“is that what our relationship means to you?”

she looked up to his eyes that were inflamed with betrayal. “this job defines my future, sunghoon. this job is what i’ve always wanted, can’t you see that?” a hint of irritation was made present in her voice, showing that her sleep deprivation was irking her to be annoyed.

sunghoon sniffled, quickly wiping away a few tears so his girl wouldn’t feel troublesome. “i see that, y/n, i see it very clearly. i feel like i never see you anymore, in fact. you’re barely here.” his tone was firm, hinting that he was reflecting the energy back.

“this job is for our future too, sunghoon. i’m working to get a good position for financial stability.” y/n uttered, feeling her droopy eyes threaten to close. her mind quickly recalled back to their slight age gap as she felt the weigh of carrying it all on her shoulders.

“our future? you really think there’s gonna be a future with us when i never see you anymore?” the boy murmured, fists clenching with every word that left his mouth.

he hated what he was saying, but it was the truth.

however, her heart still dropped when she processed what he had uttered.

“you don’t think there’s a future with us..?” she took a particularly harsh gulp as tears finally streamed down her cheeks.

“you’re never here, y/n. how can there be a relationship if it’s only one person putting effort?” sunghoon responded, tears taking its fall for him as well.

the two stayed quiet.

no more raised voices and no more hushed words.

they both had reasons to be mad at each other, but they couldn’t see the others point.

y/n didn’t know what to say. her reasonings were being constantly repeated, but it seemed like it wasn’t going through his head — same with him.

“hoonie.., i’m sorry that i’m not there a lot but, i.. i’m just trying really hard to impress my superior and it’s-“

“your superior?” his soft voice squeaked. “mark..?”

the girl raised her head to peer up at him, only to find his thick brows slightly scrunched while his lips were molded into a frown.

“yes,” she sighed. “mark.”

“you stayed late on our 1000 day celebration with mark?” he uttered, voice weakening at the thought.

“yes, but mark’s just my superior. he has to be there when i work late.”

sunghoon scoffed, shaking his head with a low chuckle. no words could be formed with how much jealousy was seeping through him.

“sunghoon.”

he turned his body away from hers as a response, jaw tensing with every envy thought that she unintentionally spent their 1000 day celebration with mark.

“park sunghoon,” y/n firmly called, causing him to look at her. “you can not seriously be jealous right now.”

“jealous that he got to have time with you, and i didn’t? ridiculous.” he let a small puff of air slip by his lips before gazing back at her.

at this point, the girl was completely worn out. she wanted silence, and this argument was bringing her to her limit.

“you really can’t be jealous of mark. i’m your girlfriend, he’s a coworker; and i’m only there late because of how hard i’m working to secure this job, to ensure our financial stability.” she repeated, voice slightly raised as her patience wore thin. her body was begging to rest, and she didn’t know how much longer she could take this quarrel.

sunghoon stayed quiet, considering his choice of words before mumbling, “how much does he make?”

they locked eye contact and y/n instantly saw his teary, red eyes that begged for reassurance.

“what?” she softly asked, word almost incoherent with how much her heart shattered at his gaze.

the tall male shamed his head away, tears painting his cheeks more as he reluctantly croaked — “nothing, never mind.”

“hoon-“

she stood, body barely standing on its own,

but her boyfriend walked away with a murmur — “good night.., gorgeous.”

he still said her favorite nickname even through all of this.

before y/n could say more, sunghoon had already disappeared from her sight — walking into their bedroom without another word.

she sighed whilst sitting back down onto the couch. her boyfriend had just built a barricade around his feelings, shutting himself out to push her away and she wasn’t sure on what to do.

✩ ‘i blew things out of proportion now you’re blue’ ✩

but if he needed space, then she was gonna give it.

✩ ‘why’d i have to break what i love so much?’ ✩

so she settled down onto the couch, situating between the extra pillows and blankets kept in the closet to not disturb him any further.

it wasn’t as snug as her bed with her favorite boy, but it’d do for now.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

[ 12:52am ]

y/n was half asleep on the couch now after having dreaded doubts about their argument.

her body faced away from the opening side, giving her no possible way of catching sunghoon if he were to get up for a bathroom run.

she felt cold and stiff without him. nothing would be able to comfort her as much as his embracing warmth could.

the girl softly sniffled, feeling tears well up in her tired eyes while attempting to go to sleep.

as her heart laid heavy with her, sudden feet movements were heard from her opposing side — hinting that her boyfriend had gotten up.

she figured that it was most likely for a quick bathroom break but when she felt his arms suddenly engulf her into his chest, the weighed feeling was relieved of her.

his soft breaths against her neck only acquired the way he couldn’t sleep without her.

“sunghoon?” y/n faintly whispered against him.

“we’re still mad at each other but i just can’t sleep alone tonight,” he hoarsely said back.

a smile curled onto her lips as she turned her body to face him. the boy’s eyes were closed but she could still find traces of tinted red all around.

✩ ‘it’s on your face, and i’m to blame’ ✩

“hoonie.”

✩ ‘i need to say’ ✩

slowly, he fluttered his eyes awake with a quiet sniffle in his nose. he raised his brows ever so slightly as a response, shattering her heart in the process.

she leaned in before placing a soothing kiss on the tip of his nose.

“let’s talk,” y/n uttered, lifting her drowsy body up to sit.

sunghoon softly groaned. “it’s late, baby.” he said in a low, attractive voice.

“i know, but i want us to talk this out so we can go to sleep without any worry.”

she pulled her boyfriend up so he could sit up as well.

he exhaled a heavy sigh of his before letting the quiet atmosphere take over for a second.

“you deserve someone who can provide more,” he broke out, causing her gaze on him to immediately soften. “someone who isn’t just a lost twenty-one year old figuring out life, someone like mark.”

sunghoon felt tears spark at the rim of his eyes once his confession was let out. “you shouldn’t be..,” he paused, throat closing at his reality check. “you shouldn’t be with someone like me. i’m still a college student and.., you just deserve better.”

y/n instantly felt her heart drop with his worried doubt. she let the boy stream down tears so he could cry it out and once he did so, she muttered — “hoon, please look at me..,”

but he avoided her stare, just for a second so he wouldn’t break down again. and when he finally looked at her, she embraced him into her arms.

she wrapped herself tightly around him, hinting that she wouldn’t ever leave like he said.

the male hugged back, arms clinging around her waist as he quietly sobbed a little more.

when y/n pulled away, her hands quickly cupped his cheeks — making him look at her with his eyes that were sparkled from the tears.

“you’re doing enough, sunghoon.” she confirmed with a sniffle. “everything you’re doing is enough. i don’t need or will ever want mark, i like working like this because it gives me motivation, and i love you.”

✩ ‘i’m the one who burned us down’ ✩

her last three words were emphasized before she contently sighed and continued — “i’m sorry that i stayed late on our anniversary. i shouldn’t have because i know this day was important to you too. i’m really sorry.”

✩ ‘but it’s not what i meant, i’m sorry that i hurt you’ ✩

the boy pressed his lips together to form a bread smile. “i’m sorry too, you’re a hard worker and that’s what i love about you. i shouldn’t have said those things earlier.”

y/n wore a half smile, shaking her head afterwards to say, “i know my work schedule is difficult with yours but we’ll make it through this okay? we always do because nonetheless, this is my life and i love that you’re in it.”

the girl placed a sweet and reassuring kiss on his cheek as she said, “you’re my boyfriend and i intend to keep it that way until we hit another chapter.”

✩ ‘i don’t wanna lose, i don’t wanna lose this with you’ ✩

sunghoon’s last tears dropped for the night as he pulled her into a crying kiss.

his lips touched hers and he immediately felt relieved. a quiet groan slipped by his lips in the process, allowing y/n to smile into their kiss.

his hands firmly cupped her cheeks while hers were entangled into his messy hair.

his thick brows were deliciously scrunched together in satisfaction before they both pulled away.

“another chapter, hm? want to start that right now?” the boy teased with a grin.

“sunghoon!” she shouted back, allowing her boyfriend to chortle out laughter.

“i’m kidding!” he flashed a wide smile at her before murmuring, “i’m tired anyway.”

y/n playfully rolled her eyes before smacking his arm. “sure.., let’s just go to sleep.”

she dragged sunghoon to their bedroom, slumping her body down immediately after.

the male giggled and laid down on his side, pulling her into his chest like he always did. her hands gently rested on him as he placed chaste kisses on her forehead.

“good night, pretty girl.”

“good night, baby.”

✩ ‘meet me in the afterglow’ ✩

★・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・★

522 notes · View notes

munson-blurbs · 9 months

Text

Single Dad!Eddie x Fem!Reader Series

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

Summary: Will's birthday party brings back some familiar faces and gives Eddie the perfect opportunity to make amends with Corroded Coffin, but an unexpected interruption might have him hurtling towards his old ways.

Warnings: some dirty talk (18+ only just in case), drinking/drunkenness (everyone is over 21), pregnancy and labor complications, mentions of past bullying

WC: 8.2k

Chapter 14/20

Divider credit to @saradika Special shoutout to @storiesbyrhi and @corroded-hellfire for helping with the fluffy sections and making this piece strong.

Afternoons at Hawkins Preschool are predictable: storytime on the carpet is followed by the kids’ pack-up routine, and once all belongings are shoved into their proper backpacks, they file out the door to go home.

Predictable is good. It’s safe. And it certainly doesn’t include a fire drill half an hour before dismissal.

Herding nine children through the bustling hallways and trying to ensure no one is left behind is overwhelming enough. Factor in the ear-splitting alarm and the surge of adrenaline pulsing through your students once they re-enter your classroom, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for chaos.

Instead of fighting a losing battle to keep the kids calm and quiet, you’d opted to plunk them down with myriad art supplies and called it a day.

Now, after the last student had been picked up, you and Will are left cleaning the mess they’d made. Broken crayons are scattered across the tabletops, there’s Play-Doh of various colors stuck to the floor, and gold glitter—when did you even acquire glitter?—dusts every surface.

“Seriously…who thought that that timing was a good idea?” Will grumbles, tossing a Crayola stub into the crayon basket. He adopts a nasal, mocking tone. “‘What would help out our teachers? Oh, I know—let’s interrupt their dismissal routines!’”

You laugh despite your own exhaustion. Somehow, you’ll have to muster up the energy to tutor Harris tonight.

Will reaches into the cupboard to grab his car keys, turning back around with a smile that he only offers you when he needs something. “Could I ask you for a little favor?”

There it is. “How little?” You cock one brow as you clip a stack of papers together.

“Eensy weensy. Miniscule. Microscopic–”

“The more you say it, the less I believe you.”

“Okay, okay,” Will acquiesces, twirling his keyring around his forefinger. “So, for my birthday thing on Saturday…a bunch of my childhood friends are gonna be there. Mike, Dustin, Suzie, Lucas, Max, Jane…” he lists them, ticking off each name on his fingers. “Anyway, I was hoping that maybe you could talk to Eddie about a Corroded Coffin reunion? I know they’re on a hiatus or whatever, but if anyone can convince him to play, it’s you.”

He’s not wrong; you’re the most likely person to get Eddie to do, well, anything. But asking him to make amends with Danny and Gareth and getting their band to play a gig three days from now seems like a mountainous task.

Will is staring at you, hands clasped together pleadingly. He’s too optimistic for his own good, and you can’t help but give in.

“Fine, I’ll try. But–hey, don’t get excited yet,” you warn when he pumps his fist in celebration. “‘Try’ is the key word here. I’m not making any promises.”

Your admonition goes unheeded as Will already considers it a victory. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” You give him a small, tight-lipped wave as he dashes out the door. You and Eddie were already planning to attend the party; you’d spent part of last night scouring an art store for the perfect gift. And he and Jeff were back to being thick as thieves…maybe this could work.

“All right, Mr. Harris,” you say with a laugh, hurriedly placing tiles of various shapes in front of him. You need to make the most of the few minutes you have left until Eddie arrives. There’s a soft, familiar flutter in your stomach as you think about seeing your boyfriend, but you know you can’t compete with him for Harris’s attention. “Can you find the…trapezoid?” The inflection in your voice makes it sound like a much more exciting task than it really is, and you hope it’s enough to wrangle his focus.

Harris pokes out his tiny pink tongue as he assesses the tiles. He initially reaches for the blue rhombus, but as soon as his little finger touches it, he pulls away as though it’s on fire. “No…that’s not it.” You tuck your lips into your mouth to suppress your amusement as he thoughtfully taps his forefinger on his lips. A solid ten seconds pass before he triumphantly snatches up the correct tile. “Got it!” he beams, showing off the red trapezoid in his hand.

“You did! You got the trapezoid!” You hold up your hand for a high-five, frowning when he shakes his head. His overgrown curls brush along his eyebrows, and you wonder if it’s your place to suggest that Eddie take him for a haircut. “No high-five?”

“Nuh-uh,” Harris protests, now swiveling his whole body in defiance. “I want…tickles!” He holds his arms out, leaving his torso wide open.

Lips pursed in faux consideration, you lower your voice to a hushed whisper. “Hmm…I think that warrants a visit from the Tickle Monster!” You flex your fingers so they resemble claws; he instinctively scrunches up in anticipation, arms tucked into his stomach. You let out your silliest wicked cackle as your fingers dig mercilessly into his sides in pursuit of his most ticklish spots. Delighted peals of laughter emanate from his chest, and you don’t stop until the buzzer rings, signaling Eddie’s arrival.

Harris’s eyes get wide, mischief dancing behind his pupils. “Do you think the Tickle Monster should get Daddy?” he asks, keeping his voice low despite it only being the two of you.

“Oh, absolutely.” You buzz Eddie in while formulating the game plan aloud. “I’ll grab the pizza and you go on the attack. Once the food is secured, I’ll join you.” You stick out your pinky, and he wraps his own around it.

“Ms. Sweetheart?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

His words turn your heart into a chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven, ooey gooey and destined to crumble if handled too harshly. “I love you, too, Harris,” you manage, blinking back embarrassing tears. The flood of emotion is absurd; he probably tells his stuffed animals that he loves them with the same fervor, but you can’t deny the adoration with which he looks at you.

He flings his arms around you in a hug, squeezing tight. Face pressed to your ribs, his words are muffled but still audible when he says, “I don’t know why Daddy says it’s hard to say ‘I love you.’”

He doesn’t have time to further elaborate before Eddie’s knocking on the door. “Special delivery for my two favorite people!” Your heart beats faster with the knowledge that he’s on the other side, that you’ll be able to sneak in a kiss or two.

You and Harris share devious grins, the little boy emulating your monster-esque stance from earlier. He creeps behind you on his tiptoes, and bites back a giggle when you slowly open the door, counting down from three under your breath.

“Hi–whoa!” Eddie stumbles back as Harris barrels into him, little fingers dancing across his lower stomach. You quickly snatch the pizza box from Eddie’s grasp and place it on the table before darting back to where his son has ambushed him. You start on his bicep and let your nails travel upwards until they reach the crook of his neck.

“I’m under attack!” Eddie yelps, twitching this way and that way in a meager attempt to protect himself. “I bring you pizza and this is how I’m repaid?” He easily scoops Harris into his arms, flinging him over his shoulder. Harris lets out an exhilarated squeal, carelessly kicking his sock-clad feet into his dad’s chest. “Jesus, little dude. You’re getting too strong.” Wincing slightly from the pinch in his back as he places the boy on the floor, he gives his tush a little pat and tells him to wash up for dinner, reminding him to use soap and water.

As soon as Harris scampers off into the bathroom, Eddie’s grabbing you by the belt loops of the wide-leg jeans you’d changed into when you got home. One hand slides around your waist and the other finds purchase on your cheek as he kisses you deeply, keeping a listening ear out for the telltale pitter-patter of Harris returning.

“Missed you,” he murmurs into your mouth, and you shiver at the intimacy this closeness brings.

You laugh quietly, biting your lower lip. “We just saw each other this morning,” you remind him, sneaking in another quick peck.

Eddie shakes his head. “Y’know what I mean. Can’t do this while you’re on the clock,” he counters, shifting his grip so both hands rest on either side of your face. You think he’s going to kiss you again, but he just gazes into your eyes. “Shit, you’re so fuckin’ pretty. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ about you today.” He rests the slope of his nose on yours, only snapping out of his trance at the sound of Harris rapidly switching the faucet on and off. “Let me go check on him before this place is underwater,” he whispers, giving your own ass a smack as he shuffles towards his mischievous son, a cheeky grin deepening his dimples.

You do your best to compose yourself, heat creeping up your neck and into your face. Busying yourself by placing pizza slices onto paper plates does little to distract you; it’s as though every neuron is dedicated to flooding your brain with Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

The way the pads of his fingertips brush against your cheeks when he holds your face. The plush moisture of his lips when he kisses your forehead. The tickle of his brown tresses when he nuzzles into you and takes a deep breath, finally able to relax after a long day.

“Are you expecting a guest?” Eddie pipes up from the kitchen entrance. A perplexed frown overtakes your lips until he gestures to what you’ve laid out in front of you: four slices of pizza, two plain and two with olives, on four plates.

Your vision gets a bit fuzzy with tears when you realize what you’ve done. “No, it’s, um…” Nostrils flare as you huff out a short puff of air, hot under your nose. “Force of habit, sorry.” You’ve been so diligent about only serving three slices, but your preoccupation with his touch had your mind drifting from the task at hand.

It takes him a moment to process what you mean, but when he does, his face falls. It was for Grandma. “It’s okay,” he says, cringing as the words leave his mouth. Because it’s not okay that you’re sad; it’s normal, but frustration still tugs at his heart that he can’t take it away.

It feels wrong to return the slice to the box, so you leave it where it is. Eddie balances the three plates, sliding a plain one in front of Harris. The boy digs in hungrily, sauce caught on the edges of his smile.

“How was work?” you ask Eddie, grabbing a napkin from the pile in the center of the table. It’s a simple question, one that people ask each other all the time, but it stirs up a warmth inside of him. It’s you asking him, fostering a domestic routine that he could follow for the rest of his life. He’d walk through the door of your house, wiping his shoes on the welcome mat you two had picked out together. The kids–Harris, plus another Little Munson or two–would practically knock him down trying to greet him, and he’d engulf them in bear hugs before reaching out to you, kissing your forehead with a murmured, “there’s my girl.”

“Eds?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, it was good.” He stumbles over the words, trying to clear his head of the fantasy he’d conjured up. “Lotsa paperwork, y’know.” He takes a bite of pizza, chewing thoughtfully. “What about you?”

You shrug, watching amusedly as Harris sinks his teeth into his slice and manages to pull all of the cheese off of the crust in one fell swoop. “The usual. The kids are learning about springtime, so Will decided to do a craft making flowers using finger paint and their handprints.”

“Sounds messy.”

“Oh, absolutely,” you agree with a weary grin, “but it was super cute, and Will is great with all that art stuff.” You excuse yourself from the table to get the water pitcher and three glasses, stopping when you remember your TA’s request. “He also asked me if a certain local metal band could play his birthday party on Saturday…?”

Eddie pauses mid-chew, nearly choking on his food. The cheese seems to congeal in his mouth when he tries to speak. “Um, I don’t know about that,” he finally manages, nervously massaging the back of his neck. “I haven’t talked to Danny or Gareth since…”

“I know, but you said you wanted to make things right with them,” you point out. “Maybe Jeff can test the waters? See if they’re ready to talk to you?”

“Maybe.” He averts his gaze, staring at the pizza slice without taking another bite.

You don’t want to further push the subject in Harris’s presence; instead, you turn your attention to the little boy. “Anything fun happen at school today, Har?”

“Nah,” he responds automatically just a half-second before his eyes light up. “Actually, yeah! My friend Charlie ate a bug at recess today!”

“Ew!” you exclaim, wrinkling your nose in pure disgust, as Eddie simultaneously poses the question, “what kind of bug?”

“An ant,” Harris answers his dad nonchalantly, as though ant-eating is an everyday occurrence. Perhaps it is, which is even more unsettling.

“Did you eat any bugs?” You’re afraid of his response; you’re unsure why you even asked in the first place.

To your relief, he shakes his head, a forlorn look on his cherubic face. “No, I couldn’t catch any in time.”

“Thank God for small miracles,” you mutter, turning back to your original task of getting something to drink. Though if the topic of bug consumption continues, you’ll need something much stronger than water.

Could Corroded Coffin play again?

It’s a thought that consumes Eddie for the entirety of his drive home, barely able to listen to Harris yammering about how there’s a coin in his jacket pocket that he doesn’t remember putting there. He throws a few lackluster mhms his son’s way and hopes he’s too distracted by the mystery coin to catch on.

We’re getting the band back together. Well, if Jake and Elwood Blues could swing it, maybe he could, too.

He waits until Harris is asleep to call Jeff. Getting his son to do his bedtime routine is easiest on Wednesday nights; he’s usually exhausted after a full day of school and tutoring. The one time that Eddie could use an excuse to procrastinate, Harris is out like a light.

Go to voicemail go to voicemail go to—

“‘Lo?”

Shit. “H-Hey, man,” Eddie begins awkwardly. “How’s it going? Viv doing okay?”

“We’re good. She’s ready to have this baby already. I reminded her, ‘just two more weeks,’ but then she told me to ‘fuck off’ until I’m the pregnant one, so…” he chuckles, more nervous than amused. “Everything good with you? Harris?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Just, um,” he struggles to find the words, blurting out the first ones that enter his brain. They come out in a rush before he can stop them. “Do Gareth and Danny still hate me?”

Jeff takes a sharp breath in; his reaction does nothing to temper Eddie’s nerves. “They never hated you. They were just…disappointed? Jesus, I sound like my mom.”

Eddie misses his friend’s anecdote, too wrapped up in his head to fully pay attention. Somehow, disappointed stings worse than the prospect of being hated, especially when the people he’s let down are ones who used to idolize him. “Do you think there’s a way they could be…undisappointed in me? Like, enough to forgive me and maybe play a gig this weekend?”

There’s an extended pause, and then a one-word response: “Christ.”

Eddie can picture Jeff rubbing his eyes in exasperation, and he scrambles to explain. “Will Byers–you remember him? He was in Hellfire; had that weird bowl cut thing going on?”

“Mhm.”

“He’s having a birthday thing at the Hideout on Saturday and asked if we could play. Just a coupla songs.”

Jeff thinks for a moment; Eddie can hear him drumming his fingers on a nearby surface.

“Why don’t you come over tomorrow night around…6?” he ventures. “I’ll invite the guys and we can…I dunno, figure something out.”

“Thanks, man. I owe you.” He’s about to hang up when he remembers to ask, “Can I bring Harris?”

“Of course.”

“Har, slow down!” Eddie’s barely unbuckled his son’s car seat before Harris has wriggled out of the sedan, bolting straight for Jeff’s door.

“But I haven’t seen Uncle Danny and Uncle Gareth in forever!” he laments, reaching the house far faster than Eddie. He stands on tiptoes and rings the doorbell like a madman, forefinger jamming into the button at warp speed. “Uncle Jeff! It’s me!”

Jeff opens the door with a huge smile. “Mini Munson!” He scoops the boy up into a hug. “What’s new with you, little dude?”

“I got a wiggly tooth!” Harris exclaims, jutting out his jaw and pressing his tongue against the front center of his mouth. Sure enough, the baby tooth moves slightly forward, and he giggles. “Daddy says the Tooth Fairy’s gonna come and leave me a dollar,” he matter-of-factly reports. He peeks his head over Jeff’s shoulder, squealing and squirming out of his grip when he spots the two men sitting on the couch. He flings himself onto the sofa and plunks himself down into Gareth’s lap. “Hi!”

“Hey, kiddo!” Gareth chirps. “You’re getting so big.”

“‘M five now. I had a birthday party because I turned five.” He splays out his palm to offer five fingers.

“Did your friends go?”

“Yup!” Harris beams at the memory. “An’ Daddy an’ Grampa Wayne an’ Ms. Sweetheart.”

Danny furrows his brows. “Who’s Ms. Sweetheart?”

“She’s my almost-mommy. Daddy has to fall in love with her first.”

“Is that so?” Gareth smirks at Eddie. His teasing look is the first crack in the wall that has separated the men for the last six months, and though Eddie is thoroughly embarrassed, it alleviates some of his anxiety.

“Uh, Har Bear, why don’t you go hang out with Auntie Viv while I talk with the guys?”

Viv holds out her left hand, looking utterly exhausted. Her right hand rests on her bump, eyes sending a telepathic message to Jeff that they have five minutes—ten minutes, if Harris behaves well—to come to a solution before she needs a break.

Silence filters into the room as Eddie fumbles to address the mess he’s made. If Danny and Gareth are here, they’re at least willing to listen to him, which is honestly farther than he’d assumed he’d get.

He remembers what Harris said about apologizing; technically, what you’d taught him about apologizing: the act of saying sorry, not merely implying it, makes a world of difference.

“I was an asshole,” he starts. It’s not his most eloquent statement, but it certainly gets the point across. “Not just that night at the Hideout, or at our last practice. I was an asshole for a long time before that. And…I’m sorry.” It feels good to say it; it feels even better that they’re nodding, seeming to believe him. “You guys didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

Of the rest of the band, Gareth is the one to speak first. “I guess I’m just wondering, why? Why be an asshole to us? We’ve always been there for you.”

“I know.” Eddie fiddles with a thread hanging from his t-shirt, pulling on it until it snaps off. He shoves it in his jeans pocket, not wanting to mess up Jeff and Viv’s place. “Honestly…I’m not sure, but I think it’s because you guys are everything I’m not.”

“What are you talking about?” Danny asks, tone heavy with disbelief.

“In high school, I was the one you looked up to. The person you wanted to be like. And then I had a kid with some random chick I thought I knew but barely did, gave up my dreams of being a musician, and started selling weed again just to scrape by. And here you guys are. Jeff,” he motions to the friend leaning against the sofa’s arm, “you have a baby on the way with the love of your life. And all of you have goddamn college degrees and jobs that you don’t despise and don’t require you to hide from the law.” He shoves his ringed fingers into his jacket pockets, lowering his voice to barely above a whisper. “And I was nothing.”

Gareth scratches at the upholstery with one finger, absorbing everything he’s just heard. “You know we never stopped looking up to you, right?” He gives a short laugh when Eddie’s eyes widen. “Yeah, man. Leaving Chicago so you could take care of Harris? Putting your kid before yourself? That’s pretty badass.”

Danny nods. “Ed, if there’s someone here to look up to, it’s you.” Both he and Eddie visibly relax. Shoulders drop from their hunched positions, thin lips unfurling into smiles. “No matter what you went through, you never gave up. Even if it almost killed us,” he adds wryly, referring to all of the sleep-deprived Corroded Coffin practices fueled by black coffee and pure adrenaline.

“No fancy diploma can teach us how to stand up for ourselves, or how not to take shit from people, or how to be a dad,” Jeff pipes up from where he’s standing. “We learn from you, man.”

Eddie’s cheeks burn at the compliments, unsure how to accept them. He’d walked in expecting to have to beg for forgiveness, and they were the ones reassuring him. It’s now or never, and he forges ahead while he still has the courage. “Do you…can we get the band back together?” Can we be friends again is the underlying plea, but it’s too vulnerable a statement to make. “We’ll keep it low-key, I promise. Work, family, anything comes up…we can cancel or reschedule. And I won’t be a dick about it.”

The three other men look at one another, nod and turn back to Eddie with smart grins and mischievous glimmers in their eyes.

“On one condition.” Gareth crosses his arms over his chest, smirking as he sinks back against the couch. “You tell us all about this ‘Ms. Sweetheart.’”

The Hideout, normally dingy and coated in a film of sticky ale, has been decked out for Will’s birthday party. Helium-filled balloons in every color bob along the low ceiling, vibrating with the thumping bass of the old sound system. Crepe paper streamers–purple, Will’s favorite color–sway gently with the air that rushes in from opening the door. This has to be Marshall’s handiwork, and it brings a smile to your face. If anyone deserves a partner who fawns over him, it’s Will.

You spot him surrounded by a group of people as the bartender slides a row of tequila shots across the bar and into their eager hands. While they’re distracted by alcohol, you take the opportunity to dart towards the backstage area.

Eddie’s there, digging around for his lucky pick. You wrap your arms around his waist, fingers pressed into the soft dough of his tummy.

“Hey, Rockstar,” you murmur against his neck, kissing just below his earlobe.

He turns around, jaw dropping when he sees you in a maroon slip dress. The heels on your feet have you two inches taller than usual, and he has to shift where his gaze normally lands to meet your eyes.

“Fuckin’ Christ, baby,” Eddie practically growls, kissing you deeply. One hand presses against the small of your back while the other grabs the plush of your ass, kneading it in his palm. “You’re so fuckin’ sexy. How’m I gonna go out there and play with you looking like that?”

“I’ll make it worth your while.” You giggle when he offers up a bemused smile. “If you do a good job tonight, I’ll give you a reward.” You let your fingertips graze over the metal teeth of his pants zipper, feeling him twitch at your light touch.

“You’re dangerous,” he winks, delivering another kiss; this time, he gives your lower lip a little bite when he pulls away. His kohl-rimmed eyes draw you in just as they did that first night you’d met, but now you dive into them without the fear of drowning.

A tactful “ahem” from the now-open doorway startles both you and Eddie, having been floating in an embrace that’s equal parts comfort and desire.

“Sorry to interrupt the lovefest, but we’re on in five,” a man’s voice calls from the doorway. You turn around to see the other three Corroded Coffin members standing there, amusement evident in their expressions.

“You must be Ms. Sweetheart,” one of the guys, soft curls resting atop his head, pipes up. His tone is teasing, but not mocking; the nickname is said with admiration and affection. “I’m Gareth, by the way.”

“Danny,” the one with tight, wiry curls offers, giving a small wave.

Jeff just shrugs. “You know me.”

Eddie grabs his guitar, slinging the strap across his body. His pants’ fly is tight, and he wills himself to calm down before it’s time to perform. He hasn’t worried about being hard on stage since he was nineteen, but thoughts of your bodies perfectly melding into each other has him subtly adjusting himself as he turns his back to his bandmates.

“See ya out there, baby,” he says before pressing a quick kiss to your cheek. The brief contact between you has you biting your tongue in self-beration for suggesting that the band play tonight. All you want is to dance with him, allowing the steady flow of alcohol to dull your inhibitions as you pull him impossibly close. Not caring who sees or what they think.

But this night isn’t about you or Eddie. It’s about Will, your TA-turned-friend who has kept you sane amidst your adorably chaotic students and their decidedly less adorable and more chaotic parents. He wanted Corroded Coffin to play his party, and that’s the least you could do for him.

Will’s already teetering between tipsy and inebriated, breath tinged with the scent of tequila as he introduces you to his friends.

“This is my amazing boyfriend, Marshall.” He smacks a wet kiss to the man’s cheek. “And these are my friends from growing up: Dustin and Suzie, Lucas and Max, and Mike and Jane.” His face melts into a sappy grin as he leans on Marshall to hold him up. “You guys! We’re all in looooove!”

“Jesus Christ,” Dustin mutters, rolling his eyes and shaking his head before turning his attention back to you. “Can we get you something to drink?”

Will raises his empty glass. “I’ll take another–”

“Not you.”

You manage to sneak in a quick conversation with Max, Suzie, and Jane before Corroded Coffin starts their set. Max is finishing up her Masters in English literature at New York University, set to graduate in two months. Suzie programs for NASA, and though Florida is a far cry from her home state of Utah, she loves her job. And Jane is a social worker at a local adoption agency, the cause close to her heart, as she was adopted by Chief Hopper years ago.

“Damn,” you laugh, taking a small sip of your vodka soda. You’re having so much fun that you don’t even care that it’s been watered down. “You’re all such badasses!”

Your admiration of their collective girl power is cut short by the sound of Corroded Coffin taking the stage. It’s as though they’d never taken an extended break; just picked up right where they left off. You cheer so loudly that there’s a pinch in your throat, but you push past it. It’s more than applause. There’s so much tucked away in your yell: I’m proud of you; you’re a rockstar; you’re my person forever, if you’ll have me.

“Hello, Hawkins!” Eddie bellows into the mic. There’s no missing the grin on his face. He’s happy. He’s in his element. He’s where he belongs.

“No way!” Lucas exclaims, awestruck as he turns to Will.

“Dude, you got Corroded Coffin?” Mike mirrors his friend’s excitement. He slings an arm around Will’s shoulder and pulls him in for a side hug. “This is fuckin’ awesome!”

“The first song of the night goes out to our guest of honor, Will Byers!” Everyone hoots and hollers as Eddie plays the opening chords to The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go. Eddie told you he remembered that the song was one of Will’s favorites growing up; his older brother had gotten him into the band. Sure enough, Will’s bopping to the rhythm, singing every word, albeit quite off-key.

Corroded Coffin plays a few more songs from their usual setlist, nerves dissipating with each note, before Eddie speaks into the mic again.

“This next one is for my beautiful girlfriend,” he announces, eyes gazing into yours. “Baby, if my teachers looked like you, I actually would’ve gone to class.”

He nods at Gareth, who starts playing an incredibly complicated beat. As soon as you hear it, you feel your cheeks heat up. The rest of the guys join in on their own instruments, and Eddie oozes bravado as he sings.

“T-Teacher stop that screamin’ Teacher don’t you see Don’t wanna be no uptown fool.”

Max leans in to you and whisper-shouts, “I’ve known Eddie for years, and I’ve never seen him so…happy.”

Lucas overhears his girlfriend and adds his two cents. “That’s because we’ve never seen him in love.”

Warmth spreads all over your body, but it’s not from embarrassment. Allowing yourself to believe that Eddie loves you—is in love with you—opens a door you’d deadbolted until the time was right. You hadn’t wanted to rush things, but the jolt of exhilaration following Lucas’s statement means you can’t deny it any longer: you love Eddie Munson. You’re in love with Eddie Munson.

“Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad I'm hot for teacher I've got it bad, so bad I'm hot for teacher.”

Will takes the opportunity to twirl you around, and you laugh as you spin amongst new friends, your drink threatening to spill over the sides as he turns you faster.

“Hey! Thank you, by the way!” he shouts, probably a bit louder than he needs to.

“For what?”

“For getting Corroded Coffin to play!” He jerks a thumb towards the stage, stumbling a bit as he does. He’d managed to sneak another tequila shot when his boyfriend left him unattended to use the restroom, and it definitely shows. “And for, like, being there for me.”

You give him a hug, immediately understanding the full implication of his statement. “I’ll always have your back,” you promise, filled with the mingled buzzes of alcohol and belonging.

“I think of all the education that I've missed But then my homework was never quite like this!”

Eddie jumps off of the tiny stage and into the crowd of nine twenty-somethings, each at various levels of tipsiness, and reaches for you to pull you close to him. He’s sweating from constantly moving around and the stage lights, his fingers slick with perspiration as he laces them with yours. Jeff picks up the rhythm for the lead guitar while Eddie kisses you, soft and slow and sensual. He loses himself for a moment before hopping back up to join the rest of the band.

As Corroded Coffin wraps up their Van Halen cover and stops for a quick sip of water, there’s a small commotion behind the bar.

“Is there a Jeff Reynolds here?” the bartender calls out, phone receiver in hand.

Jeff gives a little wave, eyebrows raised in surprise. “That’s me.”

“Someone named Jess on the line? Says your girl is in labor and you need to get to the hospital.”

“Holy shit!” Danny claps a hand to Jeff’s back and grins. “C’mon, man! Let’s get you outta here!”

Jeff freezes up; hands clammy as he grips the guitar’s neck. “Can you drive?” he asks Eddie.

Eddie recognizes the fear in his friend’s voice. The selfish part of him wants to refuse to take Jeff to Hawkins General. He could easily plant his feet on the stage and keep playing, claiming that ‘the show must go on.’

No, he silently chastises himself, Jeff needs me. He needs me and I’ll be damned if I let him down again.

“Of course,” Eddie says, trying to force a relaxed disposition. It doesn’t matter; Jeff is too overwhelmed to notice the obvious effort.

“Take my car,” you offer, keys already dangling from your fingertips. “Eds, I can take yours and pick up Harris from Wayne’s tomorrow.” It’s easier to swap rides than to uninstall and reinstall the carseat, so you’re perplexed when Eddie shakes his head.

Two words slip through his lips, soft but pronounced: “Need you.”

Dustin catches wind of the situation and insists on watching Harris until you and Eddie can come back home, claiming he needs to squeeze in as much uncle-nephew bonding time as possible before returning to Florida.

“Henderson, it’s late; don’t let him stay up,” Eddie warns as he tosses over his car keys.

Dustin tries catching them in one hand, but they hit the center of his palm and fall to the ground. “But the best part of being an uncle is breaking the rules!” he laughs as he scoops the keys off of the floor. “By the way, I’m not drunk; just a shit baseball player.” Still, Eddie’s sigh of relief is audible when Suzie plucks the keyring from Dustin’s hand.

With Harris taken care of, you turn your attention to your boyfriend. Eddie’s face is flushed pale, and you’re worried about him behind the wheel. “Want me to drive?”

He nods and grabs onto your hand as you lead the two men to your car. Eddie’s doing his best to keep Jeff calm, reminding him that the doctors and nurses have everything under control until he gets there.

“I’m gonna be a dad,” Jeff murmurs, a disbelieving chuckle permeating the otherwise silent car. “Holy shit.”

Eddie can’t help but smile back. “It only gets crazier from here.”

The bright lights of the hospital’s waiting room are anything but soothing, especially compared to the dimly-lit bar you’d just left. You speak to the receptionist, an older woman with a tired smile and red-rouged cheeks, explaining the situation as she pages Jess while Jeff and Eddie take a seat.

Jeff’s voice is nearly impossible to hear despite the stillness of the room. “The baby was breech at Viv’s last appointment.” He clocks Eddie’s confusion and elaborates. “Feet first, instead of the head. If they didn’t get into the right position and the doctors can’t, I dunno, flip ‘em around? They’ll have to do a c-section.” Long overdue tears spill over his lash line, and he makes no attempt to swipe them away. “I just wanna fix it and I can’t.”

Helplessness. It’s a feeling Eddie knows all too well. He spins a ring around his finger, exhaling softly as he considers a response. He can’t say it’ll be alright, because he has no idea whether or not it will be. He and Jeff both know that.

“No matter what, I’m here for you.” Eddie’s gaze flits over to the receptionist’s desk, where Jess has now arrived and is waving her brother-in-law over. “You’re up.”

But Jeff remains in his chair, hands shoved under his thighs as though they’re glued to the seat. “I…I don’t know if I can do this. What if something happens to Viv or the baby? How can I…?” He doesn’t allow himself to complete the sentence, to finish the thought.

Instinctively, Eddie puts his hands on Jeff’s shoulders. He can feel them trembling slightly as his friend heaves another shaky breath. “Listen to me. You’re gonna do this. You’re gonna go in that room and watch your girl give birth to your baby. Because if you don’t, you’re gonna regret it for the rest of your fuckin’ life.” He glances around and lowers his voice. “I know you’re scared, okay? I get it. And once your kid is safely here, we can talk about it. But right now, you need to pull it together and go be a goddamn dad.”

Jeff nods, finally acquiring the physical stability to stand. “Thank you,” he whispers, clearing his throat and wiping the wet stains from his cheeks. He starts towards Jess before turning back to Eddie. “Could you stay until the baby’s born? If you have to get home to Harris, I understand…”

There it is: his out. He can easily use his son as an excuse, despite the fact that Dustin and Suzie were perfectly capable of babysitting him. He can hightail it out of here and never look back. He can crawl into bed and feel sorry for himself for having to step foot in a godforsaken maternity ward again.

“Yeah. I can stay.”

Nearly an hour passes with Eddie’s head resting on your shoulder, relaying what Jeff told him. Identical knots form in your stomachs as the seriousness of the complications sets in. You don’t say a word as he speaks; you just try to shift without disturbing him. The cushion on the chair back, worn thin, digs into you uncomfortably, but you don’t dare move too much. His vulnerability is a deer that will scamper away at the slightest startle.

You think he’s fallen asleep until you feel his soft lips on your cheek, a muffled, “mine?” against your skin. You note his phrasing; it’s careful and unsure, a symptom of being in his own head for far too long.

“Of course I’m yours,” you whisper back, pressing a kiss to his scalp. “What’s got you asking such silly questions?”

“I don’t like this.” It’s an answer and non-answer all in one.

“Being in a hospital?”

He shakes his head, frizzed curls tickling the crook of your neck. His forehead is sticky with cooled perspiration. “Waiting to see if the baby is okay.”

The realization hits you like a punch to the stomach, immediately hollowing you out. The last time he went through this, it was when Harris was being born. You can’t think of anything to say, so you just nuzzle in closer to him and exhale.

“Why do I feel like this?” Neither of you are sure if he’s asking you, himself, or the universe. “‘S not the same. Viv’s not using drugs; Jeff stuck around the whole time…”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s not how this stuff works, y’know?” You adjust your position so you can look into his eyes. The whites are stained red with worry and exhaustion. “Your gig got interrupted, just like when Harris was born. And there's uncertainty now, too. It’s normal for these kinds of memories to get dredged up.” Your palm rests on his cheek, thumb gently stroking the skin as you ask, “can you try to get some sleep?”

“But what if Jeff needs—”

“I’ll wake you up if he needs you,” you reassure him, settling back into the chair. You lean your head against the wall; the heaviness in your eyelids battles the anxious fluttering in your stomach, but it seems as though sleep is winning.

Eddie’s hand finds your forearm, rubbing up and down the gooseflesh that has appeared courtesy of the air conditioning blasting through the building. Shrugging off his jacket and resting the leather fabric over your shoulders, he can relax once he’s reassured that you’re comfortable. He assumes his previous position, using your shoulder as a pillow and falling asleep gradually, body jostling itself awake from the unfamiliar sleeping arrangement. Eventually, you can hear his soft snores; for the first time tonight, he’s peaceful.

You could tell him now, a whisper under your breath that he’s unlikely to hear. I love you, Eddie. I’m in love with you. Your lips part in anticipation, but you snap them shut. You’re delirious and overwhelmed; Lucas’s throwaway comment about Eddie being in love is rattling around your brain. If you say it and Eddie hears you…

You keep it to yourself for now, letting your body rest while still supporting Eddie’s head. Tomorrow is a new day, with a new life brought into the world. Love—if that’s even what this is—will have to wait until then.

The soft pink of breaking daylight streams through the windows when Jeff wakes Eddie up six hours later, shaking him by the shoulders.

“What the fuck?” Eddie grumbles, wiping the sleep from his eyes. When he registers where he is and the potential urgency of the situation, he sits up straight, head filling with fuzziness from the sudden movement. He wouldn’t call the evening restful, but he’d managed to doze off for longer than he’d expected.

“It’s a girl!” Jeff announces, beaming from ear to ear. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, bursting with enthusiasm and emotion.

As soon as Eddie’s vision clears, he’s on his feet and pulling his best friend in for a giant hug. When he steps back, he realizes that he and Jeff sport matching misty eyes. “Dude, you’re officially a dad now. You have a daughter!”

“I have a daughter,” Jeff repeats incredulously. His eyes cloud with tears, and he blinks them away as he peers over at the empty seat next to Eddie. “Did your lady go home?”

Eddie swivels around, so caught up in the moment that he hadn’t realized he was alone. She left. She left without me; she didn’t want to stick around and deal with–

“Did Viv have the baby?” Your excited voice penetrates through his intrusive thoughts as you stroll in from the hallway. The makeup around your eyes is smudged; you’d tried to wipe some of it off in the bathroom, but water and thin hospital paper towels are no substitute for makeup wipes. “Sorry, I had to pee.”

Eddie smiles at the sight of you, still wearing his jacket. He hopes his sigh of relief is concealed by Jeff’s exuberance. “A girl. Six pounds, ten ounces.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Wanna meet her?”

“Of course!” You and Eddie begin following him down the corridor. “Wait, is Viv feeling up to having visitors?” You’re mildly ashamed to admit that, in your eagerness, you’d forgotten about the baby being breech and the possible c-section.

Jeff nods. “I think my daughter’s gonna be a gymnast, ‘cause she’d flipped herself back around between the appointment and last night.”

There’s no masking Jeff’s pride when he says my daughter, and it makes Eddie want to hug him again. “That’s amazing,” he murmurs. There’s a small pang in his heart, a bead of resentment that Harris’s birth didn’t go so smoothly, but it’s unimportant right now. His best friend just became a father, and he refuses to let his own hang-ups take away from this moment.

“Hi,” you whisper when Jeff opens the door to room 1007. Viv is propped up against pillows, exhausted but happier than she’s ever been before. Your gaze is immediately drawn to the hours-old bundle in her arms. “How are you?”

“Sore,” she replies truthfully, brushing her forefinger against her baby’s closed fist, “but the epidural was a lifesaver.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you tease, unaware that your words have Eddie’s heart skipping a beat at the idea of you bearing a little Munson. “Is it okay if I hold her?” You don’t want to intrude on the new mother’s bonding time, but your insides turn to mush when the baby opens her tiny lips and yawns.

Viv carefully places the newborn in your arms, and you gingerly adjust to support her head. Eddie swears that you holding a baby, in that dress, wearing his jacket, is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. “Did Jeff tell you her name?” Viv asks, stifling a yawn. When you and Eddie both shake your heads, she smiles and glances at her partner.

He clears his throat, suddenly bashful. Eddie forces himself to tear his gaze from the way you smile and coo at the baby and look over at Jeff. “Her name is Nicolette,” he starts, “but that’s a big name for a little girl, so we figured we can call her Ettie, and she’ll kinda…share a nickname with you.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide, convinced he heard incorrectly. “You…I’m her namesake?”

“Mhm,” Jeff confirms, the grin never leaving his face. What neither you nor Eddie know is that they had had a different name picked out, and had fully intended on using it until the first time Jeff held their daughter. It filled him with a feeling of wholeness, of being complete, and it strangely had him thinking of his best friend. Without Eddie taking him under his wing, he might not even be here to experience this.

It was only by chance that he had stumbled upon Hellfire Club during his freshman year. He was running from Billy Hargrove and his posse, who were determined to beat the hell out of him simply because they could, and had ducked into the drama room to protect himself. Eddie had taken one look at his face and immediately recognized the expression of fear and defeat from being incessantly bullied. “You know how to play Dungeons & Dragons?” he’d asked, and when Jeff had managed a nod, he’d pulled up a chair and motioned for him to sit down.

Being Eddie’s friend, being part of something, gave him a reason to keep going. To live. And in that instant, he vowed to teach his child to extend kindness toward any misfits who need a place to be themselves.

“What about Nicolette?” he’d asked Viv. “Ettie for short.”

You turn to Eddie now, continuing the steady rocking rhythm that keeps Baby Ettie calm. “What do you say, Mr. Namesake? Wanna hold her?”

There’s a brief flash of panic that floods through his veins; he hasn’t held a newborn since Harris. He’d always worried about dropping him or tripping and falling. Truth be told, he was terrified until his son could hold his own head up.

It’s similar, but not the same, he reminds himself, shuffling even closer to you so you can safely transition Ettie into his arms. She stirs slightly in her swaddle but doesn’t cry.

“Hey, little lady,” he says, a delicate smile dancing on his lips. “I’m your Uncle Eddie. The coolest uncle you’ll ever have, for the record.”

“Harris is gonna love her,” you add, heart swelling at the imagery of him cuddling up to his newest cousin.

“Babe?” Viv pipes up from the bed. “Can you grab me something to eat? ‘M starving.”

“Yeah, of course.” Jeff turns to Eddie. “Come with me? I think Viv needs to feed Ettie, anyway.”

Viv extends her arms and Eddie begrudgingly hands the baby to her. Ettie’s so adorable and small, and it makes him yearn for the days when Harris was that little. Maybe not the sleepless nights or the lack of head control, but the scent of baby powder, the toothless smiles, the way he would fall asleep in Eddie’s arms to whatever song happened to be on the radio. Harris Munson might have been the only infant to be soothed by Twisted Sister.

The two men make their way to the hospital cafeteria, sneakers squeaking along the freshly-waxed linoleum tiles.

“I, um, I’m really proud of the way you stepped up for Viv,” Eddie says, eyes trained on the floor. “You’re a great partner. I feel like I should be taking notes.”

Jeff laughs, shaking his head. “That's where my expertise ends. I have no idea how this whole fatherhood thing works.”

“Wanna hear a secret?” Eddie leans in, shifting his weight onto one foot. He doesn’t wait for his friend’s response to divulge, “none of us do. We’re just…” he waves his hand aimlessly, “…figuring it out as we go.” And making plenty of mistakes along the way, he silently adds.

“I don’t know how you did this alone,” Jeff puffs out an incredulous breath. “I mean, I know you had Wayne’s help…” he trails off, not needing to further elaborate on the missing parent.

“Yeah, me either, man. I’m just glad I’m not alone anymore.”

Jeff stops walking, turning to face him. There’s the unmistakable look of pride that manages to make itself prominent despite his evident exhaustion as he says, “You really want this with her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, man,” Eddie chuckles. “It’s like, for the first time, I’m not just thinking about just me or just Harris. I’m thinking about us as a family.” The dinnertime conversations, the gentle ribbings, the tenderness that seamlessly weaves itself into vulnerable conversations.

“She’s good for you,” Jeff agrees. “And you love her.”

“I mean, I—”

“That was a statement, not a question. You love her.”

And in a single breath, Eddie lets go of the fear he’s been clutching to like a life preserver. The one thing he hasn’t allowed himself to say aloud because it makes it so real, so fucking real.

“I love her.”

@kelsiegrin @lma1986 @munsonology @stuckontheceiling @avobabe87 @eddapwinchester @peachysink @browneyes8288 @jeremyspoke-inclasstoday

@breezybeesposts @wednesdaymunson @feltonswifesworld87 @take-everything-you-can @bebe07011 @81rain @dylanmunson @oscarisaacwhore @eddiesguitarskills @everheart12 @etherealglimmer @hollster88 @wh0re4life @siriuslysmoking

@bibieddiesgf @winchester-angel @starlitlakes @avalon-wolf @hazydespair @josephquinncore @daydreaminglisa @sidthedollface2 @eddiebaemunson @mandyjo8719 @daydreaming-mood @aol19 @corkadymu @starcourtnights

@rockstarmunsons @metalhead-succubus @boinkybarness @oohworldofpisces @costellation-hunter @toobsessedsstuff @meadow20 @lost-in-the-stars03 @aysheashea @josephquinnsfreckles @eddiemunsonslittlemetalhead

@chamomileh0ney @dream-a-little-nightmare @emma77645 @kurdtbean @sheneedsrocknroll92 @tlclick73 @lolly-in-a-strange-land @bakugouswh0r3

@strangerthingsstories5255 @adaydreamaway08 @itsalltaken @harmfulb1tch @mimischaos @averagemisfit03 @steddiegarbage @vigilanteshit @ellendemeyer152 @sierrahhh @hiscrimsonangel @mrsjellymunson @idkatee

@quentinswife @eddiesguitarskills @momowhoo @jasminelafleur @mmunson86 @mcueveryday @augustsgetawaycar @let-love-bleeds-red @inesven @tanyaherondale @theintimatewriter

#eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie x you #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #fanfic #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things #tui

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starwrighter · 11 months

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A DpxDc prompt because I <3 all of you but am too shy to talk in the discord.

The Subnautica au I promised! (I might make two of them)

Okay, so Danny is around 14 or 15 in this. He is still a halfa but the portal has been temporarily closed for plot reasons. So the portal is closed and Danny has no clue what to do now. Due to the portal being closed Danny's grades have improved exponentially enough that he gets an work offer from Altera (ignore the child labor it's the Giw/Altera's shady business practices fault)

Danny is ecstatic because he's finally getting the opportunity to go to space! He knows if he waits the portal will be reopened and he'll never have a chance like this again so he takes it. In less than a month Danny has been trained and is shipped off to the Aurora. He's heading towards planet 4546b with very little information on the planet itself.

The crash happens and Danny doesn't use his powers to save the ship because something around the atmosphere was preventing full accessing his powers in full. Danny scrambles to the life pods and ends up being the only one in life pod five. The whole life pod scene happens with Danny being knocked out by the panel flying off the wall.

He wakes up with the life pod on fire and quickly uses what he can of his ice powers to put it out not realizing there's a fire extinguisher. Danny exits the life pod and realizes that a lot of people he talked to on the ship not even a day ago were probably dead. Judging by his inability to go ghost, he wouldn't be reuniting with them in the ghost zone any time soon.

He is devastated but goes about exploring and trying to find any other survivors. His hope of finding survivors near the crash zone dies when the ship explodes and starts leaking deadly radiation. Danny of course rushes to try and fix this. It's easier for him to get there because he can stay under water for an inhuman amount of time and has a built up immunity to radiation as a halfa.

Now to the DC part of this. Let's stick with only the batfam existing in this universe. The entire batfam are classified as leviathan's. All of them have two forms with one of said forms being semi humanoid mer like appearance. They are still pretty big in this form, think 7-8ft at the smallest (aka Damian) The other form is something I like to call

Big f-ken fish™

Which is full on terrifying reapers (we'll decide what each of the fam specifically look like later) and a lot of them are chilling in the crash zone when Danny is fixing the Aurora's reactor. Danny has not yet been spotted by the reapers.

Now they're already pissed off because a big arse ship just crashed into their planet and destroyed a great deal of it. They don't exactly know what a space ship is but they do know that the technology is advanced and the only thing remotely close on their planet is from the precursors who were a bunch of pricks.

Before the explosion the fam kept an eye on the weird creatures that crawled out of the metal eggs They watch them almost immediately start dying from predators or Kharaa. They were there when the ship exploded and started leaking radiation and killing the local wild life much to Damian's despair.

So the Fam are pretty pissed off at this point and are circling the ship. They immediately noticed when the ship stops leaking radiation and spot Danny swimming away from the reck quicker than any of the other ones that crawled out of the eggs.

Granted most of the other ones from the eggs immediately died and didn't have faces (the wet suits looked weird and Danny refuses to wear them no matter how much easier they would make things >:(

They start watching him because obviously there's something odd about this thing it looks kinda like a much smaller version of their smaller forms. Danny is getting pretty ticked off that his PDA keeps making false alarms of leviathan's. Duke, and tim are the ones monitoring Danny in the safe shallows. Jason and Dick in the crash zone. Barbra and Stephanie in the kelp forest. Cass and Bruce are patrolling the grassy plateaus.Damian is by himself at the quarantine gun/ sunbeam landing sight.

Danny sets up base near the quarantine gun™ because for some reason even though he's not infected he can't turn the damn thing off. So Damian is the only one currently capable of watching him. Damian has a theory that he 100% sure is correct. As a 1600 year old leviathan he's not a baby he's almost an adult and doesn't remember being a baby. This thing crawled out of an egg and is super tiny so it is obviously a baby and a very smart one at that. While it didn't have the claws, gills, tail, or scales they had it was super fast, could freeze things, had super strong hands despite looking dull and frail, it could take useless scraps and rocks and turn them into complex structures. It was obviously a new type of leviathan the ship carrying eggs. Danny was the smallest of the babies but he was also the strongest, and smartest; surviving long enough to have eyes and hair. This baby was young enough that he still needed to surface for air he needed to be protected.

Danny has no clue he's now being stalked by a group of reapers that decided he was their new baby brother/son

#dp x dc #dc x dp #dp x dc prompt #dpxdc #dcxdp #anyone can add to this #this idea has a death grip on my soul and I have been waiting to rant about it for days!

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euphoricfilter · 6 months

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𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐧𝐱𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟔

it’s been 14 days, no action? :(

tags/ warnings: game designer! jungkook || non-idol au || established relationship || angst || slight comfort? || bro gets no action || he’s just sad

word count: 1k

notes: no taglist ‼️

☆ epic callob with @bonny-kookoo 💕 ☆

☆ series masterlist

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆.

It’s silent in the car, aircon blasting as Jungkook just sits there staring at the dashboard of his car.

When he glances over at the clock it sinks in that you’re not coming back downstairs.

It had been an hour.

Which he knows is enough time for reality to settle in for you, that if you wanted out it would have been decided by now and he’d be driving the both of you home. Reality sinks in, yet he can’t bring himself to start the ignition just quite yet. The smallest sliver of hope that any moment now you’d open the door to the lobby, and he’d already be there waiting for you.

His phone lays open on your chat, last messages from over a week ago. No sign of you typing to message him saying you made a mistake wanting to stay at a friend’s house for the night. No ‘I miss you’, no ‘I love you’.

He swallows, fingers tapping against the steering wheel as he knocks his head back against the seat.

“Shit” he whispers, tongue pressing into his cheek.

The streetlights blur behind a veil of tears, slipping down his cheeks as his bottom lip quivers.

His feet tap against the floor as he tries to swallow down a sob, ugly ache blossoming within his chest. He wonders if it’s fully due to you not being with him tonight, or if it was partially the fact the last couple of weeks had been the most stressful of his life. So many fickle emails and bratty clients. His mind melted after minimal hours of sleep, locked up in that crappy office of his for more hours than he had ever wished for.

Or if maybe partial to the fact that he could feel the both of you slipping further away from one another, your fingers slipping from between his. Sticky vines that tied your souls together slowly unfurling until you’d slipped from his side, pretty flower of your existence slowly wilting, where all he can do is watch. So caught up with what other people needed of him, that not only had he neglected himself, but you too.

His phone screen glares at him, another minute ticking by on the clock. He snatches it off the seat, hand running over his jaw as his mind cranks back to life.

He sits there for a moment, ‘I miss you’

He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to guilt trip you to come home.

His tongue runs over his bottom lip, eyebrows furrowing in the slightest. Fingers tapping away on the screen, game of battle ship sending into the chat.

He stares at it, body prickling with anticipation, hope firm in his chest as he waits.

It can’t be more than a couple of minutes before you’re accepting the game, always a lot better than him at it. Though he didn’t mind losing this time if it meant any meagre sort of interaction with you. The small truce with whatever you had going on mending that little crack in his fragile soul.

It’s when you’re half way through the game does he get the notification.

‘14 days without logging in, no action? :(‘

His shoulders slump forwards a little, quickly swiping out of the game you were playing to check on his app.

His feet patter against the floor as it loads, impatience seeping from every fibre of his being as it opens. His fingers are quick to flick through each of the columns, mouth tipping open a little wider as he catches sight of his score.

Third place too. Not even second. Third.

20 orgasms behind schedule, utterly awful that he would ever neglect you of that, even if it weren’t intentional.

“Oh hell no” he cries, tears clinging to his lashes. His head tips forward, heart hammering against his chest when he startles himself, loud ring of the car horn echoing off each of the houses of the street. He sits up with wide eyes, peering out the window beside him, eyes focusing on your friend’s apartment. Suddenly embarrassed at the prospect of him waiting outside in hopes of you changing your mind.

He’s quick to swipe back into your chat, quick to play his turn of the game before he’s opening his browser.

He scrolls through each of the tabs, patting around the passenger’s seat for his glasses. He fumbles to turn the small overhead light on, hand brushing through his hair as he finds the tab he was looking for.

He wouldn’t be paid for another week, the flights staring back at him from his phone. Realistically if the both of you didn’t indulge for the week, then it would be fine, price for the both of you sending his bank balance reeling.

He swallows down the thought of all the money that’s about to go out of his account, false reassurance that it would all be worth it by the time he gets paid for all the work he’d put in over the last couple of weeks.

“It’s okay” he whispers, fingers tightening around his phone. He pauses, tapping open his banking app to make sure he wasn’t about to go into the negatives because the universe knows you would berate him beyond belief if you ever found out he was in the negatives.

He doesn’t think about it, fingers pressing against the screen, janky wheel of the booking website taking longer than he would have liked to spin. A short puff of reassurance dissipating from his chest when the confirmation email comes through: two plane tickets for the both of you. That, and with the Airbnb all booked, Maria having confirmed that it was totally okay for the both of you to go as wild as you liked over your stay in her place, even offering to stock it up with snacks for the first night you’re there, Jungkook’s plan was finally underway.

Only a little while longer, countable sleepless nights, ongoing projects that had become the bane of his existence almost ready to be sent off onto some other poor sucker before it’s even thought to be released.

Months of planning, months of stress and hurt and utter shit. Yet he could see it, the moment both of your hearts reach out for one another again, bodies warm pressed together, unbridled love shared through gentle kisses. Everything back to how he liked it before life had become too hectic.

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neo-percs · 7 months

Text

ROLEPLAY:: ( day 14 )

WARNING:: roleplay, grinding, unprotected sex, recording, creampie, after care, dirty talk, degradation!

SUMMARY:: in which you and your roommate roleplay while recording a sex tape for the first time.

WORD COUNT:: 3.2K

A/N:: throw back to sex money rent😭🤞🏽

Beomgyu was shaky, his hands went to fix the sheets of his bed and toss a few stray t-shirts in his basket. He was really about to do this??? Have sex with his roommate. Yes in fact the same roommate who was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and checking herself.

And as time ticked past you knew that you would have to go back into his room and film regardless. So you muster up all your courage and open the door to the bathroom, you flicker off the lights and shut it behind you.

You walk down the dim hallway with pictures of your friends and you hung onto the wall. You peek your head past the corner of the wall that hid Gyu's door. Looking in you see that now it's much more tidy and put together than before.

You step in to see his phone propped up on against a stack of books from his lectures provided by the university you both attended. "You ready" you mumbled at him seeing him fix the sheet on his bed. "Wait let me go do something real quick" he said before getting up off his bed and walking down the hall presumably to the bathroom.

You hear him open up the bottle of mouth wash that sat at the corner of the sink and gargle it before spitting it back into the sink and watching it spin down the drain. You laugh at how much you both think alike as the pattering of his feet come closer.

Your heart was beating out of its chest as you watch him walk into the door way "I'm ready" he says with a small comforting grin. "Okay" you nod reassuringly as you sit on the edge of his bed facing his phone.

And just as he opens his camera and hits record the both of you sit next to each other staring , you could see how half of your body and maybe a bit of your face was in the frame but you trusted yourself enough to edit the pry out when it's over.

"You're not nervous are you?" He asked as his finger tip brushed against your thigh. You felt goosebumps all over your body begin to grow. "Just a little" you say as you meet his gaze, his soft brown eyes give you comfort and warmth "we can take it slow" he says as he leans closer hesitation dripping all over him.

You lean in as well, your stomach felt like you had been riding a roller coaster over and over again and the closer you moved together you could feel his warm minty breath on your lips which makes you feel like your at the tipping point of the ride and your about to hit the drop.

Your eyes flutter closed and you both pull together like a magnet as you lips catch each other's softly. You suck in a small breath through your nose as your lips move in a rhythm. Your hands find their way to the nape of his neck letting your fingers entangle in his brown and blonde locks.

His hand touches your thigh giving it a small squeeze his tongue licks a small stripe against your bottom lip making your part your lips, you brush your tongue against his shyly feeling his warm wet muscle against yours.

Letting out a small groan, Beomgyu's hand makes way to the belt loop of your jeans, hooking two fingers inside and pulling your hips closer against his. Your chest pressed against his sent him into a small daze.

His tongue now licking a stripe on your bottom lip begging for access, parting your lips, his tongue immediately brushing against yours, mixing your saliva. As you suck on his tongue the remnants of mint on his tongue.

You could see the tent in his jeans starting to grow, your thighs push together at the thought of Beomgyu having such an intimate video of you and him that he has at his own dispense.

But you aren't as slick as you hoped to be. Gyu caught the way your thighs pushed together making the small boyish grin on his lips turn into a smirk.

Seeing how your pupils were blown out and your hands gripping his shirt he couldn't help but ask "you wanna keep going?" In a raspy voice, you could jump on the boy at any moment seeing as his hair was now messy, his lips now swollen with your lipgloss smeared on them, and his labored breathing making his chest rise and fall more noticeably.

You nod your head looking him in his coffee brown eyes with adoration and lust "I want you to fuck me" you say loud enough for him but just above a whisper in the silent room.

Your words make him twitch in his boxers. Letting out a groan his head falls back "you're gonna fucking kill me" he said as his cock aches within the confinements of his tight boxers and pants.

The way you looked at him was like you were begging for him to just fuck you dumb on his cock. So when he gripped your chin pushing your head back, you could feel his lips on your neck, aimlessly sucking hickeys on your neck leaving purple and red splotches on your supple skin.

Your hands find the button on his jeans and begin to fiddle with it until it comes undone, then working to unzip them you're given the view of his black and white boxers peeking through. Your hand slipping under the elastic band of his boxers, your fingers brush against his cock, twitching under the feeling of your hand wrapping around his shaft lazily jerking him off.

Groaning into your neck he pulls eager to feel skin on skin contact his hands grip at the hem of your shirt pulling it up over your head, your hair now messy and sticking up Beomgyu wouldn't want to see you in any other way right now.

Your breast swelling and ready to spill out of your bra with the cute little bow on it, Beomgyu thought of you as his own little present, he completely forgot about the camera as his fingers worked on unclipping your bra and dropping it onto the floor along with your shirt.

His hands needily grope your breast in his palms you let out small moans at the feeling of his palms making rough friction with your nipples. as your hand pulls his jeans down his hips to his ankles, he absentmindedly kicks them off as both of your clothes slowly begin to pile, you pull off his shirt as well dropping it onto the floor evening out how much clothes the both of you have on.

Gyu was eager to have you closer to him, he trails his hands to the back of your thighs to hoist you into his lap. Your ass pressed against his hard on the only thing keeping you apart we're your underwear while your skirt was bunched at your hips.Sliding back farther against the bed he moves closer to the headboard his back pressed against the soft pillow.

You could feel as if your pussy practically stuck to the wet fabric of your panties while you grind your hips against him.

The small wet watch of precum becomes larger as your panties make friction soaking his underwear as well. The outline of his cock rubbing against your clit makes your head spin and you couldn't help but moan and grind harder against him.

"You feel so good" you whimper hearing the sticky sounds of your slick thighs rubbing together, it was messy yet the both of you were too eager chasing some form of an orgasm to care what kind of mess you make.

you look down at beomgyu whose head was thrown back while he lets out the deepest groans of pleasure. His hands guiding your hips against his at a faster pace makes you choke out louder moans.

"Fuck" he whispered harshly as your eyes finally find a dazed Beomgyu who was on cloud 9. The feeling of fabric running against his sensitive tip has him breathing shakily.

You turn your head to look at gyu's phone you see how lost he was in pleasure "you looked too good" you whisper placing one of your hands down on his lower abdomen as you feel gyu buck his hips into you faster.

The feeling of the fabric running against your pussy slightly burned but it felt too good to care. "Feels so good" he grumbled as the pressure began to build. The both of you chasing your orgasms push your panties to the side rubbing your bare pussy against the fabric of his boxers at a fast pace that makes you whine.

You gasp feeling yourself being sent over the edge, Beomgyu slows down but you only shake your head as you anticipate him reaching his peak. "Please keep going, I want you to cum" you moan as your nails drag against his skin leaving behind a trail of red marks.

Your needy words make his eyes roll back as he pushes your hips down, he ruts into you as he moans shamelessly. He had no idea if it was the thought of his camera pointed at the two of you while people watched or if your pussy had fucking magic but your sweet moans and the sloppy sounds send him into a spiral of pleasure.

His cum seeps through his boxers as his hips twitch in a bit of overstimulation he didn't care, his hips slow down and then stop completely as he feels himself slowly coming back down to earth.

He lets out a large huff as a shy smile finds its way on his face, he can't believe he just came in his boxers after literally letting you dry hump him like a needy puppy. His hands grip at the flesh of your ass he lets out a small chuckle with a smirk on his lips.

"fuck" he groaned as he continues to catch his breath. You giggle at him still feeling your mind trying to process. "Lay down on your stomach for me" he says without much thought behind his words he just needed to feel you around him, and the way you just cum inside his boxers flipped a switch inside him.

You pull your leg from over top of him, you lean on your forearms as your back arches your skirt flowing over your hips, your chest pressed against a pillow you look over at Gyu who had shifted as he moves onto his knees as they press into the mattress flipping the camera around he points it to get a good look of your ass.

"Spread your legs" he says as positions himself behind you pulling the elastic band over his hips he finally lets his cock breath from his boxers as he discards them he lets out a sigh in relief his free hand wrapping around his base he slowly jerks himself off as beads of precum drips from his tip glistening under the dim light, you spread your legs giving him space to fill between them.

"You look so good like this" He says as he presses his tip against your slit teasingly sliding against it as it makes a slick sound as your essence covers his tip and shaft, dipping his tip into your entrance Gyu sucks in a deep breath as he pushes into you groaning at the feeling of your tight walls enveloping his tip.

Pushing deeper inside you he lets out a moan "fuck you feel so good" he says as he catches his bottom lip in between his teeth. "You're so big" you slur feeling how good he filled you up to the brim as you feel him begin to slowly move. Beomgyu couldn't get enough of the sight as his cock disappeared inside your pussy.

His cock buried deep inside you that you moan and your nails into the pillow your chest was pressed against setting a pace for bouncing against him. The feeling of your velvety walls tightening around making him choke back a moan.

"Oh- god" you whisper shakily. His hands holding onto your hips guiding a pace, the soft sound of skin slapping with your small moans could be heard throughout the room.

A small sheen of sweat on your skin and your makeup smeared while your ass bounced on his cock it was addicting. "You like being fucked on camera for people to watch?" He asks as he bucks his hips into your sharply.

Moaning at his dirty words your head falls into the pillow muffling your sweet voice Gyu's palm sharply smacks your ass "Answer me" he says groaning as he soothes the stinging feelings on your warm skin.

"Mhm, I want people to see how good you fuck me" you say lifting your head from the pillow as you bite your bottom lip hard hearing how the bed creaked with each thrust he gave you.

Beomgyu; eager to let his load off inside you, holds your hips stopping you from bouncing any longer and begins to thrust his hips into you harder. The feeling of his tip pushing at your cervix.

His hips piston into you as your thighs and ass jiggle at the repetitive thrusts "right there!" You moan as you feel him pounding in a certain part of your walls. You tighten around him as your essence forms a white ring around the base of his dick.

"Just like that! I just want you to cum inside me" you babble mindlessly as his stomach churns at the words spewing out. "Yeah? Want me to fill you up with my cum?" he groans as the knot in your stomach begins to tighten and his death grip on the fat of your ass almost sending you over the edge if it wasn't for how hard he was pounding you.

You nod eagerly as you begin to alternate between grinding and bouncing, your nails drag against his inner thigh leaving behind a red and irritated trail- yet he didn't mind it as it pushed him closer to his orgasm.

Leaning down to him your moans against each other's lips push you closer and closer. Your back arching even more as you move faster wanting to cum so badly "keep going. Don't stop" he groaned, letting his head fall back.

His hair messily pushed against his forehead as it was covered in sweat and his eyes rolled back "god I'm gonna cum" he says breathily as you grind back against him to meet his thrusts as the sticky sound of him pounding your sloppy pussy resides in the air of your apartment.

The room was warm and all you could care about was how good your roommate was fucking you. "You like having an audience to be fucked like a slut in front of huh?" He says as he grips onto your hips harder to stop your movement as he pounds into a spongy part of your walls.

His hair sticking to his forehead and his breath becoming heavier "I loved being fucked like a slut" you rasp as you hear his chuckle at your words desperate to feel release "good" he says as he fucks into you harder. "Tell me how much of a slut you are" he groans as his nails dig into your hips, "I'm such a fucking slut for you, god I'm your cockslut" you whine as his thrusts are deeper and sharp it has your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

Pulling your back to his chest hitting an angle inside you that made you see white as your ass bounced into his lap your hands desperately thrash to grip the sheets on his bed. "Oh fuck yes- just like that! You're gonna make me cum" he moaned deeply into the nape of your neck.

Letting out a string of whines you clench harder "Oh god I'm so close" he moaned as he began to twitch inside you, his words buzzing in your ears making you grind against him eagerly "please let me cum" you beg as you turn your head over your shoulder to look at Beomgyu who was absolutely pussy drunk on the feeling of you.

"You gonna cum?" he asks as his hand falls between your thighs, his fingers press against your clit "You gonna fucking cum?" he asks rhetorically as his words slur, you nod as your breathing becomes uneven "do it" he says pushing you back down into the mattress roughly gripping your hips and you were sure it would leave bruises his eyes roll back as he feels how you clench around him and let your orgasm washes over you, with a few more hard thrusts he would also be tipping over the edge to his orgasm moaning as his thick white strings of cum fills you up leaving your body feeling warm and fuzzy.

Fucking you both through your highs your thighs clench shut as overstimulation creeps up on you your moans began to come out choked which makes gyu slow down his pace until his hips were no longer moving against yours.

Pulling out you both hiss, as his cum drips down your thigh Beomgyu chuckles at the sight almost wanting to use his fingers to fuck his cum back inside you but deems you're too fucked out. He rolls off the other end of the bed walking off to the bathroom to grab a clean towel wet with warm water to clean you off. You fall into his mattress looking at the camera seeing how your face was most likely in it.

Your actions finally sink in. "we just made a sex tape" you say as you hear the footsteps near you, Beomgyu walks back into fram he wipes you off rubbing small soothing circles into your thighs he crawls over to the other side of the bed grabbing his phone he presses the red button and the video ends. Beomgyu would be sure to edit the video.

After he takes care of you. "I'm sorry if I was being too rough," he says softly as he tosses his phone onto the bed "don't worry about it. People like that stuff anyways" you say with a chuckle you roll over onto your side you look at your roommate "it felt good. No need to be sorry" you say waving him off.

#𖦹—( neo percs )#txt smut #beomgyu smut #beomgyu x reader #beomgyu imagines #beomgyu hard hours #beomgyu hard thoughts

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tc-doherty · 3 months

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TC's Practical Writing Tips

Like I said before, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I can teach anyone how to write – that's a level of hubris even I'm not capable of –but in honor of my rapidly approaching ~quarter century of writing original fiction anniversary~, I did figure I would share the tips that I live by when it comes to the act of writing.

So without further ado:

Write it now, fix it later

2. It is always permissible – and usually enjoyable – to write the stupidest possible version

3. "Inspiration" is great for poets, but poison for people who write prose

3.1: if you want to write often, you need to write often, and then you will find that you don't need to be "inspired" because you will have made a habit of it and it will come naturally 3.2: even one sentence a day is still one sentence a day. And even one sentence a week is still one sentence a week. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop 3.3: believing in the concept that you need to be inspired to write will trap you into believing in the concept of writer's block 3.4: if you are having difficulty getting out words that satisfy you, lower your standards and keep writing (see point one)

4. A few months down the line you will not remember which words came easily and which words did not

5. It is always permissible to set a project aside for now, or forever, if you need a break

6. Read widely and often, both in your favorite genres and outside of them

6.1: pay special attention to both things that you love and things that you hate - study them, engage with them, learn what makes yourself tick and your writing can only get stronger

7. Never write for the lowest common denominator, via wise words I once heard: "if you open the window and make love to the world, your story will get pneumonia", have an audience in mind and the people who like what you write will find it

8. Never write for the bad faith critic, those people will always exist and you will need to deal with them at some point if you put your writing in the world, but they don't matter and you cannot live in fear of them

9. It's fine and normal to want engagement and praise, however you must find a way to make the act of writing joyful in and of itself – make the praise the cherry on top, not the entire sunday

9.1: writing is hard work, and it's a lot of work, if you lose the ability to enjoy the journey and are proceeding only for external rewards from others, you will gradually write less and less if the ratio of work to rewards is unsatisfying

10. For anything other than final copy editing, always write a new draft into a new document, or else the words you have already written will trap you from being able to make large, sweeping changes

10.1: any change you make will invariably snowball, and you must give space for that snowball to roll

11. If someone tells you that something doesn't work for them, believe them, because people know what they like. But if people try to tell you what to do to fix it, take that with an entire serving of salt because you are the author, not them

12. It is always morally correct to look at a critique that you received, even if you asked for opinions via beta reading, and decide that it's bullshit and doesn't apply to you

13. "write what you know" means "write what you're interested in"

14. "Show don't tell" applies to screenwriting, not novels. This is the thing that drives me the most insane every time I see it. Novels are words on a page, not images on a screen. They require a lot of telling. Not all telling, but a lot of telling. Become comfortable with that.

15. It is always, ALWAYS acceptable to use "said", do not listen to the lies of others

16. Have fun, do it out of love and you will never go astray

17. Become comfortable with who you are. Your work is always going to be yours and it is always going to sound like you wrote it, and this is a good thing! No one else is ever going to write exactly like you, and you should be proud of that

17.1: the concept of "originality" is vastly overrated, every culture has some version of Cinderella and we still love it. Your writing is yours because you wrote it, and it will always be unique because of that

#writeblr #writing #long post #writing tips #writing advice

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cerastes · 2 years

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The internet is carried on the backs of sub-10k subscriber tech support youtube channels that have the most specific ass solutions to the most specific ass system errors, tech stuff is the one thing I recommend not Googling and instead slamming in a Youtube search.

All the top hit pages in Google for tech support and how to fix this or that are “10 Ways to Fix Error!” and then they go on a soliloquy about what Windows is to fill word quota. We KNOW what Windows is. We make fun of online recipes where the author tells you about how much those mashed potatoes were a beloved family tradition dating back to 1937 when the author and her sister would play in the woods and get bitten by ticks and get Lyme Disease and then after a lot of playing, they’d come back home and eat the most generic ass recipes, yeah, we do that, but we oughta start doing that with tech “support” pages too like god damn, “10 Ways to Fix Error!” except the first 3 “ways” are “Reboot your computer <3″, “make sure you updated your PC <3<3″ and last but not least, the world champion heavyweight nothingburger, “open the Command Prompt as administrator and run sfc/scannow </3″ LOCUSTS UPON YOU, MAN, if I can’t fix the problem, and it is a problem, no fucking way Microsoft software is gonna do jack fucking shit.

The “way” number 4 is, you know it, the sponsored product of the day. Install Krunklo Driver Manager! The best Driver Manager software out there! Here’s a trial version that has fuck all and the paid version is 39.99 each second.

Way number 5 through 10 are various things like exsanguination, putting mercury in your bloodstream, a jar of snake oil, or leaving aromatic substances near your vagina so your hysteric uterus comes back betwixt your loins.

So you just wasted an hour or two on the equivalent of vigorously dancing around the flames the rid yourself of the malaise, and all your god said was “well it’s just 39.99!”, FUCK that, you go to Youtube, copypaste slam whatever the error was in the search bar, and there’ll be one specific ass person out there in the world that solved this and made a video on how to solve it, just for you. The video will be from 2019, and you didn’t even know computers existed back then, but they DID, and this FUCKER OF MOTHERS, may they fornicate many parental figures of their preferred disposition, made this video for YOU. There is meaning in you perusing that video.

It’s 1:14 minutes long and immediately eradicates the problem decisively. You are now oathbound to take a bullet for this beloved stranger, your computer is back in action, and you are not 39.99 poorer. Krunklo Driver Manager will not have its day.

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cr4yolaas · 2 months

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second best (pt 2) — iwaizumi hajime

notes: at last, the heavily requested part 2 to this fic !! i really hope it met a lot of your guys’ standards — i tried my best to take as much of your requests into account ^_^ i rlly dislike m the flow of this … but hopefully u guys still enjoy LOL

tags: angst → (bittersweet?) fluff, depressive episode (reader), swearing (once), a longgg process of grief and healing and whatnot, alcoholism (only briefly), roommate! tsukishima, best friend! oikawa, tsukishima does NOT have feelings for you, not proofread and quite long

taglist (incl. everyone who asked for a pt 2 !!): @altumsomnum @gennaray @romanticandupsetting @multi-fandom-fanfic

it was tuesday.

a frigid air pierced your limbs and left you to rot away, with the windows shut tight and the door locked. there was no mistakening the dark bags hanging beneath your eyes or the flakes of skin peeling from your bottom lip, nor the soft pleas of your stomach or the iciness of your fingertips. you basked in eternal slumber and silence and darkness and whatnot, save for the ticks of a clock that was 14 minutes behind and the hum of the air conditioning.

you were not frightened in the slightest. the warning signs plastered on your flesh were no great concern, and you could not fathom the idea of having to function again. it was horribly consuming.

with a groan, you released yourself from bed, your legs trembling under the mere weight of the air. you avoided the collections of trash and clothes splayed across the floor, being careful not to disturb the peace that had formed over the past handful of weeks. the sight of the kitchen was much more refreshing.

you were locked in stasis. contrary to the comfort these walls once provided, they now served as a a form of imprisonment, designed to allow the grief and the sorrow and the anger and the guilt to coalesce and spill over. it was terribly suffocating — you wished to escape.

gently, you poured a cup of water (not that you drank more than a sip, anyways). a thought passed your mind.

you needed to leave.

sendai was a home you could not find solace in anymore. gone was the youth encapsulated in the mountaintops and the hidden pathways and the convenience stores, and no longer could you feel at ease when faced with the neighborhoods you familiarized yourself with as a child.

your new apartment was shared with an old face — one you had only seen glances of in high school, notorious for his glasses and upfront attitude. he bore no hesitance when taking you in. instead, he was grateful for your presence, as if splitting the rent with him had taken off his life’s burden off of his shoulders.

he was quick to set ground rules — laundry days were on saturdays, trash needed to be taken out on sundays, the dish washer had to be clear at the end of the day, all groceries were shared, so on and so forth. you weren’t sure if you could keep up.

it took one week for him to actually conversate.

“why did you come back here?” he questioned, with a tone that implied he knew of you for years upon years (which would be false).

you picked at the skin of your lip. “why do you ask?”

“no reason. just curious.”

in a burst of energy, you recounted the tales of your past life, one of love and youth and joy; of the old apartment, of your past hobbies, of hajime. his gaze was so distant that you weren’t sure if he was listening at all.

in return, he expressed brief apologies and turned the story to himself — he discussed his volleyball career, his teammates, how he felt somewhat disconnected from his high school friends. he did not care to mention the exhaustion riddled into the pores on your face nor the weakness of your voice. that was all you needed. a conversation, not comfort.

only an hour later did he remind you of his name — tsukishima kei — and it was only then that you realized you had moved into an apartment without taking any precautions whatsoever. he laughed when you informed him of the situation.

this was not yet a home, but it was a house. and that was sufficient.

a month had passed before tsukishima forced you to get a job. he was clearly not a fool — at some point (you couldn’t tell when), he realized you were paying off your share of the rent with your life savings, which irked him ever so slightly.

“do you plan on moving out and dying on the streets when you run out?” he complained, despite the concern laced in the fluctuations of his voice.

you began working at his former high school coach’s family store. the owner himself was welcoming — he didn’t question your circumstances nor your physical state, and merely mentioned in passing that he was “given a token of appreciation from a prized student.”

and so began the cycle. on weekday mornings, you would depart for work and tsukishima would leave for practice. occasionally, he would pack you lunch (“only because i had leftovers,” he’d say) or leave a can of coffee on the counter for you. you would work at the register until the amalgamation of students died down, and once you were left with an empty store, you would take a break and go on a walk (as requested by your boss). then, you would return in the afternoon to serve the same population of children, handing them their ice cream and their sandwiches and whatnot. when they all disappeared, the coach would let you free and dismiss you with a “good work today, let’s do it again tomorrow.”

returning home was your favorite part of the schedule. a majority of the time, tsukishima arrived later than you, leaving you to your own time until he came home with dinner and a drink.

it was a monotonous cycle, but enjoyable nonetheless.

“i’m cutting off the beer for a month,” tsukishima exclaimed one warm summer night. you left your room to see him collecting unopened bottles and discarding them in a trash bag with little regard. you could only frown.

“those are all going to waste, we haven’t even opened them,” you groaned.

there was no response from the man as he continued to clear the apartment of any alcohol, akin to a parent cleansing their child’s home. before you could protest any further, he shut the door behind him and the crashing of bottles against one another could be heard beside the building.

tsukishima re-entered the apartment with empty hands and furrowed brows. “what’s up with the shitty face?” you asked from the couch.

he clicked his tongue at your comment and bore no response, instead letting his eyes wander to the screen in front of you. the morning news was playing, as usual. and yet, it was so wrong.

the screen flashed to a familiar face, one clad with a slight grin and sweat spread over his skin. his hair had grown slightly and his complexion had darkened, evidence of his labor. but most of all, he looked happy. his eyes screamed with a passion you hadn’t seen before, and despite his haggard appearance, he seemed to be content.

you did not see tsukishima rushing to turn off the television. you did not see the screen turn black, and you did not hear the noise diminish. you did not see tsukishima’s face adjacent to yours.

“hey. let’s go outside,” he muttered before moving to pull you up and out of the house

a delicate breeze washed over you both. the sun began to kiss you goodbye, and the noon crept up in its wake, leaving both of you in the dark.

“he looked so happy,” you whispered. “i don’t know what i’m doing wrong.”

you watched tsukishima light a cigarette in your peripherals, his lighter evidently battered and marred from heavy use. he made no move to offer one to you. “you’re not doing anything wrong,” he spoke firmly, although you could tell he was struggling to formulate the right combination of words in his head. “he’s just… going along a different path.”

“it should’ve been us on the same path. i feel so stupid. he’s gone on to do such great things, and i… what am i doing?”

tsukishima didn’t push the conversation any further. you were grateful.

a week had passed before tsukishima told you he had gotten you a new job, one deeper in the city. on an early sunday morning, he presented a uniform and badge to you, your name imprinted on both. the effort made you smile.

at some point, a new cycle formed. the museum was a far cry from the run down family store, and tsukishima taught you how to welcome it with an open mind and open arms. he never did mention the exact reason for the new occupation, nor did he tell you why he was so adamant on enforcing routine in your life. nonetheless, you appreciated it.

the mundanity that your new job encapsulated was slightly more enjoyable than that of your former job. exploring the concrete rooms filled with statues and paintings and whatnot was a sufficient way to pass the time. every now and then, you’d catch your roommate detailing a specific sculpture to a curious visitor, the scene contrasting his typical behavior. not that you would ever mention it to him, though.

a new routine was not unwelcome, but it did not feel impactful anymore. you still burned blue in the night, your bones aching with reminiscence over a lost life. your hands and legs still knew tokyo; they still knew the morning commutes and the bustling cafés and the chirping crosswalks and your own home, one that had been so devastatingly haunted by grief. your heart still knew the morning calls and the evening texts and the handfuls upon handfuls of promises made on once solid territory, and yet, you knew to return to it was to betray yourself.

you missed iwaizumi hajime.

rather, you missed the life that you formulated in his presence, opposed to the shambles you had grown comfortable in now that you were back home. tsukishima had carved a clay pot for your worn soul, and yet you could not help but yearn for the comfort and stability and routine you established in a past life.

the soft padding of feet echoed outside your door. soft strings of light streamed under your door as your roommate entered the kitchen, his actions indiscernible as he maneuvered about carefully. you decided to step out to greet him.

a startled tsukishima turned around to face you. “what are you still doing up?” he interrogated, albeit not in offense. “it’s late. we have work tomorrow.”

“but i don’t want to go to work. i want to go home,” you protested. you felt childish all over again — the thirst for selfishness was one that could not escape you, even now. an overwhelming desire to be in control of your own life.

tsukishima furrowed his brows. “to tokyo?” you nodded. “okay… then let’s go to tokyo.” he paid no mind to the slanted smile that transformed your lips, instead opting to turn away and fill up his bottle. “but why?”

“i need to escape,” you sighed, as if releasing a burden that had been lingering for a moment too long. “i need change. i just- i feel so stuck. i need to live.”

he merely hummed in agreement before uttering a comment about your poor sleeping schedule and ushering you back to bed.

tokyo was a city of hopes and dreams and noise. the shift from sendai’s cicada lullabies and whispers in the wind to the incessant chatter and obnoxious roads of the city was significant — any pedestrian would notice the irritation on you and tsukishima’s faces.

the inn he picked was small, yet slightly more comfortable than your current abode. the owners were kind and your neighbors were quiet, save for the occasional drunk couple. it was a life you remembering living, but not one you yearned for any longer.

in the night, you would both visit various attractions and markets and restaurants, with tsukishima insisting on paying for your meals (“as thanks for getting a life,” he argued). for that handful of days, you bore a smile that you weren’t sure would grace your lips ever again, for there was an adolescence in the evening activities that mended the remnants of your spirit. you felt whole.

on the last day, you brought tsukishima to a ramen house nearby the inn and promised to pay for the meal. it was a tuesday, again.

for reasons you could not discover, that appeared to be one of the busiest nights for the establishment — moments after you had settled, a line began to form, and the tables were crowded with families and friend groups and dates alike.

amidst the composition of metropolitans stood a man you wished you didn’t have to see. as if it were punishment, he locked his eyes with yours, the shock in his complimenting your dread.

you watched as he excused himself from his group while ignoring the cheers and shouts about him “shooting his shot.” tsukishima observed in tandem, seemingly reading the situation from a distance despite sitting right across from you.

you noticed the bold athletic trainer embroidered onto his chest, and the fitted red shirt he wore that matched those of his team. beads of sweat compiled on his forehead — you weren’t sure if it was from the density of the room or his exhaustion or anxiety. a small part of you hoped it was the second option.

“hey,” he began. “can- can we speak outside?”

you could not help but oblige.

hajime seemed to have developed an obsession with fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. you noticed the frayed strands on a spot that aligned perfectly with his hand, and you nearly laughed.

he coughed into his fist before rambling. “i’m sorry. i know you definitely don’t want to see me, and it’s not wrong of you at all to feel that way, but i just- i’ve thought about you- no, i think about you every day up until now. i know i don’t deserve you at all, and me being here is probably super upsetting, but-“

“hajime.”

the way you called his name seemed to deteriorate him and his principles. you finally felt otherwise.

“i really, really, didn’t want to see you at all. i don’t even want the thought of you to pass my mind. i’ve built a life outside of you and i’m tired of you interrupting it.” you witnessed his heart, mind, and body freeze simultaneously.

“i- i understand that, i know, i’m sorry. i’ve been- i’ve been reflecting a lot recently and i’ve known i was horribly in the wrong and i’m ashamed to have done nothing about it, and i know this sounds really, really dumb but i wish i had just stayed with you for that extra day because- because i don’t think i can go any longer without you now that i have you here, in front of me. could we- can we at least… keep in touch?” he seemed to speak without limitations, akin to a leaking clay pot. he was distressed, evidently. but you no longer saw his face and thought of guilt and love and yearning; you held no space for him.

you shook your head gently. “hajime, i don’t want you in my life anymore. you achieved your dreams, and i’m working on finding mine. that’s how it was meant to be.”

if not for the small lamp above the two of you, you would not have noticed the tears spilling onto his face. you bore no sympathy — with a goodbye and a small wave, you left him in the alley with a heavy heart and saline tears.

to witness him before you had awakened the truth riddled in your sinew and bloodstream: iwaizumi hajime was no longer a necessity. a truth that had cowered away beneath guilt and fragility and shame had uncovered itself, and for once, you breathed a full breath.

oikawa seemed so vibrant on the other side of your screen, the argentinian sun kissing his skin almost perfectly. “…i miss you lots!! i’ll visit soon, maybe, and we can catch up and maybe go get coffee and then debrief and then…” he trailed off with an aloof grin, his words spilling out from your phone and reverberating around the living room. tsukishima stood in the kitchen, the sound of his deliberate chopping and washing contesting oikawa’s voice. “but anyways, i’ll see you soon! byebye!!”

you waved goodbye and hung up, leaving only the noise of your roommate’s cooking. a loud groan left his lips in the midst of his mixing, followed by a complaint about how irritable your friend’s voice was. you could only laugh.

gentle strings of moonlight spilled into the apartment through the kitchen window, the songs of the evening falling upon both of you and your shared comfort. tomorrow was your off day, granting you both an opportunity for an actual meal. tsukishima (begrudgingly) agreed to make your favorite dish, with the request that you’d make his favorite dessert next week.

“thank you for the meal,” you whispered. tonight would consist of good food and a relaxing night, and tomorrow would entail a day of rest and a weekly reset, along with another call with oikawa. with marred hands and a porcelain heart, you had managed at last to craft a solid life — steady health, steady friends, and a steady routine.

you would no longer be second best to anything, and that was sufficient enough.

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