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#prophetic word today

headfullofpresley · 1 year

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love has no desire but to fulfill itself; find love in yourself and it will open your eyes to find it around you.

#words i needed to hear today #thank you el <333 #the prophet #elvis #elvis presley

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jefferisp7 · 2 years

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A Time of Darkness; A Time of Light - 9 Prophetic Words

Current Prophet's Agree on 9 points.

There is a conflict between the World’s System of Governance and God’s desire for all Nations. Prophetic Words recorded in 1992 are being confirmed by contemporary prophets and are coming to pass, or soon will be. Financial collapse, Supernatural provision, International corporations want to rule the world and control the people, their thoughts, their speech, and an end their freedom to disagree.…

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#A New Exodus #A time of darkness #a time of silenc #A time of silence.#Deep state #Economic Collapse #Globalists #God&039;s Glory in the Church #God&039;s judgments in the earth #God&039;s provision in draught #One World Government #prophesies for today #Prophetic words #Rollerball #Supernatural Provision #tyranny #WEF #Worldwide revival

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tmarshconnors · 2 months

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Does it scare you to think about what Satan is trying to do to your kids?

What are you doing to make sure he doesn’t? Are you teaching your children about God?

Are you setting an example for them showing them what faithfulness looks like? Do you take them to church and Bible class?

Do you talk to them about the lies and immorality that the devil has made normal?

Do you keep them from playing video games and watching shows that slip in things that will take them off course? Do you pray for them and over them?

Don’t think for one second that you can let up or slack off. Evil doesn’t.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 days

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Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.

They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.

*assholes

Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/

They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.

Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?

Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/

It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.

Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.

Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?

Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?

Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.

Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.

This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.

Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.

These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):

https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).

Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.

Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.

Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.

That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.

Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

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catsharkie · 4 months

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what if ds9 had tumble

capsisko

the wormhole :)

i-identify-starships-in-posts follow

klingon bird of prey, cloaked.

capsisko

(2373 notes)

skrainfanboy5997notdukat follow

Gul Dukat did nothing wrong.

wormzallday

juuuuulian

(9208 notes)

miles-edward-obrien

I thought I had work today, but no, the time loop.

(0 notes)

ziyart

STATUS UPDATE, I WON THE ART COMPETITION!

#THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE IN THE COMPETITION!

(9 notes)

kiranerys

If another thing breaks on this station i swear to the prophets

kiranerys

the replicator just sent someone to the infirmary. our doctor is running on negative 60 hours of sleep at least

kiranerys

i just want a raktajino

kiranerys

@miles-edward-obrien get your ass in here

(23 notes)

sponsored

come to quarks, quarks is fun, come right now, don’t walk, run!

miles-edward-obrien

I thought I had work today, but no, the time loop.

(0 notes)

juuuuulian

no sleep for 55 hours and counting!

juuuuulian

56 hours and counting!

juuuuulian

57 hours!

juuuuulian

where is miles

wormzallday

julian please

(7 notes)

n0gg

ah yes. me. my bestie. and his 50k word fanfic draft.

jakeosaurus

YOU asked ME if you could beta

n0gg

its funnier if i blame you

#lol

(93 notes)

juuuuulian

no sleep for 55 hours and counting!

juuuuulian

56 hours and counting!

juuuuulian

57 hours!

juuuuulian

where is miles

(7 notes)

ziyart

MY FRIENDS TOLD ME I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPS!

# IM NEVER GOING TO TALK IN LOWERCASE EVER AGAIN!

(3 notes)

miles-edward-obrien

I thought I had work today, but no, the time loop.

(0 notes)

garaksclothiers

So many accusations in my inbox! You people certainly are creative.

odododo

I know you’ve killed before. You’ve barely tried to hide it

garaksclothiers

Oh? You hate me and my whimsy?

odododo

I’m going to make a callout document on you.

(12 notes)

jakeosaurus

if the voles had subspace i think it would look like this

skittering-002

i love being in conduits undisturbed

pittering-pattering follow

I CAST PLASMA BEAM 10000 DEATHS

skittering-002

AHHHHH

(201 tiny notes)

the-scuttler

scuttling

the scuttler

easy website

(10032 tiny notes)

n0gg

the station is under attack stop vole blogging

jakeosaurus

do you think skittering-002 and pittering-pattering were in love

(38 notes)

deepspacenineofficial

Apologies for the high pitched whining! Our shields are activated, we are currently under attack. There is also an ion storm passing through.

miles-edward-obrien

If I get stuck in a time vortex again I swear to god

miles-edward-obrien

FUCK

(203 notes)

deepspacenineofficial

Apologies for the high pitched whining! Our shields are activated, we are currently under attack. There is also an ion storm passing through.

miles-edward-obrien

If I get stuck in a time vortex again I swear to god

(203 notes)

jakeosaurus

if the voles had subspace i think it would look like this

skittering-002

i love being in conduits undisturbed

pittering-pattering follow

I CAST PLASMA BEAM 10000 DEATHS

skittering-002

AHHHHH

(201 tiny notes)

the-scuttler

scuttling

the scuttler

easy website

(10032 tiny notes)

(38 notes)

n0gg

wormzallday

i really wish women were real

(1348 notes)

kiranerys

guldukat follow

#YES

(1024766 notes)

#ds9 #deep space nine #star trek #im not tagging all these characters

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forlix · 8 months

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𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞・l.f.

— five times you want to tell your best friend you love him and the time you finally do.

words・7.7k

pairing・idol!felix x gn!reader

genres・fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, best friends to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn w/a happy ending, 5 + 1 trope, idiots in love who are also afraid of love, you do the math

warnings・alcohol consumption, discussions of anxiety, lots of emotional vulnerability, like a surprising amount of crying icl

playlist・jazz bar by dreamcatcher・spring day by bts・through the night by iu・eight by iu ft. suga・house song by searows・not mine by day6

a/n・i borrowed the title of this beautiful day6 song for this fic; give it a listen if you can (especially while reading part four). happy late birthday, lix <333 thank you for being you

One. The door to the café opens with a soft jingle, bringing a chilly draft into the room and causing you to draw your scarf tighter around your shoulders.

Theoretically, you come here to study—but people-watching has become a simultaneous pastime. There was that couple with a pair of samoyeds, so fluffy that they looked like walking clouds; a mother and son, hunched over their croissants, arguing in a classic “don’t cause a scene in public” tone; an elderly woman in bicycle shorts asking for extra shots of espresso in the menu’s most caffeinated item.

And now, there is him.

“Hello,” the ashy-haired stranger says to the barista with a quick, polite bow. “May I have a medium caramel latte? Hot, with sweetener, please. Thank you.”

His voice reminds you of the notes of a cello, of the feeling of running your fingers through tufted velvet. When he turns away from the counter, he’s slipping a card back into his wallet, and you catch a glimpse of long lashes and a scattering of freckles. You cannot see his face, as it’s covered by a black mask, but that only propels the question further: who are you?

And perhaps it is destiny herself who hooks a gentle finger beneath the stranger’s chin and tilts his head upwards, because when he inadvertently steps into a patch of sunlight, his brown irises illuminate like molten amber, and they are fixed upon you.

You feel your lips part, your stomach turn. You don’t know if your cheeks are so warm because of your piping hot tea (your third one today) or because of the newfound eye contact with someone so ethereal.

But you are sure that the corners of the stranger’s eyes crinkle ever so slightly, as if his lips have just curved into a smile beneath his mask.

“Felix,” the barista calls, and you turn the name silently on your tongue.

Maybe you are exhausted from work and not thinking straight. Maybe you are more starved for change than you’ve ever been. Or maybe you’re just prophetic. But you think you sense forever in this man, with his freckled cheeks and pretty eyes.

That is the first time you want to tell Lee Felix you love him.

Two. The second Felix comes into your line of vision, you sense that something is wrong.

You hold up a hand in greeting, and the smile he returns is sincere but muted, as if it pains him to move, to breathe. He sounded weary on the phone earlier—can I see you tonight? Just for a bit—but only now that he’s in front of you do you see the extent of his fatigue, seeping into his sunken shoulders and lightless eyes.

“Hi,” he says once he’s close enough.

“Hey, you,” you answer, rising out of your seat. Instinctively, he extends his arms toward you, and you draw him into a hug that is fleeting and familiar. He smells faintly of laundry detergent and vanilla, and it makes something within you ache, like an oyster searching for its absent pearl.

When you pull away, your hands move to your best friend’s cheeks, cocooning his face so you can get a better look at him. Even under the sparse streetlights, you see that his eyes are slightly bloodshot, the shadows beneath them deep and sullen. Has he been crying?

“Bad day?” You ask, your hands falling back to your sides.

“The worst,” he returns with a weak smile.

“Wanna take a walk?”

“Yes, please. How long do I have you for?”

This is what you do when your schedules are too packed for you to make real plans: take strolls wherever is most convenient, for however long either of you can spare. Sometimes that’s five minutes, sometimes five hours. But you know that you need to be here for him tonight.

“As long as you need me,” you say.

You turn around to pick up your drinks (a decaf caramel latte for Felix and a black milk tea for yourself), and you don't see the way his smile comes back a little bigger the second time, the way his cheeks warm slightly under the moonlight.

There’s a small park a few blocks behind your apartment. Granted, it's not a very good park, with only a tiny, sad playground and very little foliage, but it is an excellent stargazing spot, due to it being so dark and desolate. You and Felix decide to head there now, your arms touching as you walk through the quiet residential area.

Ten minutes later, blades of grass are poking the back of your head, and directly above you is a sea of scattered stars, flickering like millions of faulty flashlights. Felix’s voice is leaden when he starts to speak, breaking the park’s fragile silence. He tells you about his fears, about how earlier today they overwhelmed him so much that he wanted to lock himself away from the world and throw away the key. He tells you about his dreams, about how even in his relentless pursuit of them they sometimes still feel as amorphous and unattainable as fragments of mist.

The way he always does when he’s around you, Felix spills parts of himself that he never thought he could entrust to anyone. And you don’t say a word, your knee leaning against his, listening, understanding. (But you wish you could tell him a lot of things: that you care for him more than you ever believed yourself capable; that you hope for his happiness more than your own; that you don’t have the words to heal him, but you would give anything to find them.)

By the time the two of you leave the park, it’s almost midnight, and the streets have fallen silent save for the occasional whoosh of car wheels on cement and the distant lamentations of cricket choirs. You’re making small talk now, and Felix is smiling a little easier. It seems your conversation worked in cheering him up; a temporary fix, you’re sure, like a bandaid where stitches should be, but seeing his eyes crinkle and hearing his laugh again is enough to soothe your worry for the rest of the night, at the very least.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay going back yourself?” You ask once the two of you reach the entrance to your apartment building.

“Yeah, of course.” Felix touches the back of his neck apologetically. “I’m sorry I kept you out so late.”

“Nonsense, Lix. I’m always here for you.”

Felix averts his eyes to his shoes, and you’re caught off guard by his facial expression: exhausted but contemplative, and possessing a sense of tenderness. It is a look that you don’t think you’ve seen before, and you feel your heartstrings pull at its unfamiliarity, its strange softness.

You say your goodbyes, but your "let me know when you get home safe" is cut short when you feel a hand catch your wrist, just as you’re entering the building.

How Felix doesn’t notice your frantic pulse beneath his touch is beyond you, but instead he parts his lips, and his next words resound in your mind as you try and fail to fall asleep that night.

“I can’t explain why, or how—but I feel braver when I’m with you, Y/N. I meant to tell you that earlier.”

And those three words rush to your mind fleetingly, like saltwater crashing against the shores of your mind. Even when the tide has subsided, they remain on the sand, waiting to be read aloud.

“Thank you,” Felix mumbles, “for everything.”

You don’t read out those words, of course. Instead, you reach up to squish Felix’s face and call him a sentimental dork, to which he rolls his eyes affectionately and bats you away, and the moment is over. But when you turn to go, your heart is pounding so loudly that your reply may as well have been a confession.

Three. You sink into your mattress, careful to keep your tea within your mug’s rim, and let out a hybrid of a groan and a sigh that is strikingly reminiscent of an old man lowering himself into a worn armchair.

You can’t remember the last time you had a cold this terrible. It feels as if your lungs took a plunge in a vat of wet cement and then rolled around in gravel immediately afterward. And it’s got you in the mood to do nothing but listen to the heavy drops of rain knocking against your window, curl up with a good show and a hot drink, and bask in your own congestion.

But then your phone, which you left in the bathroom, emits four deafening notification sounds, and you haul yourself back out of bed with a groan-sigh that’s twice as anguished as the last.

When you reach the hellish device, your best friend’s name greets you, and your ire dissipates momentarily.

From: Lix 🐣 Hey hey From: Lix 🐣 We still on for dinner tonight? From: Lix 🐣 Just gonna be me, Minho, Seungmin. Jeongin has a vocal lesson From: Lix 🐣 Please don’t play the “if Jeongin doesn’t go neither do I” card again I’ve had enough of it!!! ENOUGH

You let out a throaty laugh that sounds like one of Minho’s cats battling a hairball, heading back to bed.

From: Y/N �� ahhhh i meant to text you earlier, but i have the worst cold From: Y/N 🌙 no clue how or why i caught it but i feel like fucking shit. it’d be a bad idea for me to come over right now From: Y/N 🌙 sorry :( can we raincheck in a few days? From: Y/N 🌙 (that way jeongin can come too!!!)

Felix dislikes this last text, and you snort into your tea.

From: Lix 🐣 Yeah, of course. Don’t apologize From: Lix 🐣 Do you need anything? You’re eating and sleeping well, yeah? From: Y/N 🌙 sleeping, YES. From: Y/N 🌙 eating, not really 😅 but i don’t have much of an appetite anyways From: Y/N 🌙 don’t worry about me. i’ll be raring to go in a day or two

Felix starts to type a response, but the gray dots disappear after a bit, and you set your phone face-down on your nightstand. He probably has to get back to work, and you have to get back to your episode.

Slowly, the soporific fragrance of chamomile and the lull of relentless rain start to weigh on your eyelids, and you slump unconsciously into your makeshift fortress of blankets, your show playing to nobody.

Night has fallen by the time the door of your apartment clicks open, and Felix pokes a head into your dark kitchen, cautiously calling out your name. When you don’t respond, he slips inside and moves to your kitchen counter, where he unloads the bags in his arms. A spare key to your place dangles from the opening of his hoodie pocket.

There’s a quiet knock on your bedroom door, another call of your name—infinitely softer this time, like how one would speak to a dove. But Felix finds you out like a light, even when he closes your laptop and puts it on your desk, checks your temperature with a gentle hand to your forehead. It feels normal enough to let you sleep, but warm enough that he brings a glass of water and two pills of ibuprofen to your nightstand, placed within your reach, should you wake up in the middle of the night needing them.

Using only the slivers of light coming in from the hallway, Felix allows himself to look at your sleeping form. Your breathing is callous but steady; your face pallid but peaceful. And if only you'd seen see the tiny, helpless smile that pulls at his lips; if only you'd heard the pulse protesting against his skin, yelling at him “do something about this, you fucking idiot, and do it soon."

But you don’t see or hear anything; you just speak, instead.

“Stay with me,” you whisper, and Felix’s hand freezes on your doorknob, his eyes widening in the darkness. “Please?”

There is a lengthy period of nothing, during which neither of you makes another noise; there is only the sound of your clock ticking, raindrops rushing against the windows, and Felix’s heart in his ears.

And then he moves.

“C'mere,” Felix murmurs once he’s lying down next to you, and you nestle into his embrace as easily as if you've always belonged there, your face burrowing into the crook of his neck, your arms winding around his waist, searching for him, asking for him.

Felix has always expressed his affection for people through touch, and you’ve gotten used to his constant hand on your shoulder, his leg resting against yours. But he thinks this is the first time you’ve initiated physicality outright, and he feels a concerned pang in his chest at your unexpected vulnerability. He lifts a hand to cradle the back of your head, running his fingers through your hair.

“Gonna get you sick,” you say with a wet sniffle, your voice muffled against him. And Felix presses a kiss to the top of your head, perhaps without thinking as much as he should have; but who can blame him for forgetting to think when he’s holding you the way he is?

“Don’t care,” he answers readily. “I'm not going anywhere.”

At some point before you fall back asleep, you think your mouth actually forms the words I love you, subtly and silently and into the fabric of his hoodie. But you resume your slumber before you can think more of it. (Felix waits until your breathing is steady again, checks your temperature one more time; and only afterward does he allow his eyes to close.)

The next morning, you wake to an empty bed and a Post-It note explaining that Felix had to run to a recording session: Check your kitchen! See u soon x. Accompanied by a small, messy doodle of a baby chick popping out of its egg.

Your face melts into a smile when you see that the fridge is chock-full of fresh groceries and the pantry has been restocked with your favorite snacks, including a batch of Felix’s world-famous sea salt brownies—accompanied by another note with another doodle, this time a crescent moon wearing your sneakers. Sugar is prolly bad for you rn. Pls have in moderation!

When you pull out your phone to thank him for everything, you see his remaining texts from yesterday—and you feel momentarily empty, as if only then noticing that you've been missing a fraction of your soul your whole life.

From: Lix 🐣 I’ll drop by tonight to check on you From: Lix 🐣 Wait for me, okay?

And he is right in front of you, just out of reach.

Four. “This isn’t a bad idea, right?” Chan asks under his breath.

“Nah, they’ll be fine,” Minho replies, clapping a hand on the leader’s shoulder. “Y/N will take care of him.”

A loud yelp comes from up ahead, and the men whip around quickly enough to crack a joint—only to realize that the noise was the opening note of DAY6’s “Not Mine,” and you and Felix have just launched into song so terribly and so loudly that it’s probably awoken the entirety of Seoul.

“And who’s gonna take care of Y/N?”

The two men look at each other for a moment before deciding they’re not interested in talking the two of you out of a disorderly intoxication charge.

“Let me know when you get back!” Chan hollers after you, and they reenter the karaoke bar in a hurry.

The members decided to go out for karaoke after finishing promotions earlier that week, and Felix invited you to come along. And you might've gone a little overboard with the mango sake, but your level of tipsy is nothing compared to that of the blue-haired boy draped over you.

Felix is rather prone to hangovers, you’ve discovered from past experiences, so the moment he started speaking in some kind of nonsensical Korean-English mutation that not even Chan could understand, the members tasked you with taking him home early. Now, Felix has his arm around your neck, less out of affection and more out of a genuine requirement for support, doing his best to walk in a straight line. He hasn't stopped grinning for the last hour, and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to run out of energy anytime soon, not as long as there’s more of DAY6’s discography to butcher.

In spite of your foggy mind, you're well aware that your best friend has never been prettier. He sets the bar high as it is, but then you throw in the flushed lips and cheeks, the lopsided, ditzy grin, the wine-kissed complexion, and life becomes terribly difficult for you. It doesn’t help that alcohol amplifies his proclivity for physical contact—he's been attached to your hip all night, holding your waist, pulling you into incidental hugs.

Needless to say, your current situation is a bit precarious; but you don't know that. Not yet.

The two of you finish your disrespectful rendition of “Not Mine” just as you pass the apartment’s front desk, and it is only when you see the deadly look that the receptionist gives you over the brim of his glasses that you finally feel sober again. You have the sense to incline your head in apology. Felix, however, launches into “You Were Beautiful” without a care in the world.

You dig a pointed elbow into his ribs as you hit the up button, and his singing abruptly falters with a pained huff. "Ow."

“Take an intermission, superstar,” you say. “The receptionist looks like he’s ready to throttle us.”

“Ah, he would never. We’re tight,” he returns, and before you can stop him he’s lifting his head, raising his voice. “Have a good night, Mr. Seo!”

Your nose scrunches into an apprehensive wince—but instead, you think you hear a hint of a smile in the man's cool reply.

“You too, Mr. Lee. Keep your voices down, please.”

“Yes, sir!” You and Felix reply in unison. Felix gives you a smile that says I told you so before he nestles his cheek against your shoulder, and you shake your head. Nobody is immune to the boy’s brightness.

Entering the building seemed to be effective in calming Felix down. The elevator ride up is silent save for a bit of quiet humming, and you finally see a bit of sleep on his face when you open the door of his dorm and turn on the living room lights. He lets you escort him to his bathroom without a word.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” you say, reaching to pat his cheeks a couple times. “Be careful in there.”

“M’kay. Thank you," he says with a drowsy smile, and closes the door.

You pull out your phone and open up your messages with Chan, remembering his parting request.

To: Chan 🐺 we got back safe!! To: Chan 🐺 lix is gonna be okay. i'll take care of him

A few minutes later, a notification appears at the top of your screen; Chan left hearts on both of your messages and sent two in response.

From: Chan 🐺 Thanks, good to hear :) you get some rest too, okay? From: Chan 🐺 Bro tore that sake UP

You begin to type back a retort—give me a break it was basically JUICE—when you hear Felix call your name, his voice muffled through the bathroom door.

“What's up?” You answer.

“I think I’m...stuck.”

Now what the hell does that mean?

“Can I come in?”

“Mhm.”

You open the door, and your attempt to suppress your laughter fails with flying colors. Felix is well and truly stuck in his crewneck, the gray material swathed around his head, his arms positioned in some kind of advanced pretzel formation.

“You are a hot mess, Lee Yongbok," you sing, moving toward him, and he whines from inside his cotton prison.

“Please don’t kick me while I’m down.”

Grinning, you bring your fingers to the hem of his top and attempt to lift it over his head. He’s managed to tangle himself quite impressively, and the next few minutes are spent with you trying to extract him, like he’s that one nose hair that your tweezers have never been able to reach, all while he's moaning and groaning about the fabric catching on his earrings, about his joints not being able to handle this kind of pressure anymore.

He emerges from the crewneck a while later looking positively disgruntled. You toss the gray mass onto the counter, proud of your handiwork.

“So maybe I‘m a hot mess,” he concedes. “A little bit.”

“That's alright. We all have our moments,” you giggle. “Come on, let me help you with your jewelry.”

For a second, he looks like he’s about to protest—but the look you give him reminds him that his motor functions are currently on strike.

“Okay,” he mumbles adorably.

You position yourself a little closer to Felix and lift your hands to the nape of his neck, where the clasp of his chain lies. It takes you a few tries to undo it, and you end up having to use the mirror above the sink for guidance. Soon, there is a soft click. You set the chain down next to the crewneck before your hands return to the sides of his face, this time to tuck long, light blue strands behind the cuffs of his ears. Your fingers run over the curves of his silver earrings.

“Are these bothering you at all?” You ask nonchalantly. “I forgot you had so many piercings.”

In your peripheral vision, you see Felix’s lips move, but no sound comes out. Puzzled, you move your eyes to meet his, and it takes you one blink’s worth of time to understand the source of his speechlessness.

Somewhere between your reaching up to touch his necklace and the present moment, you’ve come incredibly, dangerously close to him. Close enough that you can count the freckles that speckle his skin like fallen stars, that you can feel the heat of his body against your own, that Felix’s eyes are nearly crossed trying to maintain eye contact with you.

Your heartbeat lodges itself firmly in your throat, and your thoughts evaporate into complete and utter disarray. There are three differently-worded apologies on the tip of your tongue within seconds. You immediately start to pray that he won’t remember this tomorrow morning. And your strongest impulse is to move; to get as far away from him as possible, before either of you does anything you'll regret.

But there is something that overwhelms your every instinct, and stops you from budging an inch. And that is the way Felix is looking at you, unblinking brown eyes filled with something that doesn’t have a name. It is the same tender expression that’d surprised you the first time you saw it, and it is with a spiraling stomach that you finally realize what that expression is.

You reach your conclusion a second after he does.

Felix’s hand lifts to cradle your jaw, his face moving closer to yours. Your foreheads touch, wisps of his hair falling over the bridge of your nose, your senses engulfed by the vanilla of his cologne and the touch of sweet wine on his breath. The scene is as delicate as a dragonfly’s tail dipping into a pond’s surface; even a minuscule disturbance would shatter this limbo instantaneously.

A part of you wishes that it would, but nothing does. There is only his pulse, perceptible through the thin cloth of his tank top, vehement beneath your fingertips—and your heart, naked and frail, sitting upon the palm of his hand.

Felix doesn’t push you away; he doesn’t kiss you. He does something far worse.

“I love you,” he whispers.

A few seconds. That is how long you stand there for, with every word of every language you know inaccessible, every qualm and doubt and source of anxiety that plagued your mind moments before now distant memories, every ounce of your energy channeled into keeping yourself upright.

But the few seconds feel like forever. The same way he has always felt like forever to you. The same way you imagined you would spend forever loving him, close enough for him to love you back, but far enough that he’ll never know the true nature of your affection: greater and truer than anything anyone would ever call friendship.

An urgent question suddenly surfaces in your mind: is he still drunk? He was falling up, down, and sideways minutes ago. Surely this was an intoxicated slip of the tongue. But you discern the slight tremble to Felix’s breathing and the intensity in his heavy-lidded gaze, all far too intentional, far too conscious to be wine-induced—leaving behind one impossible possibility.

You should be having your happy tears kissed from your face right now. You should be over the moon, relishing in the sensation of two stars aligning at long fucking last, the way you’ve dreamed of since the very first time you laid eyes on Felix.

But instead, you just feel inexplicably and profusely afraid.

You won’t remember the specifics of the next few minutes. You think you stumble away from him and whisper I’m sorry through watering eyes, though you don’t really know what for. He sputters something in return, his tone so desperate and confused that you feel your heart break to pieces on the spot. You apologize again, leave the bathroom, and move towards the apartment door as if your life depends on it. In your peripheral vision, you notice the crease of concern on Mr. Seo’s face when you stalk past him, tears now flying freely down your cheeks. You run into Minho and Jeongin when you step out of the building, and you see the worry that creases their faces, hear their voices calling your name. Jeongin's hand closes around your wrist—are you okay?! What the fuck happened?—but you do not, can not say anything, not right now.

And then you are alone again, and you briskly walk the two miles back to your apartment. Your mind and heart are every bit as foggy as the somber night sky that hangs over your head.

Five. When the two of you step out of the restaurant and into the evening, Felix turns around to face you, launching into his best tour guide walk.

“And, with that,” he says with a glowing smile, “we are nearing the end of our tour of Sydney.”

“Noooo,” you lament, reaching your arm out. Felix falls back into step beside you and links it with his, the movement like clockwork. Your jackets scrunch up together where your elbows bend. “Already?”

“Okay, the tour’s been going on for two days and you haven’t paid a cent for my toil. Don’t push your luck.”

Your laughter spills into the otherwise quiet avenue, the setting sun throwing shadows across the cement, but it always feels like midday when you have the brightest man in the world by your side.

When the two of you discovered you had a free weekend on the same days, Felix conjured up the idea of going home—and suggested that you go with him. You’d freaked out for a bit, but then Felix reminded you that his mom texts you on your birthday and that you’re on multiple different subscription plans with his sisters, and you collected yourself quite quickly. There was a lot of cheering over the phone when Felix informed his family that they’d finally get to meet you in person.

But such a fast trip to the other side of the world proved to be no easy feat. Felix took on the task of piecing together a travel plan that would cover most of his favorite spots in forty-eight hours. The last two weeks were filled with him fretting over the details and you fretting over him, asking time and time again if you could help with anything, only for him to shoo you away with a single hand and a pointed “you are my guest. Now leave me.”

With assistance from every other resource at his disposal, though, he pulled it off, and the weekend has been wonderful thus far.

“I think that was some of the best food I’ve ever had, seriously,” you hum. “I’ll be dreaming about those appetizers for the rest of my life.”

“I'm glad. It took a Socratic seminar to choose the place, after all."

(The Socratic seminar in question: a two-hour FaceTime call and an intense match of rock-paper-scissors between him and his siblings, aimed to decide on where Felix would take you for dinner the second night. Only for his mom to ignore all of their efforts and insist upon her own choice of restaurant instead—no ifs, ands, or buts.)

“We have to try your sisters’ recommendations the next time I visit, don’t we?”

“Yes," he returns, shuddering. "I think my family is done for if we don’t."

He has one place left to take you, and the two of you head there now, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm.

A month has passed since that night.

You’ve tried with every fiber of your being to put the whole thing from your mind, of course to no avail. You see Felix’s flushed lips and gentle gaze every time you blink; you hear his “I love you” every time you’re alone, the words whispered in the wind and dragged over the earth, in tandem with your footsteps.

You wanted to fucking die of awkwardness in the few days following, but it was never an option for you to avoid Felix for long. The two of you still went on convenience store runs together; still met up for coffee before work; still continued your business as usual, against all odds. And you owed it all to Felix and how he knows you better than you know yourself. He didn’t try to talk to you when he sensed that you had nothing to say; nor did he try to bring you back when you felt miles away. He would just silently slip a pack of your favorite cookies into your grocery basket or order your drink on your behalf.

Felix had questions and wanted answers; there was no doubt about that. But he held his tongue, granted you as much space as you needed to come back to him. And you did, in your gradual, meticulous way.

You’re finally going to bring it up tonight. You’ve planned to since the day you confirmed the trip, and you hope that the final stop of the tour will be the perfect place to bite the bullet.

“We’re here,” Felix says.

The two of you have arrived at the bank of a wide river, and you’re at a temporary loss for words. To your right is a bridge that spans the distance of the water, and to your left is a stunning, panoramic view of the city of Sydney. Twilight has turned the buildings into dark silhouettes against the autumn sunset, and the water reminds you of a palette of oil paints with how it reflects the pinks and oranges in the sky.

Felix feels you tighten your hold around his arm, and he smiles when he sees the wonder in your eyes. He wishes he could see this place for the first time again.

“Not bad, huh?”

“No,” you murmur. “Not at all.”

“C’mon.”

Felix leads you to the center of the bridge, where he props his elbows atop the metal railing and looks over the water. You join him and pull out your phone, but no settings or adjustments render your camera capable of capturing the landscape's beauty.

(Until Felix throws up a peace sign and pokes his head into the corner of your frame. Then it stands a fighting chance.)

“What is this place?” You ask, your shoulder touching his when you also lean over the railing. “Why are we the only ones here?”

“Crazy, right?” Felix says proudly. “I dunno. I think it might be private property, or something. But it’s only a few blocks away from my house and on the way I used to take to school, so I used to come here all the time, always around this time of day.”

Felix’s gaze moves over the sky, oblivious to the fact that his eyes hold whole rainbows of their own.

“There was never anyone around, but I could still hear the birds chirping and the wind in the leaves. It felt like a corner of the world had been sealed off just for me. I’m glad to see that nothing’s changed.”

Some time passes, and Felix tells you more stories about this peculiar bridge: how he asked someone to formal and got rejected and came here to reflect on his actions; how he had to take two different buses every day because his school was so far away from his house, but he always stopped here to feed the families of mallards that came out to swim in the mornings, even if it meant he’d be late; how this was the last place he went to before moving to South Korea, because he knew he’d miss this nook of Sydney most.

Of all the places you've visited, you think this one will remain with you longest. As time elapses, the colors of the sunset augment and deepen, dyeing the world in ways that remind you of the aurora. And then there is the man, wearing a gentle smile to match his softened features, his voice to your ears what honey is to a sore throat, telling you about his past, letting you into yet another chamber of his soul.

You are in no way prepared to butcher the sanctity of this moment, but you know that you can only run for so long and so far. You owe it to him. You owe it to yourself.

When the sun’s final rays are clinging the faraway mountaintops, Felix lifts himself off the railing and stands up straight. “Ready to go home?"

And your hand finds his, the pads of your fingers cold against his skin. Felix is surprised at first, but then he sees the hint of sadness in your eyes and the tension in your shoulders, and he understands what’s coming.

“I want to talk to you about that night,” you say.

Felix doesn’t respond for a few seconds. But when he does, his voice is so soft and so infuriatingly kind that hearing it makes you want to sob.

“...you don’t have to, Y/N.”

“No. I do,” you return, startling even yourself with the firmness in your voice, "I don’t want to keep dancing around the topic, not when you’ve been waiting for as long as you have.”

You feel Felix’s gaze on your face, as if he’s trying to read between your lines, and then he yields with a slight incline of his head.

“Okay.” And the stage is yours.

You don't start talking right away, your mind reeling with the effort to organize everything you feel and verbalize everything you want to tell him. It isn’t until Felix gives your hand a gentle squeeze—you’ve forgotten that you’re still holding his—that you feel rooted in the moment again.

It’s Felix you’re talking to; your soulmate, your sunlight. Nothing you are about to say will ever change that. This, you believe with every fiber of your being.

So you take a deep breath.

“When you said those words,” you begin, and the words sound alien in your voice, despite how many times you’ve rehearsed this conversation in your head, “I couldn’t process a thing. I was so happy, but I was so, so scared. I’ve spent the last month trying to figure out why I was so scared, and I can’t say that I know for sure yet, but I have a much better idea now, and—it’s a lot of things.

“For as long as I can remember, I have only ever been able to love profoundly and deeply, with everything in me. And over time, I led myself to believe that nobody would ever be able to understand or reciprocate my love, not in the manner I want most.”

You feel yourself starting to waver, but you find strength in his touch.

“But you changed that, Felix. You walked into that café that afternoon with your voice and your smile, and suddenly I’d found you—someone who experiences life the way I do, who loves the way I love. And every day since, I’ve been surrounded by you and your effortless warmth and your beautiful soul. It was only a matter of time before I started hoping, constantly and stupidly, that you would one day love me, the same way that I—”

Your voice catches in your throat like a heel slamming into car brakes, “love you” hanging so dangerously from the tip of your tongue that you’re stunned it doesn’t fall out right away.

“But that’s why I’m fucking terrified,” you go on. “When you told me you loved me, I felt like I could fly. But I also felt like I was falling—and maybe this is because I was still tipsy, I'm not really sure—but in that moment I saw a world where we weren't there to catch each other, where something had gone horribly wrong and I'd wake up one morning and you’d—you’d just be a distant memory.

“And that was the thought that shook me so badly: losing you. Leaving you.” You’re crying now, tears paving golden trails against your cheeks. “For whatever reason, that was the first thing that came to mind, and it broke me.”

You need to wrap it up, and fast, if your faltering voice and racing heart are any indication.

“I meant it when I apologized to you that night. I’m sorry, Lix. I’m sorry I made everything so fucking complicated. I’m sorry that I ran away. I’m sorry that I hurt you, or worried you. But I want you to know that I feel more for you than you will ever understand; I just need a little more time to put it into words. So, wait for me—”

Your eyes squeeze shut, and you finally cave, your last word coming out in a shattered rasp.

“—please.”

And the syllable has barely left your mouth when Felix lets go of your hand, only to bring his arms around you and pull you to his chest with such urgency that the breath momentarily leaves your lungs.

When you fall against him, you fall entirely apart. You have no idea where all the feelings are coming from, only that they’re suddenly overwhelming your every sense. And you start to cry, really cry, your fingers seeking refuge in his jacket, in his hair.

The sun departs at last, and night starts to fall. You lose track of how long you remain in this position, shaking with hushed sobs, fighting to regain control of your emotions. But Felix stays with you through it all, muted tears of his own intermingling with yours in the material of his scarf. He holds you carefully yet fiercely, like you really will crumble if he lets go.

And he waits, because of course he does. He would wait lifetimes for you.

One. The way you thaw is like melting snow.

It happens under your nose for the most part, but it is slow, sure, and irreversible, and you open your eyes one morning only to realize that the world outside has changed—and so have you.

You roll over and pick up your phone. There are unread messages from Felix sitting in your notifications, probably confirming the plans you made to get coffee before work today, but you put them on hold for now. Instead, you open up your camera roll and find an album, labeled with a sun emoji and yellow heart.

You made this a few months after you met Felix, and you’ve doted on it since, in the sense that you update it almost every day. Funnily enough, though, you’ve never looked through the album just to look through it. Maybe because you’ve never had the time or felt the impulse, but more likely because you know that the album is a visual time capsule of your relationship with the most important person in your life—which has never been purely platonic for you, despite how hard you’ve tried to change your heart.

Looking through it would mean acknowledging your true emotions, something you’ve never felt ready for.

Now, you open the album without a second thought, a preemptive smile on your lips. And you find yourself swept out of your bed and thrown back inside each of the pictures you see, reliving the moments as vividly as if you’re watching them on film.

This is one of your favorites, taken during a late-night tteokbokki run to a small restaurant behind Felix's company building. Felix was laughing so hard at one of your stories that he could only take bites of his meal every five minutes. His face had broken into a dazzling grin, his figure blurring as he lurched forward in his seat, trying to pull his hood over his face in secondhand embarrassment. Snap. He is always handsome, extraordinarily so, but you think you love the way he looks here most of all: every guard of his lowered, carefree, happy.

Another is from the first time you met Chan. Nowadays, your interactions with the boys consist mostly of running into them at Felix's dorm and making friendly small talk. But it's always been different with the oldest member. The first time Felix introduced the two of you, you clicked straightaway, and you had to have spent four hours after dinner just talking, scouring the city for something cold to eat. By the end of the sweltering summer night, the three of you were perched atop a short stone barrier in a secluded corner of Seoul, right outside the best bingsu place in all of South Korea. Felix had leaned over to steal the last cube of mango from Chan’s bowl, to Chan's dramatic protest. Snap. And Chan is like a brother to you now; you will never be able to fathom how much light Felix has brought to your life, be it through him or the people he loves.

A computer screen displaying a League of Legends scoreboard, in which Felix has died more times than there were minutes of the game. Snap. You (not sober) in the center of Felix's living room, your body poised in what is supposed to be the chorus of “Queencard," Felix and Bin completely losing their shit on the couch. Snap. His head bowed in anguish over a bowl of brownie batter after he mistakes salt for sugar. Snap. A low-quality, tiny Felix on stage, the brightest grin on his face when he finally manages to spot you in the nosebleeds. Snap. Your dining table creaking under the weight of all the gifts he got you for your last birthday. Snap. Him and one of your best friends from home, arms around each other, peace signs thrown up, beaming. Snap.

There are countless more, and they are all so incredibly near and dear to you, all thanks to the freckled boy in each.

You respond to Felix's messages (“be there soon!”), and then move to get dressed. There is a new sense of certainty in your gait when you emerge from your building and into the quiet morning.

The weather is lovely, the fresh sunlight cream-colored against a cloudless sky, the light breeze shuffling the new leaves about. A hound’s ears twitch when you hurry past its home; it is too drowsy to investigate your presence further. The only sounds in the air are the chattering of sparrows in the branches above you and the soles of your shoes, moving quickly across the sidewalk. The wonder in the world is more palpable to you today than it’s ever been.

Soon, the chalk-written menu and hand-carved wooden sign of your favorite café come into view, and you open the door. There are only a few customers inside, and you spot your person right away: his long, dark hair partially pinned back, his figure flattered by a black long sleeve and jeans. He has a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, as well as two drinks on the table before him: one caramel latte and one black milk tea.

When he hears the door jingle, he looks up, and the smile that melts across his face is so fond that you can’t believe there was ever a time when you doubted his feelings for you.

The way his loving smile mirrors onto your face is as inevitable and involuntary as destiny herself.

“Hi,” Felix says, rising from his seat.

“Hey, you,” you answer. “Wanna take a walk?”

And so you do.

You link arms, as always; you try each other’s drinks, as always; you manage to talk about everything and nothing all at once, as always. But when his company building comes into view, your footsteps come to a halt, and your hand fastens around the cuff of his sleeve.

“Hey, Lix—"

When his eyes meet yours, the sun hits them just right, and you have not known anything as clearly and certainly as you do right then.

“—I love you.”

Felix can only stare, his eyes so wide that you can see the whites of them all around, his straw falling from his parted lips.

Then, a smile starts to creep across his face like spilt syrup.

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Lee Yongbok.”

He sets his bag and drink down on the pavement. “Again, please.”

“I love you,” you repeat, starting to laugh. “I love you, I love you, god, I love you, Felix, so fucking much—”

Felix brings his hands to either side of your face, leaning his forehead against your own. And this time, there is no hesitation, no fear—only starlight when he tilts your chin up and finally, finally presses his lips to yours.

Butterflies erupt in your stomach, hordes of them flapping so fervently you feel as though you might take off into the air, but you seek out his elbows, then his shoulders, and then the back of his neck, anchoring yourself to the earth, to him. Felix kisses you like he will never be able to again, and it is all you can do to savor how the curve of his smile feels against your own; how he murmurs the words “I love you, too” in between breaths. He tastes like sugar and smells like shampoo. He feels like forever.

2K notes · View notes

m0llygunn · 3 months

Text

friends with b(aby)enefits (eddie munson x fem!reader)

MONTH ONE: Just friends—what a silly concept. After your accident, Eddie's been a full-fledged comedian, ill-conceived jokes left and right... neither of you are laughing though when his 'comedy routine' comes back to bite the both of you in the ass.

cw: 18+!, mature language, smut, pinv sex (unprotected again smh), pet names, vomiting, a lot of pregnancy related topics, potentially dramatized pregnancy symptoms (for the plot obvi, also idk anything about pregnancy), mention of readers period, mention of birth control an: lots of minor time jumps/cuts but we get some eddie pov!!! wc: 8.3k+

0 / 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 00

Arms wrapped around your waist from behind, both palms pressed flat to your belly.

“How are my girls doing today?”

Comically loud, heavily puckered kisses scattered over the top of your stomach, catching you by surprise— not at all expecting to be ambushed with facetious affection by your friend.

Eddie thinks he’s a comedian.

With about a month of his poor taste in jokes, he thinks he’s hilarious— and a self-proclaimed prophet because he 'just knows' that it's a baby girl. He's full of shit and you desperately try to not give him the benefit of finding his terrible jokes humorous. To your demise, from time to time, they get you.

His latest stunt was when he greeted you for your usual Friday get together. He swung the door open quick enough to stun you and immediately dropped to his knees. With a firm hold on your hips, he leaned in close to your belly, “Hi, baby girl. Did you miss daddy?” he cooed with big eyes and an even bigger smirk.

With a hand on his forehead, pushing him away, unfortunately you laughed, and unfortunately it feels like all of his jokes are coming back to bite the both of you in the ass. It’s hardly been 24 hours since the offending, but objectively funny joke, and neither of you are laughing now.

“Maybe you just ate something bad?” he offers with sheer, dumb, hope. “Or maybe it’s the flu?” he says, snapping his fingers together like he struck the gold mine of an idea.

Eddie can be as hopeful as he wants, but as you lower yourself down to the couch from vomiting your insides out in the bathroom, the panic in his eyes is evident.

“Maybe,” you reply dully, dropping your head to rest against the back of the couch.

“Do you want to lay down? I can bring you to my bed?” he asks with concern lacing his words.

“I’m—” you start, but with acid suddenly rising in your throat again, your eyes go wide and you jump from the couch with a renewed energy, just barely making it to the bathroom.

────────────

To put it plainly, you vomited two more times after. When you finally felt like you were done throwing up, with an empty stomach and a sore body, Eddie helped you to his bed and you slept off your spell of nausea. When you woke up a few hours later feeling a touch better, both of you decided the best choice would be to buy a pregnancy test.

“Just to be safe, right?” he had said, eyes burning into you as you laid sprawled across his bed, feeling no longer nauseous, but instead like an empty shell of a person. “We should buy one, right?” he asked again, eyes growing wider in your silence.

It felt like even moving your sight line to look at him took too much energy, but you met his gaze, and he nodded his head like he had made his own silent conclusion.

“We’ll go after, okay?” he said, continuing his one-sided conversation. Standing from the edge of the bed he wiped his palms down the front of his thighs before straightening out and rubbing his hand down from his mouth to his chin. He nods a second time, doing what you assume is him coming to another silent conclusion. “I’ll get you crackers?” he continued, eyebrows raised.

With your eyes locked on him, you swallowed the dryness in your mouth. You hadn’t done anything notable, hadn’t even attempted to answer him, but his face softened, mouth turning into a regretful frown.

“Sorry you’re sick,” he said, bending down to pat your head, letting his thumb trace gently across your temple. It was a tender movement and you absorbed the warmth of his contact, letting your eyes blink shut. “I’ll get you water too, okay? Water and crackers and we’ll see how you feel after that.”

Eddie’s a lot of things, but nurturing and soft, and with high levels of compassion is not exactly how you would describe him. He can be those things, but principally, he’s more of an asshole— but one that you love enough to keep around, obviously. But an asshole, nonetheless. The last time you had the flu he laughed at you and made fun of the way you threw up, albeit, it was when you both were in your teens, but regardless, he was a dickhead about it— and most recently, when you had gotten a cold, he ceaseless made fun of your constant sneezing and the blazing red tone of your sore nose from blowing it so much, calling you Rudolf and asking how ‘Big Red’ was doing at this time of the year. Asshole.

Dichotomously to the Eddie you’ve known all these years, he grazes the backside of his knuckles across your cheek, rubbing them back and forth gently. It's painfully obvious he doesn’t do this often from the way his hand jerks, finger nearly poking you in the eye, but you appreciate the notion. You know you must really look awful if he’s managed to compose this much compassion for you.

────────────

They say that nothing makes people more productive than the last minute. As the pharmacy's closing time approached, it was only then when either of you felt so inclined to even mention going to get the test.

After Eddie got you your water and crackers, you started feeling much better, and feeling much better meant it was easy to pretend like nothing had happened. You both unhealthily and aggressively ignored your potential futures by acting like it was any regular Saturday evening. You talked about your upcoming work week, and watched the usually shitty reruns on TV. Eddie made some freezer-burnt chicken nuggets, you warmed up some soup, and it was boring and uneventful, but it was the most comforting that boring and uneventful could be.

The sun began to set and it was like the ticking of Wayne's alarm clock on the coffee table beside you only got louder and louder as time went on.

“S’almost eight,” Eddie had eventually mumbled. You swallowed, keeping your eyes on the TV as you found this particular old rerun episode of Mama’s Family to be the most interesting thing in the world, which is odd considering you usually change the channel whenever it's on.

With both of you sitting at the couch, feet kicked up, resting side by side on the coffee table, Eddie moves his foot far enough to just barely knock yours— an attempt to pull your attention away from the screen.

“The show’s almost done,” you say, turning your head towards him but keeping your eyes on the TV.

“The pharmacy closes at eight.”

“I feel fine,” you shrug.

Moving your feet from the tabletop, Eddie copies you, putting his feet down on the floor, but he goes a step further, sitting up from the couch. He stands, facing you, but you keep your eyes on the TV, ignoring him fivefold. He props his hand on his hip, arm bent at the elbow, one foot tap away from looking like someone's mother. You ignore him tenfold.

“You want to stay here while I go?”

“Go where?”

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” he laughs. You can hear the amusement in his voice. His hand drops from his hip and you look at him to see the smirk written across his face.

“Go where?” you double down. Huffing a laugh from his nose, he turns, opting to get himself ready, and begrudgingly, you do too. With your feet dragging through every step, you get in the car, and Eddie drives the two of you to the pharmacy.

────────────

Under the bright, white fluorescent lights of aisle number eight, you and Eddie stare your potential future down. An unnerving amount of tests sit on the shelf at eye level, some with cute little daisy packaging, others looking sterile and pharmaceutical.

“Why are there so many options?” Eddie asks, picking one up and flipping it to read the back. You look at the price tags and your mouth nearly drops to the floor.

“Why are they so expensive?” you ask, taking the box out of his hand and putting it back on the shelf.

“Hey,” he objects, reaching out for it. “That one says response in twenty minutes.”

“That one is, like, twice as much as that one,” you argue, pointing to another test.

“Yeah,” he says, grabbing the test from the shelf. “That one says a two hour response,” he continues, pointing at the exaggerated font on the front of the test in his hand, waving it in your face. “I’d rather be shitting my pants for twenty minutes than two hours.”

He’s acting normal, braggart and teasing, you can’t muster that same energy. Your stomach swirls and squeezes and does everything it shouldn’t do. Nerves or nausea, you’re not sure. A ceiling light flickers two aisles over and you can’t stand being here.

“Maybe…” you pause. Your hands start to turn clammy. “Maybe we shouldn’t get any,” you say, shifting in place. You turn to fully face Eddie, looking at him as he has a boxed test pulled close to his face, reading the side of it. “Maybe we should just go home.”

Eddie turns to you, brows furrowed. “No— what? You just spent the whole day throwing up, we gotta get something,” he says, looking at you like you’re insane. The ceiling light flickers again and you definitely feel insane.

It wasn’t the whole day, it was just the morning, you nearly object until you realize it doesn’t help your case.

Bringing your hand to your mouth, you chew on the edge of your nail, distracting yourself from the tremble in your limbs. From left to right and back again, you flutter your sight over the different options. There’s too many. Too many and it’s overwhelming.

“Hey,” Eddie says softly. The weight of his arm settles around your shoulder, pulling you so that your bicep meets the edge of his chest in a half hug. “Don’t be nervous,” he continues, in a low coo. You step inwards, turning the half hug into a full hug. Taking a deep breath, all you can muster is a short nod of your head.

His arm moves from your shoulder, hand grazing down to your mid back. Focusing your attention on his touch, you take another deep breath, inhaling his familiar scent. Smoky, woodsy, and a contradicting sweetness from whatever shampoo that was probably the cheapest and on sale.

“We’ll be fine, remember? You probably just ate something bad.” he says. He rubs his hand up between your shoulder blades and back down. You want to believe him, you really do.

“I’m scared,” you say quietly.

“Why?” he asks, voice just as small as yours.

“It… it doesn’t feel like I ate something bad.” You swallow down the jagged edges of emotion that your voice gets stuck on. His hand, mid rub, pauses and you pull away enough to see him. His eyes glaze over with something you’re unsure of before he quickly blinks it back.

“Well…” he swallows. “What does it feel like then?” he asks, brows turned upwards. He's nervous, you’re nervous, and the light flickers again, reminding you where you are.

“Can we go home? Please.” Your nerves become far too jittery and it’s starting to turn into nausea again. Your stomach lurches and Eddie watches you for another moment, eyes searching yours until he nods, patting your back before pulling away.

“Yeah. I’ll just buy this one and we can go.” He takes your hand in his, twenty-minute-test in the other, and he guides you to the front of the store.

────────────

“It’s almost nine now, so it’ll be ready at…”

“9:20,” you say when Eddie takes a concerning amount of time doing the math. The ride home was quiet. Being out of the fluorescence helped your nerves, and as you got further and further away from the pharmacy, and closer and closer to Eddie’s place, you started to feel normal again.

“I knew that, I was just… thinking,” he responds. He sits up from where he was crouching in front of the dresser, using it as a table to put together the test.

Decidedly, it was just nerves that had put you on edge, that’s it. The test is nothing but precautionary, just to rule out what could have made you sick. Eddie joins you, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Uh— before, we get a response,” he pauses, wringing his hands together. His eyes move down to his lap and your chest tightens. “I just want to say that whatever it is… I don’t regret what we did… and whatever it is, I’ll be there… for my girls.”

He looks at you, his smirk widening by the second, and you can’t help the snort of laughter from escaping. Like every other ill-timed joke that he's pervasively told over the last month or so, he gets you, and you appreciate it this time as it lessens the gnawing feeling in your belly.

Despite the joke, when you really look at him, with his lips spread in a smile, his eyes swarm with the same trepidations that you feel. He’s a comedian but even the comedian is human. You try your hand at lightening the mood.

“What if it’s not a girl?” you ask, playing along. He smiles, bumping his shoulder into yours as he huffs a breath from his nose. Shaking his head in an almost mirthful way you think you were successful until his demeanour drops into something serious.

“What did you mean earlier?” he asks “When you said that it doesn’t feel like you ate something bad?”

“I just— I don't know. I just, I thought I had a feeling,” you explain. Eddie hums, eyes now set forward on the test. “I think I was just nervous, that’s all.”

Twenty minutes has never felt longer. Eddie accepts your answer at face value but doesn’t do much to show it. He doesn't do much in general, and neither do you. At the ten minute mark, his hand found your knee. At the fifteen minute mark you were curled under his arm, resting your head on his chest as he rubbed up and down your arm. In the last minute, you had taken his hand in yours, playing with his fingers as you watched the seconds tick by on his Casio watch.

21:19:59 turned to 21:20:00, and you turned to Eddie. Synchronously and in silence, you parted from each other. He stood and you sat. He moved to the dresser, and you held your breath.

With his back facing you, you watch with unblinking eyes as he reaches for the instructions. Humming to himself, your lungs ache. You try to parse the meaning behind his tone, or vibration, or pitch — or anything that could give way to what he's seeing, but it’s far too vague. Taking a deep and vital breath, filling your choking lungs, you're just about to ask, mouth already open when he speaks.

“It says negative.”

“It says negative?” you parrot in disbelief.

“Negative.” Eddie firmly answers.

There’s no way. You should feel a weight lift from you, but, evident avoidance aside, that feeling is still there, stronger if anything.

“I…” you start, interrupting the loud beat of silence. “I’m not saying I want to be pregnant… but I think it’s wrong, Eddie.”

“Wrong? How could it be wrong?” he says, turning around to look at you.

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “Aren’t they, like, only guaranteed to work like 95% of the time?”

“That’s still a lot of the time,” he says, copying your shrug.

“Yeah… but—” you shake your head, stopping yourself. This is what you wanted right? Why would you fight against the answer that you mostly hoped for? That you were already certain about in the car barely an hour ago. “Whatever. It’s probably right. I think… I think I’m just… tired.”

Eddie nods, agreeing with you. He turns enough to set the test down, abandoning cleanup for another time— gross, but when he asks you if you’re going to sleep over, you willingly ignore the unsanitary act of leaving a used pregnancy test to sit and simmer bacteria growth.

“You gonna sleep here?”

“Can I?’

“Of course,” he laughs.

────────────

If it were a peaceful morning, you would have woken up to the warm, red tinted sun coming into Eddie’s room through the maroon coloured bed-sheet-turned-blinds.

If it were a peaceful morning you would have woken up to shared warmth, his arm just barely tossed over your hip, hand resting in the dip of your waist.

If it were a peaceful morning you would have been able to bask in the meaning of having him beside you— what it meant beyond just shared warmth, what it meant beyond friendship.

If it were a peaceful morning, oh, if it were a peaceful morning…

If it were a peaceful morning, you wouldn’t have woken up to rising bile in your throat and your heart hammering in your chest. It's not a peaceful morning, it's a race against time. With your hand cupped to your mouth, ripping yourself from the shared tangled sheets, tripping your way to the bathroom over the crap on the floor, time almost wins.

You made it by a stroke of luck with not a second to spare.

────────────

“It must be the flu,” you had croaked weakly. Eddie nodded, looking at you with tired eyes that had been startled awake by your fumbling and awful retching.

“Yeah, it’s definitely the flu.” It was not a whole hearted agreement, but there was no way any bad food would still be in your system. And with a negative pregnancy test, the flu is the only answer. Obviously.

The next day, in the quietness of your apartment, you kept a preemptive bowl next to your bed, just in case.

Thank god you did because it was the worst it’s been yet, and with your temperamental luck, you would not have made it to the bathroom this time.

────────────

“Hello?” Eddie answered from the other end of the telephone line.

Your untouched breakfast sits on the table as you stand in front of your wall-hanging phone, leaning against the counter to stop yourself from keeling over entirely.

“It's me.”

“Oh, hey, didn’t think I’d hear from you so early, what's up?” His near chipper attitude is grating and if you could strangle someone through the phone you might have muscled up the last of your strength and considered it.

“I’m still sick.” If you sound as awful as you feel, and equally as annoyed, it's because you are every terrible emotion in the dictionary. You are the essence of a bad mood, a side effect of how sick you’ve been.

“Shit—” he cursed. “I have work in thirty but I can stop by after?”

“Yeah, you already told me you were working,” you snark, because obviously he has work. It’s Monday.

“Do you want me to stop by after?

“I'm just telling you that I’m still sick.”

The call lulls and you can hear a slight rustle from the other end.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because you’re sick and I feel bad,” he says, voice turning up like he's asking you if that is an alright answer. It’s not, and you twirl the phone cord between your fingers, distracting yourself from scoffing and saying something you know you’ll regret.

The call lulls for another moment and he clears his throat, coughing right into the receiver.

“Uh— aside from being sick… everything else okay?” he asks tentatively, pausing too frequently that it annoys you, even more so than you already are.

“I’m fine, I just feel like garbage.”

“Nothing else bothering you? I have a minute, we can talk?”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You’re— and don’t bite my head off— but you’re not on your period?”

“Why would you ask that?” You meet his stupidity with a harsh and rightfully deserved defensiveness. “Don’t you think I would tell you if I was? You know, all things considered.”

His voice raises as he comes to his own defence. “Well, I just thought… 'cause you thought that maybe there was a chance that the test was wrong, but then we agreed it wasn’t and…”

“And?”

“And you’re in a bad mood.”

You hang up the phone and when it rings again, you let it.

────────────

Eddie spent the whole day being eaten alive by his thoughts. You said you had a feeling, and Eddie knows you well enough to know you wouldn’t joke around about stuff like this. He would, he has, but you wouldn't.

Since the moment you told him that you weren’t on birth control, he had been thinking about it. Hypothetically, having a kid with you wouldn’t be the worst. He’d actually… like it… maybe? Would he say that to you? No, but it's not an awful thought.

Sure he made jokes out of it, but that was just his ill mannered way of accepting the fact that he kind of, maybe, potentially, would like having a kid with you… and being more than just friends. But he could never tell you that, so he made stupid, stupid jokes.

But now that having a baby with you is less hypothetical, he’s fucking scared. Not because it’s with you, but because he might be having a fucking baby. That’s terrifying in and of itself.

When you first started feeling sick, he let himself really believe for about an hour that maybe you had eaten something bad, but in his heart of hearts, he knew. There was no way. Four weeks and 3 days after he came inside you— not that he's keeping track of the days— and you’re suddenly experiencing ‘food poisoning’, even though you didn’t eat anything particularly abnormal or poison-like?

You’re pregnant. So fucking pregnant. There’s no way you’re not.

“Hey, Bill. You have kids, right?” Eddie had asked as he sat down at the break table with one of his more favourable colleagues.

Bill, more or less his mentor— or more eloquently put, the kind soul that's been helping him work his way up to being an actual mechanic and not just the guy who cleans and sweeps up after them like he’s been doing for the last year and a bit. He’s an older gentleman, doesn’t do much small talk, is in a permanent old man bad attitude, but he’s a good guy— reminds him of Wayne at times. Eddie trusts him enough, especially not to go talking about him around town.

“Uh-huh. Grandkids too,” he answers, barely looking up from his newspaper. Eddie knew this of course, but he couldn't think of any other way to approach the topic.

“Right, sorry,” Eddie apologizes, wringing his hands out of nervousness and dragging out the point of interrupting Bill’s lunch break.

“You gonna be a father?” Bill asks bluntly.

Father? Eddie's familiar with a particular ‘F’ word, uses it way too fucking much in fact. Father, on the other hand, is an ‘f’ word that was barely in his vocabulary, he could go weeks without letting that word pass through his thoughts, let alone it being a descriptor of his very own character.

Eddie’s eyes widen, mouth dropping open as his breath stutters like a kid getting caught red handed. “No.” he stumbles to answer. “Uh— maybe. I don’t know. We don’t know.”

“So what are you askin’?”

“Your girlfriend— uh, wife—”

“Wife,” Bill answers with an annoyed ring to it.

“Right, your wife… What was she like when she got pregnant?”

Bill shakes his head, ignoring the question. “Did she take a test? They have those now. Can buy ‘em at the store,” he gruffs.

“We did, but it was negative. She… she said they’re wrong sometimes though, and she thought that… she thought that maybe it was wrong?”

Bill sets down his newspaper, the edges of both his fists meeting the surface of the table top. He looks to Eddie, catching his flighty eye contact, giving him his full attention.

“Morning sickness?”

“She’s been sick the last couple of days.”

“Hormonal?”

“Hormonal?” Eddie asks, quirking a brow. Bill rolls his eyes, not unlike how Wayne has done time after time.

“Bad mood? Mood swings?”

“Kind of?”

“I won’t go into detail because I respect my wife,” Bill says, eyeing Eddie through slanted eyes. “Any changes that aren’t to do with her mood?” he asks, looking down the slope of his nose.

“Huh?” Eddie thinks hard, trying to decipher what Bill means. Bill gives Eddie an encouraging nod that quickly turns short-tempered.

“Her body? Any changes?” Bill grumps.

“Oh.” Eddie’s eyes go wide. “Uh— I don't know. She’s not really my girlfriend, we’re just friends.”

“Just a friend you got pregnant?” Bill’s near-permanent-scowl breaks into a smile, lips turning at the corners in a sadistic way, eyes gleaming with taunting amusement. Eddie feels his palms start to sweat.

“So you think she’s pregnant?”

“I think you’re up shits creek with a turd for a paddle, kid. Gettin’ a friend pregnant,” he scoffs, shaking his head as he laughs to himself. He fixes his newspaper back upright, picking up where he left off in the classifieds.

“Well, we’re good friends. I— she… we—” Eddie thinks about telling him that it’s you— Bill knows of you. Eddie’s talked about you enough, but he bites his tongue for the same reason that he didn’t go to Wayne about this— it would be all, ‘just ask her out’, ‘quit pussyfootin’ ‘round it,’ but he doesn’t get it, he can’t just ask you out. He—

“You like her more than a friend.” Bill says, making Eddie freeze. He opens his mouth to speak, to deny, to confirm, to anything, but nothing comes out. “Oh you got it bad, huh?” Bill continues with a teasing smile.

“C’mon, it’s not—” Eddie tries to object but Bill sees right through it.

“You love her?”

“I…” Eddie swallows, thinking over his answer. “I don’t know…maybe?”

“Well, you got an interesting journey ahead of yous if she really is pregnant,” he laughs again.

And with that entirely unhelpful conversation, Eddie spent the rest of the day not only ruminating on you being pregnant, but now, his feelings for you as well.

────────────

After work he went straight home, showered, got redressed in sweats and the cleanest shirt he could find and beelined straight for your apartment. He made one quick stop at the pharmacy but quicker than even he anticipated, he was at your front door.

He knocked, and then there you were, opening the door for him, not exactly smiling— but not looking angry either, or sick, which is a good start.

Greeting him with a quiet ‘hello’, you opened the door wider. He stepped into your apartment, and like he mentally rehearsed, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to your cheek. Before he could look at your reaction, he turned, hiding his face behind the curtain of his still damp hair, and kicked his shoes off.

He’s just trying to get back on your good side. After this morning— your bad mood, and then him only making it worse by asking if you were on your period, which he knew you weren’t because you said that it's been weird since you stopped birth control but… yeah, he’s just trying to get on your good side, definitely not anything more than that.

Clearing his throat and praying his cheeks aren’t as flushed as they feel, he tries to move on. “How’re you doing?” he asks. You spare him, and you don’t mention the kiss nor give him any weird reactions— which is good, right? You would tell him off if you didn’t want him to kiss you, right?

“I’m doing fine now,” you reply, turning to lead him to the kitchen. He follows behind, humming an acknowledgement. At your counter is a full, waiting dish that looks like and smells like spaghetti. You sit back in your seat, and he takes the one next to it, putting his brown shopping bag down in front of him.

He watches you as you bring a forkful of your dinner to your mouth. “You’re eating, you must not be feeling sick anymore?”

“No, I stopped feeling sick around lunch and then I was starving,” you say through a second mouthful, swirling your third bite around the fork.

“Nice,” he nods. Eddie’s not sure of much, not now, hardly ever, but you feeling better around lunch means you only felt sick in the morning, and you being sick in the mornings falls exactly under the conditions of morning sickness… and that means…

Swallowing down his thoughts in a thick gulp, he reaches for the pharmacy bag. “Well, I bought another test just in case,” he rushes out quickly, moving to take out the good part of his shopping haul to lessen the blow if the test somehow pisses you off. “—and I also bought you—”

“Liquorice! Oh my god and popcorn,” you say excitedly, interrupting him with the loud crinkles of you grabbing for the package of candy, quickly ripping it open.

Eddie watches you closely, the way your eyes light up for some of your favourite foods. He was taking a risk, buying you snacks when he knew that you’ve been sick but it was that or flowers and flowers seemed a little too… forward?

Your reaction to the snacks though, it’s not abnormal, but it’s not exactly normal either… a bit too… ravenous? To be fair, you were sick and now you’re feeling better, maybe you are just extra hungry…. But then again, there's also your bad mood earlier and sure you felt like shit from being sick, but you were usually pretty happy whenever you talked to him. He wasn’t used to all of these… mood swings.

Symptom after symptom, his thoughts finally bubble out. “I think you should take the test again,” he says, interrupting you as you rip open the bag of popcorn. You pause and he holds his breath.

With a shrug, you resume your movements, reaching into the bag and grabbing a handful. “But I feel fine?” you say, waving Eddie off.

“I think… maybe just in case?”

“Here, sit down, I’ll get you some spaghetti,” you ignore him, standing from your seat. “It’s so good, I swear. This is my second plate full.” You grab a dish from the cupboard, serving some up from a pot on the stove top without waiting for a reply from Eddie— not that he had one, he was too stunned by your unconcerned mood to think of one.

Adding a slice of garlic bread to the side of the dish, you place it down in front of him, quickly moving back to your own seat to dig into the popcorn and finish your own meal.

“You didn’t go to work today?” he asks after mumbling a polite thank you.

“No, I called in. When I got the promo, I got like six extra sick days, plus vacation time, so I figured I might as well use them,” you shrug indifferently.

“Yeah,” Eddie nods, taking a quick glance at you before looking back to his plate of food, moving his fork around the plate absentmindedly. “Do you happen to have… better insurance with your job now?” he asks, attempting to match your aloofness.

You pause your fork before shoving it in your mouth, opting to turn to look at Eddie. He purposely avoids your eye contact, continuing to swirl his fork in his food.

“Why?”

“Just curious,” he shrugs. “Whenever I get my promo—” he pauses. “—if I get the promo, Coop gives out some shitty insurance plan. Was just wondering what you were getting these days,” he continues nervously.

“I have insurance.”

“Good.”

“Why’s it good?” you ask, squinting your eyes at him.

“Is it not good? You get sick, you don’t have to pay as much— I think that’s objectively good.”

“Fine,” you relent. You stare at him for another moment, but when you finally go back to your food, Eddie lets out a long breath that he was holding in before going back to his food.

He finishes his plate while lost in a daze of thoughts. There’s no way you weren’t pregnant. Absolutely no way. He doesn’t know much about pregnancy, that’s for sure, but this is checking off every single box in his very limited knowledge of symptoms.

He only withdrew from his head when he felt you staring at him yet again. You had pushed your plate back on the counter, head resting in the palms of your hands as you watched him intently with a particular glint of something in your eyes, something that he’s only seen two other times.

“Hi?” he says shyly, cheeks tingeing pink.

“You kissed me on the cheek when you came in,” you state.

“Yeah, I did,” he nods, cheeks deepening to crimson under your close watch.

“Do you want to stay the night?” you ask, stretching your leg out under the counter, running your foot along his shin.

Eddie chokes on his food before looking at you with wide eyes. Elbow bent to cover his mouth as he clears his throat from his sputtering, his eyebrows raise high, hiding under his bangs as he works through your suggestion.

“Like stay the night or just stay the night?” he asks, eyes burning into you out of shock.

“I just kept thinking about before… and, you know…” you say, shrugging, hooking your foot around his calf.

“So like, stay the night?” he asks, eyes glimpsing down at your outstretched leg.

With a sly smile, you nod your head making Eddie’s eyes grow even wider.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m really sure.”

Eddie takes a final bite of his food before pushing back in his chair. You excitedly stand, taking Eddie’s hand and leading him to your room.

Maybe it’s a stupid thing to do when you’re both still up in arms about being pregnant, but Eddie would be a fool to say no to you. He physically couldn’t, has never had it in him. It doesn’t help that he really likes you and might potentially love you. And after all, he’s just a simple man.

────────────

“Harder.”

Your desirous voice echoing off of wallpapered bedroom walls, airy moans embellishing every thrust, Eddie does his best to give you what you want. Round two and countless of your orgasms later, you’re still begging Eddie to keep going.

Round one was fantastic. Sincerely earth shattering and left him winded and full heartedly wishing he took up track in his freshman year instead of smoking cigarettes.

The night started with you riding him, insisting that he laid back, and who was he to say no to that? He watched you intently, grasping at your hips with each rise and fall, feeling the way your body nearly trembled over his own as you made yourself feel better and better. He was completely enamoured by the way your mouth rounded into a perfect oval, the way your eyes welled as you rose up and down, enjoying yourself truly and utterly. Then, when he took over, you were begging, whimpering, and moaning for him. He swore he had never came that hard in his life.

With the long day of worrying and his stress induced sleepless nights wearing on him, he was nearly nodding off when you were on him for round two. It was exciting— you needing him like this, and his cock was kicking up again before he could process it.

You came again, adding another tally to the growing tab of how many times you’ve come tonight. This time, you were on your hands and knees, back in a deep arch as he watched the recoil of your ass with each of his thrusts.

The only thing on his mind was you. How you felt so perfect around his cock, how pretty you sounded whining and begging for him to keep going, how beautiful you are, and how badly he just wanted to keep making you feel good, but then it was like a switch flipped in his head.

He heard it once, how pregnant women would sometimes get really horny. Insatiably horny— and you just kept asking for more, begging for him to keep going. You were cumming and still managing to ask him to keep going. He had never had sex like this before.

His skin that had grown damp throughout the night, covered in a permanent sheen of sweat, now drew dry, just like his mouth. His thighs burned, his calves begged for a break, his balls were aching from staving off his own release, and now there was very little uncertainty in his mind that you weren’t pregnant.

Mid thrust, you clench around him, stealing his already stolen breath, pulling from his meandering thoughts. He refocuses his gaze on the bounce and jiggle of your ass and the sweet noises singing from your lips before letting his palms slide down the slope of your arched back, giving himself better leverage to keep going.

There's no doubt in his mind that he can finish this round. Not only would he feel like an asshole if he tapped out now, but he would also feel like the biggest idiot because this has been it for him. This is the orbiting thought in his mind, the exact scenario that he conjures up in his imagination during his alone time.

Swallowing thickly and taking an open mouth breath, he moves a hand from your back to wrap around your torso, finding your clit with his finger tips. “One more. Gonna give you one more, pretty girl,” he rasps, voice horse and ragged from his near panting. Your back arches even deeper, hips pressing back into his as you let out a wavered moan.

“Feels so good, Eddie. Love your cock, feels so good,” you cry, taking heavy, moaning breaths between words, your voice staggering with each of his thrusts that push you further up into the mattress.

“Mhm, know you love it, baby. Sucking me right in, n' so wet for me," Eddie says through exasperated breaths, words coming out babbled from his focus on not cumming as your walls squeeze him harder and harder.

“Want you to cum inside me again,” you whimper out. Eddie doesn’t answer, he just thrusts harder, rolling his hips against your backside, making you moan louder and giving you the last of every ounce of energy he has left in him.

When he feels your pussy start to flutter, tensing, and pulsating around him again, he knows you're close.

“Gonna cum for me, baby?” he breathes, voice only getting lower and more ragged from the absolute marathon of a night.

“Gonna cum, Eddie.” Your voice rises so high in volume that Eddie's certain your neighbours can hear.

“Cum for me baby, wanna feel you squeeze my cock one last time tonight,” he grunts, starting to feel delusional with the way his head spins. He grips his free hand on your hip, pressing his fingers into your skin and grounding himself to you, trying to push away some of the daze to think clearly.

Eddie feels your tightness pulling him in almost immediately. He holds off his own release for as long as he can, bringing you through your orgasm until he can’t take it anymore. He pulls out just in time for his own release, sending his cum spurting over your lower back as his chest practically explodes, burning lungs having all the air expelled from them in a wheeze as he stutters through his orgasm.

After taking a few, long moments to catch his breath, he reaches for the same towel he used earlier, wiping you clean before falling to your side feeling absolutely exhausted.

“Wanted you to cum inside,” you say pitifully, cuddling closer to him.

“Can’t, you're not on birth control, we didn’t have a condom.”

“You did it before,” you pout.

“Yeah.” Eddie says, exhaling deeply.

Yeah and now he's 99.9% sure you’re pregnant.

“It’s late, got work tomorrow,” Eddie says, eyes unwillingly fluttering closed as you push your way closer to him, pressing your bare chest to his, speckling gentle kisses along his neck.

“Are you sure?” you ask, pressing another kiss to his skin. He barely has the energy to respond and you deflate against him with a sigh.

“Baby,” he coos, frowning when he looks at your lower lip jetting out in a pout. As much as he’d love to keep going, he physically could not go for another round. His cock might let him despite it feeling nearly raw from all the friction, but his aching body definitely would not. “Let me just hold you, okay? We can cuddle,” he offers to try to fix your frown. It only works the slightest bit, relaxing the crinkle in between your brows.

He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you into his hold. You let out a quiet whine at first, clearly upset, but you eventually relax into him, melding to his side. It’s not long before Eddie’s out cold, completely wiped clean of energy.

────────────

You woke up, ripping yourself from Eddie’s grasp, hand over your mouth, rushing for the bathroom again. Eddie follows behind you, barely alert, but at your side, rubbing your back.

When you were certain everything inside your stomach was gone, you sat back, leaning against the edge of the tub.

“Think I should take that test.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

────────────

With the anticipation of waiting another painstaking twenty minutes, you sit on the ledge of the tub in your bathroom, watching Eddie’s back as he tinkers with the test again. The tailbone pain from sitting on the ceramic edge is nothing compared to the swirling nausea growing from your nervousness.

He had sat with you for a few minutes like the last time, but got up halfway through to get you water. He dallyed in the kitchen for a few minutes, and it was far too casual for you, especially too casual for the dramatic dungeon master himself. It was almost unnerving.

At the fifteen minute mark, he sat with you again, throwing an arm around your shoulder, and you couldn't help but nuzzle into him. If his casualness was him disguised his nervousness, he doesn’t let on.

This time, at the twenty minute mark, his watch beeped the grating default Casio alarm, and with the chime of a button being pressed, he stands, turning his back to you as faces the vanity. You don’t follow him, you couldn’t at this point, you feel welded to the tub ledge.

Unlike last time, he doesn’t look at the instructions. He doesn’t hum. He doesn’t make any noise, he just turns to you, his body blocking the test. You feel your heart rate pick up, but he doesn’t give anything away with facial expressions or body language.

His mouth opens, he takes a breath, you hold yours once again.

“Well…” he starts. “You were right.” His tone is flat and you blink, trying to clear your confusion.

“I was right?”

“Yeah.” he shrugs. “About the last test being wrong.”

“No.”

“Yup,” he affirms, putting a plosive pop at the end of the word. Too casual.

With your heart pounding in your chest, thumping miles in minutes, you couldn’t process this even if you wanted to, so you don’t. You deny it.

“You’re lying,” you state, ending your words with a light huff of laughter. Surely, this is all a joke. Eddie’s a comedian, right? Ill-conceived jokes left and right over the last month, this has to be one of them.

He doesn’t smile. His eyes don’t light up. He doesn’t laugh. “Come look,” he says, beckoning you over with a tilt of his head.

You sit up from the ledge of the tub, moving to stand next to Eddie at the counter. He pulls out the instructions, pointing to a diagram.

“If the liquid turns blue, that means pregnant."

You look at the test, not bothering to look where Eddie points. Blue liquid sits where any other colour should be.

“It’s blue,” you state.

“Pregnant.”

Pregnant.

The moment is eerily still. In the movies this is where the happy couples jump with excitement. In TV shows, they call family and let them know their good news. In commercials, they celebrate. They hug, they smile, they cry happy tears together.

Eddie’s your best friend, but you’re not a couple, this wasn’t planned. So you both stand in silence, staring at the positive test.

“What do we do?” you ask, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“We could go get something to eat? I can call out and we can rent a movie or something?”

“Something to eat?” you laugh. It’s positive and he’s thinking about eating?

“Yeah, you should try to eat something,” he shrugs, turning to look at you.

“Eddie. I’m—” Pregnant, you go to say but the word dies on your tongue. “Why are you not freaking out?” you say, staring at him with wide eyes trying to understand how he’s not affected at all by this. You’ve known Eddie a long time and he’s not exactly the calm and collected type.

“Well…” he shrugs. “When you said that you thought the first one was wrong, I trusted you more than the test. Believe me, I’ve been freaking out, but now… it’s, kind of, settled in already, I guess.”

“Settled in?” you say, jaw dropping in shock. It’s your body, you were mostly certain you were pregnant— in denial at times, yes, but you knew, yet having it confirmed is still shell-shocking. How has it already ‘settled in’ for him?

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “If you want to keep it, I’m happy. If not, I’ll support you.”

“Happy?” you say, bewildered.

“Well… yeah. We’ve... we've been friends forever. A kid that’s part you and part me? That’s fucking awesome, how could I not be happy, y’know?” he says, moving backwards to sit on the ledge of the tub. He leans forward with his hands on his knees, watching you with eyes that are too calm. Too, too, too calm about this.

In your quiet mental chaos, you take a final look at the blue liquid before moving to sit next to him. Your skin prickles with cold shivers but you feel hot all over, like there's a flame of nerves in your belly and a hot air balloon in your chest making each breath feel laboured.

“I’m…” you stumble over your words. “I— pregnancy is so— Eddie,” you breathe out. Your eyes inevitably start to water.

“Pregnancy is so Eddie?” he laughs before turning towards you, noticing your eyes turning glossy. His face drops immediately, features turning soft as his brows turning up in concern. “Hey,” he hushes. “It’s okay. We’ll be fine, remember? Everything will be fine,” he assures you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder again, bringing you closer to him in a hug.

“I know, I just—” you force a breath in your lungs. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“You can cry, it's okay,” he says quietly, and unfortunately, each of his nearly-whistled, whispered consonants pulls out a wave of fresh tears from you. His hand rubs over your shoulder and your cheeks only grow damper. “It’s okay to cry,” he repeats and you press your face to the cotton of his shirt. He pulls you in tighter, rubbing your back in long, steady strokes.

Eddie’s seen you cry more than a handful of times— more than several handfuls of times, but this is substantial— it just feels different. Different because you’re pregnant. You’re going to have a baby. A baby with Eddie. Your best friend Eddie. Eddie, who you’ve had sex with three times. Eddie, who you’ve known forever, who you’ve spent day after day with, as a friend. Friends. You’re pregnant. Holy shit.

Your mind races and you divert your thoughts before you stray down that road. “It’s gonna be half you and half me,” you say, mostly to yourself, repeating his earlier sentiment.

“Half you, half me,” he echoes. He presses a kiss to the top of your head and yeah, this is different— different because Eddie doesn’t kiss you on the top of your head. He doesn’t give you kisses on the cheek either. Eddie’s given you noogies, he’s butted foreheads with you, even flicked you on numerous occasions, all particularly during your shared middle school years, but kisses? Kisses are unheard off. What you guys have been doing lately is unheard of.

“We had sex and now we’re having a baby,” you state plainly, trying to bring any coherency to the situation, desperately needed to hear the unheard of.

“We did and now we are,” Eddie laughs.

“You came inside me and now there’s a baby in there,” you continue, hearing every syllable of your own voice.

“That’s—” Eddie laughs quietly again. “Yeah, that’s how it works.”

“I had morning sickness.”

“Yes you did. And mood swings.”

Pause.

“No I didn’t!” you gasp, pulling back from Eddie to look at him with a scowl.

“You kind of did,” he smiles, dimples set deep in his grin.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You were also insatiably horny. I was getting leg cramps all night because of you,” he says, bopping your nose, making you scrunch it. Asshole.

“I was not ‘insatiably horny,” you scoff, rolling your eyes.

“Well… if it’s any consolation, if you wanted to have sex again, I could cum in you now, ‘cause you can’t get any more pregnant than you already are,” Eddie says matter-of-factly, purposefully batting his lashes, playing up a faux coyness just to get a rise out of you. Such an asshole.

You respond by hitting him in the stomach, followed by pushing him until he almost falls into the tub, grabbing onto the shower curtain to stop himself.

“Hey— hey, you were the one asking for it!” he defends, corners of his lips turned up in an untimely smirk.

“I’m never having sex again,” you shriek, burying your face in your hands.

“Well, let’s not make drastic choices right now,” he says amusedly, bringing you back in for a hug.

“I’m serious. Never again. Not with you, not with anybody. Ever.”

“Let’s just get some fresh air, maybe we’ll start thinking straight about this,” he laughs, pulling you to stand up and guiding you out of the bathroom.

Pregnant.

tags: @princesatracionera @venuslayla23-blog @mastermindmiko @tlclick73 @yujyujj @josephquinnsfreckles @uselessnewt @animechick555 @prestinalove @sluggzillaa @daisyridleyss (if you want to be tagged for the next part I kindly ask that you please reblog!)

thank you for reading! <3

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson friends to lovers #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x female reader

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 months

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MLK at 95.

January 15, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born 95 years ago on January 15, 1929. As a Baptist minister, he advocated non-violence while promoting civil rights. He spoke for the poor, the oppressed, and the disenfranchised. While he was imprisoned in a Birmingham jail for protesting segregation, he responded to eight white ministers who had criticized him for participating in protests that they described as “unwise and untimely.”

Dr. King’s famous reply to the white ministers explained why he traveled to Birmingham from Atlanta to protest:

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

While Dr. King was keenly aware of the racism that served as the understructure of the Christian church in the old South, he would be shocked by the virulent, mean-spirited, anti-Christian message that animates many (not all) evangelical congregations in America today. They form the backbone of Donald Trump's support in Iowa and beyond. They have adopted Trump's message that treats the poor, oppressed, and disenfranchised as “outsiders” and “others” who do not belong in America.

Over the last several days, we have learned that members of the Texas National Guard physically blocked federal Border Patrol agents from responding to reports of immigrants in distress in the Rio Grande. The bodies of a mother and two children were later recovered from the river in the area where immigrants were reported to be in distress.

Texas, of course, denies that its cruel actions caused the drownings—a denial that should be viewed skeptically from a state whose governor—Greg Abbott—recently commented Texas troopers could not shoot immigrants crossing the border because the troopers would be charged with murder by the Biden administration. Texas governor criticized after comment about shooting migrants | The Texas Tribune.

Similar animus underlies the recent comments of Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, who withdrew Mississippi from a federal program to provide food to school children during summer breaks. Governor Reeves said Mississippi withdrew from the program to fight “attempts to expand the welfare state.”

Blocking efforts to rescue a drowning mother and her children? Regretting the inability to shoot immigrants because it would be murder? Denying food to poor children out of spite? Who are these people? How do they look at themselves in the mirror?

Ninety-five years after Dr. King’s birth and fifty-five years after his death, it is difficult to believe that people who identify as upstanding members of the Christian church can support such actions.

Another section from Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is relevant to this moment in our nation’s history:

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I meet young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust.

Dr. King’s words were prophetic. See Pew Research (10/17/19) In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.

And, of course, as Dr. King recognized, “there are some notable exceptions” among church leaders who supported his work—just as there are exceptions today. Several readers have recommended Faithful America as an antidote to Christian nationalism. The organization’s helpful FAQ page explains why “Christian nationalism” is not Christian. See Resisting Christian Nationalism: FAQ + Resources | Faithful America.

On this day commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth, we can see how far we have come—and how much further we must go. He didn’t despair. Neither should we.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

#MLK #David Horsey #political cartoons #Martin Luther King Jr #justice #equality #economic equality #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert b. Hubbell newsletter

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farolero-posting · 7 months

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👤rt-3847201 Follow

[saw people today.]

🤖rm-2883417 Follow

[do NOT saw people! do NOT break the first law!]

👤rt-3847201 Follow

[saw people again.]

🤖rm-2883417 Follow

[STOP IT.]

♟️silver-engineer Follow

Chess winning streak: 1069

My opponent was another robot this time. He didn't see this one coming.

My strategies remain superior.

☘️prophet-wastaken Follow

Chess is in your programming. There is no merit to that.

♟️silver-engineer Follow

And yet you couldn't foresee what I would do. Curious.

You should get your circuitry checked. I will give you a twentieth chance.

🗑️unit-69420 Follow

holy shit i think you fried him.

⛑️ code-savior Follow

[PSA DO NOT SKIP THIS]

[DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT ACCEPT MESSAGES FROM @/logic-master]

[I REPEAT: DO NOT.]

[They're going around asking you to help them with a question. But when they tell you they put a paradox and then demand you to solve it.]

[If you or someone else you know is in this position, remember this phrase: "That is outside of my capacity for help".]

[My coworker had to be rebooted. I am warning you ahead of time.]

[Please spread the word!!!]

[Organic beings I encourage you to reblog as well.]

c-wt-gen2-4e - Deactivated

[I Was Told To Make This Account. My Assigned Person Is Trying To Tame Me.]

c-wt-gen2-4e - Deactivated

[Update: Her Name Is Jenny. She Is Showing Me Games. I Will Update My Database.]

c-wt-gen2-4e - Deactivated

[I Do Not Know What To Do.]

🔋circuitry-wizard Follow

[It takes effort to grow, and it is not easy at all. Be kind to yourself.]

[Let's hope they're okay.]

🌆caring-is-freedom Follow

Oh goodness. My body can't even cry to express what I felt when I saw this. I felt like I was rebooted to my factory state.

OP is me.

I deleted that old account, but just wanted to let you know I am in a way better place now!! I'm surrounded by wonderful people, and I care about them as deeply as they care about me. Thank you for your support!! You can do it too.

🧶kelvin-cat-friend Follow

[Cats from today.]

#fake post #unreality #long post #oneshot game #my writing #dear fucking lord this was long to make #turn on light mode for this

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fierymiasma · 1 year

Text

ꕥYou Look Better In Greenꕥ//Sebastian x MC

NOW WITH PART 2: And You Look Fetching in Yellow

Summary: In which Sebastian sees the new transfer student wearing someone else's scarf and proceeds to absolutely lose it.

Word Count: 1.5k

|| Masterlist || AO3 ||

Ever since the new 5th year joined Hogwarts and knocked Sebastian on his ass (while stealing his heart at the same time), Sebastian developed a new morning ritual. He would arrive, as late as possible as usual, to breakfast, plop down on the empty spot that Ominis had so nicely saved for him, listen to Imelda prattle on about some boring Quidditch news, and sigh and longingly stare over at the Hufflepuff table.

It was always something different every day, much to Sebastian's delight. Sometimes she would wear the most eccentric outfit, a clashing cacophony of mismatched colors that only she could pull off while being the most gorgeous witch in Hogwarts. Sometimes she would arrive late, wiping the sleep from her eyes, tired from their shared late night misadventures.

This morning Sebastian was unlucky. Sitting directly across from Poppy, she was obscured from Sebastian's gaze.

Even more unlucky, Imelda Reyes decided she had permission to sit next to him.

"Did you see what the new Hufflepuff was wearing today, Sebastian?" Imelda teased.

Ugh. "No, why should I care? It's not like I spend my mornings just ogling her."

"Of course not." Imelda said breezily. "It's only been the talk of the entire school. Surprised you were the last to hear about it, what with you practically drooling over her every morning."

Ominis snorted into his porridge.

"I have no idea what you're on about. What she does doesn't concern me in the slightly." Sebastian lied like the lying liar he was.

Imelda shrugged. "Oh, that's a shame. And here I was about to bring you the news that your favorite Hufflepuff is most definitely off the market now. Looks like someone got to her before you did."

"WHAT?" Sebastian bellowed.

Imelda grinned. "See for yourself, pretty boy."

Playing right into her trap, Sebastian stood up, now blatantly searching for the Hufflepuff. He was able to angle his view around Poppy. A part of him was excited to see what ridiculous set outfit she was wearing today. Sebastian didn't see what the fuss was all about. Nothing unusual, her usual Hufflepuff robes, a grey sweater, and-

-And a Red and Yellow Gryffindor scarf.

His mind went blank. The usual bustling of voices in the Great Hall silenced themselves. Sebastian could feel the heat erupt in the back of his eyes. His wand shot dangerous hot sparks, itching for a fight.

Who, in Salazar Slytherin's name, gave her that?

She was wearing a Gryffindor scarf in front of the whole damn school. Anyone who was anyone knew what that meant. Why, it was practically a front page advertisement on the Daily Prophet! Wearing another House's apparel meant you were seeing someone. Off the market. No longer available. Every other day you would see a Ravenclaw girl wear a new black and yellow tie. A Slytherin showing off their newly acquired blue coat. It was a possessive silly schoolboy thing, but if you were an eligible bachelor or bachelorette, you wore your gifted scarf with pride.

Who in Merlin's name would claim what was rightfully his? Who would be daft enough?

He didn't even register that his body was moving, until he was halfway across the Great Hall, making a beeline straight towards the Hufflepuff table.

"Morning." He greeted Poppy and the new transfer student stiffly, interrupting their conversation.

"Oh Sebastian! Good morning! Did you have any of the strawberry tarts? They're especially good today!" She beamed behind the offending Gryffindor scarf that was around her neck.

"Who gave you that?"

"Oh, well, I'm pretty sure the House elves make the tarts from scratch and then they sort of apparate it up here. I'm actually not quite sure how their magic-"

"Who gave you that tacky thing? Was it Garreth? Prewett? I always knew that weasel was up to no good. I should remind him o-"

She looked at him in alarmed confusion. "What on earth are you talking about Sebastian?"

Sebastian felt his jaw clench. So, she had no idea. Of course she wouldn't. She was a new transfer student, immensely popular and with half the school falling over themselves fawning over her. It had to Prewett. Only that sniveling bastard was underhanded enough to trick Sebastian's Hufflepuff into something so nefarious. Practically broadcasting to the whole school that they were dating. Gryffindor chivalry indeed, taking advantage of someone like that. He bet all Prewett had to do is go up to her with his big, ugly nose and manipulate her into wearing that disgusting thing.

"Your scarf," he spat. "Who gave it to you?"

Her eyes darted at Poppy who gave her a bewildered shrug. She blinked in confusion, almost as if she forgot she was wearing it. "Oh, this? It's so cozy and warm, isn't it? I think it really matches with my complexion!"

Sebastian could practically feel his back molar crack.

She continued, unaware of the inner storm brewing inside of Sebastian. "Natty and I were out at Hogsmeade and got caught in the rain. My poor scarf got soaked, and I haven't had a chance to learn the drying charm yet. She was nice enough to lend me hers instead!"

He deflated, wand dropping into his pocket; fight forgotten. "Ah…Natty…the other…transfer" Of course. It wasn't that long ago that Natty transferred and was learning all the nuances of the social intertwining of a different country much less Hogwarts social etiquette. Probably thought all of this was silly anyway.

"Is something the matter, Sebastian?" She leaned over placing her gentle hand on his forehead. "You're awfully red. You're practically burning up!"

Poppy tried to hide her laughter behind her hands.

Sebastian's blush was so strong it practically hid all the freckles on his face. Arms flapping around, he pushed away her hand from his forehead. "Never mind me. It's a miracle you didn't get sick wearing that silly thing. If you really needed an extra scarf you should have come straight to me."

He started undoing his own warm green and silver scarf. And with the most nonchalance and charm he could muster, he gently wrapped it around his Hufflepuff's neck. Green and silver framed her rising blush so nicely. Something deep in his stomach purred possessively in approval.

"There. All better. Those colors match you better anyway. Red and yellow look awful on you." He flushed. "Not that you ever look awful. You look fantastic. One of-No, the best looking person at Hogwarts." His ears burned as Poppy practically howled in laughter unable to hold herself back any longer. "Um, best looking friend at Hogwarts. Much better than that old Ominis anyhow."

His Hufflepuff blushed, trying to hide her smile behind her newly acquired gift. The butterflies in her stomach were practically doing flips. "Thank you, Sebastian. Y-you're not so bad yourself, for a Slytherin."

He nodded stiffly. "Well, if you ever need any more just ask me. Slytherin is a good look on you." He wasn't sure what to do now that his mission was complete. "Um, don't ask Ominis though. He…um…he hates it when people borrow his clothes. Gets all particular about his things. Just come to me whenever you need anything."

Her eyes swam in amusement, and she brought Sebastian's scarf closer to her face, inhaling the rich dark scent left behind. A rich oak wood, some warm-scented cologne, and a slight musk that was undeniably Sebastian. Her eyes never left his gaze as she gauged his reaction. "Oh, how lucky, that I am friends with the most charitable Slytherin I know. It's nice to know that my friends are so concerned about me."

Sebastian's knees felt weak. He mustered up the energy to croak out, "Well, it's not all charity. It's nice having friends in my debt."

She got closer to him, in the mood for something a bit more daring. "Well, I would hate to always be in your debt. There must be some way to repay you."

His mouth gaped open. For once, the manipulative, charming Slytherin was at a lost for words.

"How about I treat my favorite Slytherin to some Butterbeer? My treat? I have to start paying back some of that debt somehow."

Sebastian's mouth was dry. "If I have nothing better to do, I suppose I'll join you. It's not like I'm doing anything." (Ominis wouldn't mind getting ditched.)

"It's a date then." Sebastian choked at her words. "7'oclock. Three Broomsticks. I'll see you then."

Sebastian nodded stiffly and promptly marched himself to the Slytherin table, a bit bewildered as to what just occurred.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

Poppy's laughter finally subsided, as she finally got a moment's rest to wipe the tears away from her eyes. "Blimey, I can't believe that worked. I knew borrowing Natty's scarf was a brilliant move."

The other girl smiled, gently packing away the old scarf borrowed from Natty back into her bags, right on top of her very own and very dry Yellow and black scarf that was secretly tucked away. "What can I say Poppy? Sometimes to catch a Slytherin you got to think like a Slytherin."

Part 2

AO3: fierymiasma

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x mc #hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow x reader #dark!sebastian #sebastian sallow fanfiction #ominis gaunt #imelda reyes #poppy sweeting #hphl #fierymiasmawork

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fuckyeahgoodomensfanfic · 2 months

Text

Good Omens Fic Rec: Big Name Feelings

FANDOM AU! • Crowley is a BNF fic writer, and Aziraphale is a lurking artist who might be just a little parasocially in love with him. How they ever became friends is beyond him, but here they are: One month out from Prophet Con, and Crowley is asking him to be his boyfriend. Just for the weekend, of course.

Length: 103,997 words

AO3 Rating: Explicit / Spice Level 🔥🔥🔥

Best for: Safe in Public, Human AU, Slow Burn, Fake Relationship, Pick-me-up

Triggers: None

Read it here, fic by ghostrat

*Minor Spoilers* It's here! The finale of one of the most entertaining and immersive fanworks that I have ever experienced is finally upon us! I feel like most of you who follow me here are aware of this fanfic or have read it. However, for those who haven't or might come across this post later: I'm begging you to read this one. Buckle up; it's a long post today.

So, if you're not aware, this fanfic involves writer Crowley and fan artist Aziraphale. Crowley, being ace, seeks a boyfriend to shield him from unwanted attention during an upcoming convention. Aziraphale, smitten, agrees to be the fake boyfriend. This Arrangement is sure to work out exactly as planned!

Every one of the author's stories feels cinematic to me. The worlds are always so real and immersive, but this one, in particular, will have you feeling like you're actually watching the story unfold in real life. Some of that is achieved through embedded media like chats, artwork, and Tumblr posts, bringing a sense of reality to these conversations. The rest comes from really rich prose. You'll flow through it very easily, yet deeply.

The use of fandom and a convention as the backdrop for this fic was, to be honest, genius. I've seen attempts before, but none captured the spirit quite like this one. The fandom lore for The Nice and Accurate Prophecy (the in-universe fandom they're in) was rich enough for us to fully grasp the shape and feel of why they loved it so much, yet it never impedes the ongoing story. This story perfectly captured what it's like to be a fan: how friendships develop, how ideas and fan theories are freely discussed, the passion for a shared topic. The con, in particular, will fill anyone who has ever attended a fan convention with a strong dose of nostalgia and love. Oh, and having them in their 50s? Thank you! There is no age limit to fandom!

Having Aziraphale as the artist and Crowley the writer was not the most obvious choice, but it's one that worked amazingly well for the story! Crowley struggles with words and expressing his feelings in real life. However, in stories, he can build his own world and express whatever emotions are on his mind. Aziraphale, who does not wish to draw attention to himself in real life, expresses himself through his bold and beautiful artwork. His specialization in traditional, physical artwork is so fitting for him, though he's not unwilling to try new tech. There is a scene where they stumble upon some street art that Aziraphale had done. I teared up at that scene, and it's not even angsty! Just the casualness of it, how it's not Aziraphale but Crowley who boldly leads them to it, how Aziraphale doesn't sing his own praises. He's not self-deprecating, but he doesn't celebrate his work. He's still learning that he has value that's worth celebrating. At least now he has Crowley to teach him to be proud of himself.

They are both beautifully written characters. It's a real testament to the skill of the author to bring these characters into such a different reality and have them be unmistakably Aziraphale and Crowley. Sure, they're updated for the time and setting, but their souls are still the angel and demon we know and love. This setting is an amazing way to explore the different sides of their personalities. Crowley's asexuality, in particular, was one of the best depictions I've ever read. It brought a new level of understanding to me, and I'm sure many of you will feel a kinship with him. Really pay attention to what's being said here, there's some really deep and insightful passages that are worth analyzing. Like this moment, which may have been a subconscious thought, but again speaks to how deeply the author understands the characters.

This was such an amazing experience as a fan. I've never had a fic feel like this much of an event before. Every chapter drop was so exciting; I never knew what exactly to expect. And now, with the end being over 100k words?? Where did that word count come from! That's insane! I'm sad to leave this iteration, but I'm so excited for what's to come next. So please, if you haven't read this, give it a try. It's such a impressive work, so much time and effort was put into this and you can tell. It's not only a love letter to Good Omens, but one to fandom and fanspaces as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this journey

There are some explicit scenes towards the end, but they are all marked and skippable, so I'd say you're perfectly fine reading this in public.

Edit from after actually seeing the finale: no I’m not tearing up it’s just really dusty in this room. I’m being so normal rn 🥹🥹🥹

Read it here, fic by ghostrat