#i cannot get over his surname

[percyramblesaboutnimona]

i love ambrosius goldencock so much i will never get over him

#ambrosius goldenloin #nimona #nimona 2023 #nimona ambrosius #he's my goofball #i love him sm #ambrosius goldenmassivepenis #i cannot get over his surname #i never will

[jakedoxxenvasion]

dr.lee

fellow doctor heeseung! × resident doctor y/n!

warning: MDNI!, unprotective sex (whops) kissing and more?

not in a million years you would think you will do something like this, with someone that you adore so much.. someone that you look up to as a senior to you, someone that you met everyday and formally call him by his surname instead of..

"h-heeseung!"your sinful lips moaning for his name, "sshhh, you want them to hear you?"immediately you bite your bottom lips once getting that warn from him, he peck your lips and smile. "didn't expect you to be so obedient to me, love. such a good girl."you humming to everything he said to you, trying to not moan out his name.

you know what you did is wrong because you're just a doctor resident and he's your senior doctor, it's totally wrong but you couldn't stop him. not that you can't but you don't want to, having him pounding his cock so deep into you in the small store room in the middle of your night shift, the clock strike 3 in the morning as much as you remember when he call for you to help him earlier.

it's all start with you helping him with sorting out papers, and files of patients records and ending up finding yourself here in this room with him doing things that you could ever imagine in your right mind. "just a little more, does it hurt you, hm?"you shake your head, no he doesn't hurt you but the pleasure is too much.

heeseung smile when he kiss your lips, hips still rutting into you. he could feel your wall hugging him tight at each thrust he make, sending him over the cloud but he know that he cannot be loud. "s-shit, you're so fucking tight, love."he let out a low groan, watching how you try to control your own voices and somehow he like the way you did.

liking the idea of doing this in secret, liking the idea that there's an outside world that you try so hard it keep it out, not wanting people to find out about what the two of you did in this room. "fuck- heeseung i'm close ah-"he shut you up with his lips, kissing you so deep, cock still pounding in and out of you.

your fingers tangle with his hair, he push you against the wall, "cum for me, love."he whisper those once he pull away from the kiss, like a cue you could feel the feeling at the pit of your stomach rushing down. heeseung smile, letting you rode out all your orgasm with you weakly leaning on his shoulder, doesn't have much energy left in you.

he thrust into you once.. twice then he pull out from you, only to shot his loads on your stomach. "oh fuck."you watch those thick white liquid spurting out from his cock, messily on your skin. somehow, heeseung has those proud smile after everything that he had done with you. you look at him and he smirk, he peck your lips before he slowly put you down to make you stand on the ground.

"so fucking perfect, love."he caressed your cheek softly then continue to kiss your lips again. when he pull away, he stare into your eyes, "doctor.."your soft voice call for him, which make him chuckle. "that was not what you called me earlier, ms.y/n."your cheeks immediately turn red as his remarks, he continue to caressed your cheek as he stare into your eyes.

but then heeseung take a few step back, you watch him grab a box of tissue at the top shelf behind him and he rip it open before he help you clean up and get dress again. "so.. do i pretend like nothing happen earlier or-" "unless you want more, you can always come to my office, love."he interrupt your words then wink at you, blush immediately creep up your face.

you slowly nod your head, he pat your head then he open the door after grabbing a random file on the shelf. "later, make sure you keep everything in place again, okay? ms.y/n."he said, know it very well he did that on purpose, you follow him from behind after you fix your white coat. "sure, dr."

heeseung turn to look at you just to give you a wink before he walk away.

should i write a longer version of this? cause i kind of like the plot lol

#enhypen hard hours #enhypen heeseung #enhypen smut #enhypen heeseung smut #lee heeseung #lee heesung x reader #heeseung

[unwinthehart]

I'm doing a summary for a friend anyway so, here it is: THE John Travolta vs Amadeus vs Russell Crowe GATE The whole thing starts a while back, when Amadeus (the lying liar who lied) had said he wouldn't have guests because Rai is broke and then announcing John Travolta and Russell Crowe as super guests. They both asked to be involved themselves, they weren't contacted by Rai and they will get very little money for their trouble (Travolta got a costs refund, Crowe not even that and came basically for free). Their reasons for joining the party (aside from a momentarily lack in judgment I guess): Travolta was doing something in France anyway, so it's close by and he saw that Fiorello was there and he remembers Fiorello from a while back, when he was a guest in one of his shows and apparently finds (found) him hilarious. Russell Crowe is the Gladiator. He's just here for the vibes (and to promote his tour), he's getting here straight from Australia. Travolta gets in Italy; he's super itchy with fans and the press. Doesn't even have the decency of being at TG1 (does he know that's also Amadeus realm? probably not). He signs a fucking contract, he knows what he'll be subjected to, he decides to be a menace anyway. He gets on Ariston stage and does a little of his iconic dance moves. Disaster is looming. He and Amadeus get outside where Fiorello is waiting for them with duck hats, that Travolta refuses to wear (who do you think you are? you think yourself better than Fiorello and Amadeus, the italian royal couple?????). They do this. Fiorello and Ama are vibing. Travolta is seeing his entire life and career end there. He does the whole thing with death in his eyes. And it's a fucking disaster. So much so that the next day it's all Italy can talk about (despite great things happening on that night). Apparently no one covered Travolta's shoes logo and it's a big problem for Rai. Amadeus snapped at journalists. Travolta cannot get a foot in Italy anymore because IT'S ON SIGHT. And here he comes, Russell Crowe as an avenging Gladiator in all his glory. He's truly here for the vibes and the vibes only. He's doing more interviews than the Sanremo Contestants. He's at TG1 despite not understanding a single word, as if he's one of Amadeus infinite list of co-hosts. He's answering over and over and over again "what is your favorite italian song?", he's singing Ricchi e Poveri like the entire Country did when that devil, Amadeus, reunited them a couple of years ago. He gets on Ariston stage, he sings, he recites his infamous line from The Gladiator, in italian (!), he says "Teresa, Teresa, TERESA", just because the co-host likes how he says her name. Then the dissing happens. Teresa Mannino is telling how they found out Russell Crowe like many other celebrities has italian roots, despite not having an italian surname "like, Di Caprio or Coppola or De Niro". Russell Crowe isn't here to play and he goes "or Travolta." Mocks him with the duck dance moves and mouths "wtf, wtf". Amadeus is cackling in the background, he has a new bestie. Italy as a whole has a new bestie, because the pettiness of it all was the most italian thing ever.

#sanremo #sanremo 2024 #mind you #i'm sleep deprived

[powderblueblood]

HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc as enemies to star-crossed lovers

CHAPTER NINE — EDDIE the OBVIOUS and the LADY SPHINX

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT

summary: a tense dinner at rick lipton's place reveals some part of al munson's reason for returning to hawkins. your saturday morning detention is tense, and you and eddie both get more than you bargained for when you crash hellfire club to profile them for the school newspaper. content warnings: MINORS DNI AS ALWAYS warnings for smut, cunnilingus, dick-fondling, p in v, reference to drug usage, slight perv!eddie, silly teenagers having silly teenage fights that actually aren't so silly (kinda antagonistic ronance version!), reference to childhood physical abuse, al munson jumpscare, lacy's dad jumpscare, both lacy's real first name and surname is used in this chapter. no description of body type. just descriptions of a good time eye emoji eye emoji word count: 16.4k

Dear Lord, 

Grant me the serenity to accept the shit I cannot change, the courage to change the shit I can, and the wisdom to seize a damn fine opportunity when I see one. 

Amen. 

When Al Munson cooks a spaghetti dinner, you know he means business. 

Once a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes, always a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes.

He learned to cook on the grill, but perfected it in the joint. During one of his stints, a homecoming tour of the state of Kentucky, he fell in with this web of wiseguys who made him stagiaire in their makeshift kitchen, slicing ghostly slivers of garlic with a razorblade. 

Al’s insisted on the method ever since. Even now, hunkered over in Rick Lipton’s kitchen, preparing a meal for which Eddie’s already lost his appetite. 

Eddie had already given up on the whole there are a bunch of knives right there suggestion, knowing his father loves few things like he loves performing his whole Kiss the Cook bit. He plays it to the hilt, an exercise in tart, rich, floral smarm that beats out the complex flavoring of his tomato gravy by a country fucking mile. Down to that bullshit Serenity Prayer. 

“Courage to change the shit you can? Man, you can barely change your underwear!” Rick heartily chuckles, heaping pasta onto his plate. The way the noodles slide against each other, thick and glistening like worms full of nefarious promise, makes Eddie want to ralph. 

He hadn’t had much of an appetite for anything since he’d visited the nurse’s office. 

He felt weird. Strung out. Guilty. And angry. Guilty like, what got into me, why’d I do that and angry like, why’d I leave you just standing there like that, and why’d you let me.

“C’mon, kid, you look famished,” Al pulls that anger-inducing Cheshire Cat face, placing a solely ornamental leaf of basil on top of the dish Rick passes. This fucking asshole. These fucking assholes. In cahoots together. “Wayne’s Hungry Man dinners ain’t hittin’ the way they used to, huh?”

Al’s smile doesn’t slice through the tension of the room nearly as clean as he wants it to. Eddie feels Wayne stiffen at his right elbow, sees Rick divert his eyes from across the table.

“Well, Dad,” Eddie says, forcibly stabbing and winding his fork through the spaghetti, “You know what coulda solved that?”

“What’s that, huh?”

“You staying out of lockup for longer than the duration of an MC5 song.”

Al doesn’t falter. Eddie bets he could open-palm slap him and that shiteater of a grin wouldn’t slide from his face. 

“I’m here now, ain’t I?” his father clicks his tongue, digging right into his own dish, “You really gotta learn to live in the moment, kid.” 

Eddie’s spaghetti-filled mouth starts to form around the indignant words, I’m not a kid! but Al beats him to the punch. Quite literally. 

“Though, judgin’ by those scuffs on your knuckles, looks like you did somethin’ without thinkin’ it the whole way through first. Huh?” Al slurps his pasta noisily, and Eddie feels Wayne tense even more, if that’s possible. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

The sense memory of silver flashes colliding with Billy Hargrove’s face in the parking lot, the sense memory of you and your vicelike grip trying to pull him off before he killed him. The sense memory of bile blowing through his veins, stumbling upon those lowlifes talk to you like that. Rage blackout. Yadda yadda.

According to rumor, Hargrove was lucky that Eddie didn’t cave his entire cheek in. He still couldn’t totally see out of his right eye, the swelling was that gathered and insistent. 

Eddie lets the question droop in the air, before eventually mumbling, “S’nothing. Just– shit at school.”

Wayne had been the first one to ask him, obviously, catching sight of his bandaged hand when he came upon Eddie staring a hole into–you guessed it–yet another Murder, She Wrote rerun, following your encounter on the examination table. 

Eddie had given it the brush off so Wayne had given it the brush off. He was no stranger to his nephew bearing busted knuckles, even if it did make the old man’s blood chill every time he saw it. Those interactions always reeked of you poor kid, like Eddie was the perpetual victim. Got under Eddie’s skin a little.

But Al asks him like he knows something. And Rick won’t look at Eddie. 

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with your lovely new neighbor, would it?” Other shoe, meet short, hard drop. 

Eddie’s grip tightens around his fork, and in the back of his mind, he summons the spirit of the sharpest tongue he knows.

“Who?” He’s this close to prank calling people using his Lacy impression, that’s how good it’s gotten. 

Al cradles his cheek against his palm. His eyes, the eyes that might as well have been scooped out and shoved into Eddie’s skull, they’re such iris perfect replicas, search his son for cracks in his composure. Al stabs, stabs, stabs aimlessly into his dinner. 

“You’re a lot of things, Eddie Munson,” he says, “but you ain’t dumb.”

“Truly do not know what you’re yakkin’ about. Can I eat?” 

“Come on, Eddie boy! You out there getting into scuffles over that little gold-plated piece’ah something?”

“Can I eat?”

“A little forbidden flame, maybe, two’ah you?”

“Can I eat?”

“Can’t say I blame ya. If I were… twenty years younger.... Or maybe she likes ‘em a little more mature. Think I got a shot?” Al’s teeth are starting to grit, spittle starting to fly. Frenzied in the way he’s trying to eek a reaction out of his kid. “Huh? Eddie?”

Al’s lecherous suggestion of you toed the line of too much for the Munson men, it seems. Eddie and Wayne’s voices overlap. 

“Maybe we leave that girl out of this, Al–” “–can I eat, or what?”

SLAM! Al’s fist comes into direct contact with the hardwood of Rick’s dining room table, plates and cutlery and glasses clattering nervously. Rick jumps a little, groaning under his breath. Wayne drags a hand over his eyes. 

“You can answer the goddamn question! Shit!” 

Eddie, for his part, should probably feel a little scared, his dad raring up on him like that. Instead, he just lets his wound-up fork sag in a pile of spaghetti and leans back in his seat. The thing with Al Munson is this– his bark has always been way bigger than his bite. Especially when he’s as coked up as he is right now. 

Ever since he’d roared into Rick’s driveway in that eyesore of a muscle car (alright, it was a little cool– but in, like, a lame Dukes of Hazzard kinda way), Al had been operating in sharp angles and backed-up nostrils. 

Shit, Eddie would be shocked if there wasn’t residue on that razor blade he used to slice the garlic. That stupid, reckless, peacocking-as-a-father motherfucker. 

He folds his arms, waiting for Al’s tone to pitch on down, for the tremor in his hand to act up, for him to say–

“Sorry. Sorry,” pressed through a line of grit teeth, “I just… Hmm.” It’s like Al is actively trying to plaster the mask of his charming grin back on his face but it keeps slipping out of his fingers. “She’s a real dime. Smart as hell too, huh? Shame about–”

“Al, what’re you gettin’ at with all this?” Wayne asks, and thank god he does. Eddie doesn’t know how much more dancing around the subject he can take, but he won’t be the one to bend first. “What did you bring us up here for? And don’t–” the eldest of all Munson holds a hand up, “--say you just wanted to get together. I don’t buy it. Eddie sure doesn’t buy it. And if Lipton here buys it, he’s a fool.”

Al shrinks, a snot-nosed kid under the magnifying glass his big brother holds to him. “Wayne–”

“You bring us up here to make us part of that goddamn stupid high school feud with that girl’s father? You really spin out that far?”

It’s not often that Wayne speaks up, but when he does, boy. Can that man dress a situation down. 

Al falters. Wayne has that ability to knock him out at the knees, and Eddie makes a mental note to ask him how he does that. 

“Listen. Alright. It’s not– alright,” Al clenches his hands in fists, a flex in and a flex out. A gesture Eddie notices, because he does it too. As if he’s trying to grasp the last threads of trust from them. “With that girl’s old man permanently benched so to speak, there’s an opportunity for another batter to step up. Okay? Jail sentences get doled out like Halloween candy–who knows that better than me, right?--but life goes on. There is… an opportunity here. Work still needs to get done. Work that I could’ve– that I can do.”

Eddie knows that his dad doesn’t realize he’s saying a lot of nothing, because Al’s always saying a lot of nothing. Vague promises with no real end to them. What catches him this time around is the glint in his eye, hidden behind the drug-induced one, and the glint of a gaudy ring on his finger. A green gem stamped in the middle, like a cat’s harvested eyeball. Huh. 

“... let me make good on this, boys. For once. Let me take care of y’all.” Al huffs a faux-humble breath, glancing toward Rick for some kind of illustrative reassurance. “Y’know, seeing how it screwed up that little girl, seeing her big, upstanding daddy go to jail and all, I really–,” a swallow, for dramatic measure. Gunning for Best Actor here. “--felt it. Made me think, Eddie, of all the times when you were just a squirt… Made me wanna do right by you, is all.” 

“How much of that doin’ right have you got up your nose, Dad?” Eddie sneers, putting two and two together. Of course this is what he’s back for; not to sell, couldn’t possibly be that simple in the convoluted world of Al Munson, but to supply. To get a suit fitted, pretend to be the big man. “Try before you buy isn’t exactly the most cost-effective policy.” 

“Jesus, why, why have you got to make this so hard on me, kid?” Al is just about wringing his hands right now, scaling the apex of his desperation. “You have an in! You have the in!” 

The in, of course, being Eddie’s connection to you, and by proxy, your dad. Al’s like a bloodhound that way, sniffing out the few good things that Eddie has going for him from miles off and tearing them right from his hands and acting like he’s doing Eddie a favor by making him his man on the inside.

“This whole town could be ours if you would just–”

That does it. Eddie leaps from the table, chair clattering to Rick’s warped wooden floor.

“I don’t want this whole town, are you fucking crazy?!” he yells, spittle flying, “And–and I certainly don’t want it if it’s anything to do with you!”

What the hell would make Al think that Eddie would hitch his wagon (which, granted, ain’t in too great a shape–he’s barely passing any classes, thanks to a pickup in business he guesses he can thank his dad for) to the living sunk cost fallacy that his father is? What the hell does Al Munson want with that kind of fantasy, one where he’s king bastard of the Hawkins cockwalk when he can’t even stick within county limits for more than a couple of weeks?

Well, Eddie actually has a pretty good idea, one that occurs to him like a lightning strike as Al struggles to keep his temper level. Let Eddie look like the tantrum-throwing brat.

Yeah. Exactly. 

He’d wind Eddie into whatever scheme he was cooking up and ditch it, half-baked, leaving Eddie in a kitchen with all the smoke alarms going off. Elbow deep in an unsalvageable mess, because Al could never follow through on anything. 

He’d have Eddie exploit your relationship for a couple of instances of, “That’s my boy.” Because Al still thought that trick worked; making him believe he’s loved, valuable, wringing every last drop of loyalty out of him because a boy needs his father… and a father needs his boy, y’know!

Fuck that. 

“We should split.” It’s Wayne who says it, batting away the apologetic glance both the Munson men get from Rick– like he’s Al’s keeper or something, managing his moods. Like he isn’t raking in a cash cow from Al’s great Ray Doevski replacement theory. 

“No, c’mon–” Al half-heartedly protests, like he could still save the evening but can’t really be bothered. 

Wayne follows Eddie’s furious stalk out the door, tearing a cigarette from a soft pack as he hauls into the passenger side of the van. 

Eddie, a tightening ball of rage, whacks the steering wheel with one good thump. He’d been stupid enough to entertain Al these past couple of days– out of confusion more than anything else. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were.

“The in,” Eddie mockingly mumbles as the van roars to life and he peels out against scattering gravel. 

Wayne has his cigarette pinched between his thumb and index and lets that settle for a beat or two. 

“You wanna talk about it?”

Fists flexing around the wheel, Eddie knows very well he’s been caught red-handed. There’s no way Wayne had gone this long without suspecting anything, even after he’d specifically warned him. More of a suggestion, actually; Wayne knows that Eddie will do whatever he wants, regardless. 

Unfortunately, he’s like his father that way. 

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Eddie says, a shoulder shrug, a mirthless lilt in his tone. “She…”

Again, Wayne stays silent. Waiting for Eddie to tell on himself, like he always does. 

“She doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of this,” Eddie arrives at, voice a little choked. “Whatever Dad’s planning on doing–”

“Neither do you,” Wayne reminds him. This is where Wayne and his stoicism pulls Eddie up short. Neither do you, and the only way you avoid the blowback is if you two avoid each other. But at that same time, Wayne always knows where Eddie’s heart is at. Knows that his heart is too big not to follow. 

Even if Wayne hasn’t seen you two together, laughing ‘til you’re stupid like the kids that you are, can’t he see…

“Why can’t this be easy?” Eddie asks, his voice small. Echoes of a littler him, one that Wayne would pick up in the truck after school. Head hanging, backpack trailing, kicking pebbles and cursing the world. 

Instead, through a sage swirl of smoke, Wayne’s hard stare seems to peel back some. He’s always known where Eddie’s heart is at. Eddie’s starting to think he wishes he knew less. 

—

Jesus Christ, are you ever sick of learning your lesson. Of reflecting on what you’ve done. 

It’s exhausting, and more to the point, pointless, and even more than that, boring. 

Truth is, you’re beginning to second-guess your adoration of brilliant thinkers. Those motherfuckers knew too much, and in the past week, you’ve found yourself yearning for the days where you got by on knowing nothing but the good stuff! The juicy gossip, where the best parties were at, what lipstick could not stand up to what nail polish! When intellectualism was a bedtime story you’d read to yourself under the fucking covers and you didn’t have to decode the labyrinth of your own stupid feelings! 

Sure, you felt like a husk most of the time, but you’d take that over this graceless stumbling shit!

You should be allowed to smash the windows out of Billy Hargrove’s car and no one should be able to say boo about it! God!

Instead, however, you’ve been caught up in an as-yet-unprecedented display of seething and sulking. People are still whispering about you, natch, glancing at your belly like you would’ve if that heinous spawnous prank was played on anyone else. At the very least, they still have the good sense to flinch when you match their stare.

Billy Hargrove’s two week suspension means you don’t have to worry about seeing his ugly face, but it also comes with the two week guarantee of not seeing Eddie. 

And the probable delay of your Hellfire article. Which is paramount. Obviously.

Speaking of Eddie, there’s too much speaking of Eddie to do. 

You keep replaying the sneak attack from Al Munson in your head, him sliding his aviators down his nose to get a look at you. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Payin’ my respects. Your father, shit. Shame what happened to him. He was– well. I was gonna say he was a ‘good man’, but that sounds kinda funny, don’t it?”

It wasn’t about Eddie, except it was about Eddie, because every stupid thing is about Eddie.

Especially the fact that you’re sitting in your college-going beau’s chariot, about to slink into Saturday detention. If it weren’t for him…

“Lacy?” a voice calls from the driver’s seat. “You alright?”

You snap to, rearranging your face into something definitive and sharp and pleasing to the eye. Because you’re fine! You’d said as much when he snuck you into the basement of his parent’s house–why wasn’t he back in school yet–and said as much when he squirmed against you, asking you if you were okay in that weighted way that really meant can I put it in yet. 

You’d gotten on all fours because it allowed you to roll your eyes when he was all, oh, woah! sliding it in from the back. 

You’d reached around and teased your clit to attempt a climax. Trying to imitate that clumsy rhythm from the nurse’s office. It didn’t quite stick–paled in comparison, like a Simon and Garfunkel tribute act made up of people that didn’t secretly want to fuck each other. 

And then he gave you a ride this morning. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to bore yourself out of misbehavior– but you’d told him that you had newspaper business to attend to. 

“I’m fine,” you brightly declare for the fourth and final time, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. It was a weird gesture, but the shine had buffed off. He’s cute and all, but you two had gone to see Paris, Texas at the Hawk and he didn’t get it.

He didn’t get how much you clowned on him for not getting it afterwards either. You hadn’t been able to get it out of your head, the way he shrugged away from you at the diner as you ribbed him for his plodding misunderstanding of Harry Dean Stanton.

Coldly, you thought of the trade-off that you and Eddie had agreed on. Repo Man for Paris, Texas once it came out. You had to pretend you liked Repo Man a lot less than you actually did to swing that one, because Eddie wasn’t keen to lock in to some movie about a dude crying in the desert or whatever unless you angled in the fact that you owe me for making me sit through all that machismo. 

“You love machismo. You wanted to nail that sweaty little punker, I saw you squeezin’ your knees together.”

“For Emilio Estevez? Please. I had my eye on the old guy. ‘Ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ‘em’--that kind of shit really does it for me, Munson, you know that.”

“That why you’ve been entertaining the pleasure of my company for so long?”

“Down, dog.”

Anyway. Fuck. 

“Listen, Lacy, I gotta tell you s–”

“Can’t right now! I’m already late and Fred is gonna have my head,” you chime, all saccharine, climbing out of the car. “Call me!” You pray that he doesn’t. 

Slam. What an extraordinary waste of time. 

As instructed, you make your way to the gym, which you think is a little weird. Detention usually denotes writing pointless, go-nowhere laments on how sorry you are for being such a bad kid, right? Think on your sins, yadda yadda yadda. 

Typically enough, no one’s here on time. Everyone’s late. You’re perched on the bleachers like an asshole, sitting alone like an asshole. That’s the goddamn ticket, isn’t it? You’re alone in all of this. You always have been. 

Like, for example. The Al Munson walk-on role into the surrealist tragi-comedy that is your fucking life. You can’t tell that to anybody. Not Eddie, naturally, not your mom, not Nancy because then you’d have to explain the continued and complicated Eddie of it all, not Ronnie because just because. And the ickiness of it hangs off your every move, and you can’t shake it, and no one can share it. 

You’re beginning to wonder if that’s true of all the parts of you. The ickiness. It’s all a little heavy, isn’t it? 

As if on cue, hearing ickiness called by name on the wind, Mr Kaminsky pushes open the gym’s double doors. 

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“Had to see it for myself.” Your loathed History teacher says, full of glee.

“Sir, if this is some kind of elaborate courting ritual, I have to say, you’re not my type.”

“Careful up there, Doevski. There’s more detentions where this came from.”

“Freak accident. I can’t be caged.”

“Well, let me enjoy the exception to the rule!” Kaminsky claps, and you jerk at the echo. 

You sigh so hard you almost unlatch something. “What elaborate torture have you got planned for me today? Want me to run laps or something? Because these shoes aren’t built for that.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Lacy,” the teacher digs, “We’re still waiting on your comrades.”

“I’m late, I’m late, I know I’m late!” a familiar voice comes skidding right up behind Kaminsky, baseball hat askew, mud stains on the knees of her overalls. “Some goddamn lunatic tried to run me and my bike off the road–”

“Ronnie?”

“Hey, Lacy!” she calls brightly and breathlessly, slamming herself down on the bleachers beside you.

“Ron, what’re you–”

An unmistakable heel-click rounds its way into the gym, and in walks Nancy Wheeler with her face all pinched like a porcelain doll. She receives your big ol’ center-piece-missing jigsaw puzzle of a look with a knowingly arched eyebrow.

“You’re late, Wheeler,” Kaminsky tries, but Nancy’s already consulting her wristwatch. 

“Detention starts at nine sharp, right?” she says, impenetrable as always. “It’s 8:58.”

“Then can I have my admission of lateness struck from the record, actually?” Ronnie asks and Kaminsky shoots her a withering one, consulting his clipboard. 

“Alright, we got one more. Give it the goddamn two minutes, but then I’m bumping her to suspension. You wanna count it, Wheeler?” he scoffs. Wow, so he’s like a round the clock douchebag. To everybody. 

At what you only can assume is 8:59, the mismatched gangle of Robin Buckley comes slinking over the waxed floor, looking half-awake and pissed off–more pissed off, you might argue, now that she registers her company. She perches on the furthest end of the bleachers, pointedly away from the loose gaggle of you, Ronnie and Nancy. 

You shoot Ronnie a look like, what’s the sitch there? Thought you two were getting all bosomy. 

Ronnie just shrugs. 

“Alright!” Kaminsky claps the clipboard again, “So, this is a fun group. Bunch of smart girls who got caught doing idiot stuff. We’re gonna make you pay for that today. Sound good?”

The whole bad bunch of you just stare at him, slit-eyed. 

Your collective punishment, as it turns out, comes in the form of scraping old, disgusting, errant gum and other mystery sticky bullshit from the bottom of the bleachers. 

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Kaminsky sagely says, handing you each a tiny chisel from the art room, “And I understand that some of you are violent offenders,” that’s a pointed look at you and Ronnie, by the way, “but please. Don’t use this opportunity to take another girl’s eye out. Your community college acceptance is riding on it.” 

Motherfucker. Everyone knows Ronnie Ecker is in the running for valedictorian.

He leaves the four of you to your own devices, promising to check up on you all in a solid forty-five. 

“How many times you think he can beat off in forty-five minutes?” Ronnie immediately asks as the teacher disappears through the door. 

“Depends. Is he doing it in the shameful privacy of his three-door rust bucket or the clandestine confines of the AV room?” you question. 

Nancy makes a gagging sound but adds, “And is he using his imagination or Ms Kelley’s yearbook picture?” 

Nasty Wheeler! That girl has truly endeared herself to you.

Robin, however, doesn’t weigh in at all. She just sort of glares and angles herself onto the nearest bleacher rung to start scraping the age-old mastication from the wood. Tension in the air.

“Buckley’s got the right idea,” you say, twirling the chisel in your fingers, “Sooner we get started, sooner we get the grossness over with…”

Ronnie sticks close by you, which is nice. You always like having her in proximity. Nancy, who’s nothing but work ethic in everything she does, starts furiously working on a corner a little ways away from you both– and Robin. 

It doesn’t take long, maybe fifteen minutes of silent, resigned scraping, for you to get bored. And disgusted. 

“At what point do we get to do the whole prison thing of what are you in for?” you say, sitting up and letting the blood rush back to your head. 

“Well, yours goes without saying,” Ronnie chuckles, “going all batter on Hargrove’s car like that. Did you actually bust a window?”

“Just swung it around,” you say, driving your heel into the bench, “I may have inherited the felony misdemeanor gene, but I didn’t inherit getting caught. What about you?”

Ronnie flicks another gum wad off with her chisel, “Actually, you might wanna ask Wheeler about that.”

Your brow furrows. “Nance?” your voice rings down to the lower rungs, “Ronnie here says you were implicated in her detention-getting.”

“Yeah, um. Well, I heard about everything when you went–”

“--totally awesome psycho–”

“--in the parking lot and… I just. I wanted to clean up all that shit. From your locker. And then Nicole came by, smacking her stupid gum, and it kind of got ugly.”

Nicole. The irony of it, Nicole, gnashing out shittalk about you and Eddie in order to impress whatever unfortunate member of the wrestling squad she’d dug her press-ons into this week. Nicole, who’d already invaded Eddie’s territory, much to her apparent shame. 

What a majorette of a bitch.

You would’ve given anything to be ringside for this, her versus Nancy.

“You toed up to Nicole Summers?” a little pause, your voice goes smaller, “For me?”

Nancy sits up, her perm clouding around her. She points her chisel Ecker-ward.

“Ronnie was the one who smacked all her books out of her hand.”

Ronnie pffts. “Like she hasn’t done that to me a million times. Eye for an eye.” 

“Nicole wouldn’t even go near her on account of that one time she bit that one kid for catcalling her.”

“Oh, stop,” Ronnie’s gathering a blush, batting her hand all coquettish. 

“Wait, that was real?” you say, eyes darting between them, “I thought that was just some freak rumor we came up with.”

Rabid Ecker was one of the less clever nicknames your group of crown ghouls had come up with, so it obviously didn’t stick too long. 

“We?” Nancy scoffs, not mean.

“The royal ‘we’,” Robin Buckley drawls from her prostrate position on the bleachers. That sounds mean, the bite in her voice. 

Your hackles can’t help but rise at that cold snap in her tone. Does she have a fucking problem, or something? 

“And why are you here, Robin?” you call, hands knitting in your lap.

“I was with these bozos,” she says, a note-faithful mockery of your pointed voice, “For some godforsaken reason… and now I really wish I wasn’t.”

“Why’s that?” you press.

Nancy’s whole upper half tenses. “Robin–”

Robin’s chisel clatters on the bench, a toss made out of frustration. She looks to the three of you with pursed lips before letting loose. 

“Steve found out,” Robin says, “About the pregnancy test thing. In like, the worst way he could possibly find out, which is so goddamn unfair, unfair in the first place because of Nancy not telling him–like, I get it, your choice or whatever but you guys have been together for, like, a really significant period of time and you know how he feels about you–”

You and Ronnie can’t even get a breath in before Nancy rises from her seat, fingernails digging into tiny little fists at her side. She’s all spit and fury, she’s on Robin.

“Oh yeah, the worst way he could find out, Robin, the worst way which is that you blabbed to him!” Nancy yells, ricocheting around the gym, “‘Oh, I couldn’t help it, he asked me what was wrong and it all just came out–’ Give me a break! I mean, are you really that co-dependent that no one can tell you anything in confidence without you running to tell Steve?”

Robin’s face seizes in a snarl. “Are you really that stupid that you forgot to use protection with your long term boyfriend?”

“What is your problem?” Nancy’s voice whistles through her teeth, sheer exasperation, “How is this any of your business?”

“Should we stop this?” Ronnie whispers, with no intention of moving.

You shake your head in tiny, tiny increments, gossip monger past getting the best of you. “I kinda wanna see where this goes.”

“He is my friend, Nancy! And you broke his heart, dumping him right after– after–!”

Both your and Ronnie’s mouths drop into an ‘o’. You’re kind of disappointed–a big Wheeler-Harrington bust up and you weren’t first on the call list?! 

“Jesus, Robin!” Nancy spits, perm flying, stomping towards Robin, “Get a personality! Sublimating yourself onto Steve Harrington isn’t doing you any favors!”

“Why, Nancy? I thought you loved him.” What confusing wording.

“I–”

Okay, these two girls are walking right into shit you can’t take back territory. You and Ronnie rush the bleachers, breaking the negative space between them both. 

“Ladies! Break it up!” 

“You heard Kaminsky! We’re all holding chisels, this could get ugly fast!” 

You look to Nancy and her eyes are glistening. Reddening with the heat of anger and frustration. Robin’s jaw has hardened into a tough clinch, arms bound around her chest. Ronnie, she just lingers awkwardly, not quite knowing where to look. Your hand goes out to Nancy’s elbow, and she jerks away from you at first. 

“Let’s go. Come on.”

“We’re supposed to be chiseling,” Nancy seethes. Your eyes roll, no patience for this go-nowhere brat routine, and you lead her to the other end of the bleachers anyway. Saying something like, we’ll take one end, Ronnie and Robin take the other, we’ll get this shit cleared in no time.

Nancy starts working furiously, but that’s kind of not what you had in mind here.

“You broke up with Steve?” you ask, point blank. Like she’d ask you. 

She keeps chiseling for a few heavy, angry seconds. “I wasn’t gonna tell him, you know. I wasn’t gonna tell him, and we were gonna be fine. He could have lived without knowing. And then–fucking Buckley– and he had all these questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why didn’t I tell him. And why was I so put out by the idea. Like, why didn’t I want to have his hypothetical baby at age seventeen… stupid shit like that.”

“He’s sensitive.”

“He’s a moron.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” as if you didn’t have irrefutable proof in her favor. But that was the old Steve Harrington, wasn’t it? He’s meant to be some soft-hearted do-gooder dream boy now, right? 

“No, Lacy, he’s a moron,” Nancy hisses, spit flying again; you’ve never seen her like this. Blue eyes bold and frightening with conviction. “Why should I have to tell Steve about something like that if it’s just a big nothing? If I was never even actually pregnant or whatever? Why can’t I just have that to forget about myself? Why do I owe him part of every single goddamn decision I make about my life?” 

This is a bigger conversation, isn’t it? What you’d once regarded as poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, boo-fucking-hoo is now poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, stifled by his redemption.

“At least if he was still an asshole, I wouldn’t feel bad about breaking up with him. After all this.”

“Now it’s just like you’ve kicked a puppy.”

“Exactly.”

“What total bullshit.”

Nancy shoots the tiniest smile up at you, a stiff little nod bobbing her neck forward.

There’s a long beat as your focus reframes around Nancy. All the two of you wanted were lives of your own. Existences not indebted to anybody, good or bad. Shit.

“I’m the sublimator, by the way. I know that,” Nancy whispers, great big eyeballs glittering at you, “It’s easy to… fold into someone like Steve when, y’know… you’re not exactly likeable on your own. I just. I wanted to hurt her. She doesn’t deserve it. But I wanted to.” 

Her chisel gestures towards Robin, working alongside Ronnie in relative silence that Ronnie awkwardly tries to puncture.

You understand that. Wanting to hurt people after you feel like they’ve breached your trust. Even accidentally. And doing it. And the ugliness of the shame after, you’re familiar with that too.

You reach forward and brush a little lint off her collar. “Thanks for getting in trouble for me, by the way. With that stupid prank and everything.”

“What are you talking about?” she scoffs softly, “You covered for me. And you didn’t have to.”

“Hey,” you hold out your pinkie finger. It’s the least you can do. “Promise is a promise, right?”

—

The members of Hellfire Club gather in an awkward row, standing under the odd, warm glow of the drama room lights like a police lineup of suspects least likely to score a date to homecoming. Sorry, Ronnie. 

“What do you think,” you say, swiveling your focus to Jonathan, who’s standing there twice as awkwardly with his camera slung around his neck, “Should we take ‘em outside, make ‘em do Abbey Road?”

In the middle of it all sits the man who can’t help but be of the hour, what with the throne and the glowering and the gravitational pull. Eddie, slumped into that wild set piece left over from god knows what drama club production of, like, Henry VI or Pirates of Penzance or whatever, is so beyond unhappy with what’s unfolding in front of him. 

Good. 

Ronnie clearly hadn’t even fluffed him into the idea. Which she offered to do, when you’d hitched a ride home on the back of her bike after the tension of Saturday detention dissipated. You’d firmly nixed the idea, the sneak attack being the whole point of this thing. 

You’d also learned that a two week suspension was no way no how going to keep Eddie from sneaking in and running this Hellfire session, which meant your article wouldn’t be delayed after all.

So, nah. Good ol’ Ronnie, she just let you stalk in there with your notebook and your pen and your glasses and your Pentax-wielding Jonathan Byers, ready to entirely fuck up Eddie’s day, which gave him no opportunity to protest or call for embargo. Because if he did, it’d raise eyebrows of suspicion and everyone would be like, I thought you two were weird trailer park friends? Is something going on? Something emotionally incoherent and ambiguously erotic? Should we tell everyone? Should we call the Mayor?

“Capital idea,” Eddie says, not exactly to you, but to those in general attendance like he’s playing to the cheap seats, “Maybe I can mow them down in my van and save them from this torture.”

Your smile tightens and Eddie matches your expression, both your mouths straining against your skulls. Wisecracks will not save him. He should know that by now. 

“Let’s get a couple of the maestro while I excavate the disciples’ brains,” come the instructions and a swift pat to Jonathan’s shoulder. He flashes you a bewildered kind of look.

“Wh– how do you… want him?” 

Incredible phrasing. You glance at Eddie, but not really at him–not enough that he can register and sucker your gaze in. Bathed under the dramatic glow like he was born to sprawl all cock-kneed on a throne like that.

“Exsanguinated and hung on a meat hook, preferably,” you say to Jonathan, “But, I trust you. Do whatever.”

As you gather the rest of the Hellfire denizens at the end of the table to interview them talking head style, Jonathan Byers slinks towards Eddie. 

Eddie shifts uncomfortably, less equipped to keep up that fuck you stormcloud persona when he’s at the other end of a focusing lens. Plus, Byers always kind of gave him the creeps. Not to be a dick, but. Here we are. 

Byers, to Eddie’s complete and utter horror, clears his throat and attempts to scrounge up some semblance of conversation. But, of course, it’s Jonathan Byers so it’s not fucking small talk. Any other day of the week, Eddie could get behind the notion of eschewing such how about this weather we’ve been having type social norms but Byers decides to jump in with–

“So you guys are…” he trails, leading the witness. Snap goes his little aperture. That’s unfair. Means he caught Eddie’s immediate facial reaction which, hands up, he has never been good at hiding. 

“Neighbors,” Eddie supplies in a rush, twisting on his throne again. “She can… hear me yelling about DnD from my trailer. S’why she’s here. To shut me up, I guess.”

Byers adjusts his stance, capturing Eddie from a lower angle– a little more badass looking, he hopes. Frame the fucking curls, for god’s sake.

“Gotcha journalism,” Byers quips. Byers quips. 

Eddie’s mouth relaxes and he huffs out a little, “Exactly.”

Byers shifts yet again, clearly covering all wondrous angles with his dinky little thirty-five millimetre whatever the fuck. 

It’s not that this whole sneak attack article for the Streak thing is getting under Eddie’s skin– Eddie didn’t even have a chance to acknowledge it getting under his skin. You just breezed in here and started sticking bamboo spikes under his fingernails, like the little warmongtrix you are. 

And now you’re sitting at the end of the game table, ruby red end of your fountain pen pointing at Gareth, noting down everything he says without even the slightest hint of condescension. These dorks are looking at you in awe and fear, save for Ronnie who just looks smug, and you’re listening to them. Really listening to them. Your face fixed with that hard little glare that tells him you’re recording the minutiae of their answers. 

Eddie digs the pad of his thumb into his lip. Why would you want to do this? Why aren’t you avoiding him at all human cost? What is your angle here?

“She’s cool, y’know.” Click, goes Byer’s camera again. “Lacy.”

Eddie’s voice comes out distant, his focus tugging away from you super, super slowly. 

“I heard you blew it with her.” 

Byers, caught off guard, lowers his lens. “She told you about that?”

Eddie shrugs, like it’s nothing. It’d be easier to pretend like the idea of you and Byers hanging out was nothing if Byers and Eddie weren’t both classified outsiders. 

“Well, uh,” Byers fiddles with something on his camera, shrugging in turn, “It was weird, talking to Lacy back then. You know. She was kind of–”

“She’s different now.” Eddie answers too fast, springing to a defense that didn’t call for him. He sits up a little bit straighter, spine iron-rodding, and tries to recover.  “I mean. She’s retired the whole icy Swatch rat bit. She’s not, like– pretending to be something.”

Jonathan gets this look on his face. One last click of the camera. 

“I wouldn’t know. I blew it, remember?” But you didn’t, man.

Little does he know. 

“Are we done?” Eddie says, launching himself from his chair and slapping palms on the table. His DM screen shakes. Byers steps back with a flared little danger zone! look tossed your way. “We’ve already lost–”

“--fifteen minutes of glorious game time?” you drawl, crossing a final ‘t’ in your notes. “Of course. My apologies. Tight schedule?” 

Your eyebrow arches as you flash your eyes up at him. His jaw flares. You– you’re good. You’re vicious and you’re good.

“Theee tightest,” Eddie grits through the falsest of grins and jerks his head, waves flying and the rest of his little Hellfire sheepies following in motion to take their seats. 

Ronnie takes her time, mumbling under her breath, “You sure this is a good idea?”

And she was right, with what she’d said before. You are using this as an excuse to get in his face–bolstered only by the fact that he had now gotten in your pants, and you weren’t letting him slink off that easy. Especially with the workplace cameo appearance from Al Munson that you had just been forced to live through. 

You’d been looking over your shoulder ever since, expecting to see him leering at you over those sickening aviator sunglasses. 

“Oh, I’m positive,” you assure her, turning to Jonathan. “I need, like, one or two shots of them playing then you can take off.” 

“Waiwaiwaiwaiwaiwaiwait,” Eddie interrupts, an arm raising over his head to signal halt, “Okay, so first, you storm the castle with your little camera boy without my approval, now you think you’re going to stay for the game?” His ire is genuine. “It’s Hellfire Club, Lacy. Members only. We don’t need bleacher bunnies.”

“Oh, come on, Munson!” you lilt, situating yourself on an abandoned desk, away from the game table. “The people want to know how the Satanic sausage is made.”

“The people being?” 

“Your critics and fans. What is this all for, if not to piss off Hawkins’ Presbyterian and garner a whole new legion of Hellfire acolytes, huh?”

“We don’t need any help from the press on that front.”

“Really?” You drag out your single-word answer, using the seconds to count the minimal amount of players in the room. Not even Ronnie could boast 100% attendance, with her marching band obligations clashing with Hellfire sessions. Eddie glares at you. Yeah, yeah. 

“A–actually, Eddie… I think it’d be… pretty cool,” Gareth says, waver slowly fading out of his voice. “I mean, if we’re in the school paper, my Mom’ll be less suspicious that we’re like–”

“--doing k-bombs in the drama room…” you mutter, loud enough that only Jonathan can hear. 

“--and stuff.”

Eddie exhales so hard his nostrils flare, his shoulders tense, he’s about to shit. 

“And who else would like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Gareth the Treacherous here?” he snarls, looking pointedly around the table, “Jeff? Dougie? Cyrus? Ecker?”

The dorks erupt in yapping agreement, totally swinging for Gareth’s angle. 

“Shut up!” Eddie barks, throwing himself back onto his throne. Ringed fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “Fine. But this, in the business, is what they call a mutiny. Don’t come cryin’ to me when you’re all gettin’ swirlies with half of the Weekly Streak stuffed in your goddamn mouths.”

That’s creative. He really could have had a fruitful career as a bully if he wasn’t so gooey in the middle. 

“Munson, I promise you can ride circles around me on a motorbike on live TV if this all goes to shit.” 

You make a fluttering hand motion that reads proceed, which he, naturally, hates. He stares at you, like white light white heat searing through stares at you. And then his eyes shut. He takes a deep breath.

What follows is… exactly what you should have expected, actually.

Eddie Munson transports the present-and-correct party of adventurers back into the eye of their campaign. Their mission? Infiltrate a cult of royal knights that have been bewitched by a high priest who is forcing them to sacrifice the kingdom’s innocents in order to fuel his dastardly arcane magic. The plot is… involved. You’d done a light touch of research on how exactly the dragons and the dungeons all worked, so to speak, but it didn’t really seep into the membrane. It’s something you could only really engage with if you saw it in action– you’d have to rely on Eddie and company to fill in the blanks that the extensive lore left. Like, how exactly did these mythical dice come into play? How does a character sheet set you up for success, or failure? What the fuck is a skill check and why does it read so complicated? 

And fill in they… kind of did. 

Aside from the technical aspects, you find yourself suckered into the story. Quite literally, gripping your seat as Ronnie’s character–a highly capable bard, from what you understand–attempts to escape the hateful royal sect and find her way back to her party. They’d taken her hostage, and she’s managed to escape her chains but they’re ruthless, on her like dogs. Eddie illustrates every sweaty, panicky movement as they close in on her, and your fine, painted fingernails are dug into every word.

Eddie weaves these stories like gossamer– both in the sense of delicate intricacy and destructive nature of that big red monster thing from Looney Tunes. Each plot twist is created to elicit a sense of true foreboding, embellishing how effective his storytelling is. It forces each and every person at the table to face fear head on, dig deep and use what they were given in order to prevail, even if they’re shaking in their boots while doing it– shit, this is good, you should be writing this down.

Blindly, you sketch the word gossamer into your journal, not tearing your eyes away from the table. You barely notice the flash going off to your immediate right– Jonathan Byers’ lens pointed right at you. 

“Uh–” you start, Jonathan reaching to grab his jacket from behind you as the game goes on. 

“I’m headin’ out– gotta pick Will up from…” he trails off, but you fill in the blank. Nancy had mentioned that Mike was hosting his friends for a DnD session tonight too, and the party naturally included the most junior Byers. You nod, checking the time– Jesus, where had the last three hours gone?

“Tell Nancy I said hey, if you see her,” you say, “and thank you.”

Jonathan shrinks into himself, bashful. “Don’t worry about it.” A beat. “I still want that Echo & the Bunnymen, though.”

Your face peels into a grin that says don’t worry, I”m good for it! and you wave him off. The Hellfire party don’t even notice his leaving, except for Eddie who, being judge, jury and executioner, notices everything. 

“...and on that sweltering note, germies and Eckermen, we must bid each other good eventide. Until next time.” 

An operatic groan of disapproval goes up from the players, and you realize this must be a regular thing. Eddie always leaving them wanting more. Tease. 

“I know, I know, if you had it your way, you’d be locked in here, pissing in buckets and the show would go on all night,” Eddie jeers, rising from his seat to start collecting his stuff, “but I wouldn’t inflict that on the janitorial staff. ‘kay? Scat. Outta my sight.”

With great indignation that swiftly turns into backslaps of appreciation, the Hellfire Club moves out of the drama room one by one. You stay put, and Eddie avoids your eyes completely.

Folding shit back into that madly overstuffed DM folder, he throws a strained-casual, “Need a ride?” to Ronnie, the last straggler. 

She shakes her head, smile barely contained. “Uh-uh! Two wheeled my way here and I’ll two wheel my way back– you, uh, have fun though.”

“Bye, Ronnie,” you call after her, voice properly piercing through the air for the first time in hours. Eddie reacts like he’d completely forgotten you were there. Which, impossible. It’s also impossible for him to keep up the whole punk-ass overlord act when it’s just the two of you. As it is now.

Alone, together. Again. 

There’s a charge between you, as if that even needs pointing out. Like the electric fences surrounding McCorkle’s farm. 

You and the wagonful of your one-time buddies, Carol and Tommy and Tina et al, used to drive out there more than a little under the influence. Your favorite trespassing activity was reaching out for the electric fence, hooking your fingers around it to feel the darting shock permeating your skin. 

“What the fuck are you doing? Can’t that, like, fry your brain?” Carol’d ask you, slugging back the last of her beer as Tommy and Steve Harrington attempted to tip a cow in the background somewhere. 

“Try it, Care,” you’d giggled, half drunk and half coursing with adrenaline, half alive and half dead, “It feels weird. It feels good!” 

You’d woken up the next morning in your plush bedroom in Loch Nora, two little blisters on your fingers, smarting from all that pleasure seeking. Did you regret it? Or did it just make you want to do it again?

Eddie still doesn’t look at you as he speaks from the opposite end of the table. 

“Get everything you need?”  

“No,” you answer, short. “Missing my key interview.”

Now he looks. Now he has the nerve to. And irises lock on irises, Eddie frozen in place. He knows he’s not getting out of this. 

What’s more, you don’t think he really wants to.

“Pretty controversial subject matter,” he says, tone a whole shade softer than the commanding voice of God he’d used through the duration of the session. A little higher. Nervous. “What with the panic, and all.”

“Me and controversy are bedfellows,” your shoulder darts up, “I’m the big spoon.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod; your tone is as marble-solid as ever, eyes trained and undarting, “Like when I implied the Tigers were straddling a generation-defining line of bold faced failure. I got in a lot of trouble for that.”

The corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch a little. “Define ‘a lot of trouble’ by your standards.”

“They made me print a retraction!” You’re genuinely incensed by the memory, hitching forward in your seat, “I mean, how insane? ‘Bad for school spirit,’ they said. Like I’m some kind of pep exorcist.”

Eddie tongue folds in between his teeth and he turns his head a split second too late. You can see him biting back a snicker, or something, and point to Lacy and yadda yadda yadda—but you smile, and the tension feels like it’s waning. Thank god, because it is suffocating you. You take your in and up you get, moving to the seat closest to his right-hand side.

“Can we get started?” The fountain pen is uncapped, the notebook cracked, your legs crossing. Eddie sinks back into the throne, his face warming up under the yellow stage lights.

“Okay. Hit me with your best shot.” Fire away.

You’re quick with it. “Why this?”

“Really? That’s your first question?” Eddie looks bemused.

“It’s the least rudimentary of all the Ws,” you explain nice and plainly, plucking up fingers to illustrate your points, “People know who you are–against their will, mostly. People can glean what the game is–or will, once I put a fine point on the… everything that just happened there. What people don’t get is why. Why indulge yourself in this?”

His fingers knit together in his lap, nearly shy.

“Because it’s fun.”

“Nope, too vague.”

“Vague?”

You physically knock the notion with a waving hand, leaning closer over the table, errant miniatures and spare pencils still scattered there.

“Basketball is fun. Chess club is fun. Throwing rocks into a rusted can of SpaghettiOs is fun if you can make a case for it. Too vague. Didn’t come here for the everyman answer.”

“What did you come here for?” That’s loaded. The way he’s daring himself to look at you is loaded. How soft his voice turns is loaded.

“The Munson answer.” It hangs in the air like someone dropped off the gallows. “Dig for me.”

A long, metastasizing beat. Resistance is futile, as it is and ever will be with you. Eddie hitches his arms across his chest, hiding a smile in the heel of his palm. Flattery works with him. Even if you'd never call this flattery. 

“Escape,” he eventually tells you.

“Go on,” you press.

“There is this… insatiability when it comes to fantasy. To stories like this, the kind with big, thriving worldscapes. Reading ‘em, even writing ‘em– it’s good, but it isn’t enough sometimes. Sometimes you want to wrap yourself up in the reality of elsewhere. Travel to a world where things are different.”

“But not idyllic.”

Eddie’s eyebrows pull together. 

“No. If these campaigns were just… the bad guys are defeated by a mighty sword that you and you alone always happen to have on you, that’s not a campaign. That’s a circle jerk.”

“The idea is to be challenged. To fight for something.”

“Right. To adventure. Beat the odds.”

“And you can’t do that alone.”

“Well, you can. I think that’s called, like, writing a book.” 

“Ohh-kay, Eddie…”

“No, no, no, I mean,” Eddie shakes his head, planting his elbows on the table top, “Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the thrill of the unknown? Of not knowing what the other characters are gonna do, or what sick twist the dastardly, brilliant DM is gonna pull out next?”

He’s on one now, so you don’t stop him. Eddie’s eye takes on that mercurial shine, the same one he had while he was cruise directing the campaign. You wonder when he got like this—got bit by the God complex bug. Here, he could dare people to defy him when he’d been the defiant one his whole life. 

You think about a littler him, yearning for escape. 

“It also doesn’t work if everyone wants to be a hero. Too many heroes spoil the stew, okay, so you need to find other, y’know, likeminded weirdos who fall into different alignments. Those alignments only work when they’re played off other characters. Your merry band of outlaws or pirates or underdogs or whoever. You work together, or you betray each other, or you come back together because of some mighty sworn oath and you see your mission through. It’s not about winning or losing, y’know? Whatever happens out there,” he gestures to beyond the barricade of the drama room doors, “doesn’t matter. Whether life’s beating the shit out of them or not, my little acolytes, as you call ‘em, sit at this table and they’re part of something bigger. Something thrilling. Magical. Alchemic. They’re part of–”

“--a team.” You think about a littler him, yearning for people to escape with.

Eddie flaps his ever-animated hands. “Not my phrasing. But.”

“That thread runs through it all,” you say, drawing a line down the center of your notes with the inactive end of your pen, “Teamwork. Belonging. Victory– an escape from the mundane to victory, especially when you can’t find it elsewhere.”

Eddie’s chin rests on the back of his hand as he squints at you. “Sounding a little sportsmanlike there, Lacy.”

“And?”

“Thought you weren’t pulling for the everyman answer.”

“A hook’s a hook’s a hook,” you quirk your eyebrows, “–and, when you put it that way—” 

“When you put it that way.”

“—what really makes you any different from, say, the Tigers?”

“Besides the cult of personality surrounding all jocks–”

“As if you don’t court your own little cult of personality—“

“—we actually win our campaigns.”

You start to retort, then stop. Letting that sink in.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good,” you say, sketching it down. 

“I foresee letters to the editor in your future,” Eddie says, and he’s smug about it. Anything to aggregate the status quo, no matter what the blowback might be. 

No one in their right mind here behaves like him. He just… does whatever he wants.

You find yourself wanting to touch the fence. 

And maybe it’s that you stare at him a beat or so too long, but Eddie shifts his gaze down to the wood grain, flexing his hand. Scabs still marring his knuckles and all. 

“It wasn’t broken or anything, then?” you ask, gesturing to his hand. 

Eddie looks back up with a drag. You can feel what’s coming.

“Oh no, it was shattered,” he tells you, eyes-wide earnest and lying through his teeth, “My bones just heal super fast. My mom, she ate a shit ton of canned spinach when I was in ute.”

“Right, the calcium—”

“Nah. Rare botulism side effect,” he shrugs like, whaddaya gonna do!

Dumbass. 

“Rare Botulism Side Effect is a good album title.”

“I’ll tell the guys.”

Silence falls again, and if you reach around, there’s something close to normalcy in there. Among the spikes and confusion. 

“Um,” Eddie’s face contorts into a tiny cringe, “I found out what the… what the prank was, by the way. I obviously wasn’t here to witness the whole masterpiece theater of it all but– but Ronnie told me.”

A tight and ugly feeling constricts your chest. You look away, nodding through a grimace. You’d opened your locker with the practiced caution of someone diffusing a bomb since that whole incident, which sucks as someone who derives real joy from slamming metal doors. 

“Pretty creative bit, huh?” is all you offer. 

“Almost too creative for Hargrove,” Eddie counters, uprighting a fallen miniature with one finger. 

“Are you trying to say I was being hysteric, jumping on his car?” It sounds like you’re offended, but. 

“No,” Eddie meets you right where you’re at with this sparkle framing his stare, “I’m saying it was probably a collaborative effort. You could go seek even more batshit revenge, if you wanted to.”

“And would you be there to stop me before I cut Carol Perkins’ breaks?” 

You can see Eddie biting his tongue between his teeth oh-so-lightly… Saliva catching in the low light. It’s warm in here. Stuffy. 

“Prob–” 

“I miss you.” 

You cut him off in such a harsh, unforgiving way that Eddie feels his words rammed back down his throat. He blinks a couple of times, tempted to shake his head to make sure he heard you right. But there you are, your sight line running clean through him. You couldn’t be talking to anybody else. 

“You do?” His voice is so small that his lips barely move. His lips, teased by his tongue, wetting them. 

“Don’t act brand new. Everything’s harder without you. You have to know that.” 

He gets snagged on the angles in your voice. By without you, he can only imagine you mean since he started giving you the cold shoulder and you started hitching rides in that college dork’s Ford Cortina. And by everything, he can only imagine…

“Lace…”

This is hard. This is horrible. This is uncomfortable and risky and as exposed as you have ever been, but it’s necessary.

“I can’t stand the tension of not being around you,” you say, breath feeling harsher as it speeds past your molars, “And I can’t stand the tension when I’m with you either, with you and wanting to–... so what do I do, Eddie?”

You focus on him, adjusting as if you were looking through the viewfinder of Jonathan’s Pentax. Eddie’s face, bewildered and angelic, with his parted mouth and his honorific glow of the stage lights haloing the frizz in his hair. He looks like something you want to commit to memory, as if to say see?! How could you deny this? 

You rise from your seat, ever the investigator, and bear over him with hands on the table. Cards on the table, too. A genuine question smarts in your mouth, too sour candy you have to spit out. 

“What do I do, Eddie?”

Eddie inhales with a sharp touch as you stand up, inspecting, demanding. He goes to tell you I don’t know… in the meekest of tones but the arch in your eyebrows says don’t you goddamn dare. You terrify him, and you make him dig. 

“Forget it. Forget about all of it,” he breathes, almost tasting your perfume, “We can reset. Blank slate. Pretend like we don’t know each other. Pretend like none of this ever happened. It’d be better. Safer. Easy. Right? We could totally do that. We’ve fooled everybody so far. Even ourselves, into thinking this was… we could...” 

“Fuck you,” you say in a soft rush. 

Eddie only realizes that you’re both smiling when you kiss him. It’s clumsy at first, teeth knocking and everything, your hands winding around his collar and your frigid fingertips finding his neck. The shock of your skin on his, the matchstick crack of your mouth on his propels Eddie onto his motherfucking feet. He leans over you, knocking you into the table as your tongue works its way deep into his mouth. 

You give him an, “Mm,” and if feels like an ascent to heaven.

Sparkles in the static makes the stuffiness evaporate, makes the room come alive. Your legs part to invite him closer to you, your hands faster and more insistent than his are. You pull at the hem of his Hellfire shirt and yank your head back, a string of saliva married between your mouths. 

Fingers are more bold than they were in the nurse’s office, weaving the leather out of Eddie’s belt buckle. A deep ridge etches between Eddie’s eyebrows and his hands are propped in a mid-air surrender. Your eyes, your everything fucking eyes, are weighted with want. And challenge. Because you always do have to get one up on him. 

“Reset this.” You tug at his zipper. “Tell me to stop.” 

“Lacy…” Eddie whispers, watching you pull at the waistband of his boxers with his mouth agape. He’d dreamt about this. Thought about this. His cock about jumps into your hand like you’re Snow White and it’s a goddamned hummingbird. Pen marks on your fingers. “Jesus, y–...”

Eddie’s arms angle up behind his head, like a strung-up marionette, fabric of his shirt ghosting against his nipples in the stretch. This only makes him angle his hips further into you, eyelids flickering and his blood breaking the speed limit on its descent. Fuck, and then you fucking touch him– fingertips along the length of him, featherlight and goading. 

Eddie’s groan is broken, half-caught in his nose. You’re looking at him like he’s a bad puppy, like you’re teaching him a lesson in scolding masking adoration. You’re beautiful and he wants to tell you so, but it all comes out in a whimper. Your hand closes around his cock, thumb brushing rii-iii-iight along the ridge of his head.

“Tell me to stop,” you echo yourself, and you’re fascinated that it comes out sounding like you know what you’re doing. You don’t. You’ve never been thrust into a net of feeling like this, never had anyone look at you the way Eddie is now– like he’d throw himself on a bed of open flames for you, so long as you kept touching him. It’s drunkard-making. It’s a full headrush. The gradual glisten of his reddening head looks delicious to you. 

“Tell me to s–”

Grip tightens around him and Eddie moans from right in his sternum, his arms dropping to cradle around your head. He can’t believe he’s doing this, he can’t believe he’s fucking doing this but–

“Stop,” he gasps, fingers winding in your hair. His entire spinal cord is begging him to buck into your hand, your mouth, your anything, but he steels himself. “Stopstopstop, Lacy. Fuck– fuck.” 

Your eyes widen, cheek in his palm. “Really?” Said in the most painful, the most misread did I do something? lilted tone. Your hand doesn’t exactly go slack right away. 

“Yeah. Yes,” Eddie murmurs, eyes screwing closed and opening again, the most manual effort ever put behind a blink. “I c–I didn’t do this right, the first time. This is stupid. This is so stupid.”

And so your hands go, and you feel the anchor of your heart slowly dropping… But Eddie drops his face right down to yours. 

“You deserve… so much more than giving me a handy on school property,” he tells you, and feels almost coherent about it. “Hot as it is. Right out of my… nastiest dreams as it is.” 

Oh. Oh. The corners of your mouth pick up as Eddie presses his forehead to yours, just about evening out his breathing. 

“Had a premonition about this, didja?” The pressure of his face on yours, his breath on yours, his skin on yours. It’s nice.

“Came to me in a vision,” he grins, crooked. Slides his thumbs along your cheeks and kisses you, slowly and noisily. “I’m a prognosticator.” Tongue half in, half out your mouth. Your heartbeat sinks between your legs. In a good way. “Been known to prognosticate.” 

“Five dollar vocab word,” you mumble into his mouth, can’t help but push your body against him like a cat begging for attention. Eddie’s lips latch to the space right below your ear, a place where his mouth makes you feel like cymbals are clashing in your stomach.

“Come home with me,” he says, the note of pleading in his voice making your legs go numb. His nose and his lips dragging against the side of your neck, begging you to focus on the details and not the bigger picture. “Please.” A swallow. A beat. A ragged whisper. “... I missed you. Too. Y’know?”

“I do…” you sigh into his curls, readjusting his boxers, “actually need a ride… so.”

—

The van ride back to Forest Hills is tight with a tension that makes you both laugh, your mouth still buzzing from the kiss Eddie’d laid on you right before he’d helped you into the passenger seat. Even after he’d insisted you not touch him from the drama room to the parking lot, insisted because, “This thing,” he’d gestured to his crotch, his hard-on painfully zipped into submission, “this thing is gonna get me hauled over by the cops!”

“Don’t laugh!” you scold, mouth straining around the gleaming smile you’re suppressing, body all giddy. Voice ringing clear and high even over the cranked radio. Sabbath, naturally, Vol. 4. Wheels of Confusion sounds like treacle to you, mixed in with his laugh.

“I’m no-oo-oht!” Eddie says, syllables punctuated with chuckles, “I just– I am expressly escorting you back to my place! To, like, have sex with me!” His hands beat against the wheel, teeth sunk into that pretty bottom lip, giddy-upping so hard he actually does swerve the van a little.

“Woah!” you yelp, “Eddie, the road! You should’ve let me drive, you’re feral!” 

Eddie moon eyes at you, reaching over to pinch your chin. “Lace, please don’t get all sore about this, but I will never trust you behind the wheel of this van. She’s a delicate piece of machinery and you would drive her like it’s the demolition derby.”

Narrowed eyes and all, you kind of have to concede. You’ve never been the best behind the wheel, a road rageaholic, and if you were to add feeling as frisky as you do now on top of that sundae… you press Eddie’s DM binder into your lap a little harder. Down, girl. He doesn’t help, thumb stroking your chin and everything. 

“This is suh-rreal.”

“Stop zooming out so hard or I’m not gonna have sex with you!” You’re kidding. You’re so completely kidding. If he doesn’t touch you someplace lower than your neck soon, you’re going to disintegrate. 

But Eddie pauses. “Like, you don’t. Have to.” Panicky, freezy. Hastily pulling on his good guy hat. “You don’t– by the way. It’s whatever you want. Call timeout at any time. I know I’ve been kinda–”

“Eddie.” 

“...you still want to though, right?”

The giggling dies down as you edge closer and closer to your respective trailers, darkness washed over them like a swathe of dark blue paint. The lights in both trailers are out. Nobody home. Wayne, something about the weekend, something about overtime. Your mom… who knew. She’d been moving around in shadows more so than usual lately.

Everything out there is dimmed, except you two. Eddie doesn’t waste a second once the motor shuts off and the radio is silenced; he slams the driver door shut but the teensiest knot of hesitation tightens in your stomach before he reaches the passenger door. 

And then he reaches the passenger door, gathering you out of it and pushing you up against the side of the van. Snapping you out of it instantaneously using the bare force of his mouth against yours. 

“Eddie…” mumbled, your lips barely unstuck.

“Sorry. Shit, sorry. I just really like kissing you.” 

Something pops in your chest; he’s… Jesus, he’s so sweet. Coal-eyed and excitable and lovely, kissing you with nothing left to spare.

“Hey. Redirect,” you shiver, his fingertips pressing into your waist. “Come to my place.”

Eddie casts a wide glance back toward your double-wide. The forbidden castle. “Your… y–are you sure?”

“Sure that my bedsheets are cleaner than yours, yes.”  

He murmurs, “Bedsheets,” with a darkened gaze and a grunt. Bedsheets. You wanted him in your bedsheets. “Get your key. Get your key. Get your key before me and my dick have a shared brain hemorrhage.” 

That new lock doesn’t stick at all, thank god. 

Eddie, ordinarily, would nosily register all of his surroundings– he had an extremely barebones idea of your place, cast mostly in darkness like this, from that first night he’d driven you back from the fallout at Harrington’s. But he’s too busy nosily exploring your throat with his tongue, recording and archiving every breathy sound you make as you tug him toward your bedroom. 

Cardboard boxes still trip you up a couple times. Did you ever unpack, or what?

You break from his heady kiss, vision doubling, taking in a lungful of air as you push Eddie through the door. Spine flattens against it as it shuts, the noise drawing a little bit of sobriety into the room. You reach to hit the floor lamp on and your bedroom is illuminated in a soft, orange glow, a scarf thrown over the bulb to diffuse light. A half-effort to make you forget where you were sometimes. It works; the edges of everything softens, which is such a contrast to the definitive presence that he is.

Eddie’s chest is heaving. He attempts to get his bearings but he can barely get his eyes off of you, squirming ever-so-slightly, ever-so-sexily against the door. Like you’d captured him.

Lips swollen, watching you watch him from the door, he turns a little shy and turns to look at the ephemera around him instead. 

He’s standing in your bedroom.

You’re far more cluttered than he expected you to be. 

He expected pressed sheets and a pristine dressing table, like a prison cell designed by a set dresser from Dynasty. 

Well, that’s wrong, actually. He expected that of the Lacy people thought you were.

On the walls are a couple of tear-outs from the Rolling Stones he’d helped you liberate from your porch in Loch Nora, a mission you’d bought him breakfast for but didn’t have to. But mostly, every surface in the room is covered in piles. Piles of books, records, tapes, pens, jewelry, nail polish. And the clothes. They hung from everywhere, bursting out of your tiny closet space like bodies trying to escape. 

It’s confused in here; feels like someone who has unearthed parts of herself that she hasn’t been able to organize yet. Eddie wants to comb through it like a collector at a rarities market, he thinks, running a finger along the spine of a porcelain cat that sits on your dresser. 

“Place is filthy, cheerleader.”

“You’d know about mess, freak.”

The only really neat, clear space is, fortunate for tonight’s entertainment purposes, the bed. 

As he’s sliding his jacket (jackets, plural) off, Eddie’s eye travels to the window. 

“Did you fix your blinds?” he asks, pivoting back and forth on his heel. 

“My blinds?” you parrot. The blinds that had been broken when you moved in. The ones that sure were shuttered now. You’d made a point to fix them with whatever was left out of your first paycheck from the Bookstore. “How’d you know about my blinds?”

He could’ve lied, if he caught himself quicker. If he didn’t straighten up his back like someone had snapped him to attention. “Uuh.” 

It dawns on you like a flashlight in the eyeballs. “Were you… watching me, Munson?”

Not spying, mind. Not peeping. Watching. Eddie sinks down to sit on the edge of your bed, because whether or not he’s ever going to get to be here again kind of hangs in the balance right now. 

“That. Dep…ends. What do you,” Please don’t kick him out. Please don’t kick him out. Look at the line of your fucking body as you round on him, staring him down like you want him for dinner. Christ, he hopes you want him for dinner.

Eddie swallows roughly, tone bumpy, face a dime store Halloween mask of nonchalance. Paper thin. “What do you think about that?”

Fact is, he’d subsisted on a couple of very guilty glimpses of you. Catching sight of the lines of your bare back and taught shoulders would keep him in jerk-off material for a week, just thinking about kneading out your knots and undoing your bra clasp with his teeth. 

Eddie felt positively Victorian about it. Maybe you’d flash an ankle at him next and he’d be institutionalized for hysterics. 

You look at him with the same pinpoint as you did earlier. Like you’re studying him. And then you edge closer, closer, nudging his knees apart. Echoes of the nurse’s office. 

But this isn’t the goddamn nurse’s office. You’re not straining to adapt to the element of surprise. You know that the breath Eddie takes, shuddering and wondrous as you tilt his chin up to look at you, is a sound you want on repeat for as long as you can bear to hear sounds. 

“They’ve blinded men for that, y’know? Before.”

Eddie can’t answer. Just let out a huh! as your fingers trace his jaw, thumb brushes his lip. His hands squeeze the curve of your ass, fingers beg into your thighs as he watches you, dumbstruck. His tongue unconsciously presses to the tip of your thumb and he hears your breath hitch.

A sustained shock travels up your neck.

“I mean, was it worth it?”

“Was it w… Lacy.” Eddie’s hands have breached the hem of your skirt and with a groan, his face burrows into the silken fabric of your shirt, like he’s trying to nudge it off with his nose or his mouth. Fingers are working mindlessly to loosen some article of clothing from your body and it makes you feel buzzy and trancelike. “Don’t ask stupid questions. I might have fuckin’ carpal tunnel because of you.”

Jesus. He makes you feel so…

Desired. Needed. You’ve never felt that way before, and you don’t quite know how to navigate it. So your buttons start coming undone with the work of one hand, the other shoving Eddie by the shoulder to lean back on your bed. 

Eddie, here, among all your things. Disparate in your shabby little dollhouse, looking at you like you just swallowed the sun. 

Your shirt comes off, and Eddie, in a game of match point, tugs his off too. Pause comes over the both of you. You’d seen him shirtless before; shower-bare in his trailer when the first security breach happened, a crack in the containment whatever you were pretending your relationship to each other was–affable enemies, irritated acquaintances. He’d looked at you like an animal cornered, tendons tense under his tattooed skin and you’d wanted to drag a finger or two down the center of his chest. 

You didn’t, though. You’d sniped, asked where the cigarettes were. 

This is all one big case of making up for lost time.

You’ve been looking at him so long, bra strap slipping off your shoulder, that Eddie leans forward. As if to come get you. 

Remember me? I’m real. You can touch me. Touch me, please.

His warm arms pull you to him, pull you onto the bed, pull you against his lips. It’s gentler there; not as furtive. It says, hi, I’m here. Your arms, tugging him closer as he eases you beneath him say, good, I’ve been waiting. Eddie brushes his nose against yours, you laid down with your hair fanned out on the plush comforter. 

Both your pulses must have stuttered at the same time.

His smile is serene but you can feel his forearms trembling. “I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

“Don’t,” you tell him, very quietly while his hand nervously tries to find the zipper on your skirt, “I just got you back.”

Your hips lift to help him and you’re wiggling the thing off and you’re wiggling your tights off and he’s thrashing his jeans off only to land back between your parted legs with bouncing recoil from the mattress. Laughter biting in one another’s mouths. The nerves are teeming off him in waves and it makes you want to kiss him all over. 

The feeling housed in your body is different; not jittery, but struck somehow. This doesn’t feel like the way it usually feels, the way it does when you disappear into spare rooms at parties or the shadow of Skull Rock or hitch your leg up against the center console of someone’s shitty car. It doesn’t feel rote, like you’re doing it to stack up experience points– that is a Dungeons and Dragons term you found particularly interesting. How many bad tongue kisses had you accepted just to feel like you’re progressing, instead of waiting for someone who wants to taste you like Eddie does? 

Your bodies caged together, you feel the eager, hard, tragically clothed line of him rub against your center. Eddie manages to free your bra clasp on the first try, which you almost goadingly applaud him for–but he cuts you short with a bewitched stare, his lovely, hot mouth laving over your nipple as he slips the fabric away. It tears the first real moan from you, your back arching into his kneading fingers as his tongue curves over your tightening bud. 

Eddie can’t believe what he’s hearing. He can barely see straight, but he’s trying to commit every second of this to a glorious Technicolor memory, sound and image capturing working overtime. The sound that comes from your beautiful, balmy mouth sounds fresh out the packet–like you’d never made it for anyone before. The look of suppressed surprise on your face confirms as much and Eddie feels like he might explode. 

He, too, has no idea what he’s doing but he can’t help his hips from jerking into you as he plays on. Playing with your nipples, remembering that making them glisten with his spit will make you whimper, and so will kissing the center of your sternum. He’s watching wide-eyed and fascinated as your brow furrows and your legs tighten around him. He’s a wonderful student, when he wants to be.

Eddie is throbbing, and there’s too much cotton and lace between you. 

There’s also this other thing, and it comes out of him like word upchuck as you try to tease his boxers down around his hips using only your feet. 

“I oughta tell you,” Eddie whispers, voice all raspy, all boyish with his hair tickling your collarbone, “I’m, uh. I’m not good at this.”

“At what?” He’s got one hand roaming over your chest, the other making indents in the meat of your thigh. It feels like he’s holding your breath right in his hands.

A new shade of pink rises high in Eddie’s already straining cheeks. He really doesn’t want to have to use his words to spell it out. “Thiii-iiss.”

Oh. A rivulet of cold realization runs through you. Nicole. Cass. Girls daring themselves to get near to him. Experience points. The great freak experiment project. 

“This isn’t that.” Your hands hold his chin, perhaps a little roughly, to make sure he’s listening. And Eddie is, breath baited. You press your forehead to his like he pressed his forehead to yours. “It’s not.”

He’s really about to ask you, what is it, then? but that feels like something you can work out later. Eddie lets you tug at his lips and you let him tug at your panties, arching up so you can wiggle them down your legs. His eyes cast to the downy hair at your mound, and it’d usually occur to you to apologize for your unshaven legs, as if it mattered. 

But the way he regards you doesn’t call for that; it calls for you to open up for him. Spread.

A rough pad of a finger runs along your slit, feeling the generous drip that’s gathered, and Eddie moans as your breath hitches into an animalistic, “hahh!”-- he’s edging down your body to bury his face there. He wants to feel you, smell you, taste you. You tense at the sudden contact of his palms pressing your thighs open, his nose against your clit and he feels it. A jolt of worry passes through him. Did you not want that? “Sorry–”

“Don’t– no, Eddie, don’t stop,” you strain, laugh a little, “You just… surprised me. Keep– keep surprising me. Please.” 

Shockwaves break through you as he gingerly offers his tongue. And more, and more, until he’s lapping at you with a vigor and no real direction. You dig against him, made speechless by the building ache in your core.

In your fantasies, you hadn’t anticipated him being so giving–so eager to please and explore. Like all things, this moment projected itself in your head with the hard edges of some imagined cockiness, Eddie telling you to spread your legs and you, nymphlike and fluid and still somehow holding all the indiscriminate ‘power’, doing so. 

But this? This is soft and messy and spitty and real. Eddie is drooling and babbling into your pussy with the uncalculated effect of someone who has improvised his whole life and it’s tearing you at the seams. A satisfying little rip, every keen movement he makes.

You know when you’re close to climax, that familiar feeling of your cunt suckling at nothing, but it doesn’t feel as jagged as the first time he brought you there. Urgently, you tug at his hair, claw at his shoulders, begging for his attention. 

“Eddie,” you gasp and his hands flex around your thighs at the sound of his name in your mouth. It’s yours, he wants to tell you, rutting heedlessly into the mattress from his position between your legs, keep it! Please! “Eddie, Eddie– come here, come to me.” 

Your velveteen voice summons him, his face glistening from the exploration of you. Embarrassment threatens to ping at you, but it flames into want, seeing how wet and obscene he looks. That’s all from you? 

Eddie does as he’s told, heart pounding– and the sensation of fabric dragging against the raw tip of his cock nearly makes him pass out. 

“Fuck! Fuck, you–” he stammers as your hand pulls his heavy length free, balls tightening under your firm touch, “N-not fuck you, obvi-ously, but–hunh–okay, kinda fuck you…”

Eddie’s lips fold against yours as he attempts, with shuddering arms, to brace himself over you. He whines at your dexterity, swiping his head against your entrance. The wetness from him, the wetness from you– the sheer impact of sensation slices clean through him. It’s not a tactic, you’re not teasing; you’re angling to get him inside you. You need to get him inside you, your entire body is begging for it. 

“Baby, please, please, I’m not gonna last–”

“Who said you had to?” you ask, voice a drop of dark syrup. Just for him. “Who said you had to?”

The earnestness in your eyes gives Eddie pause– for all of a pulsating second. 

“I want you… inside. Don’t you want to feel me?” you ask with real conviction, thumb swiping over his moistened head in a way that makes his vision go galactic. 

Eddie yanks your hand away, kissing roughly it, nailing it beside your head as he tries to ease into you. 

“Want? It’s all I want–fuck, it’s all I fucking think about, Lacy–huhh–”

His first attempt results in a gasp of pain– the sting, the stretch, it’s a little much a little fast. The sharpness has you wincing and has Eddie searching your face with an arrested kind of guilt.

“Y–shit, baby, are you–”

“I’m okay,” you recover, hand steadying on his flushed cheek. “Just–slower. Ease it in. You’re– you’re pretty remarkable, Eddie.” 

“Remarkable?” he mumbles against your cheek, focused and slowly lining his head against your entrance. “Really?”

“Prodigiou—ss, uhh–fuck!” Whispered swears come streaming from you as he sinks right into the velvety constraints of your cunt. 

Your eyes roll right back, mouth tipping open and the grip of you arresting around him makes him cry out into your chest. 

Eddie’s cock is long and heavy and thick, constricted to the point where you can nearly feel every ridge of him. It hurts, the stretch of him aches, but it’s delicious–pinned and sweetly painful.

“Prodigious–is a five dollar–fuckin’--vocab word–” he strains, lifting his hips ever so slightly– you’re clutched onto him so tight that you move with him. Eddie open-mouth groans against your neck. “Lacy, Jesus, you’re so tight–you feel so good–how the fuck do you feel so good? Who invented you?!” 

There’s a tinge of a giggle in your moaning, which doesn’t let up. Eddie’s voice rings out like a church bell, making one slow stroke inside you, then another. Then another, then another, picking up speed, groans chorusing into the hollow of your neck around the lewd sound of his flesh slapping against yours. The sound alone brings you close to cumming. “Oh, pleasepleaseplease, fuck, Lace, I’m g– fuck, I’m–”

The way Eddie’s hands are carving permanent marks into your hips, the way his movements are halting, you get the idea that… “You holding out on me?” you ask him, short of breath around your panting but demanding still, “Don’t you dare–don’t you dare.” 

“Lacy, uhh– please, ’mgonnafucking–”

“Cum for me? Are you?”

Your fingers tug at his curls so you can look at him as his face tenses. Eddie’s hair is flattened across his head, face glimmering with exertion. You drag your lips against his forehead, the salty flavor of sweat breaking across your tastebuds.

“For you, for you, shit, only for you–only for you, only fucking ever–fuck–”

His dark eyes have been blown out since he pulled you to the mattress, eyelids flickering over his irises as he pistons into you with speed that hurts but you love it. 

You barely hear yourself beginning a prayer of dirty little succors, but there it is, easing him through his orgasm as he shudders a load between your legs. “You feel like nothing on this fucking earth, you know that, you’re so good for me...” The tension breaks with one final rasping cry, his expression dissolving into a softness as he exhales a lungful, neck stretching to lean into your touch. 

A couple of half-cracked dry sobs escape him. 

Looking up at you, cradled against your shoulder, Eddie’s cursing himself for every second he’s wasted not doing this with you. 

And you, looking down, are stroking his damp curls from his forehead and cursing yourself. You’re going to burn the world down for this boy.

“Lacy. You–”

And then, y’know, the fucking front door of the trailer clicks. 

Little too much deja vu for your liking these days! 

Immediately, you seize upwards, jolting a confused Eddie with you– which breaks your heart, in a way, seeing him darty-eyed and shocked out of his bliss so fast. 

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.” These are not like your prior ‘fucks’, he can register through the haze of his post-nut state. These are bad fucks. So he responds in turn, “Fuck?”

“My mom!” You hiss, naked and scrambling. Panic crests on you like a wave, a wave that should have been an orgasm mind fucking you, and your fingernails tear at the comforter beneath you. 

“Under, under, gogogo!”

Because if there’s one thing your mother, in all her former-center-of-attention glory, loves to do? It’s enter a room uninvited. 

Case in fucking point–

“Lacy?” A perfunctory knuckle rap from the other side of the door, just as you manage to hide Eddie by shoving him behind you and tenting the comforter around you both. You’re praying to anything with a little more gusto than God that it works. And then, enter your mother and her cloud of Shalimar. 

Soon as she opens the door, you can tell something is terribly off. 

She’s smiling, face as serene as the Virgin Mary. Usually she’s got a sharpened dagger of a glare, just for you. Two of you haven’t been spending much quality time lately, see. 

“Lacy! What–” your mom’s brow knits, but it’s a look of amusement. Which freaks you out. She’s looking at your just-fucked-by-Eddie-Munson hair, isn’t she? The mascara that’s surely streaking down your face? Does she know? Can she sense he’s in this very room? “--what are you doing?”

“Napping. Crying. What does it look like?” you snap, hiking the comforter up a little further and begging that she doesn’t notice Eddie’s incriminating clothes strewn across the floor. 

Eddie, for his part, is not breathing. He’s crouched behind your bare ass, a position he’s in no rush to get out of, arms caged around your thighs like a petrified child. This is almost funny–or would be, if he wasn’t scared shitless of everything your mom would definitely do to him if she discovered him buck ass naked in your bed.

Dreamily, Eddie reminds himself that he’s buck ass naked, in your bed. He smiles into one of your cheeks and considers how biteable it is.  

“Well. Wrap it up,” your mom says, tone still light, and you twinge at the irony. At least you’re on the pill. “I have a surprise.”

Slam. Door shuts. Your lamp wobbles with the force of it and Eddie emerges from behind you, like a freshly-fucked groundhog. 

“She sounds happy,” he mumbles, arms sliding up around your waist. 

You want to kiss the mirth out his mouth but you have to shove him back behind you first– cue your mom, doubling back through the door. Jesus!

“What was that?”  

“Nothing!” you say, shortly and breathily because Eddie nips at your fucking ass cheek back there. “Just–you sound happy, mom!”

She shakes her head at you, a smile curving her tulip colored lips, like a mom from a detergent commercial. Y’know, were it not for the whole Italian widow getup she’s alway sporting. 

“Get on with it already.”

You count to a full five before you even let out a breath, snapping your attention back to reality and the fact that Eddie Munson is very naked in your very bed. 

“You gotta get out of here,” you tell him, and you want to kill yourself about it. 

The both of you balance on your knees. Eddie tugs you into him with shining, begging eyes. Standing almost at full attention again, already.

“Jesus, that thing’s impressive.”

Eddie’s fingers wind around the hair at the nape of your neck. Despite the brief jolt of fear from your little interruption just now, he’s all romance–totally suckered, rose-colored glasses, the whole bit. Thoughts not exactly creating a straight line just yet, but he doesn’t care. He’s had his hands all over you for the better part of an evening now, and he doesn’t want to let up just yet. It might kill him. It might kill him. 

There’s no unringing this bell between the two of you, and he knows that. 

And you knew it first, because you know everything first. 

“You sure?” he hums into your sweet lips, “You absolutely positive? Because I could be real, real quiet…”

Eddie’s also thrilled by the fact that he seems to know instinctively what to do to turn you on. 

“What if I don’t want you to be real, real quiet?”

You kiss him back, sighing and sliding a single finger down the length of his cock. 

“Lace…” he whimpers to you, his commandant fantasy of being dominant in the bedroom officially, officially escorted out back and shot. He wants to please you too badly. Be the jester in your court that makes you cackle and makes you cum.

“Lacy!” a shrill yell comes from the hall. Your eyes snap open, Eddie’s dancing with amusement and yours heaving with alarm. 

“Fuck, okay, go! Window!”

Another scramble, you tossing jeans and socks and the rest of Eddie’s uniform at him while you clean yourself off, try to pull a robe around yourself. A stray thought occurs to you as you watch him trip over himself, ripping the hole in his jeans a little further–you hate what he wears, but you love it on him. And off him. And…

You yank up those blinds and unlatch the window with a faint smile. Nothing about you two makes any conceivable sense–

Eddie starts out the window, shirt barely pulled down his torso and his shoes in his hands, then turns to hook you to him by the elbow. Smiling with the full blush of his mouth, he kisses you. Firm and knowing and whole. 

–except that. That makes sense.

The pad of his finger clears a lock of rumpled hair from your forehead. 

“To be continued?” Eddie searches your face, with those crazy dark brimming universes of eyes. 

Your heart is leaping in your ribcage. You nod sharply, gleaming back at him. 

“I’m comin’ back for you, Lacy Doevksi,” he tells you with all the brazen confidence he can muster. “And I am gonna go down on you until I drown. On pain of death, I swear it.”

“Go!” you command, and regret it as soon as he drops out of your bedroom window. Eddie starts a cant toward his trailer across the way. 

“Faster!” you hiss, just as an excuse to watch him. 

He pivots mid-jog, hair swinging wildly, his hand grabbing at his crotch. 

“You try runnin’ with a hard on! Witch!” 

It’s far, far, far too quiet once he’s escaped through the front door of his trailer.

It's not fair, you think. You should be basking in some kind of afterglow, sharing a stupid cliché cigarette, you feel like you should be... celebrating this.

You shouldn't have to keep running away from each other.

The warmth the two of you had created, through mere physical friction or just how much you… you like each other, rapidly dissipated into a chill as you advance through your bedroom door, to deal with the other thing.

Surprise, you thought, What kind of goddamn surprise could mother o'mine have for me? Did she boost a bank? Did she win the Indiana Sweepstakes? I don’t want to know about any g–

“Lorelei.”

The universe has a way of shoving you back in place when you get ahead of yourself.

You don’t just stop in your tracks, you’re repelled a half-step backwards. The centrifugal force urging you away, telling you there’s an immediate threat in the heart of your home. 

No one uses that name anymore. Not even him. Not since you were fourteen.

“Daddy.”

Your father sits at the shabby dinette that you and your mother don’t even share meals at, sits there in the suit he was sentenced in. A rich navy pinstripe, chosen because gray would have been too flashy and black would admit defeat. “Of course!” your mother had said, marveling at his ingenuity. But the pantomime of his defense was wearing real thin on you; whispering at school had started growing louder and louder and you were finding more and more chips in the porcelain of your father’s worldly facade. 

“Why not compromise. Wear charcoal,” you’d said, leaning against the kitchen counter in Loch Nora, drinking orange juice from your parents’ wedding crystal as the movers taped up your boxes, “You can plead guilty and still look smug about it.”

Your father had smacked the flute from your hand and it shattered in forty thousand pieces on the ground. You didn’t move, didn’t breathe, because you knew if you did, you’d be next. 

Navy it was. And navy it is. He sits at that dinette like he’s expecting white jacket service. You swear even more gray has started glimmering through his hair. Flashy. 

“Should I ask how you’re here?” you say, stiff and scared. Your mother, standing at your father’s shoulder, tuts and sighs. Can’t you just enjoy this? she silently bemoans.

“Good behavior,” Ray smiles, “Can’t say the same for you. Can I, Lorelei?”

“Principal Higgins called,” your mom chimes in, “Or rather, that odious little secretary called. You think you could get a Saturday detention and they just wouldn’t tell us?”

“That’s why he’s here?” You laugh a little, inwardly. “With all due respect, Daddy, that’s a terrible reason to break out of prison.”

To your surprise, your father chuckles too. Makes your blood run cold, obviously. 

“Y’know, I really didn’t anticipate this for my homecoming, I gotta tell you,” he says, shifting in his seat and plucking a cigarillo from his jacket pocket. “I mean, honestly. I thought, a nice bottle of Beaujolais–”

“We’re fresh out,” you gesture to your cringing mother.

“--a dinner at, Christ, Enzo’s, since that’s where our budget is at now,” his lighter flicks and ignites the end, “But no. I have to sit here and cross-examine my daughter about… fraternizing with the lowest of criminal elements.”

The lack of self awareness here is off the fucking charts. It makes your blood pressure spike.

“Take a seat, Lacy,” your father so gallantly gestures to the vinyl backed kitchen chair in front of him, “and tell me all about Eddie Munson.”

Chair drags aggressively against the linoleum. You sit, and swear that the next time you’re caught off guard by anyone’s father, it’d better be God himself. 

This bit is getting old.

author's notes: so i'm not fucking around when i say i need to hear everyone's thoughts on what just happened immediately. i really do think that happenings-wise, this was my favourite chapter to write thus far. felt cathartic, from the al munson to the hellfire article of it all. anyway. onto the good stuff - like i feel like everyone who reads this series will have clocked this but of course i lifted the garlic slicing right out of goodfellas. i just think it's a perfect al munson attribute to have - al munson kicking out the jams instead of picking up his kid i know that's right - our dukes of hazzard ref is a tribute to my own personal al munson fancast - not that paris, texas but this paris, texas. (and you know when lacy eventually gets eddie to watch it he CRIES. they both cry) - i should probably put the repo man trailer in here as well - speaking of another fancast! the manager of forest hills trailer park is, of course, to me, in my heart, carl rodd. - the best song off of abbey road by the beatles, fight with the wall - SHOULD WE CALL THE MAYOR - lacy promising eddie that he can ride circles around her on a motor bike is a reference to hunter s thompson being ambushed on canadian television by one of the hells angels he wrote about in his book. dude rolls onto set on his hog. it's crazy. - eddie is kinda gossamer coded - cow tipping? at mccorkle's? anybody? our love is god - god wheels of confusion is kinda horny sounding huh i think that this might be the shortest references recap so far in the series?? one of them anyway. probably because i wrote 4k words of FILTH. anyway, thank you all so much for continuing to read this fucking thing. we're almost at the end of this part of the story which is wild to me. now let me get on your ass and remind you that REBLOGGING FICS IS ESSENTIAL TO YOUR FIC WRITERS HEALTH. SO ARE COMMENTS AND SO ARE ASKS so send those pls :) love you hellcats. be well, cats

#published by powder #hellfire & ice #in progress #e. munson by powder #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x oc #stranger things fic #eddie munson fic

[shreddedleopard]

I genuinely think William’s real name is actually still William, just with a different surname.

Hear me out.

#1 — irony.

Remember the omake where Bonde asks him and he’s got his ☺️ face ‘that’s a secret, heh heh heh.’

Lol William is the biggest mischievous jokester going. This would be his exact reaction if people were asking like 👀 omg what is it?? And all along he’s like, lol will.i.am guys, chill. No-one cares about your first name, it’s your surname which means anything around here. You’ve all been barking up the wrong tree. Which brings me on to my second point ~

#2 — symbolism.

I cannot scream enough about how bloody genius it would be for William’s name to be, in fact, just William, but with a more common surname like ‘Smith.’ For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call him William Smith. As an orphan, he gets adopted into the family Moriarty, where there is in fact another William: Master William James Moriarty. Immediately, you have two boys of similar ages with the exact same first names, highlighting how, in fact, they should be equal if we’re looking at their basic information and identifiers. But what is it which sets them apart, and is the very message and theme running through the heart of Yuumori? Class inequality. And what dictated your social class at the time, so very unfairly? Your family lineage.

The name of Moriarty is what gives Albert’s little brother his superior, privileged position in life, over William ‘Smith.’ And yet, they are both young boys, both Williams, both should have the same sort of start in life in the equal world our William wishes to create. But they do not; the moment they are given their surnames — the moment those are penned on the paper of their birth records following ‘William’, the chasm that divides these boys is immense and unfair.

#3 — interesting coincidences, hints and clues in the text.

• William loves Shakespeare — that’s part of his identity in the same way being a mathematician is. He quotes Shakespeare all the time, he grew up in a library and has all of the plays memorised. Shakespeare’s first name was also William. Additionally, Shakespeare’s birthday is believed to be April 23rd. William’s birthday is listed as April 1st — April Fool’s Day, and it has been confirmed that this is a fake birthday, so we don’t know his real one currently. (But my guess is it’s still in April).

• The Moriarty’s never call William by his name, pre-fire, but the children at his orphanage do, and they call him Will.

At the Moriarty house, he is on the receiving end of more hate than Louis; they seem to despise him to the nth degree. I wonder if this might be because he shares a name with their precious William, and this irks them. They refuse to call him by his name because that doesn’t belong to him, filth from the streets, it belongs to their beloved son who can do no wrong.

I can see a mother like Lady Moriarty refusing to call another boy by the name she gifted her son, especially when William reminds her that there is something she had in common with his own mother — someone who she would view as completely beneath her: they chose the same name. What a disgrace, to be associated or viewed as having a similar mind to a woman of such low standing!?

We also see William only ever call William Moriarty with the title ‘master’ in front, as though he also feels the need to make the distinction. This could just be because he’s trying to be polite, though. I could honestly dissect the entire first chapter panel by panel and highlight how William being William is such a simple but perfect concept which highlights this noble family’s insecurities, discrimination and narrow mindedness. William Moriarty feels the need to constantly reaffirm his own identity in the presence of our William.

Because … if they share full names now, with the adoption … the lines are blurring. What makes one William Moriarty superior to the other? A worrying thought indeed for this boy. (Answer: there is no difference, they’re both equally deserving of opportunities in life.)

It all makes such perfect sense and explains away the awkwardness of the writer having to avoid use of William’s name simply because ‘it needs to stay hidden to create the mystery.’ This gives the characters themselves reason within the text to avoid using it, which makes everything so much more authentic and real. It makes sense because it does, not because it has to for the plot.

• William promised not to steal anything. Twice, we see him reassuring and then reaffirming that he wouldn’t steal anything, and both times are in the presence of William Moriarty.

If we want to take this statement in light of names, and toy with that lovely device foreshadowing, William having always shared the same first name would in fact mean that statement holds true — he did not steal William’s name; it was always his own to begin with, and Moriarty was a name given to him as part of his adoption, the same as it was given to Louis. He really didn’t steal anything, despite the fact that he was probably made to feel guilty or worthless every day because of the name he shared with William Moriarty.

This also means that William probably never actively deceived any of the townspeople, either; it really was just a case of mistaken identity which he manipulated for his own cause.

The townspeople made the mistake, rather than William outright lying. William is, by trade, more of a master manipulator who turns situations to his advantage with his quick thinking, rather than straight up lying or deceiving people (see: The Merchant of London.)

• Sherlock saw his birth name but never mentions it. And still chooses to call him Liam. Yes, we might’ve had a conversation happen off screen. Yes, Sherlock might choose to do that because that name is sentimental and William has asked not to be called his true name for reasons unknown. But it would fit so beautifully if William really is his name, and Sherlock’s realisation that day when he read the birth records was that oh, so this — William ‘Smith’ — is Liam’s real name. Naturally, he would continue to call him Liam with no discussion needed, because it’s a shortened version of William.

• We have lots of characters who share the name William, but with different variations on the shortened version; another symbol of how people can be equal in some senses but also their identity can be individual to them also. William H Bonney is Billy the Kid, the mathematics genius William and Sherlock stumble upon in Durham is called Bill Hunt.

#4 — practicality and marketing.

People become attached to characters and their names, and there comes a certain point in a work where it’s very difficult to alter a character’s first name and still retain a fan base’s sense of identity for that character. Calling William say, Robert, from now on, or revealing that as his true name while we continue to see him referred to as William is all sorts of confusing, emotionally. Perhaps it’s just me. But the idea that I’ve been calling William the wrong name all along feels off and sad, whereas the knowledge that he’s at least been able to keep that part of himself consistent, when everything else has had to be an act, is actually really comforting and empowering.

I’d love to write another thought dump on why William being William all along is also, so very emotionally delicious when you explore the implications in the story; it’s heartbreaking and makes him an even more sympathetic character who I just wanna hug, so perhaps I’ll come back to this! Because re-reading those earlier chapters with this in mind really hurts so good.

He stole nothing; he was always the true William, that at least is one thing that always belonged to him — it was only society and us that dictated there was one William worth knowing more — was more interesting and held more narrative power — than the other.

This is still William’s story.

#william james moriarty #william moriarty #yuukoku no moriarty #moriarty the patriot #yuumori #William Moriarty analysis #meta #Yuumori analysis #Moriarty the patriot analysis #meta analysis

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Mo Dao Zu Shi and Self-Yearning For Reconciliation

There is an overarching lesson within the writing of MXTX that forgiveness and moving on doesn't entail non-verbal consent for a relationship to be salvaged once more or reclaimed as it used to be.

Within SVSSS, we are given the character of Yue Qingyuan desperately seeking the friendship and brotherhood he had with Shen Jiu. Only for that relationship to be provided by another way of Shen Yuan who finalizes he is not the man Yue Qingyuan needed closure from, but is the only one able to give it for the man to find peace with his own choices.

To a lesser extent this is also shown with the relationship between Xie Lian, Mu Qing and Feng Xin at the end of TGCF. This time though, despite Xie Lian associating with them with no ill will, he does not let either man make choices for him and resoundingly makes his own boundaries aware within the reclamation of their friendship.

MDZS does not offer this reclamation of a friendship or the start of one previously lost with another. Unlike the previous two who did yearn for friendship what was between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian had been a stipulation of burden and assumption that started with Jiang Fengmian. Jiang Cheng was to see Wei Wuxian as a servant made friend when brought in, and Wei Wuxian was protector over friend. There was already a set imbalance due to neither naturally being able to choose the roles within their lives for the other and extending parties stating who and what they were to each other.

Jiang Cheng in his already tenuous esteem with himself and resentment of being told he was already viewed as less from his mother, took Wei Wuxian's existence in his life as a displacement of his own claims within life. His sacrifice of his dogs was the precursor for the beginning of their relationship on the allusion of debts between them.

Jiang Cheng gives up the loyalty of a literal pet, for the loyalty of an eventual man. In other words, I will shelter and protect you in exchange. Jiang Cheng does keep to this as children, with the expense of mocking Wei Wuxian's fears as he is want. His stipulations for this begun to escalate over the years and as such the giving of shelter and safety cannot be made up for Jiang Cheng, forever loyalty is now not enough, but why must Wei Wuxian also be adept at cultivation, why is he to be praised for his deeds more so, why must Wei Wuxian be a bright mind of the war.

If he is to be that, it at least would be overshadowed that he is still only under Jiang Cheng's rule. Otherwise every other action against this, is to demean Jiang Cheng, to oppose him, to cause trouble with ingratitude. It is also why, despite Wen Qing and Wen Ning having sheltered him and Wei Wuxian as well as collected his parents and provided their ashes, Jiang Cheng is able to disregard his obligation to help them. If not for Wei Wuxian's supposed insubordination, Jiang Cheng would not have suffered his own losses. Even when he did protect Wei Wuxian, the loss of it was too much, as with the dogs he had given up as a child, he did not get an active said promise of more dedication made up tenfold for the minimum kindness exhibited by Jiang Cheng. As said by Fang Mengcheng, "Atonement? You cannot actually be feeling grateful to him!”

To want to be good and to protect others, must come with selfish want for exemption of guilt for the harm you have caused. Wen Ning and Wen Qing owed it to Jiang Cheng for the deaths of his parents for carrying the surname of Wen, as such he did not need to repay them. Wei Wuxian sat at the table of the Jiangs and was given a living others would envy, as such he owed his life to Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian taking on the burden of protecter of another, was a betrayal of all that Jiang Cheng's lineage had gave him. To do the impossible because it is right, is not worth the self emulation and ridicule of the many. And while he may resent that kindness in Wei Wuxian, for it to be given to others as well, is a lack of loyalty of the ideals of Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng's growing resentment of Wei Wuxian's choice of kindness over safety, is a a mirrored resentment that Jiang Cheng holds within himself and his lack of respect for his own Clan ideals. A servant under the lord of the house embodies what Jiang Cheng was born to be.

As he throws abuse upon Wei Wuxian at their penultimate clash, while he does say sorry, he is still unable to view it without the veil of debt owed between each other. As Wei Wuxian could not tell him he gave him his core out of pity for his ego to keep him from shattering, Jiang Cheng could not say he protected Wei Wuxian out of a moment of kindness without care for the consequences until it expounded as his reality.

There is a self soothing mechanism, that opening up to truths will eventually mean a mending of what had been, or the beginning of something better. Yet this is only true when both are open to stand together as equals. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng began with obligation and ended with obligation. The obligation to give for doing, the obligation of sorry for redemption.The obligation of servitude for sacrifice.

To rebuild and start again is meant to be the closure of ill will and the understanding of boundaries that cannot be crossed now. Jiang Cheng can only do one but not the other. He chooses hate for his continued nature, even while he is adamantly protecting Jin Ling by the end. While Wei Wuxian knows that resentment is not something that will create true happiness and nurturing growth that people strive for.

Reconciliation is to come to terms with that which you lacked, and to be more, to be better. Jiang Cheng accepts his core nature of resentment which would not last next to the altruism that Wei Wuxian chooses more than once. Kindness and Resentment cannot coexist at the same time. To resent is to be cruel, to be happy is to be kind. Both men are too tired to understand the other, and why they choose to part as a peace offering, an understanding that they will never thrive with the other.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #jiang cheng

[itsgodepi]

If I lose my mind | Ch. 3

Series summary: When life has given you more than enough lemons and you cannot figure out how to make a lemonade, the only way to make it work is to get rid of the whole basket. But was it neccesary to send you to a whole different dimension for that? A juicer would have done the job, really. Or, one day you go to sleep as a normal person and the next you wake up as a Formula One driver. You've never been a fan but isn't it like, one of the most exclusive sports? Pairing: CL16, LH44, CS55, DR3 x fem!reader Chapter: Previous | Next Word Count: 2.7k Also on AO3

The fact that you are playing some kind of reaction game with tennis balls right next to a Formula One car, does nothing but further consolidate the theory that this is not real. You must be dreaming. Why would you find yourself in this situation otherwise? It does not make sense. 

Not only had he made you change clothes yet again, dressing you up in a strange white jumpsuit filled with even more logos —your surname and country’s flag somehow branded on its hip—, he had also paraded you around the place for what felt like an hour. Cameras had followed you through it all, this time with no intention of recording from the sidelines but instead walking right in front of you as you tried to navigate the crowded place. 

“Feeling alright?” Nick queries when you fail to pick the third ball in a row, his eyes scanning your figure as if you were about to drop dead right that second “We can sit down if you need to” 

“No, no, it’s okay” you reassure him, willing your mind to concentrate on the game despite the way your mind is running “Let’s try again” 

Nick shakes his head in disbelief, stealing one last glance at you before he looks at something behind your back. “Don’t worry, it’s time anyway. I’ll go pick up everything so you can prepare” and with that, he is gone. 

Leaving you alone, like he already knows you won’t dare to run away.

He returns with his hands full not much later, one of the objects catching your attention straight away, a light blue helmet that you remember well. The helmet from yesterday, the one that man dressed in the bright orange jumpsuit had freed you from.  

Nick silently helps you with everything he brought: from a pair of earphones to a strange white piece of fabric that resembles a ski mask, and finally the helmet. When you hold it in your hands, the weight and smooth texture makes a familiar feeling arise from inside of you, a sudden streak of excitement that travels like thunders through your body. 

“Do I have to?” you whisper, head lowered and eyes fixed on the helmet as you try to shake that feeling., flashbacks from yesterday coming instead to play on your mind. 

Nick can only laugh at that, his eyebrows furrowing “What do you mean? Of course you have to!”   

And although that mocking response irks you, you don’t fight it. Your brain is so overworked with theories that you are not even fully conscious of what you do or why exactly you keep listening to him. You cannot fathom what could they possibly have prepared for you. 

The helmet is easy to slide on, the new barrier drowning the noises coming from the garage even more than the headphones had. It does feel a little claustrophobic though, with the way it presses your cheeks up and restricts your field of vision. Nick places something on your shoulders while you try to get used to it, some clicks sounding at your sides before he gives your helmet a pat and guides you over to the white Formula One car. There, he exchanges a few words with the people surrounding the machine, the one closest to you turning his head to send a thumbs up your way. Nick steps aside then, letting you free access to the car.  

Confused, you look up at him, a hand coming up to slide the visor of the helmet up so he can see your eyes. Are you missing something? What does he want you to do to the car? See it? You have already been ogling it from the side for half an hour.  

When you take a second too long thinking, he stretches a hand out towards the car, as if inviting you to get inside. But you are quick to decline this offer “Oh, no thank you”, raising your voice a little and taking a step back to further prove your point.  

Is this-? Are they expecting you to drive it or something? These people are crazy.  

Nick’s grin is playful “Sure, whatever you say”, his eyes rolling at your refusal, reaching a hand out for you to hold onto as he invites you once again to step into the car. 

“What for? I don’t want to” you dismiss him again, harsher this time, as cross your arms over your chest to strengthen your stance.  

You have been trailing after him like a lost puppy all day, no questions asked. It is about time you stand your ground. Are they not satisfied with having you dressed like an idiot in the middle of a place you do not know? All while cameras film your every move like this is the Hunger Games.  

“C’mon, we are late, stop playing games…” Nick tries again, his voice way firmer than before.  

The argument attracts a lot more attention than you would have liked, the eyes of all the men previously working on the car, now set on you. Everyone seems to be as confused as Nick, low murmurs being shared around the garage as they give you strange looks. That is the case for Nick as well, like he hadn’t thought you rebelling against him was ever an option, like this is just routinary. And when you finally take the time to mull it over, you understand why this change on your attitude may be sudden. The reunion, the clothes, the helmet… It was all preparation.  

How have you been so stupid? 

The stare contest is only broken by the yell of a man that echoes through the garage. “Why are you still here?! Get in the car already!” he almost orders, a deep frown set on his face. You remember him, he was in the first meeting, seated right at the head of the table. 

That angry tone sets everyone around you into motion, Nick’s hand finding the back of your shoulder and pushing you to get in the car. And you want to step your foot down, get his hands off you and run away from this madness. But it all goes so fast.  

As soon as you get seated on the car, hands start flying all around you. They screw in the steering wheel, connect some things and help you tightening down the straps of a belt that straps you down to the seat. No way out. You look up at Nick, silently asking for help —as if he was not one of them—, eyes slowly filling up with tears.  

What are you supposed to do now? There are so many people around, there is no way you are getting away from this.  

While you try to make sense of this situation, even more things start happening around you. The rest of the men —they must mechanics or something— start stepping away from the car, uncovering the wheels and giving space to a man in front of you. He walks backwards outside the garage, his face turning from side to side while holding a hand up for you to wait until he deems it safe. 

Still, nothing prepares you for the switch you feel inside of you when the man signals for you to come forward.  

From the force with which you grip the steering wheel to the way your foot falls on the pedal, everything feels instinctive. Even the low rumbling of the car coming to life under your body feels strangely familiar and comforting. A second nature. The machine manages to roll out of the garage without trouble, as if you had been doing this your whole life and you were not terrified about what is to come. There is only one possible outcome, and it does not look good for you. 

Thankfully —or maybe not so much—, your brain seems to shut down once the car passes through the garage door, the fear consuming your thoughts to such a point that you seem to go over the path in the blink of an eye. One minute you are giving one last look at Nick and the next you are being helped out of the car. The men in white had come to surround the car, one of them giving you a thumbs up and a pat to the helmet that had instantly filled you with relief. It is done, finished. You have not run into a wall, nothing bad has happened. 

And, although the fact that you seem to know exactly how to control a Formula One car should by itself have sent you into panic mode, that will instead be a problem for future you to resolve. 

Yet, as it seems to be a recurrent theme by now, that happiness is short and sweet. When you are helped out of that awful deathtrap of a car, your eyes are finally able to get an image of the place you have so stupidly driven to. Even though the road had been limited by tall, wired fences the whole way, it is only now that you are able to see the thousands of people seated behind them. You can only look at them in utter shock, vision still restricted by this awful helmet that doesn’t let your breath properly, as you try to wrap your head around what could be happening here and why have you been thrusted in the middle of it. 

Some look back at you, their smiles widening as they hold up different flags and banners for you to see, but their attention is promptly stolen by something —or someone— behind you, cheers getting impossibly louder. You follow their gaze instinctively, brows furrowed because what more could possibly be happening. 

Well, what is happening is that another Formula One car has arrived. What the hell. Your gaze uselessly follows the car, its navy blue paint a complete contrast to the white of your car —why you would even call it yours is beside the point. Not only that, but as the people on the road move aside to let the machine pass, you feel the fear that has been bubbling inside you for hours on end now, reach a new peak. The image of at least 10 other Formula One cars lined up is finally discovered before your eyes. 

The dots connect way too slowly as your eyes fly from one car to another, heart pumping blood on your ears like it is about to burst out of your chest. Had that lap been a simple warm up, a stupid way to get the cars in place for an actual race? 

It is a miracle that you manage to stand upright and follow one of the men dressed in white despite the way your legs are locking up. Breath heavy as if you had run a marathon. In hopes of calming yourself down, you reach up to take off the helmet and that stupid mask, both objects being held close to your chest as if someone was going to come and steal them.  

With this newfound freedom you try to gather your bearings for the nth time today. But, how can you, when your field of vision is filled with freaking Formula One cars of every color imaginable? Your chest can only tighten in fear of what is to come.  

The man guides you through the mass of people gathered around the cars, a couple of them sending smiles and words of encouragement your way as if you wanted to do anything other than scream your way out of this place. Everyone is just bubbling with an energy that your body cannot match, the mix of screams and cheers sending you further down into an anxiety attack instead. You feel like a puppet, the strings pulling you around this unknown place while people record your every move with one of the hundred cameras flashing all around.  

This has to be a nightmare, there is no other explanation. It cannot be the real word. How and why would you be here if it was?  

Someone does steal both your helmet and mask before you are brought to a separated part of the road, the asphalt covered with a red carpet to kind of mark a VIP area. For some reason, he flies the scene after that, leaving you completely alone in the middle of a road surrounded by a million cameras and strangers dressed from head to toe in one single color like this is a fucking film.  

The loneliness does not last long though, as you are yet again approached by another stranger and that recurrent phrase. “Congrats on P10!” a man dressed in a black jumpsuit comes to stand next to you, a smile being drawn on his lips as soon as your eyes meet “It’s your highest position yet, right?”  

Seriously, do you seem that approachable when you are freaking out or do these people just lack emotional intelligence?   

His question catches you off guard as much as the fact that he also talks to you in English, your brain scrambling to find a response that you do not have —because, well, it is your fist position ever, if that counts. You decide to mimic his grin instead, a curt nod as your answer since it looks more like an affirmation than a question.  

“Feeling nervous?” he queries right after, scrunching his nose as if he could feel the nerves running like thunders under your skin.  

For that you do have an answer: “A lot…”, but the reasoning behind it greatly differs from what he must be thinking about.  

Strangely enough, the sweet chuckle that he lets out brings a real smile to your lips, and even more so the calming words and praises that follow. That he knows you will do well, everything will turn out alright, while he confidently assures you that you will be taking some points home today. He is sure of it. The men from the meeting had said something similar, their ‘don’t be greedy’ has stayed at the back of your mind ever since. 

“You already know this but, be careful, the start is pure chaos when you are on the middle of the grid” he advices you as well, looking back at the line of Formula One cars like he can see it unfolding before his eyes.  

But why is he being so nice? Who is he? Talking to you with such care while you cannot get a single word out, too freaked out to react to any of this information. Your eyes slip down on their own to the hip of his jumpsuit, the letters showing despite the fact that he is not wearing it zipped up completely like you do, but rather with the top part wrapped around his waist. There you find what probably is the United Kingdom flag —yeah, he does sound English— and what must be his name: Lewis. 

“Anyway, better not to talk about it. Let’s go!” the man proposes at last, pointing with a tilt of his head to the men gathered a few meters away.  

Even though any sane person in your situation would have turned down the offer and run away from all these strangers, you cannot help but follow him. The fear of being left alone in an unknown place is somehow overpowering your desire of escaping. Where would you run to anyway? With which money? And if you call the police, what would you tell them? Would you even be able to understand what they say? It is not like you had been able to read a single town sign on the way here.  

Still, when you finally focus your gaze on the group of men ahead, you wonder if all this is just an extremely well-prepared hidden camera show. Because not more than a few meters away, in that group you are walking towards is the man that has been flashing through your mind all day long.  

The man from yesterday, the person who held you in his arms as everything faded around you, in that exact same bright orange outfit. 

Next chapter

___

Author's note: From now on the updates will take a bit longer since this is what I had already written, so you'll have to be patient with me hahaha. Thanks for all the nice comments and interactions!

Taglist: @purplephantomwolf @raye2000 @yuiiimd @drezzerk33 @leclercdream

#formula one x reader #f1 x reader #f1 fic #carlos sainz x reader #charles leclerc x reader #daniel ricciardo x reader #lewis hamilton x reader #f1 x you #formula one x you

[candyk0rn]

hi hi hi!! i just read your bg3 headcannons and the way you write astarion and gale is so on brand!! i love the way you write! its a follow for me :> my older sister is the one who is into bg3 (i only know basically everything due to her rambles LMAO) and i read them out loud with her listening while she did her laundry and she loved them sm! thanks for being the source of my sister's serotonin

i also saw that your requests are open, and my older sister would like to make a request :)) she was wondering if you could write wedding planning/wedding ceremony headcannons for the characters?! She was so sad she didn't get to see any wedding related scenes with Gale after the game events ;-;

Wedding preparations-BG3

I’m literally going to cry that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me 😭 I’m so happy your sister and yourself like my writing so much, it gives me so so so much joy that you both enjoy it. Also I agree, Larian Studios should add a wedding dlc or something 🙏🏻 (Also since you weren’t exactly specific, I’ll do Astarion and Gale because it sounds like those are your favs!!)

Before reading: Fluff, gn reader, Astarion x reader, Gale x reader

Astarion:

After his journey with you and the other companions, he’s sure that he wants to spend eternity with you

He’s never thought of romance, he wasn’t able to when he was a slave to Cazador

But now that he’s free, and now that he’s with you, he’s sure that he shall never love again if he loses you

You’re the one who has to actually bring up the thought of marriage,

He knows he will forever stay with you wether you marry or not

He lets you do all of the planning, as long as he gets to pick the guests

He doesn’t want anything too extravagant, shockingly

Just you, your eternal bond, and your closest companions

That’s all he really wants for a ceremony

He doesn’t ask for much, because he’s never put any thought on marriage or anything like that

He asks you if it’s alright to take your surname, for he wishes to part with his old life and start anew with you at his side

Planning is easy with him around, but expect him to jokingly complain here and there lol

Gale:

Bro has never been more sure of anything in his life

He wanted to marry you the moment he laid his eyes on you

After your long, dangerous journey rehearsing the Absolute, he makes it his mission to propose to you

He just wants to take you back to Waterdeep, have you meet his mother, and finally settle down

He’s been through so much, a comfortable life with you would have him die a happy man

When it comes to the actual planning, he would like to keep everything equal

As long as you agree with everything, he’s happy. (and vice versa)

Like Astarion, he doesn’t want anything over the top or extremely fancy

A simple, fun wedding with the traditional dancing and close friends and family is all he really wants in a ceremony like this one

Also you cannot convince me he doesn’t bring Tara (his cat) to the wedding omg

He just wants to make this day special for the both of you

It’s a day he shall never forget, after all

Thanks for reading!

#x reader #fanfic #fyp #candyk0rn #Baldurs Gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 x reader #bg3 astarion #bg3 Gale #baldurs gate astarion #astarion x reader #gale x reader #baldurs gate gale #fluff

[16eggsforxio]

did you know?

Joshua Rosfield x Reader

5340 words, fluff

Summary: Word on the street was the Archduke had a favourite amongst the Shields of Rosaria.

(AU where Rosaria is somehow defended and that bitch Anabella dies too. god I hate her so much)

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

The room felt oddly cold, for one that housed the Warden of Fire.

“I must apologise, but I cannot accede to your request at this point in time.”

You’d seen the man knelt before Joshua many times before. His silvery hair was styled rather asymmetrically, braided on the left and loose on the right, so his appearance particularly stood out to you. Not that you quite remembered his name or who he was, apart from being a representative of Waloed. Joshua always treated him dismissively, and so did you.

His demeanour was usually placid, but you observed the way his shoulders were much too tense. Without raising his head, he slowly said, “I implore you, Lord Rosfield—my master grows weary of waiting. Surely you could entertain a single meeting with him?”

Right, the King of Waloed had been wanting to meet Joshua for a while now. In the past year, this man whose name you did not remember showed up like clockwork every month, bringing the same request every time and going home with the same rejection every time. You recalled that in the beginning these requests had been sent via mail, but after one too many times of Joshua putting it aside on his desk and saying I’ll respond to him later nonchalantly, this nameless man started showing up at Rosalith Castle’s doorstep.

“Please understand, Sir Harbard—I would love to speak with your king, but my duties as the Archduke have my hands full.” Oh, his surname was Harbard. Joshua clasped his hands on his lap. “As I have mentioned before, at the earliest opportunity, I will be more than happy to arrange something with him. But now simply isn’t a good time.”

Your neck felt a little itchy, but you resisted the urge to rub it for the sake of looking professional.

This time, Harbard raised his head, brows creased. “Forgive my saying so, but this cannot wait any longer.”

“And you must forgive me as well, as my answer would have to remain the same.”

Harbard’s once composed gaze morphed into something resembling a glare, but not quite yet. “I must warn you that my king is not above the means of using aggression as a form of communication—”

He didn’t get to finish speaking. In the next second you were in front of him, sword unsheathed and the tip of its blade prodding his throat, almost provoking him to continue speaking. For the first time he looked up at you, meeting your blank gaze.

“Commander, please…” Joshua called placatingly from behind you.

Your retreat wasn’t explicitly ordered, but you knew that was what he meant. Of course, you’d only been following what you were taught—subdue all imminent threats before they become a real danger—but following the Archduke’s words preceded that, so you wordlessly sheathed your sword and backed away to your original position behind Joshua.

Joshua just waved a hand to signal the end of his audience. “Thank you for your warning, but I suppose this concludes our meeting. Please relay my words to your king.”

Harbard looked like he was biting back a retort, but he pulled a graceful smile taut on his lips and rose to his feet. “Of course. I thank you for your attention.”

He turned to the door to leave. The two guards standing by the exit stepped forward to flank his side, escorting him out of the room. You wondered if you should follow in the event that he caused any trouble, but your assignment was to stay by the Archduke’s side, so your eyes trailed after him as the doors shut on their backs. He’d be back, evidently, be it in a peaceful or hostile manner the next time.

With the guest gone, you finally took the opportunity to stretch your stiff limbs, before glancing over at Joshua. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to keep ignoring him?”

Joshua looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I have yet to ascertain their goal, so it’s best to refrain from doing anything with him for now.”

“He just threatened you with war, though.”

“If his goal was conquest, then his loyal servant wouldn’t be here every month to beg for an audience.” He leaned forward, palm cradling his cheek. “And he has yet to turn up personally. He seems to want to meet elsewhere—anywhere but Rosaria. Is he looking to create a distraction? Or could he have another goal?”

You snort. “He sounds rather annoying.”

“Better annoying than dangerous.” Joshua stood up from his seat, and you toddled along to his side. “I’ve ordered investigations on it, but it’s still too early to say anything.”

That was a first. “Investigations by who?”

He regarded you with a coy smile, which you had learned he did when he was about to feed you a half-truth. “Secret subordinates.” Then he raised a hand and pinched you on the cheek. Not enough to hurt, but you winced in surprise. “But I must say, threatening one of our guests’ life at the first provocation? You could stand to be a little less protective.”

It was against the regulations to defy the Archduke, and you assumed pulling away from him counted as that, so you settled for a grumble. “It’s my duty…”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Joshua made for the doors, and you followed him closely to exit.

By tradition, the First Shield was the one who was always by the Phoenix’s side. That would be his brother, Clive, and not you, a regular commander. And it would’ve been so if Clive hadn’t awoken as Ifrit, which had led to Clive often being dispatched to all over Valisthea instead. You weren’t privy to the exact details, but he’d been investigating the Blight and the Mothercrystals and also settling some scuffles as a sign of diplomacy. He’d become just as important and prominent as the Archduke himself, and he was also not burdened with illness, so he often took more trips out in Joshua’s place.

It wasn’t official, but you seemed to always be the stand-in personal guard for Joshua whenever Clive was gone, and attended to your regular duties whenever he had returned. Although, more and more often you would have to be with Joshua even when Clive was back, and you would see him accompanying Jill. You didn’t really mind. It wasn’t a difficult position. If anything, you seemed to be around less for Joshua’s protection and more for his entertainment.

“Did you know that these flowers used to be ground and used for cosmetics?” Joshua gestured to a row of bushes lining the corridor on the side.

“Oh?”

“Then they were claimed to cause rashes, so their purpose in recent times are purely decorative.”

“I didn’t know that.”

You felt like your duty was actually to just stand around and listen to him babble about something or other that he’d read or heard the other day. You didn’t mind it that much.

Joshua turned his head to face you. You kept your eyes trained in front so the both of you didn’t walk into something. “My brother should be returning tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Really? You felt like he hadn’t left long ago. “So soon?”

“It’s been a few weeks, actually,” Joshua corrected. Then, mischievously: “Perhaps you’ve become too accustomed to my side?”

You held his arm and guided him around a corner before he could walk into a wall, then let go of it. “No, I must’ve just lost track of time.”

“Yes, of course,” he agreed, and not sounding like he agreed with you at all. His tone soon turned sour. “We also have to discuss that ball coming up, so after he’s returned, you may return to your regular position for the time being.”

It was no secret that Joshua was not a fan of parties, but unfortunately, his ancestors must have been. They’d made it a tradition to celebrate the day of the formation of the Grand Duchy of Rosaria, which had been established by the unification of several small independent provinces. And perhaps to highlight this very undertone of strength in numbers, they usually invited people and nobles from all over Valisthea. Waloed was most likely not on the guest list, to the king’s probable chagrin. Neither of the Rosfield brothers were inclined to the idea of the grand ball, but breaking a tradition that had been upheld for generations would be alarming at best, so they begrudgingly put up with it.

Two soldiers were stationed along the corridor. Upon seeing the both of you, they saluted. You bowed your head and Joshua nodded at them.

“I had heard preparations for that were already completed,” you said idly.

“For the most part, yes. But events like these attract droves of people from all over Valisthea, and I can assure you a good portion of our men would be too lost in the sense of celebration to be on guard.” He walked closer to you, bumping his arm against your shoulder. In a lower voice, he continued, “Wouldn’t it be so tempting to break through using that window, if you were the enemy?”

You stared ahead at the nearest corner to turn at. “You said Waloed wouldn’t turn aggressive.”

“It’s unlikely, not impossible.”

Ugh. You wished you had lopped off that—what was his name again?—asymmetrically-haired man’s head back there, though more out of frustration than as a calculated move. Every time you heard about Waloed, you had to stifle a groan.

The scurrying of footsteps sounded up ahead. A servant rounded the bend, panting with a jog, envelope clutched in their hand. When he caught sight of Joshua, he lit up and straightened his hunched back, slowing his pace drastically.

“Your Grace.” He halted and then bowed, stretching out both arms to present the envelope to him. It was a little crumpled. “This is addressed to you. It says it’s urgent.”

Joshua stopped in front of him, and you mimicked his action. He peered over at the envelope curiously. It was indeed addressed to him, with a very tacky looking URGENT, and signed off by Cid.

“Ah, it’s from Cid.” The name was unfamiliar to you. Joshua plucked the envelope from the servant’s hands between two fingers. “Thank you.”

After hastily bowing again, the servant retreated the way he had come. Joshua hummed and pocketed the envelope, looking not at all ruffled by a letter that supposedly conveyed an emergency, and continued strolling down the corridor.

Puzzled, you skittered to catch up with him. “Are you not going to open it now? It’s urgent, isn’t it?”

Joshua looked down at you, gait uninterrupted and unbothered. “Oh, Cid always writes that. If it were truly urgent, he’d have sent someone.”

You frowned and cocked your head. “What kind of person is he?”

He chuckled, ruffling the hair on the top of your head. “Wouldn’t you like to know, my dearest commander?”

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

Clive had returned, so the next day, as usual, you were discharged to regular commander duties.

The open sky scrolled overhead, clouds dotting over them like merry sheep in an azure field. A breezy zephyr trilled its way around the castle courtyards; present enough to be pleasant, but not strong enough to mess up your hair and get in the way. Grunts and laughter from soldiers sparring, harmonised with the hard sound of wooden sword against wooden sword, echoed and bounced off the walls eagerly.

You readjusted your grip on the wooden handle of your sword and wiped away a dribble of sweat on your chin with the back of your hand.

The soldier in front of you swung down at you again, an action that you had seen from miles away, and blocked it with a parry of your own sword.

Too slow to catch you off guard, and not strong enough to knock you off balance. You opened your mouth to give feedback, but before you could get any words out, he spoke first.

“Say, Commander, is there anything going on with you and the Archduke?”

You let go of the parry, swinging away from the arc of his remaining slash and throwing his balance forward and momentum off, then completed your spin by slamming the flat side of the wooden sword at his knees. He yelped and collapsed sideways, and you had more than enough time to direct the blunt edge of the blade against his neck, stopping just short of nicking it.

He winced. “Not the prodigy commander for no reason, eh?”

“Distraction is fatal in battle, you know,” you remarked, bumping the sword against his jaw before stepping away.

He huffed, recovering from the shock and moving to sit on his bum on the dirt. “That wasn’t a real battle, y’know.”

“I should pray that you don’t think up of some rubbish like that in a real battle.”

“Grumpy as always…” But he had some sort of stupid amused grin on his face. You offered a hand and helped to pull him to his feet. “Well, what’s your answer?”

You raised your wooden sword so that it was level to your face, smoothing out the dented edges. “I don’t answer nonsensical questions.”

“C’mon, don’t pretend,” he continued drawling. “He only ever asks you to stand in for the First Shield, out of all our commanders. And he’s a nice guy and all, y’know, but he doesn’t talk even a quarter as much to any of us than he does to you. Hard to not notice.”

Tapping on your palm with the sword, you furrowed your brows at him. “That’s strange. I hit you in the knees, so why are you acting like I hit you on the head?”

“But he’s right, Commander,” some other dastardly nosy soldier piped up, obviously not busy training and eavesdropping on you two instead. You turned to the soldier who was resting by the fence a few feet away. “We can keep a secret!”

“There’s nothing going on. I know my place.”

“What about him? Don’t you think he fancies you?”

You looked at him incredulously. “What sort of rumours have been going around? Shouldn’t I report this as insubordination?”

You wouldn’t, and they also knew you wouldn’t, so the soldier carried on. “His Grace has never shown interest in anyone else, right? You’ve been with him for pretty long, right?”

A decade? Maybe a little more than that? You hadn’t actually cared to count. You’d been brought in to train as a knight after some of the adults had witnessed your spectacular talent in combat, but during the Night of Flames, you had still been a child, and had been protected from the battle like one. Afterwards, you only heard the tale via word of mouth. The battle between Ifrit and Phoenix had somehow wreaked enough havoc to force the enemy to retreat, and then the story became ambiguous from there. But Rosalith successfully defended itself, albeit suffering heavy losses. Clive had awoken after a few weeks, and Joshua after a few years, but both of them had slept through the angry mob of Rosaria, rioting against their mother’s betrayal and then burning her at the stake. Probably for the better that they hadn’t witnessed that.

By the time Joshua had awoken, you’d already clawed your way up in the ranks of knighthood. With both brothers being able to prime, it seemed unwise to have them stuck together all the time, so even as the First Shield, Clive often went off elsewhere. You hadn’t been a commander at that time, but with the sad dregs left of the Rosarian army and your outstanding capabilities, they’d assigned you to guard him anyway.

“I don’t think so… what do you mean by ‘been with’?”

Before they could spout anymore of their foolery, you heard someone call you from a distance. You turned to the direction of the source and found Joshua and Clive, standing under the shelter of the corridor, waving you over.

“Speak of the devil,” the soldier you’d been sparring with mused.

You shot him a dirty look before traipsing over to them.

Sometimes when Clive had just returned at the gates of Rosalith, he would look very tired and very haggard, so seeing him in freshly pressed and blood-free clothes was always nice. You weren’t as familiar with him as you were with Joshua, so you took care to bow first, and he insisted it wasn’t necessary.

“I hope I haven’t interrupted anything?” Joshua tilted his head at you.

“No, you came at a good time.” Saved you from them becoming more aggressive in trying to wrangle anything out of you.

He raised a hand and placed it on top of your head. “You must’ve been working hard. Have a rest.” You heard the telltale jingle, and the Phoenix’s flames of rejuvenation washed over you. The soreness in your muscles melted away and every nerve in you sparked with renewed life. “I thought I should let you know first—I’ll need you to be with me during the ball. My brother has… other matters to attend to.”

Other matters probably being that Jill had a free hand and no dance partner that night, if you had to hazard a guess. “I see.”

“This wouldn’t pose any problems, would it?” He removed his hand from your head.

If he didn’t need you, you’d probably be stationed elsewhere outside for guard duty, anyway. “Not at all.”

“Thank you for taking care of my brother all the time.” Clive’s smile always looked genuine.

You nodded. “It’s my pleasure.”

“If he’s being too pushy or causing you any problems, you can come straight to me. I’ll handle it.”

“Clive…” Joshua protested.

“Of course, I will.”

Joshua made a sulky expression, evidently displeased that the two of you had turned on him. Clive patted him on the shoulder unhelpfully, then steered him away and left you to return to your sparring. A non-issue for you, since Joshua had eased away all your scrapes and fatigue from your earlier session.

Touching the top of your head with your own hand, you stared after their retreating backs.

You’d admit to no one but yourself that you were a little curious.

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

Although, being curious and actually getting answers were two different things.

Having seen it for years by now, the grand ball celebrating the formation of Rosaria didn’t quite faze you anymore, but it would always be quite the sight. Joshua had once described it as a garden steeped in a myriad of colours, sprawling with diversity, and you had thought he was waxing too much poetry, but he was right. Even though they were all dressed for the same event, it was obvious even to your unrefined eye; the differences in their updos, the cuts in their garments, the way they were poised and how they interacted—they came together as an amalgamation you could only awe at from a distance. You’d never see a sight like this anywhere else in Valisthea.

Though, to you, that was just what it was reduced to: at best, a lively sight. All the guests here could enjoy themselves, but you were more attentive to how a man draped in white stumbled a little too close to the table, a woman hiding something under the fluffy layers of her skirt (it was food), a particularly rugged man lingering far too long at the utensils. No one noticed how you were watching them like a hawk, and if they glanced in your direction, their focus would probably fall on the Archduke sitting diagonally in front of you.

Speaking of him, he turned in his chair and touched your idle fingers. You glanced down at him from where you stood. “Don’t be so tense, dear commander.”

“It’d be troublesome for me if you suddenly got assassinated.”

He smiled at you, amused. “That’s very unlikely. Something like that would reward the perpetrator with nothing but hostility from the whole of Valisthea.”

In particular, you were looking out for any silver-haired man with a strange asymmetrical haircut. The Kingdom of Waloed was like a boisterous child who had no problem stirring up trouble with anyone and everyone.

You also knew Joshua was so stubborn that he put every mule to shame, so you just said, “Right, of course.”

Your gaze briefly fell on a mop of black hair amongst the sea of people, followed by a swish of cascading grey hair. Clive and Jill seemed oblivious to everything around them and had that silly drunk smile at each other despite being completely sober. (Clive had promised not to drink, should anything happen.) In the past, there would be droves of women flocking to Clive’s side—you supposed he seemed a tad more approachable without the title of Archduke—but in recent years, Jill would never leave his side at parties. The envious eyes that followed her didn’t escape your notice, but it was Jill, so she could handle herself.

Fingers grasping Joshua’s hand, you guided it back towards the tabletop. Without releasing it, you blinked down at him. “When do you suppose the First Shield is going to announce his engagement to Lady Jill?”

Joshua fixed you with wide eyes. “They aren’t engaged.”

“Why aren’t they? They behave like they are.”

“Well…” Joshua was mulling over it like trying to explain an advanced concept to a child. You definitely weren’t a child, though. “He will in due time, I suppose? There have been a lot of unsettling matters as of late. I expect he will once things settle down.”

At this rate, you thought Jill just might take the reins into her own hands. You cocked your head silently and let go of Joshua’s hand and stood up straight again.

It probably wasn’t good practice to be chatting with a Shield so long in front of guests, after all. Most of them had already greeted Joshua, so they weren’t paying much attention to either of you. If it were the time for politics, they certainly would be, but in the time of party and dancing they would much rather relax and soak in the atmosphere elsewhere. He did speak to some of them briefly whenever he got up to serve himself more food (he refused to let a servant help him with that) but you thought it was probably to distract others from the fact that he was demolishing the desserts. Even now he was delicately slicing at a gargantuan piece of chocolate cake.

Your eyes followed a lady who was regarding her dance partner with a giddy smile.

“You aren’t interested in getting engaged, Your Grace?”

Joshua coughed loudly.

“Did you not take your medicine again?” You started digging in your pocket. The healer always left you some whenever you were assigned to him.

He raised a hand, the other covering his mouth, and you paused. The look he gave you after was almost exasperated. “Why… Why are you curious about that?”

“You are of age, but you always turn down any nobles interested in talks of becoming betrothed.”

“That’s… true, but…” The well-spoken Archduke was floundering for words.

“And you don’t appear to be interested in courting anyone, either.”

“I don’t?”

“No?”

Joshua looked at you flatly.

You frowned. “Are you perhaps interested in men?”

Reaching for a napkin, Joshua dabbed at the corner of his mouth even though it was clean. “Could I ask that we table this conversation for later?” He seemed to have composed himself.

A low, outsider voice interjected, “No, no, now I’m awfully curious, too. What’s your answer? Your Grace?”

You barely had time to scold yourself for losing focus on your original task, hand whipping to the hilt of your sword. Your stance was interrupted by Joshua leaping out of his seat, eyes big with pleasant surprise at the man in front of his table. He held a hand out for a handshake. “Cid! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Then, after a brief pause, he added, “I don’t recall sending you an invite.”

Vaguely recalling that was the name of the person who’d sent Joshua a not-urgent letter, you scanned him up and down. His attire seemed entirely too casual and it was apparent that he hadn’t made any effort to dress for the occasion, and the smell of alcohol was radiating off of him, but his posture and every muscle seemed far too relaxed. He didn’t seem in a good condition to attack, anyhow.

“You didn’t,” Cid affirmed, grasping his hand back. “I’m quite hurt.”

“I apologise, but having an outlaw around here seemed less than ideal.” Joshua was in correspondence with an outlaw? “But you’re already here, I suppose. Did you come here in search of something?”

Cid waved a hand dismissively. “Not tonight, Lord Rosfield. Tonight I’ll be but a simple man luxurying in life’s simplest and greatest pleasures.” He must be here for the free ale, judging by the sloshing mug in his other hand.

Maybe Joshua didn’t catch on to that, because he looked a little confused. “I see.”

Turning his attention to you instead, Cid extended a hand for another handshake. “This young lady here glowering at me must be the Shield I’ve heard so much of.”

If you really had been glowering at him, you were sure your expression was now a perplexed one. Hesitantly, you accepted his firm hand. “You’ve heard about me?”

Cid shrugged. “Genius knight, one of the youngest ever to achieve the title of a commander, the most favoured of the Ar—”

Joshua suddenly batted at Cid’s hand like a cat did at something unpleasant, breaking the grip between the two of you. Wearing a very taut smile, he circled around the table and placed a hand on Cid’s shoulder. “It’s been a while since you’ve last seen my brother, Cid. Would you like to go greet him?”

Cid grinned at him knowingly. “I never pegged you as a coy one. But it would be my utmost pleasure to, Lord Rosfield.”

The two of them pulled off into the crowd, and you plodded after them carefully. The idea of an outlaw roaming around in the walls of Rosalith didn’t sit quite right with you, but no one seemed to be paying him any heed, so maybe it was okay? There was an unspoken rule of no conflict or violence at this celebration of unity as well, so perhaps anyone with grievances against him would hold it back just for tonight.

They located Clive, and shared a few words that you didn’t fully listen to, with your eyes trained on the surrounding people instead. You only caught whiffs of information like how this uncouth man was actually the Dominant of Ramuh, and they had some plan or other that involved the Mothercrystals and the Blight. If it was something you needed to be involved in, Joshua would tell you, so you tuned out their drones and honed in on your task.

After a while, when they had finished, Cid wandered off again outside for a smoke, and Clive and Jill retired themselves into a secluded balcony. Joshua turned to you, tugging on your hand.

“If you feel worn out, I could call someone to stand in for you.”

This was hardly anything. “I would be more concerned about yourself.”

The rest of the night passed without incident. It was a good thing all of Joshua’s concerns had been unfounded. The guests streamed out of the ballroom in trickles, and you followed Joshua as he went to bid them farewell at the castle gates. It must’ve been hours past midnight by the time they had all left, and although you were accustomed to long working hours, the same probably didn’t go for Joshua’s poorer constitution.

Unexpectedly, he inclined his head towards you. “Would you care to go on a little walk with me in the gardens?”

You sighed. “I wouldn’t be able to convince you to retire for the night, would I?”

Joshua pretended to give it some thought. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Then I don’t quite have a choice here.”

The stars behind in the sky decorated his almost cheeky smile, and you took you by the hand and started towards the empty gardens.

Servants and soldiers would be bustling here in the day, traipsing from one end to the other, tending to the plants, or simply taking a breather under the benevolent shelter of the gazebo. Somehow, after the Night of Flames, you felt like the gardens were even brighter, every stem and leaf spruced to verdant life. Stoned pathways snaked their way through the blanket of grass, but whoever had laid them out had done a good job in making them feel like decorations rather than an intrusion.

You knew this place like the back of your hand, but your interest was piqued again when you found a familiar flower, red petals curved outwards as if stretching lazily.

Slowing your pace, you gestured to it. “That’s the one you said used to be ground for cosmetics, right?”

Joshua’s gaze followed your hand, and he stifled a laugh. “Did you know you’re the only one who remembers everything I say?”

“It sounds a little depressing when you put it that way, so please don’t.”

“But it’s true.” He reached out to you, cupping your cheeks with his hands and angling your head upwards to face him. You didn’t flinch. “Also, did you know you’re a very important person to me?”

The moonlight made his golden locks glisten white.

You reached up to grab his wrists. “Of course, I knew that.”

His look softened. “Would my very important commander allow me to have this dance?”

This time, you averted your eyes. “I don’t know how to.”

The way of the sword was all you’d been taught, and fighting was nothing like the elegant and tranquil movements that belonged in a ballroom.

“I could teach you,” Joshua offered.

There was no music except for the buzzing of the crickets, but you didn’t see the harm. “Just for a short while.”

“Here, like this.” Stepping closer, he clasped both of your hands and positioned them outwards by your side the way you saw most people postured back in the ballroom. “Follow me. It’s fine if you happen to step on my feet.”

You found the motions unfamiliar, completely unlike the sharp and jarring reflexes you had during battle, but you still felt a tinge of deja vu. The way you kept your gaze locked at the ground to make sure your feet didn’t stumble reminded you much of your days when you’d first picked up the sword; untrained and uncertain. You were sure you looked nothing as graceful as the women were back there, and Joshua was probably practising extra caution to watch out for you, too.

The flowers in the garden smelled sweet.

You glanced back up at Joshua. “By the way, you never answered my question if you were interested in men.”

Joshua fumbled and trod on your boot. It barely hurt, but you huffed.

“My apologies. I…” He squinted at you like he was trying to figure something out. “I don’t understand why you could be so curious about this.”

“I already mentioned it, didn’t I? Are you not worried about finding a betrothed?”

He slowed to a halt, and you did the same. “It’s not that I’ve been avoiding it—I’ve simply been preoccupied with… other things, is all.”

You tilted your head. “I see. Then I’ll have to assume the rumours are true.”

Joshua blinked quizzically. “What rumours?”

“You must’ve heard of them. I’m talking about these.”

Your reflexes were always going to be much faster than Joshua’s—you dropped your hands along with his down to your sides, leaning forward until the tips of your noses met, sharing a breath. His pretty blue eyes were so wide, so confused, and for the first time in a while, a grin stretched itself out across your lips.

“Did you know? I’m not that oblivious.”

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Author’s note: I’m not actually sure what the ranks of knighthood are, so I’m just going to say there are several commanders in the ranks and then one lord commander.

Also, Clive’s hair was styled in the flashback but became unkempt afterwards because he was pretty much a slave, so I wonder if he’d continue styling his hair as an adult in this kind of AU.

#joshua rosfield #joshua rosfield x reader

[kygerbearr]

can i get some information?

in hokkaido japan there's these rockets that hang from poles to show you where the road is when it snows over (due to the high elevation there)

also in arizona its illegal for a business to deny any person water because of how hot it is there. they also opted out of daylight savings time and all of america could also do that if they wanted, its just that every other state votes to keep it for some reason.

canada having bagged milk is actually only for the eastern side of canada. the western side of it not as much. also the backs of signs in british columbia are painted green

on google maps coverage of curacao, if you look down at the car there's a sticker on some of the roof rack on the car. this is consistent across curacao's google map coverage

buzz lightyear and woody are actually in the files in the original ps2 version of kingdom hearts 2 and a model for the world on the gummi ship menu is in some screenshots of early kh1 gameplay suggesting they intended on including toy story as a playable world from the very start i stole this image from reddit

polar bears are to my knowledge the only ursidae that actively hunt humans and are also the only carnivorous bears. at least i think. dont fact check it just trust me on this one

in gex 3 deep cover gecko for ps1 and n64, in the 3rd level Tut TV there's a sign on the wall that says "ankh if you're corny" but there's also an unused texture that says horny instead of corny this is the only image i have of it sorry that its small

thomas edison in fate grand order is a furry lion man who is every single president of the united states of america (past, present and future) built into one person. also his super move is proving God doesn't exist and he looks like this

this photo of the sun photoshopped into the background of a place is in the philippines and you can tell because of the color of the sattellite dish as well as the ads for cigarettes

thyis is a grizzly bear you can tell because hes brown. also they only really exist in alaska/canada/montana/wyoming-ish

oh yeah also tsela and yiska from the smoke room vn are names that are words in navajo. not exactly directly translateable as Diné Bizaad, the language of the navajo, essentially operates in "pictures". describing things and such. tsela can be translated to the best of my ability as "like stone"

while yiska essentially carries the message of "the night has passed" (used in both the word for Tomorrow and Saturday)

cynthia's last name, tsosie, essentially means "slender". I cannot provide an excerpt from my navajo-english dictionary since it's not in there, but it's also from 1958 and so its probably a little bit incomplete. the fact that she uses the name cynthia, a non-navajo name, reflects her decision to leave the reservation.

the name Begay is also a real life navajo surname that is an anglicization of biye', which means his/her son. i wish i could speak more on the accuracies within TSR's clifford route regarding navajo culture and history but that would be spoilers. all i will say is that the soap thing was a very real thing that was commonplace

speaking of clifford, his last name Tibbits could be a reference to Howard Clinton Tibbitts, a photographer who was well known for his photographs along the sites of the southern pacific railway which encompassed Arizona and into Apache and Puebloan territories. and yes, even Utah. rather telling

anyways that is an amount of information

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Thoughts: The Deadline Contender Panel

Quick list of very direct, subjective, random and spontaneous thoughts I had while listening/watching the panel:

I absolutely understand that Taylor probably doesn't remember every detail of the movie off the top of his head, especially with nerves, but Sweetheart really didn't describe the played DNC scene correctly😅

That being said Taylor calling Henry Alex's boyfriend made me SO FUCKING HAPPY???? I was squealing and kicking my legs because of all the feels. On top of that, intentional or not, Taylor takes a breath so it goes "wanted to bring his... boyfriend!" and there's this subtle emphasis on the word, I am screaming

I do question why this scene though? I don't know much about this whole process, but just an educated guess, if we're trying to get an emmy nom via this panel, shouldn't we be showing a scene that's more representative of the movie's core? Like, say the New Year's scene, or Kensington Palace, or the Lake scene. If we have to include the comedy aspect, then show the freaking Red Room. I love this scene of course, but if the purpose is to nominate ourselves and show ourselves then I feel like another scene should have been picked

Why can't people freaking pronounce Nick's surname correctly? It's phonic! Ga - Lit- Zine

"Orange Guy was still president" I snorted

I heard there's stupid discourse over this minor, harmless thing, but because people are stupid, here to clarify "especially Taylor since he's here" is CLEARLY A JOKE BETWEEN FRIENDS and if you didn't pick that up then that's kind of sad :P

I'm wondering if there's still recordings of the zoom auditions/chem read. I can also imagine zoom chem read being much harder. Honestly I think zoom auditions only work with monologues.

He did the chem read in his sister's apartment lmao

THEIR CHEM READ WAS KENXINGTON????!!! WHAT THE FUCK???!!! THE MOMENT THAT MADE MATTHEW GO "there's the one" WAS THIS FREAKING SCENE??? This also implies they had to say "I love you" upon the first time meeting each other oh my god I wanna see that so bad

Also I cannot freaking imagine this intense of a scene via zoom, God I really want to see it (don't think we'll ever get it but still)

Someone ask Matthew or Nick what the other scene in the chem read is

The notebook, pride and prejudice and 10 things i hate about you mention made me happy :D

The speech thing... Kinda feel like should be a Matthew question? It's cool to hear that Taylor referenced President Obama but this is still ultimately him being Alex? Plus Taylor's a great public speaker to begin with

Did he dabble in political science? Did he ever mention that? I know he did Spanish and Community but political science?

I think the only really bad gay movie in recent years was Bros and that has a myriad of issues internally and externally, but I think it's just this one?

Why is TikTok the metric? Might write something longer in the future when I have time but the thing is with this

Speaking of Taylor and queer roles, I think I saw somewhere that Noah Torres was bi?

I talked to @pippin-katz about this but dear God, I have heard the question "What is your favourite scene" being asked to the boys at least three times now, and they always answer the cake scene. Why don't they ever expand on the question, especially since Taylor affed the Kensington scene this time, and why don't they ever ask other questions or ask about specifics? Between me and my friends, we came up with at least 40 questions that could be asked to the boys and haven't been asked yet.

Nick how the fuck did cream stay in/ behind your ear for two days and Taylor how did you spot it

I'm honestly getting really tired of the sequel question, it's always phrased the same way, and of course, the answer is gonna be the same. Even if they knew, they contractually can't tell us, the first announcement of a sequel will have to come from a bigger source like Amazon themselves.

I understand being nervous but this interviewer felt too timid and unsure of herself

Overall still very enjoyable, always more than happy to hear Taylor speak about his baby that we all love, but the question are so freaking repetitive. I said it clearer in my discussion with Pippin so here's a screenshot of that part

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #taylor zakhar perez #nicholas galitzine #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #henry hanover stuart fox #firstprince #my rwrb list #rwrb rambles #deadline contenders

[rosietrace]

Ernest Shelley

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“No matter what happens…

I swear my heart to you, Wife.”

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— Ernest Shelley

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General Information

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Full Name — Ernest Adam Shelley

↳ Ernest: Derived from the old high German Ernust, meaning “serious, earnest”. It happens to be the name of Victor Frankenstein's younger brother, Ernest Frankenstein.

↳ Adam: The Hebrew word for “Man”. In the Genesis in the Old testament, Adam was made from the earth by God, said to supposedly be the first human; Adam is also the official name of “Frankenstein’s Monster”.

↳ Shelley: Derived from an English surname that originally derived from a place name meaning, “clearing on a bank” in Old English; The most famous bearers of this surname were Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

Japanese ver. — エルネスト アダム シェリー

Romaji ver. — Erunesto Adamu Sherī

Twisted from: The Creature

❐ — The Creature (Lisa Frankenstein/リサ・フランケンシュタイン)

V/A(日本語): Hidenobu Kiuchi (木内 秀信)

↳ voices Victor Van Dort, Corpse Bride

V/A(英語/EN): Chris Sarandon

↳ voices Jack Skellington, The Nightmare before Christmas

Age: 19 (Biologically), ??? (Chronologically)

Birthday: February 14th

Horoscope: Aquarius ♒

Species: Human, Reanimated Corpse

Height: 186 cm

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Sea Green

Gender/Pronouns: Male, He/They

Sexuality: Demiromantic

Dominant hand: Right

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Extra Information

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Homeland: The Queendom of Roses

『 Family:

Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Shelley — “Wife”

William — Older brother †

Viktor — Second older brother †

Lizabeta — Sister-in-law † 』

Dormitory: Terrovania (@terrovaniadorm / @hallowed-delights )

School Year: 3rd

Class: 3-B (seat no. 31)

Club: Literature Club

Best class(es): Music, Literature

Worst class(es): Alchemy, all things scientific

Like(s): Lizzie, piano, sheet music, waltzing, late night walks, dressing up, poetry, writing, calligraphy, axes /j

Dislike(s): Not being around Lizzie, losing a limb, not being able to speak, “electronic devices”, being talked behind his back, Lizzie's stepmother, Lizzie getting hurt, badly written poetry, Rook /j, memories of his parents, literally anything involving the sciences

Hobbies: Tanning /j, pianoforte, writing sheet music, poetry writing/reading, late night walks, late night dancing

Talent(s): Pianoforte, literature, writing sheet music, waltzing, (ax murdering)

Flaw(s): Codependent, overprotective, judgmental, “over emotional”, old fashioned (to some degree)

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Personality

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Ernest is a man of his word. Whatever promises he's made to the people in his life, he'll go take that promise to the grave; for that is how he expresses his loyalty to those he loves and cares for.

He has a very expressive face, many people have noted. Though he cannot verbalize his thoughts now, he can convey them through the means of physical emotion.

Though very, very quiet in ways other than his… lack of a voice, Ernest is quite passionate once you get to know him! He finds great passion in what he's good at, and is easily flustered by those — Lizzie, especially — who compliment him for his talents.

It's best to not get ahead of oneself with Ernest, however. He's actually rather sensitive, over-emotional to such a degree that he can't help but shed a few acid tears every now and then; and no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to maintain control of them.

He loves and cares wholly, wholeheartedly; and those who dare hurt the people he loves shall meet the inevitable consequences. Ernest's devotion to those he loves knows no bounds, and he isn't afraid of taking certain measures to ensure their safety.

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Unique Magic: 『 Strange… it is unlisted 』

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Thoughts on them

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『 This file is currently unavailable 』

— Maxwell Murray, Ernest's housewarden (Oc by @/terrovaniadorm)

“Peculiar, that he is… oh how I desire to run a test or two on his autonomy… alas, that is not possible. For now.”

— Walton Morrigan, Ernest's dorm mate

“Oh Ernest! He’s… alright! Truth be told.... I knew him before. I was to be engaged to him. He was pleasant but we were only following our parents’ wishes. We came to the conclusion we were incompatible and the marriage fell through. I wonder if he remembers… I’m glad to see him happy.”

— Lilith Winchester, Ernest's dorm mate (Oc by @/starry-night-rose)

“Ernest… How do I even begin? I’ve always felt drawn to him, ever since I saw that bust of him on top of his grave. He was a real piece of work back then, missing an ear, a hand, you know that sort of stuff. He’s a really emotional guy and I relate to that. He let me be myself around him, something I wasn’t able to do for a long time. He’s been there for me for my highs and lows. I think… I think I love him.”

— Elizabeth “Lizzie” Shelley, Ernest's ‘wife’ (Oc by @starry-night-rose)

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Additional Trivia

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✑ Main Theme: The Finale/“We’re simply meant to be” from The Nightmare before Christmas

✑ Backstory: 『 Unnamed Gentleman 』

༝ㅤ･ㅤ˚ㅤ。ㅤ.ㅤ⋆ㅤ• 　。·　『✞』

✞ Ernest doesn't remember his name. He likely would have remembered it, had it not been for his unnamed grave.

✞ He, also, doesn't remember his birthday! Lizzie was the one to declare his “new birthday” to be Valentine's Day.

✞ Due to his… predicament, Ernest is unable to verbally communicate; he compromises by communicating with Lizzie with disgruntled grunting, sign language, and writing things down on paper, or on her hand.

✞ Incredibly protective of Lizzie. She gets a papercut and he's treating it like she got stabbed in the abdomen and is taking action in making sure she gets better!

✞ Never quite had a good relationship with his parents… or his brothers.. or just his family, in general; he was — at least — on agreeable terms with his sister-in-law.

✞ While he isn't bad with technology, Ernest doesn't like using it all that much; the most you'll see of him ‘typing’ is him using a typewriter Lizzie got for him.

✞ Almost every single one of Ernest's poems, writings, even the titles of his musical pieces, are dedicated to Lizzie.

✞ A ride or die kind of friend. In Lizzie's case, he's a ride or die “husband”. Oh, she committed a murder? God forbid, women do anything!

✞ Surprisingly feminist for someone born in the 1800s!... He can't help but still have some old fashioned views that he needs to unlearn, however. Fortunately, Lizzie's there to help him along the way.

✞ His face is comically expressive. Anything Rook says that sounds like an attempt at poetry, Ernest's face contorts to making him look like he just developed an aneurysm.

↳ Safe for certain, Ernest really doesn't like Rook 😭

✞ Ernest finds it incredibly reassuring that Lizzie doesn't care that he isn't all that scientific of a man. It was something he was deeply insecure about when he was still alive, something he was ashamed of— and he felt himself fall in love with her even more for her acceptance of him.

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Appearance

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Ernest's Tags

#ernest shelley • #『 ernest 🪓 』 • #『 the shelley couple 🪓 』

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#twisted wonderland oc #twst oc #twst ocs #twst #disney twst #twst wonderland #ツイステ #ツイステッドワンダーランド #twistedwonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #twst fandorm #fandorm oc #terrovania #terrovania oc #ernest shelley #『 ernest 🪓 』 #lizzie shelley #『 the shelley couple 🪓 』 #lisa frankenstein #mutuals <3 #mutuals' ocs #friends' ocs

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Trimax Thoughts Vol. 12 Pt. 3

[ID: A panel from Trigun Maximum Volume 12. Knives is shown with eyes narrowed and a slight smile as he asks "What's your name?" End ID.]

"What's your name?" A name is an identifier, and to ask for it is to acknowledge an individual's identity.

We see this with Vash and his strong memory for the names of all the people from his Home. But interestingly, even with this memory for individuals, and the way Vash clearly never forgets a single person who has impacted him, he very rarely calls people by name, and this goes doubly the closer he is to them. Meryl and Milly are just "the insurance girls" most of the time. Wolfwood was referred to by Nicholas only once (though to be fair, this may just be typical use of a surname). I need to go back and check when I have more energy but I'm pretty sure the only name Vash uses with any regularity is Rem's. Vash loves them, but he won't stick around, nor will he use their names. Maybe if he doesn't use them... he can avoid getting too attached. (Mission failed...)

But it's more than that. Vash's guilt and desire to keep people safe prevents attachment that's true... but so does his philosophy. By necessity, Vash has to refuse to prioritize anyone's life over another's. Getting attached, becoming close enough to want to do anything to protect that person... Vash can't have that, because Vash knows himself well. He is far from impartial. We all remember his "diablo" moment at the beginning of the manga, and his outright murderous anger towards Knives over Rem and July - and that's still with him distanced. Here's his reactions to Wolfwood being in danger in Volume 10, after Vash realized both how much he meant to him and that he was dying:

[ID: Two screenshots from Trigun Maximum Volume 10. In the first, Vash's face is shadowed before he whirls around to show his eyes - wide and pale and furious. His face is shaded with dark lines for dramatic emphasis. In the second, Vash shoves two men onto the ground by the barrels of his two guns. He is hunched over them, again, furious. His face is shadowed completely. End ID.]

To love someone in a personal way is to prioritize them. It is that prioritization that could lead someone to kill another. Vash cannot have that, yet another reason why he self-imposes that distance from people.

You can't be impartial about others' lives... if some are more important to you than others.

Knives meanwhile uses Legato's name a lot! Legato, or Bluesummers, but either way, he is using his name. And I really think that Knives cares (?) in some way for Legato. He asked Elendira for Legato to be brought back instead of killed. Kind of just lets Legato do what he wants (except kill Vash, obviously). He entrusts him to keep hold of Vash for months on end. Legato doesn't have a number like the rest of Knives' followers; just a name!!! I feel certain that Knives used to share a lot more with Legato before Fifth Moon - Legato seems shocked that Knives would withhold info from him, and he knew Rem's name! There was clearly some point of understanding between them at the moment of their meeting. At the very least, Knives appreciates Legato far more than he lets on.

...And he will never let on. Knives treats Legato cruelly... probably because if he were to treat him on fairer terms, it would be a compromise to his principle that "all humans are bad and need to die", that the time for communication is over, that there is no "making friends" anymore. Knives cannot treat Legato with respect.

You can't push the narrative that an entire group is irredeemable and beneath you... if you've grown attached to one of them.

Knives uses names but treats the people as inferior. Vash treats people with respect but rarely uses names and distances himself. Both of them are severely hampered by their strict ideologies that they will not waver from - which guarantees their loneliness will never end.

Vash is doomed to lose everyone he cares for without ever giving himself the chance to love them, or them to love him. Knives is doomed to lose all his connections, past or possible future, and exist as an eternal lonely child who will never make all those friends he once craved. All because neither of them can afford to back down.

And now they really are gearing up to lose each other, for good this time. Both of them, doomed to lose, right from the start.

There are really no victors in a fight like this.

#storyrambles #please show up in the tags please show up in the tags #trigun #trimax #trigunbookclub #trigun meta #millions knives #vash the stampede #the inherent tragedy of your biggest enemy being your own twin sibling... #call me ace detective the way i am ace. and also a detective.

[copias-sewer-rat]

THEORY TIME ON WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO COPIA!

I just read the most amazing theory over on tiktok related to what is going to happen to Copia and it aligns to a lot of stuff I have been thinking about, let me share it with you. Check @another.emeritus on tiktok for their video on the topic!!! (I need to theorise I am sorry this is eating me alive).

So you know how this era (the Copia era) has been very focused on Nihil and Sister Imperator's relationship, with the YouTube videos and mvs, the release of Seven Inches of Satanic Panic etc... And the current album and tour make reference to Sister Imperator herself (we all know how Tobias loves his lyrics to sound like other words to add the double meaning) as in IMPERA/RE-IMPERA TOUR/Imperator. It is also very important to consider the meaning of the word 'impera' itself. In Spanish it means to prevail, but it comes from the latin word of rule and imperator is emperor in Latin (not suspicious at all).

On the one hand, we have the very obvious phonetic connection but then with have the RE in the tour. As a prefix 're' can mean two things: again or back (like repetition). What if this tour is the start of a new set of Papas outside of the Emeritus bloodline? A new reign. Maybe this is too niche but what if we had similar Papa's to the originals but slightly different? Like if you know JoJo's, this would be like what happens after Stone Ocean (spoiler: the universe resets and everyone is slightly different).

It could be that, but I like the other idea better, maybe it is a new bloodline. As @another.emeritus says in their video, maybe Copia will be the start of a new bloodline, the Imperator bloodline, with a new set of Papas. We know that there are no more Papas left, and I don't think Toblerone is going to pull the distant cousin card on us. This also allows me to talk about the meaning of the word Emeritus (this post is the proof that I have a degree in English philology lol). Emeritus refers to a ruler that it is no longer ruling, a retired one, not a dead one, a retired one. It obviously refers to Nihil, but what if the surname itself is going to be retired completly?

Also, that we got so much background to Imperator and Nihil's story, which almost feels like when in a movie they provide flashbacks so the audience gets attached to a character before killing them off. To me it feels that way. Maybe that story is going to repeat itself with Copia and someone that Imperator chooses, someone easy to manipulate. This last part would also connect to Darkness at the Heart of my Love... WHAT IF Copia has been in love this whole time, has had a lover and that song is for them? They cannot be together because of the tour but when summer ends, meaning the tour, they are going to reunite (another use of 're' lol). That would also explain the 'spicy' whispers of the song. Like the song itself is quite sad and all, but the background whispers are horny af ("pleasure me", "obsessively"...)

In summary, I don't think Copia is going to die, I think he is going to reign, be the start of a new Satanic Empire in the clergy and his progeny is going to continue with the Ghost project.

I don't know where to put Swiss' odd behaviour in this theory, but it has also been bugging me. If you think of anything please use this post to share, let us create a little debate to cope with the intrusive Copia dying thoughts.

Lots of love, SR.

#the band ghost #papa emeritus iv #cardinal copia #papa secondo #ghost band #ghost #papa terzo #papa emeritus iii #papa primo #ghost bc #ghost the band #papa emeritus lll #papa copia #papa emeritus 4 #popia #papa iv #papa emeritus 2 #papa emeritus i #papa nihil #copia #re imperatour #theory

[beardedmrbean]

The father of a Jewish baby whose birth certificate was returned defaced from the Home Office has demanded that all civil servants are vetted again.

Israel, who did not wish to disclose his surname, said he feels “unsafe” in Britain and is considering leaving after his birthplace – the country Israel – was scribbled out on his six-month-old daughter’s document.

The 32-year-old’s family from Edgware, in north London, sent off the papers to the Home Office on Feb 6 to obtain a British passport for their baby daughter Ronnie but it was returned with his birthplace defaced in black pen on Monday morning. 

His 29-year-old wife Dorin was also born in Israel but her entry remained intact. 

James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, said he had asked officials to “investigate this urgently” and vowed to see that “appropriate action is taken”. It is unclear whether it was a mistake.

But Israel, a father-of-three who owns an engineering company, has demanded that ministers go further and review whether civil servants in their ranks are politically biased or not.

“This person immediately needs to be sacked and we need to make sure it has been registered somewhere, so people know this person cannot hold sensitive documents because they are taking their personal politics or even racism from home into work and gets paid from my taxes,” he told Sky News.

He added: “The Government needs to re-vet the people who work in the public sector because if anyone can get into these documents, what’s the point of a document being private?

“I don’t feel confident to send any more official papers to the Home Office or to anywhere else, because the Home Office is in charge of my security as a minority over here.”

He revealed that he was now considering leaving the country because he feared that the Home Office staff member who defaced the certificate could get their “riff raff” to come to his address.

Since the Israeli-Hamas war began on October 7 Israel said “to be Jewish in the UK is very hard nowadays and it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse and worse”.

‘I feel unsafe in London’

“I just think of my daughter in 20 years, what’s her future over here because London is not London any more and I literally feel unsafe,” he added

Israel compared the incident to the Nazis defacing of documents in the 1930s.

Under the Forgery Act of 1861 it is a criminal offence to deface a birth certificate. Israel said he would be reporting it to the police. The Met said it had not had any involvement in the case thus far.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is supporting the family, said it was “completely unacceptable” and released a picture of the birth certificate.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Home Secretary has asked officials to urgently investigate this matter and appropriate action will be taken.

“While the facts and circumstances are being established, it must be reiterated that this government will not tolerate antisemitism in any form.”

#nunyas news #yikes

[dream-of-potter]

Aruden headcanons from my previous account (summarised) + some new ones

So these were actually full fledged one shots on my previous account, but since those cannot be recovered now I thought I'd make a summary post:

Aru didn't change her surname after marriage, just so Aiden could keep calling her "shah"

For their engagement, Aiden got Aru a ring with an eye on it, because Nidra was the one who made Aiden realize he loved Aru

In their bedroom, they have a mirror whose frame is littered with colourful post- its, with little sweet messages they have written for each other, just "God, you're so beautiful" or "I love you" or sometimes sappy quotes from Aiden's fav romcoms

Aru's post its are yellow and Aiden's green

At their wedding, Aiden gave a three- hour long presentation of all the photos he'd taken of Aru over the years. Most of the guests fell asleep halfway through, but Aru was awake through it all, bawling her eyes out

Aiden hates horror movies, so whenever they're watching one (cause Aru) he'll be snuggled up beside Aru, face squished against her stomach

They have a competition going on between them to see who can plan better birthday surprises. Aru won lost year, but this time Aiden is running ahead with his field trip to Home Depot

Aiden is a mother hen. Period. Once Aru caught a cold dancing in the rain, and Aiden was straight up babying her for days

They hate fighting. When they do fight, it only lasts for a few minutes, and it always ends with cuddling while crying

Aiden's wallpaper changes pretty much everyday according to his latest fav picture of Aru he took

Aru's always trying to get Aiden to recreate all these couple poses with her which somehow always ends up with Aru on top of him and Aiden saying "why are you like this, shah" with a smile

#aruden #aru shah #roshani chokshi #aiden acharya #arundhati #love them #my sweeties