#the whole high school group was revolted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

madmunson · 2 years

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word count; 10.1k

disclaimer; smut. fem!reader x eddie munson.

summary; fem!reader Y/N is required to do a partner assessment project on a student she hates, none other than Eddie Munson.

author's note; another short(ish) fic. i hope you guys enjoy this one !! i have more in the vault, and other stories coming out in a matter of days. i also plan on making mini imagines too, those should be up this week! and of course, as always, so sorry for the weird spacing !!

You had been a popular girl at Hawkins since before you could remember. As a child, it was beauty pageants, local commercial acting, getting dolled up for just about any camera that came your way. As a teenager, it was cheerleading practices, more beauty pageants, and forced smiles for anybody who asked even slightly polite. It wasn't that you necessarily hated your life this way, because you didn't, you just didn't entirely know who you were. You were sure this happens to every teenager though, identity crises left and right, but you never talked about that to your friends. It was still a subject you couldn't really bring yourself to talk about, the same way every teenager probably was. You'd genuinely never met anybody who talked about it, but seen it happening first hand. Kids you knew for years in the same popularity group switching up and doing things like photography or band, dressing differently, acting differently. It was the only reasonable explanation, in your mind.

It didn't matter where you were, it felt like cameras were on you at all times. Your parents taking videos at cheer in current times the same way they did at pageants before, people wanting your autograph because you lived in such a small town being in a few commercials practically made you famous there and cameras followed you in that sense, at school with your friends. It didn't matter. Ever since the Model 95 came out, everybody was obsessed. Only higher class people had polaroid cameras, though, as they were hard to come by and also expensive for film and everything of the sorts. That didn't stop them from being pointed in your face any chance you turned around.

Maybe you did hate it. You couldn't find a way out of it most days.

And this pageant would be no different. You'd flutter your eyes at the cameras some, smile, model walk, and step down. You would stare at every other girl around you, and wonder if they felt the same way. Maybe if you got enough girls that were living their mother's dreams and tired enough of doing so, you could revolt, demand for your lives back. But these girls looked happy to be there. You couldn't say you felt the same. Ever. You were never happy to be doing this shit. And truth be told, you had asked your family thousands of times to quit cheerleading, maybe quit the pageants, but they never allowed you to do so. They had you on a strict diet, strict routine, and even stricter schedule. Anything that went outside of their agenda, even if it wasn't around them, was reported to them and you were thoroughly punished for it.

You were popular, but didn't have much of a social life. School ended, cheerleading practice began, and after that ended, pageant practice began. Your whole life surrounded school, and fucking beauty pageants. You hated it.

You did have two best friends out of the whole cheerleading squad though, Chrissy Cunningham and Leah Smith. They were also two very popular girls, one with a genuine heart and one faker than the plastic on the ground. You did genuinely love Chrissy, but with Chrissy came Leah. They were an unfortunate package deal you simply could not separate. All girls in high school flocked like this, too, like a swarm of fruit flies that would not separate for a second. You were apart of the swarm, as much as you wouldn't admit that to yourself.

This day was no different. Chrissy was in the bathroom checking her makeup and talking about Jason in circles, Leah would pretend to listen while you actually did listen, and you would be stuck like this.

"Jason got me flowers the other day," Chrissy smiles, looking at herself in the reflection of the mirror, "it's just crazy to me that I was lucky enough to meet him." She continues to put on this gloss for her lips, smiling at herself with little glimpses.

"Chrissy, you've talked about it like seven hundred times," Leah starts. You weren't going to allow her to ruin how happy Chrissy was though. You were the balance between the two of them, the serenity that kept them from ripping each others' head off.

"Which is okay. I love hearing about how happy he makes you," You say. smiling at her as you fix your makeup as well. Leah sighs, and rolls her eyes.

"Why don't you get a boyfriend, Y/N?" Leah asks. This was an everyday conversation you couldn't escape. They were always curious about your nonexistent dating life and everything surrounding it, it was like the girls at this school were only destined to be girlfriends.

"Don't have the time, Leah," you bite back, putting emphasis on her name the same sarcastic ass way she did with yours. You secretly hated her. But again, Chrissy and Leah were a package deal and you can't separate a package deal still expecting the deal. And you really did keep the two of them level. The way you seen it, maybe you weren't too much better than Leah.

"Oh, don't even get me started!" Chrissy jokes.

"The pageants, the cheerleading, the parents," Leah sums up.

"Yeah, just about," you chuckle. Oh, the life.

"We need to find you some dick," Leah laughs, completely ignoring your comment. She irked the deepest parts of your soul so unintentionally it should be criminal.

"Honestly, I'm good."

"Are you?" Chrissy laughs. She knew how much of a hopeless romantic you were. In reality, you'd love a companion, but you were right about time management and also, your parents would never allow it. It just wasn't expected, and for sure wasn't allowed. But nobody listened to that. Your parents had witnesses everywhere.

"No, but you know how it is."

"Your parents are weird." Leah says, as if you didn't already know that.

"Yeah. Very." Chrissy agrees. You just nod. You often wondered how they lived so perfectly, how you wished you could be them even for just a day.

While you were lost in thought, the bell rings, indicating the start of another class period.

"Shit, I can't be late again. Johnson will have my head," Chrissy speaks, rushing to grab her bag and put her gloss inside of it. Leah agrees.

"Me too, last time he told me if I was late again he'd give me a detention. Do you know how bad my parents would absolutely slaughter me?"

"Probably not worse than Y/N's." Chrissy laughs, sparking a laugh out of you as well.

"Love you girl," Chrissy says.

"You too." You smile. And with that, the two girls were exiting the bathroom, leaving you alone in there. You stared at yourself for a brief second longer, wondering how much longer you'd have to deal with this. You hated this life, the way that you were living your parent's dreams instead of your own, being forced to deal with the darkness high school had to offer. You hardly had time to think before the second bell rang, making everybody who wasn't in their classes late.

You made your way to your third period class, despite being late, trying to push back every single thought you possibly could despite how hard it was. You were ready to break down and cry, your emotions won you over in such a negative way. But you couldn't. You couldn't allow people to see you like this, not right now at least. Maybe you'd have some big public meltdown, and people would care to take notice. But until that point, you were just another pretty face for the cameras.

You entered your class, staring at your teacher.

"Late again, Y/N? Take a seat," Mr. Tinkham says. You nod, taking a seat. "Today, I want to talk to all of you about a project," he continues. Everybody sighs, getting irritated at the idea of a project so close to the end of the school year.

"I will be pairing you up into groups of two, and you will be doing a assessment on the other person. Expect to be paired with the least expected people, as this is the perfect project for that. No whining, either, everybody here is a person and should be treated as such." He paces in the classroom, talking as he does so. He ignores the sighs around him, continuing to pace as he speaks. He frequently did this, pacing was a way for him to speak without messing up his words. He told everybody that at the beginning of the school year.

He begins listing out names, starting with a few different students before leading to you. You and Eddie Munson.

Eddie Munson was a freak in the high school, and you didn't need to interview him or whatever to know so. Everybody already did. He had a whole outburst closer to the beginning of the year where he stood on a table and freaked out at everybody, every group of people, including yourself. He was weird, satanic, and all sorts of freaky. This couldn't have been a worse pick on behalf of Mr. Tinkham. Also, your parents would rather be caught dead before seeing you with anybody even slightly resembling Eddie Munson.

You waited for class to finish before you approached Mr. Tinkham.

"Listen, I can't work with Eddie, my parents-"

"I said no whining, Miss Y/L/N and I meant it. The decision, and partner selection, is final."

"You don't get it, my parents-"

"Done, Miss Y/L/N. You're excused."

You tried to reason with him some more, but it was endless. You could go on for hours and hours, and his decision wouldn't change. That was the thing about that specific teacher, he had that way to him. Nothing you could do would steer his intentions, which was brutal for you. He explained that it was worth a final grade, and that if he thought you did good enough, you wouldn't have to take the final. This was good because it would be one less final to worry about, and the mention of the project excited you, but it was an awful partner selection and you simply couldn't ignore that. Your parents for sure would not ignore that.

You leave his classroom, despite the outcome, and Eddie is waiting for you outside of your classroom.

"So what'd he say?" He asks, teasing you lightly as he does.

"Leave me alone Eddie," you said. You ignore him, trying to shove past him.

"Wow, okay, well we're project partners ya know" he states the obvious. You try to ignore him again, but to no avail, as he continues pushing your buttons.

"Look, I'll give you a piece of paper, just write some shit about yourself and give it back to me. I promise I'll make you sound so cool, just leave me alone." You didn't want to be so rude. But if your parents somehow got wind of this, they'd literally kill you. It wasn't worth all the fuss that would happen, had they found out. You rip a piece of paper out of your notebook and hand it to the taller man, who literally takes it and rips it up.

"Sorry doll, but that's not an honest grade! Looks like you're stuck with me."

"Since when do you care about an honest grade? Middle school?"

"I actually want to graduate this year."

"Yeah, bullshit Munson. Is this just some attempt to get in my pants? Because it isn't going to work, you know how strict my parents are." You open your locker, and the door blocks him. He steps around it to resume eye contact.

"I'm serious. '86 is my year, baby!" He smiles, raising his hands in the air and looking upward to seem more optimistic about his significantly low chances of graduating. This was probably an easy grade for him. You simply hated being around him, though, he was weird and super upfront, and often times abrasive. Truth be told, he couldn't care for you either. You were the center of everything he hated: popularity, parties, and cheerleading.

"I'll do the project for you," you agree against your will, "but it has to be here. You can't show up at my house like you did when I was a kid. This time, my dad will actually kill you." When you were kids, Eddie showed up at your house with a handful of handpicked flowers from his backyard. You thought it was cute, but your dad basically had a conniption so gruesome you could see a few veins pop out on his shiny bald head. Your mom cried for hours. Truth be told, you agreed only because you did want to see Eddie graduate. You wanted to see him overcome this school, and overcome the hate, despite how much you hated him.

He jumped around all giddily, practically thanking you on his hands and knees as he did so. He even bowed to you, the same way you'd imagine he'd done for his stupid game. You just lightly nodded back, and sent him on his way.

Not long after, Leah and Chrissy approach you with ill intent. They seen you talking it over with Eddie Munson, and instantly felt obligated to warn you, or try to stop you, as if it was anything other than some dumb high school project. You hated when they would feel so inclined to go in your business like that, it felt like you were talking to your parents all over again.

"When we said you needed a dick, we didn't mean that one." Leah says, appearing shocked, "like really girl? Eddie Munson?"

"Leah, its for a school project."

"Y/N, we're just trying to warn you. You might think it's a project, but he probably thinks its some sort of satanic sacrifice. Watch out girl, seriously!" Chrissy joins in. You could tell she only had the purest heart when it came to warning you about him, that's just the way she was. She was so pure, and so kind, she only worried about you. You just nod in response, indicating for them to leave you alone about the subject, but they continue.

"Y/N and Munson, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Leah laughs. You roll your eyes out of genuine annoyance and cringe, because she just had that affect on you. In the meantime, Jason Carver comes over and swoops Chrissy off the ground into a tight embrace.

"Hey girls," Jason says.

"Hey, Jay!" Leah smiles, fluttering her eyes as she did so. She always did this around Jason, and you thought it was super weird but Chrissy didn't seem to be too bothered by it. She has security, and knew that Jason only wanted her, which must've been such a good feeling to have considering it was all false. Jason had been cheating on Chrissy since middle school, and she just seemed completely oblivious to it. That, or perhaps she just couldn't be bothered to care.

"Hey Leah," he smiles back at her, sweeping her under his embrace too. He never bothered to acknowledge you anymore, and that was a mutual thing, and to be expected, ever since you found Leah and Jason screwing in the bathroom like rabbits. You promised Leah you'd never tell, which bothered you because you didn't care for Leah anywhere near as much as you did Chrissy, but it was a matter of keeping the peace. You loved Chrissy, but waited for the right time.

"Okay, I'm gonna go to my next class if this little love-making session is over." You say, closing your locker and walking off.

* ꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ *

The project required a list of things. You had to basically interview the other person involved, while also making an assessment out of it. You were to analyze their qualities, their life, their decisions, their personality, everything. It was supposed to be a visual aid just as much as a written assessment, whatever that meant.

You met Eddie near the woods of the school, shortly behind the building. In it was a picnic table, and a bunch of trees. This was perfect for Eddie Munson, and the vibe he carried on his back. You waited for a few moments, telling your parents the truth about the project. They surprisingly understood, probably because you didn't mention it was with Eddie, but instead with Chrissy.

"Hey doll," you hear from behind you. It was finally Eddie Munson, showing up fashionably late per usual.

"Hey! And don't call me that." You respond.

"I'll try to remember that, given I'm just such a flirt and all. Its my charisma."

"Uh huh," he was kind of correct about being charismatic. He had a way to him, and always had. It was kind of weird to you, that somebody that weird could also be that charming the more you spoke to him. You assumed it was some satanic magic or something.

"So we get to assess each other, huh?" Eddie asks.

"Don't make it weird. I'm just gonna ask you questions and bring something that reminds me of you. Something easy, something we don't have to communicate over, and most importantly, something quick. Right?"

"Well, no. I'm not letting you go that easy. Honest grade, right?"

"Fine," you say. He was still standing up and slowly pacing at this point. He smiles and nods, placing his hand over his chin for a brief moment. You could tell he was thinking of something creative, given his stance.

"Come over," he says.

"Does that normally work?"

"Oh, all the time," he laughs, "but seriously. All business, no pleasure. How's it sound? Just you, the cheerleader Y/N Y/L/N, and the freak Eddie Munson? Nothing better than it." He places his hand out for you to grab, standing in front of you as he does so.

"Sure, but only for the project." You take his hand, and stand up with him. He smiles at you, lifting you up as he holds your hand in his.

"To the van!" He states, letting go of your hand to lightly flail his arms in a slow upward motion to indicate his van was anything better than rusted scrap metal on some wheels. He walks ahead of you, leading the way to his van through the wooded area.

You finally get to his van, and without exchanging another word, take the back. You couldn't risk having your parents see you, or any of those spies they have that could see you. Eddie gives you a weird look, sort of questioning why you weren't taking the passenger side.

"Can't risk having my parents see me," you say, "you know, with the freak and all."

"Fine, deal." He smiles back at you, opening the back van door for you before you step in.

You get in the van and wait for him to start the van. He finally does, allowing it to turn over before starting. You arrive to his trailer shortly after, entering the living room as he locks the door.

"Can I ask you something? You know, for the project of course." You ask.

"Yes,"

"Are you actually a satan worshipper?"

"If you have to ask the question, my response won't matter. Seriously, I don't even know how that rumor started." He states, stepping away from the now locked door. He approaches you on the couch you took a seat on, taking a seat next to you. He stares into your eyes, and you couldn't deny just how handsome he actually was anymore.

"Right, I'm sorry," You say, still staring into his eyes. You look away for a brief moment to break eye contact with him, flustered as you do so.

"Don't be," he looks away for a brief moment, too, before laughing quietly to himself. "No, it isn't true."

"I never thought it was you know,"

"You still had to ask though,"

"Because I was worried this was gonna be some virgin sacrifice. Maybe the girls got in my head or something."

"Woah, virgin sacrifice huh?" He laughs even harder now, staring at you as he does so.

"Yeah, I'm a virgin, what's so funny about it?"

"It wasn't that, it's the fact that you thought I was going to kill you over it. To be fair, still haven't decided. Don't take my kindness lightly." You laugh in response to him, and he joins the laughter. His laugh was genuine, you could feel the warmth from his voice as he giggled with you.

"So, time for the assessment," you ask, trying to change the subject before it became anything too flirty. You didn't want to flirt with him, and you didn't want him in that sense anyway. Leah and Chrissy were always getting on your case for not sleeping around with men but you couldn't be bothered to care less about the subject at hand.

"Right," he responds.

"You have any likes? Or dislikes?"

"Likes; guitar, metal, rings, Dungeons and Dragons. Dislikes; parties. And well," He responds like a jackass. He didn't seem serious about the project whatsoever. It made you wonder why you were even there, to listen to Eddie Munson state the obvious like you couldn't come up with these answers sitting alone in your room.

"Cheerleaders and jocks, we get it." You respond, irritated.

"At least you know," he laughs.

"You play guitar?" You ask, taking a notebook out of your backpack and a pen to join it.

"I do,"

"Play me something." You state, looking away from your notebook to look him in his eyes.

"Woah, really?" He asks, instantly getting excited. You nod, and he stands up, rushing to his room before coming back. He steps outside of his room whilst standing in the door way, looking at you with his guitar strapped over his shoulder.

"This is my sweetheart," he smiles at the guitar, admiring its beauty. He strums a chord you've never heard, but it sends a chill down your spine nonetheless. You open the notebook, taking your pen in hand and jotting some notes.

- Calls his guitar 'sweetheart'.

"It looks beautiful," you said, admiring the guitar with him. He nods, explaining that it took him forever to save up for, and that it was his prized possession.

- Prized possession: guitar he saved up for forever

He begins strumming his guitar in front of you, playing a song you had never heard of. You wished in the moment you knew it, how you'd love to sing it with him. But he just silently strummed, producing such sweet sounds as he did so.

His ringed fingers began to dance around the chords with one hand, using his other hand to hold his guitar pick to strum alongside the other hand's movements.

He was so peaceful, staring down at his hands as he played.

You begin jotting more notes, as your pen meets the composition book paper and traces words.

- He looks ...almost captivating. He holds peaceful movements as he watches himself play.

"This is amazing, Eddie," You say, continuing to watch him as he plays his beau. After he finishes, he quickly says, "thank you" before walking towards you and handing you the guitar.

You had absolutely no idea how to play. As a matter of fact, you didn't know how to play anything with strings. You had tried once in your prime childhood, the violin, but failed. You immediately became stressed as he handed it to you, wanting to impress him the same way he did you, but not knowing how to.

"I've never played," you state.

"I was sort of hoping you'd say that. Sit in front of me." He sits on the floor, leaving room in between his legs for you. You join him, with his guitar draped over your shoulder. He places his arms around yours, intertwining your fingertips over the chords to hold you steady. He begins showing you all the important keys, holding your fingers on the neck of the guitar as he helps you strum. He was holding you so perfectly as he taught you how to play. You continue playing with him, strumming in silence with him for a brief moment before standing up and handing him his guitar back. He smiles at you, still sitting down as he makes eye contact with you. He gets up, grabs his guitar, and places it back into his room.

He enters the living room once more, and you continue taking notes.

- He taught me how to play today. I now know all of the basic chords, he's a lot sweeter than people expect him to be.

"I should get going," you say, standing up before placing your notebook back into your bag. He smiles at you once more before nodding, "okay. It was good to see you."

"Yeah, you too. Genuinely." You offer a smile back at him, walking out of his door before he could say another thing. It seemed to be a mutual decision, because the door was closed behind you just as quick as you exited. You were kind of disappointed with that, but didn't allow yourself to care that much.

You made your walk home, knowing it may take a while before you'd get home. When you finally made it home, your parents stood waiting for you, ready to talk about more pageants.

* ꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ *

Hours passed through the night of you just staying awake, tossing and turning. You didn't know what else to do, you were so lost in thought. For once in your life, you thought Leah and Chrissy must be right. Something about the way he presented himself earlier really spoke to you. He was something really different. You couldn't imagine Eddie as something other than the freak persona he put on. You sat up, and rushed over to your backpack and looked at the notes you placed in your notebook. You had only four things written down, but proceeded to write a rough draft for what you did learn.

My partner assessment project is on none other than Eddie Munson himself, a completely misunderstood individual. When you hear his name, you think satanism, everything that is wrong with the town, but he is the opposite of that. Upon assessing him, I found out he likes rings, metal, and Dungeons and Dragons. His prized possession is a guitar he calls "sweetheart", and he's amazing at what he does.

No, that was stupid. You knew you needed to get to his house as soon as possible, the only question was 'how?'. You walk to your window, hopping out of the second story before entering your car and driving to Eddie Munson's trailer. You weren't able to fully process it before you were leaving your home, but you couldn't do anything else.

The drive there was absolutely silent. It must've been two or three o'clock in the morning, so there were minimal cars out if any, and you were completely alone without a single thought. You weren't able to comprehend anything around you, the only thought was Eddie Munson.

Soon enough, you found yourself at his door. You begin knocking before your brain is able to fully process it.

"And to who do I owe the pleasure?" He asks, before even seeing it was you at the door, "oh, Y/N! What's up?" Once he realizes it's you, he changes his tone and smiles at you.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you," you say, without a second thought, "I mean, for the project that is."

"Right, well let's continue?" He suggests, standing away from the open door as a signal to offer you inside. You nod, walking inside as he holds the door open for you. You go inside, and sit down on the couch in his living room. You pull out the notebook you brought, and stare at him as you stay seated. He proceeds to lock the door, and comes to sit down next to you.

"Tell me more about you."

"Well, I'm not a conflict person. That's why it's easier to just allow people to believe what they want about you. I usually present as something different, so people leave me alone."

"Makes sense."

"Do you ever wish you could just go, unseen?" He asks.

"Everyday of my life. I have cameras pointed in my face at all times, and I'm tired of it."

"Like this?" He asks, rushing to his room to grab his camera. You hated the idea of taking more photos, but it was the perfect idea for his project on you, so you allowed it. He steps out, taking a picture of you, before allowing the picture to produce on film. You smile at him.

"You just have to look at them differently," he says.

"How so?"

"Like there isn't people behind them. Or if there is, it's me."

"It's you? What do you mean?"

"When I take pictures, I don't do it the way they do. People like your parents, the commercial people, they're using you. It’s obvious. I take pictures to keep images of the things I admire." Your heart drops for a moment, fully processing what he just said. He walks over to you again, sitting next to you once more before pulling out his camera and flashing another picture. "Beautiful," he says once it processes.

Your pen meets paper once more, and you write:

- He takes pictures of the things he admires. He took pictures of me.

He stares into your eyes, shifting himself closer towards you as he brings himself in for a kiss. You agree silently, kissing him back as the two of you collide lips. Before you know it, you were making out, your tongues attacking each other as your lips left openings for them to do just that. He places his hand behind your head, deepening the already passionate kiss without breaking it. He continues to intertwine your tongue with his as you intertwine your fingers with his curly mane.

"Do you want to continue?" He asks.

"Please, Eddie" You say, your breath shifting as you crave him. You begin to ache for him in places you didn't think were possible.

"Just stop me if you need me to, okay?" He says genuinely. You nod frantically as he begins undoing your top and kissing down your neck. You moan for him quietly as he continues. You beg for more, and he gives you just that. He takes your bra off with one swift motion, and continues kissing, leaving hickeys in the only places the camera wouldn't catch. He places them down your chest as he goes. You moan for him, begging him for more. He stops momentarily to watch you beg for him, taking in the sight of your topless body for a brief second. He smiles for a moment, and says "hang on." He runs to his bedroom and brings out his camera.

"Eddie, what are you doing?" You laugh to him, using your wrists to cover your topless body as your hair spreads along the table you laid upon.

"I told you I liked taking pictures of things I admire, so I was wondering if maybe you'd let me take pictures?"

"Only for you?"

"Of course," he says with genuine tone, "only if you're comfortable,"

You thought for a brief second, and remembered how you wrote him in your notebook. He takes pictures of the things he admires. "He took pictures of me". Eddie was the first person you believed was genuine, everything about him was so rare to see in somebody. His humor, his sarcasm, his appearance, the way he just didn't care about what other people said. He was honest. Not to mention, he had always had that small crush on you. You nod, and smile at him.

"Do what you want to me," you say without a second thought, and pose for him. You begin taking off your pants for him, going back to holding your breasts afterwards. The camera began flashing on you, the same way it did before but this time felt different. Subconsciously, he made you feel so much better overall. He made the cameras you always felt on you feel more normal, exactly the way he suggested before. That was the whole reason you couldn't sleep that night, you just imagined him taking pictures of you. Maybe you had already thought about this.

"You're so beautiful," he praises, shuttering more photos by the second as you continued to pose for him. You had never felt more stunning in your entire life. For once, nothing else mattered. Not the pageants, not the popularity, not the phony best friends, absolutely nothing outside of you and Edward Munson, the boy you've known forever but never seen. Until now.

"Thank you," you chuckle quietly. He takes a few more pictures before setting the camera next to you and proceeding, unprocessed photos scattered everywhere. He kisses down your neck, and down your chest, before lightly caressing your breast with one had and kissing the other. He moves up, attacking your lips once more and colliding his tongue with yours between the open gaps of your mouths. He fiddles with your underwear as he continues. You reach for the camera in between pictures, and snap a couple, surprising the man you were kissing.

"Finally comfortable with cameras huh?" He jokes.

"Oh, shut up and continue!" you laugh in response, of course nodding at the same time to reassure him that he was the one making you so comfortable. He nods in unison with you, and continues taking your underwear off. He manages to flick the panties to the side with one finger, which definitely turned you on. You snapped a picture of him as he stared at you, possessively and with ownership smothering his face. You couldn't picture a hotter sight.

"You're so fucking hot Eddie," you gasp, as he begins going down on you. He proceeds to place his mouth over your center, licking your clit with a soft motion of his jaw and lips surrounding it. You begin to moan with pleasure, as loud as you possibly could without thinking a second thought.

"For us," you moan, as you grab the camera once more, and take a picture of him down on you. You place it back down, and arch your hips so he can attack your revealed center at a better angle. He continues, picking up his pace as he places small kisses and licks along your clit. You beg for him to go faster, but he refuses to listen, ultimately turning you on more.

"Don't demand, princess, that'll get you punished." He growls, going slower. You beg for him some more, pleading with him to fasten his pace, but he still disagrees. "Keep begging," he demands. You keep begging, like he demands. Begging and pleading with him, with little sweet cusses in between.

"Eddie please baby," you whined, and he listened, picking up his pace while tracing little circles over your clit. As he continues, you feel something you had never felt before. Your shoulders became tense, your core becoming increasingly hot by the second, a pit in your stomach building. The pressure around you was enough to send you spinning, your whole body became overwhelmed with an unbearable amount of pressure. You didn't know what it meant, but wanted more of it and fast. You begin crying out for him, moaning louder and louder as he continues.

The walls captivate your moans, and bounce them in between the barriers, mocking your moans in the form of an echo. You could almost guarantee neighbors heard you at that point. Before you know it, the pressure releases. The heat that built up in the pit of your stomach was drowned by a sweet numbing feeling attacking your core, and you can feel your legs shaking. Without even realizing it, you finish on him, pressing his head into your center as you do while moaning his name louder than you ever did before.

He looks up at you and smiles, "good girl". You breathlessly try to catch up with yourself, your lungs collapsing by the second as the sweat trickled down your body. You were in disbelief. He continues for a small moment, to try and help you catch up with yourself, and it works. He stands up, pulling you by your waist as a means to line himself up with your entrance. He smiles at you for one more brief moment.

"Remember, stop me if you need to, okay?" He says, momentarily breaking the possessive character he played.

"Of course," you respond.

He slowly pushes himself inside you, causing you to wince for a second. You never imagined Eddie Munson to be packing the way he was, but you weren't necessarily complaining. He continues nevertheless, going in still and slowly as he does. You moan for him, placing your hands on his chest as he continues to slowly thrust. You smile as you throw your head back for him.

"Faster," you demand. He listens, lightly picking up his pace but not enough to overwhelm you. You felt every inch of him inside you, your walls struggling to barely keep up with his length and girth.

"I could never get enough of this sight darling" Eddie moans, watching your naked body whiter and twist underneath him. He smirks over the sight of your body, kissing down your neck and leaving your body disheveled with goosebumps. You moan for him, applauding his length as you do so.

You were drenched beyond belief, and you felt the same pressure build up almost immediately.

"I'm gonna finish-" you start. You beg for him to go faster once more, and this time he does, picking up his pace as fast as his hips could thrust. You moan loudly for him, continuing to beg for him more as he goes. He thrusts faster, causing the same pressure to become stronger and bolder by the second. The same heat building from your core was back, along with the pit inside your stomach twisting inside of you. You began whining, finally making you release once more as he proceeds with his thrusts, this time with more force. Your moans were masking the skin clapping sounds the two of you produced, sweat colliding.

You thanked him as you finished beneath him, him not lasting long after. You felt him twitch and throb inside you, shooting his warm liquid as it seeps into the crevasses of your walls.

"Fuck, Y/N" he says, struggling to regain his breath as he pulls out of your core. He smiles at you as he pants, grabbing your hand and placing it over his chest to feel the beats. You laugh with him, as he flops next to you.

"That was amazing," he states.

"It absolutely was," you agree, sitting on his lap and grabbing the camera. He begins laughing again, jokingly begging you not to take pictures of him so disheveled, but you disagree. You continue taking small snaps of him, producing pictures by the second while the two of you share laughs.

Eddie stands up, rushing to his bedroom to toss you a Hellfire Club shirt and a pair of boxers. You smile at him as he holds the items in the doorway, sitting bare naked on his table. You nod, and he tosses you the clothes. You hurry to put on his outfit, admiring the way his shirt flowed just above your knees. He was just that much taller than you, which was absolutely perfect.

"Let's practice guitar again, sound good?" He smiles, rushing to his room to grab his guitar. He smiles, standing in his doorway with his beau strapped around his shoulder with praise. You enjoyed the sight of him, taking a picture of him as you did so. The photo printed, and developed right before your eyes. Christ, he was so handsome. You pulled out your notebook to write additional things;

- You can tell Eddie Munson has a huge heart. He has one of the most purest, untouched souls I've ever seen.

You slam the notebook back down, lifting your arms and extending your fingers to signify you wanted to hold it. He smiles, and nods at you. He walks over to you with his guitar, taking a seat on the floor before tapping the floor in front of him to mean he wanted you sitting in front of him.

"Deal," you say out loud. You sit in front of him, and he places the guitar over you. He hurries up, snapping a picture of the two of you behind the guitar before continuing.

* ꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ *

The end of the night approached quicker than you'd hoped. He placed a few images of the two of you inside an envelope that he labeled with a heart, and placed it inside of your bag. You smile to him, kissing him before exiting.

"I'm gonna miss you," you spoke.

"Not more than I'm gonna miss you," he kissed you once more, before kissing you on the forehead. He hugs you tightly.

"I'll see you tomorrow," you say with heavy heart. He nods, and you exit.

The whole drive home, you thought about that project and what you were going to say. You had days to finish this project, but didn't think it would take days. You had assessed so much of him in such a small amount of time, and it lead to so much more. You felt so relieved, because everything felt so much better now that you met him. He made you feel so much better about cameras, and everything surrounding your messed up life. Whenever you were around him, your worries seemed to melt. He felt so natural, everything felt so natural. You truly felt something different for Eddie, and appreciated everything he did in such a short amount of time.

You managed to sneak back into your house successfully. Not a single thing was moved, or changed since you had left it. By now, the clock read 6:02am, meaning you needed to get ready for school and fast before your parents woke up to realize your situation. You didn't realize it, but you drove home in Eddie's Hellfire shirt and boxers, meaning your clothes were still at his house. You made a plan inside your head that consisted of hurrying up, changing, figuring out your hair, and rushing downstairs.

You managed to do so, greeting your parents in the kitchen as they made you (what they called) a well balanced breakfast. They always did that. They liked to keep count of what you ate for the sake of pageants, but you always thought it was so stupid, not to mention, absolutely infuriating. They controlled basically every aspect of your life without you even realizing it.

"Hey Y/N, didn't see you get home from that project you were doing?" Your dad questions.

"Yeah, I got home late! But you seen my car, right?"

"Of course, you must've been asleep." Your mom suggests, flipping the eggs over the stove as she does so. You felt bad for leaving them absolutely oblivious, but the less they knew the better.

"Yeah, I fell asleep kind of early." You respond, replaying the memories from a few hours previously. You smile to yourself, but shake it before your parents are able to catch it.

"So when is that project due?" Your dad asks.

"Three days from now, but I've pretty much got it all mapped out. The teacher really chose two best friends and expected me to not have it done. Easy A though, right?"

"Oh, for sure! You should still take the exam for extra credit!" Your mom happily says.

"I'll think about it,"

"No, it's your grades. You will do it." She demands, looking at you blankly as she spoke.

"Fine." You pause, grabbing your bag and exiting the house. Now was a bigger concern, you had to make it through the day without Chrissy nor Leah being suspicious. This was especially frustrating because you didn't quite know how you would fool them so easily, they would notice you were off today. It wasn't long before they began asking questions, and eventually figured out the story for themselves.

Nonetheless, you were on your way to school. The radio was off, the car was silent once more. The entire way to school you thought about this project, and thought about Eddie. The two of you had made plans before you left to meet up after school once more to finish the project, so you had that to look forward to by all means.

You finally arrive to the school and see both Chrissy and Leah waving you down, practically begging for your attention. The lack of sleep had already started to wear you down, stressing you out before you even entered the building. You park your car in the student parking, and then exit to meet the girls waiting for you.

"Hey girl, you look vibrant! Get some dick?" Leah asks jokingly. You were ready to sigh and roll your eyes before she even said anything, knowing exactly what she was going to say. But you refrained, and instead played nice to the backstabbing friend.

"No, just relieved this project is almost over. I was over at Eddie's last night and-"

"No!" Chrissy spoke, cutting you off, "you and Munson didn't..?"

"No! Absolutely not! Damn, it was just for a project." You said. You were upset that you had to lie, but nobody you knew would accept you and Eddie for what you were, so it was better to leave them questioning.

"If ya say so," Leah laughs.

"I didn't hook up with Eddie Munson!" You practically flip out at this point. The exhaustion from lack of sleep was already catching up, and it made you believe everybody around you believed something about you and Eddie. In reality, these were jokes, and nobody speculated anything, but it was impossible to convince your mind otherwise. It was like you were the only one stranded in this world, but there were ghosts around you laughing and pointing. It all felt so surreal. You knew it was just the tiredness making you paranoid, though, or at least you hoped.

"Geez, okay! I was kidding! But being defensive is only gonna convince me you are actually hooking up with Eddie Munson." Leah states. At this point, you didn't care how rude you seemed for doing so, you rolled your eyes and walked ahead of the girls for a moment, them still talking about how weird you were acting behind you. You weren't doing a good job at making them not suspicious, and you knew that. You also recognized that you proved your point, that it would only be a matter of time until they recognized something was off. It had barely been minutes and the two were already assuming things. The thought terrified you, and made you shake beyond belief.

You walk to your locker, placing some notebooks inside and taking some out before the envelope falls.

"Oh!" Leah smiles, reaching to pick it up.

"Don't! That's um, from my um, grandma!" You pause several times before continuing. You snatch it off the floor and place it directly into your bag. It was a close one for sure, but you thought for a brief moment that you had maybe passed it off.

"I wanna see what granny wrote!" Chrissy says. Suddenly, it feels like you're closed into a corner. You can't move, can't breathe, and can barely think. You needed to come up with an excuse for them not to see it, or for them not to want to.

"Oh please, this old thing?" You start, "it's nothing, really, she has dementia so she doesn't even know what she's actually writing. It's really just jibberish."

"But she knew to put hearts on it?" Leah asks, suspiciously.

"Clearly, Leah yeah!" You say sarcastically back. You were so tired of the poking and bantering, you didn't care what was to come from your attitude. Leah looked like she was ready to unleash, before Jason came over.

"Hey Jay!" Chrissy smiles, kissing his cheek before collapsing into his arms.

"Hey Jay-Jay!" Leah says more flirty. It was seriously a shock to you that Chrissy didn't know about her backstabbing best friend. But it wasn't your concern. You say your goodbyes to the girls, and then continue walking to your first period class. For once, it was best to not be late to every class. You wanted to stay on everybody's good side, especially if it meant you could stay in good graces while sneaking around with Eddie Munson.

Here is where you decided to finish your project. You didn't really have anything to do first period, given it was sort of a study hall, so this would be the absolute perfect place to do just that. You sit down at a random seat and pull out your notebook, completely ignoring the teacher as your pen meets the paper and you begin to write.

My partner assessment project is on none other than Eddie Munson himself, a completely misunderstood individual. At first, I was absolutely terrified. Everybody in this school has rumors about him, you've definitely heard them so I don't even need to mention them. He isn't what the people around this school say.

I met Eddie in middle school, and we were friends for a brief period of time. That was before I became popular, and he became a freak.

When you hear his name, you think some scary things, everything that is wrong with the town, but he is the opposite of that.

Upon assessing him, I found out he likes rings, metal, and Dungeons and Dragons. His prized possession is a guitar he calls "sweetheart", and he's amazing at what he does.

I could genuinely never imagine what this human being truly is. He is passionate, honest, kind-hearted, and gentle. He is a great person, and an even better friend. I've only spent two days with him, and that was enough to realize how true his heart actually is.

*my visual aid is a picture of Eddie's guitar, his prized possession*

It was perfect. Short, sweet and genuine just how Mr. Tinkham wanted. You knew you had to take the final anyway, so this was fool proof. You just wanted to impress Eddie, and show him how much he helped you. You really appreciated him, and appreciated the growth he helped you undergo in such a short amount of time. He said to change how you felt about cameras, and then changed it for you himself.

Now that the project was written and spoken for, you decided to take a nap in study hall. You were overwhelmed by lack of sleep, and decided to take advantage of the quiet in the room. You place your forehead on the desk, and pass out.

Not too long after, the bell rings, indicating the class ending. You immediately woke up, and exited, grabbing your bag and personal belongings before exiting the door. The girls were already by your classroom, with concerned faces. They automatically seemed worried, which frustrated you.

"Looks like somebody took a nap," Leah says. You must've had a mark on your forehead or something from when you laid down, but you couldn't care less.

"Yeah, didn't get a lot of sleep, I've been working on my project."

"The one with Eddie Munson?" Chrissy condescendingly asks. You were already irritated from lack of sleep, so Chrissy's nor Leah's dumbass comments were going to help with that already worsening mental state.

"Yes Chrissy, the one that my teacher assigned for me and Eddie to do together, the one I literally would not be doing if it wasn't worth a final grade. Now why does it fucking matter so much to you?" You walk off to your locker with a huff and a puff, lightly pushing the girls to the side to get your point across. You finally are at your locker, grabbing items for your next class and putting some away.

"Sheesh, what climbed up your ass and died?" Leah asks.

"I'm just tired," you sigh, face palming at her question. You walk away from them again to your next class, hearing them discuss how weird you were acting behind you. You couldn't care less about what they had to say. Your next class was the one with Eddie, and you were excited about seeing him. You enjoyed every second you could spend with him. You had to kind of keep it on the down low, especially if your parents had any suspicion about what you were actually doing.

You made your way to the next class, Mr. Tinkham's. He had assigned to work with your partners, but Eddie was late as usual. When he finally came in, he smiled at you. It made your heart melt, and a feeling of butterflies attacking your stomach. You were starting to feel so in love with him, and couldn't even begin to think about anything else. You hated it, because of how quick and easy you fell for him, but couldn't complain as the damage was already done.

"Hey, beautiful!" He smiles at you, taking a seat next to you.

"Hey handsome, how are you?" You ask, scooting your chairs and therefore your desks closer to each other. He begins to discuss how great he is, and how happy he's been since you came over the night previous, and it brings back the same feeling of butterflies and nausea from them. You were completely obsessed with any thought he had, listening intently about what he has to say.

"Look! I finished my project," you said.

"Let's see how you analyzed me," he states, putting his chin in his palms with his hands raised to act the same amount of intrigued as he actually was. You took your notebook out and showed him it, he begins smiling as he reads over it. This was perfect.

"I absolutely love it," he smiles. He did genuinely seem taken back in awe, his eyes fluttered with infatuation. Maybe he just had a hard time vocalizing it, but you could read it for sure. "Conveniently, I finished mine too!" He states, pulling his notebook out as well. His notebook was decorated in different skulls and crossbones drawings, sketches of guitars and lightning bolts. You adored that about him, he was very much the same as what he showed people, at least on the outside. The inside was a completely different story. You begin to read what he wrote, after complimenting the notebook.

My partner assessment project is on Y/N Y/L/N. She is a girl who shows her fears, but to the right person. On the outside, she's a girl who does a ton of beauty pageants, commercials for Hawkins, and a few other things. But in reality, she hates the cameras. Before this project, she didn't separate the cameras from the people and instead looked at the cameras like a horror movie. I've showed her otherwise, hence why my visual aid is these pictures.

She is a strong, down to earth individual who doesn't let anybody see that side of her. You're lucky if you get to see that side of her. She hides behind the popularity, because it's easier. But she doesn't show her worries, her concerns, anything.

She is a beautiful, incredibly talented individual and I personally feel like the world takes advantage of that.

Upon writing this assessment, I found that she likes me, playing guitar, (hopefully soon) Dungeons and Dragons, watching movies and writing. She loves writing more than anything. I've once read a novel she wrote in a notebook lying around (of course she didn't know she left it out) and it was incredible. She brings pictures to words, and plays a movie while you read. She is so talented. I hope she teaches me someday.

He then showed you the pictures he was gonna show. There were three: one with you and him playing guitar, one with you smiling when you first hung out with him, and another he took while you were writing. He really seemed to capture you in your best moments, and it made you so incredibly happy. You felt yourself blushing, and wanting him.

"This is beautiful," you state, "I love this."

"Thank you! I wrote it from the heart," he says.

"I can tell, I love it. I love you." You state before you can even process it. You couldn't think about anything else besides how much you cared for him, and how beautifully he wrote you.

"I love you," he says. That's when it hit. When you finally realized you said that to him. It still didn't matter to you, because you knew you meant it, but it was astonishing to hear him agree with you in that light. You kissed him, before you could even think about it, in front of everybody. There were gasps, there were loud sighs, everything.

Nothing felt more right in that moment. Not Chrissy, not Leah, not anybody. The bell rang shortly after, and the two of you decided to not go to the next class, but instead confirm what the two of you had.

You walk to a bathroom, one you could lock from the inside. The two of you knew exactly what was going to go down.

You both were barely able to lock the door, before he begins undoing your top and kissing down your neck. He trails hickeys down your neck and right to the top of the bra masking your breasts. You moan for him quietly as he continues. He takes your bra off with one swift motion, and continues kissing, leaving hickeys again on your breasts and neck the same way he had done before. You moan for him, begging him for more. He stops momentarily to watch you beg for him, taking in the sight of your topless body for a brief second. He smiles for a brief moment, and brings out his camera again. You laugh for him, posing once more.

"Do what you want to me," you smile again. You loved telling him this, because he always had the same reaction. His face lit up with lust while you sat on the bathroom sink for him, waiting for his next move.

"You're so beautiful," he praises, shuttering more photos by the second as you continued to pose for him. You strike the most seductive poses that come to mind, leaning your arms behind the sink with your bare chest exposed and even playing with your hair for the camera.

He kisses down your neck, and down your chest, before lightly caressing your breast with one had and kissing the other. He moves up, attacking your lips once more and clashing his tongue with yours between the open gaps of your mouths. He fiddles with your underwear as he continues. You reach for the camera in between pictures, and snap a couple. He finally takes your underwear off, and pulls you forward on the sink. He pulls his pants to his knees, and he lines himself up with your entrance, slowly going in at first before gradually picking up his speed. You moan for him, not too loud because the two of you were still closed in school walls, but loud enough to let him know you were all his.

"I'm all your's baby," you moan for him, as he pushes himself inside you faster. The sound of skin smacking radiated against the walls as the two of you continued, sweat trickling down your face and body as he continues. You had never felt so in love.

"Oh, I know princess," he spoke. He picked up his pace and you could feel that familiar feeling building up in the pit of your stomach. He had a way of making you build up quick with his thrusts. You beg for him to continue faster. He listens, picking up his pace. You moan loudly for him, this time completely disregarding the fact that you were in school.

“Eddie, I’m gonna finish-“ you whine, before doing exactly that. The pressure was relieved, the pit inside your stomach releasing, your legs twitching on the bathroom sink as you finish for him. You moan his name, gripping his hair as you do so.

He finishes shortly after you, ejaculating inside of you as he does so, moaning and grilling on the bathroom sink below you. You moan as he does so, and so does he. You smile at him as he tries to catch up his breath.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #stranger things season four #eddie munson smut #smut #stranger things

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overlordpony · 6 months

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"Perhaps it escaped at my birth, burrowing into the warmth of my flesh, seeding itself into my mind like maggots in warm, rotting wood and festering into flies whose husks have built up over my adulthood."

i just picked up my fleurity fic again, and this is one of the last sentences i wrote in the WIP. i SHOULD be writing the actual fic right now, but let me just talk about this quote into the void for a sec under the break.

this sentence is DIRECTLY about fleur being a lesbian.

if you're not familiar with my fic (you should totally read it), fleur-de-lis is married to fancy pants and they are part of the unicorn aristocracy. they uphold very old, traditional beliefs, values and systems in the name of preserving culture; however, none of these things have flexed much over time.

as you can imagine, the culture of literal aristocrats is very heteronormative. after all, the whole point is to have more royal babies. the queers could do that depending on their flavor, but any doubt in child-rearing is frowned upon when you're part of a high-and-mighty elite group. really the only change they've made in this behavior is that they realized incest bad, actually, though they still have strict stipulations by family on what members' partners can look like -- the aristocracy are like horse breeds with each family exhibiting certain features in modern day. (if you're curious, the de-lis family are white with blue, pink, or purple hair and tend to be tall and slim.)

fleur is a lesbian, period. yeah, she had a kid. that was part of the whole thing and expected of her. but she's a lesbian. to some extent, she's always known that. in a way, it's the catalyst for how much she daydreams.

normal pony society is pretty gay in my canon. i mean, such an overwhelming part of the population are born women that it would be weirder if it wasn't gay. partners able to have children biologically are often celebrated to a little extra extent in traditional values (thus some foundational reason for the aristocracy being uplifted to begin with), but in the modern equestria age with magic and technological advances, pretty much anyone who wants kids can have them. this has been the reality for a long time, and fleur has been painfully aware of it.

fleur went to what amounts to a prep school with other rich ponies and aristocrats. she wasn't homeschooled because her parents thought she wouldn't be able to relate to the "average pony" or whatever. well, she can definitely relate to the gay stuff.

aristocrats are betrothed from birth, although exceptions exist so long as the pony replacing the arranged one is suitable in looks and personality. fleur and fancy pants were arranged within days of their birth, and they were aware of it for an uncomfortable amount of their lives. their families had them spend a lot of time together as kids, but they never really became more than acquaintances. they like each other, but they don't even share enough interests to fully be considered "friends."

as you can imagine, this led to some Feelings on fleur's end. bad ones. oh-no ones. not only isn't she friends with this guy she's supposed to marry, but she was super into this girl during her high school years -- oh no, is she gay?

these feelings never went away. as she says, they're like maggots in wood, turning into flies, and then the flies make more maggots and their bodies build up. this revolting description is how she feels about her own sexuality. she's been conditioned to think this from birth, but she's finally in a point in her life where it's breaking her. her and fancy have been married for 15 years. there isn't anywhere left for those maggots and flies to go now.

i don't want to talk too much more at length about it since the story is literally about fleur's Gay Journey, breaking through her internalized homophobia (toward herself, not others), and learning about how to be happier along the way. but a lot of this bitch's problems stem from a homophobic culture that has her in a death grip. that's why she describes being gay in such a revolting way for herself.

#fanfiction #mlp #rarity #fleur de lis #fleurity #gilded lilies #headcanon #g4 #fim #fimfiction #writing

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silentsockfeet · 1 year

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tlou hbo s1 ep5 thoughts (spoilers)

i don’t know why but i was surprised that the fedra overthrow happened so recently? in the fourth ep it seemed like it happened years ago and that kathleen had been running the militia group for a while

the parallel of henry telling sam to look at him and not at the rebel activity and joel saying the same thing to sarah in the first ep

reallyyy liked the line about ‘burning the bodies’ because of how it connects back to ep4, where one of the first shots of kansas city was of a giant pile of ash and bones. like you don’t think much of it in that moment beyond maybe like ‘oh shit something happened here’ so getting that extra layer feel very fulfilling

kathleen sitting and talking with all those prisoners caused me so much pain mostly because it reminded me of like every shitty know-it-all teacher with a superiority complex i had in middle/high school. but honestly it kind of works for the character like the fixation on doing what she wants and getting everyone else to fall in line,, idk it was just a genuinely terrifying characterization tbh and for that i liked it

i kinda wish they explained the relationship between perry and kathleen more, perry is literally ride or die for her but we have no idea why and it makes that side of the story feel a lot more emotionless than it could’ve been

i like the fact that sam is deaf in the show, mostly because it’s a new perspective on how people navigate the apocalypse. it was cool to see the different ways he communicates with people, or the ways he and henry have to adjust their actions to account for his lack of awareness. i do think it felt a little cheap in the sense that they only did it to make him rely more on henry, all of the important scenes with sam were the same as the game so it didn’t feel as if making him deaf enhanced those scenes.

absolutely LOVE this henry’s characterization. in the game he seemed way older for his age because he had more experience and was a lot more intense about things, like not letting sam play soccer and that sort of thing. but in the show he actually feels more like his age, maybe even a bit younger. he’s inexperienced, scared, immediately looks up to joel in almost a mentor-mentee way. he’s more lenient with just letting sam be a kid (and this could also be due to the fact that sam is younger here) which gives him a bit of his own child-like wonder. idk i just liked that they made him a bit lighter, a bit more earnest

the re’s all sorts of parallels in this ep i love it. henry having ellie and joel at gun point and he tells joel to look at him, not at sam, the same way marlene tells joel to point the gun at her, not at ellie. just the same drive towards protection

i don’t know why it never occurred to me that fedra could be like. worse or better depending on which qz you live in lol. like the games always characterized them as like a shit government period but never really went into nuance, so it wasn’t until the scene where joel and henry talk about it where it liked clicked to me that some could be worse than others. really makes the whole kansas city storyline feel a lot fuller now

“you ran into two clickers and you’re still alive” this line hurt so much. like he didn’t mean anything by it but he doesn’t realize that actually no they lost so much for it

ellie sticking close to sam, keeping an arm around him or giggling with him or whatever :’) they really nailed their friendship i’m so glad for it

the ish reference 🤌

i had my doubts about the kansas city / kathleen storyline after ep4 but i’m a lot happier with it now that we have more of the backstory. knowing that kathleen’s brother was the leader of the resistance and that on multiple accounts he was a genuinely good man makes all of kathleen’s and the milita group’s actions make a lot more sense. that plus the fact that the revolt happened only like a week ago and like yeah okay i get it now. still think they could’ve afforded an extra 10-15 min in the last ep just to flesh out KC more but at least we got something here

“i am a bad guy because i did a bad guy thing” love this line because it’s like the antithesis of tlou’s main themes, first the idea that there are no bad guys in this kind of world, and then also the idea that joel doesn’t care about good and bad, he cares about keeping ellie safe.

the infected scene was so fuckin sick, i was cheering the whole time!! i get why they’re a little stingy on showing them, it keeps the horror and suspense up and all, but i really do wish we could see more of them. and the bloater!!!! so cool!!!!!! when he killed perry using the same death animation from the game i got so fuckin hype lmfao

the running theme of the superheroes throughout this ep, and then the way it all ties into ellie seeing herself as the hero and thinking she’ll be able to save sam,,, it’s so good but so painful. i could write a whole post about ellie’s characterization and how all the threads connect together (her naivety, her fixation on violence, the way all these things contribute to her hero complex) but i won’t do it here. i just love that we’re getting to explore this more, i feel like the game has more emphasis on the idea that being the cure is an obligation for ellie, so having this side of it helps fill in the gaps for her motivations (and also sets up the foundation for pt2, but that is also a separate post)

also really the love the parallel of henry asking sam ‘do i look scared’ and sam shrugs as if to say ‘i mean yeah kinda’ but then at the end of the ep ellie asks sort of the same question of ‘do i NOT look scared?’ and sam says never and i just love the differences there

i’m not gonna say much on henry and sam’s death, other people have already shared my thoughts in better, more articulate posts than what i can write. while i do wish sam and henry had a happier ending i don’t really know how they could’ve changed the story without impacting that narrative beat. and while i wish that didn’t come at the expense of black people i can’t say i expected them to do anything different. just a small summary of my thoughts

overall did like this ep better than the last, tho the complaint about pacing feeling too fast is still there and sadly i’m expecting it to only get worse through the rest of the season :/

#this has been sitting in my drafts all week bc i kept wanting to go in and add more or clean it up a bit and then just never got the chance #so i figured i’d just post it now before the new ep comes out #tlou hbo #tlou hbo notes #tlou 1x05

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lunaxstella · 10 months

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Hi. It's been weeks since my last update. I got busy with my finals and some family stuff. And yeah, my headspace wasn't in its proper state. Until now actually. It got worst. But anyway, I'm not here to talk about what I'm going through at the moment. I'm here to talk about this one memory that kept popping up in my head since last night.

Back when I was in 10th grade, I used to join random school contests just to get my butt out of class. I got tired of the same old routine and I wanted to stir things up a bit before I graduate. As a goody-two-shoes who just quietly sits in class her whole high school life and just joins group contests because of her stage fright, it's revolting. Not the usual high school story where you drink and smoke. I don't care. It was different and I was happy.

So then, it was Buwan ng Wika and there was this short story writing contest. I think it was called daglian but I don't know. I forgot, I just know that it's short-short, hahaha. And as our adviser is a Filipino teacher, she encouraged us to join the contests for that month. I encouraged some of my friends to join me in order to be excused from class, hahaha! See, I'm a bad influence on small things.

To be honest, I wasn't prepared at all when I joined that one. I just wanted to get out of class. I wasn't expecting to win. Just being there to write a story and share it with the judges was enough for me because, well...I love writing. And who would've thought? I wasn't the only one, of course. One of my friends was sitting at a table with me, and she wasn't sure what she'll write. We were only given about an hour or so to finish our stories. So, I told her to write something she experienced herself. Something that she knows everyone can relate to. You don't have to think of names. Just write it in a first-person POV. Like you're talking to your readers. Because that's the most important part of writing something, you have to communicate with your readers as if to make them feel like they're with someone else—with you. Make them feel the emotions you feel.

She thanked me after that and it made me feel happy because she was able to write something for the contest. Do you know what made me happier though? She won first place and I won second place! She immediately hugged me after we took photos and she kept on thanking me. I was so happy to see someone smile because of something I imparted.

I don't know. Is that weird? I really like helping people. I like seeing them smile. I like lifting sadness out of them. It's something innate within me. That's also why I always feel guilty when I set boundaries. It's like I did something so wrong, hahaha.

Anyway, that's all for today. See you next Wednesday! Don't forget to drink your aguas.

#blog #blogging #tagalog #filipino

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h3r3w3-g0again120 · 2 years

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Hello darkness, my old friend... 10/04/22

Well, I’m not sure where to really start. I know no one is reading this because I have no followers on this little secret blog of mine. I tried doing a spam account on Instagram, but the feed/posts on there are too.. how do I put this...? Censored? Vanilla? Irrelevant? Whatever, I guess since no one is reading this it doesn't matter cause it makes sense to me.

Anyways, soooooo much has changed. I mean, literally everything. Instead of having a group of close friends, I have none. None that I can really tell these thoughts to. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister and brother and the four friends I do have. (Shoutout to Becky, John, BJ, and Harlee *names have been changed*). I love my boyfriend, Jay, too. Despite all the drastic changes (especially with COVID) the past couple of years, things are looking up in most aspects of my sorry excuse for what I call a life. Everything except my body. *insert vomiting emoji x1,000*

16 y/o me would be devastated if she could see me now. I promised myself I’d never get above 150lbs again. I also promised myself I’d never ever EVER hit 200lbs no matter what... Well here I am. 200lbs of fat and grossness lacking basic self-control when it comes to food. At least I’m not a complete failure and haven’t relapsed on cutting.

This is a different level of F A T cause I’m actually technically O B E S E. These are things I’ve never experienced. I have nasty stretch marks on my stomach. At first they were just at the bottom where my “pouch” is, but I noticed today there’s one trying to creep up at the top... My stomach has rolls. Not like the cute little ones that skinny girls have only when they sit down. Actual rolls, when I’m standing. The kind that jiggles with every step. My thighs and arms have new stretch marks too. My thighs smush together as if they’re allergic to oxygen. It’s actually quite revolting. When I go to shave, I have trouble reaching everywhere and I can’t see past my stomach. Even my hands and face are fat. I can’t wrap my fingers around my wrist anymore. My cheeks are incredibly chubby and I no longer have ‘good angles’ due to my massive double chin. And gods forbid someone wants to take a picture of me standing next to my sister.

I think that’s what’s triggered me to come back to this *begrudgingly* “lifestyle”. My cousin and I talked on the phone today because my family is getting concerned about how much weight my sister has lost. Fortunately, she doesn’t deal with an eating disorder, but she does struggle greatly with anxiety, which for her causes lack of appetite and weight loss. I just think it’s really funny how when I lost hella weight in high school, no one gave a single shit. And I was straight up starving myself, b/p constantly, taking tons of diet pills, and taking laxatives. Not to mention over-exercising. Anywayssss. She had a whole ass kid and is STILL skinner than me. Well, I’m not skinny, so whatever you call it. I hate comparing myself to her, but everyone has compared me to her my whole life, so it’s just natural for me I guess.

I know where I’ll end up if I take this too far, so I have to be super careful. It’s easy to take it too far, especially when I have a record a mile long of taking shit too far. I just need to lose 80lbs. That’s it. A healthy 120lbs. I don’t wanna be stick thin like I kind of used to be. I look back at pictures and get grossed out by how skinny I was (a few pounds shy of 100). I want to be *slim thicc*. Ya know, flat tummy, big(ish) booty, toned arms and thighs. I could even stand 130lbs if I have a good bit of muscle on me. I just know I can’t stand to look the way I do now any longer. I’ll do whatever it takes. If I have to starve a little then so be it. I don't care anymore, I'm just tired of looking like this. I can barely look at myself in the mirror. I hate what I see. I'm disgusting.

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the32ndbeat · 3 years

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𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 | 𝐣.𝐲𝐧 - [ 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟛 ]

pairing: stalker!jaehyun x fem!reader ( ft twice’s tzuyu, loona’s haseul )

word count: 2.4k

warnings: swearing, mentions of alcohol, alcohol consumption, mentions of sexual harassment, mature themes, mentions of drugs, smoking, extreme views, misogyny, yandere themes

a/n: unedited! it’s been forever since I updated this but also considering if I should turn this into a tbz series at my tbz writing blog so we’ll see how this goes.

taglist: I don’t have one yet and I’m seeing how this does since I’m thinking whether I should convert it into a tbz series. Please do lemme know if you guys want to see this continued!

disclaimer: everything written here is FICTIONAL and I am in no way saying that the mentioned characters act like that irl!

masterlist

(inspired by netflix’s you and the book of the same name by caroline kepnes)

The first thing that registers in my mind is how fucking loud this place is. Seriously, what is it with college parties and their inherent need to blast music loud enough to wake the entire neighbourhood within a five mile radius? Before I even step within the premises or even make it to the front yard, the whole fraternity house seemed to shake from the loudness of the bass-boosted music when viewed from a distance away. I even had to squint as I approach, the strings of fluorescent party lights draped all over the place glowing so brightly it almost hurt to look straight.

A few drunk college frat boys stumble past me, their hair sticky and messy with sweat and their breaths reeking of cheap alcohol. Their steps are wobbly and I can even see drool and remnants of vomit hanging at the corner of their mouths. My heart clenches with pure disgust and I grit my teeth as I watch them laugh out loud over nothing, their brains a pink, unintelligent mush in their skulls, probably rotted by endless drinking and fucking. All part of the college frat experience.

I wonder if they enjoy being a complete waste of space while wasting mummy and daddy’s money to put them through college.

I look away and ignore the growing irritation in me. This is the sort of party your friends wanted you to go with them to? I thought your friends were bad influences but scratch that, they’re fucking horrible. They taint you, taint your innocence and put you at risk around such dangerous men who do not deserve to be even a mile within your presence. As I walk closer, the house looks even more hideous up close.

It’s decorated in the worst way I’ve seen a house decorated. It’s as if someone threw a bunch of random fairy lights bought in the brightest, blinding neon colours that simply do not go together over a sloppy looking house and the front yard is littered with empty, red plastic cups and is that a discarded bra I see over there?

I tiptoe over the trash laying around on the grass and try to avoid the gyrating bodies of college students who clearly have no sense of rhythm. My skin feels grimy within just a few minutes of being here and I can’t wait to leave but there is no way I’m leaving when I know that you will be here. The thought of you being surrounded by such vermins makes me sick to the stomach and I want to get you out of here. The only place you should rightfully be, is at my place where there are no revolting men who only love to drink cheap alcohol, party till sunrise, get high off smoking a blunt, yell ‘turn up!’ every few minutes as if it’s muscle memory in their tiny, almost non-existent brains and do anything but be a productive member of society.

As I push through the double doors, the nauseating smell containing a mixture of intoxicating alcohol, smoke and cheap cologne almost knocks me backwards. My hand grips tighter to the wooden door and I force myself in. Inside, the house is dim but bright at the same time with disco and laser lights. A massive boombox and a pair of equally large loudspeakers sit at the corner of the room and some hip hop tune is being played while people dance and drink and smoke to their hearts’ delight. You’d never believe these kids were supposed to be the future.

Oh, how disappointed their parents must be.

A girl in skimpy shorts and a tube top looks at me with unadulterated want and beckoning in her eyes while staring at the varsity jacket I’m wearing, no doubt replaying fantasies of fucking a college athlete in her mind and trying to guess which sport I supposedly play. I gaze blankly at them before turning away and I can see her shift from the corner of my eye, obviously bothered by the lack of attention. It’s like I can almost see the gears whirring in her brain. Did she not show enough cleavage? Is more skin needed to get my attention? Sometimes people are so predictable and readable that it’s almost pathetic.

Other times, I might have lowered my standards and settled for a casual fuck with someone like that but not today. Today, I’m a man on a mission. A mission to look out for you.

My eyes scan the room but it’s too dim to see anything within four feet in any direction. The flashing lights threaten to overwhelm me along with the stink of the place and booming music and I can feel my annoyance evolving into anger. I repress the urge to slap the shit out of a guy in a red bandana who screams ‘turn up’ all of sudden, practically effectively bursting my eardrums.

I almost bump into a couple eating each other’s faces out when someone yells out at me.

“Hey, you!”

The music is so loud that I almost don’t hear it. I whip around and sure enough, it’s tube top girl making her way over to me. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Not only do I have to find and save you from this sleazy place and have to squeeze in with a crowd of sweaty, brainless college kids who know nothing but party in a tiny, dirty, smelly frat house but now I also have tube top girl hot on my heels?

The things I do for you, y/n and we haven’t even properly gotten to know each other yet.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Tube top girl smiles and up close, I can see that her mascara is smudged and her hair is slicked back with an unholy amount of gel into a tight little bun which only makes her face look wider and her forehead exposed with a sheen of sweat covering it. Her lipstick is reapplied and I know for a fact that she has done it to impress me. Her top is also inched a little lower, as if that makes her anymore appealing.

I smile in a dismissive way, in a way that showed that I cared, but not really.

“Hey,” I reply flippantly.

“Crazy party huh?” She grins, satisfied that she’s got my attention now. Women.

I let my eyes drift to her breasts and look back up at her expectant, puppy dog eyes that are so eager to please it’s actually embarrassing.

“Yeah.”

“What’s your name? I’m Meg.”

“I’m Jaehyun.”

“You part of any sports team in school?” And just like that I know that tube top girl must have had fantasies of fucking a college athlete.

So predictable.

“Yeah, I’m on the swim team.” I say and her smile widens, a playfulness in her eyes as she leans her chest in closer in what was meant to be a sexy gesture.

“Oh, is that so? I’ve never really talked to a competitive swimmer before,” she replies in a sultry voice and I smirk.

“Well, here I am. Am I every bit of the guy you imagined a college swimmer to be?” I whisper in an equally sultry voice. Let her think she has me wrapped around her finger. It’s easier that way. Better for her to think I’m enthralled with her and her breasts than let her cling onto me the entire night.

“Mhm,” she says, “of course.”

I’m about to reply when something catches my eye. From the window, I see you and your friends stumbling and swaying down the sidewalk, away from the party. Internally, I feel my rage simmering again but not at anyone. At myself.

How was I so late that I didn’t manage to stop this from happening? How are you already drunk? How did this happen?

A million questions are racing through my mind and my vision almost blurs with white hot anger as I imagine a slimy frat guy placing his greasy hands on you while you sit there, drunk and uninhibited in that dress that seemed to accentuate your every single curve. You look simply gorgeous in that dress and I fucking hate to think that other guys in this whole house may have made a pass at you. Why was I so late? Would I have been just a little bit earlier if tube top Meg didn’t stop me? I should have left the moment she decided to strike up conversation. This is my karma for letting other temptations get in the way. I vow to myself that this will never happen again as I extricate myself away from Meg’s clutches (“Hey! Where are you going?” She calls out and I ignore her).

I shove people out of the way and do not care for their protests and yelps. Fuck them and fuck this entire shithole of a house. I scramble through the door and maintain my distance as I follow you and your friends down the pavement and past the buildings within the campus. I watch and cringe as you seem to crumple under the weight of your friends’ arm and quickly realise that you aren’t drunk. Your friends are. Stupidly drunk.

I feel my heart relax and my stomach unclench. Of course, you wouldn’t be. You are good. And smart. Too smart to get drunk in a place like that. You know what are the risks and you are above such parties. Your friends though, I couldn’t say the same. Which brings me back to why you need better friends but that’s besides the point. I can see a few guys hanging at the other side of the street who leer at the group of you, clearly getting their dick hard at the thought of a group of vulnerable girls roaming these empty streets at night.

It’s dangerous. But that’s what I’m here for. They see me next and they look away.

I will do what I can to protect you, y/n. Even if that means protecting your good for nothing friends in the process.

All of a sudden, I see you trip and it’s like everything is in slow motion. You fall forward and I take long strides over, my legs stretching out and rushing to help you. Before your knees can hit the rough ground, I have you in my arms, encircled around your waist as I hold you up. I have your other friend, Haseul upright with my other hand tugging at the collar of her jacket. Your friend Tzuyu is not so fortunate and falls flat but she barely notices it, smiling tipsily to herself instead.

You glance up at me with those large eyes and I could get lost in them right there and then. But as quickly as we have our moment, you move away and I see a hint of suspicion in your eyes. We separate and the moment you extract yourself from my arms, I already want you back. Your touch feels addictive already. What have you done to me?

“Thanks.” You say curtly and I admire the fact that you have boundaries, not like Meg. You are hard to get and that’s what makes you so appealing. You are to be earned and respected.

You help Tzuyu to her feet and as you turn to leave with your friends, I call out, “is there any way I can help?”

You regard me with caution and open your mouth to reject me but then suddenly, the tenseness in your eyes relax.

“Do I know you?”

You remember me. Halle-fucking-lujah! I want to wrap you in my arms again but I play it cool.

“I… don’t…?”

Your eyes grow wide and the recognition seeps in.

“Wait! You’re from that hardware store right? Jaehyun?”

I pretend to be surprised when I’m actually fucking overjoyed.

“Yeah, wait… You’re that girl with the rope right?”

You laugh and it’s the most melodious thing I’ve ever heard in forever.

“Yup, that’s me. Kind of mortified that’s how you remember me but sure,” you say and your eyes twinkle but then you continue with a more subdued tone, “what are you doing here?”

I pat my chest good-naturedly.

“Friend of mine is a student here. I just came over to visit and he gave me his varsity jacket so I could try feeling like a college student for once. Never been to college so… yeah. I thought I’d like to try it out for fun.” I reply and shoot you an awkward smile, the kind you do when you try to get someone to favour you and think of you as ‘adorable’.

It works and you smile gently.

“That’s pretty cool, you’ve got a good friend.”

And you haven’t, I think but don’t say.

I gesture towards you and your friends.

“Need any help?”

You look at your drunken friends and back at me and I sense you thinking. Finally, you decide that you do need my help and chuckle, “We live right at that block over there and I think I might die halfway there. I’m not fit enough to hold 2 people.”

That’s so like you. So compassionate over friends who clearly didn’t give a shit that you didn’t want to go to some god forsaken party, so caring over friends who get drunk and don’t take responsibility, so helpful to take care of friends who literally do not give a fuck about you. You are not beautiful on the outside but on the inside too and as I loop Tzuyu’s arm over my neck and hold her, I wish I was holding you instead.

We amble over to the front of your block and we part, you thank me and we say our goodbyes and it’s all too soon. I want to be with you for longer, I want us to talk and I want you to invite me to your room but reality is often much less exciting and more boring.

“I’ll see you!” You call out, smiling as I walk away and I wave back, my heart soaring.

Today is a good day, I think and as I round the corner to the next street, I slip the keycard out of my pocket and feel the hard plastic under my finger.

Wasn’t difficult honestly. Your friends should really learn to keep their valuables in safe places, not the back pocket of their jeans.

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yutahoes · 3 years

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Genius

pairing : dad! Yuta Nakamoto x mom! Reader, Shiho, Shin (ft. NCT 127 Members)

genre: fluff

word count: 1.7k

taglist: (The Yuta’s Angels team) @ailoveyuta @aiforyuu @yutazen01 @2-3-t-i @cosmiclatte28 @nuoyipeach @dreamlesswonder86 @loona-4-eva

a/n: Welcome to another episode of dad! Yuta. I miss writing for Shiho. I tried my best to put all members of NCT 127 but I might make another one where it’s more focused on them. I also feel bad that I can’t post some AUs lately so I’ll post two scenarios today and ghost you all. 😂

Yuta watched in amusement as little six-year-olds started going out of the door in a line. They’re so cute. But what made him grinned widely is seeing his daughter, smiling. He doesn’t believe it at first when you claimed that your daughter is indeed enjoying school. But here she is, the sunshine of his life, beaming widely.

“Daddy!” She called, running to him. He was quick to carry her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

He should really pick her up from school more often now. “Hi, princess. Did you have fun today?” Shiho nodded. Yuta opened the door of the car then helped her put on her seatbelt. Her bag was next to her and Yuta smiled at how it was creatively done. Truly, a one-of-a-kind bag. “I got you this.” Shiho smiled when he handed her two yellow roses wrapped in pink paper.

The younger giggled, looking at the flowers as Yuta started dashing to the driver’s seat of the car. “Thank you, daddy.” She said when he started putting on his seatbelt. “Did you get mommy some flowers also?”

“Later,” Yuta answered then adjusted the mirror in front to see Shiho who was just smiling at him. “Mommy is going to the doctors with Shin.”

The happy expression was replaced with a worried one and he smiled. “Is mommy sick?” Yuta shook his head. “Is Shin okay?”

Yuta nodded, smiling at her. “The doctor just needed to check if Shin is healthy. He’s fine.” He assured. “Can you come with daddy to practice today? Then we’ll meet mommy and Shin for dinner later.”

“We’re going to SM?” She asked, wide-eyed. Her dad chuckled, she’s too happy. “Is Mark oppa going to be there?” Surprisingly, he can hear your voice saying, ‘You’re really the same. Even Shiho is obsessed with Mark.’

The Japanese NCT member was smiling to himself when they entered the building and Shiho is becoming a real darling greeting all the staff with a bow and a ‘Good afternoon’. “Taeillie, Johnny samchon, Taeyonggie, Yuta…” She was singing the name of each member of her dad’s group inside the elevator that made Yuta chuckle. “Doyoung samchon, Jaehyunnie, Jungwoo oppa, Mark oppa, Haechannie...”

“Who taught you that song?” Yuta asked and she mentioned your name. “Why am I just Yuta? You call them samchon and oppa.”

“I’m not yet done.” Shiho revolted then giggled. “My handsome daddy Yuta who loves mommy, Shiho, and Shin.” Yuta grinned. “Winwin oppa, Jungwoo oppa, and Mark oppa, too.” She continued that made him laugh. Why are you like this? He’s going to make this a really long night for the two of you.

When the father-daughter entered the practice room, the other guys ran to where Shiho is that made the younger giggle. She showed the flowers to Jungwoo, and Jaehyun asked her what she did at school. Yuta put her bag on one corner of the room, next to his things, then watched his daughter in adoration.

He remembered when he first formally introduced you to the guys, they had the same reaction. He never actually saw you the whole night because they kept on talking to you. If not for Doyoung, you wouldn’t have some alone time that night. But that was the time he first realized how much he really liked you. Who would have thought that he’ll have the same feelings while watching his daughter interact with the guys he calls his brothers?

“Where is Mark oppa?” Shiho innocently asked that made Johnny laugh, teasing Yuta that she is indeed his daughter. The youngest kept on thanking Haechan who gave her a strawberry smoothie that he bought with Mark. Taeil gave her some papers to kill time in drawing, even asking her to draw him.

Yuta smiled at the younger girl, crouching down beside her in the practice room. “Will you be alright here? Daddy will just practice.” He said while Taeyong called everyone for practice. Shiho nodded, grinning at him with her toothy smile.

Surprisingly, she really behaved while they were practicing the choreography for their new song in Japanese. Doyoung was just smiling, noticing how she bobbed her head along with the song while busy with her paper and crayons. "You'll probably have a little idol soon." Jaehyun teased.

This is something that you and Yuta have talked about over and over. What if Shiho wanted to be an idol? As cool as you are, you just wanted to support her whatever she wanted in the future. And he wanted to be as cool as you so he promised to be okay with it.

You were seated on the couch in the lobby when Yuta and Shiho exited the elevator with the other members. Your daughter was running to you, giving her little brother kisses that made you giggle. "Did Shin cry in the doctors?" You nodded your head at her question. "I'm sorry noona can't come with you." She whispered. You smiled at that, she’s really growing up.

"Hi." You greeted Yuta who gave you a quick kiss on the cheek. "Are you tired? Should we go home?" He shook his head, telling you that you needed to eat dinner since you're all outside. Your husband asked you to take the bags that he placed on the couch as he carried Shin in his arms. You bowed at the other members, thanking them for taking care of Shiho.

Yuta was driving the family car, Shin and Shiho on their child seats. "You should have seen daddy dancing, mommy. He looks mashitta." You giggled at that. It must be really hard for Shiho to learn different languages at once.

"Honey, daddy is meoshitta. Mashitta is delicious." Her eyes widened in the mistake she did that made you smile. "Maybe daddy is also mashitta, do you want to bite daddy?" You teased that made the six-year-old chuckle. Yuta just shook his head, laughing.

He decided to grab dinner in a kids' café near your home. Shin was on a high chair and Shiho was next to him, eating her meal. Once done, she asked if she could play on the slide that made Yuta nod. You needed to tire her out or she'll just stay up all night. Kids' energy really is no joke.

"I can feed, Shin. You should eat more." Yuta volunteered, moving his chair near your son so he could reach him. You only stared at him, smiling as he gave your son some breadsticks to munch on. "I know that look. Do you want me to feed you?" He teased and you nodded, grinning like a small child.

He twirled some spaghetti using a fork then fed you that made him giggle. "Did Shiho bother you earlier? I'm sorry, I should have brought her with me to the doctor."

Yuta shook his head, smiling. "She's really behaved earlier." He explained then gave you some breadsticks as well. "I already feel bad that you had to bring Shin to the doctor alone. Next time we can do this set-up." You nodded, it really is easier since you only focused on one child. "So what did the doctor say?"

You shared what the doctor said, about his teeth growing and his increasing weight and height. "Yuta, I was thinking. Should we transfer to Japan?" He glanced at her in surprise. Why so sudden? "I wanted Shiho to learn Japanese."

"I can teach her Japanese." Yuta volunteered. "We're doing fine here. And Shiho is enjoying school here." He held her cheek. "She will eventually learn Japanese. We can go on a vacation to Osaka on her break."

"Don't worry about it, love. She's still struggling with Korean, Japanese will be easy for her."

You always trust Yuta in his decisions especially when it comes to your children. When you're planning to have a child, both your parents would always tell you to talk to each other when it comes to your child. That they matter the most. And it was something that you always keep in mind.

It was a weekend night. Yuta just finished up some things in the office before heading home. You were washing the dishes when you heard a certain voice humming. “Shiho.” You called from the kitchen hearing the six-year-old singing a song. You knew she sings great, something that she got from your husband. But she was singing an unfamiliar song in a foreign language. "What are you singing? Did you learn it from school?"

She shook her head, still focused on the task on her book. "This is daddy's song." You knew all the songs on their past albums. But this is relatively new. You decided to listen more and was surprised that she's singing in Japanese. They do have a Japanese comeback but why would Shiho know that song? "I heard it while the uncles were practicing." But how can she even memorize all that?

A jiggle of the keys was what you heard while folding the laundry, Yuta gave you a kiss on the top of your head. "Are they asleep?"

You shook your head then held your husband's hand, guiding him to Shiho's room. "Listen." You could hear her voice singing to the song she had been singing all day. Yuta's eyes widened in surprise. "Is it really your song?"

He nodded. Not only does she pronounce the words clearly, but she was also clearly in tune. But how? Yuta never played the song in the house. She only heard it while practicing. "Did you give birth to a genius? Her pronunciation is even better than yours." You raised an eyebrow at that. "And she's in tune."

"I do think our children are geniuses. Shin even said mama today."

"He did?"

"But Shiho was the one who heard it."

Yuta smiled, pulling you closer. "They're getting bigger. Maybe it's time for another genius."

You just shook your head smiling at him. "Put Shiho to sleep first and I'll finish things here." Yuta grinned, opening the door to his daughter's room.

You had to laugh at yourself. To think that you're worried about Shiho not learning Japanese. Yet, here she is proving you otherwise. She might really be a genius.

Your children might really be geniuses. Can your family be any more perfect?

#yuta nakamoto #yuta nakamoto fluff #nakamoto yuta #nakamoto yuta fluff #yuta #yuta fluff #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 yuta #nct fluff #nct yuta #dad yuta #yuta imagine #yuta nakamoto imagine #nakamoto yuta imagine #yuta scenario #yuta nakamoto scenario #nakamoto yuta scenario

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antoine-roquentin · 3 years

Quote

For now, these differing ends indicate that an organization like the FBI did not allocate repression based on a uniform set of assumptions separable from its perceptions of the threats posed by particular classes of protest targets. Unlike popular conceptions of repression that view states as allocating repressive activity based on targets’ recognizable characteristics (such as size, level of activity, or involvement in violence), the FBI’s actions were based upon assumptions about protest groups that were consider-ably more complex. For example, target group size seemed to be of central concern to Bureau personnel, but estimates of actual group size were conditioned by an awareness of each group’s mobilization poten-tial, or the population of sympathetic individuals who might be mobilized through a catalytic event. This awareness stemmed from the uprisings sparked by SDS at Columbia University in April 1968, discussed in Chapter 2. The shocking thing about this revolt was that a relatively small protest group was able to mobilize a large segment of Columbia students to take part in a set of high-risk actions that led to police occupation of the campus, hundreds of arrests, and more than a hundred injuries. The lesson the FBI took away from this protest was that campuses were full of potentially mobilizable individuals and that a small number of committed full-time members of organizations such as SDS could marshal a large body of sympathizers into action. This lesson was not forgotten two years after the Columbia uprisings. In response to a ten-student sit-in at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey in May 1970, an agent from the Newark field office sent the institute’s president a reprint of an anti–New Left article, attaching his own warning: “It begins with 10 like a deadly spore and soon the whole campus is infected with an incurable affliction. Don’t give in to a vocal minority that wants agitation for agitation [sic] sake.” Tom Huston, who was heavily influenced by William Sullivan in his views on the dangers of protest activity, echoed this sentiment in his justification of the vetoed Huston plan. The New Left “wasn’t going to mobilize enough people to march on Washington to overthrow the government,” he argued, “but the way governments have historically been overthrown in the 20th Century is ...by small groups of dedicated people postulating the revolutionary theory.” Similarly, we can explain why the majority of violent groups were not subsequently targets of repression (see appendix B) by looking at the racialized context within which campus violence occurred. Of the seven groups identified by the FBI as engaged in violent activity during the 1967–68 school year, three were located on historically black campuses; of these, none was targeted for repression by the FBI. The other four groups were on predominantly white campuses, with half becoming targets of significant repressive activity under the COINTEL program. One potential explanation for not repressing violent black student organizations is that these groups were not defined as “truly” fitting into the New Left and instead could be dealt with through the existing COINTELPRO against Black Nationalist/Hate Groups. How-ever, none of these particular campus organizations was repressed under this latter COINTELPRO. Instead, the Bureau believed that these acts of violence, while “spontaneous” and “unpredictable,” were generally the result of a particular grievance held by the students and there-fore did not represent a general threat to American values and institutions. Violent protest on white campuses, however, was often perceived as an attempt to undermine mainstream American values in general. These instances of violent action were indeed considered, as one SAC put it, “a separate and different problem [from racial or black nationalist activities]” since they directly posed a threat to the Establishment itself. In this way, FBI repression of the (predominantly white) New Left was as much about resisting a challenge to the traditional American lifestyle as it was about suppressing political gains and minimizing disruption. This concern with the New Left’s countercultural values is clearly illustrated by the Cincinnati field office’s treatment of Antioch College, a small liberal arts school in southwestern Ohio. According to the special agent in charge of Cincinnati’s repression of the New Left, Antioch was “most often run by a small group of militants that are permitted by college authorities to attack every segment of American society under the semblance of being ‘highly intellectual.’ Anyone visiting the campus doubts its ‘academic scholarly environment’ because ... the dirty anti-social appearance, and behavior of a large number of students can be seen to have the fullest ‘beatnik image.’” Due to the permissiveness of Antioch administrators, no disruptive incidents had occurred at Antioch during the preceding school year, and furthermore, “there is, in fact, little reason for disruptive activity [in the future] since the students are permitted to do exactly what they want to without interference from college administrators.” Despite this recognition, students at Antioch were repeatedly targeted for repression by the Cincinnati office, presumably for their adherence to anti-Establishment ideals rather than their potential for any disruptive threat. In this same manner, much of the Bureau-generated material against the New Left focuses on the “immoral” and “dirty” lifestyles of particular members rather than on their political ideals. In authorizing that a reprint of a campus article about a student demonstration be sent to students’ parents, the Director noted that, “while there is no indication in the article ... that the demonstration is inspired by the New Left, the tenor of the photograph is such that it shows obvious disregard for decency and established morality.” The Jackson field office even went so far as to define New Left members solely by their adherence to a “hippie” lifestyle. Likewise, the SAC in the Newark field office described a New Left newspaper as a type of filth that could only originate in a depraved mind. It is representative of the type of mentality that is following the New Left theory of immorality on certain college campuses. ... The experimental literature referred to in the letter ... contained 79 obscene terms referring to incest, sexuality, and biology, four dozen “cuss” words and a dozen instances of taking the Lord’s name in vain. The hostility that characterized these Bureau agents’ views was so pronounced in part because New Left “morality” and “lifestyle” differed strikingly from values held within the FBI. Beginning with his time at the FBI Training School (established in 1928), each special agent was immersed in a culture that was the polar opposite of “hippies’” lack of regard for established rules and respect for authority. In various ways, COINTELPRO–New Left became the place where these incompatible worldviews directly clashed. Obscenity of any kind was offensive to the directorate, and agents went to great lengths to avoid the use of “cuss words” in memos. When a faction of SDS began calling themselves “Up Against the Wall Motherfucker” (taken from a poem by Amari Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones) in late 1968, agents reporting on the group always typed the final word as “M_____ F_____ [obscene].” Agents’ outrage over the liberal use of obscenity in New Left publications provided another clear instance of this clash in values. Whenever the Bureau attempted to spread misinformation through the creation of faked “underground” leaflets, they necessarily had to imitate the language of New Left adherents. An interesting dynamic would emerge as obscene language would often be censored within the memo itself even though it was understood that it would be required in the Bureau-generated materials eventually distributed. The directorate would also often justify the use of such language, as in one memo authorizing a proposed leaflet criticizing the National Peace Action Coalition’s upcoming antiwar demonstration for being “lily-white” and controlled by “faggots”: “We are approving inclusion of the profanity because to do otherwise would render the leaflet suspect, incredibly inadequate, and would probably defeat from the outset the purpose for which it is being prepared.” Within the Bureau, including a word like faggot in memos needed to be justified as carefully as using the word to destroy targets’ legitimacy by publicly attacking their sexuality. Thus in the FBI’s dealings with the New Left, targets’ political ideology was often confounded with their perceived commitment to an alternative lifestyle, with the latter structuring the FBI’s allocation of repression against the New Left. This discussion illustrates the importance of the level of sophistication involved in a repressing organization’s assumptions about the protest field, as well as the problematic nature of an analytic strategy that ignores the organizational context in which protest and repression takes place. To understand which groups and individuals were targeted for repression by COINTELPRO, it is clearly not enough to evaluate the “objective” level of threat posed by each New Left or White Hate target (e.g., its level of activity, number of adherents, or predilection for violence). Instead, we need to shift our gaze to processes occurring within the repressing organization itself.

David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here

the super square fbi agent from boardwalk empire is actually quite realistic. note also the commitment to seeing the greatest threat through a vanguardist lens.

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drabbles-of-writing · 4 years

Text

If Love is Pain Then We’re Smitten

This is part of my Beta AU

AO3

Masterpost

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was no secret that Luz Noceda and Amity Blight didn’t get along.

Ever since the human transferred to Hexside, mostly on accident, mind you, there’d been trouble.

Now, fighting in Hexside wasn’t out of the ordinary. It’s Hexside. Everyone is basically a feral animal with sentience.

Their fighting, however, was constant.

Verbal or physical, the two simply couldn’t be in the same room together and not raise the tension. At first it was treated like trying to walk with an egg floating in an overfilled glass of water. After all, Amity used to be part of Boscha’s group. That alone commanded respect.

But over time, it became more...tolerable.

It was a regular spectacle to see what disaster Luz would find herself in each day. Sometimes they were as big as stopping a lava monster from burning the whole school to the ground, and other times it was a simple spat with the resident demon, King.

It had become a common occurrence to Luz and Amity as well. They barely batted an eye at their own barking anymore.

And yet….something felt different about this fight.

Luz was unconsciously aware that she was being lifted by the front of her shirt. Her head hurt, her eye, good lord, her eye hurt. She registered Amity getting in her face, fangs bared, pupils slitted. The mane she called hair had come undone and framed her face in a wild, mangled manor. She had a bruise on her cheek, and bits of blood running down her face.

Luz was too tired to find the source of it. She couldn’t pinpoint why, but all her fire from before had died in the blink of an eye.

“Are you even listening?” Amity snapped, bringing the human back to reality. “You look like you just died.” She huffed.

“Maybe I did,” Luz mumbled, limp in the witch’s grip. “You don’t know. Bet I possessed my own corpse just to torture you.”

“No, I’ve seen that happen. You’d actually look better if that was the case.” She said, stepping back, but still holding her up by her shirt.

“Thanks,” Luz muttered, rolling her eyes and wincing at the pain in her left eye.

She took this moment to look over the witch again. She had scrapes all along her arms, and she could see a bit of blood soaking through her pant leg. There was a long cut on her forehead, not a deep one, but enough that blood was still faintly trickling around her eyes.

And, Luz noticed with a hint of satisfaction, she was favoring her left arm, holding her up with more force with her other hand.

“You look like hell,” Luz said, her gaze drifting back to her face.

“You’re no model yourself,” Amity huffed, curling her lip in a sneer, flashing a slightly bloody fang.

Luz narrowed her eyes. If she found a bite mark on herself, then there would be war.

“Just put me down you melodramatic witch.” Luz muttered.

Amity shrugged and released Luz’s shirt. The human yelped before hitting the pavement, flinching as she felt fresh scrapes on her arms. She glared up at the girl, who only gave her a smug look in response and began to walk off.

She winced mid-step, pulling up her right leg with a hiss. Luz raised a brow and lifted herself onto her hands, straining with the effort.

“You alright there, Mittens?” Luz taunted.

Amity whirled her head around, giving a low growl as her ears flicked back. She straightened up and glanced away, a faint flush at the tips of her ears.

“Don’t call me that,” Amity said lowly.

“Whatever,” Luz shrugged, beginning to push herself to her feet. “Come on, let's head closer to the seven-eleven.”

“What?” Amity blinked, looking back at Luz incredulously.

“You're a mess, I’m a mess, I’d rather neither of us went walking off in the middle of the night looking like we lost a fight with a gang of raccoons.” Luz said, cringing as she got to her feet.

Amity still looked unconvinced, crossing her arms. Luz hobbled past her, unbothered as she made her way out of the parking lot and towards the side of the 7-11, a few meters away from the door, but far enough away neither of them would scare off late-night customers. Unless they were cowards, of course.

“C’mon,” Luz mumbled, waving her hand for the witch to follow.

She fully expected the witch to blow her off with a jab, but to her surprise, she didn’t. She instead heard the sound of Amity shuffling after her, grumbling something inaudible.

Luz turned so her back was leaning against the wall and slid down, knees bent as she leaned her head back, shutting her eyes with a pained groan.

“Aw, someone had too much for one night?” Amity jeered, slumping down next to Luz with her right leg stretched out and the other bent, which she lay her arm on.

“Shut your bloody mouth,” Luz growled, though it was nowhere near the level of Amity’s.

“Do you usually become British when you're beat up?” Amity chuckled.

“I meant that literally,” Luz cracked open an eye. “You have blood on your teeth.”

Amity paused, clearly not expecting that. She opened her mouth and poked her tongue around at her teeth. She pulled back and shut her mouth with an appalled look after only a few moments.

“Ew, I do.” She agreed. “It better not be yours,” She warned.

“Oh, yeah, like I want a massive bite-mark on me.” Luz rolled her eyes. “You're worse than a rabid possum, you know that?”

“Says the one who hangs out with the weird owl janitor,” Amity huffed. “If anyone has rabies, it’s her.”

Luz opened her mouth to argue before slowly shutting it again.

She muttered something under her breath before beginning to dig through her jean jackets pockets. Amity watched her curiously for a few moments until she pulled out a healing glyph with a gleeful expression.

“You have one of those?” Amity asked as Luz sat on her knees, turned towards the witch.

“Obviously, I’m fighting you all the time.” Luz scoffed. “And, well, I get into a lot of fights by this parking lot.” She said with a shrug.

“You what--”

Luz leaned forward, reaching for Amity’s left shoulder. The witch cut herself off and pulled back, giving Luz a mildly concerned look. Luz met her gaze with her own tired stare and the witch eventually let up.

She mumbled something about her ‘wasting a glyph,’ but Luz paid it no mind. The witch pulled the hem of her shirt to the side, revealing a nasty mark right where her shoulder connected to her body. Luz reached out and placed the healing glyph on it before tapping it.

The glyph glowed brightly for a moment before steadily beginning to dull back to normal. Amity grit her teeth at first, but quickly relaxed with a sigh, her ears relaxing to an almost normal position.

“I know, right?” Luz grinned. “Feels like a high.”

“I’m not gonna ask why you know what a high feels like,” Amity said, giving Luz a warning glare.

“It’s best you don’t,” Luz agreed, sitting back. “Anyway, I need ten bucks.”

“What?” Amity stared at Luz.

“Ten bucks, for supplies.” Luz said, pointing behind her towards the 7-11 doors. “We both look awful, and that was the only healing glyph I had on me.”

“Wh--and you used it on this?” Amity gaped, gesturing to her shoulder with her free hand.

“Yeah, so now you owe me ten bucks, that I will also proceed to use on your broken face.” Luz said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Your rich, aren’t you? Make it even.”

“That...that wouldn’t be….” Amity sighed and shook her head. “You’re an idiot,” She muttered, digging in her pocket and pulling out her wallet.

“You had that on you the whole time?” Luz blinked. “I thought you would’ve, like, kept in your purse in your car.”

“I was too busy getting ready to curb-stomp your face.” Amity replied simply, withdrawing two fives and placing them in Luz’s outstretched hand with more force than necessary.

“How sweet of you,” Luz rolled her eyes before pulling herself to her feet with a wince. “Wait here.”

“Do I have a choice?” Amity muttered.

“Eh, I could probably call a taxi with this.” Luz said, shoving the money in her pocket and hobbling towards the door.

Amity frowned, confused for a moment as Luz opened the store door.

“Wait...did you walk here?”

Seven minutes had never felt so long before.

Amity impatiently drummed her fingers on the ground beside her, constantly glancing back at the door, even when there was no indication it had opened.

She rolled up her pant leg, exposing the nasty gash on her knee. She recoiled at the sight and decided to leave it be and hope Luz kept her word.

Despite it being the middle of the night, there was the occasional weirdo or group of people wandering about. Amity would turn her head away and hide her face with her hand every time someone walked by and stared at her, or the one group who went inside the 7-11.

They probably thought she was a junkie or some hustler who had a bad day, she thought bitterly. After all, who in their right mind would be sitting alone in the middle of the night looking like they had a tussle with a wild dog?

She heard the door to the store open and glanced up, immediately turning when she saw it was Luz.

In her hands were bandages, a roll of gauzes, and antiseptic wipes. She nodded to Amity before sitting beside her again. She didn’t say anything, only set down the medical supplies and withdrew a small pack of twizzlers.

“...did you seriously buy that with my money?” Amity finally broke the silence.

“There was some left over, and that employee just wanted me out of his store.” Luz shrugged, pulling out a twizzler. “Also, this one was already open, so it cost less.”

“That employee probably thought you were involved in a gang fight or something,” Amity scoffed. “And is that black licorice?”

“Too bottom-of-the-barrel for your refined taste buds?” Luz taunted, holding a twizzler in her mouth while shaking the package in front of Amity.

“Licorice is revolting, that’s common knowledge.” Amity sneered, backing away.

“Cowards, all of you.” Luz huffed, setting the packet aside and biting off a piece of the twizzler in her mouth.

“You’re nature's greatest mistake,” Amity curled her lip, disgusted.

“I know,” Luz said cheekily, pulling the antiseptic wipes into her lap and beginning to try and open it.

And then Amity watched Luz struggle to open the plastic around the wipes for a good minute. Luz’s hands couldn’t get a good grip or tear in the covering, either due to how tired she was or because her hands were a bit bloody from fighting. It was hard to tell.

It didn’t take long for her to grow impatient and she let out a small growl. Luz glanced up, giving her an annoyed glare in return.

“Look, this thing is difficult to open--”

Amity snatched the antiseptic wipes out of Luz’s hands, too tired and riled up to wait any longer. She sank her fangs into the plastic, easily piercing it. In one easy movement, she tore the packaging, and some of the cardboard, clean off.

Amity spat out the plastic and cardboard and lifted up the small box to check it over. She’d pierced a few of the wipes inside, but there was still plenty left. The hole wasn’t clean and a bit small, but it was open.

“There,” Amity said, turning and holding the box out to Luz. “I opened it.”

Luz stared at her for a few moments, speechless. Amity raised a brow, wondering if Luz somehow went into shock. For a moment, Amity almost swore she saw a redness on her cheeks before Luz quickly grabbed the box out of her hands.

“Told you it was difficult,” Luz mumbled, digging through the box and pulling out the wipes and opening those with much more ease.

Amity rolled her eyes and licked at her fangs, trying to get the taste of cardboard off them. Luz pointedly looked away from her face and got onto her knees, reaching for Amity’s scraped knee.

“This is gonna hurt, by the way.”

That was all the warning Amity had before Luz pressed the antiseptic wipe to her wound. Amity hissed and jerked back, her ears lowering and snapping her teeth close to Luz’s face, causing her to draw back.

“What the hell?” Amity snarled, pulling her knee closer.

“This isn’t like the glyphs you use,” Luz explained, minorly annoyed. “It’s going to hurt, but it will help.”

“What kind of backwards logic is that?” Amity demanded.

“The human kind. Now either hold still or get an infected knee.” Luz said firmly. “I’m already bleeding to death as it is.”

“Then just help yourself,” Amity muttered under her breath.

But she listened and stretched out her leg again. She tensed and bit back a hiss as Luz cleaned the wound.

She suspected the human cleaned a bit longer than necessary for a bit of revenge.

Once the wound was clean she unrolled the gauzes and ripped off a strip before wrapping it around the witch’s leg. Amity watched her every move like a hawk, eyes narrowed.

“Alright, now for the face.” Luz said, pulling back and withdrawing another wipe.

“What?” Amity felt her face, wincing as she pressed the bruise on her cheek. “Ow,”

“Yeah, hold still.” Luz said, sitting up on her knees and leaning forward, pressing the wipe to her forehead injury.

Amity flicked her ears down as Luz concentrated on cleaning her wound. Due to the proximity, she was stuck taking in Luz’s face, as much as it annoyed her to do so.

Luz had a black eye, and there was a scrape on her nose. Her beanie was lopsided, but stubbornly stayed on her head. Her hair was frazzled and knotted, and she wondered how much conditioner she had to use to keep her hair as straight as it usually was. Amity herself had given up on conditioner a long time ago.

Luz pulled back from cleaning her wound, leaving Amity subconsciously wondered why she didn’t feel any pain this time, and pulled out a large bandaid.

“Is that going to cover all of it?” Amity raised a brow. “And that’s a genuine question,” She added when she saw Luz give her a deadpan look. “Because in case you forgot, I can’t exactly see the damage.”

“Poor you, unable to see your wrecked face.” Luz sneered, rolling her eyes and leaning forward again to place the bandaid on. “It’ll cover most of it. You’ll live.”

Amity grumbled, crossing her arms as Luz tried to cover as much of the wound as possible.

Once again, Amity caught herself staring. She could see that Luz had cuts on the palms of her hands, and bruises that stretched passed the sleeves of her jacket where she couldn’t see. She noticed that Luz was sticking her tongue out while concentrating. The edge of Amity’s lips curved into a smile at the sight.

Luz glanced down, catching Amity’s gaze.

Amity jerked back and sharply turned her head away, her face heating up.

“I know, I look dashing in blood,” Luz taunted, sitting back with a cocky smirk. “Simply an enchanting sight.”

“I’m going to break your spine over my knee and toss you into a woodchipper.” Amity spat, pulling her lips back in a snarl.

“That’s fair,” Luz nodded, unphased as she got another antiseptic wipe. “Hey, how bad is my eye?” She asked, gesturing to her left eye. “Like, could I play it off that I smacked into a pole?”

Amity gave Luz a disbelieving look. Even in the low lighting from the store, she could tell that unless Luz could brush off she was incredibly clumsy, there’s no way someone would think she just ‘hit a pole weird.’ Her eye wasn’t swelling shut, but the entire skin around it was a dark, angry purplish black. There was even a bruise forming around the edge of her right eye where Amity had just missed hitting the eye itself.

“Yeah, no, you’d do better putting makeup on that.” Amity shook her head. “The fact you didn’t get any ice for that is already a little concerning, and that’s coming from me.”

“Store clerk wouldn’t let me steal any,” Luz shrugged, dabbing an antiseptic wipe on her nose scrap and wincing. “Guess it’s another day of concealer.” She grumbled.

“Do you even know how to properly apply concealer?” Amity asked as Luz pulled out a small bandaid.

“I just gotta find one that matches my skin tone and brush over it, don’t I?” Luz said, hovering the bandaid over her nose and realizing too late she had no idea how to place it on properly.

Amity sighed and took the bandage from Luz, slapping her hand away when she fumbled and tried to grab it back.

“No, you moron. It’s a whole process.” Amity said, reaching out and placing the bandaid over the scrape, smoothing it down.

“You gotta apply green concealer, then one that matches your skin tone, then you do the same to your other eye so it looks natural, and then you want setting powder. Plus mascara if you want to divert less attention to your eye.” Amity listed off, grabbing another antiseptic wipe and taking Luz’s hand, turning it over so she could start cleaning it.

Luz stared at her for a few moments. She seemed confused as she looked from her face to her hand that Amity was cleaning but eventually just gave a sheepish smile.

“I’m, uh, going to need to write that down.”

Amity groaned and glared at the girl. She pressed the wipe harder onto Luz’s hand and the girl winced and almost drew her hand back if it weren’t for Amity’s death-grip on her wrist.

“I have makeup in my purse, I can just apply it tomorrow before school.” She said, tossing the wipe aside and grabbing the gauzes. “Since you obviously have no idea how makeup works.”

“Gus is better at it than me, he was a theater kid.” Luz shrugged. “Well, I was also a theater kid, but he was a makeup theater kid. I was an acting theater kid.”

“That explains a lot,” Amity said simply, checking Luz’s palm to make sure the gauzes covered her scrapes before seizing her other hand.

“Oh please, I swear nearly everyone in this school was, or is, a theater kid.” Luz muttered.

“You’re not wrong.” Amity said, only half-paying attention. “The makeup isn’t going to look very good tomorrow, but that’s because of the swelling. And adding more makeup is going to make the healing process slower, so pick your battles.”

“Do you get in fights often?” Luz raised a brow. “Or are you sneaking out and helping other girls with their concealer when I’m not around?” She teased.

“Please keep in mind I’m the one holding your hand right now,” She growled, gripping her wrist tighter and glaring at her face.

There was a momentary silence between the two.

“That kinda--”

“You know what I meant.”

“Can’t believe you actually drove to a fight at seven-eleven,” Luz whistled, leaning against the front of the black car. “And I’m willing to bet this is an expensive car too, huh?”

“It’s just an old dodge charger,” Amity shrugged, opening the passenger side door. “Get in.”

Luz blanked for a moment. She processed Amity’s words before jerking her head up to look at the witch.

“Huh?”

Amity exhaled like this was testing her will and gestured to the inside of the car.

“You said you walked here, didn’t you? And even bandaged up, you still clearly got in a fight. I’m not letting you walk around at one AM looking like that.” She said impatiently.

“...you're going to willingly let me get into your car?” Luz said, pressing her hands together before flinching and remembering that was a bad idea. “And you're not trying to kidnap me?”

“I’m not asking again.”

“Just making sure,” Luz said, avoiding eye-contact as she walked over and scooted into the passenger seat.

Amity shut the door with a bit more force than necessary and walked around the car to the driver's seat. Luz took her time in looking around, checking out the interior of the car. She noticed an air freshener hanging over one of the air ducts. It was shaped like a staff from the Good Witch Azura series.

Luz leaned forward to sniff it and instantly recoiled. Partly because it had a disgusting blend of lavender and ash, and partly because Amity had gotten into the car.

“You read Azura books?” Luz asked as she turned to the girl.

Amity froze, stiff and still, both hands gripping the steering wheel. Luz scooted back slightly, preparing for a claw to come flying at her face.

Amity turned to glare at the human and pointed a finger, nails unsheathed into sharper claws and Luz instinctively raised her bandaged palms in innocence.

“You say anything about this and I will rip out your tongue and force-feed you your own eyes. Understand me?” She growled.

Luz nodded slowly and Amity pulled back, twisting her key in the ignition and starting up her car. Luz waited until they had left the parking lot and began driving before she drummed her hands on the armrest and casually tilted her head.

“So...which book’s your favorite?” She questioned. “Personally, I think book five was--”

“Shut your mouth before I do it for you,” Amity hissed. “But do that after you tell me your address.” She added right after.

“...ignoring the way you worded that first part,” Luz said, attempting to sound as indifferent as possible. “It’s just a few streets away from here. Do you have a GPS?”

“Punch it in,” Amity said, her voice sounding stained. She took one hand off the steering wheel and dug in a compartment between the two seats, pulling out a small black GPS.

Luz did so, casting a glance every now and again towards Amity, who had gotten a faint pink to her cheeks at her earlier threat. She had one elbow back on her seat, with the other hand on the steering wheel.

Luz sat back and let Amity continue the drive in near total silence. She pulled out another twizzler from the packet she’d taken and half-heartedly gnawed on one.

“Thanks,” She mumbled around the twizzler.

“Hm?” Amity hummed, glancing over for a moment before turning back to focusing on the GPS.

“For driving me,” Luz said, keeping her eyes on the window next to her. “Even after I messed up that pretty little face of yours.” She said with a hint of tease.

“Oh, so when I say something that could be taken the other way, it’s a big deal. But when you say it--”

“Shut up and drive,” Luz grumbled, slumping down in her seat and shoving the last of the twizzler in her mouth. “This is what I get for trying to be nice.”

Amity chuckled and shook her head. Luz pouted and glanced over at her. The witch was noticeably more relaxed than before, smiling ever so slightly.

Luz gave a small grin and pulled out another twizzler. She offered it to Amity, her grin growing as Amity gave the licorice twizzler the side-eye.

“I’m not eating that, Luz.” Amity growled. “Don’t taunt me while I’m driving.”

“Oh, so you can take a hit, but you can’t take licorice?” Luz taunted, still holding the twizzler by her face.

“What happened to Luz being thankful I spared her?” Amity grumbled.

“I was thankful because you were being nice, not because you spared me. Which, by the way, no you did not.” Luz huffed. “But both of those moments have ended because I still don’t like you.”

Amity growled and pressed her ears down. She sharply turned her head, and in the span of a few seconds, she snapped her jaws around two quarters of the twizzler, barely missing Luz’s fingers, and broke the candy cleanly.

And calmly, she went right back to driving.

Luz sat in shock for a moment, unmoving. She had the sight of Amity’s fangs in her mind for a few moments before quietly leaning back in her seat and looking over the small piece of licorice left in her hand.

She was having a lot of thoughts at the moment, and that was evident by the flush gathering in her face.

She was, however, distracted by the sound of Amity gagging.

The witch stuck out her tongue in disgust, revealing it was slightly forked at the end. Her face was scrunched up and she shuttered.

“That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten,” She hissed, shaking her head.

Luz watched the sight for a moment before bursting out laughing. She tried to cover her mouth, but it didn’t do much. Amity glared over at her and looked ready to growl, but she didn’t. She only raked her gaze over Luz before deflating and rolling her eyes.

And then she slammed on the breaks.

Luz went flying forward, realizing too late she had neglected to put a seat belt on. She hit the dashboard and groaned at the impact. Amity, meanwhile, started laughing at her as Luz pulled herself up.

Luz grabbed the boxes of bandages she’d taken with her and chucked it at Amity’s head. The witch laughed harder, unbothered.

Luz scoffed and sat back, crossing her arms. Though she couldn’t help a smile herself, giving a giggle at the witches antics.

And for a brief moment, it was like they’d never fought at all.

“Alright, alright,” Amity wheezed, turning back to Luz. “Get outta my car you bruised idiot.”

“Huh?” Luz said, looking around and peering out the car window.

Sure enough, they had arrived at Luz’s house. Which made sense, why else would Amity stop? She had to get home. Why was she disappointed?

“Oh, yeah, right.” Luz nodded. “Er, thanks, again.”

“Don’t mention it. Ever. Because Boscha will never let me forget this.” Amity warned as Luz opened the car door and slipped out.

“Yeah, no, I’m not telling Boscha anything.” Luz agreed. “I’d rather swallow a tooth.”

“Pray that you do,” Amity taunted as Luz shut the door.

Amity rolled down her window and hung an arm outside of it as Luz stopped right next to her, shoving her antiseptic wipes, gauzes and packet of twizzlers into her pockets.

“Meet me outside the school tomorrow so I can fix your face,” Amity said. “If you're still awake by then.”

“I’m never fully awake,” Luz said simply. “My bags under my eyes are so deep that now they’ve just melted into my face.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Amity rolled her eyes. “See you later, Luz.”

Luz offered a smile in return and stepped back. Amity hesitated for a moment before pulling her arm back in and starting up the car once more.

Luz watched Amity leave, waiting until the old dodge charger was out of sight before she turned back to her house.

Her mother would leave for work before she got up, so she wasn’t worried about her seeing the injuries. She could probably get some makeup from Amity at the end of the day tomorrow, if she sucked up enough.

God, that was a weird thought. Actually getting help from Amity Blight.

Luz looked down at her bandaged hands as she walked to her house, turning them over like she was looking for flaws. She paused at the front door and raised her head, thinking.

Alright, maybe Amity wasn’t so bad.

But this absolutely, positively, did not mean she liked her.

Not in the slightest.

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herstroywritten · 3 years

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Magix Inn: One bed, one shirt, two idiots in love

OK. Confession time: I LOOOVE tropes. All of them. The oh I’m so cold and I don't have a jacket, so you gave me yours. Oh no, we’re paired together and I don’t like that. Oh look, we have to stay in this hotel together and (*cure shocked face*) there’s only one bed! All of it. Like, ALL of it. And when it’s done well... Ughhh, my heart can barely stand it. (If you want an A+++ example of it, go ahead and read Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo and watch the new Shadow and Bone adaptation on Nextflix. Helnik serves all the tropes in all the best ways.) Anyways, my point is that that’s all this is, and I am fully aware of that. I needed more of these tropes with Rivusa, so here we are. Enjoy.

She's going to kill them. Every single one of them. And she was going to make it as painful and slow and agonizing as she could. Now that she knew how to extract mind control, she figured she could easily learn how to enact it. She would learn to do it overnight. She would! And she would most definitely use it on every single one of her suitemates, no moral obligations holding her back. In fact, she was doing them a favor by not opting to do it with her knives, the ones she'd begun training with a month ago or so. She was going to do it, no hesitation-

"You can take the bed."

Riven's words snapped her out of her fantasies. She forced herself to finally turn and stare at him. He was already standing in the middle of the room they had been assigned. The room that had a single king sized bed in the middle of it. There was a small window on each side of the head board, with thick tattered curtains covering the view of the barren land outside. A couch was positioned to the right of the bed, a door stood just a few feet above it. There was no dresser in the room, no closet.

Not exactly a five star hotel, she thought to herself. But then again, they were in hiding from a psychopath who thought herself to be the future ruler of the world, not on vacation. The cracks on the walls and the dust that could be seen covering every surface fit the murderous mood of their escape so much more than a nice cozy bedroom.

Musa wondered how Stella was holding up. Bitterly, she hoped that she was hating it. Served her right for leaping at the chance to spend the night with her ex-bodyguard instead of opting to share with one of the girls.

It had been a long night of traveling and by the time Dowling, Silva, and Harvey had finally located their destination, the whole group was practically a squad of walking zombies struggling to maintain awareness long enough to not fall asleep while standing up. After escaping Alfea, they had trekked through the woods continuously for 36 hours straight, needing to get as far away from the school as possible without using magic for fear of giving away their plan.

Their little group had been led by Professor Harvey, who somehow knew exactly where they were headed without using a map to navigate through the veils of greenery that they had bypassed. How, Musa wasn't sure. It all looked the same to her, and quite frankly after a while she seriously considered the possibility that they were just walking in circles. Sam and Terra had followed behind their father, pointing out harmful weeds to avoid touching or stepping on for the rest of the group. The rest of the girls had followed their orders, Bloom and Sky leading the charge, then Brandon and Stella, Aisha, Musa, and Riven. Dowling and Silva followed a few feet behind, making sure that no one was following them as they went. Needless to say, the journey had been endless and there seemed to be no end in sight. The students had been unsure of where they were headed, as the professors had refused to divulge any sort of extra information unless it was explicitly necessary.

In the end, they had walked out of the woods and into an abandoned city. White bricks and cracked cement littered the ground that they passed through, exerting great effort to not step on any broken shards of glass and cut themselves.

"Aster Dell" Bloom had whispered when she had seen the jagged outline of the town. Professor Harvey had nodded his head at her words, verifying their truth, and that had been that. No one spoke and no one asked the millions of questions that swarmed their minds. How were they able to see this place? Wasn't Queen Luna supposed to have it covered up? Why were they even here? Wasn't this a little too obvious of a hideout? Musa's curiously was running high, but her desire to just sleep was even greater so she had just followed right along as the professor led them through winding streets and in front of a rundown building that seemed to barely be holding onto its hinges.

Dowling had broken the silence, "Welcome to Magix Inn, or what's left of it. We'll make camp in here for the night."

Turns out Magix Inn was just that, and inn. And a tiny one at that, just ten boarding rooms to offer. Each boasted a king sized bed and minimal furniture. Unfortunately, the four rooms located on the south side of the building had been completely destroyed in the wreckage, so they were left with six to pick from. Dowling and Silva had taken the one at the very beginning of the eastern hallway, for security measures. For that same purpose, Professor Harvey had taken the one at the very end of the corridor, and Sam joined him. Sky had insisted he stay with Bloom for the night, attached to her as he had been for the last 36 hours, fearing that she would lose control of her magic again. No one bothered to mention that there was nothing he could really do if that happened again, they just let the couple slip into the room diagonal from Dowling and Silva's. Their door had barely closed before Stella had basically dragged Brandon into the room next to theirs, shouting over her shoulder "Good night everyone!" That left Aisha, Terra, Musa, and Riven. And two rooms. There had been an awkward silence, during which the girls looked back and forth between the three of them, daring each other to make the first move. When Aisha scooted slightly closer to Terra, Musa knew she was about to lose. Frustrated, angry, and just plain tired, she'd huffed and spun around to face the devil himself.

"Well, would you look at that?" Riven's grin was basically a smirk as he cocked his eyebrows in her direction, eyes roaming up and down the whole of her, his usual form of acknowledgement when it came to her. "Looks like we're playing roomies for the night." For some reason, he did not sound very disappointed at that idea.

"Not another word," Musa had growled at him, before making her way to the room second to last from the end of the hallway. In any other scenario, she would be happy that he was choosing to speak to her again but right now she couldn't be bothered.

And now, here they were. In a room. Alone. With one bed. Two sets of curtains. A couch that was definitely too small for either of them to sleep in comfortably. One door that led to the bathroom. Oh, and did she mention the one bed?

She finally stepped away from the doorway, letting the heavy wooden door lock behind her. As she crossed the room and headed for the bed, she couldn’t help but notice the dust that kicked up at her feet as she walked on the oriental rug that had to have existed for at least 16 years and who knows how much longer before then. The idea of sleeping here was almost revolting, but at this point she would give anything for a place to lay down, so whatever. They'd fought monsters and survived, they could outlive a bit of dust. What she might not be able to outlive, however, was sharing a room with the specialist standing behind her.

She dropped her backpack on the bed, choosing to ignore the dust that resurfaced with the motion, and turned to face him.

"Yeah, no. As much as I would love to watch you try to squeeze into that tiny little couch, it would be extremely cruel of me to make you do that after a day and a half of constant walking. Plus, it's a king sized bed. I don’t need all of it. We'll just share." She hoped that came out as causal as it sounded in her head.

Riven's smirk, the one that hadn't left his face since the sleeping arrangements had been decided, grew even wider at her words. "I suppose, if you insist. An Alfea gentleman would never ignore a lady's wishes, after all."

She scoffs at him. "I doubt you would count among the gentlemen of Alfea."

"Oh, I don't know. I've been told I have a way of outdoing myself when it comes to ladies' requests. Especially in the bedroom." He's eyeing her from the corner of his sightline as he makes for the bed, dropping his own bag diagonally from hers. She's suddenly flushed, from anger or blushing she's not sure. But she's not about to give him any ideas.

"We are not, I repeat NOT, completing any sort of requests tonight." She narrows her eyes at him, her voice strong and unwavering. It surprises her, the sheer strength behind those words because honestly it's the opposite of what she wants to say. The opposite of what she wants to do.

"Whatever you say." His statement is short, filled with hidden messages. He shuffles through his bag as she shuffles through her thoughts, watching him and biting her tongue so that all her questions don't come tumbling out.

He heads for the bathroom, and once she hears the door close, she pulls out her phone.

"Hello!" Aisha's voice is all cheer and chuckle on the other side of the line. Musa thinks she can hear Terra's giggle in the background, too.

"I'll kill you." Musa's reply is a lot less cheery and a lot more lethal.

"Oh, come on!" It's Terra's voice this time. "We're practically doing you a favor. You should be thanking us."

"I'll kill you. All of you." She repeats it, just to make sure they're really catching it.

"Musa, love, you know this has to happened at some point." Aisha's words are calm. "We're headed into a war. We're running away from school. We're going to have a lot more shit to deal with in a couple of hours, and you're still not in the right mindset for all of it. You’re in a completely different world. If you're so worried about it, just ask him. Better yet, just tell him."

"I don't know what you're talking about, " Musa mumbles angerly.

The sighs that she hears from the other side of the conversation tell her just how little Aisha and Terra believe her. It's silent for a second, and Musa can just feel the two girls going back and forth on who's turn it is to confront her. Terra's sweet voice comes through the phone after a few seconds, "Musa, we're not going to tell you what to do. It's not our place. But we will tell you what we see, because you're our friend and we love you and want you to be happy-"

"Terra, we're heading for a war. There is no happy in war." Musa's voice is monotone.

"Musa," her name is a warning on Terra's lips, a sign that she's used this excuse before and it hasn't worked. "Look, I know you like him. I know it's weird between you two. You had to go digging into his brain to break him out of a spell and he didn't appreciate that, but quite frankly, I don’t think he appreciated being Beatrix's little pet and Rosalind's spy either. So he can be bitter and mad about it all he wants, you did what you had to do to save his ass and ours."

"That's the problem though. He's no longer mad about it. At least, I don’t think he is. He's talking to me. Like, now that we’re in the room. He hadn't even looked at me since the I broke that stupid spell…" Her voice drops at that last sentence.

"That's good. Right?" Aisha's voice is a mix of encouragement and confusion.

"Since when are you in on this, Aisha? I thought you hated the guy?" Now Musa's just curious. How did they even get into this situation in the first place? How did she get here, sharing a room with a boy that has one too many demons on his shoulders and whom she's embarrassingly crushing on?

Aisha's reply is quick and defensive. "Oh, I still do. But, he's still Sky's bff or whatever and he's still your…" There's a pause that follows that particular thought and Musa takes the time to wonder how Aisha is going to finish that sentence. "You know what, I don't really know what he is. But he helped you train and you two had something going before, well, before he started disappearing to go do Rosalind's dirty business. Plus, for some unknown, godforsaken season, you're into him. As your friend and roommate, I feel the need to support all your dumb choices, within reason of course. So, yeah. I guess I'm in on whatever this is too."

"You sound like Stella." Musa's mouth quirks into a smirk as she picks up Aisha's groan from across the line.

"Don't remind me. Pretty soon, I'll start swooning over ex-bodyguard-turned-teammate Brandon too." They all get a laugh out of that line.

"God, I'd pay to see that. Poor guy has his work cut out for him, I wonder what they're doing right now." Terra's inquiry needs no answer, but Musa feels the need to comment on the situation at hand.

"I can't believe she did that! She just left us! You know what, she's the first one I'm killing. You two can pick between second and third place."

Aisha chuckles at her words before a yawn overtakes her and she replies, "Alrighty, it's bed time. We've got a long day tomorrow. And, Musa, just do it. Just talk it out and get it off your chest. You don't want to leave things unsaid, not when we don't know what tomorrow brings. You've already played that game before and it was not fun." Aisha's right, of course. Musa has played that game before.

Right before Riven disappeared, they had been training together for a while, which had somehow turned into them having lunch together on the daily, which had then turned into secret meetings at night in the greenhouse. They'd both needed some alone time, to catch their breath and just marvel at their messed up lives and all the fucked up shit that was going on. And for some reason, his little quips and their constant banter had become her new safety net, a web of comfort and solace, something she hadn't had since Sam and her started drifting apart. But unlike Sam, who was all calming waters and steady footing on a gentle boat, Riven had been all of the tumultuous oceans in the worst of weathers. She never really found her footing in the storm that was Riven and his thoughts, and that had brought her a comfort like no other. In a world where all they had was scheduled to the minute thanks to Rosalind's insane regime, his inconsistent thoughts had drawn her in. She'd wanted to break him open, tuck herself into the blanket that was his mind, and lay there until his emotions numbed both her and him. And, then, somewhere between aching to be numb and heavy innuendos, she had found herself staring at him more often than she should and thinking about him in ways she knew would do her no favors if she let them continue. But, she let them continue. And pretty soon, his loud emotions weren't just comfort and she didn't just want to drown in them. No, at that point, she had wanted to dive deeper into them so that she might try and shift through them. Try to untangle his deepest fears and settle them. To mold her own pain into the shapes that formed the cracks of his heart, so that she could somehow fit him and be a comfort for him in the same way he was for her. She'd wanted it so bad. So, so very bad. And she'd almost said so, too. Too bad Rosalind had chosen that day to start using the spell she had placed on him months before.

Aisha's voice pulls Musa away from her own thoughts. "Hey, Musa? You still there?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. Just dozing off a bit, it's been a long day."

"Ugh, tell me about it. Look, if you two won't talk it out for yourselves, do it for us. We're all on edge with all the sexual tension that's coming off of you two."

"Aisha!" Terra's voice sounds horrified. "Actually, she's not wrong. As Stella so kindly suggested, you two might want to just fuck it out. See if that helps break the ice."

It's Musa's turn to be horrified now. "Terra! You did not just say that! And we are NOT fucking anything out!"

Her friends, however, don't give her the satisfaction of listening to her defense. "Goodnight Musa!" And with that the phone call ends and she's left listening to silence and feeling even more agitated than she did when she first called them. She screams and throws her phone across the bed, watching as it haphazardly hangs from the corner of the white duvet.

"Now what's all this about fucking?" Riven's voice nearly sends her digging her own grave. Great. Just great. Of course he chooses now to make his way back into the room.

"Nothing." Her rely drips in venom as she makes a point to angerly dig into her bag and pull out her toiletries. She pushes past him and into the bathroom before he gets the chance to question her again. She worked quickly to strip herself of the heavy layers she had on, and into a long white t-shirt that she often wears to bed. She had forgotten to pack a pair of shorts, as she usually just took them off and slept in her underwear. For a second she considered wearing jeans to bed, but she decided she wasn't about to sweat to death for Riven's sake. He'd seen naked girls before. Plus, if it wasn't jeopardizing her modesty, she doubted it was harming his innocence.

When she came out, however, she started to question her decision. The second she stepped out of the bathroom, Riven's voice greeted her.

"So, now that you're done hiding," he started, scrolling through his phone in nothing but a set of sweatpants. "Do feel free to explain to me who's fucking who, besides Brandon and Stella." He'd looked up then, and that had been their demise. His eyes had gone to her face first, but she'd watched as they moved downward in a slow motion, as if he was committing every bit of her body to memory. She understood now why girls raved about him, because if he gave them all that look… well, Musa supposes they would all feel exactly how she is feeling right about now.

Oh, for god's sake. Why her?

She waits for the comment she knows is coming.

"Please tell me you're not planning on sleeping in that." Well, that's not what she expected.

"What?" She raises an eyebrow at him.

"You need to put on something else if we're really not completing any requests tonight." He's still staring at her legs as she chokes a laugh at him and makes her way to her side of the bed.

"Get your head out of the getter, idiot. I can sleep in whatever I want and you can handle yourself. You'll be fine."

"I know you can sleep in whatever you want. Me controlling myself, that's where our issues start, love. You have a little too much faith in me." He catches her eyes and quirks an eyebrow her way as she shuffles to unhook her bra from behind and slips it off under the shirt she's wearing before throwing it on top of her other clothes. "For fuck's sake, are you serious right now?!" Honestly, she was going to keep the bra on before she saw his reaction to her bare legs, but at this point they’re so far in over their heads that she might as well pull out all the stops. His continuous reactions are just icing on top of the cake.

"Oh, absolutely." She's smirking at him, eyes dancing with mischief as he stares at her full of lust. She laughs as she tucks herself into the covers. "Relax, I'll keep my underwear on." His face is heating up, frustration evident in the line between his brows and she longs to reach over the expanse of the duvet and press her thumb to the space between his eyebrows and smooth it out. She doesn't.

"This isn't fair," he protests.

"Says the guy who's shirtless right now," comes her reply.

"That's not the same thing and you know it." His voice is strained and she's eager to see when it'll snap, when one of them will finally just admit defeat.

"Isn't it? The feminist in me disagrees."

"Don't. Don't you dare take that stupid shirt off." His hands are shaking as he points a warning finger her way, and she laughs. She's enjoying this way too much. But she knows if she keeps it up, he'll keep true to his word and she won't push him away, and frankly that thought should scare her. Instead, she finds herself wondering how many buttons she can push before he caves.

"Turn off the lights and come to bed Riven." Her voice is light now, no longer teasing. He watches her snuggle further into the covers, eyebrows still furrowed at her and she can practically hear the turmoil in his mind. "Ugh, honestly, calm the fuck down. Your emotions are so intense right now, it's hurting my brain. I promise I'll keep the shirt on. Now, come on. Come to bed."

He mumbles something about staying out of his mind, but he closes the small lamp by his bedside and crawls into bed beside her. Well, calling it beside her is a bit of a stretch as he's practically at the edge of the huge bed. She huffs at his child-like manner and rolls her eyes at him.

"Seriously, Riven? I thought you'd be jumping at the chance to get a girl into bed and here you are avoiding me like the plague. You know I don't bite, right?"

"Whatever," he mumbles. She finally turns to face him, reaches her arms across the mattress and digs her fingers into the waistband of his sweats, tugging him closer to the center of the bed. He jumps at the feel of her hands on his bare stomach, his breath catching at this throat as they now stand face to face and mere inches away from each other. She watching his eyes as they take her in, and she's vaguely aware of the fact that this is too intimate. This moment is exactly what she was trying to avoid, but she can't bring herself to care. So, instead she takes this time to study the green of his eyes. In the dark, they're illuminated by the thin sliver of moonlight the peeks from between the curtains of the window on her side of the bed. They're dilated, more black than green, but she can just make out the color around the edges or his iris. Hazel on the inside, and impossibly green on the outside ridges. She remembers when she was younger, she'd once told her mother that she wanted interesting eyes, by which she meant she wanted blue or green eyes. Something other than her brown orbs. In a way, she was vainly excited when her powers had come in and her eyes started to glow lavender and purple. How naïve she had been, how stupid. She knows now, looking into Riven's eyes, that interesting eyes had no color attached to them. Interesting eyes were ones that held stories, emotions. And Riven's eyes held so many stories, and so many emotions. They gave him away, at least to her they did. She swears that even without her powers, she would be able to feel the pain, the hurt, the mischief, and (right now) the undeniable want by just looking into his eyes. The want is especially pungent. She hopes he can see the want in her eyes too. She bitterly thinks to herself that her girls are right, the two of them are hopeless. They've been cascading through this thing between them, her and Riven, and after she broke his mind control, he'd refused to look her in the eye, let alone talk to her.

They stand face to face with each other for a while, before she finally ducks her head below his chin and tucks herself against his collarbone. She feels him tense below her (feels her own breath catch, fearing that he'll push her off) before he relaxes a little and his breathing slows down. She listens to his heart beating beneath her, and the pounding of it against her ear lulls her mind into a peaceful state. Once she feels like she can finally breathe normally again, she works up the nerve to ask him the questions she's been meaning to ask for about two days now.

"Are you angry?"

He pulls away from her, just enough to look down at her. But she won't look at him. Instead, she traces his collarbone with the tips of her fingers, burning holes into it with the intensity of her gaze.

"Angry?" He sounds genuinely surprised.

"Yeah," her reply comes in a whisper. Tears are welling in her eyes, but she refuses to let them slip as she continues to bore into his skin.

"Why would I be angry?"

"Don't." She doesn't want to say it. Doesn't want to be sorry for what she did, because she's not. She's not.

"Don't what?"

"Don't make me say it." It's a whimper this time, her voice threatening to crack along with her heart.

"Musa," he lifts her chin up. "What is going on? Why would I be angry at you?" She stares into his eyes again and curses the gods above for making her do this.

"Because I had to go into your mind. I had to dig around and manipulate it. I know you've never liked that about my powers. I know that it's no better than what Rosalind and Beatrix did to you. I know that, but I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry, Riven." She says it as though she's trying to convince herself. A deep breath, and then she's talking again. "I'm not sorry because it freed you. So, I'm not sorry about my powers or about what I did." She notices the line between his brows growing more and more as she speaks, and this time she does reach across the space between them and smooth it out with the pad of her fingertip.

She's not expecting an answer, but she was hoping for one. And as the silence between them grows, she figures she has overstayed her welcome.

As she moves away from him, his arms snap into motion. They wrap around her waist, pulling her back into him. She squeezes her eyes shut as his scent engulfs her once again.

"I'm not angry." His words, mumbled against her hair, are the final straw. Her tears come ripping through her body, unwelcome but inevitable. She hates this, hates crying. She's not a quiet crier. When she cries, her whole body cries with her. She shakes, she hiccups, and her breathing speeds up. There's no way he doesn't feel it.

"Musa, really, I'm not angry. And hey," he's pulling away again, gently pushing her back so he can look at her face when he says the next words. "For the record, you are NOTHING like them. Nothing. Do you hear me?" She hiccups and looks down. "You're not. I swear to you, Musa. You're not. And, just so you know, I don't hate your powers. Never have, never will."

"But you said-"

"I know what I've said. It wasn't because I hate you, it was because I hate my own mind." He pauses, looks away from her as if trying to work up the courage to continue. "Sometimes… a lot of the time… I can't stand myself. What I hated was the idea of anyone, especially you, seeing all my bad parts. And fuck, Musa, there are so many shitty parts of me. So, so many. I mean, I've been helping Rosalind execute a war for months. Fuck." He chuckles a laugh with no humor behind it, looks up to the ceiling. "Fuck. I'm so fucking broken, Musa. And the idea that you felt that. God, I don't know…"

She watches him struggle, feels his inner turmoil. She finds herself wanting to sort out his feelings for him, mend his aches.

"Is that why you keep pulling away? From me, I mean?" She needs to know. She can't be imagining this thing between them, can't be the only one with her heart on the line right now. He moves so that he's looking at her again, but doesn't answer her right away.

"You're good, Musa. You're so fucking good. Nothing about you is bad. You're good, and you're smart, and you're fucking gorgeous." She feels her heart flutter at his words, her hopes taking flight and jumping to the sky. She wants to scream with joy, wants to kiss him. But his words are laced with a treacherous kind of tone, she can feel the desperation in him, and just as quickly as her excitement came, it leaves.

"I can't do this, Musa. I can't do it. Not to you. You deserve better than this." He's pulling away, and her heart is sinking.

"Better than what?" She sits up as he gets out of the bed. He walks to the end of the bed, looks at the door that leads to the hallway. She can feel him pulling away, wanting to leave.

"Better than what, Riven?" She's louder this time, angry that he's pulling away again after all she's told him.

"Me!" The intensity of his voice causes her to jump back. "Ok? Better than me!" His body is shaking, and so is hers. Because honestly, how dare he?

"And who are you to decide what I deserve?"

"Fuck, Musa. We're not doing this. We're not playing at this game." She feels like she's being scolded, as though she's a child he's refusing to answer to.

"You don’t get to decide what I deserve, Riven. And you sure as hell don't get to decide what I want-"

"And what do you want, Musa?" His words stop her. "What do you want? Because I have been racking my brain for so fucking long trying to figure out what it is you want. And as much as I think I have you figured out, I can't possibly be right."

She runs the question through her mind a couple of times, questioning how to answer him. She's tired of lying. Tired of wanting him when he's scared to want her back, of constantly being on edge around him. So she decides she might as well tell him. "You. I want you."

"No, you don’t." Fuck him.

"Yes, I do!" She's angry now.

"No."

"Yes!"

"Musa, no."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?! Are we really doing this right now? Are we arguing about this like middle schoolers? You asked what I want. And I want you!"

"No, Musa, you don't."

"Why is it so fucking hard for you to accept it?! I want you and that's the end of it." She getting angrier as they keep going, and it furthers her anger that he's so calm about it.

"You can't want me, Muse. You can't." The despair that she feels from him is intense and it, along with his nickname for her, knocks the breath out of her.

"What do you mean I can't want you?" She's trying to keep her voice down, fully aware of the thin walls and the fact that everyone else is probably asleep by now.

"Just… I'm not good. Not in the way the rest of you are. I'm a walking mess and I can't do anything without fucking it up." His voice is small and Musa can see the broken boy behind the persona he's managed to construct for himself.

"But I do, Riven."

"Why?" A broken question.

She mulls it over in her head, chuckling. "Because, Riv, you've never been able to walk away from me and I've never been able to let you. We play games, you and I." They do. They ring around the rosies, a pocket full of kisses just waiting to spill out of their carefully constructed gates. "We circle one another, Riv, until we're both dizzy with desire and want and fear and fatigue… but we never break the circle. We never stray off path. You lean forward and I lean in, ready to give you my all, and then you pull back. And then we go back to the circle." It's a long metaphor and honestly she's not exactly sure if she's getting her point across. He watches as she pushes herself to her knees on the bed, shuffling closer to him with every word.

"The circle is our game, Riven. You run, I chase. I run, you chase." She reaches for his hand. "I've never wanted to lose a game so badly." His eyes are on her as she pulls him back onto the bed. She leans in slowly, making sure that she maintains eye contact with him the whole time. She wants him to know she means it, all of it. She's not going anywhere. Her fingertips trace their way up his stomach, chest, neck, winding into his hair. They're millimeters away, noses pressed against each other, breaths mingling.

"Your move, Riv." And she feels her words break his concentration, just as his hands snap up to her body. It’s a quick movement, but his hands etch a trail of fire on her as the move roughly from her knees to the back of her thighs, up her back, and to the junction of her shoulders. When their lips finally meet, it’s anything but gentle. He bites at her lip, she gasps against him, and he takes the chance to tug on her bottom lip. She can't help the moan that leaves her, thoughts of the others already asleep leaving her mind as he does things with his tongue she didn't know were possible. He moves to her jaw, kissing his way downward as she cranes her neck back so that he has all the space he needs to do whatever he's planning on doing. She doesn't know what he's aiming for, but she knows what she wants him to do. She lets her hands fall to his pants, tugs them down. He moans against her collarbone and she swears she's going insane. She's burning but she's also shivering. She can't breathe and yet she feels like she's breathing for the first time in her life.

"Shirt," she gasps. And then it's off of her, the one thing that he swore needed to stay on her if they were going to make it through the night.

They spend the night doing everything they've avoided doing for months. He fills the silence with whispers of how gorgeous she is, and she feels her heart burst at its seams. They don't sleep, and she doesn't want to. This is better than sleep, she's never felt more awake than when he's tracing the lines of her body.

He's resting on her chest, arms slung over her body as his fingertips play with the ends of her hair, when it hits her.

"I'm going to have to tell the girls that we did fuck it out." And as much as she hates the idea of her roommates being right, she thinks that maybe his laugh makes it all worth it.

#rivusarevolution2021 #rivusa #riven #musa #one bed trope #i'm a sucker for tropes #it never gets old #forced proximity

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hottestthingalive · 4 years

Text

a storm in your eyes (lightning and dark skies)

It is then, with Virgil curled up against him, wet hair soaking Logan’s neck and the smell of hot chocolate in the air, that Logan realizes he loves a thunderstorm in human form.

His best friend.

Oh, god, Logan is in love with his best friend. And also his roommate. And also his favorite person in the whole of the universe.

(He’s pretty sure that if Virgil could hear his thoughts, and if, y’know, Virgil wasn’t the person in question, he’d roll his eyes and say, “Oh my god, they were roommates.” The idea nearly makes him laugh.)

–

Notes: Thank you so much to @snek-snacc, @smileyzs, @confused-sunflower, @xaimelarks, and all my other followers for putting up with me ranting about this story, and helping me edit. Y’all are the best!

Edit: After publishing this, I got this AMAZING piece of art from @ent-is-undecisive / @birdsongisland! Go check them out, because they’re insanely talented, and looking at this piece makes me so so so happy!

Two sequels also exist for this now!

waffles and wedding vows (promises and proof)

songs and stars and silence (of loving you)

Hope you enjoy!

Relationships: Romantic Analogical, background romantic Royaliceit, background romantic Intrusleep/rem^2, platonic drlamper

Words: 6885

Ao3

–

Logan Sanders falls in love with a thunderstorm.

Well, not a thunderstorm, exactly. As far as Logan knows (and he knows quite a lot), a tempest, no matter how powerful, cannot take the form of a human.

Still, the first time the boy with a hurricane’s eyes enters Mugnificent (the coffee shop Logan very reluctantly works at), he swears the smell of ozone fills the air.

His name is Virgil Foley, and he sweeps into Logan’s life like a summer storm, filling it with wind and chaos and unmatched wild beauty.

The first time they meet, it is 5:26 in the morning, and he’s considering revolt. Yes, he needs this job to supplement his scholarship, but being up this early is awful enough to warrant mutiny. Besides, customers are few this early in the day, and thus the tip jar is woefully empty.

The door opens with a ding

(there is a smell like lightning)

and in walks a person with dark hair tied in a bun under a black beanie, rummaging around in their backpack. Their bag is covered in pins, and Logan notes a rainbow one near the center.

“Hey,” they say, and he meets eyes the color of stormclouds, a grey bordering on purple and blue simultaneously. “Can I just get a small coffee, please? Black is fine.”

“Yeah,” Logan nods. “Name?”

They glance around the empty Mugnificent with a raised eyebrow, but reply with “Virgil,” anyways.

“Nice to meet you, Virgil,” says Logan, and he’s not normally one for small talk, but he also is sleep-deprived, and too tired to have any sort of filter. “I’m Logan.”

Virgil relaxes, and they hold out a hand for him to shake. “Nice to meet you, too. I use he/him pronouns, by the way.”

“Ah, yes,” Logan nods, returning the handshake. “He/him for me, as well, thank you.”

Virgil pays and waits by the counter as Logan goes to prepare the coffee, scrolling through his phone. There is a comfortable silence as he makes the drink, which Logan spends mentally cursing out Roman, his coworker who was supposed to arrive for work thirty minutes ago. “Here,” he says finally, holding out the cup for Virgil to take.

“Thanks.” Virgil is wearing fingerless gloves, and his nails are painted a bright purple. They shine in the fluorescent lighting. “Have a nice day, Logan.”

“You too,” he replies, and it seems too little. Logan doesn’t believe in magic, or gods, or destiny, but as he watches Virgil turn, about to walk out the door, something twangs in his chest. Despite himself, Logan opens his mouth, searching for something to say, anything that will make him stay.

He blinks, about to speak, and Virgil is gone.

A few minutes later, it begins to rain.

–

The second time he meets Virgil, it is in his psych class.

Logan has always liked psychology. It’s fascinating how the human brain works, he thinks, and even if he isn’t always so good at understanding emotions, he’s quite good at the science behind them. His appreciation for said science is the only reason he signs up for the class at all, when it has practically nothing to do with his astrophysics major.

He’s just about forgotten about the boy with eyes of a storm by the time he sits down for the first psychology class of the semester, pulling his computer and textbooks out of his own bag, and setting them before him. Logan cracks the knuckles on each hand individually, a nervous habit he’s had since he was in high school. He’s done his best to break it, but he supposes, as annoying as it is, it’s better than some of the alternatives.

Case in point, the boy from Mugnificent, who walks into the room nervously tapping his thigh while chewing at his lip. There’s a split in it, one that shines a bright red against the chapped surface, and Logan wants to wince just looking at it.

His eyes flash with recognition as he spots Logan in one of the back rows, and he pauses. “Logan, right? From the coffee place.”

“And you’re Virgil,” Logan smiles, and okay, maybe he hadn’t forgotten Virgil so much as attempted to forget him.

“Can I sit there?” he asks, nodding to the seat beside Logan.

It turns out Virgil is smart, and funny, and just a little bit snarky, and a English major minoring in psychology. He’s got all kinds of nervous habits, chewing on his lip and tapping out rhythms known only to him and drawing on every available surface, and Logan often notices a tendril of ink wrapping around one of his fingers from under his gloves.

They become fast friends, him and Virgil, bonding over a love for space and science and poetry. He starts coming to Mugnificent for coffee more often, and Roman teases Logan incessantly about it.

“You’re finally making friends!” he pretends to sob, throwing his arms around him, and he has to shove Roman away, rolling his eyes. Virgil is stifling a laugh behind one gloved hand, and Logan mouths “Traitor,” at him, though he isn’t really mad at all.

They fall into patterns -- psych and history and statistics together, always seated side by side, sometimes accompanied by Roman or Patton or Remus or Janus or any one of their expanding circle of friends. The two of them buy each other coffee, edit essays, go out for junk food (that Logan complains about but secretly loves) with their friends.

Virgil begs to paint Logan’s nails one night as they watch documentaries together in Patton and Virgil’s dorm room. His tongue sticks out of his mouth slightly as he focuses on the tiny white dots he’s adding, and Logan ends up loving the night sky that graces his fingers. In return, Logan styles Virgil’s long hair into a crown of braids.

“Your Majesty,” he bows as he leads Virgil to the mirror.

“If I’m royalty now, I demand a feast to celebrate,” Virgil grins, admiring his hair. “Sir Logan, this calls for pizza!”

“All the junk food you consume is going to kill you one day,” Logan sighs, but he’s already dialing their favorite pizza place.

They eat dinner seated on the floor, holding paper plates and drinking soda as they watch Cosmos. Patton returns to the dorm a few minutes later, accompanied by Janus and Roman both, and snags some of the pizza for himself – luckily, they’d thought to order extra, as soon Remus, Remy, and Emile all show up, too, crowding into the dorm room and around Logan’s laptop. The documentary is switched to Big Hero 6, Virgil showing off his hair and Logan his nails as the others admire them. Soon Virgil is breaking out his nail polish again, painting delicate puppies on Patton’s fingers, and Logan is teaching Roman how to do the same hairstyle on Emile’s curls.

It’s a Saturday night, so they feel comfortable all crashing in Patton and Virgil’s room, squeezing far too many young adults into one small space. Emile giggles that it reminds them of sleepovers they went to when they were in elementary school, and Remus points out that they ought to play Truth or Dare with a manic grin. Virgil quickly puts a stop to that, however, distracting Remus with conspiracy theories and carving marshmallows to look like Lovecraftian monsters, and Logan wants to laugh because Virgil is very much a mom friend, despite his protests to the contrary. Still, as he sips hot cocoa with a marshmallow Cthulhu staring up at him from the mug, he has to admit it was a good idea. They all get into the fun, carving marshmallows with whatever cutlery Patton and Virgil have in their room, and eventually Monster Mallows will become a tradition for all of their friend group.

When he falls asleep that night, lying on the floor in the blanket fort Patton and Roman had insisted on building, he dreams of rain and lightning, across dark skies that resemble Virgil’s eyes.

–

Logan realizes Virgil is his best friend in the middle of winter, when he shows up at Mugnificent at the end of his shift, ordering two coffees and taking them as Logan gets ready to leave. “Sorry, Roman,” Virgil says, though he doesn’t look sorry at all as he hands Logan one of the drinks and reaches out to hold his other hand. “C’mon, L, we’ve got to hurry if we’re going to get there in time.”

“Where are we going?” Logan raises an eyebrow, throwing on his coat and waving goodbye to Roman (who is saying something dramatic about a grievous betrayal) as he sips at the coffee. It’s perfect, his order exactly.

“Look!” Virgil grins as they leave the coffee shop, and it’s snowing, white flakes falling around them and coating the ground. Some of the cars nearby are already covered in it. “C’mon, we’ve got to get to the park.”

“Wait, why?” he asks. “Virgil, this looks rather like the makings of a blizzard. We should probably go back to our dorms so we can prepare if we get snowed in.”

“I know it’s a snowstorm,” Virgil rolls his eyes, and his stormy eyes are bluer than Logan’s ever seen them, shining with excitement. “Now, let’s go!”

Logan should probably argue more, but he’s laughing as he gets pulled along, the two half-running towards the park.

They slow down at the top of a hill already lightly coated with snow, and Virgil reaches into his bag to pull out a picnic blanket. “No,” Logan protests, but he’s cackling as Virgil yells “Snow picnic!” and spreads it over the snow.

“This is going to turn into a blizzard,” he manages to say, stifling his giggles. “We are going to be buried alive because you wanted to have a picnic in a snowstorm.”

“Oh, shush,” Virgil grins, flopping down onto the blanket and digging into his bag again to retrieve two bagels wrapped in tinfoil. “Drink your coffee and watch the snow with me, Logan Sanders.”

The bagel he hands Logan has Crofters jam instead of cream cheese spread across it, still warm from toasting, and Logan could kiss Virgil if they weren’t very platonic…

Well, it feels like they are a whole lot more than friends, at this point. There’s something about their relationship that feels different from the ones Logan has with their other companions, be it Remus or Emile, Patton or Janus, Roman or Remy.

Are they best friends?

He asks, and Virgil merely grins and says “I hope so.”

It’s amazing, lying there as they watch the sky, munching on bagels and sipping at their coffee and pointing out oddly shaped clouds. Virgil is practically covered in snowflakes by the time they have to leave, the wind picking up too much to stay, and Logan is no better. Still, he thinks it was worth it, even when he gets a cold and has to spend the weekend curled up in blankets, sneezing and coughing as he works on his essay for his cosmology class. Virgil gets a cold, too, and they end up on the phone together as they work, Virgil blasting music on his end and Logan parroting his roommate’s consistent reminders to take medicine, and drink some water!

Emile seems to think it’s cute, for some reason, and they tell Logan to say hi to Virgil for them, a smile playing on their lips that he’s too sick to interpret.

–

Logan has a crush on a boy in their shared statistics class by March, the one who sits three rows in front of him and two seats to the right, who has green hair and a cheerful grin. Virgil listens patiently about it whenever Logan brings it up, and when they have to pair up for a final project, he pushes him towards his crush, joining Remus instead.

He finds out his crush already has a romantic partner in a strictly monogamous relationship when they’re nearly done with the project, and Virgil shows up to Logan’s dorm room with ice cream and his laptop that night, pulling aside Emile as he comes in and whispering something to him. Emile leaves shortly after, and the two of them are alone.

“What did you tell Emile?” Logan asks later, when they’re sitting on his bed and watching trashy teenage romcoms, because, according to Virgil, “This way, you won’t associate any good movies with this.”

“Well, Patton invited him for a ‘sleepover,’” Virgil says, eating directly from the carton of chocolate ice cream, gaze shifting from the screen to Logan. “Did the moment he saw your text on the groupchat.”

Logan had texted that his crush has a partner when Roman had begun teasing him about it on said chat. Looking back, it may not have been the best of decisions, but all he wants to do right now is curl into the comforter and watch bad movies, while simultaneously eating unholy amounts of ice cream.

“It’s not a big deal,” he protests, pulling the blankets closer around him.

“Listen, L, you’re sad ‘cause the boy you like… well, you know. Anyways, you being sad is a big deal, at least to us.” Virgil isn’t wearing his normal clothes, only a pair of pajama pants and a sweatshirt (Logan knows he ran over in his nightwear, which makes him feel worse), so he can see the ink covering his hands, smudged in places.

“Why do you draw on yourself so much?” He leans over to look at the patterns of spirals winding their way up Virgil’s arms, tracing them with one finger. “That much ink can’t be good for your skin, pretty as it is, Vee.”

Virgil bats his hand away, blushing behind his curtains of dark hair, and Logan laughs. “It’s just a nervous habit, okay?” he exclaims, and Logan pokes his cheek, cooing.

“Aw, lookit you,” he smiles, and even though Logan’s heart hurts from what happened with his crush, he doesn’t think he would trade anything for his friendship with Virgil Foley. “So cute.”

“I’m not cute,” Virgil grumbles, pressing play on the computer. “Watch the shitty movie and shush, nerd.”

He gets over the boy from statistics eventually, and gets an A on the project, which Roman insists they celebrate with breakfast at Logan’s favorite diner on campus. (Logan’s pretty sure Roman just feels guilty about teasing him about it, but he goes anyways, pulling his friend aside later to tell him it’s fine.)

–

They return from summer vacation changed. Janus, Patton, and Roman are dating now, for one thing, and it’s disgustingly sappy. Emile comes out as asexual and aromantic a few days after they get back, and Logan helps them hang flags in their dorm room when they arrive a week later. Remy has switched majors, from biology to culinary classes, and Remus tells them excitedly that he’s managed to start a rather popular horror comic online. (Logan reads it, and learns Remus is quite adept at art, writing, and scaring the crap out of him. He never looks at door knobs the same way again.) Virgil, meanwhile, has started wearing far less baggy clothes and more makeup – in other words, people around campus start realizing that Virgil is actually hot, and not just a relatively cute bundle of sweatshirts.

Logan kind of feels weird about it. He knows how aesthetically pleasing Virgil is, of course – they’ve spent enough time together for him to have figured that out – but… well, Logan had realized while he was away how much he’d missed Virgil, even more so than his other friends. He tells himself it is because of how close they are, and ignores the ugly anger in his chest when people flirt with Virgil, or how his heart pounds and face flushes when they curl up to watch movies these days.

As for him, well, he’s dyed his hair a dark blue, a color so dark it’s almost black. Roman marvels over it, asking how he managed to not damage his hair in the process, and Logan doesn’t feel like telling him that he had meant to do a brighter shade, but hadn’t realized how hard it would be to get proper color without bleaching his normal dark hair. He does end up telling Virgil later, though, when Remy and Patton drag them and the rest of their friends to a party.

For the record, Logan tended to avoid such events. He didn’t see the point, firstly – he’d never been a fan of crowds, especially not ones where everyone was drunk off their asses, and he generally had too much work to do to bother with parties. Secondly, he simply didn’t care enough to look nice for such a thing, or to go at all. Logan would much rather spend time with his friends if he had to be up in the middle of the night, whether haunting the 24/7 diner a few miles off campus or playing stupid games in the woods or making fun of Disney movies while throwing popcorn at the screen and shushing each other so they didn’t get noise complaints.

But then there were Patton and Remy, social creatures who liked seeing other people and didn’t mind getting wasted to do so. Roman and Janus typically followed Patton wherever he went, so they were a given, and Remus had developed a raging crush on Remy by then, so he’d probably have tagged along even if Remy hadn’t grabbed his hand and said “You’ll come, right, Ree?” with a grin.

Well, Remus was lost to them after that, and that left Emile, Logan, and Virgil alone.

Which would have been fine! Except then Virgil had got dragged in by Patton (a difficulty of being his roommate, according to Logan’s best friend, was that Patton was very, very persuasive when he wanted to be) and Virgil had begged Logan to come for “Introvert solidarity, L! Introvert solidarity!”

Then Emile had sighed, said something about being the only responsible one, and appointed themself designated driver. So Logan didn’t even have that excuse to pull himself and Virgil out of it early.

He finds himself on a couch in someone’s house, sitting besides Virgil. Janus tells him that it is owned by someone who goes to their college but lives nearby, a summer home belonging to their parents or something. Janus says ze aren’t sure who the actual host is, and ze run off to go find Roman or Patton before Logan can ask why all of them are attending a party hosted by someone they don’t know.

Virgil has obviously already had something to drink, or he’s insanely sleep-deprived, as he has started playing with Logan’s hair. Logan’s willing to bet on the former (although knowing Virgil, he can’t be sure – he has an awful sleep schedule) especially since he’s never known the other to be so touchy, even when tired.

“How’d you get it like this?” Virgil asks, running his fingers through Logan’s curls. He’s perched on top of the couch, and though he would normally be concerned that Virgil might fall, Logan is just glad he doesn’t have to bend over so his friend can examine his hair.

He tells Virgil, and can’t help but smile as he laughs, perhaps a little more than the story warrants. They sit there in peace for a few minutes, Virgil humming along with any song he recognizes and Logan scanning the room for any of their friends.

“Your hair is so pretty,” Virgil eventually says, and Logan is surprised he can hear him at all over the noise of the music and other people. He slides down from the couch to sit beside him, reaching up to poke Logan’s cheek. “You’re pretty. You know that, right? You’re real, real pretty.”

“Aw,” Logan grins, hoping the dim lights and Virgil’s addled brain will hide his red cheeks. “What is it you say? Oh, right; you think I’m warm.”

“No, dummy, I think you’re hot,” Virgil sighs. “Get it right.”

“Why, thank you.”

“‘Course. You’re my best friend, Logan Sanders.”

“Same,” he replies, dodging Virgil’s attempt to flick him as he scans the room. “Have you seen Remy or Remus around recently?”

“Oh, they’ve been making out in that closet over there,” Virgil says offhandedly, pointing, and Logan nearly chokes. “You didn’t know? They’re so obvious, Remy’s been whining about it to me for weeks. ‘Oh, Virgil, I’m doomed to be alone forever!’ ‘Oh, Virgil, Remus is so hot, and I’m going to whine about it to you for hours!’ ‘Oh, Virgil, I have a crush on a trash rat man and I won’t stop talking about it ever!’”

“Did Remy actually call Remus a ‘trash rat man’?” he snickers, turning to look at Virgil, who is wringing his hands in mock despair as he imitates Remy.

“No,” Virgil pouts. “Wish he had. Remus would love that.”

“He would,” Logan agrees, rolling his eyes fondly. “Hey, do you want to leave?”

“Why, Logan Perfect-Hair Sanders, are you asking me to ditch a party with you?” he laughs.

“That isn’t my middle name and you know it.” Logan shoots off a text to Emile, standing and turning to grab Virgil’s hand, pulling him upright. “But sure. Will you, Virgil Emo-Nightmare Foley, ditch this absurd party with me?”

“Logan, I thought you’d never ask,” Virgil smirks. “Let’s bounce!”

They get lucky – Logan hasn’t had anything to drink, and due to how large their group is, Virgil had had to drive over Patton, Janus, Roman, and himself earlier. Virgil hands him the keys to the car, and Logan drives them to the nearby McDonalds, where they order fries and milkshakes. “Let’s go somewhere high,” Virgil says when they return to the car, grinning, and Logan obliges, driving them to his favorite stargazing spot near campus, partway up a mountain in a parking lot for an old playground.

Soon, he finds himself sitting on the hood of Virgil’s car, dipping his fries in a chocolate shake as the two of them stare up at the stars and the moon, pointing out constellations. “Look,” giggles Virgil, his head on Logan’s shoulder as he traces lines between stars. “It’s the glasses one!”

“There is no ‘glasses’ constellation, Virgil,” he points out, but the path his friend is etching into the sky does look rather like a pair of glasses.

“Well, there is now,” replies the other. “It’s your constellation! You deserve one, y’know, ‘cause you’re pretty, and smart, and nice, and funny, and you’re just the best, Lo, okay?”

“How much did you have to drink, exactly?” Logan asks, raising an eyebrow, and his friend punches him in the arm, lightly. “Ow!”

“I’m telling the truth,” Virgil rolls his eyes, pulling the blankets they’d retrieved from the trunk closer around the two of them. “You deserve a constellation. You deserve the universe.”

“Well, now we have to find you a constellation, too,” he muses, ignoring the heat in his cheeks (he seems to be blushing quite a lot lately, talking to Virgil) as he searches the sky. It takes a few minutes, and Virgil is half-asleep on his shoulder by the time he makes his choice, but finally Logan says “I found it.”

“Well, lemme see,” Virgil mumbles, opening his eyes.

He traces lines between a series of stars. “It’s a cloud,” he explains, “and a lightning bolt. Because you’re a thunderstorm, V.”

“Isn’t that a bad thing?” He’s biting his lip, suddenly subdued, and Logan feels a surge of guilt, because no one should ever make Virgil look like that, anxious and hurt and scared all at once.

“No,” he answers, fiercely enough that Virgil jumps slightly. “You’re wild, and chaotic, and occasionally a bit destructive, but you also make people feel alive. You bring rain to help things live, you bring the sound of a storm and the beauty of lightning, you simultaneously wake me up and help me sleep. You are beautiful, and inspiring, and so amazingly you, and the best friend I could ever ask for.”

“...And I thought I was the English major,” Virgil says quietly, and his face is bright red. “You have no right to be better at words than me, Sanders.”

“Well, Foley, I’m the astrophysics major, and you’re the one who started making constellations, so turnabout’s fair play,” Logan replies, and Virgil lets out a laugh at that.

Later, when the fries and milkshakes are both gone, they get back into the car and drive back to their dorms. For Logan’s birthday that year, a month or so later, Virgil presents him with a painting of the glasses constellation. He’d commissioned Remus, he explains, staring at his feet, and Logan tells him he loves it. For Virgil’s birthday, he gets a similar art piece from Roman, of the stars making a storm, and Virgil pulls him into a tight hug.

For now, though, the two of them simply sit and gaze into space.

–

Logan goes on a few dates with someone he meets at the coffee shop, named Andy. They become boyfriends. Virgil teases him about it whenever he brings it up, and eventually he stops talking about his partner to his best friend. The two of them start to pull apart, their friendship strained.

When Logan and Andy separate, Virgil is dating a girl he’s only met a few times, who shares Virgil’s English classes and wears colorful barrettes to hold back her curls.

He hadn’t even known Virgil liked her.

–

College passes by quickly. They graduate, and Logan tumbles into a job at a rather prestigious observatory. He lives in a small apartment in the city nearby, buys coffee from the Starbucks across the street every morning, settles into a routine.

Gradually, they all start to fall out of touch. It sucks, but things have been off between Virgil and him ever since Logan had dated Andy Michaels, and at the moment Logan sees his ex-boyfriend more than his ex-best friend. Their relationship had ended amicably, but still – he misses Virgil Foley, more than he’d ever like to admit.

A year or so later, Logan receives the invitation to Remy and Remus’ wedding.

It is in the fall, and Logan isn’t surprised in the least that they plan to have it in a forest, if only because he knows that the odds of Remus wanting the guests to jump into leap piles with him are absurdly high. At least they’re at an actual wedding site, so they can be inside if needed – Logan half expected, when he found out they’d gotten engaged, for them to drag a bunch of guests to a Starbucks for the event.

What does surprise Logan is the fact that Remus has apparently sent it early, because Logan is going to be one of the wedding party attendants.

He calls Remus and Remy that night, certain they’ve mixed up things, but Remy simply laughs. “Logan, you’re still one of our best friends,” he says. “Come on, please?”

“Besides,” Remus adds, “Virge will be one too, and Patton and Roman and Jan and Emile! You can’t break up the team!”

He ends up agreeing, and no matter how much Remy teases him about it later, it was not just to see Virgil again.

The wedding rolls around. Logan has managed to avoid speaking to Virgil for more than a friendly greeting and a bit of small talk through all the preparations the two of them had had to attend, but the they both arrive early on the day of, and Logan doesn’t know anybody else, and, well, he does miss Virgil.

“Hey,” he says. Virgil is nearly as tall as him in the heels he’s wearing (Logan had managed to opt out of them, convincing Remus to let him wear flats with his dress), and his green dress offsets his stormy eyes perfectly. Logan doesn’t think he looks nearly as good in the color, but he’d decided not to argue with Remy’s puppy-dog eyes. Besides, he much prefers the dress to the suits Emile and Patton had opted for.

“Hi, Logan,” Virgil replies. The tension in the air is palpable, and Logan hates it. “How’ve you been lately?”

“I’m good,” he answers.

“Oh, good,” nods Virgil. He’s gnawing at his lip again, and Logan can see the split in it even through the lipstick. “Me too.”

“I miss you,” Logan says suddenly, because he does. “You were my best friend, and I hate not being close, because you are one of the best things that ever happened to me.”

“...I miss you too.” He smooths his dress, looking out the window at the trees, and then laughs. “I’m surprised they didn’t have their wedding in a Starbucks, honestly.”

Logan can’t help but chuckle at that, especially when he spots Remy breezing past them, a coffee cup in hand and makeup only half-done, frantically trying to catch his little brothers and sister, whom he and Remus had appointed flower children. “I thought the same thing,” he admits.

It’s easy for the two of them to talk, after that, sharing jokes and telling stories and talking about their new lives. Logan feels oddly happy when he learns Virgil is single, and when he mentions how he’s looking for a roommate and Virgil remarks that he is too, it feels as natural as breathing to ask where he’s currently living. Finding out they live in the same city makes Logan feel strangely elated.

“Help!” Remus exclaims, skidding to a stop in front of them, collapsing into Virgil’s arms and only barely being caught. “I’ve lost my husband-to-be!”

“Alright, please calm down,” Logan says, exchanging exasperated looks with Virgil, who pulls Remus back to his feet. “Have you actually lost Remy, or are you just being overly dramatic?”

“He has been stolen from me,” Remus whines. “We were kissing, and then he was dragged away by my evil brother!”

“By any chance, was he dragged away to prepare for your wedding? The event we’re attending, so you two can get married? The one that most guests are expected to arrive for in fifteen minutes?” Virgil crosses his arms over his chest, eyes narrowed.

Remus’ eyes widen. “Fifteen minutes?” he asks, checking Logan’s watch, and groans. “Oh, drumsticks. Drumsticks torn right off a chicken. Bloody chicken legs everywhere.”

He darts off, and Logan and Virgil sigh simultaneously.

“We should go help, shouldn’t we?” Virgil asks, and Logan nods reluctantly. “Well, it was great to talk to you.”

“It was pleasant to speak with you, as well,” he agrees.

As he turns to go find Patton, Virgil grabs his arm. “Hey, L, save me a dance, okay?”

They do indeed dance together that night, after they watch Remy and Remus get married among the colorful leaves, and talk, and laugh, and by the end of the wedding they are good friends again.

Virgil and Logan move in together by the end of November.

–

They become surprisingly domestic, the two of them, moving into their large apartment that is close to both Logan’s job at the observatory and Virgil’s work at a publishing company. He’s not surprised Virgil has become an editor (he was always the best at it, when they exchanged essays to review), but he is rather impressed when he notes some of the books in Virgil’s room have his full name on the cover. “I write poetry, mostly,” he explains when Logan asks. “It’s… I used to use it like therapy, I guess, and I got some of it published. I’m not famous or anything.”

“That’s amazing,” Logan says sincerely.

The poetry becomes important, later, but then, it is simply something for Logan to admire, another flash of beautiful lightning in Virgil’s storm.

Saturdays become movie nights, and they order junk food and make popcorn and watch documentaries or horror movies or cartoons together. Occasionally, some of their friends will join them, and every so often, all eight of them cram into Logan and Virgil’s living room. Despite his love for the others, however, Logan’s favorite nights are usually the ones when the two of them are alone, when they curl up together on the couch and make fun of trashy films or contribute their own knowledge to documentaries or sing along quietly to Disney. It is peaceful and lovely and utterly perfect.

Logan doesn’t mean to fall in love with Virgil. It sneaks up on him, mornings of coffee for him and tea for Virgil and memes shared over breakfast, afternoons texting each other with reminders to get groceries and news from the office, nights of cooking together and dancing to the radio.

One day, when both of them have work off, Virgil pulls him out of bed, waits impatiently while Logan gets dressed, and drags him outside into a storm. They walk through the park together, enjoying the rain on their skin, both of them jumping into puddles and belting the title number of Singing in the Rain and getting utterly soaked.

They return home for cocoa, each taking a warm shower and then sitting together on the couch to watch old movies with small white krakens bobbing in their cups. It is then, with Virgil curled up against him, wet hair soaking Logan’s neck and the smell of hot chocolate in the air, that Logan realizes he loves a thunderstorm in human form.

His best friend.

Oh, god, Logan is in love with his best friend. And also his roommate. And also his favorite person in the whole of the universe.

Logan tries to get over his crush (and there’s no other word for it, as juvenile as it sounds). He really does. But it’s so hard, now that he knows it exists, especially when he has to see Virgil every single day. And he can’t just cut himself off, or leave their apartment, because that might ruin their friendship, and that’s the whole reason he’s trying to escape his feelings, because he loves being Virgil’s friend more than anything.

So he exists in this inbetween state, thrashing in the eyewall of a storm, so close to safety and danger simultaneously, trapped in chaos and uncertainty.

Logan isn’t quite sure whether he really wants to return to the eye, blissful quiet and the peace of oblivion, or if he can at all. But he thinks entering the storm itself, the danger of telling Virgil how he feels, the potential for a life with him, is equally impossible.

Eventually he decides that it is best to just ignore his rebellious feelings. It works, sort of – Virgil doesn’t seem to notice anything different, and Logan gets to keep his best friend. Still, every moment together is tinged with a sort of bittersweet sadness, the dancing in the kitchen and cuddling on the couch and meals together a harsh reminder that they are just friends.

He’s not sure exactly how his other friends figure it out, but they do, judging from how Remy and Janus tell him exasperatedly that he really ought to say something to Virgil, how Patton and Roman tell him how cute they would be together, how Remus does his best to shove Logan towards Virgil at any opportunity, how Emile tells him pointedly that repressing his feelings isn’t exactly healthy. Logan does decide that he’ll confess… eventually.

The problem with eventually, however, is how ambiguous it is. The others have realized as much, evidently, but they don’t force Logan to say something, or tell Virgil themselves, and he appreciates that.

It is a Saturday when eventually finally comes, a peaceful movie night interrupted by a phone call with Roman’s name flashing on the screen. He holds up a finger over his lips as he accepts the call, grimacing apologetically to Virgil as he steps into his own room. “What do you want?” he asks exasperatedly when he picks it up, and winces as the other line fills with noise.

“Logan, have you read Virgil’s latest book?” Roman practically screams, and in the background Logan can hear Patton squealing with excitement as Janus shushes them both.

He frowns, closing the door to his bedroom. “I wasn’t aware he’d been working on one.” Normally, Logan knows whenever Virgil is working on another collection of his poetry – he’s often the first person Virgil hands it to for editing.

“Get on your computer this instant, Pocket Protector,” says Roman, and Logan can hear his grin.

A quick search confirms it; a new book of poetry, just released by Virgil Foley. The revelation is almost painful (does Virgil not trust him anymore? Not like him?) until Janus’ voice comes over the line, hir voice sarcastic and concerned altogether.

“Way to go, love, he’s definitely not overthinking this,” ze sigh. “Logan, listen to me. I need you to go look at some of the reviews for the book, okay? Actually, no, if you can find a sample online, go read that.”

He’s operating in a haze, a robot in human flesh, and what do robots do but obey orders?

Logan barely understands what he’s reading at first, lines of poetry in the sample flashing past him. He checks the reviews, words of praise and admiration flowing through his mind, and it takes a second before he understands any of it.

Clicking back to the online sample, he starts to recognize the story being told. It is a tale of late nights and hot drinks in the morning, of pining and fear of destroying a friendship older than love.

It is Logan’s story, told through another’s words, a voice speaking of a scholar of the stars, of glasses and storms, of hugs and hand-holding and a cute barista, a boy in psych class, a friendship repaired at another’s wedding, of admiration and hope and love. A love for someone seen not as a storm, but as stars, as the universe in human flesh.

Virgil is in love.

Virgil is in love with Logan.

“I’ll call you back,” he hears himself say, and drops his phone on his bed in his haste to get back to the living room.

“Logan?” Virgil’s voice pierce the haze of his thoughts, his eyes

(a storm, wild beauty)

shining with concern, and he sits up from where he’s lying on the couch. “You okay? What happened?”

There are many things he wants to say, questions and explanations and promises, but in the end, all he says is “Can I kiss you?”

“What?” He doesn’t expect Virgil to look quite so flustered, but then again, Logan did just storm into the room, looking desperate and probably a tad deranged, and ask to kiss his best friend.

“Roman told me about the new book,” Logan says first, and Virgil’s eyes widen even further, and he can sense the incoming apology, but he isn’t done, not yet. He begins to crack his knuckles, a habit he’d thought he’d finally lost, full to the brim with nervous energy. “I’ve read some of it, and as far as I can tell, you are romantically attracted to me. Which is good, because I also harbor such feelings for you, and have for about a year now. So. Can I kiss you?”

“Isn’t it ‘May I kiss you’?” Virgil grins, playing off his feelings with humor, as always. Logan opens his mouth to apologize as his world comes crashing down, because oh, he’s messed up, oh no, but then his best friend’s expression softens, and he whispers “Of course, Logan Sanders.”

“Thank you, Virgil Foley,” he says, and abandons the eyewall for the storm.

They don’t watch any more movies that night. The two of them kiss, and talk, and kiss some more, and Virgil grabs his author’s edition of the new book from his room, and they read it together on the couch.

The next morning, they sit with their coffee and tea and talk some more, about labels and boundaries and dreams. Their friends come over for movies the next Saturday, and Virgil and Logan hold hands as they tell them they are dating.

(Roman choking on the popcorn in his excitement almost makes up for the money Logan spots being exchanged between Emile, Remus, and Patton.)

Eventually, Virgil’s latest book will gain fame, and they will end up with quite a bit of money between the two of them, especially after Logan gets a promotion. Eventually, they will move to a larger house, one a bit outside the city, one where they will have two cats and a dog and a son named Thomas. Eventually, they will get married in the spring, and when it starts to rain as they say their vows, the two of them just laugh.

But that is eventually. In the now, Logan Sanders is in love. In the now, Virgil Foley is in love.

They are glasses and hoodies, poetry written and spoken, dancing in the kitchen and cuddles on the couch.

They are thunderstorms, and they are stars.

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eurydicees · 3 years

Text

i can’t stop thinking about an ohshc theatre club au, please enjoy some hcs (this got way too long and is Not organized, sorry):

tamaki is that asshole who gets the lead in everything without trying, but you can’t even be mad because dammit he can act

hikaru and kaoru are actors, but also double as costume crew

kyoya as the sm, haruhi tries to asm for him once but he has no idea how to “fucking delegate tasks to me, kyoya, you can’t run a show by yourself goddammit”

renge is also an sm, but has a ridiculous form of organization that is Not Standardized and it makes kyoya want to burn down the theatre

honey is typecast as the token child character, he plays les in newsies one year and had the time of his life

mori is an electrician and is also the lead td and supervises while they build their sets

tamaki is incredibly superstitious, like. say the m-word within ten feet of him and you’ll be running in circles singing the alphabet backwards before you can say “shakespeare”

speaking of, kyoya loves shakespeare, but he’s like. a shakespeare purist. haruhi likes to send him videos of modern adaptations with batshit crazy directing just to piss him off. like they send him a bootleg of an emma rice production and he almost has an aneurysm

kaoru proposes “shakespeare’s long lost first play” for their fall show and kyoya threatened murder. shakespeare is SERIOUS business, kaoru.

hikaru can also choreograph when they’re doing a musical, his choreo always ends up being great, but it takes ages to learn (he keeps getting distracted and going on tangents when trying to teach the steps and no one can follow the speed he’s going at)

in a shocking reversal of typical high school theatre, renge is the only girl so she gets all the female leads without much hassle (all the hosts play female roles at some point and you know what? they fucking love it just the same as playing male roles)

when he’s not acting, tamaki is a director, but people have a uh hard time executing his vision

tamaki and kyoya are the director/sm team that everyone wants to be but never will be (everyone can point to instances where they’re just reading each other’s minds about blocking)

haruhi teaches them the opening night tradition of leaving the theatre and storming the nearest commoner’s fast food place and staying there until 3am

god ok i’m sorry i can’t stop thinking about kyoya as sm it’s so perfect for him-- he’s the most organized sm you will ever meet, his blocking notes are pristine, his rehearsal reports have more detail than anyone will ever need to have, kyoya does your back hurt from carrying the entire show

that being said, his line notes are HARSH. like. everything counts with him. especially when it’s shakespeare. did you say “thou has?” sorry actually it’s “thou hast” and you can go fuck yourself

they have a ridiculous budget for a high school theatre club (obviously) and when they do “almost, maine,” they blow half the budget on making it snow on stage

haruhi joins because they accidentally wander onto set one day and stumble over a birdie (*one of the lights that gets hidden on set or on the floor) and fuck up the entire lighting rig the group had spent all day working on perfecting

they then blackmail them into being the female lead (renge hasn’t joined yet) and they’re like :/ ok fine if it helps me pay off this stupid debt (they have to play a certain number of roles before they’ve paid it off)

they start to actually enjoy being a part of the club when they first run lines with honey, who is just so enthusiastic about his role that they can’t help but fall in love with theatre

but look. tech week is just. hell. kyoya loses it a little bit bc of the stress (tamaki gives him many shoulder massages because he’s so damn tense but alas it does not relieve the pressure of calling a show). mori (when he’s acting, which is rare) gets the worst stage fright during tech week and honey or haruhi has to talk him out of quitting two days before opening. kaoru is going to kill the next actor who eats in their costume. tamaki is panicking because it’s ALL WRONG. renge doesn’t know her lines. it’s a mess.

but... also... they’re having so much fun. and ~theatre magic~ (read: working really fucking hard) makes it all go on smoothly

oh also renge is a director too! this is an obvious hc that i completely missed until this moment, but she’s a great director, she has a really clear vision from the very start and she’s incredibly decisive, but she’s also shitty to her tech crew (mori and honey almost stage a revolt when she dismisses sound design as unimportant)

ranka is their #1 fan-- she goes to every show no matter how many nights it runs, just to support the club; she also gets all (and i mean ALL) of her friends to come and watch as well

lobelia is still their #1 rival-- during festivals, tamaki and benibara’s goal is to destroy each other through the art of glaring at each other from the wings on opposite sides of the stage (why are they even there at the same time? who knows)

lobelia likes to do all female adaptations of all shows, something that confuses tamaki, but also something that he won’t dare complain about lest he risk haruhi’s wrath (the fool is still unlearning sexism, especially sexism as it relates to classic plays-- but he’s getting there!)

oh they do alice in wonderland once and the audition process basically goes as that arc runs in the manga: a whole mess

so a lot of techies have one (1) show that they would like to act in rather than do tech for, and mori’s one show is “the addams family,” which they do in the fall of his senior year-- and he fuckin kills it as gomez

kyoya’s one show is “othello” because (a) he’s a pretentious bitch and (b) everyone else called it pretentious and depressing so he’ll never have to actually go through with it and act

ok it’s 2am i’m done for now but PLEASE add on i’m so hyped about this au many thoughts head full of theatre kid energy

#ohshc #ouran high school host club #ohshc headcanons #ouran headcanons #theatre club au

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skinks · 4 years

Note

I would just like to say Bongo Smugglers killed me. I’m sitting in class giggling thinking about a Losers movie night where they have a dramatic showing of the movie. Audra and Richie are less embarrassed then they should be. It becomes an annual tradition to play a bongo smugglers™️ drinking game at Christmas.

AHH this is amazing, I just shoved two words together that I thought were funny and suddenly it’s this whole ugly 2002 sex comedy fully formed in my head. Glad it killed you during class. And yeah, they’re definitely not embarrassed, everyone’s heckling the writing and the early 2000s fashion more than anything else anyway.

Richie happily provides commentary the whole way through even though he’s only in the sex scene, waving his tortilla chip in Eddie’s face because he’s got his arm around his shoulder, hugging him close into Richie’s side. Eddie keeps snapping bites at it so often that Richie just ends up hand feeding him chips.

“Aaaaaaand... that’s the first time I touched a boob, right there!“

“Glad to help,” Audra winks.

“The exact moment I realized I was totally lying to myself. I’m having an entire existential sexuality crisis right there on camera, but can you tell? Does my fratty façade crack an inch?”

“I could tell, because you spent fifteen minutes before the scene pacing around set and chanting you can do this, you can do this, don’t throw up, you like girls, but not too much, because you don’t get paid if you pop a boner, c’mon Richard, c’mon—”

“Like I said,” Richie shouts, over all his stupid friends laughing at him, “no one can tell, ‘cus I’m a pro—”

“You call yourself Richard during pep talks?” Stan’s grinning at him sharp-beaked, like a vulture. Has Richie seen him blink even once since he came back from the dead? Not sure, not sure, make note to ask Patty to spy.

Onscreen Audra is shimmying down her low-rise stone-wash boot-cut jeans, boots with the fur, the whole club was in fact lookin’ at her. What the fuck was anyone thinking back then? Richie privately blames the Bush administration, and continues.

“You’re a great scene partner, Audra-my-deah, and I respect you for cougaring not one but two of our little balding Brady Bunch here, but you were kinda the reason I figured out I’m gay. Like, big time gay. Well, the second reason.” He rubs tortilla-salt fingers through Eddie’s hair and feels his stomach go fuzzy when Eddie kinda thrums out a low noise against him. Oh, he’s purring. Some deep down part of Richie’s caveman psyche, lodged right in the hungry reptilian nub of his central brain wants to bear-hug Eddie to a pulp, wants to Lenny him like a mouse until they both stop breathing at the same exact moment from the pressure.

Yeesh, dark!

He smooches one of Eddie’s Easter Island eyebrows instead, keeps his lips mushed there. Smooches again. “Biiiiiiig time.”

“My wife,” Bill whips around from his seat on the floor at Richie’s feet, cheeks bulging with wontons, “my wife did not cougar me.”

Eddie shushes him. Everyone else is exchanging Looks, including Audra, because she totally did cougar Bill. Good for her!

“My wife,” Richie mimics, all sing-song and bugling. “Who the fuck are you, Borat?” Eddie snorts, hard. “Turn around and watch me make sweet love to ya woman, Bill.”

Onscreen Richie is struggling out of a giant hockey jersey at the sight of Onscreen Audra’s nubile charms. Everything is lit terribly, to a Smash Mouth deep cut.

“Oh man, check out that figure.” Richie whistles at himself, twenty-six years old with muscles like long ropes. “These were the pre-gut days. Even though my diet was just Adderall and instant ramen.”

“I like your gut,” Eddie murmurs, squidging at it with the hand not shoved up the back of Richie’s shirt. He’s already looking pretty tipsy, because he told everyone loudly and at length that he’d have to be what he deemed, shithouse drunk, to cope with whatever 90 minute dick jokeathon he was about to endure for the sake of two minutes of Richie-ass. “You’re hotter than him.”

Richie preens. “I am him, dude.”

Eddie’s hand lands clumsy on his cheek, pulling Richie’s attention away from his own foregrounded bare ass and Onscreen Audra’s shocked expression, to face him. Eddie’s all unfocused, flushed in the cheeks. “You’re both hot. Him and you, I’d fuck you both. I’d let both of you fuck me at once.”

“Um,” says Ben. Mike keeps slorping up noodles, but his eyes are saucering at Bill’s giant TV.

“Hhohkaaay,” Richie breathes.

“Is this when you saw it, Audra?” Bev asks. She waggles her eyebrows at them from the muscular nook of Ben’s arms. “The famous Tower of Tozier? You mentioned in the group chat.”

“What group chat,” Richie croaks, wrenching his eyes from the sight of Eddie’s slick tongue pulsing gently against his lower lip, hanging open like he wants Richie to see inside his mouth. Yowza-yowza-yowza, this is so much better than movie-nights back in the 90s. “I never saw anything about that? And I monitor you all on WhatsApp twenty-four-sevs. I literally have nothing better to do while Eddie’s working.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Beverly dismisses him with a flick of her wrist.

Audra is nodding vigorously while Onscreen Audra tilts her head comically far to the right. “That’s when I saw it,” she says. “They couldn’t find a modesty sock that fit you, Richie, remember? I didn’t have to fake that reaction. And that’s with them blasting the A/C on high so my nips would poke through my shirt.” She nudges Eddie’s shin gently and stage-whispers, “Well done.”

Eddie growls hot miso breath into Richie’s neck. Snarls, really. That’s the only word for it. Richie’s not embarrassed—he’s been telling people about his donkey schlong for years, not his fault nobody ever believes him. It’s a boy who cried wolf situation, perhaps, if the boy was actually telling the truth every time and just wanted to brag to everyone about seeing a really big, thick wolf.

“Honey,” Bill says, visibly distressed, “this is already weird enough for me, please don’t say nips.”

“Nips, nips, nips.” Audra tickles into Bill’s ribs, and Richie joins in the chant, they all do. It’s a hailstorm of sesame toast raining on Big Bill’s protesting head. “Stiff nips! Stiff nips!”

“Shut up, I’m, uh’wanna see Rich fuck!” Eddie roars, wrestling the couch cushions for the remote and stabbing the volume obscenely loud.

Moans fill the air. Rice sprays from Mike’s mouth, between his hasty fingers. Patty is laughing so hard into Stan’s shoulder Richie would be kinda worried about her, if he wasn’t so distracted by the way Eddie’s leaning forward, hand on Richie’s thigh and eyes locked to Onscreen Richie’s bare bucking hips. He remembers this part horrible and clear, preserved behind glass in his mind like the embarrassing ninth grade school photo his mom still won’t remove from the mantelpiece. Braces like train tracks and his eyes squinted up small and moleish because his mom said she wanted to see his handsome face without his glasses for once. Eddie laughed at it for five whole minutes the first time Richie brought him up to visit mom and dad as his—as his, at last, before snapping a careful picture of the photo with his phone and muttering, so cute.

It’s the noises.

“This was the day I learned women really can, uh, fake orgasms,” Richie says. He coughs. Eddie’s fingers tighten on his thigh and he looks back at Richie over his shoulder, eyes all drunk and dark and dilated like a shark’s to the backdrop of Onscreen Richie and Audra’s plastic din. Richie’s head thumps dizzily, sliding his hand secret under Eddie’s shirt to the damp small of his back, watching his neck go pink. This, now this is familiar from 90s movie nights, how sweaty they’d get, tangled together like pocketed earbuds the longer the VHS spun. Always on the same couch by unspoken agreement, kicking and left to do so by the others, like the clubhouse hammock flirting was more RichieandEddie status quo than behaviour tethered to any one location. Feeling your heartbeat in your ears and everywhere your limbs are shoved between another sapling boy-body, and the couch.

Richie can see exactly what Eddie’s thinking, in that darkness. That’s not how you sound in bed with me.

“This is revolting,” says Stan, mildly, but Richie holds up his hand like a stop sign, pulled roughly back to the present.

“Wait, wait, here comes my line!”

“Thought you said it was a non-speaking—”

The camera cuts from Onscreen Audra’s bouncing breasts to Onscreen Richie’s slack-jawed face, his ill-conceived soul patch. He was asked to remove his glasses for the scene, he remembers, and was glad of it, feeling useless and young and stupid and exposed enough already just by virtue of needing the money, he didn’t need to see this perfectly nice and reasonable actress pity him for not even knowing how to pretend at being with a woman. Onscreen Richie tilts his chin up, and Bill’s entire rec room holds its breath. There will be bruises on Richie’s thigh tomorrow.

A grunt, a groan. An unsubtle trumpet fanfare musical cue on the soundtrack, but hey, neither of them ever claimed Bongo Smugglers was a masterpiece. “¡Ay, chihuahua!”

Richie throws his arms up in triumph. “All my own improv, folks! And they kept it in the final cut!”

Eruption. He’s pelted with howls of disgust and prawn crackers. Eddie grabs one of his arms and just shakes him, ragdolls Richie’s laughing body around until he tips over and sprawls into Eddie’s lap, shielded from assault. Eddie chews his insistent teeth into Richie’s shoulder, and finally, the scene ends with Onscreen Richie leaping a naked escape from Onscreen Audra’s balcony.

“Worst,” Eddie mumbles against Richie’s nape. “Worst thing’ve ever seening m’life.”

He’s so drunk, sweet thing. Richie sits back up, still wheezing. He rests his cheek on Eddie’s shoulder and gazes starrily up at his plastered little face. Steel-cut jaw softened with laughter and stubble, un-gelled hair curling around like a chestnut lamb’s. “Worst ever-ever?”

“No,” Eddie says plainly, and that’s true, “but it’s up there. Woulda rented the shit out of this at Blockbuster.”

Richie flings his leg over Eddie’s knees, kicking Bill in the process. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, gathering up all Richie’s loose ends in a big circling cuddle. “Every week. Woulda worn it out. Broke the disc.”

“Got your ‘Lil ‘Busters membership card revoked for being a creep.”

“Worth it.”

“Aw, Eddie-baby.”

“Would you two stop, you’re making the rest of us look bad,” Bev says, smiling fondly. The movie’s moved on, and none of them are really paying attention now that the main event’s over, but everyone’s still coming down, dismounting from belly-laughter and landing ankle-deep in giggles. “That was inspired.”

“He made me laugh so hard on that take,” Audra sighs, leaning against Bill. “I remember thinking, shame he’s a closet-case. I always knew you were a good guy under all that fake stand-up.” She rolls her head back on her neck to look at Richie, upside down. “D’you remember right after, too?”

“Ah,” says Richie, tensing up. Eddie must feel it, because he makes a lowing noise of concern and turns the volume down.

“What you did to those guys?”

“Ahaha, uh.” Richie struggles to sit upright with hot embarrassment tugging at his stomach. “They don’t need to—Audra, it’s not, anyone would’ve done the same—”

“No, actually, you were the only one who ever did,” Audra says, sharp-eyed, and Richie remembers that too. How much surer and in control of herself she was than him, even back then, when they were both just simple bottom-feeders on L.A.’s sludgy floor.

“What happened?” Patty asks. They’re all looking. Richie stares at the wall beside the TV’s garish over-saturation, scratches at the back of his neck, until Eddie takes his hand softly back to hold in his.

“I was pretty much always the only woman on set,” Audra explains. “Par for the course on a movie like that, it was whatever. It’s nothing like real sex, obviously, you have to stop and wait for lighting changes, new set-ups and stuff, you’re surrounded by crew. But you’re the only ones naked, and pretending to fuck, right? It can be a little.” She pulls a face, tilts her palm back and forth. “Degrading.”

Richie snorts, humorlessly.

“Anyway, that scene wrapped and they called cut, and a few of the guys in the crew said some stuff. About me. The director ignored it, the producer ignored it. I was used to it,” Audra says. Richie can see the edge of Bill’s jaw clench and re-clench like a fist as he watches his wife speak. Audra smiles widely, then, and jerks a thumb at Richie. “But this guy?”

They’re grinning, they’re all grinning, because they know him. Richie squirms under it. He can feel blood pounding behind his ears, across the surface of his scalp in pulsing waves of embarrassed heat, because it’s one thing to spend your life running your big fat Trashmouth to distract the bullies’ attention onto you, but it’s another for people to treat you like some kinda hero for it. Like it’s not just something friends do.

Bev’s eyes go all emerald-shiny with delight, like the quarry in sunlight. She covers her mouth. “Oh, Richie.”

“Knocked the first one out cold,” Audra crows. “You tried your best after that. It was three against one and he had a black eye before the rest of us could separate them, but he had the element of surprise at first. I mean, he flew at them, if you can imagine it—you’re what, six-one, six-two?”

Eddie’s trembling ever-so-slightly against him. Richie screws his eyes shut. “Six-two.”

“No wonder the asshole shit himself, you came at him all six-foot-two naked inches, pissed as hell, with a massive—”

“Alright!” Richie yelps, because if there’s anything more embarrassing than his brief Bongo Smugglers cameo, it’s the fact that he left set that day with a black eye and no money. Who cares. His closest friends are alive and they’re cheering, and Eddie is shoving himself into Richie’s lap just like it’s movie night in 1991 but with 100% more enthusiastic frenching, seating his drunk ass in Richie’s startled hands and hissing god, you’re such a crazy dumbass, I love you so much, Richie, even back then with that soul-patch I’d have loved you so much, god, sexy, Rich, wanna see you with a black eye, can I give you one, can you give me one, Richie, I’m gonna fuck you so good for this later, ay chihuahua—!

#long post #once again i did not mean to write over 2k about fake sex comedy Bongo Smugglers (2002) when i started answering this message #reddie #ficlet #bongo smugglers

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