#i don't quite have the words to describe how it feels to watch a player you always knew could do it to truly truly thrive like this

[tennis-shenanigans]

logically I know the sinner dominance can't last indefinitely but my god is it breathtaking

#like what do you mean he's only lost one match this year and its basically already April #i don't quite have the words to describe how it feels to watch a player you always knew could do it to truly truly thrive like this #🙏🙏🙏 #jannik sinner #tennis

[deepperplexity]

Don't Be Shy

Title: Don't Be Shy

Pairing: Young!Snape x Young!Fem!Reader (ALL CHARACTERS OF AGE!)

POV: Third, Snape

Setting: Severus’s dorms, End of Seventh Year.

Theme: Drunken shenanigans with smutty goodness and praise 🖤

Inspired by: THIS fanart of Young!Snape by @simper-maximus who gave me permission to write a fanfic for it 🥰

A/N: So, hello there, it’s been a hot minute - hasn’t it? 👀🙈

As some of you know my life is CRAZY atm, not only with work but we’re moving and all that goodness as well so I’ve been inactive for a while here even if I’ve done my best to log on and try to add to our lovely community.

However, I saw this fanart of our young Snape yesterday (do check the post linked above and give it some love) and just felt inspired. So here’s a little smutty goodness of our beloved Snape at an age I rarely write - you know me loves, I want our dungeon bat on the more mature side but this young Snape just made my fingers itch. I hope you’ll enjoy it 😘

ABBR.: Y/N - Your Name

Warnings: Ejaculation, Climaxing, Masturbation, Alcohol Consumption, Provocative Language/Actions, Slight Fluff, Slight Aftercare, Praise, Shame, Praise Kink, Inexperienced!Snape, Experienced!Reader, Confident!Reader, Kissing, Oral Sex, Stripping.

Word Count: 2.2k+

Masterlist page // Masterlist post // AO3 // Linktree

The sound of Moon Rage filled the room, the band’s hypnotic tunes with its edgy female singer easily overpowered any other sound. Or, perhaps, he was simply drunk and couldn’t filter out the loud sound of the record player.

Why he’d accepted your request to meet up, why he’d allowed you to smuggle alcohol into his room, why he’d agreed to you locking the door while whispering about the others being at the unauthorized graduation party by the abandoned greenhouse and not returning for hours to come — well, he couldn’t answer any of the sluggish thoughts that sneaked through his usually overcrowded brain for a few seconds.

It was quite desolate at the moment though. Only one thought echoed through the haze of alcohol after the questions fizzled out, you. The way you danced between his bed and wardrobe at the furthest left side of the room. Your hips swayed, and your hands skimmed atop your clothes. Your skirt hitched up, your slightly too-small shirt revealing every single curve of your upper body and the dangling of your tie across your chest was as hypnotic as the music.

He couldn’t believe you were there. Singing about being touched, humming about feeling like you could breathe under the sensual caress described in the song. You were magnificent in the dim candlelight. And he was hard. His cheeks flushed. His hand squeezed the fabric of his robe spread out on the couch from where he had an uninterrupted view of you.

You spun around — a new song filling the room with an even more sensual beat — and he blushed deeper as you smiled at him. You seemed less affected by the alcohol, or you were a more experienced drinker. The entire situation was new to him. Everything about it was so wholly new on every level and he barely knew what to do with himself.

You swayed your hips as you moved closer, he tensed and you smirked. Your eyes were alight with something he could only describe as mirth. Mirth and warmth. He was warm all over too, his cock strained against his trousers and jerked as your eyes darted down to it. Embarrassment filled him as you watched his tented pants with the highly visual outline of his erection intently.

“Like what you see, Sev?” you asked with a purr to your voice he’d never heard you speak with before as you dragged your hands up along your thighs, hitching the hem of the skirt up along with the motion — baring your black knickers. You moved differently, showed a new side to you he hadn’t ever even imagined you had. You were so sweet, so pure, so gentle normally. How could he not have noticed this side of you that made his heart hammer and pound so harshly yet your control was also comforting — it baffled him but his body was alight and too strung up for him to think further on it.

His fingers squeezed the fabric within his hand harder, his heart drummed as he watched your fingers trail up along your sides while tugging up the shirt before you unbuttoned it. The black bra matching your knickers came into view as you dragged it off and threw it on his bed while his breath caught in his throat — nerves coiled within him but the alcohol wouldn’t allow him to panic.

Severus gulped while it felt as if his cheeks were on fire, his cock nearly ready to explode. No, don’t-, hold it, don’t— “Sev?” you asked, interrupting his frantic thoughts. “Don’t you like me? Don’t you like what you see?” you continued with a shy smile but your tone, it wasn’t uncertain or worried about his answer. You sounded confident, sounded perfectly aware of what he was thinking.

“I-, I do,” he confessed — his voice slightly pitched despite it having become much darker over the last two years — as you moved your hips in a figure-eight. The way your stomach moved along with that motion, how your breasts bounced ever so slightly, and how you smiled almost wickedly at him had him in a twist of want-corded tension and he had never experienced sensations as strong as he now did.

“Won’t you show me, Severus?” you asked as you undid the button and zipper of your skirt, shimmying out of it. He gulped and panted while his cock jerked and his balls drew up, his body begging for release.

He’d dreamt of your body. He’d jerked off in the shower with the fantasies of your touch and moans. You had overtaken every whim of his hormone-riddled body, for over a year. A year of torture watching you from afar, knowing he’d never have a chance with someone like you. Someone so perfect.

“Y/n, please…” he exhaled while his body began to tremble with the restraint of not coming. But you merely tilted your head while keeping up your seductive dancing. “Be good for me, Sev…” you said just loud enough to be heard over the music as you moved yet another step toward him. The gloomy dungeon-like room with its green and silvery shades felt too hot.

Your bare skin glistened with a slight perspiration, little beads of salty water glittering in the low light that his mind screamed of wanting to lick up. His cheeks turned hotter still, his hand moving up to his mouth to contain his tongue and the involuntary moan slipping out.

Your eyes moved down to his trousers again, your gaze focused wholly on the pulsing erection he couldn’t do anything about while he watched you with a mixture of shame, need, and pure horniness while he squeezed the robe tighter in his hand, pressing his hand to his mouth harder as he moaned again when you stroked your breasts through your bra. Don’t come, don’t come… By Merlin, she’s so beautiful…

“Don’t be shy, Sev…” you hummed as you unclasped your bra. “Be a mess for me, like I am for you…” you continued as your breasts were exposed and he gasped while you toyed with your pebbled nipples. He groaned and sank into the sofa further, straining in every manner possible. You threw your head back with a moan and he couldn’t hold back any longer.

The sweet moan you let out made him sag as his trousers were stained with his cum, bleeding through the fabric while he closed his eyes as little tears lined the edges of them. He was so embarrassed, so relieved, so turned on he didn’t know what to do with himself as his cock kept pulsing, squirting wave after wave of cum sticking to his cock, underwear, and trousers. How embarrassing… How do I ever look you— “You’re so beautiful like this, Sev. All messy and bothered, all flustered and so cute…” you said, again interrupting his thoughts while the last tremor left his body and his cock softened in the mess he’d made — that you’d made of him.

He jerked as your hands landed on his knees, making him open his eyes only to find you between his legs with the most beautiful look of satisfaction, with want and pride in your eyes as you looked up at him. The shame he’d felt a second ago vanished as your hands stroked up along the inside of his thighs with nothing but glazed hunger in those inviting eyes he’d often daydreamed of.

“You did so good, Sev. I’m so proud of you for holding out so long. Such a good boy,” you said with praise and reassurance in your voice that did things to him he couldn’t explain or understand. “I-, I’m a mess,” he said, feeling his heart race as your fingers began undoing the button of his trousers with a smirk as you glanced up at him through your lashes. “Just how I want you,” you whispered with that tone of praise again. “A mess for me, with that sweet look of surrender… Makes all my fantasies of you pale in comparison.”

He felt elated, assured, and wanted when you spoke to him like that. It was wholly new to him, new territory and unknown terrain. It felt good. He felt so good under your hands, viewing, words, and voice. He felt good, and hearing you fantasised about him as he did about you eased a little knot in his stomach.

But then your hands were pulling down his soiled trousers, tugging down the waistband of his underwear until his spent cock became visible and he had to look away from you. Embarrassed by the mess, triggered by the salty smell of his own cum as it wafted up. “Let me clean you up, sweetie,” you said and he jolted. Before he had time to ask what you had meant, your hand grabbed his cock gently and your lips encased the slack member a second later.

The heat of your mouth, the look of your head moving between his legs made his eyes widen and his body erupted in a shocked burning. His heart instantly thundered, his pulse roared in his ears as he watched you lick up his cum, sucking and licking his cock with tender care.

He jerked as your tongue swiped the crown. “Oh, you’re such a good boy,” you praised as he began to harden anew. “Y/n,” he panted as you encircled him again, “p-please,” he protested with need and confusion. He’d never been able to get hard right away after coming before. “Hush, sweetie, let me taste you,” you said softly before he felt the hand you’d had on his thigh disappear.

You moaned around him and he jerked within your mouth, throwing his head back as he stiffened. You began stroking at his root while your tongue teased and swirled around the tip. He tensed as pleasure soared through him in an entirely new way, his last climax still loomed over him.

He looked down at you, feeling hot beyond belief as he watched you suck his cock while pleasuring yourself — all while being between his legs, on your knees yet in control of everything. I’m dreaming, I’m drunk and dreaming, he tried to convince himself but the sensations were too real, too palpable, too perfect for his head to be able to conjure such a dream.

You panted around him, moaning and humming while he watched you work yourself up further. The entire room began spinning around him while his hands squeezed the robe beneath him, the music and sounds of you invading him, the feel of your touch overwhelmingly perfect, the smell of your arousal and his cum mixing and mingling in the air.

His hips jerked as you suckled him. He watched you hollow your cheeks and never before had pleasure erupted so violently within him. He moaned, feeling self-conscious about the way his body was jerking and tensing, how he was burning up and desperate for a second release but terrified he wouldn’t be able to despite how good you made him feel.

You moaned around him, your rhythm faltering while your hand tightened around his root. Your movements turned erratic — hasty and needy. His own breath hissed out between his teeth as he felt his balls draw up. “Come for me,” you moaned around his cock. “Be good for me,” you exhaled before sucking harder. “Please-, please I can’t—” His words were interrupted as you moaned and shook between his legs, climaxing hard while still sucking his cock with vigour.

The sight was beyond his understanding, beyond his brain’s capability to comprehend in its beauty and he came. Hard. Moaning loudly while spurting a single string of cum into your mouth while his lungs nearly froze up at the warmth exploding within him. “So good,” you said while removing your mouth but still gently stroking his cock through the pulsing. “You’re so good, Sev. Such a pretty sight, such a sweetie coming for me twice.”

The praise hit something within him he couldn’t touch, your words made him feel so good he could barely stand the sensation — so at odds with anything and everything he had ever felt. He wanted you to say such words to him again. He wanted to be good for you, make you praise him, make you look at him like you did in that exact moment. Sated and happy. You were so beautiful to him, so perfect, and he wanted to be touched by you over, and over, and over again.

“You’re mine now,” you said with a sweet smile, showing that side of you he’d fallen in love with while watching you from afar. “Y-yours?” he asked as a fresh blush crept over his skin, heating his chest and cheeks. You giggled and reached up to stroke his cheek. “Yes, mine. I want you, Sev.” “Yours…” he said in a quiet murmur, trying the word while you watched him expectantly. But it was hard for him to even imagine that what had just happened had, in fact, actually happened.

“Severus,” you began as you rose up fully on your knees, “I want you. And I know you want me, so I’m going to make you feel good enough to accept that. Okay?” you continued and his eyes widened but he nodded and you smiled that sweet smile he loved seeing your face marked by. Then your lips were pressed against his and he melted under the taste of him and you. He wanted you to make him believe you too, so he’d let you try…

Masterlist page // Masterlist post // AO3 // Linktree

A/N: It’s almost 1 am as I finish writing this, I wrote it in one single sitting right after I got the artist’s permission to write a fic for their art and gosh… This became way longer than I had thought, and bit more “adult” than I’d planned at first but I blame that on me usually writing for older Snape and it’s the middle of the night atm 😂👍 But damn, this was fun and enjoyable to write. I hope you had a good time too, dear reader 🙈😘🖤

☕ Caffeinate me? ☕ 

Your support means the world to me and you will be helping me toward my goal of becoming a full-time author in the future! Currently, my goal is to get funds for a cover and editor and I'm at 89% - every cup of coffee helps me towards that goal! 💻🖊️✨

Taglist: @lizlil @snapefiction @darkthought15 @monstreviolet @flowerdementia @marvelschriss @once-upon-an-imagine @ravennight41 @caseydoodles98 @slytherinprincess03 @theconsultingdetectiveswife @grimmyhild @monster-energies @myobscureimaginarium @snowblossomreads @eternal-silvertongued-prince @cherryglossie @setsuna-meiou31 @helena211 @a-queen-and-her-throne @justsaturn0 @turvi @imwithyoutiltheendofthelinebucky @sunnylikesfrogs @mamawolfsmith16 @dianilaws @sassanoe @morphineisouthoney @meteoritewolf69 @bionic-otp @elizabeth-baelish @romanceandsarcasm @severuslovebot @leah1243 @glowstar826 @rickmandowneyjr @yellowbadgermole @snapesangel @a-queen-and-her-throne @impulse-anchor @commodoreseverus @writewithmarites @alisongurl13 @yan-senna @writewithmarites @reinekefoxart @nixislight @lokisbjchnl @smilingformoney

#snape fic #young snape #young snape fic #smut fic #snapedom #pro snape #x reader #reader insert #sub snape #severus snape #snape #deepperplexity #deepperplexity fic

[lovebugism]

i need more of “the customer is always right” before i wither away and die <3 the anticipation of IT happening is quite literally killing me ilysm

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | b-minus

summary: eddie munson takes the unconquerable english midterm that's forced him to repeat senior year two times. dustin henderson gets a pep talk. uncle wayne gives his nephew a warning. you cook your eddie spaghetti some spaghetti. (17k)

pairing: virgin!eddie munson / f!reader

tags: idiots in love, experienced!reader, domestic bliss, staying the night, eddie munson tries to get used to being loved TW probable typos, swearing, discussions of being poor, talks of insecurities, kissing, heavy petting, oral sex (m!receiving) 18+ only!!

a/n: hi. hello. me again. you probably don't remember me because it's been almost TWO MONTHS. i'm really sorry about that btw this semester of college was sent from the actual depths of hell. please take this sixth installment of tcar and find it in your heart to forgive me <3 ily all xoxo

( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

 ˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

“Okay, this is officially the last time I let you drive me anywhere,” Eddie gripes from the passenger seat of your too tiny car as one excruciatingly happy ABBA song bleeds into another.

He shouldn’t have expected anything less. You’re made of the same stuff you listen to — sunshine and melted ice cream and summer breezes. You match the blue skies above you as you belt the lyrics to the song you seem to know by heart.

The sight makes Eddie grin to himself, still beaming no matter how hard he rolls his eyes.

This was the only good thing about the breaks of his van going haywire and having to bum a ride to school from you — getting to see more of you in your element. 

As much as he loved having you in his passenger seat, bobbing your head to whatever rock song he’d popped into the cassette player, there was something entirely different about seeing you in the driver’s seat.

This car was your safe space, spotted with stickers on the console and polaroids on the speedometer, where you could sing any damn ABBA song you wanted to because it was your own little bubble where nothing could touch you. 

Eddie’s grateful you let him see it, all these parts of you that you reveal slowly to him like so many tiny rays of sunshine.

It’s even better to witness with a full stomach, which was maybe the second good thing about driving with you. You picked him up with time to spare to get breakfast — to take the long route to school and watch the rising sun sparkle over Lover’s Lake. There was no reason to speed through town like a maniac because he wasn’t in a rush. Today might be the first time all year he’s not five minutes late to first period.

He tells you to sing louder when you get all shy and hyperaware of his gaze, feeding you bits of your breakfast — but only on the instrumental parts so you don’t miss your favorites. The boy props his arm on the center console and folds down the wrapper of your greasy, plain biscuit with his thumb so it doesn’t get in the way of your bite. He doesn’t even complain when you try to sing through the mouthful. 

He figures that this is what love is. A part of it, at least. That stupid, philosophical feeling people have been trying to describe for ages is sitting right beside him — with crumbs sticking to the corners of her mouth as she mixes up the words to the Dancing Queen chorus.

Love isn’t butterflies or tight chests — it’s this. It’s letting a person listen to music you hate because you know they love it and not caring that they’re singing horrifically off-key.

And it’s not like Eddie’s in love with you or anything. He’s just got a lot of adoration for you. It’s the kind of innocent affection that makes him love ABBA and think you’re one of the best damn singers he’s ever heard in his life — even though neither would be particularly true if he didn’t care about you so much.

It’s sort of like the love he’s got for Dustin, to still care about the little shrimp even when he’s annoying him to no end. But, at the same time, it’s not like that at all. Because Dustin Henderson isn’t the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. Dustin Henderson doesn’t make him feel like his heart is being trampled by an entire stampede of zoo animals. 

No one quite makes Eddie feel the way you do. But even if he was in love with you, he’s got no way of knowing the difference — between loving and being in love. The only thing he’s really sure of is that he doesn’t know a damn thing. And that the sick feeling in his stomach he gets every time he looks at you can’t possibly be normal.

“Oh, stop being such a baby,” you retort. Your words come slurred and slightly muffled through the bite of biscuit in your cheek. “I know you secretly like it.”

“Of course I do!” he shouts over the catchy bass guitar and your subsequent laughter. “It’s just not the kinda shit I wanna listen to right before I take the biggest test of my life.”

It’s true. The past two times he’s been forced to take Ms. O’Donnell’s impossible midterm exam, he's listened to the exact same song — ‘Ride the Lightning,’ Metallica. It’s the only song that gives him enough of an adrenaline rush to gather the confidence to fail the same test. Twice. 

Eddie Munson is a creature of habit. Today marks the third anniversary of the dreaded day that makes or breaks his high school career, but instead of spending it with Metallica, he’s spending it with you. He wants to believe you’re a good luck charm or some kind of lucky omen, but he’s terrified of getting his hopes up.

Expect the worst, and you’ll never be disappointed. That’s what Uncle Wayne always said.

“I think ‘When I Kissed the Teacher’ has plenty of useful advice, Eddie Spaghetti.”

The boy turns to you with a bemused wide-eyed gaze. “If you’re suggesting I makeout with Ms. O’Donnell to pass her class, I’m gonna hurl— like actually hurl. And I will deliberately do it all over the floor of your car.”

“Would you rather repeat your senior year? Again?”

“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat and with a very enthusiastic nod that makes his wild curls sway around his face. “I would rather be a senior for the rest of my life than kiss Ms. O’Donnell.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you won’t have to, right? Because you’re totally gonna ace this thing.”

This is what you’ve been doing for over a week now — twisting everything negative into something more overtly positive. You meet Eddie’s pessimism and self-doubt with a sort of hopefulness he lost somewhere between the first and second time he got held back. 

You force him to study in the gentlest way possible because you’re never anything but soft with him. You make him pretty little flashcards and flip through them with him on the opposite side of his bed, obviously more enthusiastic about the whole thing than he is. You give him sympathetic pecks on his cheek when he gets a question wrong and kiss him totally breathless when he gets the odd one right.

Eddie would be lying if he said the incentive didn’t help at least a little bit.

There is no hint of impatience or sign of hubris that makes him feel stupid. You just teach him to be kinder to himself with tiny little reminders that you’re doing all this right along with him.

“Considering I’ve failed it twice already, I highly doubt that, sweetheart,” he counters, and he’s kidding — mostly. He says it with a teasing lilt and a twinkle in his squinted eyes, but you know that’s his way of covering up that he’s totally serious. 

He really doesn’t think he can do it, pass this stupid exam. He’s got absolutely no faith in himself — but that’s okay, because you’ve got all the faith in him in the world.

“Well, that’s because you didn’t have me to help you study,” you argue, just before accepting the last piece of biscuit he plucks from the parchment and offers to you.

You speak through the mouthful. “But now you do! And we’ve been going over this all week and—” You cut yourself off to swallow the dry pastry. “—And you totally got this. You’re gonna blow ‘em outta the park, Eddie Spaghetti. I can feel it.”

Your optimism makes him smile even though he doesn’t really feel like smiling. He lolls his head against the seat to look at you, finds you with a pretty grin and tiny biscuit crumbs on the corners of your mouth, and has the sudden urge to tell you that he loves you.

It comes out of nowhere. It bubbles up all at once like vomit and startles him with its unexpectedness. The sudden and unfamiliar feeling makes him feel sick, like he just went upside down on a rollercoaster. Whoever said love felt like butterflies was a liar because it feels a whole lot more like getting punched in the stomach.

The words rise from his throat like bile and linger on the edge of his tongue. Eddie forces himself to swallow them back down again. The unsaid ‘Holy fuck, I love the shit outta you’ tastes far more bitter going down.

“What do I get if I ace it then, huh?” he wonders after an awkward blink of silence.

“Uh, I don’t know,” you shrug. “Your diploma.”

“I meant as a reward, dummy.”

“I feel like graduating high school is enough of a reward.”

“I just think I should be compensated for a job well done, is all,” he proposes with a lopsided grin. The teasing nature of his words drips from his mouth like honey.

You glance at him once, eyes wide and dumbfounded, then back to the road. “Eddie Munson…” you scold in a lighthearted lilt. “Get your head outta the gutter. It’s not even eight o’clock.”

That sort of thing wouldn’t have bothered you before. Any other time, you would’ve been all too happy to pull over and jerk him off in a barren parking lot, relieve all his pent-up stress about the exam in the form of a quick handjob. But you’ve been quite obviously keeping your hands to yourself since he told you he was a virgin. 

You were serious about what you said before, about starting over, and Eddie learned that very quickly. You take to giving him tiny little pecks on the cheek and holding his sweaty hand in yours and hardly anything else — like you’re a couple of kids going steady.

Eddie likes it, though, the comforting nature of your unhurried disposition. He just hates the ache it leaves him with.

“It’s all I’m gonna be thinking about,” he confesses with a scrunched nose. “Just so ya know.”

“As long as it helps you pass,” you respond with the shake of your head.

“As long as it helps me pass…” Eddie echoes, quieter. 

“Just think about the biggest kiss I’m gonna give you when I see you again,” you tell him, flashing him a beam as you slow at a stop sign. You trap your smile between your teeth and flash him a glance that can only be described as whimsical — full of shy smiles and fluttering lashes and sparkling eyes. “‘Cause I’m gonna kiss you absolutely stupid, Eddie Munson.”

A rose-colored hue sprinkles along the apples of his cheeks. He never thought a threat could sound so appealing.

“Cool…” is the only thing he could think to mutter in the moment, too busy trying not to smile too wide. He turns his glowing cheeks towards his lap and purses his smile towards his fiddling fingers. “But, uh, I have Hellfire after school, so… Maybe tomorrow?”

You meet his disappointed glance with a shrug. “You could come over after if you want?”

He wants to. He always wants to.

“It’ll probably be late.”

“Then just stay over.”

Your offer comes effortlessly but strikes a deep feeling of complexity within him. Eddie doesn’t know why it makes him so suddenly nervous, only that it makes his palms sweat almost instantly.

The two of you haven’t crossed that threshold yet — of sharing a bed to sleep. He’d catch you dozing on occasion, slouched against his headboard with your head on his shoulder, and he’d wake you. Not because it made him uncomfortable, but because he didn’t want your neck to ache. 

You’d rouse with a groggy apology — “I should probably leave before Bowie starves to death and I drool all over your shoulder,” you’d tell him. 

And it’s not like Eddie wanted you to leave, but he was more than happy to sleep alone. What if he snores obnoxiously loud or he does something gross in his sleep? If you got instantly turned off by some sleeping habit he didn’t even know he had, he thinks it might destroy him.

Eddie can’t control the front he puts up around everyone when he’s sleeping. And for a boy who’s still trying to impress a pretty girl, that’s a very frightening thought.

“Uh, okay… Are you— Are you sure?” he stammers.

His apprehension confuses you. The offer hadn’t felt like that big of a deal to you. “I mean… yeah? We practically did it over the phone last week. It’ll be just like that — but, you know, in person.”

“Right… Okay.”

“I can make us dinner, and we can watch a movie or something,” you propose and grin at the daydream of it all. You wouldn’t have to miss Eddie if he was beside you all night. You wouldn’t have to drift off to thoughts of him either, because he’d be right there. “Bowie would be stoked if you stayed over. She’s practically obsessed with you.”

The thought makes Eddie smile to himself. His heart swells at the idea that other parts of your life have already started to accept him. It makes him feel all warm and fuzzy in his leather jacket and ripped jeans and chunky metal rings.

“Her mom is too, right?” he asks you, mostly playful. He smirks all smug, but his cinnamon-tinted gaze gleams with sincerity.

“Oh, obviously,” you scoff without a second thought. “Have you seen her? She can’t get enough of you…” Your teasing lilt and soft smile fades as you squint at him. “Don’t tell her I told you that, though.”

Eddie pinches his thumb and forefinger together, zipping them across his lips, then rolling down the window to toss the imaginary lock out of it. 

Wind whips through the small car with vigor, making a wild halo of Eddie’s already less-than-tamed hair. The intrusion forces you to squint, even more so when you laugh. 

The sound of your giggling is like glitter or sunbeams. It’s as bright as yellow and soft like summer rain. It makes him smile, too, because that’s all he wanted to do in the first place — make you laugh. It’s all he ever wants to do.

Eddie cranks the lever to roll the window back up again as you tell him: “And, you know, if you stayed over, then I could give you that reward we were talking about.” 

You’ve successfully stooped to his level now: head stuck in the very depths of the gutter. Most of your thoughts are innocent, cooking for him and holding him while you slept. Others, not so much.

“And that would be…” he trails off with raised brows.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” you squint at him as you turn the steering wheel to pull into the bustling parking lot of Hawkins High. 

The place is as wretched as it always was. It hasn’t changed a bit, just sort of deteriorated with time. The nameplate on top of the building has started to grey and the tiger mural painted on the bricks is fading, but it’s still the same. The familiarity of it all hits you with an ice-cold pang of nostalgia.

“I would,” Eddie nods a very vigorous nod, all innocent and wide-eyed, as you park on the far side of the lot. “I would very much like to know.”

You lean across the console to press a swift kiss to his cheek. “You’ll find out later,” you assure him, lingering just ahead of his face. Closer by an inch or two and the tips of your noses would nudge against one another.

“Have mercy…” Eddie murmurs to himself, eyes and limbs suddenly heavy under the weight of his desire for you. 

You made him promise he’d stay sober for the exam — no drinking the night before, no smoking while he got ready. Before now, he’d been perfectly clearheaded. Then you go and look at him with that look, and he’s instantly drunk on you.

He tries to close the distance between you but succeeds only in brushing your noses together before a loud honk blares from ahead of you. It sends the two of you jerking away from each other almost instantly, heads whipping toward the direction of the too loud beep. 

It comes from Steve Harrington’s maroon Beemer that he’d parked just ahead of your Volvo. Him and his friends file out one by one — Robin from the passenger, Dustin Henderson from the back, and then Steve from the driver’s side. 

The former two are beaming, far too happy for it to be so early. Steve looks more like a victim to the morning as he leans against his open car door. His smile looks like a wince and he props his wrist on the door, throwing his fingers up in the place of an actual wave. Dustin and Robin are far more enthusiastic with their gestures.

You and Eddie wave a tad bit awkwardly back at them.

“Look at him,” the boy says, trying and failing to hold back his laughter. “King Steve. Carpooling his kids like a real mom.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s a babysitter first and a human being second,” you joke, then more seriously tell him: “You don’t have to come over if you don’t want to, you know?”

“I know,” he nods. “But I want to.”

“Okay… I just— I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to, you know, force you or something—”

“It didn’t.”

“—I was just saying it could be nice, you know? But I feel like it sounded like I was being a little pushy.”

“You weren’t.”

“And I don’t want you to be, like, scared to say no to me or something, you know? It wouldn’t hurt my feelings or anything, okay? I promise,” you ramble, partly lying because you know it would hurt a little, but you’d never tell him that. “The ball is totally in your court, so… Whatever you want to do, it’s completely—”

Your nervous blathering is brought to an unexpected halt when Eddie brings his hands to your face. He cups your cheeks in his palms, brushing his thumbs along the apples of them. The sleeves of his leather jacket tickle your chin. He sprayed his wrist with cologne this morning, you can tell; the musky cedarwood and tobacco are more prominent now. 

The boy laughs softly when the suddenness of his action makes your eyes go wide, chuckling louder when he squeezes your cheeks and makes your lips pout softly.

“I wanna come over, okay?” Eddie assures through his laughter. “And you’re never annoying me when you ask. I promise. I’ll probably say yes to just about anything when it’s coming from you, sweetheart.”

“And you’re not just saying that?” you press, words slightly muffled with the way Eddie’s holding your face.

“I’m not just saying that,” he echoes more confidently. He shakes his head at you, then moves your jaw back and forth with his palms so he’s shaking yours too. You jerk away from him with a grin. 

“I’ll see you later?” he asks you while he collects his things from the floor, which is just the little tin box he carries everywhere. He swears it has everything he needs in it. You assume it’s just a dull pencil and a couple of baggies of weed he plans to sell between lunch shifts.

“Yeah,” you answer with a smile.

He clicks the handle to open the car door, then kicks it open the rest of the way. He rolls his head back and puckers his lips for a kiss. You happily oblige him, meeting him halfway but turning at the last second so his mouth meets your cheek.

“Kids are watching,” you joke at his surprise.

And even though he’d only pecked your jaw, it makes Robin and Steve roll their eyes. “Gag me with a spoon,” the girl gripes as she walks past the hood of your car.

Dustin follows behind her, too preoccupied to care. He’s got an anticipatory grin on his face that reveals the blue and green braces on his teeth. The composition notebook in his hands has the Hellfire logo drawn in red and yellow sharpie on the front of it.

You’ve never met the kid, but he’s exactly how you’d expected him to be.

You heard a lot about him — from Steve mostly, but from Eddie too. Robin has the occasional story about the boy from whenever he visits Family Video. They all call him little shit most of the time, shrimp on occasion, and Dusty Bun when he’s done something particularly sweet.

It’s all from a lighthearted place, though. You figure it must be because Steve Harrington is waking up at seven in the morning to take some fourteen-year-old to school. And Eddie’s even worse — the second Dustin calls asking for a ride, he’s hopping in his van without a second thought.

The boy barely lets Eddie get out of the car before he starts bombarding him with questions about the latest D&D campaign. He prattles on and on about it while they walk towards the school, pointing adamantly at the notebook in his hands. You imagine it’s full of conspiracies and potential ways to beat the Cult of Vecna. 

He’s so invested he doesn’t even care when Robin slips the cap from his hand and flips it backwards.

“Have the best day ever, kiddos!” you shout through your rolled-down car window.

You get a half-hearted wave from Dustin, but he doesn’t even glance at you when he does it. Eddie blows a dramatic kiss your way, but Robin rivals his sweetness with a middle finger and a rouge-tinted smile.

The bell chimes overhead, high-pitched and too familiar. The parking lot empties slowly, and the mindless muddled chatter fades too.

Steve saunters to your car after everyone else heads inside. He folds his arms along the passenger door as he leans down to look at you. 

His hair is un-styled, but in a cool sort of way that only he can pull off. Chestnut strands fall down over his forehead while others are pushed back from where he’s ran his fingers through them. His jaw is dusted with a fine layer of stubble that sprinkles a shadow of a mustache on his cupid’s bow.

You’re both wearing the elements of your uniforms.

He’s got on a pair of faded jeans and the mandatory collared shirt, even though he swears Keith only makes him abide by the dress code. You’re wearing the all black get-up required of all Enzo’s waitresses. The flowy blouse and a-line skirt are now wrinkled from the drive over. You’re only missing your floral apron and Steve his forest green vest.

“How long until your shift starts?” he asks you, voice deep and gruff with the morning.

Your eyes flit down to the flashing clock on your dashboard, then back up to him. “I don’t have to go in until eleven today, but I was gonna see if I could pick up an extra shift.”

He nods and juts out his lips as he turns to squint down the parking lot. He looks back at you with a more hopeful gaze. “Wanna go fuck around at Family Video instead?”

And, of course, by “fuck around,” he means popping popcorn and playing some terrible, terrible slasher film on the television behind the counter that has more boobs and blood than actual plot.

You’ll stop for junk food on the way like you always do and spend the bulk of the movie tossing gummy bears and M&Ms into Steve’s mouth. You’ll waste hours talking about nothing, but it’ll feel like only minutes have gone by when it’s time for your shift.

“Are you kidding?” you scoff like it’s not the best idea you’ve heard all morning. Or maybe second best because Eddie’s proposal of a reward is still swirling around in the confines of your mind. “Of course I do.”

 ˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

By sunset, Eddie Munson’s got a B-minus on his midterm, a crowd of kids singing his praises, and a date with the hottest woman on the planet. Life, as it turns out, was really starting to look up for the local freak.

“Best… campaign… ever!” Dustin shouts. He’s still so boyishly excited about the whole thing that he has to take in deep breaths before he says each word. 

The emphatic exclamation echoes through the dim, empty hallway of Hawkins High. The rest of the school had left some time ago; all that’s left now are the scraps — the basketball douchebags, the theater geeks, the D&D nerds.

The Hellfire Club gets the entire west wing to themselves, and the unusual vacancy allows them to saunter down the corridor’s length like they own the damn place. 

They don’t have to look over their shoulders for assholes that might trip them or stuff them into lockers. Still bubbling with the after-effects of such an utterly sadistic campaign, they feel like they’re on top of their own little world.

Eddie Munson hasn’t felt this good in a long, long time.

He spins on the heel of his worn-out sneaker and walks backwards ahead of his friends so he can examine each of their faces. He’d unleashed the whole Vecna lives twist that he’d been keeping in his metaphorical back pocket for some time now.

You were the one that gave him the idea, sprung it out of nowhere during a smoke session so many months ago. It feels like it’s been forever now. That was back when you were just his customer, and he was just your dealer — when all you needed was a little free weed, and Eddie just needed to pass a test.

You both somehow ended up with far more than either of you bargained for, but he’s not complaining. He hopes you aren’t either.

Dustin had sort of predicted Vecna’s resurgence. He’d scribbled it down in his journal with all the rest of his endless conspiracies. Well, actually, he suspected that Kas was still a villain and hadn’t slain Vecna like they thought — which wasn’t exactly right, but it was still pretty damn close. Eddie’s never met someone who cared so much about one of his campaigns.

So, needless to say, the curly-haired boy is beaming. His green-blue braces and pearly whites are on full display, partially from excitement but mostly because he was sort of right — in a vague, roundabout way.

Mike had been enthusiastic about it too, but that was before he had to suffer through his best friend’s endless boasts. His brown eyes roll damn near to the back of his skull as he huffs, angled jaw clenching from gritted teeth.

“Well, when you spend eight hours coming up with, like, a thousand different theories, one of them is gonna be right,” he’d finally groused. 

Dustin only smiled at the lankier boy, totally unfazed by his grumbling. “It’s not my fault you have exactly zero work ethic. You’re just mad you lost.”

“Yeah, because staying up all night writing in your diary makes you a real winner.”

“For the last time, Mike, it’s not a diary!”

Lucas was too far away to join in on the bickering. The boy had been distant for a while now, actually. Eddie joked that he must’ve been upset about missing basketball practice with Carver and the rest of his goons, but Lucas hadn’t laughed as loud as he’d hoped. He only chuckled under his breath, shook his head, and said it was just girl troubles.  

Gareth, meanwhile, is still grumbling about Vecna killing his ranger. Even though Dustin’s bard brought them all back with a resurrection spell in the end, he doesn’t like to lose. Eddie doesn’t blame him, but he’d be lying if he said the angry scrunch contorting his best friend’s features wasn’t hilarious.

Jeff had lost his druid too, but he was a much better sport about the whole thing. He usually is, especially compared to the rest of the club. He’s perhaps the only one who doesn’t treat every loss like the end of the world.

“Well, thank you, Ser Dustin,” Eddie responds in a fanciful sort of accent, bending at the waist in a gracious brow. “But I cannot take all the credit, I’m afraid.”

Dustin’s brows pinch together. “What do you mean?”

“He means that his girlfriend helped him put it together,” Jeff lisps.

“No way!” the boy gapes, totally dumbfounded. “The girl from this morning? In the car? She’s… She’s into Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Not really. No,” Eddie shrugs right before flashing a shit-eating grin. “But she is into me, so…”

The less-than-humble brag makes Gareth groan. His sandy curls fall back as he tilts his head toward the ceiling, ocean eyes rolling and then fluttering closed. “If I have to hear about your stupid girlfriend one more time…” he’d griped after the first few times Eddie managed to bring you up in every conversation — about a million of them ago now.

His annoyance doesn’t lessen Dustin’s confusion. “I don’t get it…”

“Gareth's just mad because he’s in love with Eddie’s girlfriend,” Jeff clarifies once more, feigning pity as he pats the boy on the shoulder.

“All I’m saying is, I would’ve tried a little harder to get her attention if I knew she was into freaks,” Gareth grieves, a little forlorn and distantly heartbroken, but shrugging it off like he isn’t all that affected by it.

You were a bit like Steve The Hair Harrington in that way. A little like Vicki Carmichael or, god forbid, Billy Hargrove. You’ve garnered a sort of popularity that’s made you into a sideshow attraction that everyone wants to ride — literally.

You’re popular in a much, much different way than Steve or Vicki or Billy. It’s left you acutely fetishized in an extreme sort of fashion, an object of desire for many in disgusting, lurid ways.

It seems Gareth didn’t go unscathed with his lust for you either.

Well, too little too fucking late if Eddie had anything to say about it. But he would never, because that’s his best friend, so he decides to scoff and tell him: “Like she’d be into you anyway.”

“Oh, please. I’m a total catch.”

“Is there anyone she isn’t into?” Jeff chuckles, too kind of heart to realize the mercilessness in his words. “Isn’t that, like, her whole thing.”

A sharp pang of anger strikes like lightning in Eddie’s chest. It’s ice-cold and red hot, a burst of adrenaline that feels like fight or flight. His hands curl into fists before he even realizes it. If it had been anyone else and not one of his best friends, he imagines he might’ve swung before he even thought about what he was doing. 

Before the words to defend you spill like venom from his mouth, another beats him to the punch.

“Hey,” Lucas scolds from a little ways behind the group, making them all turn to look at him. His brows are furrowed slightly, but the rest of his face is contorted in an unreadable way. His hands are tucked deep into the pockets of the puke-green letterman he wears over his Hellfire tee. “Leave her alone.”

“How do you…” Eddie starts, then squints past the group, gaze zeroing in on the boy. “Since when do you know my girlfriend, Sinclair?”

“She’s friends with Max. And she’s, like, really nice. So maybe we shouldn’t talk about her like that.”

The boy with the wild hair grins something wilder. His gaze is stern but no less playful when he turns back to Jeff. “You heard the kid. Leave my girlfriend alone, Jeffy.”

When the phrase leaves his mouth, for perhaps the billionth time that day, he realizes how often he must say it. My girlfriend, he says. My girlfriend, my girlfriend — because he can’t get enough of how it sounds.

With a grin on his face and his dream girl on his mind, Eddie spins on his heel again to swing open the double doors of the high school’s exit. The chill smacks him in the face almost immediately.

It’s the strange knick of time in early spring where the days are warm, but the nights are so, so cold. This one isn’t any different. A bitter breeze pounds at his chest, ruffles through his curls, and pierces the fabric of his jacket. Eddie’s body mourns the sudden loss of warmth almost immediately.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dustin continues to whinge, even though the rest of them have more than moved on. “Does— Does everyone know her but me? Mike, do you know who she is?”

The boy perks up at the mention of his name. He tends to get a little reserved unless he’s bickering or talking bout his girlfriend. The kid’s a complete and utter wreck when he’s been away from her for too long. Eddie used to make fun of him for it. Not so much anymore.

Mike runs a hand through his lengthy raven hair, then scratches at the back of his neck. His eyes squint and his nose scrunches. “Uh… not really? I mean, I think she knows El because she knows Hopper, but… I don’t know… No?”

Dustin’s face falls flat at his answer. Or lack thereof.

“Wow. Very enlightening, Mike, as always. Thank you,” he deadpans, then turns back to Eddie. His features go from deadpanned to hopeful: eyes wide, brows raised, lips quirked. “So when are we gonna get to meet her? Do you think she’d do a campaign with us? Holy shit— she could be the fairy! You know, of the Firethorns! I mean, you did just say the campaign was feeling a little empty—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take it down a few notches, alright, Dusty Bun?” Eddie chuckles as he slumps a heavy arm around the boy’s shoulders.

“Don’t call me that. We talked about this; that name is reserved for Suzie and Suzie only—”

“Didn’t you guys break up?” Mike wonders with a sort of blandness to his tone that only he could pull off.

“Shut up, Mike,” Dustin bites in response.

It was still a bit of a sore subject for the boy who’d just lost the so-called love of his life.

Suzie was a girl he met at summer camp about a year ago. Things were going pretty well until they weren’t. Something about her family being uber-religious and not approving of Dustin’s more agonistic disposition.

She broke up with him over Cerebro and hasn’t been on the channel since. It was cold. Ice cold.

Dustin still hikes up to Weathertop every now and then with nothing but a packed lunch and the hope that she’ll answer. She hasn’t yet.

And Eddie can make a mockery of just about anything — it’s practically a superpower at this point — but he knows when to leave well enough alone. Even the most innocent question can send the boy into a spiral of despair. Even now, he gets so suddenly weighed down by the burden of his sadness; lips turning downward and the insides of his brows curling slightly.

Eddie smiles a sad sort of smile down at the boy, but he’s too busy moping to see it. He pulls him closer with one leather-clad arm and uses the other to pat the boy on the chest. Their feet stumble less than gracefully over one another. 

“Yeah, you’re never gonna meet her…” Eddie says in a mournful sigh.

Dustin blinks up at him, confused and even more hurt than before. “What? Why not?”

“Because she’d obviously like you more than me,” he scoffs like it’s obvious. “And I can’t have anyone taking my girl, Henderson.”

That confuses him even more. He was more prepared for one of Eddie’s stupid quips than something short of a compliment. It takes him by surprise at first, leaves him gaping for a moment, before rolling his eyes. “Shut up…”

“I’m serious!” Eddie chuckles, all loud and boisterous. The sound echoes through the vacant lot, made somehow emptier by the cold.

He stops walking suddenly and makes Dustin stop walking too. He takes the boy a tad bit roughly by the shoulders and looks down at him like it’s the first time he’s seeing him. 

“I mean, look at you! What’s not to like, huh? You got their hair, the smarts, the personality—”

“And Eddie’s only got one of those things, so you definitely win,” Gareth quips from a few feet behind them.

“Exactly! Suzie was an idiot to let you go, Henderson.”

Dustin winces when Eddie jabs him in the chest. His saddened gaze flits to the pavement for a moment, then back up again. His eyes are brighter now, but still a bit melancholy — sort of like the streetlamp that flickers across the way. A light that’s going out but grasping for reasons to stay burning.

“You think so?”

“I know so, Dusty Bun,” Eddie grins — smiling wider when the kid’s beam falls flat again. He wraps his arm around Dustin’s punier frame. It’s supposed to be a hug, but it looks more like a headlock. “Never change, Dustin Henderson. Never change…”

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

Eddie hasn’t been to a sleepover since he was ten.

Fifth grade. Franklin Kowalski’s place in the suburbs. Trampoline in the front yard, pool in the back, and an assortment of soft drinks in a fridge in the garage. Maybe he remembers it so vividly because it's perhaps one of the more traumatizing experiences a prepubescent boy growing out a buzzcut could go through.

He knew he didn’t belong there — not in the good part of town with a bunch of boys in brand-new tennis shoes. Eddie Munson was trailer park trash, through and through. He wasn’t used to new clothes or two-story houses or underground pools. But he didn’t care where he came from. And neither did Franklin. Not at first, anyway.

The other kids were nice enough to him. They offered him their swim goggles when Eddie didn’t have his own and made sure he wasn’t left out of any of their conversations. It was all in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, though. Their kindness was manufactured, a mask for pre-teen boy cruelty. 

See, they only gave him their goggles so they could laugh when they got tangled in his curls. They only included him in conversation so he could be the punch line to each of their jokes. 

All of it went over Eddie’s head. He was too innocent to realize he wasn’t being treated nicely, he was being taunted. He laughed along with each of their inside jokes because he wanted so desperately to be included, having no idea it was himself he was laughing at.

It took him until two o’clock the next morning to understand. He woke up all alone in the living room and found that everyone else had migrated upstairs without him. They were still awake, still laughing — and Eddie was forgotten in the dark.

He nearly cried when he called Wayne. He wasn’t sure if his tears were from anger or from sadness, but they stung all the same. 

He punched the numbers on the keypad with a clenched jaw to keep from sobbing out loud. His gaze was still blurry with unshed tears. It made it dreadfully hard to see, and what little light spilled from the television — which had turned to static after midnight — didn’t help either.

“It’s three A.M., Eds. You sick?” his uncle gruffed into the landline.

“A little,” Eddie half-lied. He twirled the curly wire around his fingertip until it turned purple. He prayed he didn’t sound as sad as he felt. “Everyone else is asleep… ‘M scared I’m gonna puke everywhere.”

Wayne was there barely fifteen minutes later. He drove his rusted pick-up to the suburbs, found his nephew waiting on the curb, and didn’t ask questions on the drive back to Forest Hills. 

Eddie hasn’t been to a sleepover since.

He’s got a feeling this one will be different, though. Because pre-teen boys are a hell of a different kind and you’re… you. 

He’s pretty sure you couldn’t be mean to him even if you wanted to be. You’re nice, far nicer than he deserves. You’re lovely and sweet and decent — every synonym of the damn word in a thousand different languages. It still floors him that it would ever occur to you to be kind to him. 

Eddie doesn’t feel all that worthy of your sunshine. He happily basks in your golden rays anyway. Maybe it’s because he’s selfish. Or maybe it’s because he’s so damn pale — in both the literal and figurative sense.

Eddie packs his overnight bag without a hint of methodology.

He isn’t totally sure of what to bring as he rifles through his disorganized drawers, so he ends up packing bits of everything. 

He does the sniff test for each of his crumpled-up t-shirts. The one’s that smell the freshest get stuffed to the bottom of his bag. He can’t be sure of how many he’s shoved down there now — three or four, maybe five. It makes it harder for his pants to fit, two of the pajama variety and two of denim. 

He grabs multiples of everything, just to be on the safe side. It takes only minutes for his backpack to fill up. He nearly breaks the zipper trying to fasten it, and still, he worries he hasn’t brought enough.

The bag sits upright on his mattress as Eddie bends down to grab the box of condoms that’s been idling under his bed for a year. The cardboard is coated with a fine layer of dust and time. He holds it between his ringed fingers, debating whether or not to finally break the seal and bring a few — just to be on the safe side. That’s when Wayne walks in.

The man isn’t looking at him. He’s too busy wiping his oil-stained palms on an already-stained rag, but his presence is sudden enough to freak Eddie out. The boy jumps like he’s been caught red-handed, scrabbles for a hiding place almost immediately, making the box sputter out of his grip. The thing falls to the ground with a dramatic thud.

He kicks it back under his bed again.

Wayne’s eyes finally flit up to his nephew’s at all the commotion. His bushy grey brows furrow when he finds him standing upright, hands behind his back, totally not suspicious at all. Raising a teenage boy has taught the man not to comment on what doesn’t concern him, so he keeps on swiping his fingers between the fabric of the grimy rag. 

“I finished looking at your van,” he says, accent deep and husky and not of Indiana origin. “Turns out that noise you were hearin’ was a damn rock in the break line.”

Eddie scoffs, then eyes a stick of deodorant sitting on his dresser. “Wow,” he marvels as he swipes the thing from its place. He stuffs it into the side pocket of his bag. “A measly pebble coulda killed me, huh?”

“Should be good to go now, though.”

“Sweet,” the boy nods.

Eddie squints as his eyes flit around his room, head darting in either direction to make sure he’s got everything. Wayne watches him with an identical squint. “Where you runnin’ off to now? You just got home, what, fifteen minutes ago?”

“Uh… I’m gonna go see a friend,” Eddie answers, voice trembling and slightly far away. He unzips his bag again to make sure it’s sufficiently filled. He does a little mental checklist: shirts, pants, PJs, shoes— how the hell is he supposed to fit shoes in here?

You’ve only got one pair of shoes, Munson, he reminds himself. Where the hell do you think you’re going, anyway? A nature walk?

“Oh, right,” his uncle nods. A smile plays on the edges of his lips, but it weirdly still looks like he’s frowning. “The friend.”

“Yeah— Well, she’s my… She’s my girlfriend, so…”

The admission makes Eddie blush in a way he isn’t typically used to. He can’t count the number of times he must say it in a day, but something about saying it in front of Wayne feels different — real.

He turns his glowing cheeks down to his bag and makes difficult work of zipping it back up again.

Wayne doesn’t bother to hide his excitement. The bright emotion is almost unfamiliar. “Well, shit,” the man’s chuckle sounds from the depths of his chest. “Look at you, Eds. My nephew’s finally got his first girlfriend.”

The boy rolls his chocolate eyes. He jerks under the pressure of the shoulder clap Wayne gives him. It’s equal parts annoying and embarrassing — to be talked to like a child in this way. Maybe because most children have long had their first girlfriends by now, and it took Eddie all of twenty agonizing years.

“We were gonna hang out at her place since I passed my English test and everything...”

The excitement washes from Wayne’s tired eyes. They widen, as though in shock, and reveal more of the glassy whites of them. He just blinks at him for a moment, like his words are still processing. “You… You passed?”

“Yep. Got a B,” Eddie nods, a tad bit sheepishly. He finds it hard to meet his uncle’s mystified gaze. “Well, a B-minus, but… Turns out, I might actually graduate this year.”

Wayne seems to experience every emotion at once. He’s surprised, of course — it makes sense. Eddie spent two years failing the damn thing, after all. Then he’s proud, overjoyed that there’s a chance his nephew might finally grow up. He’s distantly saddened by the exact same thought.

The man swallows thickly, as though to down each emotion. He nods and tries his best to smile. “Damn. Good job, kid. I’m… I’m prouda you.”

Eddie isn’t sure whether to take the praise or cower from it. At a loss, he opts to deflect entirely.

“Yeah, well, she— the friend helped me study and everything, so… I feel like we should probably be thanking her, you know?” he half-jokes as he swings the pack over his shoulder. His winces under the weight of it. “I probably wouldn’t have passed if she didn’t force me to read that stupid book. I mean, it’s 1986; who cares about the roaring twenties and blinking green lights—”

“Hm…” his uncle grunts. It isn’t an acknowledging grunt, though. It’s more of a bemused sort of grunt. And he’s got this quizzical twist to his features that makes Eddie confused too.

“…What is it?”

Wayne only shrugs, trying to act like it was nothing, but can’t help but to ask: “You’re real serious about this girl, aren’t ya?”

Eddie, feeling a bit weighed down by such a heavy question, shifts on his feet.

“Uh… A little bit, I guess. Yeah,” he stammers in the place of an honest answer. If he were being totally truthful, he would’ve said something like, “As serious as a goddamn heart attack.” But that might’ve actually given Uncle Wayne one, so he doesn’t answer with all that.

The man seems to hear all the words Eddie doesn’t say, though. He always does. Eddie figures that’s what happens when you raise a kid for fifteen years — you get attuned to their every thought like a superpower or something. 

It doesn’t make it any less annoying, though. Eddie’s never been able to keep a single damn secret from Wayne because he’s a total mind reader. It’s entirely possible Wayne knew Eddie was in love before he did.

“Just be careful, alright?” the man advises. He looks genuinely concerned, eyes glinting and brows pinched, like you’re a treacherous road or poison ivy.

The misplaced cautiousness makes Eddie breathe out a soft laugh. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“C’mon, Eds. Don’t play dumb,” Wayne tells him with a gruff chuckle — not totally unkind, just a Munson sort of curt. “You know what I’m talkin’ about. I didn’t even know her real name until you started bringing her around, 'cause all the kids at the shop call her the—”

“Don’t,” Eddie interjects sharply.

The bitterness in his tone is foreign. It contains the sort of venom he’s more like to spit at Jason Carver or Mike Wheeler if he’s being particularly dickish. Never at Wayne.

But that dormant urge to defend you rises like a sleeping dragon that just got poked in the belly. The words rise like bile in his throat and spew out before he can think to stop them.

Uncle Wayne is a weathered man. He’s seen a lot of the world, too much of it, but nothing’s ever quite taken him aback like this. He’s never seen his nephew’s chocolate button eyes hardened into something so cold.

Eddie gets all hyperaware of the heart on his sleeve and starts to crack under the pressure of it. He deflates, stern features crumbling into something softer.

“It’s different, okay?” he assures with his chin brought down to his chest — brows raised and wide eyes twinkling. It’s the same thing you’d said to Hopper not too long ago. Eddie hopes you met the words as wholeheartedly as he does now.

“And even if I explained all the reasons why it’s different, you still wouldn’t get it.”

His melodramatic tone makes Wayne scoff. “What? ‘Cause you don’t think I’ve ever been a kid in love before?”

“No,” Eddie shrugs playfully. “‘Cause you’re old.”

The foreign tension ebbs all at once with a pair of laughs. One is gruff, a couple of sharp exhales more than anything else. The other is a lighter, far more boyish giggle.

“I’m just trying to look out for you, alright?” Wayne tells him once the laughter fades.

“Yeah, I know. You always do,” Eddie lilts with a disposition that might make it seem like he’s displeased by his uncle’s constant pestering. In reality, he knows it’s saved him from a world of shit.

Like that time he wanted to get tacos from a new food truck that gave the whole town food poisoning. Or when he’d wanted to ask Tina Burton, the most popular girl in school, on a date his sophomore year. 

It was Wayne that saved him the embarrassment from either. It’s like he can smell bullshit or something.

“But this is, like, the first good thing that’s happened to me since Ride the Lightning came out… So, I’d kinda like to enjoy this whole thing while it lasts,” Eddie winces like it’s a joke, but he means it more than anything.

Wayne nods understandingly. “Will do, kid. But first girlfriends are always hard, okay? Remember that. Try not to let it hurt you too much, Eds.”

His uncle claps him once, then twice, on his shoulder before swiping away the grime he’d accidentally spotted there. Eddie lets him, too far away to shrug him off. He doesn’t even move when Wayne walks out of his room.

He knows his uncle means well, but something about his cynical words makes his chest burn. It’s like he’s betting on his relationship with you not working out or something. 

And Eddie knows he isn’t wrong. First girlfriends are hard. He’s heard enough shit from his friends to know that. Hell, Mike and Dustin have spent all year complaining about how complicated relationships are. 

But it’s different. 

Because they’re just a couple of kids and their girlfriends aren’t you.

Whatever form you come in, lover or executioner, Eddie’s more than ready to receive you.

 ˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

You’ve never cooked for anyone other than yourself. And maybe Bowie.

That’s not to say you were a stranger to dining in company. Binging on takeout with Robin and Steve was routine. You’re pretty sure Benny at the diner has made more dinners for the three of you than you’ve ever made for yourselves — combined. 

But it was different, to make something for someone with your own hands. It took a relative amount of care, an acute sort of attentiveness that only felt deserved for someone really special. 

And Eddie was really special and then some.

There isn’t a word that encapsulates all the special he is. It makes you feel a bit guilty sometimes. You wish you were smarter so you could think of a big enough word to describe how much he means to you. But since you aren’t, you stick to making him homemade spaghetti and hope you can pour enough love into it that he feels all of yours.

Eddie arrives at your apartment before you’re ready for him.

You’d wanted to do more with your appearance by the time he came around — with your hair and your makeup and your clothes. Not because you ever had to, but because you thought Eddie deserved a girl who took extra care of herself in that way.

You got a shower in before you started cooking, but that was it. Your hair is unstyled and air-drying; your face bare and glistening in all its naked glory.

Clad in nothing but a hilariously oversized t-shirt and a pair of fluffy socks, you look more ready for bed than date night.

The knock at your door sends you into a momentary whirlwind. You scramble like someone’s seconds away from catching you naked — like there are four different fires in every direction and you don’t know which one to put out first. The panic is elaborate and fleeting, a bucket of ice-cold water on bare skin.

You figure that’s another part of caring about someone. You make them spaghetti because you love them and get nervous when things aren’t perfect. Love is all things stressful and homemade.

Eddie knocks on your door with several rhythmic raps. They’re evenly timed and spaced out. You recognize the bass line to ‘Crazy Train’ almost immediately. Da-da… Da-da, da-da, da-da. He must’ve been listening to it on the way over.

“Uh, come in!” you waver after an awkward beat. You’re yelling a little because you’re still standing at the stove, stirring the pot of noodles.

The door clicks once when it opens, then again when it shuts. The wall that separates the kitchen conceals your view of him, but you can hear Eddie’s shuffling in the living room from where you are because he’s never done anything quietly in his life.

Eddie toes off his sneakers before he heads into your apartment. You never asked him to do it, so it always confused you as to why. He’d told you, when you asked, that he knows he’s not the cleanest and that he cares too much about your space to make a mess of it. 

He tells you he can’t take care of you in the way he would like — that if he had it his way, you’d never have to work at Enzo’s again; that he wishes he was rich enough so you never had to wait on snobby stay-at-home moms or misogynistic businessmen. But since he isn’t a rockstar yet and The Hideout pays their busboy’s fuck all, Eddie figures the least he can do is not leave shoe prints on your carpet.

It’s boyish and strangely profound and so, so sweet.

He drops his backpack and leaves his sneakers by the doormat like he always does. They fit neatly between the wall and the roughly textured rectangle that reads ‘glad you’re here’ on the front of it. One is upright, the other falls to its side.

Bowie blinks at him from where she idles on her perch, green eyes wide and pupils set in narrow slits. “Hey, pretty girl,” Eddie greets in a quiet coo, scooping her up in his arms. Despite her round belly, the calico weighs no more than a feather. 

She meows once after being so suddenly plucked from her flower petal spot but settles into him instantly. He scratches at her chin to make her purr and revels in the soft buzzing sound she makes. Eddie waltzes into the kitchen with her, cradling her against his chest like a newborn baby.

You look over your shoulder and smile at the sight of them — at your two favorite beings on the planet, so obviously taken with one another. Bowie lolls in Eddie’s arm like he’s made of clouds and cotton candy. Her blinks are slow and lazy, her purrs audible to even you. She’s only this affectionate for him. You can’t even blame her. 

“Smells good in here,” the boy compliments trying his best not to blush at the wide smile you give him. He’s still not used to being looked at so tenderly. 

Failing to feel deserving of it all, he averts his chocolate gaze and flushed cheeks to the counter, where he plops Bowie down beside her half-empty food bowl.

You could only get her to eat so much of it before she got annoyed with you. Now she laps happily at the chunk of cat food like it’s the first time she’s ever tasted its goodness.

“Thanks,” you respond with a slight tremble to the edge of your voice. You turn back to the pot of spaghetti you’ve been stirring for close to ten minutes, eyeing the mixture of noodles and sauce and beef with intent because you need it all to be perfect. “I probably should’ve asked what you liked before you left this morning, but I only know how to make spaghetti, so… I made spaghetti.”

You look back at him, flashing the boy a nervous tight-lipped smile. It makes him grin, too, as he makes the terribly short trek over to you.

“Well, I actually love spaghetti,” he confesses, and it isn’t totally a lie. He just stopped caring for it around the millionth time Wayne made it because it’s one of the only things he knows how to cook too. 

Eddie lingers at your side, hip pressing into the counter, radiating warmth like a sun stuck in human form. You can’t tell if he’s toasty in his leather jacket or if you’re just cozy in the honey-coated tenderness you have for him. You don’t even realize you’re smiling at him when he scrunches his nose at you. 

“You should be careful, sweetheart. I’m kinda starting to think we’re soulmates.”

“That’s crazy,” you marvel, wide-eyed. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Wow… We really were made for each other, huh?” he huffs with a similar sarcasm.

You try to keep the joke going, but it’s hard not to smile when you feel his hands creep around your sides. His fingers are soft on your waist, featherlight and a little unsure as he slithers along your back. The affection feels foreign on your skin. You bite back a shiver.

“Looks like way,” you affirm with a nod, tilting your head back so you can meet him halfway when he leans down to peck you.

It’s a soft and swift little thing, a brief brush of the lips that doesn’t mean anything but also the entire world. He kisses you just to kiss you — because he likes the feel of you or because it’s the sort of thing he can do now as your boyfriend. Either way, you revel in the unfamiliarity.

“Did the, uh… Did the test go okay?” you ask once he parts from you. You try not to sound like you’ve been agonizing over it all day and more like the thought had only just crossed your mind.

Eddie bites back a smile as he turns to walk to the opposite side of the counter. He makes sure any traces of the smirk have washed away when he hops onto the edge of it.  The forlorn look he gives you is manufactured, all pinched browed and gloomy eyed. 

“Um, no…” he fibs. “I, uh— I failed it again.”

You eye him from over your shoulder and notice how he shifts on his weight, looking down at the tile rather than up at you. It doesn’t cross your mind once that he might be joking. You just hope the flash of disappointment on your features was too quick for him to catch.

“That’s okay,” you assure and cover your chagrin with a smile. You shake your head and shrug. “We just try again, right? Not the end of the world.”

A grin tugs slow at Eddie’s lips. It’s bemused slightly and still sort of sad. He can’t believe how supportive you are of him even after he’s just told you outright that he’s failed — still loving even when he’s not good enough.

He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a packet of stapled-together papers. It’s perhaps the first piece of schoolwork given to him that wasn’t immediately thrown away. He’d folded it twice in half, then tucked it safely away with the intent to show you later. He unfolds it again to marvel at it once more.

The letter grade is written in red and circled twice. Ms. O’Donnell’s fancy cursive is scribbled just beside it — “Finally! Good job, Eddie! I’m very proud of you!” Even though the boy has never been particularly fond of the woman, her compliment makes his chest swell.

“Oh, shit…” he murmurs under his breath, but loud enough for you to hear.

“Hm?” you hum back in response. You don’t look at him, though, more focused on not burning yourself as you pull a tray of golden brown garlic bread out of the oven.

“I read it wrong…” he answers, feigning surprise. “This isn’t an F. It’s a B.”

The pan clatters to the stove when you spin around the face him. Your eyes are wide and your brows are raised, each of your features agape with shock. You’re not entirely sure how he could’ve misread it, but you’re prepared to celebrate with him anyway. 

Eddie flashes you a pink, lopsided smile as he flips the creased paper around. He puts the grade on display for you with a knowing, mischievous glint in his cinnamon eyes. He’s too pretty and you’re too proud of him — you can’t even care that he was tricking you.

“Oh, my god, Eddie!” you shout with a bubbly laugh, all but launching yourself at him. You have to stand on the tips of your toes to reach where he sits on the counter. The bottom of your stomach digs into the granite as your arms wrap around his neck. 

You don’t realize until you’ve locked him in this embrace that you’ve still got your oven mitt on.

Eddie bends awkwardly to reciprocate the hug, meeting you halfway so you’re not doing all the work.

One hand keeps hold of his midterm, but the palm of his free one spreads wide and warm along your back. The tops of your chests collide, soft and snug. They press together in such a way that it confuses him how he could’ve gone so long without feeling you like this — even in the most innocent way.

His chin settles along your clothed collarbone. With his nose digging into the cotton of your t-shirt, he inhales to find your warm floral scent. Eddies sighs and relaxes against you without thinking. He doesn’t know if anyone’s ever hugged him like this before.

“I’m so proud of you!” you praise, chin bopping on his shoulder. “I knew you could do it.”

Eddie chuckles softly at the severity of your hug, so full of intent — louder when you peck him on his cheek and then the rest of his face when you realize you can’t just kiss him once. His stubble is rough against the plush of your lips as you press them to his jaw and chin and nose and mouth.

He tries to kiss you back, but he’s smiling too wide.

He’s almost certain no one’s ever gotten this much loving over a B-minus.

“It’s ‘cause of you,” Eddie insists.

“No, it’s because you’re smart.”

“Mm, I don’t think that’s it,” he retorts with the shake of his head, too damn stubborn to take a compliment.

His chin pulls closer to his neck when he parts from you. Your noses are barely inches apart, lips so close he can taste them. He could kiss you if he wanted, but he doesn’t want to stop looking at you.

“I’m pretty sure I only passed because I was thinking about you the whole time...” 

His words trail off. He’s got a crooked smirk on his lips like he’s only teasing, but brings his ear to his shoulder and gazes at you that way — so full of love and mischief. You think he might actually be sincere.

“Eddie Munson…” you scold at his suggestive tone. 

A smile dances on the corners of your lips as you pull back from him completely. You finally slip the mitten off your hand as you return to the stove, clicking the knob on the back panel until it turns off again.

“I just hope you’ve been thinking about that reward,” the boy lilts as he slips off the counter. He grins and walks until he’s leaning on the refrigerator beside you. He’s no more than a couple of feet away, but he somehow feels much closer than that. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe we agreed that I’d get something if I passed…”

Eddie’s only teasing. He doesn’t actually want anything. Spending time with you now is enough. Making you blush was just a bonus. 

He’d be lying if he said it didn’t cross his mind, though, far more times than he’d like to admit. 

And truth be told, you had thought about it, too. But that makes it sound too simple. It plagued you, really. First, it was the “oh god, what if he doesn’t pass,” and then the “what the hell am I supposed to do when he does?”

A passing grade isn’t usually that big of a deal. You’ve certainly never received anything from one. But passing a test after failing it the first two times and having to suffer two more agonizing years of school because of it certainly deserved to be celebrated.

Eddie was strange, though. He wasn’t materialistic or overtly enthusiastic about anything other than music and D&D. Maybe if you had more money, you could’ve gotten him a cassette or a new Dungeon Master’s manual. But thanks to Enzo’s salary, you’re lucky if you’re able to pay bills on time. And it sucks because Eddie deserves nice things, and not just for passing some stupid test. 

You hate that you don’t have anything other than spaghetti and adoration to give him.

It’s not fair to either of you.

You’d lamented to Steve about all this over gummy bears and buttered popcorn as Slumber Party Massacre played on the tiny television above the counter. The film was ripe with blood and random nudity, but you hadn’t fully paid attention to a single scene. You don’t think Steve had either because he was too busy trying to fuse two different halves of gummy bears together.

“Okay, you just passed a test you failed two times in a row,” you tell the boy, painting him a picture of your dilemma. “Your girlfriend wants to do something nice for you, but she’s boring and poor. What would you want?” 

“A blowjob,” Steve answers without missing a beat. His brows scrunch together like the answer was far easier than you made it out to be. He shrugs and squishes the strawberry head of one gummy bear onto the blue raspberry bottom of another. “Obviously.”

You didn’t think the answer was so obvious. Especially not when you’re trying to take things slow. It wasn’t an easy feat either — not with Eddie at your place, looking at you with that look. His features drip with honey as rose petal spill from his mouth. It’s like he’s trying to tease you. 

He’s got no idea he’s quite literally dealing with the master of teasing.

“We’ll see how tonight goes,” you tell him, flashing him an arched brow and a knowing smirk as you drag two of your fancy, ten-dollar porcelain plates from the cabinet. “Only if you’re good for me, yeah?”

Eddie quite literally forgets how to speak.

Like, if you’d asked him a question, the only thing that would spill out would be unintelligible murmurs of made-up words. 

His brain turns to mush with the look you give him — a two can play at this game kind of smirk that makes his mind melt. And your words are so effortless, so smooth, like you know just what to say and exactly how to say it to work him like a wind-up toy.

He’s in way over his head. The realization makes his breath hitch.

All he can do is nod like an idiot and let you fix him a plate of your “finest batch of spaghetti.” That’s what you call it, and he figures you must be right because you lay an entire three-course meal out in front of him. Well, it isn’t quite that extensive, but it feels that way.

Plates of pasta, a bowl of salad, and stacks of garlic bread decorate your small square dining table. Eddie almost feels like he’s at Enzo’s, even though there’s never been a world where he’s been able to afford Enzo’s.

You wine and dine him like the finest of them. Even though it’s nothing more than homemade spaghetti and apple juice in wine glasses, it makes him feel special — the kind of special people spend hundreds of dollars to feel. But he gets you for free and fuck, he doesn’t deserve any of it.

He got so damn lucky with you. 

He’s done trying to figure out why. He just wants to be more grateful for it.

Once he’s pleasantly full on a home-cooked meal, you usher him to the bathroom. There’s a bag full of stuff waiting there for him — toothbrush, toothpaste, body wash — all the essential shit that he’d forgotten all about. It makes his chest ache.

It’s less so that you knew he’d forget and more so that you thought about him at all.

Eddie imagines you getting off work, still in your Enzo’s-appropriate skirt and blouse uniform, scanning the aisles of Bradley’s Big Buy for things you think Eddie might need.

It’s mundane, but so beautiful still — to be remembered in the most minuscule of ways.

“—I didn’t know what to get you, and I couldn’t afford a lot, so I just got you that 3-in-1 stuff,” you ramble as you pull the dark green bottle out of the brown paper bag on the counter. You wave it mindlessly in your hand. “I don’t know, it was affordable, and you seem like the kind of guy who might use this sort of stuff, so—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Eddie chuckles, trying to act like he doesn’t have an off-brand bottle of the stuff sitting in his shower back at the trailer.

“I don’t know,” you answer with a giggle of your own. You shrug and sit the thing back down. “You don’t have to use it if you don’t want.  I just wanted you to have some stuff here so it could, you know, feel more like home…”

Your words strike something profound in Eddie’s chest, a lightning strike or a punch to the stomach. In that moment, he comes to the realization that home isn’t a place. It’s not four walls or the little trinkets that fill it. The people that make you feel all warm and cozy inside, the people that make you feel like you have a place in the world — that’s home.

It’s Wayne and it’s Hellfire and it’s you.

So it’s easy for Eddie to feel at home in your little apartment, and not just because you bought a bunch of stuff to make it that way. 

He’s warmed by the hot shower and the thought that you’re waiting for him in your bedroom down the hall. The idea that he gets this night and so many others you with makes him feel all giddy — like he’s ten years old again and no sleepover has ever traumatized him.

Eddie uses everything you bought, still a little dizzied that it’s for him, but opts to use your vanilla body wash. It’s sweet smelling, with hints of deep musk and high lavender.

The scent of it on his own skin makes him feel like you’re on him and all over him. He has to flip the hot water to freezing before he steps out of the shower. Because, sure, he’s been less than shy about how much he likes you, but walking into your room with a hard-on is a bit more forward than he’s used to.

Eddie finds you waiting for him in your bed. You’re idling at the very center of it, knees up to your chest and back against the headboard, like you’ve been waiting for his return to get truly comfortable there.

You smile when you see him again. It’s that same grin you always look at him with, as though every time you see him is the first time.

He brings an air of cleanliness in with him. He's dressed in fresh pajamas, curls damp and still drying. Steam radiates off his skin along with the scent of freshly baked cookies and flower petals. It’s familiar to you because it’s yours, but it’s different on Eddie in a way you can’t describe.

“You smell good,” you compliment as he maneuvers through the velvet darkness of your bedroom. The black night is evaded only by your dim yellow lamp and the streams of orange that filter through your curtains from the streetlamps outside.

Eddie scoffs as he climbs onto your queen-sized bed. “Did I smell bad before?”

“No. You just smell sweet now. Like a milkshake.”

You shift to make room for him, pulling back your green gingham comforter so he can slip in beside you. Even though you’ve given him ample room to sit down, there isn’t any hint of distance between you. You keep yourself intently pressed to his side despite the several inches of space next to you.

Eddie hopes you never realize there’s a whole world of other places you could be than right next to him. He doesn’t ever want to see a day where you’re separated by more than an inch or two. 

“A milkshake, huh?” he echos as he leans back against the slatted headboard and all your pillows. You twist until you’re practically on your side — hip digging into the mattress, shoulder propped along the cushions, chest pressed against his arm.

“Yeah. Like whipped cream or… vanilla cake…” you trail off, quickly losing interest in describing the scent of him when you’re staring the pretty boy in the face.

One half of him is bathed in shades of golden orange, the other half coated in a deep, deep navy. Eddie’s eyes are somehow darker than any night sky. They swim with their own galaxies and stars that twinkle back at you.

He looks at you and all words lose meaning.

“Yeah, I’m totally stealing your soap before I leave,” he jokes.

You shake your head at him, but smile anyway. “Thanks for letting me know, Eddie Spaghetti.”

Just like all the times before, neither of you realize you’re kissing until you already are. The gravitational pull that brings the two of you together is effortless and natural. You’re like the moon and Eddie’s like the tide — you drag him to you without trying and he bends to your every whim.

Kissing him is easy. It’s like breathing. You don’t ever have to think about it, you just do it. 

You press your lips against the rosy plush of his, and it’s like taking a deep breath of fresh air. It’s an atmosphere kissed by the sun and the trees and the morning dew. It fills your lungs with a new life, makes it impossible to quit kissing him.

But when his tongue swipes against your bottom lip, when his mouth pries yours open to slip the pink muscle inside — that feels like getting the breath knocked out of you. The rough pattern of his tongue slides against your own, and you have to remind yourself to breathe.

Your lungs stop working, your chest aches, and there’s nothing you can do about it but let the moment pass.

Eddie keeps kissing you soft, though, coaxing fresh air back into your burning lungs. He helps you breathe normally again.

You move together like entwining summer breezes. Your thigh swipes against his lap and his hands find your hips to help guide you the rest of the way over. He’s halfway lying down now and you’re looming like an unconquerable mountain above him. Your back arches like a cat’s and your palms cradle his jaw while your tongue makes uncharted territory of his mouth.

The warmth lingering between your thighs presses into his lower stomach. It makes his grip on you tighten, hands pulling your hips further against him until he hears you moan.

The pressure of your clothed pussy against the pudge of his stomach brings you a distant pleasure. What really does you in is the thought of what little separates you — just the fabric of your cotton underwear and Eddie’s faded grey Tatcher Tire t-shirt.

But it’s hard to be indulgent when you’re so stuck in your head. Your mouth moves with Eddie’s on autopilot while your mind travels elsewhere. Because this isn’t supposed to be about you — it’s supposed to be about Eddie. You want to make him feel good for a change, but you have no idea how to go about it.

The foreignness is strange. It leaves you fumbling like you’ve never done any of this before.

In a way, you haven’t. Eddie is different from any guy you’ve ever been with. Not just because he cares about you, but because you’re practically the only girl he’s ever cared about in this way.

He’s a blank slate and you’re scribbled all over.

You don’t want to taint the pristine image he’s painted of you.

“Hey, Eds,” you murmur. The words are halfway spoken against his mouth because you don’t pull away in time to say them clearly. 

Your tongue darts out to feel how numb your spit-slicked lips have gotten after being kissed so ardently. You know they’re probably swollen and more vibrant in their color now. Eddie’s a lot of the same, mouth rosy and obviously kissed.

“Hm?” the boy hums back.

“Do you wanna… Do you wanna do something else?” you ask him, all slow because you don’t want to say the wrong thing. His brows furrow beneath the thin curtain of his curly bangs. The silent question eggs you on. “Would it be okay if I gave you a blowjob?”

Eddie’s eyes widen for a moment. He swears he goes blind because he doesn’t typically see white when he blinks. The question isn’t the weirdest for a guy in this predicament — with a pretty girl on his lap with his spit staining her mouth. It just catches him a little off guard.

“Would it be…” he tries to echo but trails off with a breathy laugh. You say it like it wouldn’t be perfect — to have you between his legs with your warm mouth on his cock, looking effortlessly beautiful while you swallow him whole. 

“Yeah… Yeah, I think that… I’d be a total idiot to say no,” he manages to stammer out, though words have long lost meaning by now.

The sight of his glazed-over eyes, warmed cheeks, and pink mouth makes you smile. He always looks at you like you’re the most amazing thing he’s ever seen — like you're the infiniteness of space or a deep, deep ocean — something profound he desperately wants to discover.

“I feel like you deserve it, right?” you squint down at him, partially teasing. “For a job well done, you know?”

Eddie nods until he finds the words to respond. “Yeah… Right. Totally.”

“Do you wanna lie down? Or would you rather me get on my knees?” you ask him.

Eddie swears he’s dreaming. He isn’t quite sure how you manage to say something so sinful with such sincerity.

“It might be comfortable to stay like this, but most guys like the visual of girls on their knees better so…” 

There is no seductive lilt to your voice, no mischievous teasing to rile him up. It’s just a question of how he wants you, and it’s a very dizzying thought. Knowing he can have you however he wants makes his stomach all whirly and his vision start to swim like he just spun around ten times.

Eddie just blinks at you. His chocolate eyes and heavy lids flutter slowly like he’s trying to look at you through a layer of honey.

It takes him a second to answer because he doesn’t know what he wants — he rarely ever does, but now especially. How is a boy who wants you in every way imaginable supposed to pick only one?

“Uh, can you—” he starts before the words get caught in his throat. He grunts out a cough to clear it. “Could you, um… get on your, uh— your knees? Please?” 

You smile at how politely he phrases it. You don’t think anyone’s ever said please when asking you for a blowjob before.

Eddie fidgets awkwardly beneath you, and you’re not entirely sure why. You’re the one that just offered yourself up on a platter, totally and unequivocally happy to do whatever he wants. He’s not the one that should be embarrassed.

You nod down at him, still grinning like an idiot. “Sure. You can stay sitting if you want. Whatever you wanna do.”

“Okay…” Eddie mumbles in response.

He watches you with wide, inquisitive eyes as you maneuver off his lap and onto the rug beside your bed. When he swings his legs over the edge of it, you settle intently between them. His cock twitches at the sight of you below him, blinking up at him with sparkling eyes that almost look like they’re begging.

Your palms settle on his clothed thighs as your knees press into the woolen rug beneath you. Your chest warms when you’re finally level with his concealed cock. It makes your heart go silly, the sheer thought of what you’re about to do. You don’t think you’ve ever been this excited to suck dick before.

You wait patiently for him to make the first move — then you realize he doesn’t know how because he’s never had to before. Instead, he’s waiting for you to tell him what to do. With button eyes intently focused on your form and hands anxiously gripping the edge of the bed, he’s entirely prepared to move however you want him to.

“Take off your shirt, Eds,” you guide gently.

He listens to you without thinking twice. His fidgeting fingers reach for the fraying hem of his shirt to yank it up and over his head. He has to tug harder when the neck gets caught around his chin.

It isn’t the first time he’s been shirtless in front of you. Between changing and heated kisses, he’s had ample opportunity to get over his lingering insecurities.

For a while there, he found himself comparing his body to all your other more prominent escapades — the Billy Hargroves and the Steve Harringtons. The overtly masculine types with bodies that scream, ‘I peaked in high school.’

Eddie doesn’t look like them. He isn’t as toned or as thin. He’s got pudge on his belly and sparse hair on his sternum in the place of defined abs and pecks covered in layers of chest hair. He doesn’t look at all like those basketball douchebags that could easily model for whatever magazine basketball douchebags read — if they even know how to, that is.

But you don’t seem to care. You love on him anyway.

Even now, your eyes rake over his bare upper half with a gaze that isn’t anything short of hungry. You reach for his face to pull him down for a ravenous kiss that does little to quell your appetite. Your fingers tangle in the drying strands of his hair in the same way your tongues do. 

Eddie’s patient hands curl around the insides of your elbow as he keeps his lips obediently parted for you. He sighs into each of your eager kisses, more than content to let you swallow him whole.

You move down to his jaw and then to his neck. You nose his curls out of the way to sprinkle wet pecks to the warm skin there. You somehow manage to take your time and move with haste all at once — loving on all the places that need loving, but not lingering in one place for too long because there are too many of them to count.

The tip of your nose trails down his milky torso in time with your craving kisses. You press a final one between his ribcage, tongue darting out briefly just so you can hear his breath tremble before pulling away entirely. 

Eddie’s hands remain on each of your arms as your fingers curl around the hem of his plaid pajama pants. It makes his grip unknowingly tighten.

“Wait,” he blurts with his eyes squeezed shut. You tense almost instantly. “Can you— I mean, can we, just… you know…” he trails off, voice tight like he’s holding his breath. It’s probably because he is.

“What?” you pry with wide eyes and the sick feeling like you’ve done something horribly wrong. “Is this… Is this not okay? We don’t have to, like, do any of this if you don’t want. It was just a suggestion, Eds. We can just—”

“No!” he exclaims, eyes flying open to find your panicked ones. He shakes his wild head so vigorously down at you it makes his curls sway. He both wants to quell your worry and plead for you not to stop. “That’s not it. I— I want to, okay? I do. I really… really do. I just… You’re so far away like this…”

His words drip with a soft sincerity, his honeyed eyes even more so.

Your alarm curls into a gentle smile at his reassurance.

You haven’t had many firsts in a long, long time. Your first kiss was on the playground of Hawkins Middle. Your first handjob was in the locker room of the community pool not too long after. Your first time having sex was on a towel in the grass beside Tina Burton’s pool after her birthday party when everyone else had gone to bed.

All your stereotypical firsts happened lifetimes ago, but you’ve had a billion more with Eddie.

You can say with more confidence than you’ve ever had in your life that this is the first time a guy’s turned down a blowjob because you were too far away on your knees. 

“What?” the boy wavers at your silence. Your accompanying smile is somehow more frightening.

“Nothing,” you assure. Your brows pinch together as you smile up at him. “I just… I really don’t think we can be any closer than your dick in my mouth, Eds.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. His cheeks go rosy at your quip. “You know what I mean…”

“Yeah,” you answer softly. “I know what you mean.”

You rise again, this time planting yourself on his thigh. Your knees settle on either side of his leg and dig into the mattress below you, on top of him all over again. The position is a familiar one. The only thing different is a few months’ time and a lack of Fast Times playing in the background.

Eddie tilts his chin to peer up at you. It’s easier this way, he realizes, to be below you and at your mercy rather than above you. Sometimes he thinks you were made to be on top of him like this.

“How about this,” you lilt with a raised brow. “I can just jerk you off—”

“Sounds perfect,” Eddie nods.

A giggle bubbles from your lips. “Let me finish, you weirdo. I can jerk you off, and you can just tell me when you’re about to finish.”

“Okay,” he answers right before his brows furrow. “Uh… why?”

“So you can come in my mouth,” you shrug like it’s obvious.

Your words knock the wind from Eddie’s lungs — it’s like you’ve punched him square in the stomach. Staring up at you through drooping eyelids, he swallows thickly, then nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s sounds… Yeah…”

You breathe out a laugh and lean closer to press a kiss to the tip of his nose. You couldn’t help yourself — he’s too damn adorable. Your fingers curl back around the hem of his pants and boxers, dragging them both down in one fell swoop to free his half-hard cock. You tuck the tops of them under his balls.

You’ve seen a lot of dicks in your time — long ones, short ones, thick ones, skinny ones — you could make a damn nursery rhyme of the variety you’ve seen. Eddie’s doesn’t particularly stand out.

It’s middling in length and in girth, not big but not too small either, with a width that won’t hurt to take but will stretch you out nonetheless. 

His cock is pale and a faint strawberry red at the tip. It’s the same rosy color his cheeks get when he blushes. There’s a vein that trails up from his balls and splits like a forking river up to his bulbous head. The bush at his pubic bone is fitting for a metalhead, but it looks like he’s taken a trimmer to the chestnut hair there sometime in the past month or so.

His dick isn’t ugly and it isn’t special, but it’s perfect anyway because it’s his.

“You’ve got a really pretty cock, Eds,” you praise in a low whisper.

He thinks you must be trying to talk dirty, but your gaze gets all shy — quirked brow, curled lip, twinkled eye — like you must really mean it. You seal your compliment with a soft, lingering peck.

“Can dicks be pretty?” he asks you, the question muffled against your mouth.

“Not usually,” you blurt before you realize.

Most guys are gross. They don’t shave because they don’t think they have to. Sometimes they smell bad, too, because they never really learned how to wash themselves. Either that, or they taste overtly of soap because they shoved a whole bar of the stuff down their pants right before.

Boys tend to care less about the situation their cocks are in. Only a handful you’ve been with really knew how to take care of themselves — Eddie for one, Steve for another, and Billy Hargrove on occasion.

“But your’s definitely is,” you promise.

“Um… thanks?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out like a question; he just never thought that exact string of words would ever be spoken to him.

It’s a little bit surreal to receive a compliment on a part of you that most people wouldn’t typically notice — like your shoulders or lips or thighs. Eddie’s almost sure you’ve complimented each of those at some point or another.

You kiss him again, both because he makes it insanely hard not to and because you know that’s the only way to get him out of his head. He’ll never get hard if he’s worried about getting hard. So you keep kissing him, letting him focus on the pattern of your tastebuds and the curves of your cupid’s bow, while you happily do all the work.

Your fingertips trail up and down the underside of his cock. Your caresses are featherlight and meticulous along his warm, stiffening skin, all but coaxing him hard. 

When his cock is totally stiff and standing at attention at his stomach, you part from Eddie to bring your palm to your mouth. You spit a glob of saliva onto the center of it and let the added lubricant help your fist glide along his dick.

A stifled groan rumbles in Eddie’s throat as your fingers wrap fully around him. You’re only touching his cock, but it feels like you’ve embraced every inch of them.

The pleasure feels like static, like he’s just rubbed his socks along the carpet and he’s sizzling with the newfound electricity. He feels it in the tips of his toes and in the strands of his hair.

“Um, just to, uh… save myself the embarrassment,” Eddie cautions shakily. His voice is a few octaves higher than normal and audibly fragile. “I should probably urge you to lower your expectations—” He has to stifle a whine when you squeeze the base of his cock. “—Just a little bit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m probably gonna come, like, really, really quickly,” he tells you and tries his best to laugh. It’s as shaky as the smile he gives you because you haven’t stopped touching him, even despite his warning. 

Your fist squeezes his cock, then rises again. You pause momentarily to swipe your thumb over his leaking tip before sliding back down again. It’s a slow and methodical cycle that’s going to make him burst far quicker than he’d like.

“That’s okay,” you assure with the shake of your head, brows furrowed because you don’t know why that’s such a band thing. You shrug. “Just means there’s more time for me to make you do it again.”

Eddie huffs out a sigh as his cock twitches in your fist, growing somehow harder at your words.

Your unhurried pace hastens in a way that’s still obviously disciplined. Your hand moves faster until you hear his breath start to race and see his milky white chest splotch with red. Then, when his rapid pants begin to tremble, your pace goes back to normal.

You push him to the very edge of the cliff and then pull him backward before he falls.

It’d be agonizing if it didn’t feel so damn good.

His eyes have long fluttered shut by now. You miss his chocolate syrup irises, but the look of pure serenity on his face is the kind of beautiful most people pay to see. His agape mouth, bared neck, rosy cheeks, and long lashes that tickle the apples of them deserve to be hung in the Louvre. 

It’s a sort of heavenly that everyone needs to admire in their lifetime, but one that belongs to only you. The sheer thought of someone else having him this way makes you angry, sparks raging orange embers just behind your sternum.

Eddie grows quiet. Suspiciously so. He isn’t moaning as much as he was before, and his chest is totally still, as though he were holding his breath. You feel his gentle grip on the outsides of your thighs start to harden. You figure the added tension helps him stay hushed. It’s less so accidental and more like he’s trying not to make noise.

“Let me hear you, Eds,” you urge in a whisper. “It’s okay. Go ahead and whine for me.”

The assurance barely spills from your mouth before he’s moaning for you. It’s a long, drawn-out whine that travels from his chest to his throat and out of his mouth, concluding in a fragile sigh.

The sound makes you double your efforts. You want him to make that noise again — you never want him to stop making that noise for you. So you squeeze harder, rise faster, and pay more attention to his rapidly reddening tip. 

You’re not entirely sure what Eddie likes the most. Most guys moan louder when you do something they like, but he seems to like all of it, so you don’t pay extra attention to one place. You keep jerking his cock, faster still, even when the muscles of your forearm start to burn.

“Fuck—” the boy sighs in a heavy moan, then cuts himself off with a pitiful whine.

He tries to lift his head and open his eyes to look at you, but he doesn’t have the strength to anymore. His head lolls back again when the pleasure begins to crescendo.

Sufficiently stupid, he can’t even find the words to warn you. “I’m— I’m close, sweetheart,” he slurs lowly. “I’m… Fuck… Fuck, I’m gonna…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. His face screws up, nose scrunching and brows furrowing, as the feeling becomes almost unbearable. It’s all the warning you need.

Your fist holds onto the base of his cock as you dismantle his thigh and settle on the rug again. You don’t think twice before darting forward to lick the dribbles of pearly-white pre-come spilling from his reddened tip.

You wrap your lips around him totally, cheeks hollowing as you suck him there like he’s a piece of candy.

And Eddie dies. He passes away on the spot.

It’s the only way he can describe the feeling.

The crescendo of pleasure — that’s the life flashing before his eyes. The brief moment of numbness is the infinite void of death. The burst of ecstasy that spits from his cock in one, two, three loads is heaven.

It just has to be.

There can’t be a higher pleasure than the feeling of your mouth on his cock and the way you moan around him when his come spills on your tongue.

Eddie whines something pitiful. He loses all the previous inhibition that kept him so quiet he was too scared to breathe. One hand twists in the sheets while the other settles on the back of your hand, not pulling or tugging, just resting there as his hips buck off the mattress. He can’t tell if he’s running away from the intensity of his pleasure or if he never wants it to stop.

You don’t seem to mind that he doesn’t know.

You let his hips jerk wildly even when the tip of his cock hits the back of your throat and makes you gag. It does take everything in you not to laugh, however, when Eddie murmurs a fragile “sorry” through his cries.

And when his fingers knot in your hair, you don’t mind that either. You let him halfway fuck your mouth, even though you’re pretty sure he’s too far gone to notice that he’s fucking your mouth.

You don’t stop until he’s shuddering. Only when you’re sure he has nothing left to give you do you finally pull away from him. You leave a delicate kiss to the tip of his softening cock, no longer the angry red color it was moments ago. Eddie’s stomach clenches at the feeling of blatant sensitivity. His face scrunches as another feeble cry gets trapped in his throat.

You snap his boxers and pants back into place on his waist and rise.

“How was that for your first blowjob?” you ask him, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

Eddie just shakes his head in response. He flops back against the mattress, the springs bouncing under his weight, and tries to find the words to answer you.

He doesn’t know how to tell you that he just saw Heaven and Hell at the same time and that you were both God and the Devil. There isn’t any string of words in any language that could explain the otherworldly pleasure you gave him with nothing more than your hand and mouth, so he decides to stay quiet.

With his eyes still closed, he can hear you laughing quietly at him while you slither in at his side. You lie beside him on your stomach. When you’re finally in reach again, he peeks his eyes open and reaches for you, pulling you toward him for a searing kiss.

You think it might be the first time he’s ever done so without asking awkwardly first — as though there was a world where you would ever turn him down. He seems to understand that now, the way he kisses you without thinking twice about it.

His tongue swipes into your mouth. The both of you moan when he tastes the salty tang lingering there. Eddie doesn’t even realize that it’s him he’s tasting at first — that the heady bitter-sweetness on your tongue is his come.

It’s less so that he’s tasting himself, and more so that his taste is in your mouth at all, that makes him exhale a moan against you. The heavy breath of it fans against your cupid’s bow.

“Oh,” you hum through labored pants when you part again. “It was that good, huh?”

“Better,” he answers with a crooked smirk on his swollen pink mouth. He’s finally able to open his eyes and see more than a blur when his high starts to subside. “That was fucking… I mean, that was… fuck…”

His speechlessness makes you giggle. Your gaze stays locked on his profile when he turns to look up at the ceiling.

“That was exactly what I wanted. And, like, I didn’t even know I wanted it, you know?” he rambles. “How did you— How did you know? How do you always know?”

You’re not entirely sure what he means by that, and honestly, neither is he.

You just always know what he needs. You buy him a toothbrush because you know he’ll forget his, and when you touch him, you know exactly what he likes — even though he doesn’t even know what he likes.

It’s like you’re another half of him, and not in the stupid soulmate way everyone always thinks they’ve found. You’re an identical part of him that no one else can fit. He’s only whole with you — like a sandwich cut into triangles or halves of an orange. 

“Well, to be fair, I did ask Steve what a guy would want in this sort of situation,” you admit with a scrunched nose. “I just sort of went with what he said.”

Eddie’s brows pinch together as he turns his head to peer at you again. He blinks at you for a moment, dumbfounded, then sputters. “Wait— You’re telling me I have Steve to thank for that blowjob? Like Steve-Steve? As in Steve The Hair Harrington?”

His dramatics makes you giggle. You hide your grin behind your palm.

“Hope that doesn’t change anything, Eddie Spaghetti.”

You meant it as a joke, as in, please don’t think of Steve every time I give you a blowjob from now on, but your words settle something heavy on the both of you. 

Because you’ve had Steve The Hair Harrington, in more ways than most friends tend to have one another. You’ve had a lot of people like that. There are people in the world with parts of you that most only give away when they’ve found someone really, really special. 

You learned about that too late. And now you feel a lot less special.

Eddie hears all your dreadful, no-good thoughts because they’re also his own. 

He’s a virgin with the town slut, so he often feels like he’s drowning. It isn’t because of you, though. It’s never because of you. The number of people you’ve slept with doesn’t mean a damn thing to him; he just wants to measure up to them.

He wants to be the kind of man that sticks in your head after you’ve been with a thousand of them — the kind you can’t help but remember fondly because there hasn’t been another one like him.

He’s got no idea he’s already better than every person you’ve ever been with combined.

“No, sweetheart,” he assures with the shake of his head. The apple of his cheek rubs against the fabric of your comforter as he looks at you with eyes deeper than an infinite galaxy. His gaze holds all of its own stars, and each of them is named after you. “It doesn’t change a goddamn thing.”

#published by bug #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #virgin!eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #st oneshots

[roosterforme]

Old Habits Die Hard Part 4 | Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

Summary: You are a little surprised by your own response when Jeff asks you out. And you really start to wish the study room doors had locks. 

Warnings: Angst, swears, smut, maybe some fluff

Length: 3100 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader (fuckboy college student Bradley)

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Bradley texted you all day on Sunday. You made him laugh, and he hoped he was making you laugh too. He never spent this much time talking to girls, but he'd never known a girl quite like you before. 

Every time he saw his door, he smiled. Bradley was a little surprised Jeff hadn't commented on it, but then again, Jeff didn't know he called you Sugar. 

Bradley cleaned the bathroom again after Tyson and Janessa were done in there, but he didn't even mind. He was in such a great mood.

Then he alternated talking to you and working on school assignments for the rest of the day. 

He checked his phone to read the most recent text from you. 

Are you going to crash the study room again this week? 

Okay, so you wanted him to. Bradley just wished he could get you there alone. He wondered how you would respond to that request, so he just went for it. 

Sugar, when can I meet you there for a little one-on-one time?

Bradley had to wait a bit longer for your response to that one, but you did finally write back. 

On Tuesday afternoons Jeff has classes while I usually get caught up with reading. 

So Bradley told you he would meet you then. 

He realized that Jeff was still avoiding him by Sunday evening when Bradley greeted him in the living room. 

Jeff just grunted and asked, "Did you have fun with Phoebe this weekend?"

Bradley shook his head while he dropped down onto the couch. "Nah. Barely saw her. I'm interested in someone else."

Jeff just glared at him. "I told you to leave her alone. She's a nice girl. And I'm asking her out tomorrow." 

Bradley took a deep breath to keep from jumping up and shoving Jeff against the wall. "She's sweet. I like her, too. Maybe you're the one who should leave her alone." 

"What the fuck, man? You can hook up with anyone you feel like, but you just have to have her? Why?"

Bradley didn't know how to answer that, so he simply told Jeff, "Ask her out then. Let me know how that goes."

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

You were in the study room on Monday, wishing it was already Tuesday, and every time your phone vibrated, you felt butterflies in your tummy. 

Bradley had been texting you pretty consistently since yesterday, and you'd been responding like the ridiculous girl you apparently were. You had Jeff right across the table from you, but you couldn't stop thinking about Bradley. Because that kiss with Jeff was terrible. But when Bradley kissed you, it was fireworks. 

"Hey, so what do you think?" Apparently Jeff had been talking to you, but you had no idea what he had said. 

"Um... what do I think about what?" you asked, shooting him and apologetic look for good measure. 

He just smiled and asked, "What do you think about going out with me this weekend? We can skip the party on Friday night and see a movie instead?"

You swallowed down the lump of guilt in your throat. "Uh... I think I actually already promised Bradley I'd be at the party on Friday night." You had told him in a text that you would be there after he had asked. But then you thought maybe using Bradley as your excuse was a bad idea, because Jeff looked outraged. 

"Are you seriously into him?" he asked, looking like he was about to snap his pencil in half. 

You pressed your lips together. You couldn't figure out how to describe the way you felt about Bradley. "He's... "

"A douchebag? A player? Not good enough for you?" Jeff was quick to supply you with some options. 

"Don't be like this," you whispered. "We've been friends for a while." Suddenly you felt like crying as you watched Jeff rub his hands along his face in frustration. 

"Just think about it before you get involved with him, okay? I'll see you later."

And then he was gone. And you had plenty of time to think about Bradley. 

You thought about him as you met some friends for dinner, and you thought about him while you pretended to listen to Janessa talk about Tyson. And you even thought about him the following morning while you were in your extremely boring differential equations class. 

You didn't really care what Jeff thought about it, you just wanted to see Bradley again. His texting had tapered off a bit, and you wondered if he was still going to meet you in the study room. Or perhaps he was losing interest in you already. It was definitely in the realm of possibility that he was still seeing Phoebe or someone else entirely. Even someone with a visual impairment would be able to tell that Phoebe was better looking than you.

But just when you were about to text him and ask if he still wanted to meet you alone, Bradley strolled into the study room and sat down in the chair next to you, his back to the door. 

"Sugar," he said with a smirk, and you were immediately smiling at him. 

"Beer Boy." His soft laugh made your core throb. You were practically moaning for him after he had said one word to you. How ridiculous. 

"You been thinking about me?" he asked with a grin. You could feel yourself blushing. Have you been thinking about him? Only constantly, and especially while you were fingering yourself before bed last night. 

You shrugged. "A little bit. Here and there."

He nodded. "Yeah, me too. Just a little bit." But he was scooting his chair closer to yours. 

"Jeff asked me out," you blurted, and you watched Bradley rub his hand along the back of his neck, bumping his backwards cap and making it crooked.

"Oh," he said softly with a frown creasing his brow. "That's great."

"Great? I told him no."

Bradley's lips parted in a sigh of relief. "Then why did you kiss him last weekend? After we kissed?"

You knew the blush was returning to your face. "Because you're probably not a good idea, honestly. And Phoebe was calling you."

He shook his head. "She's not calling me anymore."

"Oh?"

"Sugar, I painted my door just for you. Nobody else," he whispered, and you leaned toward him until your lips touched his softly. His big palm came to rest on your knee as you slid to the edge of your seat, getting closer to him. His kisses were so soft, just like Friday night. It was like nothing you would have expected from a Beta boy. Bradley was just completely unexpected. 

He rubbed his thumb in slow circles along your jeans as he nipped gently at your lips. You licked the seam of his lips, and he opened his mouth to you. He tasted like mint, his tongue teasing yours. 

His fingers trailed up your neck and tangled in your hair, and you shivered and moaned softly into his mouth. "Damn, Sugar. Seems like you've been thinking about me more than a little bit," he said, examining your face with hungry eyes before he reached down and grabbed your chair and pulled you closer so your legs were slotted with his. 

You smirked. "I could say the same for you."

He mashed his lips against yours before kissing along your jaw to your neck. "Been thinking about you nonstop. You're sweet."

You tried to squeeze your thighs together, but Bradley's left leg was wedged between them. "Bradley," you whispered as he devoured your mouth with more of his soft and simultaneously demanding kisses. 

"Sugar," he whispered against your lips. He rubbed his nose along the side of yours as he asked, "When can I see you again? I need to see you again, but I have to get to class."

You reveled in one more press of his lips to yours as he adjusted himself before he made to stand up. 

"Thursday afternoon?" you asked, your voice sounding breathy. 

Then he kissed your cheek. He actually kissed your cheek before he said, "See you then."

And when Jeff showed up after his class to study with you, it took all of your energy to stay focused on what he was saying instead of replaying your kisses with Bradley in your mind. 

If only you'd had more time with Bradley, you were sure he would have kissed you until you sounded so stupid, just the way he liked smart girls.

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

Jeff was pissed off, and Bradley knew it. He tried to keep a straight face, but it was hard since he already knew you had turned Jeff down. 

"What's up?" Bradley asked as he passed Jeff and Tyson in the kitchen. 

"Hey man," Tyson said as he devoured a bag of potato chips. 

Jeff just grunted at him before saying, "I saw you leaving the library earlier."

"Yeah," Bradley said with a grin while he started making a sandwich. "I like it there."

"You like the library? Or you like her?" 

Tyson froze and eyed them both up as he crunched on some chips. "You guys talking about Janessa's cute roommate?" 

"Mmhmm," Bradley hummed. You were so pretty, and your lips were so soft. He couldn't stop thinking about having those lips wrapped around his cock. Just the idea of fucking your pretty face had him twitching. Even jerking himself off to the thought of you was better for him than any sex he'd had with Phoebe or the other girls recently. 

"Yeah. She's too good for Bradley, but he's going to insist on trying to ruin her anyway," Jeff said casually.

Jeff was being a dick on purpose. But really, Bradley was pretty sure you were the one who would be doing the ruining, not him. 

"You sound jealous, man. You had months to seal the deal with her," Bradley said with a smirk. "Can't perform under pressure? Too much competition?"

"Shut the fuck up."

Tyson was starting to look a little worried as Bradley assembled his sandwich and said, "She asks you to walk her home, but I'm the one who can get her in his bedroom."

Jeff was seething, but Bradley was kind of enjoying himself. He didn't specifically intend to use you as bait, but no way he was going to let Jeff act like he was better than him. Call him toxic, but Bradley was certain he could kiss you, fuck you, and be with you better than Jeff could. 

"She's too good for both of you," Tyson said as he dumped the potato chip crumbs into his mouth. 

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

You had barely seen Jeff outside of your classes since he hadn't joined you in the library at all on Wednesday. He skipped lunch with you on Thursday, claiming he needed to get to class early, so you were solidly alone when Bradley showed up. 

"Hey, Sugar," he said, pausing just inside the door and staring at you. He must have liked what you were wearing today. You'd done it on purpose, of course, and it was already paying off. He took a step closer to where you sat in your short pleated skirt and cardigan. It never hurt to lean a little bit into your nerd stereotype, especially when you figured it would make you unique to Bradley. 

"You look cute," he whispered, never taking his eyes off you as he set his bag down. "Did you wear that for me?"

You licked your lips, stood, and slipped past him to close the door. "Yes," was all you managed to say before his hands were grabbing your hips, guiding you back against the door. You tipped your head back against the wooden surface and looked up at him. 

"You look like a sexy little mathlete." His voice was soft and deep and raspy, and you felt yourself clench around nothing. Slowly he pressed himself against you, his body much bigger and more muscular than yours. "Keep thinking about all the ways I want you." 

You moaned softly, and that was all it took. His mouth was on yours, and he was gently coaxing your lips apart with his tongue. He tasted your mouth, groaning softly as you brushed your fingers along his scars and up into his hair. 

One of his hands was wrapped around you, reaching up the back of your cardigan. The other was inching down to the hem of your skirt. You let him rub his big hand up your bare thigh as he broke the kiss. He watched you, gauging your response to him as he eased his hand up along your soft skin. 

You knew you must have looked so desperate for him, pressed up against the door with your lips parted, but you didn't care. He grinned at you as he squeezed your thigh making you bite your lip.  

He kissed your neck so softly, his lips brushing you there as he asked, "Do you want me too, Sugar?"

You sucked in a breath, thrusting against the front of his jeans in response. 

"You gonna tell me?" he asked, rubbing your leg so softly with his thumb, driving you wild. 

"I want you," you gasped as his lips found yours again. Both of his hands were under your skirt, palming your ass through your underwear and lifting you up. You guided your legs around his slim waist, rubbing your wet, cotton covered pussy against his belt buckle with a loud whine. You'd never done anything like this in your life, and you felt ill-equipped to deal with that fact that you were probably about to fuck Bradley in the study room you'd been sharing with Jeff for months. 

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

You made Bradley feel a little possessive. He wasn't the jealous type, never really got attached to anything. But right now, as far as you were concerned, he needed to be the best. 

As he settled down onto the chair with his back to the door, you straddled him and held his face in both of your hands. Your fingernails were gently gliding along his cheeks, softly caressing his scars. Your lips were kissing him as your nose bumped against his in the sweetest way. But you were grinding your pussy against him like such a bad girl, he couldn't figure out what was going on. 

"Sugar," he moaned, and you tipped your head back, exposing your entire beautiful neck to him. He licked a line up from the top of your sweater to your chin and then moved his mouth to suck a mark on the side of your neck. 

"Oh!" you gasped, and he sucked harder. He reached up your skirt, gripping your hips, guiding your movements a little slower as you rubbed yourself on him. His cock was hard and straining against his jeans for you to grind against, and every time your pussy hit his belt buckle, he got to hear you gasp. 

"Feel good?" he whispered before licking the mark he had made on your neck. Such a pretty spot, he hoped to see it when it showed up darker tomorrow. 

"Bradley," you whined as you tipped your head forward to meet his eyes. He watched you, your eyes unfocused as you rubbed your soft body against his. When you started whimpering, he put his lips to yours, enjoying how desperate your kisses felt. He couldn't remember ever wanting someone like this. 

"What do you need?" he asked, easing one hand gently back inside your underwear and squeezing your ass. Everything about your body was a nice handful for him, and he wanted to wear you out until you were speechless. He thought about reaching into his bag for a condom, but you seemed like you were close to the edge without penetration.  

"I just, I need, I-" 

You were babbling now as Bradley smiled at you. "Aww, Sugar. You sound so fucking dumb right now, and I've barely touched you, baby." He kneaded his fingers into your ass cheeks and watched you get off.

"Oh!" you gasped, grabbing both of his shoulders and rubbing yourself up and down his abs while you moaned and cried out, "Oh, my God."

"Fuck, this is hot," he told you with a devilish grin on his face. "If you're gonna cum this good in my lap, I can't wait to get you in my bed."

"Oh, my God," you said once more, covering your flushed face with both hands. "I can't believe I did that." Your hips were finally starting to slow as you let out one more soft moan.

Two sharp knocks on the door, and then Bradley turned to see what looked like a pimple-faced freshman walking into the study room. You gasped and hid your face against his neck, as Bradley registered what you and he must have looked like with his hands still shoved up your skirt.

"I'm sorry! I thought this one was empty!" the younger kid said. 

Bradley just looked at him as he stood there staring. "Get the fuck out!" he yelled, and the kid spun around and rushed out the door. Bradley removed one hand from your soft thigh and reached behind him to slam the door shut. 

You pulled your face slightly away from his neck and looked up at him.

"You okay, Sugar?" he asked you softly. "You really got yourself worked up, didn't you?"

You covered your face with your hands again and whispered, "I am so embarrassed."

He tried his best not to, but he couldn't stop grinning when you peeked through your fingers and started to get up. 

"What do you have to be embarrassed about?" he asked, taking your left hand in his right one and kissing your cheek. "That was fucking hot. I'm hard as a rock right now because of you."

You squeaked and bit your lip. "That kid looked like he was twelve years old!" you said, gesturing toward the door. 

"Yeah, that was unfortunate. Next time I'll have to jam one of the chairs under the doorknob since these things don't lock."

Your eyes were wide and your cheeks were still flushed. "Next time?" you asked softly. 

"You don't want me to help you study again next week? Show you some of the subjects you haven't taken yet?"

A laugh bubbled out of you. "Bradley, I am mortified right now." When you tried to stand again, Bradley held you in place. 

"Don't be, Sugar. I'm gonna see you tomorrow night at the party, right?"

"Yes."

"You gonna wear something cute again? Just for me?"

"Maybe."

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

Ahhhhhh! Thanks for reading this fic! And thanks to @mak-32 for helping so much with this one! This is for you, Mak!

PART 5

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

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#bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #rooster x you #rooster x female reader #bradley bradshaw fic #rooster x reader #top gun fanfiction #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #rooster fanfic #rooster bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw x female reader

[jukey]

Blue Lock x Reader Headcanons

Hiori x Reader Headcanons + Scenario

Hiori may seem distant at first, but his heart softens around someone special. when he doesn't feel like practicing, he would love spending quality time with you, going on peaceful strolls in the park, hand in hand, sharing gentle smiles and stolen glances.

His reserved exterior melts away whenever you gives him a surprise gift or a heartfelt compliment. His cheeks turn slightly pink, and he bashfully thanks you, trying to hide his growing affection. This would mean the world to him and even if you see this as something small, he would never forget this.

Hiori's idea of a perfect date involves a cozy movie night at home. Snuggled up under a warm blanket, he enjoys romantic films, secretly hoping you notice the subtle similarities between your love story and the ones on screen.

He finds comfort in sharing his deepest fears and dreams with you. Through your support and understanding, Hiori realizes that vulnerability is not a weakness as his parents described, but a path to emotional intimacy.

Despite being a skilled soccer player, Hiori is adorably clumsy in matters of the heart. He might accidentally drop a love note or fumble his words when trying to confess his feelings, making you giggle at his adorable awkwardness.

Hiori's eyes light up when you surprise him with homemade snacks. His heart is won through delicious treats, and he can't help but feel incredibly lucky to have someone who cares for him in such sweet ways.

Playing video games together becomes your favorite bonding activity. It's a way for Hiori to showcase his skills and teach you the tricks of the trade, all the while relishing in the joy of shared laughter and friendly competition.

He becomes an unexpected romantic, planning little surprises like leaving heart-shaped notes in your locker or sending you encouraging messages during the day.

Hiori might be stoic in public, but he becomes quite the cuddler behind closed doors. He loves wrapping his arms around you, feeling your warmth against him as you snuggle together.

At the end of the day, Hiori cherishes the quiet moments of simply being in each other's company. Whether you're watching the sunset or stargazing, he finds contentment in your presence and knows that with you, he's found something special.

"gg"

"im shaving off your eyebrows."

all you could hear were distorted laughs coming out of your headset from the menace who had beaten you four times in a row by now.

"you don't have to let me win every time, you know? let's play fair and square!" hiori said, suppressing a giggle. he knew damn well you were fighting for your life over here and still teased you about it

"that's it. done. play with your e-girlfriend or something, I'm logging off," you dramatically said to him. mouse hovering the 'leave party' button as you waited for him to take it all back and beg for mercy.

"can't, she's busy rn," he snorted when you gasped, almost taking him seriously. soon an uneasy silence filled the voicecall.

"you there? I was joking, you know. i could never replace my one and only teammate," he filled you in. "besides, carrying you in games is much better than letting you do all the work," it would be a lie if you denied that your heart skipped a beat by how soft-spoken he sounded.

"forgiven. I'm not selling your account anymore, mwah!" you blew a kiss through your mic.

"you were what?!1?"

"nothing, nothing let's play again!"

it's safe to say he played a little less extreme for you to win a few games <3

HIORI BRWINROT HIORI BRAINROT

guys plspslspslspl request something

#blue lock #blue lock x reader #bllk #bllk x reader #blue lock x you #blue lock fluff #hiori x reader #hiori yo #bllk hiori #blue lock hiori #yo hiori #hiori yo x reader #hiori #blue lock headcanons #blue lock hcs #yo hiori x reader #hiori x you

[cloudninetonine]

Oh boy requests are open👀

I'm gonna stay on topic because fairy Hyrule makes me feel happiness I haven't felt in weeks (thanks finals).

may I request some Fairy! Hyrule and player? Or if you want to spice it up Fairy! Hyrule and Fae! Player (because that was a really big thing that I really miss Fae! Player please come back baby I've changed!!). I feel like even before they recognized each other it was the equivalent of that spiderman meme.

I don't think I did this right now that I reread this :') I hope you like it all the same!

Hyrule was already a place of many wonders when you had first stumbled through that portal of dark magic. The lush green fields, the towering oak forests, the magical sights of fairy fountains or the mythical beasts the wandered the planes without a single care in the world. It was truly a masterpiece, something taken straight from a fairytale and you stayed mystified the entire step of the way.

What would you see? Where would you go? What would happen? So many questions laid out, cards dealt by destiny as you experienced a Hylians life and more.

This was one of those more occasions.

A blessing cast upon you and now you were the size of a common fairy, dressed in magical silks with a beautiful glow as you tried to fly around the small fairy fountain surrounded by faefolk.

The Great Fairy had found you adorable, fluttering about in a cute daze trying to comprehend the beating of those beautiful sparkling wings on your back. The sister fairies giggled and cooed, rushing to bombarded you with praise and reassurances that you were doing so well, trying to navigate and stay calm. And Hyrule…well, Hyrule-

You had found him in a cave, shrouded in ivy and moss, the walls decorated in beautiful luminous algae that only enhanced the pure ethereal look to it all. The small running stream singing off the rock as it delved deeper and deeper into the mysterical grounds. Some sister fairies flew, gaping and greeting you kindly as you searched quietly for your other half, not wanting to interrupt their daily goings. You felt like an intruder, despite being welcome and you hurried only to pause upon seeing him.

Fluttering just above the small lake, wings beating similar to a humming bird as he conversed quietly with a group of fae. A small opening in the ceiling brought a halo of light that made him look truly magical among the girls. Maybe it it was you simping heart or maybe it was the truth, but Hyrule looked to be the prettiest in the room.

You called out to him, slowly hovering over, watching him turn in surprise only to pause.

He looked starstruck as you fluttered right before him, looking flustered and refusing to share his gaze.

“You…” He started, reaching out to gently brush his hand against your arm. “You look-”

“Silly.” Finishing, you shrunk a little more. “I look silly-”

“Breathtaking.” Capturning your chin, your eyes met in exchange. “Why would you say something so foolish, my dear?”

“I….I just don’t think being a fairy suits me, alright? I’m not very graceful or elegant.”

“Nonesense, graceful is too weak a word to describe the beauty you possess right now- not that you aren’t beautiful all the time!” He yelped, an image of nervous sweat brewing on his brow in your mind. “But seeing you like this…you are quite stunning, my dear.”

He looked puzzled next, “Why are you like this, anyhow? How did you come to turn into a fairy?”

“Well, everyone was trying to look for you after lunch and so I decided to have a look-”

“You left camp by yourself!?”

“-let me finish, thank you- anyway, I came across a fairy fountain and I decided “Well, if anyone knows it’s gonna be one of your mothers or your sisters” and they did. But instead of just telling me your mother decided to turn me into a fairy so I could find you instead.” You smiled, crooked. “I have already fallen four times.”

The snort that escaped him wasn’t amusing in the slightest, your face reflecting your souring expression only to vanish when he decided to tug you closer, an arm snaking around your waist while the other came to intertwine your fingers. His sisters had zipped off with laughs, watching from afar the scene as the man began to gently sway you. Slow at first. You weren’t perfect at this, but with time came clarity and you were able to keep up with his movements.

“Why are we dancing?”

“Why not?”

“Hm, fair enough.”

The hums of the girls were you ballad, the surface of the pond your dancefloor and Hyrule as your partner was truly a fairytale. Sharing giggles and taking turns to dip, spin and lift one another like dancers in an actual ball, your audience enjoyed the show by sharing applause in the face of he final dip, your eyes looking up to Hyrule with nothing but love and excitement.

“Well, fairy prince.” But a whisper, your hand came to hold his cheek. “I think this is the part where you kiss me.”

“A ruin the stillness of this moment? What an absurd idea, my dear.”

At your pout he chuckled, leaning closer. “But…if that’s truly what you wish.”

Your shared glow bloomed, bouncing off the reflection of the water and showering the cave in iridescent light.

You would have to thank the Great Fairy later.

#cloud answers #linked universe #linked universe x reader #lu #linked universe imagine #player au #a player's aid #lu hyrule #lu hyrule x reader #Anon asks

[utilitycaster]

oh PLEASE elaborate on your thoughts about why people say Brenann's hogging the spotlight after you're back from work 👀

This is actually a very long answer, because morning me is someone with the bright sun shining behind her and a full cup or four of coffee who does not think of the consequences of her actions, so it's below a cut.

I think the first reason is something best described as cultural but in a very specific way. Like...the bulk of actual players we talk about are people who have, just by default, spent a lot of time in a handful of cities in the US where there's a significant entertainment industry presence, and for D20 they've specifically been comedians. I say this to set a particular scene: I almost never get it when people think the cast of an actual play show is angry at each other, or that people are being too pushy or that the humor is off. I suspect this might be cultural; I am from the urban Northeastern US and my mom grew up in Los Angeles and I have three siblings, and so a lot of what people clock as aggression or unkindness reads to me as simply banter or straightforwardness or decisiveness, all of which I see as very positive things. I mean obviously there is a such thing as inappropriate humor, bigotry and jokes at the expense of other groups and so forth, but most of what I see in actual play I watch/listen to is just, as NADDPod puts it, taking your friends to the raspberry patch. It's good-humored teasing. Anyway I think Brennan is very willing to engage with that banter and that decisiveness (and like, he spent a lot of formative time in New York City which I'm sure is an influence) and I think that reads to people who are uncomfortable with it as aggression.

Someone who took more linguistic anthropology or sociology than I could probably explain this better but it's just like...as a person I find the rapid-fire and heated but good natured heckling on D20, or Sam's satirical ad reads, or bold moves in any D&D game, or the arguments on NADDPod D&D court to be very normal and enjoyable, and I find hesitation and hedging and uncertainty and "are you sure?" and endless check-ins to be very negative and anxiety-inducing and draining.

With that said I don't think Brennan is particularly egregious (Evan Kelmp is the one case where I think this is a valid criticism, but even then I didn't find him an ungenerous player, merely one who by design was going to occupy a certain position) so I think that brings me to the really delicate part of this conversation.

I've mentioned this in the past but I think a lot of the actual play fandom on Tumblr suffers pretty severely from what's been labeled "the soft bigotry of low expectations." I've been vocal quite specifically when it comes to misogyny and how the agency of the women of the cast is treated as true only when convenient, because I feel that as a woman I'm able to actually speak on those terms, but I think it's true across the board. Essentially, this means that the bar is (often unconsciously) set lower, or people overly applaud, to a perhaps even condescending degree, people from minority or underrepresented groups. It is not, to be clear, having DEI programs or helping people be in something (in this case...popular actual play) in the first place and acknowledging structural inequalities that might make the path more difficult; it's instead assuming that once they get there they'll never be quite as good, or being surprised when they are. I think the most classic example is the overuse of the word "eloquent" to describe Black speakers, as it often comes with this connotation that being well-spoken is something the person providing the compliment didn't expect. You know, if you're an adult with no significant cognitive or physical disabilities and someone compliments you for tying your shoes, it's pretty fucking insulting. That's what we're talking about here.

The way this manifests in the fandom is that there's really no room to provide criticisms that are not motivated by bigotry. I'm a critic by nature, and there's a general veneer of obnoxious insistence on positivity across the board in this and many fandoms, but, as I've said many times before (and to be fair it's getting better) the pushback people receive for completely valid criticisms of Marisha is intense. I've mentioned that I've had issues with story pacing for Brennan, Matt, and Aabria as DMs at different points, and the backlash for Aabria was the strongest even though the criticism was by no means the harshest. There is a certain degree of nonstop fawning that at times occurs that doesn't actually permit engaging with characters or discussing the actual strengths of the actors, and which often wraps around into something insulting; see the "Emily, breaker of DMs" nonsense that's finally getting called out. Because it's not a compliment! Part of why Emily is such a good player is that she is immensely collaborative and makes characters who will help with party composition, and she self-identifies as a big fan of DMs, and treating her (or like, anyone) as a perfect force of nature rather than a thinking person who makes decisions, some of which are good and some of which are bad, is not praise! It's not praise to exclude someone from valid criticism; it's treating them as lesser, to do so.

For a number of reasons I am a person who is not generally stopped by this, but a lot of people understandably aren't, or are deterred even by that more general need for nothing but praise...except constant praise starts to become meaningless, and more importantly, people sometimes have negative feelings about a show! Maybe a character they liked died, or their predictions didn't come true, or their ship didn't happen, or they're just not very interested in a specific plot. But it's impossible to actually pick apart what isn't working for them, because there's this environment where, if you start asking questions, the answer might be "I don't like the choice a player who is a woman, or nonwhite, or queer, made, and how it weighs upon the story." And so, and this is where I am treading so lightly, I don't think the issue in the fandom or TTRPG is "oh the poor straight white men in D&D", because that's obviously fucking ridiculous, but I do think that if you block off any criticism of anyone else, it lands somewhere, and it's often not actually justified.

The example I actually have in mind more often is Sam Riegel. I've made some pretty harsh criticism of Sam and some of his characters in the past, but it has always been very much about his choices. But every single time I've gotten some weird (and uh...very uncomfortable, frankly) venting about Sam's sense of humor. I have never really focused on his sense of humor as the problem. I like it. I find it extremely relatable. At the risk of using the bigotry script again, Sam is, in fact, of the same ethnicity and region of the US as I am (ie, northeast US Ashkenazi Jewish) and when people act like his humor is discomfiting it's like a neon sign that to me reads "I HAVE NEVER MET SOMEONE FROM YOUR CULTURE," which on the one hand, not necessarily their fault, but on the other, does not feel great to have someone on anon venting to you while this sign is staring you in the face.

But that is a different point - my point is that I feel like there's this...seething magma of discontent sometimes, that has built up because there is an attitude that criticism is to be avoided at nearly all costs. And when it must be vented, there are only a small handful of acceptable targets (ie, the cis straight white men, although among the CR and D20 casts, Taliesin and Zac both get a decent amount of this despite Taliesin not being straight and Zac not being white), so the criticisms that come out are often excessive for the infraction (Brennan, a famously wordy guy playing a literal college of eloquence bard, turns into "Brennan is a spotlight hog" despite him being a player who is enthusiastically yes-anding everyone at the table), flat-out misdirected (my criticisms of Sam's mechanics are treated as an invitation to talk about a dislike of Sam's jokes) or just straight up bile (I am quite frankly never forgetting the somehow popular post that said Travis was too stupid to play a druid; it really was a breaking point where I said oh this positivity is all fake as hell, huh.) And eventually these criticisms become the "safe" and "accepted" ones in the fandom. Which is also bad because like, at this point, those three examples are to me just signals of someone saying "I'm not happy but it might not necessarily be at all related to this." And it is possible that someone might genuinely not enjoy Sam's sense of humor, or think Brennan is hogging the spotlight (though I disagree), but I struggle to believe them because these are just the well-worn codes, devoid of their actual meaning. I also think it's notable these all squarely blame people and not just like, "I don't vibe with this choice and no one is specifically at fault" but that's also a whole other post.

This is of course not to say that there isn't also actual bigotry within the fandom; looking at that person who freaked out about Utkarsh wearing a sweatshirt and not having an encyclopedic knowledge of the divine soul sorcerer class, or the person who called Deni$e unpleasant and abusive in the main tag, rather than simply saying their characters were not for them. Nor does it mean that you can't have criticisms of Brennan, or any of the many white guys in Actual Play, because my point is that thoughtful criticism based on what's onscreen is what I live for, and no one is exempt. But I think most if not all people saying this about Brennan are mad about something else in the Ravening War.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #cr tag

[andromedaexists]

The Death I Gave Him || Em X. Liu

★★★★★

TW: SELF HARM (ON PAGE, WARNED), SUICIDAL IDEATION, SUICIDE (PAST, MENTIONED), MAJOR + SIDE CHARACTER DEATH

I feel like I need to mention how this book was recommended to me

Now that we know this very relevant background: The Death I Gave Him is one of the most mind meltingly fucked up thing I've read in a while, and I've gotten into erotic horror as of late

It is a queer and sci-fi retelling of hamlet that managed to be even more fucked up than the original, something I didn't think possible. Did it hit the sci-fi mark? Yes absolutely as soon as Horatio was introduced that was a yes. Is it queer? 100% it is because idk how else to describe what happens with Hayden and Horatio. Is it Hamlet??? Absolutely it is Hamlet may not be present by name but good fucking lord is the story interwoven into the very fabric of this book.

This book is also very unique in it's presentation, which I fucking love omg. It starts with a prologue that's less of a prologue and more of an academic introduction into the rest of the book. You see, this book and the recounting of what happened that night in Elsinore Labs is a recreation by a student a hundred years later based on what remaining evidence they have of the events. This is really fucking cool!!! Please give me more books like this!!! Learning about the student and their motivations through footnotes in the book is so fucking awesome!! Seeing where they had evidence for what happened versus where they created a fictional account based on personality, probability, and remaining dialog…. Stunning. Truly.

I also quite loved the interspersing of mediums in this book. We have traditional fictionalized prose mixed in with excerpts from Felicia's article after the events mixed in with readings from Horatio's systems and message logs from Felicia's pager!

It's all just so brilliant.

I'm making the call here to add the spoiler warning because I want to get into the characters a bit, so just be warned [SPOILERS AHEAD]

So, as per Hamlet, the first thing to happen is the death of the King. This time, our King is Dr. Graham Lichfield. A renowned scientist and researcher working on the Sisyphus Formula.

His son is Hamlet, of course. He's known as Hayden in this book and we get to see his descent into madness mostly through other people's (or other AI's) eyes. He is a pathetic man with no spine, just the way Hamlet should be.

Hayden's Uncle is Charles, of course. He didn't work on research with Graham and Hayden, but he does run the labs more or less.

Then we have the security guard: Rasmussen. I think he's supposed to be a stand in for Rosencrantz & Gildenstern, but honestly I read Hamlet back in high school and though I watch it at least once a year (David Tennant is the best Hamlet, I will die on this hill), I don't really ever remember Rosencrantz & Gildenstern. So this is just an educated guess.

From here, we have the Xia's. Felicia Xia and her father, Paul Xia. They are security and they are our Ophelia and Polonius. The brother exists as well in Arthur Xia, however he is not physically in the building and does not show up until literally the last chapter.

That leaves one. Horatio. Also knows as the Elsinore Labs Operating System. He is the AI of the building that has slowly gained consciousness over Hayden's life. He is also intrinsically linked to Hayden after the man turns on his NeuralLink so we know a lot about what's going on in Hayden's head because that's where Horatio resides.

Of course another key player in Hamlet was his mother, and while she is present as a character, she is not physically in the building.

And why do I keep saying physically in the building? Well that's because after the death of Graham; Hayden, Charles, Rasmussen, Paul and Felicia Xia, and Horatio are locked into Elsinore Labs. That's right, this is a locked door thriller.

This book is everything to me, like I am genuinely just so…. god I can't even think of the words for it and I am writing this the day after I finished it!!!

I was on the edge of my seat the entire way through the book, especially when we get lines like these:

It was Hayden Lichfield who I remembered. Not because he was brilliant (though he was), but because he was afraid.

Hayden Lichfield was afraid of death, because he was afraid of failure, and he spent his whole life trying to reverse it.

Hayden was not like me, but he was afraid of the same things that I was, and his fear changed the world.

What we understand of Horatio is inextricably entangled in what we understand of Hayden.

I would haunt you very cautiously. Leave some vague messages alluding to my existential dread in your shower every morning. Nothing special.

The Sisyphus Formula wasn't enough. It was never enough.

Do you want to live because you want to live, or because you're afraid to die?

Then be afraid. I will take you afraid and alive over anything else.

He splits himself open, willing or not, digs fingers into himself, thinks maybe the edges of death are pressing in at the edges, maybe finally he will find repentance here at the end of all things.

Just because you've been a jackass doesn't mean you've messed everything up irrevocably. You'll have good days and shit days and eventually there'll just be days, you know?

I am feral for this book, I am foaming at the mouth. I need to be buried with this book when I die. This book is intrinsically a part of who I am not in the same way that The Teras Trials and Bloom are. It speaks to something in my very soul

Anyways! I think that's really all I can say on this book without writing a whole ass analysis of it (which I would gladly do if people wanted that), so I will leave it here!

#andi reads #book reviews #booklr #bookblr #lgbt books #queer books #queer book directory #the death i gave him #em x. liu #em dash liu

[scarletttries]

You Are In Love (Eddie Munson x Reader series)

Part Eight: You Let Go, Of Your Fears and Your Ghosts

Pairing: Eddie Munson (Stranger Things) x F! Reader

Tags: Bit of bullying mentioned, one mention of food, otherwise all fluff :)

Word Count: 2.7k

Author's Note: This is the eighth part of an Eddie Munson series inspired by Taylor Swift's "You Are In Love". Links for other parts on my Eddie Munson Masterlist :) As always please feel free to send me thoughts and headcanons for Eddie Munson 💕

And for once, you let go, Of your fears and your ghosts. One step, not much, But it said enough

"Natural Twenty!" Erica shouted excitedly, the rest of the table jumping to their feet in uproar. Eddie stared pensively over the laminated board separating him from the rest of his players, waiting for apprehensive silence to descend over the group again.

"Lady Applejack. How do you want to do this?" He smiled proudly, Erica's face lighting up as she described her character dealing the final blow to the big bad boss of Eddie's latest imaginative campaign.

"And with that, Lady Applejack has once again saved the party for immeasurable peril. Until next week brave heroes." Eddie said gradiously, rising to his feet and performing a dramatic bow as Mike remarked, returning Erica's victorious dice to her outstretched hand

"I feel like ever since you joined this group you always seem to get the final hit in."

"That's girl power Wheeler, get used to it." She replied confidently, turning to face a now laughing Eddie, the only person allowed to use his town-given label affectionately "Speaking of, Freak, when you are getting your girlfriend to join in? It'd be nice to have a little more representation of my fine gender."

He heard Gareth scoff beside him, still in disbelief at yours and Eddie's relationship despite all evidence to the contrary, convinced Eddie had just been playing an elaborate game with him since that first night at the Hideout.

"That's a nice thought Sinclair, but I don't think Dungeons and Dragons is really her thing." Eddie dismissed, feeling a bit embarrassed by the suggestion for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"Let me guess," Erica continued, one hand on her hip like Eddie was about to be dealt more damage than his precious game's monsters, "You've never even asked (y/n)?" Eddie faltered, defensive and unsure why he was suddenly the one being interrogated. "You know what Munson, i'll make you a bet."

"Erica, you've got to stop making bets on people's lives." Lucas sighed from across the room, only to get immediately shushed.

"I'll bet you ten american dollars that if you ask (y/n) if she wants to join the party, she'll say yes." Silence fell amongst the group, wondering if the quest cast Eddie's way would be a gauntlet he chose to accept.

"You're on Sinclair, let me know if you need something to break your piggy bank with ." He mocked, spitting out his answer before he could think about it enough to back out. But as Erica mimed shaking his hand across the table and the group started to pack up their things, a certain chill seemed to settle under his skin at the thought of broaching the topic with you.

---

"Eddie? Eddie. Eddie!" You repeated, starting to wave your hand an inch from his nose until finally he snapped out of his trance.

"Sorry, we're on question two right? I was just thinking about it." He quickly tried to recover, watching an unconvinced expression form across your face as you set the pen in your hand down amongst the books and papers scattered across your bedroom floor.

"We were on question two forty minutes ago. And you've been somewhere else all day." You leant forward across the floor, crawling closer to Eddie so you could kneel right in front of him, knees lightly meeting on his. "What are you actually thinking about Eddie?" You asked softly, trying to mask the concern in your voice as you placed your hands in his lap.

The truth was, from the moment Erica had mentioned you at D&D, Eddie had felt a mess. It should be a seemingly innocuous step in your relationship, your answer either way not bearing any weight on how you felt about Eddie. But Eddie knew it meant a lot more than that to him. There was a reason he hadn't wanted to bring up that important piece of his life with you; and the reason was fear.

Even though it was just a game, as soon as Eddie started running a dungeons and dragons club in second year of high school, people had turned it into so much more than that. It felt like every year his reputation grew yet again, the cruel names, the snide comments, the satanic rumours about him spreading until he felt like he couldn't even look Wayne in the eye for fear of what he'd heard about him, and even worse, what he believed. It felt like D&D was so intrinsically tied up in Eddie's bad reputation, in the things about him that made it impossible for him to fit in with everyone in Hawkins, that broaching the subject with you could only end in more ridicule, more scorn.

All day Eddie'd been haunted by the ghost of his life before you were in it. The constant taunting at school, the fear of what the rumour mill would churn out next, feeling like maybe he'd just never be enough for someone to want in the way he wanted them. And now, as you perched barely an inch away from him, empathy emanating from your eyes as you watched the gears turning his head, his sullen expression setting your own mind racing, Eddie felt like he was about to open a gate in Hawkins you'd finally choose to exit through, leaving him behind and alone again.

"It's nothing, I was just wondering," he readied himself, taking a deep breath to try and steady the imminent cracking in his voice, knowing if he let fear win out in this moment it's one he'd always regret. And he knew, deep under all that worry, that if there was anyone he could stop feeling scared around, it was you,

"Would you ever want to play D&D with me and Hellfire club?" He let the question hang in the air, watching a confused frown form across your brow and bracing himself for the haunting rejection that was about to come.

You could feel your face portray how lost you were by his request, unsure how something that made him so happy would make him so uncomfortable to talk about. Was he worried you'd ruin it for him and the group, because you didn't know all the rules? Did he feel like he just had to invite you as his girlfriend? As the second of silence passed you watched the depth behind his intensely dark eyes drift from discomfort to genuine sadness, finally understanding what this exchange meant to him. He wasn't worried you'd say yes, he was terrified you'd say no, and call him a freak like the others. He was scared to let you into a part of his life that so many mocked, worried even asking would change how you felt about him.

And so you let the widest smile you could muster break out across your cheeks, letting out a happy chuckle as you asked excitedly,

"Can I really? Are you sure that would be okay!" You practically bounced as you drew yourself up on your knees, watching Eddie's apprehensive expression, still waiting for you to deliver a punchline at his expense.

"Yeah, of course, if you want to." He stumbled through the confirmation, watching with suspicion as you shifted position again, a relieved smile starting to cross his worried face as you settled onto his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling your chest tightly against his.

"Thank you Eddie! I'd love to." You held your position until you felt Eddie's arm finally react and begin to envelop you, vice-like in their encompassing hold, but leaving you just enough room to pull back to bring your face back in his view. He scanned it eagerly, looking for any signs of deceit or sarcasm, judgement or disgust, but just found the warm joy he'd still not grown accustomed to having so close.

"Really?" He found himself breathing out without thought, unconvinced of your answer to his request, but even more astounded by your existence in his life, the seemingly missing piece from his years of anguish.

"Really!" You replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, lips finding his in your excitement and feeling the undeniable response of a smile. "Can you give up on homework and start teaching me the game?" You asked happily, wondering quite what you had just signed yourself up for, but looking forward to seeing Eddie in his element nonetheless. Eddie stared back at you for a moment, heart bursting at the prospect of getting to talk you through something that meant so much to him, like another little piece of his being was revealed and you were accepting it with the same unending affection you had the rest of him. He let one hand loosen its hold on your waist, the other coiling round tightly to fill the void, while he brought his palm to the side of your face, bringing it back towards him again.

"Not yet." He said happily, excitable kiss landing on your lips as he pulled you tightly against him, intending to keep you firmly in his lap for the rest of the afternoon if he could help it. He could let go of his fear and his ghosts, as long as he didn't have to let go of you.

---

That week Eddie found himself setting up for Hellfire even earlier than usual, nervous for your first experience of the game, but excited that it meant he'd have you perched beside him all night. You agreed to just watch the session that afternoon, still trying to get your head around the basic mechanics of the game and wanting to see how it all worked in practice before jumping in yourself. The party were set to arrive at 5:30, and by 5pm Eddie had laid out all his props, carefully hiding key figurines behind his dungeon master's screen and watching you carefully rotate each one in your hands as you examined it closely from your chair beside his throne. It had taken a bit of convincing that you did in fact need your own chair for the evening, Eddie campaigning whole-heartedly for you to just spend the session observing from his lap, cocky smile creeping across his lips as he threw glances to the clock above the door periodically,

"If you insist on sitting over there for the game, you could at least do me the honour of joining me on my throne before everyone else gets here." He uncrossed his legs and patted the top of his thighs, feeling more in his element settled in his master's chair than he thought he would around you. Eddie wore confidence well, his eyes glowing darker as you obliged his request, lifting slowly from your seat to straddle his lap, fingers weaving through his hair as his hands found your hips,

"You can have me for ten minutes, then back to my chair, I don't want to scar any of your freshman," You flirted, Eddie nodded slightly in agreement before his lips landed on yours, wasting no time and knowing it wasn't a freshman he was hoping to scar. His chest pressed into yours as his thumbs rubbed warm circles in the soft skin of your thighs, taking your content hum as an opportunity to pass his tongue through your lips. Caught up in the intoxicating taste of Eddie you always missed the smile flashing against your lips as you heard the room's double doors creak open behind you.

"Eddie, why'd you...AH!" A confused voice called behind you, before falling into awkward silence as you climbed off Eddie lap, noticing his reluctance to loosen his grip on you.

"Gareth, you're early." Eddie feigned surprise, knowing full well he had given him the wrong time, basking in the baffled look on his face at your position by Eddie's side. "I don't think you two have properly met you, Gareth this is my girlfriend (y/n)." The word girlfriend was loaded with emphasis, the set up quickly becoming clear to you, even if the motive remained a mystery,

"Nice to meet you Gareth." You offered with a small wave, trying to remember anything beyond climbing on Eddie's lap. "I hope you don't mind, Eddie said I could sit in on Hellfire today so I can see how this all works for when I wanna play."

"Eddie said you could sit in? You want to play Dungeons and Dragons?" Scepticism still clear in his voice as Eddie draped his arm over you, less than subtlely planting a kiss to your template as you returned to your separate seats.

"Yeah one day! Why don't you tell me about your character?" You asked as Gareth began pulling sheets of paper out of a notebook, still unsure if this was an elaborate set up from Eddie, rather than admitting to a lie. As he began to tell you the details, you were sure out of the corner of your eye you could see Eddie stick out his tongue at Gareth from beside you, beaming with confidence in your company. Even if you didn't end up enjoying the game tonight, you could tell you were going to really enjoy the confident, funny, and somehow sexier than usual dungeon master Eddie.

Eddie watched the scene playout with glee, ecstatic that his friend was going to have to stop being surprised at every mention of your name now. However as sweet as the vindicating feeling was, he could only consider it his second favourite Hellfire interaction of the week.

---

Two Days Earlier:

It was no wonder Erica walked through the halls of her middle school like she owned the place, crowd of friends swarming her side, drawn to her confidence and unwavering loyalty to herself and those she deemed worthy of her friendship. That Tuesday was no different, pausing while one of her assorted besties exchanged books from their locker, Erica monologuing fluently about 'it being absolute bullshit if she doesn't get made captain of the debate team this year.'

"Erica, sorry to interrupt but I think that guy is looking at you?" One of her friends stopped her, pointing to the figure coming down the corridor and beginning a wave of giggles from the squad around her.

"What the freak?" Erica sighed out in disbelief as she recognised the figure of Eddie Munson towering over the kids in her middle school, walking confidently through the halls, clutching a cupcake in one hand as he scanned the shapes below him. As broadly as his reputation seemed to have spread around Hawkins, it didn't seem like any of the middle school girls knew Eddie as a freak, any older boy approaching Erica enough to send a few excitedly scurrying off to begin stirring up the rumour mill.

"Sinclair!" Eddie called out as he finally laid eyes on his target, ignoring the look of borderline outrage she gave him as he stomped over, oblivious to the stares of the kids around him.

"What are you doing here Munson? Even you can't be repeating this many years." Erica delivered the line suspiciously, the kind of comment that would have stung from anyone else, but from Erica only drew a wry laugh from Eddie.

"Not quite Lady Applejack, I come with an offering." He fumbled in his pocket for a second before pulling out a ten dollar note, extending it to the frowning middle schooler before her patience with him expired completely. "You won the bet, so this is for you. And this is for you as well." He continued, revealing the cupcake resting on his outstretched palm, "Just as a thank you." His performative tone dipped into sincerity as the sentence came to an end, Erica letting herself exchange a real smile with Eddie, happy for her friend and her just desserts.

"You're welcome. And you should never doubt me again." She said, nodding seriously as she took a bit of the well-earned treat. She tilted her head as she chewed, eyes widening at Eddie, "Was there something else?" Eddie laughed, genuinely a bit intimidated by the girl that barely reached hip height on him, and bowed as he stepped away.

"That's it, enjoy the spoils of your victory!" And with that he bounded back down the corridor, conscious to get through the exit before any of his old teachers saw him and realised he still had homework due.

"Who was that!" A chorus of girls whispered as they formed around Erica again, her surprise visitor sure to be the talk of all her afternoon classes.

"Just a senior who needed my advice with something." Erica remarked nonchalantly, taking another bite of her cupcake before setting back off to class. Owning middle school was easy.

You Are In Love taglist:

@lacrymosa-24 @aftermidnightwriting @fluttergirl1202 @tayhar811 @souls-rain @neewtmas @kimmi-kat @wintrrrsoldier @dylanmunson @sidthedollface2

@eddiemunson95 @mistiatmosphere @singularattitudeofasafetypin @omgsquee2001

#writing #fanfiction #requests #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #stranger things eddie munson #eddie munson stranger things #eddie stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie x y/n #eddie munson fluff #eddie my beloved #stranger things 4 #stranger things requests #stranger things headcanons #you are in love

[femmesandhoney]

so genshin related question, but do you have any tips on how to read and learn the characters compatibility and skills just by looking at their desc. I feel utterly lost whenever I try to make sense of games where I got to learn a characters skills and utilize that properly when matching them up or giving them artifacts etc…

idk what desc means (description?) but yeah really all you need to read is their second and third talents to get the gist of the character. sometimes some stuff is hidden in cons you may have, but often nothing game-changing. most times a characters talents will tell you basic stuff that you should look for first: what they scale off of and what their kit is primed for (healing, dmg, support, etc). if it's not clearly stated, they probably scale off atk

Usually, a DPS "build" is their stat-of-choice sands, elemental goblet, and crit circlet. An example of this: Hu Tao is a DPS who scales off HP. This will often be found in the second talent/skill slot. So Hu Tao has her ATK increased based off her HP (stat of choice). It also states her atks when you activate her skill deals pyro dmg and a charged atk applies "blood blossom" which is a fancy way to describe off-field dmg she can inflict on enemies. The thing is with genshin, DPS chars are often the easiest to understand their kits right off the bat. Even though it has flowery language, most DPS kits are quite straight forward in that their E or Q hits big dmg and that's all you really gotta build towards. Some DPS talents will explain "stacking" that some chars have, such as Heizou or Raiden, which is sometimes harder to parse out in all the word fluff, so if you feel you're not quite understanding what the talents mean, watch a guide video and *see* it in action. That often helps me if something is just confusing, which especially for supports it is...

Now the actual bread and butter confusion I think comes from Hoyo making shit way more flowerly than it needs to be, especially for support characters. I think reading Furina's talents for the first time gave me an aneurysm I won't lie

Within this absolute mess of an explanation, you should always find where stuff is highlighted in color, that will often help you find the "important" sentences in the sea of words. Furina deals hydro dmg based off her HP. When she's on your team and you use her skill, your team members lose HP in order to deal more DMG.

Fanfare stacks are just another fancy stacking mechanic that you as the player have to meet the "reqs" for in order to get bigger dmg, that's all stacks mean at the end of the day. You don't need to really try to understand every single thing here, but that you found her stat-of-choice, how to trigger her stacks (fanfare stacks when chars heal or lose HP), and what it does (increase the DMG dealt by party members). This all points to Furina being an HP scaling support or sub-DPS, as she isn't necessarily DPSing anything herself. All her dmg comes from her elemental skill, which does a lot of dmg, but a majority of her kit also comes from her dmg-boosting burst.

Overall, that's really how I "quick read" talents to understand their skill and burst quick. Otherwise, a great way to understand them is just to play them in the trial, take your time reading and seeing how the character work. Most times characters have either their E or their Q be their main source of dmg, so you can scan talents to figure out which that might be as you check them out. Ei is a burst DPS and her major damage stacks will come from her burst, whereas someone like Heizou gets all his stacks in his skill and his burst is a just some minor crowd control, for example. So not every character is minor skill damage and massive burst damage, and sometimes that can be helpful depending on the playstyles you prefer.

In terms of team comp, oof. I would say that knowledge comes from two places: check out meta theory crafters who in-depth can explain a char's best teams for X, Y, Z reasons or test them out in your own teams if you have the character waiting. Second, elemental reactions is a huge part of this game. If you dislike playing certain reactions, this will limit the roster of characters you need to worry about since a lot of characters in genshin aren't really universal supports, but geared to support a specific char/reaction. You may have heard of teams like National/Rational, which utilizes a core team of Bennett, Xingqiu, and Xiangling. These three are considered like universal good supports in the game no matter the reactions you're playing, for the most part, and they're always safe bets to pair with your DPS or on-fielder. Some characters like Gorou for Itto, Sara for Raiden, or Yun Jin for Yoimiya are niche and made for those 5 stars, so throwing them into random comps won't often benefit you much. Otherwise, a team really can work as long as you understand the elemental reactions you're trying to get from the team. For example, my favorite reactions are vape (pyro and hydro), overload (pyro and electro), and i guess taser (hydro and electro). So when I saw Gaming, I decided I wanted to try him in a vape comp, and grabbed units that would create those reactions I wanted to try (Mona, Xingqiu, flex slot). That's often a good way to start testing out team builds: slot characters into elemental reaction comps and go from there. By playing with them, you can feel if the rotation flows well or not or if you just dislike a playstyle. Many characters are flexible enough that as long as you're aiming for certain reactions as your starting point, you should be good testing. But if you're still not sure, again, check out theory and build guides! I watch so many even now because meta can always change and sometimes I want to change my builds or teams and get stuck too.

Artifacts really depends on the teams you wanna run a character in and there are many builds that can slot as more universal, most characters have best in slot artifact sets and for the last two ish years genshin really curates an artifact set to a newly released character, making it more obvious "what" you should farm. ofc, there's lots of good artifact sets that can work on characters you wouldn't expect depending on how people are using that character. I recently put some golden troupe pieces on my fischl to make her more geared for dendro teams, and it's been fun, but i wouldn't have necessarily thought to do that unless i checked out some updated fish builds online and learned she was a good support in dendro comps. but really, if you stick to *their* artifact set you're likely gonna be just fine.

But also Genshin is quite forgiving in many ways and you should always try to play teams that feel fun and comfortable to you. One of my favorite teams since Furina's release is Raiden, Furina, Jean, and Kazu. It's not super meta, it's not anything insane, but it works well because I understand Jean supports Furina's kit, Kazu is my crowd control, Furina does her sub-dps stuff, and Ei funnels energy into everyone else to make sure Furina can reach her max stacks, and since everyone has so much ER, it benefits Raiden whose own stacks come from making sure the rest of the party bursts often. I've played with many of those characters long enough to figure this team out for myself based on information I learned from the community (Jean being a great support for Furina) and my own learning from having played with Raiden and Kazu for longer. So again, a lot of the time teams can be slapped together and work just fine as long as you're goals are being met, whatever they are, from that team.

And it's always more fun to play teams with characters you enjoy playing even if it's not "meta". Also idk how long you've been playing genshin, but eventually a lot of this becomes very intuitive so don't stress too hard. there's a learning curve, and then suddenly you'll be reading talents and understanding new kits with ease and forming teams better bc you've had just had the characters longer and have used them longer. easy peasy.

#i hope this was somewhat helpful #if you want actually advice on more specific chars or comps lmk

[klaineownsmysoul]

So I've been following you for a while coz I always loved your posts on klaine.. you always had such a nice in depth way of describing their scenes.. and I'm also one of those people who are still bitter till this day at the way they were treated and the story we could have had but didn't. They are my first love. My second though is First Prince and I sincerely sincerely hope they don't do to those boys what they did to D.. goodness D was the top of his game and he was reduced to a piano player at a trashy bar. even today he shines in every thing he does matter how small the role because he is immensely talented but I felt he could achieved so much more if he had a team that back him up.. I really hope they don't do that to Nick or Taylor.. I've been reading some things and goodness I sincerely hope they don't push an unnecessary narrative but just let their talent speak for them

First off - thank you for your kind words on my Klaine posts. To say I feel strongly about them would be the mother of all understatements and I've always been better at putting my thoughts into words rather than speaking them. And their "story" in the last 3 seasons will forever be my biggest tv disappointment. No show I've ever watched let me down as consistently as glee did and the fact that it felt intentional at times? Good lord who does that? I don't know how to explain anything that happened to Kurt and Blaine in season 6 other than it was a deliberate knife in the back to them, their legacy, and the show's biggest most passionate fandom. It's why I don't trust and won't watch anything RIB touches, and believe me when I tell you that I am petty enough to see that through.

As to your second point - I don't see T/aylor or N/ick falling into the abyss the way D has in a lot of ways. I don't know what kind of career D wants to have but there should have been so many more doors open to him after ACS. I truly believe that if he had a competent team, they could have done so much more for him so that he didn't spend the aftermath of all those award wins as nothing but a shill for that god awful bar. I know the pandemic pretty much ground the entertainment industry to a halt for quite some time and he did do AB and now LSOH. He had his Xmas album but that absolute debacle with the first tour was a neon flashing light that could be seen from space level of incompetence and frankly, embarrassment. He's so talented and charming and intelligent and when the focus is on him - just him - it's a completely different feel. He needs a manager who has the ability and desire to get him more than just ads for gaudy jewelry and promo for a hotel that he can then turn around and use for a free vacation for him and his wife.

I think both T and N have better more professional teams behind them - ones that actually value them and their talent - and don't see them as just an easy paycheck and a way to promote themselves. I don't even know who their respective managers are and that's the way it should be. There's a lot of weird messy stuff on Twitter about their personal lives and a bizarre need by some parts of fandom to elevate one of them by denigrating the other, which is truly baffling to me. I don't get the same feel for them as I do with D in terms of pushing a narrative above all else and I really hope it stays that way because they both are too talented to end up in a sideshow the way D has.

#anonymous

[joshslater]

Dionysus

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I was very hesitant when he picked me up at the nightclub. I could feel the disappointment and outright hostility from all the women and a lot of the men as the God walked up to me, started to make out, and then asked if I was up for some fun. That's what you get away with when no one ever says "no" I thought. With his incredibly handsome face, black hair, and athletic build that was probably not a word he was used to hearing. It would be impossible for him to know I was into guys, and coming on so strong could land you in hot water or rather knocked cold on the floor. Turns out he could know, and there was more to him than just utter handsomeness and unparalleled confidence. Way more.

It was back at his place he asked me if I could look like someone else, who would I pick? That's a game I've played many times before, so I instantly knew to answer Marco Albieri, the soccer player. He raised an eyebrow, took a step from me, and asked me why. "I don't know what it is about soccer players, but something about the game makes their bodies stunningly handsome. And Marco is just a step above the rest." He smiled a bright smile, made a dramatic gesture, and I was Marco. Looked exactly like him at least. It took me a moment to even realize what had just happened, but I could see myself in the full-length mirror. Or I couldn't, I should say. I saw Marco Albieri in full Paris Saint-Germain F.C. game kit. Mesmerized I took a step closer to the mirror, and Marco on the other side of the glass stepped closer as well. I looked just like him, my wettest, wankiest dream. I'd come so many times to exactly this fantasy. There was even a sheen of post-game sweat making all the skin glistening in his hallway designer lights.

He approached me from behind, still handsome but now by a much narrower margin. "You ready to fuck?" I didn't even answer but just turned around and kissed him. He wasn't shy in grouping me back. What followed was the longest fuck fest I've ever been part of. We went from room to room. It was like this body had limitless stamina, though it was the body of Marco after all, but an insatiable horny lust as well. Perhaps he had that too. It wasn't until early morning I fell asleep next to him, exhausted.

It was almost noon when I woke up, disoriented by everything. It was like it wasn't until now the craziness and impossibility of last night hit me. I could see Marco Albieri in the mirror at the other side of the bedroom, without shirt, and the most unkempt hair I had ever seen him with. I knew for a fact the secret hairstyling trick was body fluids. I suddenly felt very uneasy and exposed. Vulnerable even. I was here on vacation. How could I leave if I didn't look like my passport? How could I leave this building looking like Marco? There would be fans stopping me instantly. What the fuck am I thinking about? I'm erased from the world. No one I know, no one in my family would recognize me. Could I convince them I'm me and not a millionaire soccer player? Perhaps. But my life would be so complicated.

That's when he lazily strolled into the bedroom, completely naked showing off his chiseled body, one mug in each hand.

"You did this! How the fuck did you do this? You can't leave me like this!" "Morning!"

He handed me one of the mugs. On reflex I took a large sip of coffee only to discover it was red wine. It took me by surprise and I almost sprayed his white sheets with red mist of wine, but instead got some down my lungs and started to cough.

"Is this really the best you can think of?" he said. At first I had no idea what he meant. Then, still coughing, I realized it was my body again. The one I used to fly here, check into the hotel, and go out to nightclubs with.

"I... It's awfully inconvenient if I tried to leave with a different body." "That's it? That's the only reason?"

I felt stupid and unsure what to say. I liked my body, so why was it so hard to defend it? He took a large sip from his coffee mug of wine and climbed into bed next to me, but standing on his knees looking down on me.

"When's your flight back?" "Eh, in... On Sunday." "Plenty of time to let loose. How about going to the beach like this?"

This time I noticed the shift. The bed sagged down a bit under the extra load and I didn't even have to look in the mirror to see the freakish muscles. Two huge chest muscles peeked into my field of vision, and moving my arm I could see it was thicker than what my legs used to be.

I felt light-headed as we walked down to the beach. Probably the wine. He was subtle and classy, black Nike sneakers, black boardshorts, and a white T-shirt. I was anything but subtle. Probably twice his mass, annoying flip flops that flipped and flopped every step, white compression shorts that looked blindingly bright against my deep tan, a purple thong that peeked up over the rim of the shorts by the hips, visible because the neon yellow tank top was cropped above the belly button to show off the abs. The stringer waved for every step as my obscene pecs push out the yellow fabric like a hanging flag. It touched my body in surprisingly few places. Top of the traps and the nipples more or less.

After spending a few hours getting everyone passing by on the beach to turn their heads to observe the freak show he asked me to play floatation device for him. We went out in the water and did our best to have sex just outside where the waves broke. I think anyone who paid close attention could tell what we did, but no one could be really sure. He didn't appear to care.

"I made you something," he whispered. "What?" "A surfer," he said and begun walking towards the beach. As I wiped my long hair out of my face I understood he changed me again. No more shaved head, no more enormous meat slab. I still had a six-pack, I was still 6'-something, and my skin was deeply tanned, but that's about where the similarities ended. "Why?" I asked as I lied down on the beach towel next to his. "First dive bar opens soon, and I thought this would play better to the crowd." I was feeling woozy. "We want to play to the crowd?" He reached over and squeezed the pec closest to him. "Well, make them jealous at least."

There was something nagging at the edge of my thoughts. Some question I felt I needed to ask. I just couldn't quite put it into coherent thought.

"Did you drug me?" He made a high-pitched "Mmmm" sound. "Just a bit. To fit with the rest. Just go with it."

I shut my eyes, relaxed, and let his hand stroke me. I don't know how long we lied like that. Not too long, because the sun hadn't moved that much, but I sure did dozed off.

"Come on!" he said, like it was asking me to hurry up for the third time. A bit confused I got up from the beach towel. I wore a pair of eye-popping turquoise board shorts with black pattern and trim. Neon turquoise, if such a color was a thing. I knew it had a real trade name, but somehow it kept slipping my mind. They had a good fit, not loose, not tight, but rode low on my lithe body. Fuzzy pubes peeked out over the waistband, like a little forest edge where the treasure trail from the belly button ended. I looked around for a shirt or something to put on, but there was nothing except for a pair of flip-flops. These didn't look as cheap and fit much better than the previous pair though.

"Is that it?" I asked incredulously. "What more do you need?" he said, and looked at me like he wanted me for dinner. "Come!"

The bar wasn't far away and already busy when we arrived. He almost danced in, basically dragging me in, holding my hand. I was woozy from whatever I was drugged with, but in a way that made everything look amazing to me. In any direction I looked I was delighted by what I saw, no matter how mundane. The bar was not even half full and everyone looked as relaxed as you would expect from a bar half a block from the beach, though no one else was bare-chested. The decor was a random mix of styles, as expected by a dive bar. Tables for two or four were lined up in front of the bar at the back of the room. From a backroom somewhere behind it pumped music. I looked at my watch to see if it was already dance time, but I was only wearing a red nylon cord as a bracelet.

"You must be thirsty after a day in the sun," he said and handed me an Aperol Spritz. I could have sworn he hadn't left me for the bar, but then I didn't really trust my senses. We took a table for four and sat next to each other, facing the rest of the room. "So, tell me about your day," he continued, as if he hadn't been there for all of it.

For whatever reason I found it hard to figure out where to start, like it was all jumbled together despite nothing of consequence had happened. I began to describe how I had woken up in bed and how he surprised me with breakfast. How I had mistaken the red wine for coffee. I could feel his hand moving down my abs and into my board shorts. As he pulled out my erect cock from the shorts my immediate thought was of surprise. I hadn't realized I was hard. I continued to talk about how we went to the beach, while he was jerking me off with one hand under the table. It then hit me that I had no idea what my dick looked like, if it was big or small. I had never seen it. He had transformed me somehow into this surfer. How could I have forgotten something so monumental.

At that point I shot my load under the table. Four or five large pumps. I was suddenly aware again that there were people around us, and looking around tried to figure out if any of them could see I had my dick out. At the same time I was still feeling high or whatever it was. "I'll get a refill," he said, stood up and headed for the bar. I decided to put my dick back into the shorts.

"Hey, dude. Is he like your boyfriend?" someone standing next to me asked. How long had he been there? He was handsome, not quite as tall as I was now, but more muscled. The tight billabong shirt didn't hide much. "Him? No. We just..." I was trying to think of a good word. I wasn't sure what he was, or what was happening at all really. "Wanna check out the dance floor?" "Yeah... Yeah, I would."

I followed him towards the bar, and away to the side into the dance room. It was far from packed, but we were not alone at least. Immediately I regretted following him there, even before he started moving to the music. Once he did I knew I would look silly. I started to mimic his moves best I could. He smiled a crooked smile, though not an unkind one, when he saw what I was doing. He leaned forward and barely audible over the music asked "Are you up for a second round?"

"What do you mean?" I asked back. "I saw what that other dude did to you. I live nearby, if you want to try something that isn't over in minutes."

In the door opening I see him standing with two large drinks in his hands. He looks emotionless, which in itself was a scary contrast to how he looked before. He then drinks one of the drinks in one go, then immediately empties the other one as well. No sooner has he turned away with two empty glasses when I feel a desperate need to take a piss. He's fucking with me.

"Don't go anywhere," I say and dash towards to men's room.

It's empty. I go to the lone urinal and yank my dick out of the white thong. I'm confused, but happy I got there in time to relieve myself. Why am I wearing only a white thong to a bar? As the piss is streaming for longer than I can ever recall I look down my bare smooth legs and find a pair of eye-catching red hightops. When I'm finally done I have a look at myself in the mirror. Cute, young Latino boy with a red baseball cap on his unkempt hair, and a grey shirt. The shirt in a way makes the thong stand out even more and look intentionally inappropriate. Perfect!

I return to the dance floor and find the guy waiting. "There you are. Let's go!" he says, almost demanding. He doesn't say anything on the way to his apartment two blocks away. I keep looking his way, and it feels like my dick is growing bigger every time I look at those muscled arms. His pace is brisk without being conspicuous, he clearly wants us to get to his place as quickly as possible without being seen. In through an unlocked entrance, up two flights of stairs, and in through his apartment door.

As soon as he whisked me in and closed the door behind us he grabs me, shoves me into the wall next to us, and forcefully kisses me on my mouth. "You fucking whore! I'm so fucking horny you better know what you're doing."

He snores loudly again. I had tried to ignore it to spend a few more hours in the bed, but it's getting pointless to try to sleep any more. I carefully get up and get dressed. No need for a shower, now that everything dried. I make a final check I got everything with me that I brought in. There is that nagging feeling that I'm missing something. Well, whatever it was it can't be important. Quietly I exit his apartment and make my way out of the building. I feel restless being so quiet and calm, like it is unnatural for me to be that way. I basically explode in emotions as I exit the building and literally dance down the last few steps.

I try to think what to do next. My mind is like a spinning punch bowl of thoughts and I'm only able to fish out simple verbs. Party! Drink! Dance! Fuck! The sun is barely up, but perhaps I can find some nightclub still open.

[maizumis]

LOVE IS NOT FOR EVERYONE - suna x fem!reader smau

part 10: are we about to kiss right now?

summary: after years of not talking to each other, your childhood best friend decided to reach out again, how will everything go?

note: suggestive ‼️ yes they make out again, and what

series masterlist - playlist - part 11

"you really made me go up only for you to put mascara on?" the two of you were now on his car, his right hand drawing circles on your thigh while your head was resting on the car window "yes, and what? be grateful now you know where do I live" he slightly chuckled and your remark before gripping with his hand was, turning up his eyes to the road again

the silence wasn't uncomfortable and you were grateful for that, your mind was going one hundred kilometers per hour full of thoughts that were especially about him, does he have a thing for you? friends with benefits? or the toy of the year? on top of all his moves weren't helping to ease your doubts

"you wanna know where I'm taking you?" he broke the silence, you only hummed at his question without turning your head, too focused on the little things the night could give you, even if the stars seemed less bright than before

"We are going to Osamu's shop to pick onigiri"

the mention of your high school friend made you turn around with a huge smile on your face " 'samu? as Miya Osamu? damn, rin! drive faster! we need to get there"

"hey, you seem happier to see Osamu than being with me, I'm the one holding your thigh for your information"

"And you were also the one to take another girl on a date, let me be happy to see him, rin!"

neither you nor he expected that answer; you took his hand out of your leg and turned your head around again, taking what the city could give you with a knot in your throat, thinking if your choice of words was the best, maybe you should apologize about it after

"We are here, let me open the door-"

"I can do things for myself, Rintaro"

you walked out of the car, hugging yourself because of the chilly night running to the big shop that you supposed it was since it had the big letters of "Onigiri Miya" Suna following behind you after locking his car, confused because he didn't understand what go you to act like this

" 'samu! I'm here!" he told a little above his usual tone of voice, resting on the shop counter supposing his friend was on the back

"Rin, what are ya doing here" Osamu came out of the kitchen, drying his hands with the napkin he always had on him "ya wanna eat?- oh? who do we have here"

" 'samu!" you throw your hands over the counter to embrace him on a bear hug, he gladly took you in his arms, his head pressing your neck, taking in your scent, beautiful scent as he thought

Rin grow annoyed at the interaction, you two came to pick up onigiri and nothing more "yo, okay we can stop right now with the hug time, what 'nigiri you have, samu?"

the younger twin let go of you, glancing from the side at his friend that interrupted the best moment of his day

"a have everything actually, whatda ya want"

you were quick to react and answer, jumping as you were a child "tuna! tuna and mayo! please!" rin smiled at you excitement then wrapped one of his arms around you, taking his wallet out to pay his friend "okay then, give me three tuna and three more of whatever you want, samu"

Osamu went to the back, the sight of his best friend arm around you doing something to his body that he could quite describe

"Thanks, rin" you grew soft to his actions, maybe you were overreacting, after all, it was just a random girl, you were his all-life best friend.

he took your face on his big, volleyball player hands, taking in every little detail your face had to offer the world, leaning so your noses and foreheads were touching, your hand came on top of his to caress it, closing your eyes to enjoy the moment.

The owner of the shop was standing right in the door that led to the kitchen, watching the cute, almost cliche scene in front of him, you seemed so relaxed against his embrace, if only you knew what he was saying about you earlier that day

"Sorry to interrupt the cute moment, but your food is ready"

"Thanks, samu, how much is it, bro"

"none, is on me, go enjoy your night"

"rin, this 'nigiri tastes amazing"

Suna had a specific parking lot in mind near the shop, it was usually empty so it would be a good place to grab dinner with you "yes, samu makes the best, as always"

"pfffff- you remember high school? I was begging for his bent boxes"

the irritation you were feeling an hour before was now gone, happily munching on the tasty food, your left hand interlaced with his right one

"how could I forget?" he turned up his phone to play music because he thought 'something was missing, the lyrics of No Friends could be heard inside the car

"how was your date rin? tell me about the girl"

"It was shit, to be honest, she didn't let me land a finger on her"

you stopped eating when you heard those words, kinda happy that his date went wrong but also mad at his choice of words

"you shouldn't talk about her like that, rin, just let go and don't think about it" sarcastic how you should be taking your own advice

"I'm not thinking of her when I have you by my side"

"you want me to congratulate you or something? you better not be thinking of others while I'm here"

he bent down to make his seat go as behind as it could, you were confused to say at least, until he patted his lap, knowing exactly what he wanted; now your legs were straddling his hips, faces too close to one another

"Are we about to kiss right now..." you said in a sarcastic tone, expecting rin to laugh at it instead of placing his lips on yours "yes we will"

you needed to be careful with your moves, the space was so tiny, but the need to feel every single inch of his body was getting to you, your lips dancing together as if it was something natural, teeth clashing, everything was so messy so desperate, there was not more of that lipstick you applied before going out.

"you were acting all bratty out there and now your panting on top of me, how funny"

your hips were slightly moving with his, getting too drunk of the feeling of his body down yours- you didn't even felt when he placed both his hands on your ass to bring you close to him

tongues were fighting for dominance and the time around you would give up, you needed to show him a little bit of authority too "don't go too ahead of yourself, Rintaro- you're the one with a hard-on right now and you know what? why don't you take me home? is getting late"

you confidently got out of his lap, sitting on the passenger seat while placing the seatbelt across your chest, proud of your actions, you could see the tip osfsuna's ears red while he tried to catch his breath, starting the car again

"good luck next time, rin"

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#👥 — love is not for everyone #haikyuu #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu smau #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! #haikyuu!! fluff #haikyuu!! angst #haikyuu!! smau #haikyuu!! x you #haikyuu!! x reader #suna rintaro #suna rintarou #suna #suna fluff #suna angst #suna smau #suna x reader #suna x you

[typical-simplelove]

Comfort (M. Barzal)

Author's Note: This is based on this photo of Mathew's arms. I know this should probably be a smutty piece, but I don't feel comfortable with that or have the abilities to do that, so here's a fluffy piece instead!

Warnings: mentions of heart disease but only in passing.

Word Count: 1.7k

Comfort. What did that truly mean? By definition, comfort means a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint. When people are asked about where they feel the most comfortable in their lives, many say in the comfort of their own home, their childhood home, or in the comfort of a grandparent’s house. It’s funny; in order to describe where one’s comfort place is, one has to use the word “comfort” in the response.

So, where’s your comfort spot? Sure, you could say you found comfort in a cocoon of blankets and pillows on your bed on a rainy day with your best friend next to you. Or, you found comfort sitting in your childhood home reminiscing about your childhood. Or, sitting on a chair in your grandmother’s house. All these were spots where you found comfort. However, where you found comfort was not a place but someone. It was in the hold of a certain someone. Who was that someone? Mathew Barzal. Your best friend.

For as long as you could remember, you weren’t big on touch or anything of that sort. However, Mathew made you want to be in someone’s embrace. You wanted, no craved, to be held by Mathew. You weren’t sure what it was. Maybe it was the warmth that always seemed to radiate off his body. Or, maybe it was his warm personality that drew you into him. It might be the way that you always felt calm around him. Or, it might have been his arms. His strong, muscular arms would hold you tightly but not make you feel like you’re suffocating. Maybe, it was a mix of it all. When you’d sit on your bed surrounded by pillows and blankets, the warmth you had didn’t come from the blankets or the pillows or the heating system; no, the warmth came from Mathew. His arms holding you against his chest allowed for the warmth to transfer from his body to yours. You could spend hours with Mathew’s arms around you holding you close to his chest.

When you’d have a bad day, the one thing that’d be able to make you feel better and calm you down was Mathew. He knew. You’d call him, and the way you greeted him, Mathew would know that you needed him to hold you. He’d rush over to your apartment, let himself in, and just wrap his arms around you. It didn’t matter if you were standing over the sink washing dishes or standing over the stove cooking dinner, Mathew would gently wrap his arms around you. Mathew would know that his arms around you calmed you down and comforted you when you’d breathe out heavily. You’d lean your back against Mathew’s chest, and all your worries would slip away.

Through finding comfort in your best friend, one constant thought continuously loomed in your head that begged to be addressed: Mathew was holding you and comforting you as a friend; however, you wanted him to hold you and comfort you as more than a friend. You didn’t want Mathew’s comforting to end with just holding you. You wanted Mathew to kiss you on your forehead or on your temple or on your cheek in comfort. You wanted Mathew to hold your hand in public and squeeze it reassuringly. You wanted everything with Mathew. It seemed, though, that Mathew didn’t want to give you that same comfort. You thought that you were being obvious in how you felt, but it seemed that Matthew didn’t catch on to your hints.

It was a particularly rough day at work. Everything happened to go wrong. Your boss was putting more pressure on you, and your coworkers were very officious and aggravating today. You knew that when you got in your car, you needed Mathew. You needed Mathew to comfort you and make you calm. You called him, and he just knew. The fact that he just knew made your heart warm. There wasn’t any way he reciprocated how you felt, right?

You got to your apartment, and Mathew was already sitting outside your door. He looked cute and comfortable wearing sweats and a sweatshirt. Your heart began to beat out of your chest at first sight. He greets you, asks if he can hug you, and wraps you into a hug when you say yes and get closer to him. You breathe in his scent, and suddenly, all of your worries went away. You knew that as long as you were around Mathew, you’d be more than fine. Even if Mathew was in the same room as you, you knew that he’d be able to calm you down and fill you with comfort.

Mathew releases you when you tell him you have to go inside your apartment; however, he wraps an arm around your waist ensuring that he always has an arm on you. You tell him you want to get changed, so you walk into your bedroom and change while Mathew does whatever in the kitchen. When you walk out of your bedroom, Mathew’s sitting on your couch with his arms open for you with a blanket and a mug of tea sitting on the coffee table. You grab the mug and settle into Mathew’s side. He wraps the blanket around your legs and wraps his arms around you. He holds you tightly, and you absorb his warmth. You sit there sipping your tea as Mathew holds you and comforts you.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mathew asks thinking that you’re feeling a bit better. You shake your head. Suddenly, your bad day didn’t exist anymore. Just being in Mathew’s embrace and hold, your entire day drifted away. You set your empty mug on the coffee table and curl into Mathew’s chest. He turns on a sitcom rerun on TV, and you both watch along. You both watch the show ignoring the reality of your situation. Your head was resting on Mathew’s chest, and you could feel his heart beating quicker than an adult male of Mathew’s health and size. Not only that, your heart rate matched his closely.

At one point, Mathew leads you into your bedroom, and you both fell asleep there. Mathew held you as you slept and didn’t want to leave. Why would he want to leave when he had the best sleep of his life when he was in your bed, holding you, and right next to you? He never wanted to wake up because, in the morning, you would get out of the bed, and the comfort he sought from you would be gone.

Mathew knows that his embrace calms you down; he knows that when he holds you, you reach a feeling of tranquility that no one else is able to make you feel. You, however, don’t know the effect and comfort you bring him. When he holds and embraces you, not only is he comforting you, you’re comforting him. When the nerves and standards of being a hockey player begin to get to his head and get to him, Mathew can always count on holding you and feeling your warmth as comfort and solace. He’d do anything to have you by his side forever. When he holds you, do you notice his heart beating like crazy?

One night, you’re sitting in Mathew’s apartment after a particularly long week for the both of you. Work was hectic and driving you crazy, and the Isles came back from a road trip that didn’t go particularly well and in their favor. You were laying in Mathew’s bed beneath his blankets and nestles into Mathew’s arms. Your face was resting on Mathew’s chest as he strokes your arm softly. Whatever rerun was playing softly on the TV was long forgotten as you’re focusing on listening to Mathew’s heartbeat. It was faster than average; it’s not unnormal for it to sound beat this fast, but you were getting worried that Mathew might have a heart condition.

“Hey, Mathew?” you ask softly, and Mathew hums lowly, and you feel the vibration. “Why is your heart beating so fast? I’m kind of worried that it might be a sign of a heart or blood pressure problem.”

“It’s not a heart problem,” he mumbles. You’re not quite sure if you heard him properly, so you look up at him asking him to repeat himself. He repeats what he says but even less audible.

“Mathew, I couldn’t hear you.”

“It’s not a heart problem,” Mathew says.

“I’m not so sure, Mathew; I think you might need to go to the doctor.”

“No, I’m okay,” Mathew insists.

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

“It’s not a heart problem, Yn,” Mathew says and looks down at you. You meet his eyes, and you see a look of contemplation in his eyes. “It’s because of you.”

“Me?” you ask in confusion and crinkle your eyebrows. Why would you cause Mathew’s heart rate to be so fast? Did you scare him so much that he feared for his life?

“It’s not a bad thing, Yn, I promise,” Mathew is quick to say when he sees the confusion laced in your facial features. “Promise you won’t freak out on me?”

You sit up and face Mathew. In the process, you take yourself out of Mathew’s strong, comforting hold. “Maybe.”

Mathew takes a deep breath. “I guess that would work.”

You raise your eyebrows asking Mathew to continue silently.

“I’m in love with you, Yn. I don’t want to hold you and do this with you as just friends anymore. I want to come home to you and love you and kiss you and be with you in every way and more.”

“Oh,” you say softly. You break out into a wide smile. “I feel the same way, Mathew.”

“Really?” Mathew asks excitedly.

You nod.

“That’s amazing; I — can I kiss you?” Mathew asks nervously.

“Yeah,” you nod. You lean closer to him and gently place your lips on his. He cups your cheek and rubs his thumb on your cheek in a circular pattern. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. You found the comfort you always wanted with the one person you loved.

Taglist: @goalision @coffee-ontherocks @glassdanse @barzal-burakovsky @boqvistsbabe @heatherawoowoo @heaveniish @stars-canucks @tkapuckit @mellany1997 @nhlboyshavemyhart88 @heybarzy @2manytabsopen @habsfan @besthockeyfics @plds2000 @kaitieskidmore1 @iwantahockeyhimbo @barzysandmarnersbitch @ollywahlygator @leafs-forever @laurenairay @no-pucks-given @sixmapleleafs @thebestoffanfiction @davopuck @tysonsjosty (Join my taglist here!)

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[bisexualwannabewriter]

“Thanks for reminding me I have a heart” Chapter Two - Bucky Barnes x female reader

Aaaaand we are back, people. Sorry for the wait. I had a lot going on, and my wifi was acting crazy. I also got distracted writing other things; hopefully I’ll post these stories too pretty soon. Anyways, I hope you’ll enjoy the second chapter of my new series (inspired by a request from @lonewolf471) . First chapter is here.

The story will be told from your perspective, but also from Bucky’s ! Parts will be set in the past (in italics), and others in the present. I’ll try to make it as clear as possible for you !  

Summary : Meeting Bucky Barnes in that nightclub wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t luck, or fate. It was planned. And your plan went much further than what it was supposed to : the spy working with the Flag Smashers that you used to be, fell for him. Hard. You’re a different person now, but making Bucky believe you won’t be easy...

TW : manipulation, lies, betrayal, traumatic pasts, loss of loved ones, anxious thoughts, guilt, nostalgia, one pretty angry Bucky... Still very angsty.

I’ll post every chapter of this series here, and you can find everything I write right there :)

Bucky (Now)

She had made quite the impression on him. He always heard stories, about people meeting "the one". They always said something along the lines of "when you know, you know", simple as that. He didn't know what to make of it. And truth be told, he believed love was the kind of thing that happened to other people. He had been a misfit, an outcast, someone who watched "normal" people have a "normal" life; without ever participating for so long. A player stuck to the bench. There was a time when he may have believed in all of this, when he might have been one of those "normal" people. But he barely remembered it. And yet, when he first laid eyes on her, he may have felt what everyone else was describing. It was hard to put the right words on it, but it felt... comforting. Reassuring. Warm.

It didn't matter now.

"What difference does it make ? For all I know, that's another one of your lies. You knew. You knew how hard it was for me to trust anyone, to let anyone in. And I let you in. I trusted you. I thought... aaaah, it doesn't matter, what I thought. It was a fucking lie. All of it. So leave me the fuck alone y/n, okay ? Or is that another lie ? Is that even your real name ?" he continued, anger and frustration growing inside of him. She had gotten closer to Bucky now, and he could see tears forming in her eyes, like she was the one who had been betrayed. The nerves. "James, please. Listen to me. I'm so sorry. I never meant for things to go this far.."

Bucky’s guts were telling him she wasn’t completely lying. But he couldn’t afford to believe his guts. "Really ? You didn't think it was a good idea to stop, at some point ? You had the opportunity to tell me everything, and you chose to keep lying to me ! How could you sleep at night... how could you live with yourself, knowing what you were doing to me ?! " She looked up, trying to stop herself from crying, and let out a little laugh that sounded fake when she said : "I fucked up, okay ? I thought I could make this work ! I thought I could keep you safe, and... I don't know ! I wanted to protect you ! But my conscience... How can I make you understand ? " She was pacing around the room, agitated, looking for the right words, before continuing : "Bucky, we didn't even... It didn't take much, for me to forget about this whole mission, for your sake. I... I don't care. Not anymore. Not like that... I'm not like this usually, I stopped... You changed everything for me. You made me remember what it feels to be human again."

There it was. He knew that feeling. Could she read his mind ? She was a lethal weapon, trained specifically to be the end of him. She was his Achilles heel, his kryptonite, his softest spot. She didn't even have to do much for him to throw eveything he knew out of the window. She was pulling him in, attracting him like a magnet, acting like a snake charmer, but he had to push her back. He should have erased that phone number from his hand.

He never should have texted her, or agreed to their first date.

                                                         ///

You (Months ago)

The two of you met in a tiny restaurant, and had chosen a spot that could give you a lot of intimacy. Bucky seemed to be the kind of guy who'd need that. He'd feel more comfortable. You had to remind yourself this wasn't a real date, and yet the part of you he had awakened - the woman you used to be, and not the woman you had become with all the trauma and the pain - couldn't help but feel... a little happy, honestly. Eager to see his face again. This had to end soon. The sooner, the better. You started the conversation with : "I almost thought you wouldn't come. Karma and all, you know ? I stood a guy up, and now you stand me up. I'm glad you didn't though." In all fairness, you were genuinely surprised. He texted you pretty soon after you met, and you asked him on a date. You felt like he wanted to ask you first, but he never would have had the guts to actually act on it.  You thought you'd have to play it differently, and somehow you hoped it would be more complicated than that. You kind of dreaded the moment everything would go to shit. Not that it needed to. You could just get what you wanted, and disappear from his life like you never existed. If he was lucky, he wouldn't even have to cross your path again and realise what you had done. Being ghosted wouldn't hurt as much, in your mind.

This was way too early for you to have such an inner monologue. You had to keep it professional. What you were doing was important. All of it was for something bigger than yourself, bigger than Bucky Barnes. It didn't matter if you had a little crush on him. He was still a fucking mission. He could never be more. One world. One people. He answered : "I thought about it, but huuuh... I don't know. You must have left some sort of impression on me. I don't really go on dates." That last sentence brought a smile to your face. You asked : "When was your last one ?" A flash passed through his eyes, and he tried to hide his dismay by looking somewhere else in the room : "Not that long ago, actually. It didn't work out though." This story was obviously a bit more complicated than he let on, but you weren't going to pressure him to say anything he didn't want to say. You wouldn't get anything like that. "Oh ! Well, I could say I'm sorry, but I'm not. Good for me, I guess ? So, what are you really, James ? I can't shake away the feeling that I know you somehow."

Well, maybe a liiiittle bit of pressure. Was he going to admit to being The Winter Soldier ? It wasn't actually a secret, and he had a bit of a celebrity status, but you chose to play dumb. You knew he had a very tumultuous past, and bringing it up wasn't the best idea yet. But if you were honest with yourself, you weren't only going for the whole "I have no idea how famous you are, but I've actually seen your face in the fucking Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and I can't remember it" thing. You had never met this man before, and yes, you knew more than you let on about him,but when you met him, there was something very... yeah, familiar. Honestly. Like you were meeting someone from a past life, or something. Not that it mattered. One World. "You gave me that impression too, actually." he answered, making your heart beat a little faster than it was supposed to. One people.

You had to stay focused. "Did I ? ... You didn't answer my question." you quickly eluded. You saw him look for the right words :  "I'm a... I'm a war veteran. I still work with the... government on some missions, delicate ones, that I actually can't tell you about." So he wasn't going to tell you about being the Winter Soldier. Maybe not yet. Or maybe he never would. Again, not that it mattered. You didn't need him to say it. You didn't even really need to get to know him that well. But damn, you wanted to. You chose to remain playful, and said : "Well, I'll be damned. That wasn't bullshit then ?" He confirmed it wasn't, and you asked softly, not wanting to rush him, or wake anything uncomfortable in him. Because you cared, and it was a problem : "Did you hurt yourself out there, on the field ? Is that why you wear those gloves ?" He looked at them like he was discovering them for the first time, and half of a smile creeped on his face, before he told you : "Something like it. But enough about me. What about you ? What are you hiding ?"

That man was surprising with his quick comebacks. You liked that too about him. The list of things you liked was getting longer, and the more you tried to suppress your growing attraction for him, well... the more it was growing. You knew a lot about him, so you already had some preconceived ideas about him. You couldn't say it out loud back then, but you felt for him. He inspired a lot of compassion and sympathy in you. That, and seeing him in front of you, discovering what he was like in his everyday life, cimented... whatever the hell was happening inside of you. You took a moment before answering, with your best enigmatic look "What do you mean ?" He stared deeply into your eyes, with the same look that trapped your heart the first night you met him. "I don't know. There's something about you. Might be in your eyes. It's like your body, your face and your mouth say one thing, but then your eyes say something completely different. Like you're wearing a mask. And your american accent. It's almost perfect. Almost."

Fuck. He was the fucking Winter Soldier, of course he knew what he was dealing with. He wasn't a fucking amateur you could easily bluff. Somehow, the challenge brought a genuine smirk to your face, and it made you like him even more. It wasn't a secret he was very observant. He picked up things other people missed. You weren't the only one who was trained for this. The two of you were playing this game. Humor could diffuse the situation, so you tried :  "Jesus that's... that's a bit intense for a first date conversation, don't you think ?" The sad thing was, he actually crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, like you had touched a nerve, an insecurity in him. Your instinct wanted to reach out to him and reassure him. What the hell ? What were you thinking ? One world, one people. He wasn't looking at you anymore, when he said : " I'm sorry. I told you, I'm not good at that." You put your elbows on the table, crossing your arms, mimicking his pose, but you were going forward, engaging with him : "I'm messing with you James. That's interesting. Maybe we'll get to that, at some point. You weren't lying either about you liking to "observe things". Must be hard to lie to you." He seemed to relax a little, leaning a bit more towards you again, when he answered : "I have a good bullshit detector."

You uncrossed your arms, put your arms on the table, and leaned even more towards him, inviting him to one more little game, with a mischievous expression on your face "Is that so ?" Oooh, how he seemed to enjoy your reaction. He finally met you halfway on the table, observed you with intensity, smirked, and answered : "Are you taking that as a challenge ?" Could he stop ? Could he not be so... the list of compliments was getting longer and longer. One world...  "Maybe I am. Okay. Let's try that. I grew up with an italian mother and a french father. I actually lived in France for a long time, until I moved in America with my parents, when I was like 14, because of my mom's job." No point lying about certain things. Half-truths were often better than complete lies. But he immediatly caught the first thing that was missing from the pieces of information you were giving him : "You don't strike me as an only child." You smiled, genuinely impressed. But you were also on thin ice... This was exciting. Could he feel the sudden change of atmosphere between the two of you ? The subtle tension ? "Good one. Me, my parents, and my little brother." He smiled back at you, and let out a satisfied : "Better."

You continued your story, and kept on playing a little game of two truths and a lie for a while. Or two lies and a truth. Or no truth at all. He did have an excellent bullshit detector, but his not so subtle growing attraction for you clouded his sixth sense. Long story short, he knew you made a point in helping people around you. You genuinely believed in some sort of common good, and losing your little brother was the one tragic event that changed the course of the rest of your life. So maybe there wasn’t any lie at all in what you were saying, just omissions. At some point, you heard him say, in a voice that suggested he was more thinking out loud than really talking to you : "Makes life worth living, doesn't it ? To help. To make a real difference, like that. I wish I knew that feeling a bit better." You met his soulful eyes, and the pain, the shame you saw in them, stung your heart. You wanted to make it all go away : "Well... It may not be much of a consolation, but you definitely made a difference the night we met. My night went from pretty cringy to fairly okay, thanks to your mysterious charms." You could feel him studying your face again, searching for something you were afraid he might find, before giving you an adorable smile that made your heart skip a beat. You smiled back, before adding : "I'm joking, of course. I'm sure you've made a difference in a lot of people's lifes."

He stopped smiling at that, and vaguely looked at a point behind you. His eyes weren't focused on anything; they just had a haunted shadow in them. You knew a thousand different bloody memories had just overwhelmed him when he said, in a voice filled with regret : "Oh, I know I have. Just not in a good way..."Of course, you knew exactly what he was talking about. You wondered if he could sleep at night, or if he had terrible nightmares that prevented him for getting any sort of peace, once the sun went down. You caught yourself almost wishing you could reassure him at night and hold him. You brought him back to the present moment when you purposefully reached out for his right hand : "Hey, I'm sure that's not true. Besides, we don't have to talk about it if it brings back shitty memories. I want you to have a good time with me. You went through some difficult things, I can tell. But you know what ? So did I. And it's okay, I get it." You gave him a reassuring nod, which made him smile a little, and say "I am having a good time with you." 

You wanted to enjoy your time with him too, and some part of you did. If you let yourself feel it, you would have realised just how much you did.

But you also felt sorry for him, and incredibly guilty, especially after taping his phone.

Part Three is here

#Bucky Barnes #James Buchanan Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x reader #fatws bucky #bucky x you #the winter soldier #falcon and the winter soldier #Sebastian Stan #new series #undercover spy #flag smashers #lovers to enemies #enemies to lovers #request #requests are open #sam wilson #anthony mackie #angst #betrayal #lies #tension #first date with bucky barnes

[siriuslyshewrote]

Beautiful Boy - James Potter

A/N: aptly titled because yes, we all believe that James Potter is the most beautiful boy.

Requested? : yes 

Word Count : 1.3k

Summary : James Potter fluff. What else could we possibly want?

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was something that could never be described as dull. Every moment spent in it was a blur of heightened emotions, whether they be good and bad, and there was never a day that went by without chaos. In comparison, your summers were positively dull.

As much as you loved the castle, you loved the people even more, your housemates and classmates, in particularly the close circle of friends you had woven together over your seven years in Hogwarts. Lily , Mary and Marlene took precedent as your closest girl friends, the ones with which every night in the dormitories was a sleepover, toasting your feet agains the little log burner, listening to the latest muggle records, and laughing your heads off. Sirius and Remus and Peter were brilliant boys, and you loved them deeply, too. James always said you loved too deeply.

It was he that you loved the most, that messy haired bespectacled boy with the crooked , previously broken nose and lopsided grin. With his warm hands and suffocating hugs and intoxicating presence. James knew you more than anyone, and had been a constant in your life since the two of you were tiny children, growing up living on the same street. He above anyone knew each one of your deepest and darkest secrets, your most mortifying memories, and embarrassing crushes. All but one, of course.

The crackling embers of the fire, and the quiet, exhausted chatter of the group around you soothed you, as you finally gave up on your Transfiguration essay, and dropped both it and your quill onto one of the many rugs that littered the floor of the common room. Music, from someone or others record player, played Bowie in the background.

"Tired?"

James grinned from beside you, his head lolling on the back of the sofa. He, too, had given up on his essay, by this time. You had no idea how he wasn't asleep already - he got up at the crack of dawn every single morning to play Quidditch, and still had the exuberant energy of a golden retriever.

You nodded , barely suppressing a yawn as you stretched out on the sofa the both of you were sharing, laying your head into his lap, wearily watching the animated conversation between Marlene and Sirius about something or other. Knowing Sirius and Marlene, she was trying to point out the flaws in another one of his crazily thought out schemes. Remus, too, was watching the pair with a secret smile upon his face - his eyes straying more to Sirius than anyone else, over the top of his book.

Mary was already asleep, curled up in a velvet armchair like a cat, her limbs tucked underneath her as she snored gently.

Your eyelashes drooped, brushing against your cheek, as your eyes closed against your protest. N.E.W.T's, you had very quickly discovered during your first few week back at school for seventh year, were living up to their name this year. They truly were exhausting.

Fingers combed through your hair, with a gentle clumsiness that you would recognise even if your head was currently not in his lap.

"What're you doing?" You mumbled sleepily, too tired to open your eyes, poking at his knee with your finger.

"Stop fussing. I'm just braiding your hair." He whispered, continuing with his mission.

You hoped that he was too concerned with your hair to see the smile that tugged on your lips at his words. James often devised these projects, randomly wanting to learn to do things until he achieved his goal. You had become his subject over the past few weeks as he attempted to learn how to braid, and had, several times walked back into the dormitory to the girls cackles at your newest hairstyle. James had the energy and will to do anything he wanted ... though perhaps styling hair was not his vocation. Really, Lily had told you, you only needed to look at his own hair to see that.

You didn't mind his newest project, and as you let him braid your hair by the fireplace, you desperately tried to pretend that it wasn't because him being so close made your heart beat a fierce drum against your ribs.

After a few minutes of quiet between the two of you, there was a lull in the conversation that you noticed even with your eyes closed in half sleep.

"Merlin, Prongs, could you be any more obvious?" Sirius' voice came from near the fire, a grin in his tone.

James fingers continued their work in your hair as he talked back to his friend.

"What?"

"That you are completely enamoured with our deer Y/N?" Even without looking at him, you could tell that Sirius was very pleased with his very much overused pun.

James tensed. Your breathing quickened slightly, though you didn't open your eyes.

Secretly, you wanted to hear what he would say.

"Piss off, Pads." He mumbled.

"It is quite obvious." Lily added in.

"Just a bit." Remus bit back the grin in his voice at his friends obvious discomfort.

"For fucks sake, guys!" James hissed quietly, clearly under the impression that you were asleep. "We are not dating."

"If you grew some balls, you would be." Sirius spoke, with murmurs of agreement from the others, apart from Mary, who you could still hear snoring.

James was quiet, for a moment.

"You'll have to tell her at some point, before someone else does." Lily spoke wisely. "Her and Amos are getting rather close, don't you think?"

James let out a scoff that was both a little defensive and a little bit worried.

"Y/N would never date that Hufflepuff."

"So you do admit that you like her?" Lily said triumphantly.

"Love her, more like." Sirius chipped in.

James' fingers were weaving once again in your hair, though perhaps a little bit less gentle than before.

"Just leave it." His tone indicated that he no longer wanted to discuss it, and the rest of the Gryffindor's clearly picked upon the tense tone he had adopted, because the conversation shifted quickly after that.

Though you desperately wanted to mull over what had just been said, you felt the pull of sleep drag you into unconsciousness. ————— "Love."

A gentle voice awoke you, with a slight shake of your shoulders. Blearily, you blinked, opening your eyes to the Common Room, which was much lighter than it had been when you closed your eyes. The fire had died in the fireplace, leaving only a few embers behind.

"Mmm?" You replied, rubbing sleep out of your eyes. You realised that you were still lying in James' lap, and a small flush crept up your cheeks.

"I've got to go to Quidditch practice. We’ve got the match this morning.” He said quietly, giving you a sorry look.

"Have you slept down here all night?" You questioned, sitting up and stretching, feeling your bones pop and crack after your slightly uncomfortable sleeping position.

He shrugged, standing up with a stretch, his jumper pulling up and exposing a sliver of his tanned stomach. He ruffled his hair, trying to rid his bed head.

"You were asleep. I couldn't wake you, you'd probably kill me." A ghost of a grin flickered onto his face.

"Sorry." You yawned, holding out a hand for him to pull your off the sofa. He obliged.

"I've really gotta go." He said regretfully, brushing his lips against your forehead in a typical James gesture.

"Love you, Prongsie." You spoke sleepily, making to go up the stairs of your dorm to get a few hours more sleep.

"Yeah... Love you too." His speech sounded almost painful to him, but you were too tired to register it.

In fact, you were too tired to even remember the conversation you had heard the previous night until you reached the top of the stairs, and by that time, James was gone.

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