#i keep seeing the overlap of *what the fuck are you talking about

[aeide-thea]

the thing abt h*rry styles is like. i don't even personally like his music, and while i still haven't looked up the details of the latest nonsense it sure sounds like he said something dumb and unexaminedly homophobic and it's more than fair to critique that, but the way some people talk abt him sure is revealing wrt how agonizingly fucking narrowly they define queerness, and how viciously fucking snidely they want to police it!

#like—i'm not personally interested in making claims abt styles' sexuality in *any* direction #(pun not actually intended but.) #partially because i don't care #and partially bc quite frankly i think the level of entitlement wrt public figures' private lives is fucking. off the charts #we saw it with hashtag ownvoices and we see it with accusing real people of queerbaiting #actually ppl should be allowed to just. live their lives without yr desperately trying to shove them into one box or another #so you can decide whether you respect them or not #but like. when you make posts that are like. queerness is just abt who you fuck— #trans ppl see those posts. ppl who aren't getting laid see those posts. people who don't *want* to get laid see those posts. #i mean ultimately i guess if that's what queerness means then fuck queerness‚ i want radical acceptance #but also that definitely *isn't* what queerness means #anyway there's an extremely specific context here but also there's a whole pattern #of ppl being snide abt bisexuals and asexuals and 'transtrenders' and 'theyfabs' and ambiguously gnc ppl and it's just like. can you stop #the cishet normies in the bible belt hate *all* of us actually! #but like. also why is this conversation even *about* identity. #this whole idea that like. there are bigoted ppl and marginalized ppl and no overlap between the two is absolutely fucking wild to me #we all swim in a sea of toxic ideas and sometimes we regurgitate them and sometimes we even do it when they're poisonous to us personally! #someone saying something homophobic doesn't actually tell you whether they're straight #and if yr talking shit abt that‚ yr not talking abt the actual problem‚ which is the rhetoric in question and its implications #anyway. would truly *love* to get off this hill without dying but unfortunately. people keep charging up it

[angelltheninth]

Sex to destress with jjk men? You mentioned it a few times and it got my mind running.

Trust me it got my mind running too.

Pairing: Yuuji, Sukuna, Megumi, Gojo, Nanami, Geto, Toji x Fem!Reader

Tags: nsfw, smut, rough sex, hickies, sex to destress, mating press, creampie, getting home for work, post-mission adrenaline, frustration

A/N: They can destress me anytime, any day of the week. Except for Saturday's, I always get the most rest then.

YUUJI

Even when he's fucking to let go of the stressful energy he's stil trying to hold back a little. Yuuji never hurts you, even if you ask him to it would make him feel bad so instead what he likes most is marking you, in every place he can get his lips and cock on. One of the things he likes most is giving you a little hickyes on the thigh and then pulling his cock out abruptly, smearing cum over the marked spot while watching you pussy flutter and then go back in.

SUKUNA

He's not even stressed that many times, he uses it as an excuse to go really, really rough with you. Not that he needs one you're already used to taking one cock and then the second on a regular basis. There's a ferocity to him when he comes back from talking with the Sorcerers though, he's more pissed off that they're lecturing him then stressed, but the two can easily overlap and that's why he loves to know you'll gladly be face down on the bed, ready for him when he gets home.

MEGUMI

Tries to keep it a little bit quiet, he doesn't want his teammates and neighbors to hear how he makes you scream and moan. It's selfish, but he loves to be the only one knowing of the sounds you make, just like only you know of this side of him that pushes your front against the wall and can't wait for clothes to come off in order to sick his cock into you. When you needs to orgasm he tells you to stay quiet, keep that voice of your only for him.

GOJO

Is often in too much of a good mood to be stresses this much, him fucking you in the hallway is quite rare. He's shoving his head against your pussy, lapping at you like a madman, gripping your hips not letting you go anywhere until your juices are all over his face. Not yet, he isn't done, he can't be done until he sees his cum dripping from your pussy like a waterfall. He holds you up, this position letting his cock hit as deep as it can go in you.

NANAMI

Most people wouldn't think it because he's keeping his emotions in check but in reality he's stressed almost every day about something or someone. So almost every day he has to fuck his stress away otherwise he's getting more and more irritated every day and it makes him lose sleep. It's not odd to wake up to him coming home at night and spreading your legs to make room for his cock. He won't be able to calm down until he makes you come.

GETO

He's actually not that stressed often but you can be so that in turn stresses him out. It's pretty much always mutual when you fuck the stress out of each other. The only time when he lets you be on top for the most of the night is when he know he needs his cock bad. He doesn't mind it if his cum gets all over his abs while you're doing it, there's many ways to get cleaned up afterwards.

TOJI

If he's stressed you're not getting off his dick for hours. If you behave like a brat and try to run, shaky as your legs are, he admires that but you won't get away from him. He'll fold you in half over any and every surface in the house and fuck you until you're a puddle on the floor. And if you think he'll stop there you're dead wrong, if your pussy can't take anymore he'll straddle you and fuck your throat instead until you choke on his dick.

#jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #yuuji itadori x reader #sukuna x reader #fushiguro megumi x reader #gojo satoru x reader #nanami kento x reader #geto suguru x reader #fushiguro toji x reader #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujustu kaisen headcanons #jjk imagines #jjk headcanons #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #yuuji smut #sukuna smut #megumi smut #gojo smut #nanami smut #geto smut #toji smut #x female reader

[steddielations]

Upstaged | Part 2 | Part 1

It all makes sense.

When Eddie comes back from taking photos with the fans, he looks a little sheepish for the first time. Steve has about a million things to ask, mostly he just wants to laugh about the fucking odds, but he remembers the grace Eddie extended to him about the press ordeal.

Instead, he settles back with his lime soda and a simple question, “So, what kind of music are you into?”

A grateful smile breaks out across Eddie’s face, ecstatic to dive into that with Steve. Their lunch extends into dinner. Steve doesn’t have anywhere to be these days and Eddie practically jumps up and down when the meeting he was in the area for gets canceled. They stay there for a couple more hours, just talking. 

Their music taste overlaps at certain points, Eddie talks about how getting his first guitar from the pawn shop pretty much saved him, Steve recounts a little league story that makes Eddie laugh so hard he chokes on his soda.

It’s the most monumentally casual time Steve’s ever had with a new friend in public and he’s not ready for it to end. Even after exchanging numbers and promising to meet up again, they still linger together outside.

“So uh, I remember where I know you from now."

Eddie leans against the side of the building. It’s getting dark, they’re tucked away from any eyes so Steve freely scoots closer to Eddie, waiting for him to explain. He does after a moment, seeming nervous and fiddling with his rings.

“I hate to ask, but my Uncle is huge into baseball, especially you and your general all-around-awesome thing. There weren’t players like you to look up to when he was young, all that. I’ve seen you on his tv so many times, you’re basically part of the family— ah shit, that’s weird, sorry,” he cringes a little, scrunching his nose in a way that makes Steve’s chest clench with affection, “But he’s getting old and like I said earlier, he’s my rock, he raised me and I won’t forgive myself if I don’t at least ask you to come see him sometime.”

The way he rambles is pretty endearing, looking at Steve with a wide-eyed hopeful expression, as if there was even a chance Steve would say no.

He reaches out, gently takes Eddie’s hand to stop his restless fidgeting, “You want me to meet your folks already, hm?”

Eddie lets out an amused scoff, looking down at their hands and back at Steve like he can’t believe it. “You’re not as funny as you think you are, Steve.” 

Steve knits his brows, “Why’s that?”

“C’mon man. Y’know how hard it is to find someone who can handle this lifestyle, let alone all the shit that comes with me,” shaking his head a little, Eddie smiles but there’s something aching in it, “Then the nicest looking guy I’ve ever seen comes outta nowhere and saves my life, agrees to go to lunch, happens too know as well as me that life in the limelight ain’t always pretty and turns out to be one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

His fingers thread through Steve’s, holding tight like he’s not sure it’s real. “Even if I never see you again, I’m gonna write songs about you. I’d take you home and keep you right now if I could, but that’s not happening.”

There’s a part of Steve he’s kept shut down for years that comes pumping through his veins then, hot and alive. He realizes that he’s been trying so hard to keep his life as normal as possible that he’s been missing out on actually living it. Now he has this wonderful, crazy, wonderful man spontaneously in front of him and he’s not letting him slip away. 

Steve moves in, slowly crowding Eddie against the wall. Eddie’s eyes go a little wide with surprise then darken with desire. Steve watches his face shift through so many emotions, his mouth parting with a soft gasp, wanting this just as badly as Steve.

“Wanna bet?” Steve asks before he crashes into Eddie again. 

This time it’s a hot press of lips instead of a full-body collision, but it’s just as breathtaking.

Steve deepens the kiss, thrill prickling all across his skin when Eddie opens up for him right away. Steve licks passed the bright hint of lime on their tongues to get to Eddie. The heady taste of him makes Steve’s world spin, all the desperate noises between them going straight to his head.

“Want you so bad, Eddie, wanna keep you too,” he threads his fingers into all that hair, reveling in the shiver it elicits from Eddie, “God, just wanna have you.”

Eddie chases his lips, “You can, Steve, you can have me— please do.”  

Steve loves the sound of that, going in for a longer, more indulgent kiss before pulling back.

“You can’t take me home tonight,” he professes hotly against Eddie’s lips, “My place is closer, you’re coming with me.”

#and at some point eddie admits that he's jerked off to steve's magazine covers before #might keep this going we'll see #steddie #steddie fic #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #rockstar eddie munson #famous eddie munson #famous steve harrington #rueswriting

[blughxreader]

Soft yandere Miguel O’Hara

cw: noncon, breeding, kidnapping, m masturbation, biting, SPOILERS. Headcanons and drabble. 1.4k words.

Mean dom Miguel is so hot, but I find that soft yan Miguel has so much overlap with canon.

This man still does all the sick and deplorable things a villain does, but in a way that's strangely tender.

I mean, you simultaneously have to be a sweet man and a stone-cold motherfucker to step in the shoes of your dead counterpart and con his family into thinking everything is fine. Like, he (eventually) fucked a dead man's wife, adopted his child, and seamlessly integrated into his shoes.

While certainly calloused, it also reveals a profound desperation for love and a willingness to do anything for it.

Enter you: a Spider from a random dimension that got caught up in an anomaly's destruction. Maybe your world was destroyed or it's emotionally difficult for you to return, so you end up spending a lot of time at HQ.

Miguel doesn't notice you for a while. There's hundreds of Spiders milling about the base, so it's only until you befriend Peter B and his baby that you get acquainted.

You draw him in without trying, no matter the walls that Miguel puts up. He needs to focus—everyone's very existence is at stake, dammit,—but by month five, you're the only thing he can think about.

His advances start off slow, bogged down by his own exasperation at himself. You're ordered to give in-person de-briefs in Miguel's office and get invited to lunch with him and Peter B, giving you the impression of an upcoming promotion. Miguel is as poised as ever, not letting a single stray emotion color his expression, and talks to you in an aloof, polite manner.

However uninterested he might seem, his insides tighten and flutter at your growing friendship. Every time you smile or secretly share a bemused look, he sinks deeper and deeper in his desire to have you.

Proximity-wise, Miguel vacillates between sitting next to you, close enough for your elbows to brush, and standing 30 feet away on his podium for the next week.

His involuntary, physical reactions startle him, and it becomes another contention he internally wars about. The second he thinks it's harmless to brush against you, it divulges into grabbing—cupping—pinning—fucking—ruining.

God, he fucking loathes the powerless feeling you inflict on him, but he doesn't have the strength to put an end to your friendship. He furiously jerks off after every meeting, biting into his hand to punish himself as he comes to the thought of you swollen with his child.

He thinks of all the deplorable ways to make you pay for causing these feelings, but he ultimately knows the blame lies within him. You see him as a boss and friend, nothing more. You would never intentionally drag him down to this state, so he bottles up all these feelings for your protection.

It takes a particularly bad mission for his control to break.

Whatever reservations he had about locking you in his bedroom evaporate when he sees you covered in blood and rubble. Protecting you from himself was one thing, but the thousands of universes?

You didn't realize what happened until you woke up in an unfamiliar bedroom, weary from pain medication.

He takes your fear, anger, and tears in stride.

While he can't shake his bitchy personality, his annoyance always fizzles out to mumbles and sighs. For months, he takes your verbal abuse and outbursts with resigned acceptance. Miguel didn't always like what he had to do, but he would commit any atrocity if it meant keeping you at his side.

He moves some of his work at home to spend more time with you, just content to occupy the same room while you adjusted to your new situation.

Your shared apartment is quiet most days, save for sporadic outbursts of rage from you, and Miguel daydreams about having a few little kids running around to fill the void.

He stares at you most evenings, watching you curled up on the couch pointedly ignoring him. Miguel thinks you wouldn't be so belligerent if you needed him for something, if you craved his presence and help in some way.

Miguel's mind always drifts back to his favorite fantasies on nights like these: you nine months pregnant and too big for anything other than his shirts. His eyes drift down to your stomach, to the place where you could make his dreams come true.

Patience is something Miguel prides himself on, which is why he puts up with the loneliness for nearly a year after bringing you home. You were given ample time to warm up to him and he's been nothing but kind. Every broken plate and spoiled food, every scratch across his face, every insult—he let you have your way in hopes that you'll eventually recognize him as your lover.

But no. You complained and struggled every step of the way.

Miguel could never hurt you, but he realized that more permanent and assertive measures had to be taken to make you see that you need and love him as much as he does you.

---

When he finally takes you, there's hardly any space between your bodies. There are months of touch starvation to make up for and Miguel is compensating all at once.

His entire 6'9" stature pins you to his bed, locking you between arms as large as your thighs. Miguel is the only thing you see or feel, as his hands caress every dip and curve of your body and his cock grinds against your slit.

With your legs helplessly hiked up around his waist and one of his hands pinning your wrists above your head, he makes love to you with a slow burning intensity.

Your fear and disgust are palpable, but between his sweet voice in your ear and his fingers somehow knowing the rhythm and speed to play with your clit, you're more wet than you've ever been.

"Shh, shh, mi cornazón. I have you." Miguel kisses your jaw, his cock rocking in and out of your aching heat with an agonizingly slow pace. "Just breathe steadily and let me take care of you."

He's too big inside of you, and your grunts of pain make him linger in place to help you adjust. When his stride picks up and the wet sounds of sex fill the bedroom, disgust roils in your stomach. Yet fuck, fuck, fuck, your body temperature rises with each stroke.

Miguel kisses you deeply, using his free hand to hold your head in place. He says, "It's time. I've been so patient. Be brave for me and take our baby."

He swallows your horrified pleading with another scorching kiss.

Your pussy clenches around his dick and your breath catches in your throat. Miguel hugs you tighter, his nose pressed into your hair as he angles himself just right. When the first waves of your orgasm make your head dip back, the sharp edge of fangs scratch your neck.

You barely register his mantra of, "Te amo," when his jaw clamps down on your shoulder. Blood spurts from between his teeth, and you cry out in confused pain as your orgasm shakes your body.

Miguel moans into your flesh seconds later, pumping his cum deep inside you. His thrusting is uncoordinated and rough, too blinded by pleasure to notice how powerful his pounding is. The mattress springs whine beneath you two, and you can only cry from the overwhelming treatment.

He milks every last drop of cum into your cunt before he begins to slow. Both of you gasp for breath, your chests heaving against one another's as sweat cools on your hot skin.

He keeps you plugged up for a while longer to give the conception time. His bloodied lips drag across the wound on your shoulder, peppering you with kisses as he trails red along your neck.

A sob shutters in your chest as Miguel runs a palm along your stomach.

"You'll understand soon. I promise. This will be the best thing that's ever happened to us."

#yandere miguel o'hara #dark miguel o hara #yandere miguel x reader #miguel o'hara smut #yandere miguel o'hara x reader #yandere spiderverse #cw: noncon #cw: breeding #afab

[borathae]

“You and your friends celebrate girl’s night at the penthouse. This however, isn’t an excuse for Jungkook not to receive his welcome home kisses. You won’t complain, he’s your cutie after all.”

Pairing: CEO!Jungkook x f.Reader

Genre: married life!AU, Slice of Life Fluff, casual BDSM

Warnings: just girlies being best friends <3, they talk very freely about kink, she shows off her playroom, mentions of sex work & BDSM events, mommy kink, Kookie being her cute Bunnybaby <3

Wordcount: 2.5k

a/n: i reread the caravan chapter of aaol and in it, Koo mentions that she can bring her girl friends over for girl's night whenever she wants to. so i wrote something about that feat. Koo being a cutie. have fun besties 🤎

You had your girls over tonight. It has been ages since you last saw them and it couldn’t be any more exciting to have them stay at your place. You call it your Paradis Girls’ Sleepover. Hyejin brings the snacks, Byulyi the drinks, Yongsun is responsible for the face masks and Wheein brings candles. You offer them your guestrooms to sleep in, comfy pajamas to wear and fluffy socks to show off. 

The sleepover started at four. Hyejin and Wheein were the first to arrive. Like always. Yongsun was next and Byulyi came last. You all greeted each other with happy squeals and tight hugs, falling into excited conversation instantly. Your voices overlapped, everyone had something to tell and unsurprisingly, nobody was heard. You giggled about it and then agreed on taking turns telling your stories. 

Yongsun and her now-fiancé are currently trying for a baby and are moving apartments. She stopped working at Paradis four months ago. You knew of the last fact of course because you and the others were her emotional support cheerleader in the group chat during the process. She doesn’t miss the work and says that sex with her partner feels so much better all of a sudden. 

“That’s what I’m always saying. Sex hits so good when you’re only doing it with your love”, you say, snacking on some salted pretzels.

“Yeah I agree, it hits hard. You’re especially lucky though. Kook’s kinky as fuck”, Yongsun says as she sips on her makgeolli.

“Is Shiwon vanilla?” Wheein asks, “that’s news to me.”

“Oh hell no, not vanilla. Just not as kinky as Kook. You guys have a playroom. That’s so hot.”

“Oh, yes right!” you exclaim, clapping into your hands, “Yongsun, do you still wanna tell us more? Because I just remembered that we redid the toy shelves and you didn’t even see them yet.”

“Okay slay. Please show us”, Hyejin says, “unless you still want to talk, Yongsun. We don’t wanna cut your time short.”

“No, I can still talk during the house tour. I need to see the new shelves.” 

“Slay. Let’s do that”, Hyejin says and gets up from the couch.

You and the other girls follow. 

“Did you realise that you’ve started saying slay all the time?” Byulyi asks.

“Yes god so annoying”, Hyejin groans, “I’m watching this streamer and she keeps saying slay all the time. I can’t stop doing it because of her. Last night, I literally told one of my customers slay after we finished”, she whines, making your little group chuckle. 

“Did he say something?”

“Yeah, he asked me what it meant and I had to explain to him. He said that he didn’t get it and then left. Weirdo, it’s not like he wanted to lick cheese sauce outta my belly button before that.”

Wheein cracks up, you and the others laugh as well. You can clearly imagine how weird that customer was. You had so many of those during your time at Paradis.

You chat about the streamer on the way to the playroom. Hyejin tells you that she really likes her streams and that she always watches them in the evening during dinner and her night routine. She then proceeded to gush about this new rice water moisturiser she is trying, which in return made Byulyi think of how she got a new favourite brand of rice. Conversation shifted to Byulyi and her favourite brand of rice and how she thought of so many recipes already. Wheein asked for them and Byulyi gladly shared them. 

You keep the door to the playroom open, turning on the lights.

Your girls gasp and coo in unison, looking around the playroom with sparkling eyes.

“This won’t ever lose its spark”, Yongsun gushes, “it’s so hot. Seriously I’m getting all wet just being here.”

“Totally understand you”, Wheein agrees. 

“Wait till you see the upgraded toy drawers. That’ll make your clits throb”, you tell them, leading them to the drawers with a happy skip in your steps. 

The ladies follow you happily, looking left and right to really take in everything.

“Is that swing new?”Hyejin asks.

“Mhm? That?” you look at the black leather sex swing, “I think you girls haven’t seen it yet, but we’ve had it for like seven months.”

“Slay. Did you use it already?”

“What do you think?” you say and grin mischievously.

“Huge slay.”

Byulyi laughs because of Hyejin, patting her back sisterly. 

“It’s sturdy. Also it gives me a good grip on Kook. I can really go to town on him when he’s in there”, you say.

“I can imagine”, Yongsun says, “pegging in a swing just hits so much harder”

“Yeah definitely”, Wheein agrees.

You nod your head and turn to the drawers, “now look at those drawers.”

You and your girls gather in front of them as you open them and reveal your vibrator collection to them. 

“Woow so cool”, they gasp. 

“Right? Right? Check out the lighting in there. Helloo? We have drawer lights”, you gush, waving your hands around in the drawer.

“That’s genuinely so fucking cool. And the pillowing too. It makes the toys look so expensive”, Byulyi gushes, poking her finger into the velvety pillowing.

“And now check this out”, you say, pushing the drawer closed. It slides closed carefully, slowing down on the last few inches before closing silently, “they have a fucking automatic break in them. Remember the stupid ass drawers in Room 14?”

“They are still getting stuck each time you close them. Trust me, I’m still struggling”, Wheein says.

“I know right. God”, you groan and open the drawer again just to show off its closing mechanism to them, “look at how smooth that is.”

“This is so cool, seriously. Now stop closing the damn drawers I wanna see the collection”, Byulyi says, making you laugh.

“Okay, okay fine. A girl can’t do anything here”, you joke.

Byulyi chuckles deeply, looking into the drawer with a lopsided smirk on her lips.

And so you show them your new toys and give them a few details about how it is to play with them. You show them your pegging dildo collection and Wheein asks about Jungkook’s progress, which you proudly show them. They react in coos and honest praise and you felt so proud of your husband. There is no better feeling in the world than being able to show off with him.

And there are also no better people to do it to than your friends. You share everything about your sex lives. No topic, kink or fetish is taboo. Conversations about them are normal to you and them and part of the bond you share. You honestly think that if you suddenly stopped being so open with each other, the friendship would feel weird. Sex was what brought you five together, it is what you first bonded over as you had to talk shit about weird customers and even now, when two of your little group stopped working at the club, sex will still be a topic keeping you together. After all, there are many kink events where the five of you and your partners go to together. The shared love for kink and fetish is just part of your identities and a big reason why you loved to be friends.

It is obvious how normal kink conversations are in your friendship, when in the middle of you showing off the sturdiness of your flogging post, Byulyi begins talking about her rice again and you all exchange recipes. 

By the time the clock showed eight, Jungkook comes home from work. You and your girls were back in the living room again, but still haven’t started the movie you actually wanted to watch. Conversation was just too good to interrupt it with movies.

Jungkook is a welcome interruption however. You look at the elevator until its doors open and reveal Jungkook in his business attire.

“Hey there!”

“Yuhuu!”

“Welcome home, Kook!” 

“Helloo!”

Your girls greet your husband happily, giving him enthusiastic waves.

His eyes light up instantly.

“Hey there, girls”, he greets them, stepping out of the elevator, “hey, my love”. he tells you.

“Hey, Bunny. How was work?”

“Okay. I’ll just quickly take off my outside clothes and then I’ll be with you, okay?”

“Okay.”

Jungkook disappears in the dressing room for a moment. 

“He worked later today, didn’t he?”

“No, he went for dinner with a friend. I told him to take his time. I’m surprised he’s home already.”

Jungkook reappears again, making his way to you. He looks so handsome in his grey suit that you can’t stop making heart eyes at him.

“___ says that you went for dinner with a friend?” Wheein asks him.

“Yeah, Tae. We had pork ribs. It was so yummy and I ate way too much. My pants are uncomfy now”, he says, tugging on the hem of them to give his tummy a well-deserved break, “I had to drive home with my pants undone”, he says and makes you laugh.

“I understand you so well”, Wheein says, “it’s kinda nice too though. I like being so full with food ‘cause it means that the food was yummy.”

“Yeah definitely.”

“So why are you home already?” Hyejin asks. 

“Actually, funny story. Tae had to hurry home because his daughter suddenly got explosive diarrhea and his wife begged him to help her with it.”

“Eew really?”

“Yeah”, Jungkook laughs, “apparently it went all over the walls?”

“Eeew that’s so nasty eeww”, Hyejin says jokingly, “you sure you wanna get knocked up, unnie?” she teases Yongsun. 

“Haha, very funny.”

“You and Shiwon are trying for a baby?” Jungkook asks.

“Yup, at least we’re trying for one. I can’t say that I’m hating the process.” 

Jungkook laughs, “I can imagine.”

He finally reaches the couch, scanning his eyes over the snacks and drinks.

“Don’t look at the drinks”, Byulyi says, covering the glasses of makgeolli with her hands. 

Jungkook chuckles, “it’s fine. I don’t mind looking at alcohol. You girls enjoy”, he says and closes in on you.

He gets on your lap and hugs you, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. You hug him back instantly, smiling dreamily.

“Hey, Mommy”, he says. 

“Hey there, Bunny.”

“How was your day?” 

“Good. And yours?”

“Okay. I had too many meetings”, he huffs out air, “so annoying.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry Bunnybaby. But you did it, I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, Mommy”, he giggles happily, “I thought of you during the meetings.”

“You did?”

He nods his head and lifts it so he gazes into your eyes.

“I also have to fly to Shanghai for two nights. I gotta meet with a few business partners”, he says and pouts.

“When are you leaving?”

“Wednesday. I should be home by Friday night again”, he sacks his shoulders, “I’m sorry. I know this is really last-minute, but I only learned about it today.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know”, you assure him and squeeze his dainty waist, “gosh Bunny, I’ll miss you so much. Like damn.”

“I know. Me too, Mommy”, he whines and hugs you tightly, “we gotta call each night.”

“Of course we gotta”, you say, making him giggle and lift his head so he could look at you again.

He caresses the sides of your neck, scrunching his nose cutely.

“You’re so pretty, Mommy."

“Mhm, Bunny you’re so cute. Come closer and let Mommy have her kisses.”

Jungkook leans in gladly, kissing you deeply and with his hips squirming on your lap unapologetically. You and he only act this way in front of your girls. No one else in your lives, not even family, knows this side of you. There would simply be too many awkward follow up questions and quite frankly, it was more comfortable to keep this part of your relationship private. But not in front of your girls. They know you for who you truly are. Jungkook was shy about it at first, because he never experienced sharing his kinks with people before. But once he realised that he won’t find judgment with your friends – and he visited enough kink events with you and your friends to know they are just as kinky as you – he began opening up more and more. These days, he is not ashamed of acting like Mommy’s best Bunny in front of them and he is most definitely not ashamed to show how much he likes your kisses. Everyone should know that he is Mommy’s happy Bunny when he gets your kisses.

You break the kiss because you didn’t want it to deepen too much. Jungkook will get horny again and you can’t be with him for at least a few more hours. 

He smiles at you, licking his lips afterwards. You retort the smile, squeezing his hips.

“That was nice”, he says.

“Yeah, it was so nice.”

“I think I’ll go to my room then. I bet you girls have so much to talk about”, he says, looking at the others.

“It’s okay. We don’t mind the distraction”, Byulyi assures him.

“We saw the size you can take these days. That’s impressive”, Wheein adds.

Jungkook’s face is beet red in an instant. He gawks at you with big eyes.

“You showed them?”

“Of course I did. I gotta show off with my Bunny.”

Jungkook blushes even harder, hiding his face in his own hands as cute giggles leave him.

“Mommy, you’re so mean. Don’t show off with that”, he whines, making you and your girls chuckle fondly.

“Mhm no. I’ll keep showing off with my Bunny.”

“God”, he falls against you, hugging you tightly as he giggles, “this is so embarrassing. You’re so mean, Mommy.”

“Sorry Bunny. You know that I’m proud of you, yeah?” you say, patting his butt gently.

“Yeah, I guess. Hmpf so mean”, he says and straightens up. You give him a little smooch on his cheek and then it is already time for Jungkook to get up from your lap. 

He looks at the snacks.

“Mhm snackies. Don’t mind me stealing some”, he says and grabs a handful of salted pretzels. He snacks on them as he leaves the living room, chewing happily, “will you girls stay the night?”

“Yup, we wanna watch a movie later.”

“Uuh movie. Which one?”

“Hereditary.”

“Isn’t that the movie with the car scene?”

“Yeah.”

Jungkook cringes, “well good luck to you girls. ___ showed me the scene and I’m still traumatized”, he says, making your little group laugh.

“Thanks Kook.” 

“I’ll be in the gym if you need me. I gotta work off the calories I ate. Mhm those are good pretzels. Damn”, he says and officially disappears out of sight. 

You release a dreamy sigh.

“He’s so perfect, you guys. I’m so lucky”, you gush. 

“Wah she’s so in love”, Hyejin teases lovingly, making you chuckle.

“I am. It’s getting stronger each day”, you say proudly, sighing adoringly.

#jungkook romance #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook scenario #jungkook drabble #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #sub!jungkook #bts romance #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts scenario #bts drabble #bts x reader #bts x you #sub!bts #bangtan romance #bangtan fanfic #bangtan fanfiction #bangtan scenario #bangtan drabble #bangtan x reader #bangtan x you #sub!bangtan #fanfic: aaol

[leviathanspain]

hi 🖤 idk if this is a good request? lol but i’d really like to read the ways carmen prefers to be with reader than claire/noticing she’s THE one and not the other way round, maybe there was a little bit of an overlap??? not necessarily cheating but- and how sugar or richie or syd notice that they are endgame

i wanna be yours

carmy berzatto x reader

synopsis: enemies to lovers, carmy likes the attitude he’s developed when he’s around you, far more than being with his girlfriend

part 2

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

you knew he didn’t like you.

richie had hired you, after you had walked in with a pile of resumes, dropping off five copies of yours before walking off. he didn’t even get a word in, admiring your style of exiting instead.

he had called you not even an hour later and asked when you could start.

and here you were, a week into waitressing at the bear.

it was supposed to be this prestigious new restaurant opened by some hotshot chef. but you couldn’t be quite sure, chicago had just recently become your home. but quickly you learned the dynamics, except for him, who wouldn’t look you in the eye, let alone talk to him.

“y/n!” richie slammed a hand on the door, swinging it open, “third time calling, where is she?” he looked around in the kitchen, eyes searching for you.

richie looked at carm, who was just finishing a conversation with sydney, “yo cousin! have you seen your employee? her shift started twenty minutes ago!” his shouts drew eyes from the rest of the kitchen staff and carmy turned, sighing slightly as he walked up to richie.

“she’s your employee, cousin. you hired her, you deal with it.” his lip twitched up slightly and richie sighed, throwing his hands up, “it’s shot to hell, all of it!” he slammed another hand on the door and back to the front of house.

suddenly, you barreled through the kitchen’s back door, a bag on your shoulder, impossibly stuffed with belongings as you hurried to the locker room. carmy sighed with annoyance upon seeing you. he turned back around and tried to find something to busy himself with.

“hey boss,” you looked at carmy, who didn’t look up from his cutting, “sorry i’m late there was some-“ you had prepared an excuse! carmy didn’t say anything just shook his head, “don’t wanna hear it, go talk to richie.”

you felt your cheeks burn red with embarrassment as you bowed your head, shuffling past him and out of the kitchen.

“fucking finally! i was beginning to think you thought this shit was optional.” richie spat, throwing a towel at you, “start wiping down the tables for dinner.” you sighed, taking the towel off your chest, where it landed and stuck, and threw it onto a table.

for a moment, you watched as you wiped the table, before looking over at richie, who had his brows furrowed over the cash drawer.

“why does he hate me?” you had an arm on the counter, lips pouted slightly.

richie sighed, knowing exactly who you were asking about. “carmy’s just carmy.” you groaned loudly, “that’s all anyone ever says. it’s just an excuse for him to act like an asshole.”

richie shrugged, “that’s all i got. forget about it and just keep scrubbing, we don’t pay you for nothing, sweetie.”

you blew a breath out, doing just as he said.

“can you please tell carmy that i need friday off?” you hung onto richie’s arm, pulling him as he tried to run away from you earlier. you had been talking his ear off all day about your trip, and how you’ve been needing this.

richie pulled his arm back and held his hands up, “i’ll see what i can do. no promises though, friday night and it’s just me and you up here? we’ll see.” he tried to be realistic in a nice way, although he knew there was no way in hell you’d be able to get that day off.

“we’ll see isn’t good enough, rich. i really, really need this.” you had clasped your hands together to further express your desperation, and richie groaned, “ask him yourself then! im sick of having to be the bridge between you two.”

you blinked, “maybe if i knew why carmy hated me, then maybe i’d do something about it. but fine!” you walked over to the kitchen door, pushing it open. inside, you found the kitchen staff cleaning up. you refreshed your greeting with them before asking about carmy. sydney had directed you to the office, where only a dim light was the indicator that he was in there.

it took you a moment to build up the courage to knock, but the door swung open before your hand even reached it. carmy stood there, nostrils flared as if he had just taken a deep breathe, redness around his eyes, exhibiting his exhaustion.

there was genuine surprise on his face to see you, and you had to withhold a breath, “hey boss.” his blue eyes locked onto yours for a mere second before they floated away, resting somewhere on the wall behind you.

“what’s up?” his voice raised the question and you nodded, “right- i already talked to richie and he told me to ask you, and i don’t know if you’ll even say yes-“

“get to the point.” of course, you should’ve known by his fingers tapping against the door that he was getting impatient. he was important, and constantly busy, he didn’t have time for you or-

“i need friday off.” you breathed, feeling the release of your tension in your shoulders. you almost heaved just as he answered, unsure of what he would say.

“yeah, i guess that’s fine.” he shrugged slightly before clearing his throat. he closed his eyes slightly as your face lit up, “really? thank you, boss. i-“

“can i get past?” carmy interrupted your words and stared at the door, your body halfway covering it. “yeah- of course.” you scooted further into the office as carmy pulled on the doorknob. you felt the edge of the door tap your back, and you shuddered as it swung back and slammed as he left.

blowing out a breathe, you opened the door, eyes accidentally catching carmy’s, who was standing near the kitchen door. you looked away first, still reeling from the interaction in the office. as much grace as you’ve been giving him, it was getting exhausting having to hold yourself back.

“why is he so-“ you struggled for the words to describe your boss, especially to richie. you were frustrated, carmy’s constant dismissal of you, even when you were asking for something that would affect him and his workday, he didn’t care!

“y/n, it’s just cousin. he’s harmless, don’t worry about anything. you got the day off?” richie turned to look at you, your mouth still in a pout, but you nodded nonetheless, “yeah i did.”

“that’s good! just be happy you got it off, hmm?” he tried to be a mediator, tried to be nice and hear you out, but after hearing the two of you express your anguish over the other, day after day, he was getting sick of it. “why’d you ask for it off again? i thought you didn’t have a life.”

you scoffed, rolling your eyes as you stared at the ground for a moment, “that’s true. it’s my father’s- was, my father’s birthday.” you laughed slightly, pausing before speaking again, “he grew up here, going to the local theater with his father for his birthday every year. we’d make family trips every year to come back to chicago, watch movies with him in the same theater and share a slice of cake. after he passed, my sister and i were the only ones who did it for a while, but then she got married and suddenly, it was just me.” you shrugged, “and then i moved to chicago permanently, into the same house that my father lived in. and i got a job here.” you smiled weakly, “yeah.”

richie nodded, “yeah.” matching your tone of voice. he didn’t want to speak, letting himself sit with that. you were nice enough, a good kid, and he saw something in you, a little spark just wanting to be ignited fully. he didn’t know what it would take, but it seemed like you didn’t either.

carmy hadn’t realized that he had eavesdropped the entire conversation between you and richie until richie came into the kitchen, slamming the door against carmy, who had stood there, frozen, captivated by your story.

“cousin- get the hell out of the way!” richie barely glanced at carmy, too in a rush to even think to slow down.

carmy looked down at the door as he pushed the door open, out into the dining room. he looked up to see you wiping down the counters. you had a wet rag under your hand, and you were lost in thought as your hand moved in a circular, repetitive motion. you didn’t even notice him as he inched closer, unsure of what he was going to say when you noticed him.

“hey.” carmy realized he was speaking, and as you looked up, your attention. you couldn’t help but smile, this was the first time that you had seen him so still, and so in thought.

“hey.” you returned his greeting, letting the rag go, you turned your full attention to him. he laughed nervously and that made you smile even more. it was odd, how he changed so suddenly with you.

you raised an eyebrow, “is there something wrong?” he hadn’t said anything else, just staring in thought.

he shook his head, and returned himself to the kitchen.

“weird.” you exhaled, watching as the door swung shut behind him. how could carmy go from being the biggest asshole to you, to randomly greeting you then going silent.

you’d talk to richie about it later, but for now you had work to finish.

“claire.” carmy looked surprised to see his girlfriend. it was friday, and normally she stopped by on saturdays. “i thought you worked on fridays.” he pulled her into the office and claire shrugged, “i got off early, just to come see you.”

carmy nodded, “yeah. yeah.” claire raised an eyebrow at him, “i cant leave early tho. y/n asked for the day off and i didn’t realize how much she does so-“ he cut himself off watching as claire’s expression soured slightly.

carmy sighed, “i know- but i’m her boss, im going to have to talk to her eventually.” claire rolled her eyes, “god, i-“ she cut herself off and stood up, “that’s fine, carmen. i understand, really.” her tone sounded irritated as she opened the door. carmy found himself standing to rush after her, but stopped himself.

had he really made a judgement on you based on an experience claire had with you in grade school? so far, you hadn’t mentioned claire to be someone of the past, and carmy had wondered why.

carmy blinked, suddenly getting the urge to rush after claire. but as she walked right out the front door, carmy realized that he had been too late. normally, the guilt would set right in, but as he stared out into the dining room, he could imagine you standing at the counter, eyes shying away from his.

saturday had been a rough start for you. you had spent the whole night before, sobbing at the movie theater. your eyes had puffed up so much that you had to go home, barely able to see the movie through your tears. this time of year was rough for you, especially since your family hardly called. your father had been the glue to hold all your differences together, but it seemed not to have a lasting affect.

when you had arrived late to work, yet again, you had expected carmy to give you the silent treatment, or possibly even yell, but he hadn’t said anything.

except,

“i’m sorry about your dad.” he had looked down at the floor when he said it. you stared at him, shocked that he said anything to you besides the usual, and that he knew about your father.

“how long as it been?” more. he was talking more to you, “uhh-“ you couldn’t contain yourself, “two years. but it feels like-“

“yesterday. yeah i know.” he finished your sentence. “i lost my dad too. a while ago.” he shook his head, as if shaking the feeling that came along with it.

you nodded, holding a small smile that carmy had actually made conversation with you.

“thank you. and im sorry for your loss as well.” you brushed past him, still reeling.

months passed, changing things with time, including carmen.

not only had he become a better boss, but you could consider him a friend. transitioning to kitchen staff had made that happen, including moments that made you think of him as more.

there was no doubt of the chemistry you had with him. everyone noticed it, and sydney had half the mind to encourage it.

“you work so well together! he needs something and you’re there with it! it’s actually insane, like did you guys come from the same planet?” her voice got a little high as she rambled on and you laughed, “what planet would that be, syd?”

she shrugged, “something of greatness. i mean, he’s even said it himself-“

you held up a hand, ending her little ramble right then and there, “sydney. i am not anything like the world renowned chef that runs this place. im not even a sous! i was waiting tables just a month ago.” your hand pointed out to the dining room and sydney threw her hands up, “that’s exactly my point!”

you rolled your eyes, “please stop.” you couldn’t hear her anymore, not while carmy was just minutes from rounding the corner.

“want one?” carmy had noticed you were gone. the rush was starting to slow and you had decided to take a break, not knowing he would follow. there was a cigarette hanging in his mouth glumly, a lighter being tossed between his hands.

“i don’t really smoke.” you answered earnestly. carmy brought the lighter up to his mouth, taking a moment to light it. he inhaled, and you caught yourself staring at him as he exhaled.

“you don’t really?” he sat down, closer than he probably realized. you turned to look at him, eyes hooding as they focused on his cigarette. “mhm.” you answered, leaning a cheek on your hand.

you were reaching out before you realized, fingers wrapping around the cigarette, pulling it from his mouth and into yours.

carmy watched you with surprised eyes, as you took a long, deep drag. you exhaled it, hand outstretched to return it. he took it, smiling as he chuckled.

“i’m quitting.” you admitted. looking at carmy, waiting for him to react. he didn’t, and you laughed, “did you hear me, carmen?”

carmy took another drag, pulling out the cigarette to flick it against the concrete step, “no you’re not.”

“i am- i already talked to richie and syd-“ you found yourself trying to justify your decision until he raised his voice, “no you’re not! i said no!”

you flinched, not used to having him scream directly in your face. he didn’t need to, and so he never did.

until now.

your ears were still ringing. you had been staring at carmy’s side profile for five minutes, as he stared ahead in silence.

finally, “why not?” the pure shock had kept you quiet, but you had built up emotion, and your voice couldn’t help cracking.

carmy shrugged, “just don’t. just give me time, alright.”

your frustration grew with his vague answer. he was refusing your resignation, and now he was refusing to tell you why?

carmy panted quietly. he had been in the office for more than twenty minutes, watching as he phone buzzed with call after phone call from claire.

he couldn’t pick up, not when his head was full with thoughts of you. he knew it was wrong, he knew that claire should be the only girl on his mind, but she wasn’t and he felt horrible.

he stared at the phone, swallowing thickly as he picked up the phone, opening a desk drawer and tossing it in.

ever since he had found out that you had no idea who his girlfriend was, and that her entire reasoning to dislike you had been a lie, it had strained his relationship. but claire had been close to catching onto his disillusionment, and it seemed like she reached it.

he opened the office door, breathing in deeply as he saw you in the kitchen, eyes red rimmed but still diligently at work.

#carmy berzatto x reader #carmy angst #carmy berzatto angst #carmy berzatto fluff #carmy the bear #carmy x reader #carmy x you #carmy berzatto #carmy smut #carmy x y/n #carmy fluff #the bear angst #the bear #the bear smut #the bear fanfiction

[heartfullofleeches]

do you ever just feel like an old man browsing tumblr because youre so behind? liek everyone was fixtated on puppyboy reader and fast food reader and ALL the readers and i wasnt and now im fixtated on fast food reader while everyones now fixtated on lacey and lucy T_T

If u want to could u do a scenario where fast food reader gets kidnapped? Make it as short as u want i just wanna read smth fromyou lol

Bound and unable to move - you lay motionless on the dirty floor of some unmarked van; counting the blood splatters on the ceiling to pass the time. 32, 33, 34 - wow, these guys are really serious. Being kidnapped by hardened criminals would've gotten you a win on the bingo card of all the fucked things happen to you on the job - if you hadn't already been kidnapped twice this week. It just had to be a Friday too. Your boss will use this little encounter to drag you back in for the weekend due to "concerns for your safety" or whatever other bullshit they make up to keep you on duty. Speaking of staff - why haven't they saved you yet?

"They're too loud. Shut them up."

You're about seventy percent sure these guys aren't telepathic... It's when one of the crooks tells you they aren't that you come to the conclusion that you've been talking out loud this whole time. A faint riiip sounds from the passenger seat as the one sitting in it stands, duct tape in hand. You plant your feet against the wall, pushing yourself upright as they approach.

"Before you do this - just know the only reason you all are still alive is probably because my coworkers are placing rock paper scissors to see who gets to keep your spines. You'll honestly be lucky if you die here."

The kidnappers eyes narrow behind their mask. As their foot draws back, static coming from the radio stops them from bring it down on your chest. They turn as the driver findles with the radio as the static crackles and pops from its speakers, bashing his fist against the dashboard.

"Why won't this fucking thing turn off!"

A familiar voice overlaps with the static.

"Over come with guilt for their wrongdoings, the driver takes the gun from the glove compartment and places it against his temple - pulling the trigger. The employee closes their eyes, and keeps them closed until they are free"

Your eyes clamp shut right as the driver reaches for the glove compartment. They catch a glimpse of the man placing the gun against the side of his head - a loud bang causing you to squeeze them tighter. Chaos erupts soon after - as if there wasn't enough already. Before the surviving crooks had time to process what just happened, the entire van quakes with the reverberating boom of something large hitting it from outside. The back door is torn from its hinges, cold air seeping through like blood from a fresh wound. You hear the kidnappers raise their guns and voices in defense, weapons tumbling to the floor as as sharp metal scrapes along the walls of the van. A wet snout presses against your cheek - heavy tongue licking the sweat from your damp skin.

"I'm okay, Lambchop. The ropes are a little tight, but I'm unharmed otherwise. Please go easy on them."

The mascot snorts in response. At least you tired. Two pairs of hands pick you up off the floor of the van and drags you out as the first scream tears through the bitter night. You feel weightless as they carry you back inside and sit you down in a booth. One set of hands checks your face, hands and every exposed inch of skin for bruises or scratches. The others gentle cup your cheeks.

"Y/n, open your eyes."

"I physically can't until you untie me."

Your chest becomes lighter as the ropes fall off you. The first sight you see as you reopen your eyes is the janitor pocketing their pocket knife and the concern in the succubus' gaze as she removes her hands from your face. The Janitor is the first to speak.

"Are you okay?"

You rub at the rings around your wrist. "Probably would've had my chest caved in if the Storyteller didn't bail me out, but I'm okay now."

The janitor's hands tighten into fists. The succubus' eyes dark so deeply they turn near black, but she hides her anger behind a sweet smile.

"Well since you're okay we'd better it going. I'm sure the ball pit hands can help you relax better than you could."

"Where are you two heading?"

The janitor speaks up for her. "We're going back outside. I need to get my spines before Lambchop completely turns their bodies into paste."

#yandere oc #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere x you #yandere scenarios #yandere insert #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere blurb #Fast Food Reader #yandere teratophilia #yandere drabble

[cleolinda]

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw in a Theater: The Ring

I'll tell you up front that the story I'm going to tell you is about "The Ring (2002)," in the sense that it is about The Ring in the year 2002.

See, I don't know what The Scariest Movie Ever is. A quick google says that the consensus is The Exorcist (I haven't seen it, because I never felt like scheduling a day to freak myself the entire fuck out). But horror is specific, and not just to a person, but to a time and place, even. When I saw The Shining as a teenager in a well-lit living room with other people, I didn't even really flinch, but I bet it would play very differently to me now. I don’t think The Ring is at the top of anyone’s list, but twenty years ago, I had a personal interest in it—at the time, I was running a dinky little Geocities site devoted to movie news. Links curated and compiled from all the other, bigger sites I followed—basically, it was the linkspam format I have used on multiple platforms, including here on Sundays. And so, as someone who followed theatrical releases pretty closely for two or three years, I saw the trailer for The Ring, and I immediately knew it was going to be huge.

To locate you in time, this was just after three self-satirizing Scream movies and the Overcomplicated Serial Killer films of the '90s. The Ring was something completely different: chill aqua-blue color grading a good 5-6 years before Twilight; a mournful Hans Zimmer score; no jokes, no quips; and a slow, inexorable sense of doom. Grief, even, given that the movie begins with the death of the main character's niece. What immediately struck me about the first trailer was 1) the melancholy of it, and 2) how much it doesn't explain. Onscreen, you get the title cards,

THERE IS A VIDEOTAPE IF YOU WATCH IT SEVEN DAYS LATER YOU DIE

Concise! Understandable! A woman (Naomi Watts) is freaking out upon discovering that her young son has just watched it! Admirable job setting up the premise and the stakes of this entire movie in thirty seconds flat, without even any dialogue. That's all you need to know, and thus, the remaining minute of the trailer can do whatever it wants, and what it wants to do is be fucking weird. Echoing voices, TV static, a closeup of a horse's eye, ladders, a girl with dark hair, people reacting to things we don't see, drippy doorknobs, rain. Characters don't give us the whole plot in convenient soundbites of dialogue (like they do in a later trailer); we just hear lines, overlapping, murmured out of context—

did you see it in your head? she talks to you... leading you somewhere... showing you the horses... you saw it. did you see it in your head? she shows me things. Everyone suffers.

That you saw it has lived in my head ever since, and not once have I charged it rent. But the "best" part is Naomi Watts screaming at the end, because you don't hear her voice; you only hear this heartless telephonic beeeeeeep. It's 2002 and I'm watching this trailer, thinking, I have no idea what the fuck I just saw. This is going to be huge.

And it was, to the tune of $249 million on a $48M budget.

At risk of recapping what you might already know, Ringu, aka Ring, is a media franchise that spiraled out from a trio of Koji Suzuki novels into Hideo Nakata's film Ringu (1998), a landmark of Japanese horror, plus several other movies, some TV series, many comics, and even a couple of video games. The overarching story is about a murdered girl/vengeful ghost named Sadako Yamamura whose rage and pain have created a cursed video tape, you watch it and you die unless you pass the tape around like a virus, seven daaaaays, etc.

The "ring" in question is the rim of a well. Keep that well in mind.

The movie I saw is the U.S. remake, which itself had two sequels. (The iconic Sadako is now named Samara Morgan. Keep her in mind, too.) Director Gore Verbinski moved from The Ring to Pirates of the the Caribbean (!), and so Hideo Nakata himself would direct The Ring Two. I... honestly have only seen the first one. And I was right, it was huge, and it kicked off the American J-Horror Remake genre, for better or worse. But what gets forgotten about The Ring is its marketing campaign, which I followed pretty closely for my doofy little news site.

It was inspired.

The story of The Ring is partly the story of the sea change in the media landscape—how we watch movies. And the story of its marketing is a picture of the very last years before social media changed the wilderness of the internet into something that feels so big, like a billion people could see anything we say, and yet so small—only a tame handful of places to say it, owned by three or four companies, and corraled by algorithms.

Back around 1997-1998 or so, I worked at a video store (Movie Gallery, where the hits were there then, guaranteed) for about a year and a half. By the time I left, we had started adding DVDs to the VHS tapes on the shelves, but we hadn't replaced the entire stock. Video stores might have transitioned fully to DVD by 2002, I'm not sure, but people still commonly had both VCRs and DVD players in their homes. And I remember that The Ring was sold in both formats when it eventually hit home video. Which is to say—you know the analog horror genre today? Marble Hornets, Local 58, The Mandela Catalogue?

Analog horror is commonly characterized by low-fidelity graphics, cryptic messages, and visual styles reminiscent of late 20th-century television and analog recordings. This is done to match the setting, as analog horror works are typically set between the 1960s and 1990s. The name "analog horror" comes from the genre's aesthetic incorporation of elements related to analog electronics, such as analog television and VHS, the latter being an analog method of recording video.

Okay, but this is just what home media was like, and 2002 was at the very tail end of that—boxy black VHS tapes that degraded with time and reuse were just how we lived. At the same time, I'd been using CDs for music since about 1991, and all our software installs came on CD-ROM discs; a "mixtape" by that time had shifted to mean a rewriteable CD rather than a cassette tape. In college, I—well, I'll plead the Fifth as to whether I downloaded mp3s via Napster, but I was also taping Mystery Science Theater 3000 on VHS over the weekends. It was Every Format Everywhere, All At Once, and we kept half a dozen kinds of players around for them. Here in 2023, we stream and download everything invisibly, unless we choose to engage in format nostalgia. (I've already run into the problem of Apple Music deleting songs I really liked, due to this or that licensing issue, because I was really only renting them.) The year The Ring hit theaters was the edge of a last shimmering gasp of physical media where iTunes had only come into being the year before, and iridescent discs were still mostly what we used, but cassettes, both video and audio, were still viable. And so, people did not think it was terribly weird when they started finding unlabeled VHS tapes on their windshields.

Movieweb, quoting TikTok user astro_nina:

"Their marketing strategy was essentially 'let's get this tape viewed by as many people as possible without these people being aware of what this is, sort of raising intrigue," she says. One way they achieved this was by airing the tape, which allegedly marks its viewers for death within seven days, as a commercial with no context. The video would air between late-night programming "with no words, no mention of a movie, for like a month...so people would run into it and it would just go on to the next thing, and people would be like, 'what the f--k is this?'"

I remember seeing the Cursed Video as an unexplained ad at least twice, by the way. That TikTok also indicates that DreamWorks straight-up sent copies of the tape to Hot Topic stores, as well as planting them under actual movie theater seats. While running my movie site, I heard at least one story of someone finding a tape on the sink counter of a restroom at a club. Did the marketing department actually plant tapes in bathrooms—or did a freaked-out recipient leave it there, hoping to dodge the "curse"?

(I haven't embedded the Cursed Video here, by the way—but I could have. If you'd like to see the American take on it, you can watch both the full version and the shorter variant that appeared in the movie itself. A text description of what the fuck you're even looking at is here [content note for both: blood, insects, animal death, body horror, and suicide by falling]. The original version from the Japanese film is shorter, and it's eerie rather than gruesome.)

BUT WAIT, THERE WAS MORE: DreamWorks had something of an alternate-reality campaign going with a handful of in-character websites. This was only a year after Warner Bros. ran the groundbreaking "The Beast" ARG for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: "Ultimately, fifty websites with a total of about one thousand pages were created for the [A.I.] game." (I lurked in the Cloudmakers Yahoo group.) Marketing for The Ring did not go anywhere that in depth, nor did it need to; it was both a smaller film and a smaller story. I saw at least two “personal” websites (seemingly amateur and a little tacky, like my own), but the one I particularly remember was about someone who owned/trained horses? I'm not sure if it was meant to be the actual Anna Morgan character—Samara's mother—or maybe someone who had noticed that the Morgans' horses were disturbed? I'm not even sure anyone even remembers this but me. Reddit users dug up a few other archived websites, but they're about Sadako, the curse and/or videotape; they aren't as subtle or character-oriented as the site I remember. (Honestly, I wonder if weird shit like "What Scares Me" or "SEVEN DAYS TO LIVE" were made by fans rather than a marketing department, but who knows.)

[The “About” page from Seven Days to Live on the Internet Archive.]

[The entirety of An Open Letter on the Internet Archive. “UPDATE” is a now-blank pop-up. I would bet $5 that it was originally a pop-up of the cursed video.]

I need to point out here that Facebook did not exist in 2002. It would not exist for another two years, and Twitter wouldn't exist until 2006. Even MySpace was not a thing until the next year. I didn't start my Livejournal until October of 2003. What we had, for the most part, were independent forums and blogs. We also had Creepy Internet Fiction like "The Dionaea House" and "Ted the Caver"; their use of the blog format, of people out there seemingly living their lives until something fucked up went down, gave the stories the shape of reality. And it helped that these blogs had comment sections, sure—sometimes more story unfolded there—but for the most part, an author could "abandon" a blog, and you'd just find the story there via word of mouth. Like the Ring blogs I remember, it wouldn't seem strange if no one replied to you, whereas today, you'd have to hire a writer to sit on Twitter, or Reddit, or even Tumblr, and interact with people in character. Could you do something like The Ring's mysterious, weird-ass blogs today? Would anyone even notice?

So: It's 2002, my head is full of Alternate Reality and eerie images and you saw it, and I'm hype as hell to go out and see The Ring. I'm perfectly happy to go see movies by myself, so I went in the early afternoon (best time to get a good seat). The movie ended up being a sleeper hit, and the first weekend, the public was still sleeping on it, so there were only 7-8 other people in that theater, grouped in maybe two clusters. I was off in my own little pool of darkness in the upper right quadrant. Functionally, once the lights went down, I was alone.

Despite some middling reviews at the time, The Ring is something of a horror classic nowadays. If you want a scary movie this Spooky Season, check out The Ring. Or don't, because it nearly killed me.

We're at the last, I don't know, third of the movie? And Our Heroine has tracked down the origin of the Cursed Videotape to some creepy mountain motel or whatever. SPOILER, it turns out that it was built over the Cursed Well (everything in this movie is cursed) that Our Villain was thrown into—that's why Sadako/Samara is a vengeful wet murder ghost crawling out of TVs now. While investigating this decrepit hotel room, intrepid journalist Rachel and her, who is it, her ex-husband? her kid's dad, idk, discover the well under the creaky old floorboards. And then, wouldn't you know it,

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE WELL

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE FUCKING WELL

THAT'S WHERE SAMARA'S BODY IS

[The rather slapstick moment when Rachel falls into the well. Does not include what actually happens next.]

I go absolutely rigid in my seat. Naomi Watts is splashing around this dark-ass death swamp of a well and I know, with as much certainty as I have ever known anything in my life, that Samara is about to pop up in all her pasty, waterlogged glory. All the sad creepy dread, all the desperation to figure out what the fuck all that shit on the tape was and stop Samara from killing Rachel's son, all the horrible contorted victim faces, all the alternate reality I’ve been soaking in, it has all come to this. I have to leave the theater. I cannot be having with this. I have to be gone from this place. My legs do not work. I cannot feel them. I am frozen. I want nothing more in this life or any other to get up and leave this cavernous pitch-black room, and I cannot. I start praying for death. I want you to understand that I am not trying to be flippant or humorous. This is genuinely what went through my head. I was too scared to even think, "You know, you could just pray to pass out or for motion to return to your limbs or something." No, I sat there in The Ring thinking, Please for the love of all mercy just let me cease being.

You know that scene in Mulholland Drive (also starring Naomi Watts)? Winkie's diner and the EXCRUCIATING tension? It was a little like that, except I wasn't watching it, I was experiencing it, and Samara was my dirt monster out behind the diner.

Except that the jump scare didn't actually happen. I mean, yes, Rachel finds Samara's body down there, but—I don't remember exactly, please don't make me go watch it again to tell you what actually happens. It's played more sympathetically on Rachel's part, as I recall, and she and her ex get Samara's body out so that she (Samara) can have a proper burial.

And then it turns out that this is not the end of the movie. It turns out that Rachel has Fucked Up.

I think I was relatively okay through the rest of it, although the climax is Samara emerging from a TV in her full glitching swampy glory to scare [SPOILER] to death. I don't recall praying for death twice. There's a point when you're so exhausted from fear chemicals that you're like, yeah, this might as well happen. Bring it, Soggy. I did have a hard time prying myself out of that seat afterwards, though, and my mom says that when I got home, I had the classic thousand-yard stare. How was the movie?

"It was great," I said, and I meant it.

I've seen things that were objectively scarier (I watched much of The Haunting of Hill House from behind a pillow, to be honest), and it's not like I've never experienced fear in real life. But I respect when a movie that can make me feel so intensely, and there's something weirdly precious about the way horror is a safe roller coaster, as it's often been said. So I love telling the story about The Time The Ring Nearly Killed Me—a movie that actually made my body stop working—and I love thinking of how embedded in a specific time and place that movie was for me. The last gasp of VHS when the Cursed Videotape still seemed plausible; the way the internet was still wild and weird and free; where I was in my life, keeping up so avidly with all the movie news, and finding myself in such a little pool of darkness early one afternoon. It's the scariest movie I saw in a theater; that's the alchemy of circumstance.

#the ring #ringu #horror #first look on patreon #movies #long post #spooky season #halloween everyday #long post is long #gifs

[bubbles-for-all-of-us]

Always have but never hold

Previous chapter / Next chapter

a/n Right... I just have so much love for all of you and the support I've been getting on this... mind blowing! I hope y'all will enjoy this!😭✨🤍

warnings: cursing, mental health struggles, puking and angst just the same sweet angst.

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Carmen knew something was off. The moment you stepped out of the office. You were there, but your mind was elsewhere. You looked almost dazed. Fighting some battles Carmen didn't know of. So even if the heat of the kitchen was burning all around him, Carmy stopped. Striding away from his spot as he crosses the distance between the two of you. You flinched only when his fingers were slowly creeping against your upper arm. "You okay? Are you good?", he asked through the clicks of the pots.

Yet what brought all of the oxygen out of Carmy was the way you looked up at him. It was a look he had never seen on your face. Never directly at him. There was no way he could even describe that look. Sadness? Yet it didn't seem deep enough. Anger? The flames were barely sparkling. Disappointment? It looked more like a never-ending orb of nothingness. You were looking at him, but you might as well be looking through him, behind him.

"Darling", Carmen breathed, and you swallowed quickly, nodding your head. "Well, well. Where do you need me?" The tone of your voice nearly chilled Carmen's blood. Once again, there were no emotions that twisted through it. And that scared him because he did not know what was going on. And he wished he knew, "Are you sure?", he asked softly, moving to touch your face, but you slipped past his fingers. Humming as you step deeper into the kitchen, Carmy bit down on the frustration that suddenly blossomed within him. Trying to keep it down. At bey. To put a leash on it so it wouldn't come out clacking its teeth at you.

He turns back to you, calling out your name once more. The moment your eyes are on him, Carmen rubs his fist over the left side of his chest. Do the same thing, he begs in his mind; do the same thing. Calm down my mind. Tell me this is something we'll talk about in the privacy of our home. You watched the gesture. Watched. Nodded your head a couple of times, but the nods didn't even look like a nod of agreement. Just a look at something. Someone who wasn't fully there.

Maybe it was stupid that you didn't just address it. You knew you should have. Isn't that what grownups do? Get to the root of the problem and solve it. They don't run away from it. But you couldn't. A twisted part of you wanted to wait for Carmy to say it himself. Bring whoever Claire was himself. You had watched him pick up his phone during family. Fork still in your hands. You had left the messages open. It would have been the first thing he saw when he opened it. You waited for him to get uncomfortable. Frown maybe. Stager at the sight of it, but he didn't. Instead, a light smile softened his features. A fucking smile. The only person you'd seen him smile at was you. No one had received a single smile here in New York from Carmy. And here your form of reality was being crushed right in front of your eyes as you watched him eagerly type the reply.

Now you're here. In your bed. With what you now struggle to pinpoint as your boyfriend sprawled beside you, hand over your stomach, light snores leaving his mouth. You knew you could have. The phone was right there. You could unlock it. See what Carmy had to say in reply, but you couldn't bring yourself to. From the very start, trust was something you valued. Both of you did, or at least you thought you did. You both were the victims of late nights and schedules that overlapped. You had tried putting up a spreadsheet of your work and class times so you could cross over the free slots. Did it work? No, but you two had laughed over it at four am while eating shit gas station ice cream cones Carmy had bought.

"Do you believe in happily ever afters?", your head was hanging off the side of the couch, and your legs were up against the back cushions. Carmy was twisting a bottle of beer in his hand. This conversation was so random. You two had just started exploring the beginnings of the feelings blossoming within your chests. Here is the tiniest living room in New York at odd hours because that's how life was back then. "No", he said almost immediately, making you turn your head towards him. "Why not?", Carmy chuckled nervously, "There's no such thing as never-ending happiness". You had struck up a big fight there about that with him. "But would you want that? An ending like that?", you were ready to agree to disagree. Tiredness was already making you delusional. Carmy halted his answer here and took the last sip from his bottle before saying, "I think people are selfish. They want to have things constantly, but they never hold onto them in the end".

You wished you had let those words sink into you back then. Let the weight of them press into you. Because you had brushed it off way too soon. But that was the first and only time you had gotten so close. Truly get to the core of Carmy. Fuck sex. It brought bodies together. Minds too, if the bodies were truly in sync. But you can have sex with someone without even knowing them fully. The bliss of it all covered up the voids of the unknown.

Always have, but never hold. The words spun and spun in your head. Who was this man lying beside you? Did you know him? How long has he been seeing someone else? Was he even doing that, or were you being paranoid? You looked down at his sleepy face, so calm and without a single frowning line. Your fingers mindlessly ran over the scars and little freckles on his face. All these little, tiny details that had imprinted themselves in your brain. That you remembered in the back of your head. That you would remember even if he changed his mind and started loving someone else.

Bile rose in your throat, and you tried to breathe through it. But the thoughts kept on coming, snapping at the sides of your mind. Over and over and over and over and over. Bringing waves of nausea. And then it overflowed. You reached for the blanket, ripping Carmy's hand off your body as you rushed towards the bathroom. The dinner came right up, or at least the total of two bites you had managed to swallow, even if Sydney was nudging your side playfully, trying to lighten the mood and get you to eat something more. Then the acid rose next. Making the gagging more unbearable. You felt hands pulling your hair away from your face, and you jumped at the sensation. You knew it was Carmy, and it only made the tears that much more painful.

"Breathe through it; try not to gag aimlessly", Carmy's voice was soft, tired but soft, as he ran his hand up and down your back. "Do you still feel like throwing up?", he asked after flushing the water. Your body felt clammy. Cold but on fire at the same time. Your forehead was pressed into the side of the toilet seat as you tried to breathe. Tried to get the nausea away, yet moved to gag once more. But your mind was singing the same tune over and over. I'm so glad I got to see you again. I miss your silly face already. Your body trembled; the cold bathroom tiles soothed the nausea, yet your bones were catering from within, it seemed. Carmen didn't rush you, and for that, we're thankful. One more jab and you might just break.

Carmen was worried. He got woken up by your sharp movements, and the moment the gagging filled the quiet space, he was up. He wondered if your offbeat mood the whole evening was just the beginning of what was happening now. Maybe you were feeling off. Maybe there was something wrong with the food he gave you. But fuck, what if he poisoned everyone who ate? What if people, the customers, will be piling outside the restaurant tomorrow morning with papers in their hands, wanting to file reports? What if they sue him? Carmy would lose the last thing that tied him to Mikey. He couldn't. No, but what if... Another gag pulled Carmy out and back to the present.

"Do you want some water?", he leaned in to take a better look at your face, which was covered in beads of cold sweat. You shook your head, but Carmy still filled one up, "Wash your mouth at least; it'll feel better". You pulled yourself away from the toilet, palms pressed to the cold ground. Carmy pressed a quick kiss to your shoulder, watching you. His gaze burned your skin and face, but you didn't have it in you to say anything about it. Your head lulled back, and Carmy quickly moved behind you, catching it on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around you.

"Do you think... should I get a doctor?", his tone sounded so much more panicked now as he ran his fingers over your skin. Things like this frightened him; you know about that. He was scared that any form of illness was going to take away the last and maybe only thing he truly cared about. But you shook your head.

You didn't have it in you. You could explain. Tell him it was panic and anxiety that had dragged you here, but you couldn't bring yourself to it. "No..", you whispered just as another sob slipped past your lips, and your hand instantly came to rest on Carmy's. "Just... hold me", you blurt out, breaking completely after that. All the nerves flowed freely down your cheeks alongside your tears. "Hold me, Carmy", and he did. And it's selfish. It's wrong, but you curl into him. Wrapping your whole body all around him. Clinging to him like a child. Letting his heat pour into you. Welcoming it. Trying to take handfuls of it in case he decides to take it away eventually. Rob you of the only happiness you had.

The days after that were a blur. You didn't leave the bed, and Carmy once again says nothing. He did slip back home early, sometimes even making midday stops. Bringing food that you rarely touched. Going as far as bringing home flowers, something he hadn't done since the first weeks of you two being together. You wondered if he ever noticed that you always kept and dried some of the petals from the bouquets that he gifted you. Now you just stared at the delicate, barely blooming things on the kitchen table while they stared at you. Until it got too heavy. Too real, and you dragged yourself back to the bedroom.

It had been close to a week when you found yourself walking the same old streets leading to the restaurant. The numbness had subsided. You managed a basic conversation with Carmen without bursting into tears. That was enough for the guilt of not doing enough in the restaurant and not helping Carmy grow. So after an hour-long shower, you quickly pulled your hair into a messy bun, threw some old baggy jeans on, pulled one of the older Carmy's hoodies on, and headed out.

"Get out of my way", Sydney's voice rang out even through the chaos of the kitchen assembly. A shiver ran through your body. What a hellhole this was if it had turned that girl into a shouting mess within days. "Fuck off, leave me alone", she barked, and you quickly stepped forward. Raising a warning finger at Tina, who was about to speak up. "Are you sure?", Marcus's gentle voice filled your ears. "I'm fucking sure! You ask Carmy if he was sure. You don't", the full force of Sydney's voice sent ripples through the place. What had happened here to make everyone so on edge? "So stick to your shit", she spat back at Marcus, who stood dead silent there.

You loved the guy. He was as sweet as a honey bun. Not a single bad bone in his body. So you gently rested your hand on his back, running it up and down in a comfortable manner. His eyes fell on you, and like a wave of relief, a wave of ease flowed through them. "Y/N", he muttered as you smiled at him softly, letting him wrap you up in a side hug for a moment. "Step out, chef", you murmured, patting his chest. "I'll take it from here", Marcus only nodded, giving Sydney one more apologetic look before slipping out of the freezer.

When the doors were barely open, you turned back to Sydney, who was standing there looking as on edge as you had felt all of this time. You reached your hands towards her. "Come here", you mumbled, inviting her into your embrace. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, shaking her head no. But you still stepped forward, wrapping your arms around her gently, and her frozen figure instantly let up. "Fuck, shit, I'm sorry", she muttered as a couple of tears fell from her eyes. "Yeah, not a big deal. Breathe for a minute, mhm?", you said softly, giving her time to feel it out. Give her enough breathing space. "This place sucks ass", she sighed, her head resting on your shoulder. "Tell me about it", you breathed out with a light chuckle.

"Fuck Carmy too, and I'm sorry, but fuck him", the amazement in her voice you had heard before when she talked of him was long gone. "He put so much shit on, wants me to do so much, but then.. then he takes off running", pulling away, Sydney runs her hands over her face in frustration. Then she stops, looking at you for a moment, and says, "I thought he was running to you, so I...", she must have seen the expression on your face because Sydney's voice died down, and she just nodded her head. You lowered your eyes to the floor. Ran off. Claire, no doubt. In a rush. Probably all excited. Probably even glad that you weren't around here much.

"You look like shit,", Sydney breathed out, "Sorry, but...", she shook her head, and you couldn't help but let out a laugh. "No, no, I saw myself in the mirror before I left. I know I look amazing", you air-quoted the last word, and Sydney snickered alongside you. You sat there for some time. Just letting the rare moment of silence surround you. "You don't let them kill your spark; you hear me", you said, turning to Sydney and gently tapping her thigh, "Throw shit back at them, but don't let them take away what you love most". Her eyes watched you, just like the first time you told her that you were proud of her. Just this time she leaned over, embracing you in another hug before muttering, "You don't know how much this means to me". But you knew. Because you knew how much it meant to you and how many times you hoped that someone would say those same words to you. But just like St. Frances's prayer went, Where there is darkness, let me be light.

"I'll be back as soon as possible", Carmy's voice rang through your apartment as he was getting ready to leave. He had opted for one of the later mornings. Drank coffee with you and ate at the same table. "I want to go to that market with you", he said while putting on the shirt. "We can", you muttered back, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over your chest. "Stop by to eat before we go", Carmy stepped closer to you, hands resting on your hips as he looked at you.

"We'll get through this", he muttered, leaning against you. "I love you; take care of yourself today", he said, cupping your face in his hands. Carmy pressed a kiss on your forehead. Your hands sneaked beneath his shirt, fingers dancing on his naked skin, which was always way warmer than yours. You hesitated for a moment. Not sure if your decision was the right one. "Can we talk tonight? I want to talk about this. What's going on", your voice was barely a whisper, but from the way Carmy's eyes glistened, you knew that he heard you just fine. He smiled softly at you, kissing your forehead once more before bringing you closer to his embrace. "We'll talk later," he said, "Talk about it all if you want". You followed him to the door, holding onto his hand until Carmy had stepped far enough away from you, his fingers slipping through yours. "Be more gentle with them today", you called after him. Carmy looked up from the staircase and said, "Heard, chef".

You had found joy in cleaning the space for the time. Going as far as unpacking all the kitchen stuff from the boxes. A light smile on your face as you slowly filled out the empty shelves and drawers, sorting everything out just like you knew that Carmy was going to love it. Maybe that's another part of what's been missing—this sense of stability and belonging. You never wanted to stay in New York for long; sure, Carmy was doing wonders there, but you had hoped that you two would move to a smaller, less crowded city after you were done with your studies. Finally, start something new for yourself. Life sure altered those plans, but you also helped it get worse. Those boxes could have easily been unlocked weeks ago. You just mentally told yourself not to.

You had just finished cutting up the empty boxes when the doorbell rang. Strange, you thought as you looked at the clock. It was way too early for Carmy to be home, and you weren't even supposed to meet here. Maybe he left his keys and wallet? Something for the restaurant? You dropped the box cutter to the side, getting up quickly and paddling towards the door. "What did you...", but your voice died down almost as soon as it started. You blinked a couple of times, "How can I help you?".

The girl shifted awkwardly, backing away so she could look at the number above the door before she took a second glance at you. "I'm looking for Carmen", she said, a smile spreading across her face. "I think this is the right apparent, but... He never said someone lived with him". You clenched the door handle in your hand so hard that your knuckles turned white. "Let me guess, Claire?". you said through gritted teeth. She smiled so brightly that, for a split second, the urge to punch her was burning bright within you.

"Same old, can I come in?", she pointed to the still somewhat ajar door, "I can just wait for him inside; I won't bother you". You clenched your jaw. You weren't even sure what you were thinking. If she knew where he lived. If he had told her that. Was he hoping you would get out of the apartment sooner to do your daily walk to the local gallery and he could just be here with her? "Of course, make yourself at home", you yanked the door open, moving to the side.

"So you two are roommates?", she asked so innocently, making you let out a chuckle as you watched her move around the place. "Yeah, it might be just that", you said bluntly, still unsure of what to do next. "And you two? How do you know him?", you asked after a while, your tone more than bitter. Her face softens as she sits down on the little, run-down sofa. "Childhood sweethearts, been Claire Bear ever since", she chimed, and you could swear you heard your heart breaking. A nickname. He had even given her a nickname. And she must have been his first, meaning that all you two had... Everything Carmy said was just between you and he was a lie. You blinked quickly a couple of times.

"How sweet...", you muttered, turning away from her, as the first tears rolled down your cheeks, but you quickly wiped them off. "You know...", you said, turning back to her. Letting yourself glance at how stunning she was. "Good you're here; I was just moving out and had to run", you blurt out. "I'll leave you here with the keys if you don't mind", plastering the fakest smile, you watched her nod before you darted towards your bedroom. Yanking the first box in front of you open, shoving random stuff into your bag. Kicking random stuff out of your way. You wanted to scream about how stupid you were. Was that why Richie hated you? He must know about her. All of them. All of his family. Maybe they even think they are together, and then who were you, some random bimbo showing up uninvited?

You thought about just walking out like that. You didn't own any of them anything. Especially not her, but you still halted, "Do tell Carm that I'm proud of him; he did a good job", and with that, you slipped out. Rushing down the stairs.

You barely saw where you were going through the tears that were now flowing freely down your cheeks. Was taking the car a bad idea? Yes, but you needed to get as far away from all of this. Another person honked at you, making you swirl the steering wheel in the opposite direction. You weren't thinking straight; you knew that. Equally, as much as you know that you shouldn't be driving now. You weren't even sure if you could stop where you did, but you were beyond caring. Quickly shuffling through your bag, you reached for your phone. You wiped your eyes messily as you tried to find the right caller id.

There was no one here. You didn't have a family here. There were no friends you could crash at. This wasn't your city. You should have never come here in the first place. "Bunny, bunny, bunny", the smooth voice quickly replaced the calling sound, and you clapped your hand over your mouth to stop the sob from slipping through your lips. "Long time no call. I was starting to think you had forgotten about me", it called out, you shook your head even if no one could see it. Your insides felt like they were going to explode. The line went silent. You tried to speak up, but you just couldn't get a single sound to escape your throat. "Bun?", it called out again, much more concerned this time. Just how you wished someone would have been considered for you ever since. That broke the last string within you, making you let out such a heartbreaking sob that you felt sorry for yourself at the moment. You just cried there until you could finally pull yourself together enough to mutter, "Luca".

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Taglist: @nishinoyahhh @thewulf @shewasthelimit @chatitajens @azxulaa @hidingfromtex @randomhoex @hopplessdreamer @lostinheavensworld

#carmen berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto #carmen berzatto x you #carmen berzatto imagine #carmy berzatto imagine #carmy berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto #carmy berzatto x you #the bear x you #the bear tv show #the bear x reader #the bear imagine

[justagalwhowrites]

Yearling - Ch. 30: Blood

Joel and Tommy run into trouble on patrol. A continuation of Yearling ch. 1-29 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Canon-typical violence. Plot points from TLOU2. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ Only 

Length: 7.5k

A/N: Hi y’all, I’m stashing this whole chapter below a jump because it’s been brought to my attention that the major event of this chapter is less common knowledge and more of a spoiler than I really realized it was. There is a major plot point for TLOU2 below. I’m sorry I didn’t tag the whole fic that way (going back to update that now) and I apologize if this spoiled things for people who were trying to go in blind. This is the first chapter with any big overlap and if you want to bow out now, I totally understand. My DMs are open if you want to know more without full spoilers and if there’s a way to keep reading without knowing the plot of TLOU2.

AO3 | Chapter One | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

“Dina kissed me.” 

“What!” You yelped and Ellie’s eyes went wide before she clamped a hand over your mouth. 

“Shhhh!” She looked around, her breath rising in front of her. But the only people out right now were inside the stable, a good 50 feet behind you and far enough away that you doubted any of them heard you, even if you were loud. “Jesus, Bambi…” 

She released your mouth and you tried not to giggle. 

“Sorry,” you whispered. “Good for you, kiddo! Told you not to count the girl out because she also fucks men…” 

“There’s no way she meant it,” Ellie rolled her eyes. “Get real.” 

“Why not?” You asked, brows raised. “Why shouldn’t she mean it?” 

“Because she’s Dina,” Ellie said, as though that explained everything. You just looked at her and she rolled her eyes again. “She was just trying to stir shit up because her and Jesse split up…” 

“Uh huh.” 

“And I was convenient,” she finished. “That’s it, that’s all it was…” 

“And you know this because you asked her, I’m sure.” 

“Fuck off,” she snapped. “Look, I didn’t drag you out here to figure that shit out…” 

“You sure about that?” 

“I dragged you out here,” she said, ignoring you, “to try and figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.” 

“Kiss her again,” you shrugged. “That’s what I’d do…” 

“I’m being serious!” She hissed at you. “I have to go on patrol with her in like half an hour, what the fuck am I supposed to do?” 

You sighed and smiled a little, putting your hands in the pockets of the coat Joel had given back to you that morning. He said he hadn’t been wearing it but it had to have been hanging close enough to things he did wear and it smelled a bit like him. 

“First, you need to calm down,” you said gently. She looked like she was going to snap at you but you silenced her with a look. “I know it’s hard but regardless of how you want this to turn out, try not to be in your own head about it, OK? She’s still your friend and I’m guessing you want her to stay your friend, right?” 

“Duh.” 

“So eloquent,” you said and she rolled her eyes. “Look, you have two options. You can pretend it never happened and see if she brings it up or you can be up front about it and ask her.” 

“Is there a way to bring it up without looking like a desperate fucking loser?” She asked, brows raised. 

You shrugged. 

“Tough line to walk but I think you’ve got it in you.” 

“Jesus…” 

“Ellie,” you took her shoulders and made her actually face you. “It will be OK. Might be awkward for a bit but it’s not the end of the world. I promise. You can talk to her. She’s your friend for a reason and it’s because you’re kind and you’re smart and you’re funny. Even without the help of Will Livingston. None of that shit changes just because you kissed. Alright?” 

“Yeah,” she said, dropping her head to your shoulder with a heavy sigh. You put your arms around her and gave her a little squeeze but when she pulled back from you, her eyes were narrowed. “You’re in a weirdly good mood.” 

You frowned. 

“No I’m not.” 

“Uh yeah, you are,” she said, stepping back and looking you up and down as though she she were inspecting you. You just raised your eyebrows at her, expectant, when her mouth dropped open for a moment before she shifting to a shit eating grin. 

“Ellie…” 

“You fucked Joel!” 

“We need to have another conversation about the fact that what happens between my legs is none of your business,” you muttered, turning her around to head back toward the stable. 

“No we don’t,” she said. “This is great, you two have been so depressing the last few months…” 

“We have not!” 

“Please,” she rolled her eyes. “You were basically dead for weeks and Joel barely left the house for who knows how long.” 

“That… was less recent,” you said. “And it’s not your job to worry about us so let’s just…” you stopped just short of the stable doors. “How did you know?” 

“Know what?” 

“About…” you lowered your voice. “Joel. Not that I’m admitting to anything.” 

She smirked. 

“That coat’s been hanging in his front closet since you left.” You looked down at yourself and groaned. Her cocky smile grew. “You wanted the coat again. Bingo.” 

“Well just… keep it to yourself, alright?” You said, heading for the door. “I have no idea how to handle this with Savvy yet so cool it for bit. Please.” 

“I can keep my mouth shut you know,” she said as you opened the door to the stable and she went in. She opened her mouth to keep talking but Dina came up to her, smiling, and she froze instead. 

“Hey Ellie,” she smiled a little bigger before looking at you. “Bambi, good to see you.” 

“You too,” you said, clapping Ellie on the shoulder. “Have fun out there.” 

She glared at you over Dina’s shoulder and you just shrugged and winked at her before taking care of the final things you needed to before getting everyone out the door on patrol. 

You seriously considered, for a moment, taking Joel’s hand and just dragging him back home when he told you that you’d be going out separately. Things with him were so raw and delicate and new again. Neglecting it for two days felt dangerous somehow, a tension setting into your limbs before you and Julie headed out. 

You were always last to leave the stables, always waiting until you knew the rest of the patrol was situated even though you knew Olivia could handle things just fine without you. She smiled - a vaguely amused look on her face - as you went back over everything for the third time. 

“I promise, it’s all good,” she said eventually. “Please go focus on killing infected and staying safe and leave managing the horses to me.” 

On the way out of town, you stopped by where the working dogs were kept and asked if you could bring Gatling along, Julie looking a little skeptical as the dog jumped on Renaissance and settled between your legs, her head draped over your bicep. 

“Used to ride like this with her all the time,” you said, kissing the top of the dog’s head. Gatling licked her lips once and curved her body into yours as you sat back in the saddle to make sure she had room. “I’ll let her down once we’re good and underway, she’ll keep up. She’s great at spotting infected and I’m guessing she could be a great patrol dog once we get her adjusted to working with more than just me…” 

“She definitely looks like she can hold her own,” Julie said, watching as Gatling started scanning the horizon, her ears perked and listening, ready to jump off your horse and run down any apparent threat. “What kind of dog is she, anyway?” 

“She’s a Belgian Malinois,” you said, giving her a scratch behind the ears. “They were police and military dogs before. She saved my ass from infected more than once and she kept my girl alive when I couldn’t…” You kissed her head again and she turned to lick your cheek before going back to watching for threats. “She’s a good girl.” 

“Good to know I’ve got someone out here who can really watch my back,” Julie teased lightly. “Not sure I trust you to do it…” 

“Why not?” You asked, gaping at her. “I’m a great shot, keep you alive no problem…” 

“You forget I saw you trying to show Ellie and Savvy how to shoot a basketball that one time,” she smiled a cocky smile. “You barely hit the backboard…” 

“OK shooting a basketball is a completely different animal,” you waved her off. “Where it counts, my aim is solid. Saved Tommy once.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“It’s true,” you said, nudging Renaissance a little faster. “Ask Joel…” 

“Joel, hm?” She brought her horse alongside yours. “Things happening there?” 

You tried to hide your smile but felt the edges of your mouth curve up, anyway. 

“Good for you!” Julie said. “Both because you’re my friend and I want you to be happy but also because I like being right and goddammit, if I’m going to get shot down for a man of all people at least it’s a man I was right about.” 

You laughed a little before you remembered you had things weren’t just magically fixed with Joel yet.

“Do me a favor and don’t mention it to anyone?” You said, looking down at Gatling. “I need to tell Savvy…” 

The dog looked up to you at the mention of her name and you gave her a small scratch. 

“Oh, right,” Julie winced a bit. “Yeah, that might be rough.” 

“Yeah,” you sighed heavily. “I need to figure out a way to do this without losing both of them. I can’t do that again, I just… I can’t.” 

“You’ll figure it out,” she said gently. “It will be OK. Just have to believe it, it’ll happen.” 

“I’ll do my best,” you smiled a little at her. “How’s shit with Karen, by the way?” 

“Oh God,” she laughed. “I’m not sure how much I should tell you…” 

The patrol was easy enough until the snow started flying. It was still, the two of you talking, Gatling sometimes running ahead and acting more like a puppy than you remembered her being before, making you smile. It felt like if she could be like this - young and free and more than what survival had made her - so could Savvy. She would get there someday. You could get her back and make her understand once she was ready. 

Once the snow picked up, you and Julie decided to hunker down instead of pressing on to what was meant to be your final spot for the day. Though you were pretty sure you were only an hour or so shy of it if the weather weren’t working against you. 

“OK this is bullshit is what this is,” Julie said as she stomped snow off her boots and shook it out of her hair. You laughed a little as you got a fire going in the fireplace of the old house you’d reached for the night. It was just at the edge of a small subdivision, a spot you’d ridden past before but never spent much time in. The two of you had gotten the horses settled in the garage and Julie had done a quick walk around the immediate area to make sure there were no threats before coming in to settle for the night. “White, fluffy bullshit.” 

“Not getting you in the holiday spirit?” You teased. “Thanksgiving is coming up, Christmas right after that…” 

“Yeah, I’m already counting down until spring,” she said, shucking her coat and joining you by the fire. “I can only live with this for so long.” 

“I kinda like it,” you said as the fire caught the larger log and you watched it start to go up. “I like that seasons actually change here. It definitely made it easier to mark the passage of time when I didn’t have a calendar.” 

“Well I guess when you put it that way,” she sighed dramatically and you laughed. “But now that you’re in Jackson, we’ll keep you straight on the passage of time. The snow can go.” 

Julie had brought a bottle of whiskey from the Bison - “A perk of the job,” she said - and you were reminded of sleepovers when you were in high school when you and your friends would swipe booze from your parents’ liquor cabinets and get drunk around a bonfire. 

“I feel like we’re going to regret this in the morning,” you said, snug in your sleeping bag on the floor as the fire dimmed, head fuzzy and limbs tingling from the alcohol. Gatling’s head rested on your stomach.

“We can just sleep in a bit,” she scoffed and you heard her adjust on the couch. “What are they gonna do, fire us from patrol for running late? Doubt it.”

You laughed a little. 

“Guess there’s not much to contend with out there right now, anyway,” you said, closing your eyes. “Been quiet as hell all day. Doubt it’ll change overnight.” 

“It’d better not,” she said, sounding sleepy. “Better not be more snow, either.” 

You laughed once. 

“Better snow than infected,” you said. “Or raiders.” 

She didn’t respond and the room was quiet for a moment before you heard a soft snore coming from the couch. 

You laughed and then sighed, pulling a hand from the sleeping bag to scratch Gatling behind the ears. She sighed and curled up tighter to you. 

“It’s gonna be different when we go back,” you whispered to her, absently stroking one of her soft ears. “You can still come home with me, though. Maybe sleep with Savvy instead for a bit. I’m sure you miss her.” 

You tried to think about how to tell Savvy about Joel. It would have been a hard conversation under any circumstance, you thought. Not one you’d ever thought you’d need to have when you’d started caring for her. The idea of being with anyone long term then had been so foreign it hadn’t even crossed your mind. After Marisa, you’d given up on that. Just the occasional lover when there was a woman around who was interested as she was passing through had been enough. 

But Jackson was different. Joel was different. You had safety and security in Jackson and you loved Joel in a way you’d never thought you’d find, especially not after spending so long alone. But how could you tell Savvy something that you knew would hurt her? How could you tell her anything at all when she hadn’t spoken to you in weeks? 

“She’s gonna come around, right?” You whispered to Gatling. You felt her lick her lips and sigh against you. You closed your eyes but left your hand on the dog. “I’ll get her to trust me again. I will.” 

When the pounding on the front door woke you up, you were barely even aware you’d been asleep. But it was daylight outside and Gatling was standing near the front door, crouched low and snarling. 

“Wha…” Julie lifted her head, a groggy look on her face. 

“I got it,” you said, head spinning as you shoved your way out of your sleeping bag. “You stay put.”

“Thank fuck,” she groaned, dropping her head back on the couch and draping her arm over her eyes. You laughed and shook your head, going for the door. 

“Gatling.” The dog looked up at you, ready to obey. “Heel.” 

She fell back from the door and went to your leg, still tight against you, as you opened the door. 

“Glad I found you,” Gene, Jesse’s patrol partner said, pushing past you into the house without waiting for an invitation. “It’s a mess out there…” 

“That’s why we stopped here for the night,” you said, leaving the door open and nodding to Gatling, who immediately ran outside to pee. You waited by the door and let her back in, the dog sticking to your side again. 

“We can’t be that late getting out of here,” Julie grumbled, sitting up and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Not that it’s not just a blast to see you, Gene…” 

“We’re missin’ people,” he said, more to you than Julie. 

“What?” You frowned, crossing your arms over your chest, the after effects of the alcohol suddenly fading fast. “What do you mean we’re missing people, who are we missing?” 

“Joel and Tommy,” he said. “They never made it where they were supposed to last night and we can’t find ‘em….” 

“They probably stopped for the night like we did,” Julie waved him off. “Did you not see the weather last night? It was a shit show…” 

“Probably,” Gene nodded. “But they’d have made it there by now and we didn’t see them comin’ back down, either. No sign of ‘em. Ellie and Dina weren’t where they were supposed to be, either, but we at least found a fuckin’ trail for them, sent Jesse on to get them back in one piece…” 

You were already moving to put your boots on, heart pounding, Gatling giving you a small whine. You put a handful of jerky on the ground for her and refilled her water dish before you started packing up your sleeping bag. 

“I’m sure they’re fine…” Julie said, actually sitting up in the sleeping bag now, her legs pulled into her chest and watching you closely. 

“We should split up,” you said, pulling on your coat. “Cover more ground…”  

“Don’t know if that’s smart…” Gene began but you cut him off. 

“I can handle myself,” you said, harsher than you’d really meant to. “I’ve got Gatling, I’ve got my guns, I’ve got my axe. That’s all I had for 20 damn years and I made it just fine then. If you’re worried, you and Julie can stick together but I’m not gonna sit here and talk about how to minimize risk when they’re out there dealing with who knows what…” 

“Bambi,” Julie said gently, getting off the couch and taking you by the shoulders. “It’s OK.” 

“No,” you shook your head. “It’ll be OK when I find him in one piece, then it’ll be OK, I’m not…” 

“Gene and I will go one way,” she cut you off. “You and Gatling go the other. We’ll cover more ground. OK?” 

Gene sighed, looking between the two of you. 

“You got a death wish, don’t make me stop you,” he said gruffly. “Gonna go get my horse some water, we can head out.” 

You watched him go, a nervous energy coursing through your body. 

“Hey,” Julie said, taking your face carefully in her hands and making you look at her. “It is OK. It’s Joel and Tommy. They’re very, very good at this. They’re OK.” 

There was a pinch of tears at the back of your throat that you had to fight to swallow past. She took your hands, giving them a squeeze. 

“I can’t lose him now,” your voice was thick. “I just got him back, I can’t…” 

“I know,” she said softly, a sad smile on her face and you were struck, for a moment, by just how pretty she was. She pressed a soft kiss to your cheek, her lips lingering on your skin for a second, before she pulled back. “We’ll find him. We will.” 

“Thank you,” you nodded and took a deep breath, one tear slipping free, before looking down at your dog who was watching, ready and waiting. 

“Gatling, heel.” 

She moved to be immediately with you and you went to the garage, quickly saddling your horse and mounting up. You called Gatling up and she settled at the front of your saddle, already watching for incoming threats with her ears perked as you set off. 

You pushed Renaissance harder than you should have through the deep snow, trying to reach some part of Joel and Tommy’s patrol path so you could find some sense of where they might have gone. 

It wasn’t long before you found the path cut by a group of infected. A large one, judging by the footprints in the snow. You didn’t see a sign of Joel or Tommy but the swath of disturbed snow and brush from the hoard as so thorough you doubted you’d be able to tell if two horses had come that way, too. And, knowing Tommy and Joel, they’d have tracked the infected…

You looked higher for a moment, above where people would disturb branches and realized some branches on trees were clean of snow - too high for a person to bump on their own but just the height a tall man on horseback would hit. 

“Goddammit,” you muttered, steering Renaissance in that direction and pushing her on. 

The horse was breathing hard and heavy when you reached a mansion outside the normal patrol area, fully gated with piles of dead infected outside. You looked through your binoculars and saw tracks from the horses leading inside. But something about it set you on edge. Something wasn’t right. 

You commanded Gatling down and tied Renaissance to a tree that provided at least some shelter. 

“Back soon,” you said quietly, giving her a scratch and offering her an apple from your pack. You made sure your weapons were loaded, rifle at the ready, handgun and knife at your hip, axe across your back. Gatling looked at you, licking her lips once, waiting for a command. 

“Gatling, heel,” you said. “Hunt.” 

She latched onto your side like glue, crouched lower and keeping her mouth closed and you moved as quickly as you could for the gates of the mansion. 

There was no one guarding the place that you could see but you closed the gate behind you. If that had been enough to keep infected out before, you weren’t about to argue with it now. There were signs of plenty of people here, footprints of various sizes all heading for shelter inside. You tried not to think about the fact that you might have to torture information out of someone who left those footprints. If they had taken Joel and Tommy’s horses, you’d have to work quick to find what they knew so you could get to them. Torture could be the best option and, if it meant saving their lives, it was a price you were happy to pay. Because they had to still be alive, they had to be. 

The mansion was dark and almost eerily still. It reminded you of some of the places you’d visited when dropping of horses you’d trained to be trail animals for rich assholes before the outbreak, the trappings of extreme wealth couched in some idyllic, fictional version of the wild west. People who in places like this couldn’t handle the real thing. Real wildness would chew them up and spit them out. 

You crept through the house, looking for some sign of people, too afraid to call for Joel and Tommy and potentially bring down who knows how many people on you when you heard it, an agonized cry in a voice you knew, one you knew better than almost anyone else. 

“Joel,” you breathed, and you were running, Gatling at your heels. 

You knew that you should stop, assess, try to form a plan but he screamed again and you plowed ahead. A plan didn’t matter, all that mattered was one thing: getting to Joel. 

You had to get to him. 

He had to be OK. 

He had to be. 

*** 

Joel knew what it was like to die. 

He’d come close enough enough times over the years. Even before the apocalypse began he had a few near shaves. A fall off a ladder at a job site and the thought of “this is it” as he crashed down, the contemplation of what would happen with his daughter if he was gone, if he’d done enough to make it that she would be OK. A car accident that knocked him out and disoriented him enough that, for a moment in the hospital, he thought he was dead. 

The times since had been different, more acute. For a while, it felt like dying would have been a mercy. There was some innate biology that kept his body pushing to survive when his mind saw death as a welcome outcome when he got stabbed or shot when he was taking what he needed to survive or getting the shit kicked out of him when he got overrun smuggling. 

This, though, was something else. He didn’t want to die anymore, not really. He had you and Ellie and even Savvy. He had a reason to live now - live, not just survive - and he wanted it, wanted that life that was hanging there, so tantalizingly close on the horizon as heat of his blood pooled around him. 

He still wasn’t entirely sure what happened, how he’d ended up here like this. He’d reached the girl he’d seen through the binoculars as she damn near got bit, he’d shot the infected and pulled her up just as its teeth were getting close to her neck. 

“We gotta move!” Tommy yelled, shooting another infected. 

Joel gave the girl a once over as quick as he could. 

“You bit?” He asked. She was panting for breath but shook her head. “Got a gun?” She nodded. “Good, let’s go.” 

He tucked her behind him and led the way, trying to find a way through and out. There were dozens of infected, riled up and searching for something to sink their teeth into, desperate for someone to turn. 

“Shouldn’t be this damn many!” Tommy yelled as they scrambled back toward the horses. “Why are there this damn many?” 

“Worry about that later!” Joel snapped, dragging the girl along behind him. She stopped and shot two that were getting too close for comfort and, even in that moment, Joel could appreciate that she was a good shot. “We have to get the fuck away from here, try and lose ‘em…” 

“Think we can get all the way back to town?” Tommy asked, reloading his gun. 

“Hell no,” Joel shook his head. “Need to find somewhere else to hole up…” 

“My friends,” the girl said, looking between the two of them. “We’ve been staying at a mansion, not far from here. It’s got a fence around it, we’ve got the perimeter secure, if we can get there we’ll have help…” 

Joel and Tommy looked at each other. It was unlikely a girl this young would be running with raiders, more likely a group just passing through as they headed for the coast from a QZ. Tommy shrugged and Joel looked back to her. 

“Right,” he said. “We’ll head there, we got horses outside, you can ride with me and just tell us where to go. I’m Joel, that’s my brother Tommy, we’re from a settlement a few hours from here…” 

“Joel,” she said, something shifting in her eyes when she said it. 

“Right,” Joel said, not paying much attention. That seemed stupid, now. But he’d been so worried about Ellie, about you, about getting out of there to make sure you both were OK. “What’s your name, kiddo?” 

“Abby,” she said, an odd twinge in her voice. “My… I’m Abby.” 

They made it to the horses by the skin of their damn teeth, infected at their heels the whole way. 

The kid was right, at least. The mansion was secure, her friends clearing the area with molotov cocktails, infected burning just outside the gates. 

“Jesus Christ that was close,” Tommy laughed, clapping Joel on the shoulder. “Fuck, ain’t come that close in a while…” 

“Couldn’t get a good look at ‘em,” Joel said, looking back at the burning bodies. “See any bullet holes? Any sign they might have run into the girls?” 

Tommy’s giddy smile over surviving faded and he gave Joel’s shoulder a squeeze. 

“I’m sure they’re alright, Joel,” he said. “Shit, Bambi’s a deadeye. And you taught Ellie everything you know. They probably didn’t even come across these fuckers and if they did, they’re fine. They’re fine, both have made it through worse than a few infected…” 

“We should get inside,” Abby said, looking more at one of her friends than at Joel. “Now.” 

Things seemed normal then. Tommy was trying to get the group to come back to Jackson, Joel was worrying about you and Ellie. 

And then they introduced themselves to the group and it shifted. Just like it had with Abby, the change sudden and sharp. 

“Y’all act like you’ve heard of us or somethin’,” Joel said, thinking it was a joke. His mind was still elsewhere, still on you, still on Ellie, still on making sure you both were OK. He wanted to be back in Jackson, back in his quiet house, back in bed with you, pillows actually brought up from the living room and you close enough that he could trace little patterns over your soft skin. 

“Because they have.” 

He didn’t even see the shot coming, didn’t have a chance to warn Tommy to run, his brother on the ground - unconscious? Dead? He wasn’t sure - before he could even think. Joel screamed as the bullet tore through his leg and he went down, straining to get to Tommy through the pain but they swarmed him, these kids his brother had just been trying to talk into coming back to Jackson. They held him down, his back to a wall as Abby knelt in front of him, her face twisted into a snarl. She looked so different than she had when he’d first spotted her, alone and afraid and cornered the way he was now. 

“Joel Miller,” her teeth were gritted, the rifle tight in her grip. 

“Who are you?” He managed, pulling against the people at his arms, people who looked like kids, fucking kids. 

“Guess.” 

“Look,” he grunted and gave his arms a yank but they thrust him back against the glass. “Don’t know what I did to ya but I know I didn’t do it on purpose. Done a lot of shit in my time but I don’t hurt kids and you’re a bunch of kids…” 

“You kill my dad on purpose?” She pressed the barrel of the gun to his chin. “You slaughter a whole hospital of people who were just trying to save humanity on purpose?”

Joel’s stomach dropped. Of course. Of course saving Ellie would come back for him. Of course now that he finally had a life that was worth living it was getting ripped away for the one thing he couldn’t regret. 

“I did what I had to do,” he said, trying to free himself again, even though he knew it was futile. “But it was just me. Do what you need to do, make whatever speech you got saved up, but leave my brother out of it.” 

She squared her jaw, a look of disgust on her face as she got to her feet. She shoved her gun into the hands of the man - barely a man, almost still a boy, Joel thought - beside her. 

“Tourniquet his leg,” she snapped. The others looked around, hesitating. “Do it!” 

She stalked off as another girl obeyed, Joel trying not to scream through the pain as she tightened the belt around his leg. His head was still spinning when she came back into view, a golf club in her hands. 

“You don’t get to ask me for a damn thing,” she looked at him with so much rage, so much hate that, for a moment, he pitied her. That someone so young was so angry and in so much pain, that her father had cast his lot in with a bunch of child killers and paid with his life, leaving her alone, was tragic. “And you don’t get to rush this.” 

She jerked her head toward the people holding him in place and they looked at each other for a moment before stepping back. He tried to move but his leg was fucking useless and Abby swung the club, catching him in the arm before she forced him all the way to the floor with a pained cry. 

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been here now. Consciousness was hazy. So was the feeling in his limbs. At times, it was like he was floating, far outside his body and somewhere far softer and warmer and kinder than here. Part of him was back in his living room, almost a year ago now, on Christmas Eve when it was just you and him and he buried himself inside the hot clutch of your body by the glow of the holiday lights. He was lost in the feel of you, so soft and warm below him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt closer to another person in his life, lacing his fingers with yours and looking into your eyes as you came. He’d promised to take care of you then and he’d meant it, he’d meant it so far beyond that moment inside of you, he’d meant it for the rest of his life he’d take care of you. 

He just hadn’t thought it would be so soon. 

At least, he thought, he’d made things right with you. At least he’d gotten to tell you that he loved you again, at least he wasn’t dying wondering if you could ever have forgiven him. At least things were right with Ellie, at least she’d loved him again and she’d let him love her the way she deserved to be loved. At least she had you and Savvy now, people who would love her that way, too, and make sure she was OK. She was going to need someone to make sure she was OK when he was gone, she was so stubborn and she tried to be so much stronger than she needed to be. She needed someone. So did you. 

At least he’d get to be with Sarah again. She was so much closer now than she’d been before, barely out of reach now, somewhere quiet and safe and peaceful. Just far enough away that what was happening now couldn’t reach her. At least she wasn’t seeing this. At least you and Ellie weren’t seeing this.

Something shifted in the room, the club not landing on Joel’s body again, chaos drawing him back into his body again. 

Everything hurt, like he’d been put through a meat grinder. He wasn’t sure he’d ever hurt this much, at least not physically. Every breath was pain. He’d been lying here long enough that some of the blood pooling around his legs had gone cold. 

There was a vicious snarl, the crack of a gunshot and he realized, suddenly, what happened. 

“Gatling!” He could barely adjust his head enough to see where you were. Your rifle was on the ground but so was the only other gun Joel remembered seeing in the room. Your axe was tight in your hands as you threw one of the men back with a roar. You kicked the guns at your feet behind you and pointed to Joel and snapped your fingers. “Guard!” 

The dog ran to him and crouched around his body, hunched low, snarling and barking. You screamed and Joel struggled to see what was happening, tried to get up but he was only able to make it a few inches off the ground before he collapsed back down, his body too broken to properly obey. You were so close, you were in trouble and he tried to focus on it. He had to get you out of here, he had to take care of you, he’d promised to take care of you. He was supposed to protect you, that’s what he was built to do and he was failing. 

“Gatling, bite!” Your command was more of a shriek, sharp and fearful.

The dog shot away from him for a moment, a snarl followed by a pained wail and Joel could see enough to make out that the animal had tackled someone near you as you scrambled to your feet, more of them coming for you. Joel tried again to move but his injured leg gave out that time, collapsing below him before he could put even half his weight on it. 

“Gatling, release!” The screaming stopped and he heard another snap. “Guard!” 

The dog went back to him, snarling and snapping and 

“Bambi!” 

Joel turned his head too quick to the door, his neck screaming in pain, to see Ellie standing there, her eyes wide.

“Ellie!” He yelled through gritted teeth. 

“Go!” You screamed at her, bringing your axe around, swinging wide on another person coming for you, just catching their arm. “Get help, get Jesse! Go!” 

You circled toward the door, axe up, daring any of them to try to follow her. 

“You’re not a part of this!” Abby prowled toward you. “Don’t make me kill you, too.” 

“He’s a part of this so I am, too,” you panted. “If you wanna try and kill me, you better do it quick and you better be damn sure you do it right because the second I’m down, that dog will rip your throats out one by fucking one. She’s done it before, I’ve seen it. You’ll have to kill me - which she won’t take lyin’ down - and get to the guns behind me to take her down. She works quick, hell of a lot quicker than me. If you’re fightin’ both of us, you don’t stand a chance. You that confident? I am. So is she.” 

Gatling snarled as if on cue. 

“Other option is to get the fuck out of here,” you said. Joel could just see you around the dog, blood dripping from your side, lip split open. “We got backup comin’, we’re from a settlement of hundreds and we’ve fought off raiders and infected for fuckin’ years, think we can handle a band of fucking children without much trouble. This worth dyin’ for? Right now, I got your death warrant. Up to you if I sign it.” 

“Abby,” one of the men said. “Let’s go.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She snapped. “You want to just go? Now? Let him live?” 

Gatling snarled again. 

“You’re runnin’ short on time!” You growled, teeth clenched tight. “Now or never!” 

“You lost control of the situation,” the man hissed. “We’re not all dying for your fucking revenge mission.” 

She turned toward Joel and he watched the hatred and the rage move through her. He watched her think about bringing the club down one more time, just to see if she could land a final, killing blow before the dog struck hers. She moved a fraction of an inch toward him and Gatling adjusted, a vicious bark and a snarl ripping from her. 

“He wouldn’t want you to die for this,” the man said quietly, so low Joel doubted you could hear. “And Miller probably won’t survive this, anyway. It’s done. Let’s go.” 

“Fine,” she bit out, throwing the club aside. Joel tried his best to follow her with his eyes, praying that she wouldn’t go for you. Once the people had moved away from him toward you and the door, you called Gatling to you, the dog standing between you and the aggressors, snarling and threatening. They left, watching you closely, without a word.

The door closed and you dropped the axe, grabbing a gun from behind you on the ground and limping for Joel, blood dripping down your leg. 

“Joel,” you fell to your knees beside him. He tried to say something but all that left him was a pained moan. “You’re OK, I’ve got you, you’re alright…” 

“Tommy,” he managed, panting for breath. “Check… Tommy….” 

“OK,” you said softly, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “Gatling, guard.” 

You snapped your fingers and pointed to Joel again. The dog obediently came and positioned herself between him and the door, body like a coiled spring ready to attack. You went to Tommy and checked his pulse before adjusting him. Joel heard him groan and you said something he couldn’t quite make out before you were back to him, a bag with you this time. 

“They’ve gotta have something in here,” you said, ripping through the contents. 

“Baby…” 

“Tommy’s alright,” you said, glancing at Joel before going back to the bag. “He’s comin’ around. Ellie will be back soon, she’s bringing help, it’s going to be OK Joel, it is…” 

“Baby.” 

“Hush.” 

You found what you were looking for, a bag with some medical stuff inside. You set it nearby and looked over Joel’s back, wincing as you did. 

“Need to look at the front of you, too,” you said. “I’m going to roll you over, alright?” 

“Baby…” 

“Shut up, Joel.” 

Your hands shook and he cried out in pain as you moved him onto his back, flinching when you saw his leg.

“Jesus,” you whispered. “What’d they do to you?” 

“Baby,” he said again, managing to lift a hand enough to almost reach your face. You took it, gently guiding his bloody palm the rest of the way to your cheek as you leaned down into it. “You’re bleedin’.” 

“Oh,” you looked down at yourself. “It’s fine, I’ll be fine…” 

“Need to take care,” he had to stop for a second, grinding his teeth through the pain as it wracked his body. It took him a moment to catch his breath. “Care of yourself. I’m… I can’t make it back, not like this…” 

“Shut up, Joel.” 

“Promised to protect you,” he said, brushing his thumb over your cheekbone. “Lemme do it.” 

“Protect me later,” you said, setting his hand down and ripping the bag of medical gear open with your teeth. “Going to put bandages on your leg, see if we can let the tourniquet off, save the leg…” 

“Baby.”

“Shut UP, Joel!” 

He watched you work for a moment and you felt farther and farther away with every breath. He could feel himself fading and he wished you’d just stop, that you’d take care of yourself and just hold him while he could still feel you. 

“Need you to look after Ellie,” he said as you wound bandages around his thigh. “She’s gonna act like she doesn’t need anyone but she does and…”

“And she has you,” you cut him off with a glare. “So it doesn’t matter.” 

You released the tourniquet on his leg and it was more of a relief than he’d expected it to be, the pain of it fading to a dull enough roar that he’d forgotten it was there until the weight of it was lifted. 

“Gotta get this spot at your side, too…” you adjusted his shirt and leaned over him and he got a better look at your own side, a bright red splotch growing on your shirt, a long gash going from your ribs down toward your stomach. 

“You’re bleedin’, sweetheart.” 

“I know,” you said. “Getting you fixed up first…” 

“Baby.” 

“Joel, I swear…” 

“Need to get you and Tommy back,” he needed to stop for a second to catch his breath, the rise and fall of his chest straining his ribs. “Can’t… can’t die knowin’…” 

“You’re not dying here,” you snapped, your voice thick. “I just got you back, you’re not dying here, you’re coming home and you’re going to be OK and…” 

You sat back, looking at the spot on his side that you’d just bandaged, wiping your nose on the back of your wrist as you did. 

“Gotta take care of yours now,” he said, eyes tracing the spot at your side. But you shook your head. 

“Outta gauze.” 

“Baby…” 

“It’s not that bad,” you sniffed. “I’ll just… hold pressure until Ellie gets back. It’s OK, you’re gonna be OK, I can’t….” 

“Here,” he ground his teeth, breathing through another wave of pain. “Lay… lay with me. Cut side up, keep the blood from flowin’ too easy.” 

You looked at him for a moment before nodding and lying delicately next to him. He adjusted as best he could so he could see you, touch you. You’d been hit in the face at least twice, one of your eyes swelling shut and your lip split open. But you were still beautiful, so damn beautiful. 

“I’m so sorry baby,” he said softly. 

“Joel…” 

“Wanted… wanted so much more time with you and the girls,” he said quietly. Your skin was soft, so soft it seemed like the sensation of it might be the only thing holding him to the earth. “I’m so sorry we’re not gettin’ that…” 

“Stop talking like that,” you were crying now, not making any attempt to stop it. 

“It’ll be OK sweetheart,” he said. “You’ll… you’ll be alright. Ellie’s gonna need you, keep an eye on her for me. Keep her outta trouble. Savvy, too. She loves you… she’ll… she’ll come around…” 

“Joel,” you whispered, reaching out to cup his face, your fingers in his curls, one of the only places on his body he wasn’t bleeding. 

“I’m so happy we made things right,” he said, his eyes searching yours. He wondered, if he watched you closely enough, if he could bring the precise color of them with him wherever he was going. “I love you so damn much, sweetheart. Need you to know that, OK? I love you.” 

“I love you too,” you breathed. Your skin was so soft and your breath was warm on his skin. “I love you. I love you.” 

You said it again and again. It was the last thing Joel heard before he passed out. 

Next Chapter

A/N: Hi y'all ❤️

Again, begging for you to trust me, OK? OK.

I do love you but... feel free to yell at me in the comments or in my asks or DMs. I'll be responding to asks about the last chapter soon now that this one is up.

Thanks for going on this crazy ride with me!! It truly means the world.

Taglist: @ashleymsnodgrass@planet-marz1@kalea-bane @juneswonderlust@ilovepedro @h-annahayy @starstruckmusiciansartghost@beccerjune@mumma-moonchild@netonetoneto@mellymbee@purplelye@n7cje@flugazi@evyiione@randomhoex@aliengirl99@orcasoul@reds-ramblings@pedropascalsbbg @fupoola @tinypotatothing @knopes-waffles @lilmizmoz @ayamenimthiriel@jenispunk@panda-pascal@sarap-77@flugazi@your-slutty-gf@daniegraceg@partyofone3413@cumberpegg@noisynightmarepoetry.@fifia-writes@grumpygrumperton @srmacaroni @txlady37 @bigboiseason123@ashleyfilm

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #yearling #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x oc #tlou2 spoilers

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 64

Part 1 Part 63

“If someone doesn’t tell me what the hell is going on, I’m going to slap you again,” Carol says. Eddie sees her raise her hand threateningly in his periphery. No one pays her any mind. 

Eddie’s ass is going numb from where Steve’s still sitting on him, but he’d rather die than make him move. Steve’s hands still have a tremor running through them. He can feel them trembling against his back.

Will comes back over, dropping down beside him on his knees. He reaches out, hand hovering over Steve’s arm before dropping it without touching. Jonathan sits down beside him, furrowing his brow at the three of them.

“What did happen?” Jonathan asks, meeting Eddie’s eyes.

Eddie doesn’t respond, can’t when he doesn’t get it either. Will takes up the reins. “It was like we were back there again.” By the way Jonathan sucks in a ragged breath, no one needs to clarify where ‘there’ is. 

Silence descends again, the sounds of bodies shuffling around behind Eddie the only thing to break it up. 

“It happened when we all touched,” Will says. He meets Eddie’s eyes over Steve’s head, looking devastated. “Should we avoid each other?”

Something sharp and angry pulls at his sternum. He hugs Steve to himself tighter. Steve squeezes back once, hard and quick before pulling back, sliding awkwardly out of Eddie’s lap and sitting down close enough that their knees overlap. 

His eyes are dry, face devoid of anything at all as he says, “it happens to me all the time.”

Eddie reaches out, clasping Steve’s hand, unwilling to break contact with him at all. Will hesitates, hand reaching out and hovering over Steve’s arm again. He breathes in sharply, just once before putting his hand on Steve’s wrist. When nothing happens, he lets out a sharp breath, shoulders slumping as he closes his eyes with relief. 

“Steve was already wigging out when we got here,” Jonathan says. “Maybe he’s already got to be there for it to work?”

Steve shakes off both of their holds, shuffling back away from them. “Let’s not test that out.”

Eddie, unwilling to let this stand, reaches back and graspsgrasp Steve’s ankle. Skin against skin. Steve kicks out, gently tapping his toe against Eddie’s knee, but otherwise doesn’t try to pull away. 

“You’re not supposed to keep secrets from the Party!” Mike shouts.

Eddie turns, startled, having forgotten the other kids’’s presences entirely. “Does this seem like the time, mini-Wheeler?” Eddie demands, making significant eyes toward where Perkins is still glowering. 

“Like you’re one to talk,” he mutters, which, fair. They had all been blabbing right in front of her literally thirty seconds ago.

“Hello?” Carol demands. “What the fuck are you guys talking about?

Eddie groans, looking over at Perkins to see her standing, hands on hips, glaring down at them. Wheeler beats him to any retort.

“You’re not involved,” she says, over-enunciating the way only someone who is very drunk and pretending not to be does. Eddie’s extremely glad, suddenly, that he’d toked instead of imbibing. The smokes already trickled out of him almost entirely. 

While Perkins scoffs, a small girl Eddie hadn’t noticed dawdling by the door speaks up, “involved in what?” she asks, glaring around the room before focusing her laser-sharp gaze on Eddie. “What the hell are you people on?”

Eddie thinks it’s pretty obvious that Wheeler’s on a liquid depressant, and the rest of them are unfortunately stone-cold sober, even as the smell of weed still clings to a few of their clothes. 

Lucas slings an arm around her laughing awkwardly. She shrugs him off immediately, crossing her arms to scowl over at him instead. Eddie lets his breath out. God, that girl’s scary. Eddie’s just waiting for her to bite Lucas’s arm off, like a wolf stuck in a trap. 

“It’s like I said!” Lucas says, smiling with all of his teeth. It looks awkward as hell. “They’re just bonded over being, uh, lost in the woods together?”

Somehow, the girl’s scowl gets even deeper. “And that’s why they’re all acting like when they touched they went somewhere else?” she asks incredulously, before pointing at Steve’s face. “And why that one was, like, catatonic?”

“It’s a metaphor?” Lucas tries, still smiling even as the edges strain. “For trauma?”

“Who’s the random girl?” Steve asks, squinting at her like he’s trying to remember something Eddie’s pretty sure none of them knew in the first place.

As the girl flips him off, Dustin says, “this is Max!” smiling dopily over at him. Well, shit – baby’s first crush, and all that. 

“We need to call Mom,” Jonathan says, standing and pushing his way past dawdling bodies to leave the bedroom.

“But, I thought the lab–” Will starts.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jonathan says, not turning around. He walks through the open door and out into the dark hallway, calling out. “This is too big”

Eddie looks over to Steve, sees him already looking back. “Uncle Wayne’s going to freak out,” Eddie says, smiling sadly and squeezing his ankle. “Because this really doesn’t seem like shellshock to me.”

Steve rolls his eyes, looking wan and tired in the fluorescence of his bedroom light. “Fucking Upside-Down.” He doesn’t say it like it’s news because, yeah, they’ve suspected the whole time. But the confirmation still stings. “We should call him, too.”

Eddie sighs, squeezes ankle once before letting go and standing. The momentary separation stings. He reaches out his hand, waiting for Steve to clasp it before pulling him upright and refusing to let go. 

The next few minutes pass in a buzz of phone calls and arguing. Once Jonathan’s done with the Harrington phone, Eddie takes his turn calling Wayne at the plant, tiptoeing around any explanations. Who knows who’s tapped into the phone lines? Guilt curdles at the lost money when Wayne says he’ll be by soon. Steve sits in the middle of the raised voices, staring at Eddie like if he takes his eyes off him, he’ll disappear into nothing. Eddie gets the sentiment. 

He settles beside Steve on the couch, linking their pinkies atop Steve’s jiggling knee. Jonathan hands over a couple glasses of water without a word before joining the shouting match at Wheeler’s side. For a girl that had gone three sheets to the wind hours ago, she’s pretty articulate, even if Barb’s hold on her elbow might be the only thing holding her up. 

Carol, on the other hand, is just mean. Slinging names around like she never got out of that phase in kindergarten. Before it can get anywhere real, the door bursts open without even a knock. It’s not Mama Byers or Uncle Wayne who come through first, though. It’s Hopper.

He looks ready to fight, gun palmed in his hand, finger on the trigger. Mama Byers shuffles in behind him, peeking over his shoulder. It makes Eddie wonder what Jonathan said in his own phone call.

Hopper looks around, his usual resting cop face on full display as he glares from face to face to face before holstering his gun with a sigh. “Someone want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

When Steve makes to get up, Eddie pulls him back down, but the damage is already done. Hopper’s glare turns toward the movement, settling on Steve’s fidgeting form. 

“Harrington?” Hopper demands.

In Steve’s defense, he holds up admirably under the pressure of a stand-off epic enough to belong in one of Wayne’s favorite Westerns. But, Eddie knows it’s over when his eyes start darting around, looking for an escape. 

“It’s uh, you-know-what related, Chief,” Eddie says, drawing away from Steve, who immediately slumps into the couch, like he’s trying to disappear between the cushions. 

“So?” Hopper demands, crossing his arms menacingly. Fucking cops, man.

“Read the room, dude,” Eddie says, gesturing around all the warm bodies enjoying the show. “Not everyone here’s been read in.”

Hopper looks around, frown deepening. Not that Eddie gives a shit now that it’s not directed at himself. “You,” he says, pointing at Perkins, “And you,” this time singling out that Max girl, before pointing at the door. “Get out.”

Perkins scoffs, crossing her arms petulantly. “How about no, and someone tells me what the fuck is going on?”

Never one to back down, Hopper replies, “either you get out or I bring you down to the station and charge you with obstruction of justice” When she doesn’t immediately back down, he continues, “how would your mother feel about that, kid?”

Max scoffs, storming past all of them with hunched shoulders. “Whatever,” she says, “my stepbrother will kill me if I’m not home soon, anyway.” She storms out the door, slamming it behind her.

Perkins lasts a few seconds more before shrieking in wordless rage, walking over to Barb and digging her hand in the pocket of the other girl’s jeans. Barb cries, “hey!” clearly startled, but before she can do anything, Perkins fishes out Eddie’s keys and storms out the door behind Max, calling, “wait up! I’ll give you a ride.”

Eddie stares at the open doorway for a minute, shocked. “Did she just steal my van?” 

In the usual perfect timing of Munson men everywhere, Uncle Wayne choses that moment to walk through the open front door, asking, “is that Perkins girl stealing your van, Eddie?” just as the sound of his engine rattling to life and screeching out of the driveway fills the room. 

Eddie stands, outraged, pointing at the still-open front door, glaring at Hopper. “What are you waiting for, Chief?” he asks, still pointing emphatically as Steve snickers behind him. “Do your job. Arrest her!”

Hopper rolls his eyes. Wayne shuts the front door on that opportunity, cutting off the sound of tires screeching down the street. Damn. Rich people insulation rocks. 

“Shut up, Munson.”

“How about someone tell us what’s going on?” Mama Byers demands, crossing her arms and looking around the room like she’s taking a head count. 

It comes spilling out between them. First, the events of the night; the ways Steve slipped into that place, and the way when they all touched skin-to-skin, they’d all been back there. Mama Byers grabs Will’s shoulders, taking two big steps back from the couch where Steve and Eddie sit. Eddie can’t blame her.

Then, further back: the way Steve’s been slipping back there on his own more and more. Uncle Wayne looks especially grim at that, probably thinking back to that first time they’d seen it. The way he’d called it shellshock and moved along. 

Then, further back still to the fishhook connecting them all together. The children as a unit look especially irked by this. Mike even stamps his foot with his ire, reiterating over and over that, “the Party doesn’t keep secrets from each other,” while Will looks more and more cowed. 

That’s when Jonathan’s involvement gets dragged into the light of day. It goes over like a lead balloon for the uninformed of the Byers faction. 

“How could you not tell me, Jonathan?” Mama Byers demands, hands on her hips. Jonathan shrinks into himself, turtling his neck like that’ll save her from the ruthless berating of a Mom scorned. “I thought we went over this last time!” She smacks him once on the arm with the back of her hand. Not hard, just to emphasize her point. Jonathan still jerks. 

Mama Byers sighs, bringing her arms around Jonathan, suddenly looking small with her arms around her son’s shoulders. “We’re in this together,” she says, squeezing him around the waist before pulling back to look back up at him. “Okay?”

Jonathan nods, jaw clenched.

“What do we do now?” Will asks, looking up at her like she has all the answers in the universe.

She swipes the fringe out of his eyes, lips pursed. It’s not her that answers. 

“Sleep on it,” Uncle Wayne says, sitting down beside Steve close enough that their shoulder’s brush.

“I’m not leaving,” Will says, taking a few steps away from his Mom toward the couch before she snags him and pulls him back. He sighs. “Mom.”

Jonathan grabs her hand, peeling it gently off Will. “They already touched again and nothing happened, Mom.” She clutches him tighter, before finally loosening her hold.

Will squeezes between him and Steve on the couch like he’s proving a point. In solidarity, Eddie wraps his arm around his shoulders, settling his hand along Steve’s neck and squeezing the tight muscles he finds there. 

Mama Byers sighs. 

“If he’s staying, so am I,” Dustin demands, already marching out of the room and into the kitchen without asking anyone else’s opinion. Mike and Lucas follow. 

Hopper squeezes his nose like he’s staving off a headache as they all listen to the procession of children call their parents about a sleepover that’s only partially fabricated. He looks up, meeting Mama Byers’ eyes. “I’ve got to get home,” he says, quietly, not looking at anyone else in the room. “Call me in the morning?”

Eddie looks away. It feels intimate, the way they look at each other; the way their words seem like they’re only for each other. Mama Byers walks him to the door, murmuring too quietly to be audible before shutting it and locking it for good measure. As if all the monsters aren’t locked in here with them.

The older teens lead the procession up to Steve’s abandoned room, loudly digging through his closet for enough pajamas for everyone to sleep comfortably.  Eddie looks over to where Steve still sits by his side to see his opinion on this breach of privacy to find Steve smiling fondly up the stairs like the freak he is. 

They don’t get up until everyone comes tromping down the stairs, all the kids and Nancy dwarfed in Steve’s old gym wear. Barb, wearing a much more traditional looking pair of plaid pajama pants that seem disturbingly similar to Steve’s bedroom wallpaper, tosses more clothes at Steve and Eddie before conscientiously dropping more piles into Wayne and Mama Byers laps as well.

“Come on, big boy,” he says, patting Steve’s thigh before standing. “Let’s go change.”

They move around each other familiarly – too used to each other’s bodies with a year in close proximity to care much about changing in the close quarters of the downstairs bathroom.

When they return, Wayne’s lounging back in the fancy Lay-Z Boy in the Harriirngton’s living room, clearly deciding his own jeans and work shirt will work perfectly fine for the night. Similarly, Mama Byers is seated on the couch in her street clothes, watching the kids fight about blanket and pillow placements in the veritable nest they’re creating on the living room floor. There’s a spot at the center, carved out by Will’s side.

Eddie pulls Steve by the wrist, pushing him down into the very middle of the musty blanket pile before climbing in beside him as the rest of them climb in around them, grumbling at accidental elbows and stolen blankets.

Steve’s sitting up and smiling around, eyes glistening just a little in the low light of the only lamp Mama Byers hasn’t clicked off.

Had this house ever been filled with people Steve actually loved? Eddie pushes Steve down to lie flat, curling around him to keep him in place. It doesn’t matter, there’s almost a dozen warm bodies swadling him now. Eddie only hopes it’ll be enough to keep the monsters out. 

Eddie squeezes tight, hoping against hope that it’ll be enough to keep Steve tethered to the right world. Here, in Eddie’s arms. Where he belongs. 

Part 65

Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @1-8oo-wtfbro @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect

#steve harrington #steddie #eddie munson #my fic #steddie upsidedown au

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

Hotel Room

PAIRING: Tangerine x fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 2392

SUMMARY: changing plans midway into a mission in Tokyo- you, Tangerine and Lemon decide to stay in a hotel instead of taking the bullet train.

TAGS/WARNINGS: 18+ only. dry humping, pinv, unprotected sex, pull out. no use of y/n MINORS DNI.

A/N: this is my first post and im a little scared to post it, so please plz be kind. I tried to keep it as accurate as possible, however I accidentally made Tangerine kinder than I had originally planned and changed some things about the film plot so it doesn’t create a domino effect in this- aka Tan dying

rewritten 09/12/23 - no change to the plot, just made it less crap

"I don't think we should be getting this train," you mutter like you were talking to yourself, eyes darting across the busy platform of the station. "Guys?" you repeat, turning to see only Lemon behind you. "I don't think we should get this train."

"Yeah?" Lemon hums, sounding distracted.  

"I have a bad feeling. The next one is in thirty minutes. I say we wait," you respond, wary eyes glancing around.

Tangerine joins you both, looking over the tickets he just collected. "What's that now?" he questions, brows furrowed.

"I got intel someone I used to know might be on here," you murmur, avoiding the Twins' focused gaze.

"Like an ex?" Tangerine prods, his tone slightly cautious.

"No— stop it. I'm being serious," you emphasise, eyes squinting to show your annoyance.

Usually, when others act possessive around you, you'd turn the other way - having no interest in games. But when you talk about other guys in front of Tangerine, you'd often notice how his forehead vein would subtly protrude, like he was bubbling with rage from the inside - keeping it hidden. Though you'd always notice. It wasn't hard to tell when he was jealous. His quick, snappy comments are often the main giveaway.

"Alright, alright. Keep'ya knickers on, bellend," he scoffs, crossing his arms and widening his stance as if he was trying to intimidate you - which it doesn't.

"Okay, so, you remember Johannesburg? When we saw that guy— dirty blonde, mid-length hair? Facial hair? Yellow outfit. Looked like a prisoner? That one?" 

"No, not really," Lemon adds, shaking his head - looking clueless.

"Lemon. You shot him— a few times."

"No, not ringing a bell," he continues, just as clueless as before. "Oh, you mean Joburg?"

Tangerine pipes in, sighing. "Yes, you daft fuck."

"Well, I was just checking."

"Yeah, but it ain't important now, is it?" the twins bicker, overlapping each other.

"Oh my god," you mutter, rubbing the bridge of your nose. "Right, anyway, none of that's important. I used to work with him— Ladybug, like way way way back. I got a tip-off he's gonna be getting this train, and he's clearly been assigned to snatch that case," you nod to the silver briefcase tucked under Lemon's arm. 

"We can keep the case safe. We got hired for that reason," Tangerine adds, subtly reassuring you. 

"No, no. That doesn't matter. He's seeing a new therapist, and he's got some weird fate, destiny thing protecting him— like everyone except him gets hurt. I dunno about you, but I don't really feel like getting shot at again today."

You look between the brothers, eyes softening like you are talking without words - telling them things to make them take your side, to make them see that you're trying to protect them. You find it harder to pull away from Tan's fixed blue gaze, feeling strangely hypnotised under his attention.

"Okay," Tangerine agrees simply. "We'll wait," he nods, extending his hands towards you, resting them on your shoulder as if he's comforting you - telling you in his own way that everything will be okay. He rips his hands away when he hears a cough from beside him - Lemon suspicious at the placement.

The kind gesture wasn't long-lived, but it helped. A lot.

You suggest staying in a nearby hotel for the night, offering to try again in the early hours of the morning. The case would be safe, and that's what mattered.

————

You and the twins walk into the quiet hotel lobby, asking for three rooms - preferably all next door to each other. Once collecting the key cards, you make your way up to your floor, letting yourselves into your rooms with a quick nod to one another, silently saying goodnight.

After the nonstop events of today, all you wanted was to shower. To wash away the grime of the day, literally.

You throw your overnight bag on the floor and do a quick sweep of the room to check it's safe, then head into the bathroom, stepping into the shower to begin a lengthy wash.

Afterwards, you pat yourself dry with a fluffy hotel towel, dressing in an oversized tee when you hear a few rhythmic knocks at the door. You look through the peephole to see a wet, curly-haired, ‘stached man - there was only one person that could be.

You tug on the hem of your t-shirt, covering your exposed thighs as you open the door, greeted by Tangerine on the other side wearing a baggy tee and a pair of boxers.

His eyes leisurely travel over you, slowly pulling away from your thighs that you subtly tried to hide. He coughs, clearing his throat like he's refocusing, diverting his attention from your lower half back to your fresh face.

"Just doing bed check. And you are... ahem," he masks the pause in another cough. "You are accounted for. So that's. That's good."

"Right, okay," you murmur, purposely keeping your gaze fixed on his face - stopping your eyes from glancing lower.

He hesitates, lingering like that wasn't all he knocked for. You wanted to invite him in. To hang out for a bit. But you get all finicky and squirrely when it's just the two of you, and you never know what to say or do. It was like you couldn't think straight, his aftershave and biceps acting like a barrier in your brain. Besides, it's not like anything can happen between you anyway - he didn't like you in that way.

He clears his throat once more, scratching the back of his neck. "My tv ain't working. I don't wanna watch Lem's shit, so can I watch some in your room?"

Letting out a small puff of a sigh, you agree and move aside, allowing him to walk past. He settles in almost instantly, shimmying himself under the covers and flicking through the channels, trying to find something good to watch.

You sit down awkwardly beside him, leaving a safe and comfortable gap between you, subtly scootching away when he moves closer to you.

"What's up with you? You're being well weird," he asks, diverting his attention from the Japanese game show to you, looking over you with furrowed brows.

"I'm not being weird. You're being weird," you divert, crossing your arms over yourself, trying to minimise space. "Just trying to get comfy."

"That's cos'ya hanging off the bed, knobhead. Get closer, then."

He swiftly pulls you closer, gently dragging you towards him so that both of you are leaning against the headboard, his arm draped over your shoulder.

It was the complete opposite of what you were trying to accomplish - now smushed up close to his side, forced to smell his masculine shower gel. You had no idea what to do with yourself.

You have only been this close in proximity a few times. And on those occasions, one of you would always be drunk - never to be brought up again. But when you're sitting so close to him, both completely sober, your brain can't help but stir up those feelings you've been trying to suppress.

Lewd and vulgar thoughts spiralled around when you feel the steady sound of his heartbeat against your arm, everything so casual and natural - like everything was a breeze with him. Your mind begins to wander when you feel him shift beside you, legs spreading, groin adjusting like he was making himself comfortable - like he was situating himself in your bed for the night.

In your line of work, you don't often experience genuine human interactions - ones that are soft and gentle, ones filled with tender love and care. Every encounter lately has ended in a blood bath - literally. 

So when you feel Tangerine's hand slip into yours, you can't help but overthink it. It was so unlike him to physically show how he felt, so it was tricky not to question his motives.

His thumb swipes over your hand, softly squeezing yours, so you decide to look up at him, but he is already focused on you - the tv a mere thought away. The way he looked at you was so unexpected, so different to all the other times. 

All you could offer under his concentrated attention was a faint and gentle smile, nose softly scrunching as you held his gaze. He returns with a boyish grin, tache twitching with the movement.

You momentarily break eye contact, quickly glancing down at his lips. You thought you were sneaky, but the way his breathing ever so slightly faltered told you otherwise. 

He slowly leans towards you, his movements articulate and calculated as he pulls you in for a kiss, working over your lips carefully and considerately. His large palms nestling on the side of your face, cupping your cheeks as he deepens the kiss - everything turning somewhat desperate. Hasty.

His mouth travels away from your slightly bruised lips, now working along your jaw and down the side of your neck. Muttering faint groans into your skin as you tug on the damp curls at the back of his head - holding him close to you.

Tangerine's movements remain dominant. In charge. Guiding you and bringing you down the bed, laying you flat on your back so he can situate himself between your spread legs - hovering atop of you with his chest pressed to yours.

His cock feels firm against you, tucked and slotted perfectly between your thighs, nudging and brushing your clit with every subtle move he makes. 

It wasn't long before you found yourself whimpering into his mouth and toying with your hips, the dry humping working you up more than you had thought.

He parts from your lips, looking into your hazy, blissed-out eyes -ones that mirror his own- and begins to lazily push up your tee, stroking up your stomach, exposing just what he wanted to see; plushy tits and cute soft tummy. 

You help him out of his t-shirt, wanting to see more. Eager fingers trailing over the contours of his stomach before pulling him back to you, his happy trail brushing against your abdomen - chests sandwiched together. 

He trails a faint line of kisses down your neck and along your collarbone as he slips himself from your grasp, sitting on his knees between your thighs. He picks up your hand, sliding his gold rings onto your fingers. "Look after these for me, would'ya?" he whispers, kissing the back of your hand.

It's then that he finally slips a hand between your legs, faintly trailing up and down your slit, teasing you as he palms his cock through his tented boxers, circling over the wet patch of fabric - right by his head.

His gaze remains lidded, lazily looking over you as he dips his hand into the waistband, rolling over his aching cock a couple of times. Your eyes respond pleadingly, silently begging him to hurry up.

Your keen fingers make haste movements, brushing over his boxers like you were trying to strip them from him - doing his job for him. 

He answers your prayers and tugs down the fabric, flinging his briefs to the edge of the bed, letting his thick, hard cock spring free. He grips himself at the base, guiding his head towards your slick hole - rimming his tip around before slowly easing in. 

He goes slow, steady. Like he has all the time in the world. Letting you adjust and accustom his size, deeply filling you. Bottoming out.

With his cock stuffed inside, he leans over you once more, hovering over you and caging you to the mattress - your arms and legs clinging onto him, wrapping around him like a monkey on a tree. 

"Fuck me," Tangerine blabbers, voice hoarse and incoherent. Hot grunts against your throat as he winds into you, cock grinding inside you. "Christ."

He brings his hands up to your face, cupping your cheeks, holding you still so he can lap over your lips, swallowing your whimpers - your sweet pretty sounds muffling against his tongue. 

Your touch mirrors his, moving your hands from his back to hold either side of his face, pushing away a stray curl that fell. Holding him close. Keeping him there.

Tangerine quickens the pace, fucking into you a little better. More deliberatly. The curve of his cock rubbing against your gummy walls in the most sinful way.

He chases your release, wanting to feel you shudder and tighten around him - wanting to feel you cum on his cock. So, he parts from your lips and trails messy open kisses over your cheek, halting when he reaches under your ear. 

"You feel so perfect wrapped around me—  you're so perfect," he hazily whispers, talking low. "God— yeah, that's it," he nods slowly, encouraging you. "You're right there, pretty girl. I can feel it."

With his soft praise, you find yourself gripping onto his dick, tightly clamping around him as you cum. Moaning sweet cries senselessly into the crook of his neck.

Your release triggers his own, pumping his thick, warm load onto your stomach, biting back broken groans as he milks the rest of his cum onto your jittering tummy. 

He leans back over you once more, placing a lingering kiss on your lips before pushing himself off the bed, heading for the bathroom.

Returning with a lusty smile and a wet washcloth, he sits on the edge of the bed beside you, gently wiping it over your stomach before doing the same with his cock, rubbing the fabric over his leaking, messy tip.

"We should've done that years ago," you whisper, flattening your tee down your stomach.

"Fuckin' years ago," he coyly grins, raking back his now-dried curls.

Your smile widens, meeting his eyes. "You, uh... you can stay over? If you want... so you— you can watch tv?" you offer, trying to persuade him - finding a reason for him to stay.

"For the tv," he chuckles, nodding. Playing along

He slips into the bed beside you, tugging the covers up and settling himself next to you. His large, warm arms find you under the sheets, holding you to his side.

"We got an early start. Get some sleep, love," he whispers, placing a delicate kiss on your temple. "Goodnight."

#tangerine #tangerine smut #tangerine fanfiction #bullet train #bullet train fanfic #tangerine x reader #tangerine x you #tangerine and lemon #tangerine bullet train #smut #aaron taylor johnson

[txttletale]

Wtf is Lancer and why is it shit (serious question)

lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game made by the guy who drew kill six billion demons and another guy. i wouldn't call it 'shit', necessarily--it's good in a lot of the ways that matter. it's first and foremost a tactical mech combat game and on that level it's incredible. its ruleset is finely tuned, provides great amounts of GM support to make running what might otherwise be overwhelmingly crunchy combat easier, and has a truly stunning and cool level of character customization available. so as a game, i think it's great fun to play and run, genuinely innovative, and a huge step forward for battlemap tactical wargame type TTRPGs in general.

the lore though, kind of sucks. i think it has two clear and overlapping core problems. problem #1 is that it is a utopia as envisioned by a social democrat. it's a world which the text describes as 'post-capitalist' (but there are still evil megacorporations with private armies who own slaves) and 'post-scarcity' (but only in the developed 'core' systems, so. y'know. there's scarcity). at many points in the text they say that Union (the game's main faction) is utopian, throwing around that exact word a bunch of times as well as 'mutual aid' and 'direct action' and the like. but what they describe is just kind of an imperialist Space Sweden with several distinct forms of slavery that constantly expands and uses its Benevolent Imperial Power to intervene on the Backwards Violent Worlds on its outer border but its good because its just trying to bring them UBI.

to show what i mean, here's one of the game's writers¹ talking about how it would be morally wrong for Union to, say, appropriate the property of a private military corporation that also operates as a fascist nation-state:

it's 'revolution' as imagined by the limpest of social democrats. and of course this would honestly be fine, whatever, most sci-fi settings are fundamentally achingly liberal, but the game goes so out of its way to signpost how Radical it is and how Hopeful and Liberationist you're meant to see the setting as

the other core problem is closely related--it feels like the lancer guys put every cool sci-fi idea they had into lancer even when it completely clashes with the core ideas behind it. like, AIs in this settings are callled 'NHPs' (non-human persons) and they're eldritch god-like beings from another dimension who have be kept 'shackled' (lancer's words, not mine!) to keep them as pliant and obedient AI assistants instead of hostile eldritch abominations. this is obviously horrifying and dystopian but it rules, it would be sick fucking worldbuilding for something with the tone of 40k or a one-off doctor who or star trek episode--but as a fundamental technology foundational to what we are supposed to believe is a post-revolutionary society founded on mutual aid and solidarity and blah blah blah it's glaringly dissonant.

bear in mind this is all just going off the rulebook. lancer fans have told me that the supplements and campaign modules fix some of this or contextualise it. but on the other hand communists have told me that they make it worse and i trust the communists more. i leave you with this incredible passage from the game's foreword:

#ask #brendanicus #ttrpg #lancer

[angelltheninth]

Can I request Doppio dropscythe x reader nsfw headcanons where it’s the reader’s first time?

The D in Doppio stands for DICK! I love Doppio's chaotic energy so much!

Pairing: Doppio Dropscythe x Fem!Reader

Tags: nsfw, smut, virginity loss, teasing, gentle to rough sex, biting kink, fingering, clit sucking, hand kink

A/N: I saw his handcam stream, god his hands are nice to look at.

Teasing will be a part of it for sure, its Doppio after all and when he sees that you're nervous about it he will try to ease the mood with humor and flirting

His clothes go off first, that way you're not being put on the spot with being the one naked

Because he's so fucking hard you know that he's ready to go, just say you want it

If you don't then maybe you'd be okay with some cuddles, to get used to being naked together

Runs his mouth a lot while he's between your legs and has no filter at all

He's talking about your taste, your scent, how much you're coating his tongue with your arousal, and much he wants you to do the same to his cock

Fingering feels pretty familiar, he knows you love that, hell he watched you do it multiple times

Sharp fangs bite into your legs as they begin to shake from the pleasure you're getting

Pain and pleasure make a good combination in his book

Next he focuses on your clit, sucking at the spot while keeping your legs from clamping down on his head

You can't push him away if you wanted to, he's too strong, too focused on his task

He laughs loudly when he makes you come again, already two orgasms in and without his cock too

You're gonna boost his ego you know

Finally time for what you've been waiting for, his dick

You guess he's pretty average sized, you don't have anyone to compare it to, and he would love to keep it that way

The first thrust is relatively painless because you're still riding those two previous orgasms

It does take your pussy time to adjust to being pounded into over and and over but Doppio takes it slow

Constantly checks in with you, asking if it feels good for you

Keeps his thumb on your clit the whole time, giggling when your hips jump from the stimulation

You're so fun to tease, and really fucking loud for someone who was a virgin just a little while ago

He's getting close, speeding up until the slapping sounds are almost overlapping with each other

His laughter turns into growls which he knows you love to listen to

But there's something you love more, his fangs biting at you

This time he chooses the inside of your palm, kissing over the bite right as the two of you reach climax together

He's got more stamina, a lot more but he will take it slow with you

Don't worry, pretty soon you'll be able to match him, and then the two of you can go for hours

#xsoleil #xsoleil x reader #doppio dropscythe x reader #doppio dropscythe smut #doppio dropscythe #nijisanji en x reader #nijisanji x reader #x female reader

[mypoisonedvine]

hey jd, how do we feel about aemond finding out that aegon put his hands on you? granted, you’re just a servant girl and it’s not the first time he’s harassed the help, but what would happen? huh? 👀 -@pluvialpoet

word count: 2.2k

warnings: implied/vaguely described smut, implied SA of some kind, hurt/comfort, brief suicidal ideation, heavy angst, friends to lovers, way too much wholesomeness, not exactly breeding kink but mentions of pregnancy/babies

"I'll fucking kill him," Aemond decided. "I finally will, I'll do it."

"No, you won't," you sighed as you rested your hands on his shoulders. "That wouldn't do anyone any good."

"It would do me some fucking good," he insisted, nostrils flaring and uncovered eye wide with fire, "knowing that no man who has touched you lives."

"He did it to anger you, Aemond," you explained flatly, holding on tighter to him and trying not to notice the way it made your broken heart race. "Don't give in to him— you'd only be giving him what he wants." Just as I did... but I had no choice.

He looked away quickly, so you couldn't see his eye at all, and for a second you thought he might be getting choked up. "So it is my fault, then," he realised.

"No!" you yelped. "No, I didn't mean—"

"He knows that I care for you," Aemond whispered shakily. "Better than I do, he knows, and he wants to use you to hurt me. It's why I never..."

He swallowed, turning away from you, and you reached up to his shoulder. "I thought you would tell me anything, Aemond. Tell me."

It was a promise you'd made well over a decade ago, when you were just children. That was when it all started: this bizarre, impossible friendship. Back then, it didn't seem so strange to you that a servant girl and the prince could be friends, but the longer it went on, the more you both became aware of how forbidden it all really was. It never stopped you, though. Yes, it made you more cautious— only meeting in dark, quiet places, or secluded corners of the gardens— but it never made you any less close. He shared with you the fears, the dreams, the prayers he could not tell his own family; and you, just the same, though you had no family left after your mother succumbed to illness. Even the other servants didn't approve of your friendship with the prince, so you had to hide it from them at well— if they suspected he favoured you in any way, they would exploit you at best, or take some kind of revenge at worst. Still, he snuck into the kitchens when you were cooking to steal bites of fruit and cheese while he talked to you; still, you scrubbed the floors by his chambers in the morning just in case he wanted to come out and sit down nearby, leaning against the wall and giving you advice on the latest dilemma of your life (of which you had several, often one after the other if not overlapping).

That promise to tell each other anything, and everything, you made it in a tree in the gardens. He loved to climb as a boy, and you couldn't keep up but he always held your hand when you were afraid to fall. That was your tree, and it was where you found him, crying, after he'd seen the scar over his eye for the first time. He'd kept a brave face about it all— about the bullying, about his fear he'd never have a dragon of his own, about how angry and terrified he was about what had happened to his face— from the beginning. He didn't even let his mother in on the truth of his feelings, telling her not to be upset about his eye because he wasn't, either. But the lie of indifference that he'd so carefully constructed fell apart in a moment when the healers showed him the barely-healed scar. He climbed your tree alone, to the highest branch, and sobbed— which, by the way, was excruciating with his wound— as he wondered if he should pitch himself from his height and hope it was enough to end everything.

But when he looked down at the ground again, you were standing in the middle of the green grass, staring up at him. "I'm cross with you!" you informed him plainly, balling up your little fists and shouting.

He sniffled and wiped his eye quickly, covering the other with the patch the healers had given him— he didn't want you to see him like this, he didn't want anyone to see him like this. "With me?" he repeated with a shaky voice. "What... what did I do?"

"You climbed our tree by yourself!"

He laughed a little, even through the tears. "I found this tree first," he reminded you proudly, "I showed it to you! I said, look at this tree I found."

"Yes, but it's our tree now," you explained, "and you shouldn't be in it by yourself. I can't get up there without your help!"

Rolling his eye to feign irritation with your ineptitude, he navigated himself down a bit until he could reach out for your hand and help pull you up. When you were sitting together among the branches, you eventually coaxed the truth out of him, about everything he'd been afraid to admit to anyone. He seemed to think he would be fearless if he simply told no one what he was really afraid of; but that hadn't worked, had it? The boys still taunted him for having no dragon, and he still lost his eye. The only thing that had changed was that he had to go it all alone. Until now.

"You have to promise not to hide anything from me again," you decided. "We have to tell each other everything. Even the things we're scared to tell anybody... that's the stuff that matters most, anyway."

"Okay," he agreed. "How are we going to swear on it?"

You tilted your head in confusion.

"We have to swear on something," he decided, "or it's just something we're saying."

"I'll swear on my life," you decided. "I'll die before I ever hide something from you, or tell you a lie."

He seemed hesitant. "Can I hide one thing from you, at least?"

"No!"

He frowned. "At least let me wait to show you."

He reached up to the patch shakily, and you realised what it was he wanted to hide. "Okay... that can wait, until it's healed better. But you need to swear on your life!"

"All right! I will!" he groaned, frustrated by your insistence. "I swear, on my life, I'll tell you everything from now on. And never lie to you."

"Or you'll die," you added, smiling with a grin that was missing a tooth or two that had fallen out recently.

"Or I'll die," he agreed. For the first time since he saw that scar, he didn't want to die.

But even then, you couldn't have known how much more complicated things would become. Now you were grown— faster than you should've been— and Aegon, jealous of the affection you shared, had tried to spoil it all. It was the first time since you made that promise that you really considered hiding something from Aemond, being both ashamed of what had occurred and terrified of how your best friend would react.

"Please, tell me," you begged him as your hand held tighter onto his shoulder.

He almost scared you with how fast he turned around, how he clutched your arms and yet couldn't look you in the face. "I never told anyone," he whispered harshly, "how I felt about you. I never wanted to break our promise— it was just to keep you safe, I need you to be safe, do you understand?"

Though you had to bite your lip to keep it from quivering, you nodded.

"But if he knows..."

Your eyes welled with tears, trying not to see Aegon's face in your mind, the horrible way he'd looked at you.

"I should tell you," Aemond decided. "I should tell you that I've fallen in love with you."

Before you could properly react to that, his hands clutched your face and wiped the tear that had begun to run down your cheek.

"He hates me for it," Aemond continued. "He hates that I'm in love with a servant girl and he can't even love his own wife. He hates us because he'll never know what we share. And he must have thought that if he forced himself on you, that he would understand, that he could know what kind of love we have. But he can't imagine that it's your mind I love, not your body. He can't imagine the beauty of your heart."

Crying harder, you reached up to hold onto his wrists. "Aemond..." you whispered.

"If you don't love me, don't tell me yet," he pleaded. "You can break our promise, just this once. Let me imagine for a night that I haven't ruined everything."

You pulled your hands away and plunged forward, slamming your lips onto his, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. He widened his eyes for a second before kissing you back, delicately holding your waist to keep you close. It was tender and sweet, even as you struggled to stop crying from the overwhelming emotion of the moment.

When you broke away, he pressed his forehead to yours, and you both shut your eyes. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you," he added, and you smiled.

"Weren't you afraid to die?" you joked.

"It felt like dying," he replied, opening his eyes again and examining you. "Having you so close, but not in the way I wanted... being able to keep you near but never hold you... it was worse than death, at times. I never wanted anyone to touch you but me."

Sighing shakily, you could hear your heartbeat in your ears louder than your own voice when you spoke. "Then touch me," you breathed. "I want you to."

His grip tightened on your waist, thumb petting your back, and you looked up at him expectantly. "My brother..." he trailed off. "I don't want to be like him. I don't want it to... be like that."

"It won't," you promised, "you're nothing like him. I want you to touch me, Aemond, please— I want to forget. Make me forget any touch but yours."

Pulling your body into his, guiding your head to tilt back, he kissed you again— deeper, hungrier, still slow but with this growing sense of desperation between the both of you.

He took you to the garden that night, pressed you up against your tree, and claimed you in the way you'd dreamed he would for years. He did more than make you forget Aegon, he made you forget everything that wasn't this moment; he held onto you so tightly and promised to never let you go, told you how beautiful you'd become, admitted how many years he'd spent longing for you but hiding his true feelings. You had so many things you wanted to say in return, but you were entirely lost for words the whole night— all you could do was cling to him and whine his name and run your fingers through his silky silver hair.

You spent the whole night in his arms; even when the sun was beginning to rise over the garden, he brought you to his chambers and took you once again there. Needless to say, he was exhausted after that, and passed out beside you on the mattress when he finally decided he couldn't go again. You were tired, too, but you couldn't sleep— you were so full of joy and excitement that you stayed awake and laid beside him, petting his hair and scratching his head and back as he slept. You didn't mean to wake him when you kissed his arm, but he turned and looked at you with a small smile. "Good morning," he mumbled in a deep, scratchy voice.

"It's well into the afternoon," you reminded him with a giggle. "You've slept all day."

He gave you a mischievous smirk as he pulled you closer, scooping you up into his arms and pressing your back to his chest. "Well, when you make love all night, that's the consequence, it seems," he explained.

His hand that held your chest moved down to your stomach, just under your belly button, and held you there as he leaned in closer to kiss your ear softly.

"There could be other consequences," he noticed.

You swallowed nervously. "Yes," you agreed, "but I could drink—"

"No," he interrupted, though he softened a second later. "I wish you wouldn't, at least not every time... I want it to take."

Your heart swelled. "But Aemond, you're a prince," you blurted out, looking over your shoulder at him, "and I'm only—"

"And you're my beloved," he whispered back, caressing your cheek with his hand and smiling at you. "And our child would be beautiful."

You smiled shyly, turning your body completely so you could hide your face in his neck. "Our child would be a bastard," you warned him.

"Our child would be a prince," he corrected, "our child would be made in love. Would you like that?"

You nodded against him, and he smiled as he kissed the top of your head. Finally, the need to sleep caught up with you after being up for so long; you ached inside and out, and with your head on his chest your eyes started to get heavier. You slept like you never had before, not because of the exhaustion— but because you'd never felt so safe.

#aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen fic

[ghosttotheparty]

with your fingers to my throat/id let you take it all

Eddie’s noticed things about Steve, and the way the others interact with him.

When everyone is talking in a group, their voices overlapping and raising in volume until Eddie is wincing and barely able to follow along, Steve doesn’t ever seem to pay attention. Sometimes he looks back and forth between them, his expression blank and often confused, his pretty eyes shining.

And then afterwards Robin or Nancy or Dustin talks to him privately, and Eddie wonders. He watches while they talk, while Steve nods and responds, his brows furrowed in focus, his eyes trained on their mouths.

And Eddie wonders.

“Hey, Buckley,” he says, dropping onto the sofa next to her. They’re in the Wheeler’s basement, and he watches Steve talking to Nancy in the corner. She shows him something, falling quiet as he looks at it intently, and then he looks back at her again before she continues to speak.

“Munson,” Robin greets dryly, flipping through a magazine, both of her legs pulled up on the sofa in front of her.

“I got a question, about— about Harrington.”

“I don’t know what he uses for his hair,” she says, flipping a page. “You have to ask him. I think Dustin might know but I’m pretty sure he took a blood pact to not tell anyone.”

“That’s…” Eddie blinks at her. “That’s not my question. I am curious now, though.”

“What’s the question?” she asks, lowering the magazine and looking at him. Her bangs are overgrown, falling in her sparkly eyes, but she doesn’t seem to care. “What can I do you for?”

“I…” He hesitates, glancing back at Steve and Nancy. They’re both laughing, Nancy gesturing with her hands while she talks. “This is, maybe, a… Weird question, but.”

“Ask.”

“Is Harrington, like… deaf?”

She blinks blankly at him, her eyelashes fluttering. She’s awfully pretty. (Not that Eddie’s told her.)

“Did you not know?”

“No?” She snorts at his reaction, his expression. “What the fuck?”

She laughs, shrugging.

“I thought you knew,” she says. “Everyone knows.”

“I didn’t!” he exclaims angrily, keeping his voice low. “How the fuck didn’t I know? Was he— Was he deaf in school?”

“No.” She shakes her head, looking back at the magazine. “It’s a recent development. Head trauma, y’know.”

“Jesus.” He looks back at Steve. His eyes are trained on Nancy’s mouth, a smile teasing his lips as she speaks. “Is he like… completely deaf? Or…”

“Kind of?” Robin says, flipping a page. “His left ear is completely deaf, I think. And the he, like, can only hear some things with his right ear. Really loud noises, and some, like, specific things. But he says voices are really hard to hear.”

“So he reads lips?”

“Yeah.”

“Would… Can he go see a doctor?” he asks. She sighs. “Like to get a hearing aid or something? I don’t really know how any of it works.”

“I don’t know,” she says, following his gaze to watch Steve. “He refuses to go to the doctor.” She hesitates for a second, twisting her mouth. “Neither of us really like the idea of going after the whole Russian-doctor-bone-saw thing.“

He looks at her. He still doesn’t really know what all happened with the Russian-doctor-bone-saw thing, but he never wants to ask. Not when Robin’s eyes dim slightly every time it comes up, and not when he knows it stops both of them from seeking medical attention. And not when he knows it must have something to do with Steve’s hearing loss.

“Nancy and I are trying to talk him into seeing an eye doctor, though,” she adds, looking back down at the magazine.

“Is his vision bad?” Eddie asks, his eyes still watching Steve. He’s not really observing anymore, at least not intentionally. But his eyes catch on the angle of his jaw, and the way he rubs at the scar around his neck absentmindedly. It isn’t as noticeably as Steve probably thinks it is.

“‘S not great,” she says lightly. “And when he gets headaches he sees, like spots. He doesn’t talk about it a lot, but I think that’s just because he doesn’t like people worrying about him.”

Eddie hums softly. He doesn’t notice Robin look over at him, seeing the way his eyes follow Steve’s every move, or the way his gaze has softened.

“Maybe you can talk him into going,” Robin says lightly. Eddie scoffs, finally looking away. He catches her eye before she looks back at the magazine and his cheeks flush.

“I have a feeling he won’t wanna listen to me.”

“I have a feeling he would,” she says, but before he can ask what the hell she means by that, the door to the basement opens and Mrs Wheeler’s voice calls Nancy’s name. Eddie scrambles, falling off the sofa and hiding out of sight even though she isn’t coming down the stairs.

Nancy has to leave to get Mike from Dustin’s house, even though she complains about it. (Mike said he could bike home. Nancy is not happy. It’s going to be a very uncomfortable car ride home.) Eddie sneaks out the back while Robin and Steve say goodbye to the Wheelers, hiding in the backseat of Steve’s car. When Robin slides into the passenger seat, she reaches back and smacks the top of his head. He reaches around the seat and smacks her back, swatting at her face, and Steve snorts, shaking his head at them.

Robin smacks at Eddie before she gets out of the car when they drop her off, and Eddie watches Steve walk her to the door and kiss her forehead before he comes back. He stops as he’s headed back to the car, tilting his head as Eddie struggling to climb into the passenger seat.

“You’re in charge of music,” Steve says as he’s buckling himself in, looking at Eddie.

Eddie flicks through the radio stations until he finds his favourite; the music is loud and heavy and intense, rough guitar riffs and drum beats so strong Eddie can feel them in his bones. When he looks over at Steve, Steve is smiling absently, the streetlights and stoplights shining on his face.

Their nighttime routine is a comfort to Eddie. It’s quiet, even with the remnants of his heavy music echoing in his head like it’s empty. They both shower when they get home. Steve takes longer showers than Eddie, and Eddie listens to the fall of the water as he heads to the living room. He flicks the lamps around the room on so it’s not too dark, all the curtains drawn. (The curtains are almost always drawn. Steve’s neighbors live far enough away that he doesn’t particularly worry about them seeing him through the windows, and it’s not like they even come by just to chat with Steve, but Steve doesn’t want to risk anything.)

Steve comes into the living room as Eddie is grinding the weed in his lap, and he leans over the back of the sofa, gently using his own towel to dry the dripping ends of Eddie’s hair. Eddie doesn’t move, but he laughs lightly, remembering every Thanks, sweetheart he’s said sarcastically that Steve never responded to.

“What are you laughing at?” Steve asks when he finishes drying his hair, collapsing onto the sofa next to him and looking at him with his shining eyes. It’s dim enough in the living room that his eyes look almost black, shiny and wide like some curious puppy. Eddie looks away, running his tongue along the edge of the rolling paper. “What’s funny?”

Eddie sticks the joint between his lips, suppressing a smile and feeling around his leg for the lighter. Steve watches him.

He lights the joint, the flame lighting up his face for a moment, and then he takes a long, slow drag, turning to face Steve by leaning his back against the armrest of the sofa and pulling his legs up between them.

“You know I didn’t know you’re deaf until today?”

Steve blinks blankly at him before—

“You didn’t know?”

A laugh bursts out of Eddie, and he shakes his head, watching as Steve grins and laughs in disbelief.

“No idea,” Eddie says, holding the joint out for Steve, who takes it, his fingers brushing Eddie’s lightly. “I had… an inkling today and asked Buckley.”

Steve laughs lightly, shaking his head as he takes a drag from the joint.

“How have you never noticed?” he asks, smoke drifting around his face. “There’s never been, like…” He shrugs, taking another short drag. “Any kind of misunderstanding, or…”

Eddie thinks for a second, sighing, leaning against the back of the sofa. He shrugs after a moment.

“Not really?” he says. Steve’s eyes are trained on his mouth. “I’ve said some things and you didn’t respond, but I never really worried about it.” Steve raised his eyebrows, smiling amusedly as he smokes. “But never anything that really needed a response, so…”

Steve laughs again. His eyes squeeze shut when he does. He’s going to have wrinkles around his eyes when he’s older, crow’s feet and laugh lines. Eddie can’t wait to see the remains and effects of joy and laughter and smiles alongside his scars.

“I think…” he starts, but he trails off. Steve holds the joint back out to him, and he takes it hesitantly, thinking. Steve waits patiently. “I think the reason there’s never been a problem is because I…”

“You what?“ Steve asks. His voice is soft. He mirror Eddie, leaning against the back of the sofa, setting his arm over it and letting his face rest on it.

“I think I just, like… instinctively face you when I’m talking with you. I like looking at you.”

Steve blinks, looking into Eddie’s eyes for a moment.

And then he’s smiling softly.

Eddie looks away, his cheeks flushing as he takes a long drag from the joint, letting the smoke fill his lungs and cloud his brain.

“Is it hard?” he asks Steve after a short while as he’s passing it back over to him. “Reading lips?”

Steve shrugs, blowing smoke into the air between them.

“Sometimes,” he says softly. “It was at first, when my hearing started going, but Robin helped a lot.” He looks at him with a sharp little smile. “Once I figured out how to read her lips I was pretty much good to go.”

Eddie laughs.

“Sometimes Robin and Dustin complain that I talk too quietly,” Steve adds, and then he takes another drag, holding it as he holds the joint out to Eddie and exhaling as Eddie inhales. “I just don’t wanna be yelling all the time, I can’t— I can’t hear myself talk,” he explains, gesturing to his ear with a lazy point. “But I’ve gotten better at speaking at a normal volume.”

“You’re good,” Eddie reassures him. “I like your voice.”

It’s not just the weed getting rid of his filter. He knows it’s not. There’s a lot he wants to say to Steve that he’s been holding back, including that. His voice really is nice. Soft and smooth and low, sometimes breathy in almost-whispers that make shivers run down Eddie’s spine.

“Yeah?” Steve breathes. (There it is.)

“Yeah.” He hesitates, his eyes skimming down to rest at Steve’s lips. “Pretty.”

Steve looks away, unsuccessfully suppressing a smile. Even in the dimness of the room Eddie sees his cheeks flush pink.

Eddie smokes slowly, gazing at Steve, watching as his smile softens and then falls as he looks back up at Eddie. Their eyes meet and Steve looks away, picking at his sweatpants and twisting his mouth like he’s thinking too hard. Eddie nudges his leg with his foot, prompting him to look back up at him.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks. His voice is soft.

Steve shrugs lightly, pausing. He lays against the back of the sofa, curling in on himself. He looks so small, his hair starting to dry, curling slighting and frizzing in a way King Steve would never have let happen. Eddie wants to run his hands through it. He wants to take Steve into his arms and hold him until he falls asleep.

“I don’t really mind it,” Steve says after a moment. “It was hard to get used to at first, and it kinda freaked me out because I— I couldn’t hear if anything was happening behind me or when I going to sleep, but now I…” He shrugs, still avoiding Eddie’s eyes. “I don’t mind it,” he says again.

Eddie waits as Steve takes a deep breath, leaning over to the coffee table to drop the joint in the ashtray. He moves back to mirror Steve, curling an arm under his head against the sofa.

“I used to get really overwhelmed by noise,” Steve continues. “In the cafeteria, or in the gym, and my…” He takes a shuddering breath. “My dad used to yell a lot. I hated that.“

Steve’s parents left after the “earthquakes.” They barely even said goodbye. Steve never really talked about it, never seemed to be sad about it, but sometimes Eddie sees his face when he thinks no one’s looking. One night he heard him crying. Eddie doesn’t think he’s sad about them leaving, per se, but rather that they didn’t care enough to tell him they loved him. That they’d miss him. They left him a house, but not a phone number he could contact them at.

“The quiet is nice,” Steve says softly. “But sometimes I…” He hesitates, glancing at Eddie, who nudges him again with an eyebrow raise.

“Sometimes I wish I could hear you,” Steve says breathily, rushed and quiet and shy, his eyes avoiding Eddie’s. “I don’t really remember what you sound like from school, but I— I bet your voice is nice.”

Eddie’s face flushes with heat.

Some time passes. Steve doesn’t look at Eddie, so Eddie doesn’t say thing. But he looks at Steve, at the way he gazes blankly as his own lap, at the worn fabric of the sofa between them, a soft of sad acceptance in the golden reflecting shining in his eyes.

Eddie takes a breath, sitting up and moving closer. Steve looks at him.

“Wanna try something,” Eddie whispers. Steve blinks at him. Nods. Eddie holds his hand out.

Steve carefully slides his hand into Eddie’s, and Eddie’s brain stops working for a moment, overwhelmed by the warmth of Steve’s skin against his. He runs his thumb over Steve’s knuckles, taking a deep breath, preparing himself for whatever the hell happens.

Slowly, he raises Steve’s hand to his own neck, using both hands to press Steve’s fingers to his throat. Steve’s eyes meet his. His brows are furrowed in confusion, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.

Eddie swallows anxiously, letting go of Steve’s hand and opening his mouth, stammering before he says, “Can you feel it?”

Steve blinks, slowly sitting up and looking down at his fingers against Eddie’s throat. His eyes widen and flick up to Eddie’s then down to his mouth.

“Say something.”

Eddie’s lips twitch into a smile, and he shifts closer. Steve’s fingers press harder. Eddie hopes he can’t feel his heartbeat.

“I— I don’t know what to say.”

“Anything,” Steve says breathlessly. “Say anything.”

“You’re fucking beautiful,” Eddie says. He lets himself just talk, a weight being lifted off his shoulders with every word. “I’ve— I’ve always thought so, Steve, you’re gorgeous.“

Steve’s face softens, his cheeks flushing pink. He shifts closer until they’re sitting cross-legged in front of each other, their knees pressing together, Steve’s hand pressing to Eddie’s throat.

Steve prompts him with a little jerk of his chin. Eddie smiles.

He sings You are my sunshine. Steve starts to smile when he recognizes the words, watching Eddie’s lips raptly, his other hand moving to rest on Eddie’s leg.

“Alright?” Eddie asks when the song is done. Steve nods. His eyes are glistening, shining like he might cry. “What are you thinking?”

“I like it,” he says, choking on his words. Eddie sets a hand over the one that Steve has on his leg. “The way your voice feels. And your… your heartbeat.“

“Oh, you can feel that too?” Eddie asks quietly. Steve nods, snickering softly. “So you know I’m freaking out right now?”

“You don’t need to freak out,” Steve whispers, his fingers shifting on his neck, shaking his head. “It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Steve hesitates, biting his lip, his eyes trained on his hand on Eddie’s neck.

“I like…” He looks at Eddie’s eyes. “I like knowing you’re alive.”

Eddie blinks.

“Like—“ Steve stammers, his mouth moving silently, and Eddie squeezes his hand, rubbing his knuckles soothingly. “Your heartbeat. I can feel that you’re alive. It’s the same reason I like your scars.”

Eddie can’t fight the little smile that crawls across his face. He reaches up and traces the scar around Steve’s neck, watching Steve’s eyes flutter shut. When he looks back at Eddie, Eddie says, “I like your scars too.”

Steve kisses him.

His hand tightens on Eddie’s throat, pulling him in, and Eddie’s eyes widen before they squeeze shut and his hands fly to hold Steve’s face between them. Steve’s cheeks squish under his palms, and Steve’s other hand squeezes Eddie’s thigh tightly.

Steve pulls away after a moment with a sharp gasp, his eyes wide, and as his eyes flick back and forth between Eddie’s, Eddie starts to smile.

“Sorry,” Steve says breathlessly, and Eddie shakes his head.

“Don’t apologise,” Eddie tells him. Steve’s eyes flick to his throat. “I want you to, it’s okay.”

Steve exhales, still looking at him frantically, and Eddie holds his face as gently as he can, nodding and smiling and breathing heavily despite the kiss being brief.

“It’s okay,” he says again. Steve’s fingers press into his neck, and then he seems to melt, falling forward until his forehead rests on Eddie’s cheek, his shoulders slumping. Eddie closes his eyes, pushing his hands into Steve’s hair gently. It’s tangled and still a little damp, but Steve hums softly, and Eddie combs through it.

Steve sighs heavily, his other hand sliding up to hold Eddie’s hip, slipping over the creases of his sweatpants.

He finally lifts his head after a while, looking at Eddie almost sleepily, releasing his leg and reaching up to hold his cheek, and then he’s kissing him again.

His lips are soft against Eddie’s, and he tastes like weed and the sweet strawberries Mrs Wheeler brought down as Eddie hid behind the stairs, and Eddie sighs, combing through his hair again and scratching at his scalp and smiling against his lips when Steve hums softly.

Steve pulls away, sliding his tongue over his lips, tilting his head before he leans back in, kissing him like he doesn’t want to breathe. Eddie’s fingers tighten in his hair, and Steve’s tighten on his neck, and then Steve’s lips are parting and his tongue is slipping across Eddie’s lip, and Eddie is combusting. His jaw drops so Steve can press his tongue into his mouth, and a strangled groan escapes him.

Steve whimpers and presses his hand harder against his throat, his other hand holding his face. His thumb brushes over the mangled and scarred skin of Eddie’s cheek lightly.

When Eddie pulls away, Steve’s lips are kissed red, and Eddie ignores the flutter of pride in his stomach.

“Lay back,” Eddie says when Steve looks at him blearily, and Steve wordlessly shifts, pushing his hands into Eddie’s hair and pulling him down on top of him as he falls onto his back. Eddie catches himself with a hand to the sofa, laughing lightly, grinning at the way Steve blinks up at him, the way his hair fans out underneath him.

“God, you’re gorgeous.”

Steve tugs at his curls.

“Kiss me,” he says softly, lifting his chin. “Please, come— come here.”

Eddie lowers himself on top of him, and Steve is already opening his mouth desperately, closing his eyes. Eddie wishes he had a photographic memory. Or a camera.

He leans down and kisses him, carefully, tenderly pulling Steve’s lip between his own, listening to Steve’s breath hitch, feeling his hands run over the back of his neck under his hair. Steve falls lax, melting into the sofa as Eddie sucks on his lip, as Eddie leans over onto one arm and runs his other hand through his hair, pets his cheek, traces lines over his neck.

Steve lets him do what he wants, sighing and shifting closer until he slides a hand to Eddie’ neck again, pressing over his throat and moving his legs so one slips between Eddie’s. And he presses up.

A moan escapes Eddie, and Steve grins.

Eddie pulls away, groaning.

“You fucker.”

Steve giggles. Eddie shakes his head fondly at him, and then he’s pressing onto Steve’s leg and leaning down to kiss him deeply, moaning softly as Steve pushes his knee up and flicks his tongue across his lips. Steve is breathing heavily, one hand to Eddie’s throat, the other reaching down to tug at his hips, pulling him against himself, and Eddie sighs, sucking at Steve’s lip, his tongue, biting and licking as Steve clutches at him.

When Eddie pulls away, Steve’s lips and chin are glistening, and his cheeks are flushed, and it takes a few moments for him to open his eyes. He takes a heavy breath before he speaks.

“Never been kissed like that before.”

“No?” Eddie says breathlessly, resisting the urge to close the distance between them again. Steve shakes his head. “Was it okay?”

Steve swears under his breath, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Yeah, Eddie,” he breathes. Eddie doesn’t know why, but just his name in Steve’s mouth makes him shiver. Everyone calls him Eddie. It’s not a pet name or a special nickname. But the way Steve makes it sound? Eddie wants to legally change his name to Eddie in Steve’s voice. “It was okay, it was more than okay.”

Eddie grins, brushing the side of his pretty face with his fingertips before he kisses him again, slower and more carefully, pushing his tongue to slide along Steve’s, and Steve lets his mouth hang open, humming softly, pulling at his hips again before his hand slowly slips under Eddie’s sweatshirt.

Eddie pulls away for a moment, tilting his head and leaning back in, licking across Steve’s smiling lips. Steve’s fingers are warm against the small of his back, dancing deftly over his spine under his sweatshirt, and Eddie thinks he might actually have died during the whole Vecna thing. He never thought he’d make it to heaven. But that’s the only rational explanation.

Because Steve Harrington is making out with him. Messily, and sloppily, the way Eddie likes it. (Steve seems to like it too, if Eddie were to judge based on the soft whimpers and gasps that escape him.) Wrapping his legs around his hips, holding his throat tightly and pressing just over Eddie’s ass like he’s too nervous to touch it. Sucking at his lips and tongue messily until spit is sliding between them. Humming and moaning as Eddie kisses across his cheeks (spreading said spit unintentionally, but neither of them really give a shit) and down his neck. Pushing a hand into Eddie’s hair and tugging as Eddie kisses the long scar across his neck.

Eddie sits up after a second, looking down at Steve and admiring him. He’s panting, flushed and squirming on the sofa, his lips bitten red and bruised. His chin and cheeks are shining with spit, and Eddie wants to lick it off, so he does.

Steve giggles as Eddie drags his tongue over his cheek, one of his hands burying itself in Eddie’s hair and tugging enough that he groans. Eddie licks across his face, even over his closed eye, and Steve is smiling softly, almost basking in Eddie’s affection.

Steve’s hand hesitates over the small of Eddie’s back as Eddie is dragging the tip of his tongue over the scar on his neck, lifting and hovering, and Eddie sighs. He settles on a spot on his neck, digging his teeth into his skin lightly and listening to Steve whine as Eddie reaches back, grabbing Steve’s hand with his own and pushing it to his ass. Steve’s fingers grab him immediately, and Eddie lets out a soft moan, releasing his hand and running his hand up Steve’s arm.

His sweater is soft, and his arm is soft, and his grip on Eddie is soft, even when he squeezes, and Eddie smiles as he sucks on his neck.

He pulls away after a while, soothing the blossoming bruise with a swipe of his tongue, and looks at Steve, who looks up at him blearily, whining under his breath.

“Can I take this off?” Eddie asks when Steve’s eyes land on him, tugging his shirt, and Steve nods, squeezing Eddie again before he shifts, sitting up. Eddie settles between his legs, carefully pulling Steve’s sweatshirt over his head, mussing his hair, and he tosses it away without looking to see where it lands.

He leans down, pressing desperate kisses across Steve’s and neck and collarbones, sliding his hands across his chest.

“Eddie—“ Steve gasps as Eddie thumbs over his nipples, and Eddie grins, pulling away to watch him throw his head back let out a strained exhale. “Shit.”

Eddie does it again, smiling lazily and tilting his head, watching Steve bite his lip, furrow his brows, breathe heavily, until Steve smacks his hands away like he doesn’t really want to.

“Off,” he says, reaching for the hem of Eddie’s t-shirt, and Eddie pulls away, hesitating for only a second before he pulls his shirt up over his head and tosses it away, shaking his hair out of his face.

Steve is staring at him, his eyes lidded and dark. They skim down his chest, lingering at his tattoo before they land on the scars that cover his sides. Eddie wants to cover them, to find his shirt and put it back on so Steve will stop staring.

Steve reaches out slowly, his fingertips dancing across the scarred skin. It tickles, the touch feather light and barely there, and Eddie closes his eyes. Steve traces every scar, trailing his fingertips over his sides and chest and upper arms, and then one of his hands pulls away.

There’s a moment before his palm presses to Eddie’s throat, and Eddie exhales as Steve falls against his shoulder, his forehead pressing into the side of Eddie’s neck. Eddie opens his eyes, glancing at him enough to wrap his arms around him, sliding his hands over his bare back and into his hair. He’s so warm. Eddie closes his eyes again.

“Say something for me,” Steve says softly. Eddie looks at him again. He isn’t looking.

“I love you,” he says, feeling Steve’s hand press harder against his throat, and he lets his head fall back, exhaling. His breath hitches in his throat. “I love you so much, Stevie, I love you.”

Steve whimpers as he speaks, his fingers tightening on the sides of Eddie’s neck, and Eddie feels almost lightheaded. He tugs Steve’s hair gently, speaking again, low and quiet but loud enough that Steve can feel it against his hand.

Steve is crying. Eddie can feel his tears on his own skin, can hear the way Steve’s breath catches in his throat and feel the way he’s shaking. Eddie plays with his hair gently, runs a hand over the back of his neck, and he talks.

It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you. I’m alright, I’m right here. You’ve got me, you can hold onto me. I’ll take care of you.

When Steve finally lifts his head, his lashes are soaked, his cheeks tearstained, and Eddie’s neck gets cold. He reaches to wipe his cheeks tenderly, nodding.

“What did you say?” Steve asks quietly. Eddie blinks, his cheeks flushing with heat.

“I said a lot,” he says. Steve smiles, tilting his head, wordlessly asking again. Eddie hesitates, his eyes flicking across Steve’s face. He looks exhausted, tear streaked and red cheeked, his eyes half closed, lips swollen from kisses, neck spotted with bites and bruises. He looks throughly fucked, content and relaxed despite his tears. Eddie brushes a hand over the side of his face.

“I love you,” he breathes.

Steve blinks, his eyes raising to meet Eddie’s. He looks back and forth between Eddie’s eyes, glances back at his lips, tightens his grip on his neck.

“Say it again,” he whispers.

“I love you.” Steve swallows, his eyebrows furrowing and his lip quivering, and he releases Eddie’s throat, which goes cold almost immediately as Steve lifts his hand and touches Eddie’s lips. “I love you,” Eddie says again softly.

Steve closes his eyes, and kisses him again a moment later. Eddie’s eyes fall shut, and he cradles the back of Steve’s head as Steve kisses him slowly, deeply.

“Really?” Steve asks desperately when he pulls away. He’s holding Eddie’s face between his hands. Eddie gazes at him, wondering when he last heard those words. He sighs softly, shifting, moving so he’s sitting up on one of Steve’s legs, his fingers running through Steve’s hair as Steve places his hands on his waist.

“I love you,” he says slowly when Steve is looking at his mouth again. “Really, seriously. Definitely. Completely.”

Steve stammers silently for a moment, his hands tightening.

“If— If you don’t kiss me right now, I think I’ll actually die.”

A laugh bursts out of Eddie, and he leans down, their mouths crashing together. His hair falls around their faces, hiding them like a curtain, and Steve holds his wrist, his head falling back.

“Jesus, Eddie,” Steve breathes when they part, panting, his eyes closed. “You’re so good at that.”

Eddie’s stomach flutters, and he giggles.

Steve opens his eyes.

“Surprised?” Eddie asks softly, still smiling. Steve doesn’t answer, tilting his head, sliding his hands to Eddie’s hips, and then he’s pulling, lifting his leg up against Eddie, a smile crawling across his face as Eddie exhales sharply and looking away, ever ounce of pride, of smugness, departing.

He takes a deep breath, consciously refraining from shifting his hips against Steve’s thigh. (Jesus, his thighs. Eddie wants to eat him.) But Steve pulls again, grinning at him.

“I love you too,” he says lightly, pulling at his hips until Eddie gives up, collapsing against him and groaning. “It’s okay, go ahead.”

Eddie slowly grinds against his leg, huffing, staring at him. Steve nods, smiling and smiling.

Eddie whines, squeezing his eyes shut, and he reaches down to grab one of Steve’s hands, pulling it away from where it’s gripping his sweatpants and lifting it to his throat. Steve grips him gently, grinning at him when Eddie moans quietly.

Eddie shifts, desperately moving so his knee presses to Steve, watching as Steve’s brows furrow and he bites his lip. His knee presses harder every time he shifts against Steve’s thigh, and Steve slides a hand to Eddie’s ass again, squeezing.

Steve is noisy. Eddie loves it.

He whines and whimpers and moans, his eyes closed, his head fallen back, murmuring things like yeah and please when Eddie starts licking him again (because he can’t help it). He gets louder as he gets closer, when Eddie reaches down and touches him over his sweatpants.

“I’m so loud, aren’t I?” Steve asks breathlessly, his cheeks flushed as Eddie squeezes him. Eddie laughs lightly, grinding against him, nodding.

“I like it,” he says, just as breathless.

“You like it?“

Eddie nods. He squeezes again, stroking and pulling, and Steve chokes out a whimper, but Eddie sets his other hand on his chin, lifting it up so their eyes meet, and Steve looks at his lips.

“Let it all out, sweetheart.”

Steve’s eyes fall shut. He melts against Eddie, who lets his other hand drift to Steve’s chest, sliding his fingertips over one of his nipples before he pinches, and Steve yelps, his hips bucking up into Eddie’s hand.

“Fuck, Eddie.” He grips Eddie’s throat, his other hand jumping to hold Eddie’s forearm tightly. “Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck—“

Eddie watches raptly, wide-eyed and mesmerised as Steve’s eyes squeeze shut and his fingers tighten on Eddie’s throat. Eddie presses down against Steve’s thigh, grunting and biting his lip as he comes.

“Eddie.”

Eddie opens his eyes and leans down, pressing sloppy kisses across Steve’s neck, licking over his skin that’s now salty with sweat, exhaling over his own spit and feeling Steve shiver against him.

“Eddie— Baby, please.”

Eddie’s eyes widen, his stomach fluttering.

“I got you,” he says, and Steve’s eyes open when he feels the words vibrate against his hand. “It’s okay, Stevie, I got you.”

“Jesus, fuck—“

When he comes, the noise he lets out is high-pitched, weak and strained and so vulnerable it makes Eddie ache. His eyes squeeze shut, and his hands tighten on Steve, and he tenses up until he’s frozen, and after a moment passes, he collapses.

He exhales hard, his hands releasing Eddie, and Eddie pulls his hand away, smoothing both of his hands Steve’s sides, over his scars and scattered moles. Steve opens his eyes after a moment, breathing heavily, and his eyes land on Eddie’s throat. He traces a line over it softly.

“Sorry.”

Eddie sighs.

“Don’t you dare apologise,” he says quietly. Steve rests his fingertips lightly over his throat. “That was the hardest I’ve come in ages.”

Steve smiles tiredly.

“Didn’t even touch you,” he mumbles.

“Next time.”

Steve’s smile grows and he nods. He falls forward, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s waist and pressing his face into his neck. Eddie takes a deep breath. (Steve smells like his fancy soap and weed and sweat, and Eddie wants to keep the scene for the rest of his life.) He wraps his arms around Steve’s neck, burying his face between his arm and Steve’s neck, and inhaling again.

“I love you,” Steve says softly.

Eddie pushes a hand into his hair, tugging lightly three times, and Steve hums quietly.

He lifts his head after a moment, looking up at Eddie.

“Even though you didn’t realise I’m deaf after, like, a year.”

Eddie laughs lightly, looking away as his cheeks flush. Steve’s eyes are sparkling playfully, shining in the dim lamplight, and he really is the prettiest thing Eddie’s ever seen.

“Sorry.”

“‘S okay,” Steve says quietly. His eyes stay on Eddie’s lips, and Eddie watches as Steve’s tongue slips across his lips, as he nibbles his bottom lip nervously. Eddie combs through his hair soothingly, and after a moment, Steve’s mouth falls open, and he’s holding his tongue out, and Eddie leans in after briefly wishing for a camera again.

He licks Steve’s tongue, pulling away to look again before he leans back in and sucks his tongue between his lips, sucking and licking at it until both their chins and lips are slick with spit, listening to the sound of their tongues sliding, of Steve’s heavy breaths. When he finally pulls away, Steve’s eyes remain closed, his whole face relaxed and soft and calm. He almost looks asleep. Eddie pets his hair, brushes his fingers over his cheek.

Steve opens his eyes after a moment, and it takes a second for them to focus on Eddie.

“Bed?” he asks softly, almost just breathing the word, and Eddie nods, pressing a kiss to his mouth one more time before he kisses his forehead.

Steve falls asleep first, heavy against Eddie, his head resting on his chest, just over his heart. Eddie wonders if he can feel his heartbeat.

Eddie thinks for a while, staring up at the ceiling in the dim light of the room. (The leave the bathroom light on and the door open. Neither of them can stand the dark anymore.) There are probably some books on sign language at the library. He can ask Robin to pick them up for him. And maybe she can find some classes in town. She’d be willing to teach him what she learns. Of course Steve would also need to learn it. If he wants to. Eddie will ask tomorrow.

Steve sighs, shifting on Eddie’s chest, and Eddie looks down at the top of his head. He carefully, gently presses a hand into his hair, scratching at his scalp and combing through it.

Steve Harrington.

Squeezed Eddie’s throat until he almost couldn’t breath just so he could feel Eddie’s voice because he can’t hear it. Let Eddie suck on his tongue and lick his face and get off on his thigh. Kissed Eddie like he’d die if he didn’t, touched his scars like he’s fragile, like he deserves to be touched delicately.

Said he loves Eddie.

“Eddie,” Steve grumbles against Eddie’s chest. Eddie blinks, looking down at him and tugging his hair to show him that he’s listening. “Go to sleep, baby.”

Eddie smiles, lifting his head to kiss the top of Steve’s head, and then he closes his eyes, because he would walk straight off a cliff if Steve told him to like that.

#i think the world needs more of deaf steve #so #have this #much spicier than i intended oops #but also im not sorry so #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #deaf steve harrington #1k