#this boy is so romanticized when it comes
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ੈ✩‧₊˚ CRASH LANDING (LN4)
pairing: lando norris x f!reader
summary: lando accidentally hits a stranger with his car — the internet can’t stop referring to it as a meet cute. (un)fortunately for lando, mclaren agree.
genre: comedy, fluffy
authors note: a continuation of the ending to beached! you don’t need to have read that to understand this, however it will give some insight to the mclaren matchmaker jokes <3 also in light of that, this is set a few races in the future! *oscarsgf user refers to the character in beached!
*faceclaim: keeahwah on ig (but please imagine her as you see fit!)
landonorris posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚
tmz posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚
landonorris posted tweets ੈ✩‧₊˚
lando’s texts with y/n ੈ✩‧₊˚
landonorris just posted ੈ✩‧₊˚
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landonorris practicing safe driving
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user you are so unserious sir
user SOOOO IS THAT THE GIRL HE HIT BC
user no clue but she’s CUTE
oscarpiastri @/fia look here
landonorris i will literally remind your girlfriend of your murder attempts when you first met
user it’s giving meet cute
user i’d read a fic on it
yourusername you literally drove off BEFORE I WAS EVEN IN THE CAR
landonorris IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I WAS DISTRACTED
user ASSUMING THIS IS HER???
user @/user CLICKING ON HER ACCOUNT IT DEFINITELY IS
yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by bestfriend, landonorris and 3,907 others
yourusername monaco recap🇲🇨 successfully didn’t get hit by too many cars!
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user AS IF LANDO HIT THE HOTTEST PERSON IVE EVER SEEN
user nah this is actually a full meet cute i’m sorry this is the shit you see in romcoms
bestfriend still can’t believe you didn’t take compensation but accepted a lunch date instead
yourusername can you blame me
user @/yourusername oh girl no one can you are so real for that
friend1 wait till everyone finds out you’re only there for another 4 days
user WHAT. i can’t have them separated already😶
user parasocial relationship with lando ended y/n is my new idol now
twitter reacts ੈ✩‧₊˚
yourusername just posted stories ੈ✩‧₊˚
[captions:
photo 1: lando paid for me to get my nails done !!!
photo 2: :D
photo 3: ur all romanticizing my life rn but this is my view in a fancy ass restaurant]
texts with your best friend ੈ✩‧₊˚
yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by landonorris and 11,276 others
yourusername final days in heaven. i’ll miss so much about this place
👤 tagged bestfriend, landonorris
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user wait she doesn’t live in monaco?? she’s leaving??? just after i’ve gotten attached to her and lando???
bestfriend please come back to visit asap i cannot go too long without my y/n cuddles
landonorris seconded
user um lando sir,,, seconded the whole thing? cuddles included?
user this cannot be the end of the meet cute i refuse to
landonorris just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by oscarpiastri and 286,425 others
landonorris safe to say i’ve had a pretty good break between races
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user a whole post dedicated to her with THAT caption? oh yep they’re whipped
user please tell me y’all are going to stay in contact?
user my heart is shattering already
mclaren 🧡
user MCLAREN PLEASE YOU’VE DONE IT ONCE BEFORE
texts with lando ੈ✩‧₊˚
mclaren interview ੈ✩‧₊˚
[transcript:
o: safe to say you’ve had a pretty interesting break before this race
l: hey let me remind you what happened for you over winter break!
o: okay but i didn’t literally hit my girlfriend with my car!
l: oh so you finally asked her out officially?
o: stop deflecting!
l: okay okay! yeah safe to say i had a nice time. always need a bit of a change in life!
o: so how are things going now?
l: (awkwardly) well you know how it’s… yeah
o: ah i get it. quite literally been there done that got the t shirt. but hey you did say all that when i got my big moment about mclaren—
l: no no no don’t give them any ideas! they’re listening!]
mclaren just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by 203,467 people
mclaren the boys are back! don’t forget to check out the new interview on our channel where lando and oscar talk all things hopes for the second half of the season, workouts and… girls?
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user mclaren. mclaren look at me. you know what you have to do
mclaren 👀
user when oscar asked him about y/n… i wanted to cry he looked so sad are things over between them?
oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri you’re such a gossip
oscarpiastri you love me for it
oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri you know what i’m thinking?
oscarpiastri @/oscarsgf plotting?
oscarsgf @/oscarpiastri plotting!
user what on earth is going on…
yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by oscarsgf and 29,481 others
yourusername lately :)
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user you are so ! gorgeous !
user i can see why lando is obsessed
user speaking of… where is our favorite brit in the likes☹️
oscarsgf pretty girl!!!
yourusername oh?!? thank u cutie!!!
user ^ oh their plotting is in progress???
mclaren you’d look good in orange👀🧡
landonorris posted a tweet ੈ✩‧₊˚
an email from mclaren ੈ✩‧₊˚
yourusername just posted stories ੈ✩‧₊˚
mclaren just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by 287,456 people
mclaren it’s race day🫡
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user WHO IS THE GIRL
user IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS
user PLEASE TELL ME THATS Y/N
user LOOK AT HER STORIES ITS DEFINITELY HER
user SOMEONE WHO IS THERE KEEP US UPDATED PLEASE
user just posted a thread ੈ✩‧₊˚
yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri and 106,544 others
yourusername i don’t know guys, do you think he’s cute?
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user OH MY GOD FINALLY
landonorris i will hit you with my car again
yourusername is that a challenge mr. norris?
landonorris @/yourusername oh you better run fast
yourusername @/landonorris well duh cause you don’t know how to do the speed limit
user i love them. i love them so much.
oscarsgf omg can we force the boys to do mclaren double dates
landonorris leave this comment section now
yourusername @/landonorris too late we’re already texting
landonorris just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
liked by yourusername, mclaren and 300,091 others
landonorris we are successful victims of mclarens matchmaking services
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user THEYVE DONE IT AGAINNN
user new fav couple fr
oscarpiastri oh how quickly you all forget me
user @/oscarpiastri WE COULD NEVER
user clearly i need to work for mclaren to get a cute gf
oscarpiastri @/oscarsgf is the second photo giving you flashbacks as well
oscarsgf they’re stealing our thing
yourusername thank you for posting the nice park date photo of me
landonorris well in all the others you’re mid cartwheel
mclaren glad to be of service🧡 anyone else? @/patriciooward how are you doing?
landonorris i’m gonna stop you right there
———————
a/n: WELL. hello friends. i said i wasn’t gonna post a one shot for a while, then this happened. i just hope its up to standard! i’m a little rusty in my writing considering everything!
in regards to new works, gonna be working on getting my wips out soon, and maybe popping some new smaus out at the same time as they’re easy and quick-ish for me to work on considering everything going on! do forgive me if i do some random family orientated stuff — pregnancy hormones are giving me baby fever for everything (is it still baby fever if you’re having a baby?)
let me know your thoughts in the comments/reblogs/asks — i’ve missed talking to you all sm! i have anon emojis available if people wanna chat too🤍
for the first time in a very long time,,, love, giselle xx
taglist (found here): @idkiwantchocolatee @vellicora @alessioayla @bborra @crimeshowjunkie @minkyungseokie @paolexsstuff @celestialpato @champagnelovers101 @loxbbg @hobiismyhopeu @tsukishitm-a @moonypixel @champagneproblems17 @ironmaiden1313 @lqvesoph @sunflower-golden-vol6 @six-call @skatingiswalkingincursive @peqch-pie @m0cha-bunny @woozarts @he6rtshaker @iluvvmeeee @goldenalbon @izzy-marvel @lucyysthings @lichterfee @tallrock35 @treehouse-house @iloveyou3000morgan @scopeiguess @amaranthineghost @gwginnyweasley @hetfieldd @sweetbabygirlsworld @wittywhispers @dark-night-sky-99 @namgification @casperlikej @marshmummy @geniusalpaca
tags for this post: @the-untamed-soul @itsprashimusic @purplephantomwolf @jasminesacademia
#f1 x reader#f1#lando norris#lando norris x reader#lando norris au#lando norris imagine#mclaren#lando norris blurb#lando norris smau#lando norris scenario#lando norris one shot
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TW: noncon, bullying, angst, unwanted pregnancy
fem reader
You were a real ugly duckling story when you were young. Pushed around and bullied for nothing, then drooled after the moment you grew tits. Kids are so quick to change at that age. You started hating them for it early on.
You’d keep to yourself most of the time after switching schools—wanting none of the previous to follow you. Still, you’d attend a party or two when you felt like drinking for free. You’d watch the boys act like fools and the girls act like whores with eyes lazy and drunken. But you couldn’t say you weren’t one of them—in your little black dress reaching just beneath the curve of your ass, low in the dip between your tits.
None of you should have been drinking. You were all still too young for any of it, and none of you knew how to hold yourselves. But a part of your angsty heart romanticized it when you were puking up your stomach in the bathroom—both arms resting on the toilet seat with your head lying cheek-down against the soft and sticky flesh.
You still remember the smell and how you’d imagined the bacteria cling to your sweaty skin like a coat of grime. Something about it was so movie-esque, you couldn’t help but feel like the self-destructive lead in some bad teen drama.
A rude banging on the door had taken you away from the thought—a boy.
“Oi! Open up—need’a piss!” he’d yelled. Audibly drunk. Not that you judged him with what you’d poured down your throat now in the toilet bowl—just clear spirits with a few suds of spit.
You sighed, lifting your head with a soft blink. Getting up slowly, you’d flushed your vomit and pulled your dress back down before sauntering over to the locked door. You’d twisted the key, and the guy behind it had barged in before you’d even opened it up. Pushing past you, he had his dick out and aimed at the bowl with a heavy groan with you still in the room, throwing his head back in acute relief.
Suppose you’d been just as drunk as he was, looking at him while he took a piss—no, rather… you were a little preemptive because of the shock.
It was him. The reason you switched schools.
The memories leave you cold as a corpse as they flood you.
You had such a big girly crush on him back when you were kids. You were so embarrassing—following him around with pink love letters and chocolate, practicing writing a thousand Mr. and Mrs. in all your notebooks.
He was your Prince Charming. You thought he was just the coolest, smartest, most handsome boy you’d ever met, and dreaming of being his girlfriend made you kick your feet and scream into your pillow.
But then that dream kicked you in the stomach.
Turned out, he found you dumb and annoying. Actually, he found all girls dumb and annoying, but youespecially—following him around like a lost puppy, being so pathetic it made him cringe at the sight of you, staring at him always like you were expecting him to pull the sun down and gift it to you. You were a fuckingplague.
And he’d made sure to spread that sentiment.
Soon, you’d become a social piranha—no one dared stay your friend much longer. You were an outcast—a loser—laughed at when walking the hallways, and no stranger to a half-empty milk carton being thrown your way—tripped and pushed and hair-pulled—people would steal your things or throw them in the pond or even try flushing them down the toilets. The only safe place became behind the locks in the bathroom stalls, but even there, it was hard to find peace with all the things people would write on the walls about you—the same nasty things written on your locker and desk and internet…
The hopeless romantic within you died—and all your fantasies about Prince Charming did the same.
Bumping into him at that party after changing schools was only a twist of fate, as though making a cruel joke.
“What?” he’d bit out, his head lazily slanted sideways to give you a look, but then his eyebrow lifted in late recognition you’d wished hadn’t come. “Tch—why, if it isn’t little miss love hearts.”
He’d shaken off and zipped himself back up—didn’t bother flushing or washing his hands. Instead, he’d gone straight to you, and you’d stood there—still—eyes wider than they’d been for a long time. You’d have been more surprised he even remembered you, but in the oncoming of dread, you were a little too numb to feel much of anything except slightly hung up.
“Speechless, huh? Still crushin’ on me?” he’d drawled awfully with a sloppy grin, resting his weighty body with a hand on the doorframe, shadowing you as you stood on the threshold.
You hadn’t been the only one who’d grown up quickly. He was taller, bigger, stronger. In a tight black tee, you’d spotted the rich lines of his muscles. It made him look a little older than kids your age should. But you suppose it was the same with you with your push-up bras and G-strings and high-heels and smokey eyes.
“Barely recognized yah—lookin’ a little better since droppin’ out—or d’yah switch to another crummy school?” His hand had reached out, and your breath had stilled—throat tightening to a choke as he fiddled with a lock of your hair. He’d let out a laugh, entirely dismissive of the trepidation you’d felt stuck. “Guess that’s my fault huh? Since breakin’ your wittle heart~”
You’d wanted to say something snide, walk away casually once and for all. But more than that, you’d wanted to run. You wish you had. But none of the sorts happened. You’d just ended up standing there silently as if someone were capturing the look of pure anxiety in a portrait.
“Tch—since you’ve already had yer wet dreams come true, seein’ my dick—maybe you’d like to touch it too, hm?”
With a breathy hitch in your voice, you only managed to whisper out a weak, “No thanks.” Turning on your heels with wobbly knees with a single blaring thought on repeat in your head—just get out of there, just get out of there, just get out.
You wish you had, but fate had other plans for you that night.
“Oi.” His callused palm had wrapped itself around your arm and stopped you dead in your tracks. “Fuck’s that about, huh?”
Pushed up against the spine of the doorframe, you’d winced but felt too stunted to do much else. “Let go.”
“Tch—that’s not how it works.” He’d snickered again, breath soaked with beer and vodka and smoke while it wafted across your face in the damp heat of his words. “Dress like an open invitation—you can’t turn down the ones who come knockin’, slut.”
You shudder when your memories of the next events start playing. You’d suppressed it for years, but seeing his face and hearing his voice brought it all back. Standing before you, years later, on your doorstep, rubbing his hands together nervously while searching for the right words to say.
“Uhm…” He swallowed thickly. “Don’t—uhm—know if you remember me.” That’s a stupid thing to say. He scolded himself but stayed committed to it anyway. “It’s me… from middle school.”
He made himself cringe—barely able to look you in the eye where you stood, unreadable expression donning your face. He doesn’t know what compelled him to track you down again after all this time, nor what he hoped to achieve by coming here—all he knew is that in between days of endless drinking and living his best but mostly empty life, the only part of his heart that still bothered feeling something real was hung-up on his memories of you. You, who could have offered him so much more if only he’d had the balls to take it.
“I—I know this is—uhm—fucked up,” he excused himself in the same fashion a boy up for arrest would. “But I…” Swallowing thickly, he took a deep breath, hung his head, then let it go. “I did something unforgivable to you five years ago, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”
He looked up to see your features hadn’t changed.
“I’ve tried forgetting—‘cause it’s been eatin’ me up inside, but—this is fuckin’ selfish—but… I needed to let you know how sorry I—”
“Mommy! Who is it?” The boy had broken everything off. He came running with stomping steps to attack your leg, peering around it to look up at the man standing there.
“Oh! It’s just a salesman, honey,” you excused—your smile a bit too tight to be called natural as you stroked the top of the boy’s familiar hair. “Mommy will be done real soon, okay? Wait for me inside, yeah? You can watch whatever you want until I’m done.”
The boy hadn’t noticed your discomfort, too blinded by the offer.
“Really?! Score!” is all he squealed out before bolting back inside.
Old Prince Charming blinked. Once, maybe twice, maybe a dozen times rapidly. “Is that—"
“No,” you interrupted, closing the door once the man reached his hand out. Already having taken a step as though he planned on rushing after the kid, he stopped short when you placed yourself in front of the door, blocking him.
He breathed. Once, maybe twice, maybe a dozen times rapidly. “Shit—” Swallowing thickly, he combed both hands through his hair while staggering back. “It is, isn’t it?” He met the metal railing behind him with a clank. “I need to sit down—” Slipping down it until he’d dropped to the floor with a thud—still holding his head. “Fuck—”
“There’s no need for any of that,” you spat coldly. “He’s mine and wants nothing to do with you, so get lost before I call the cops.”
“That’s my son—” he objected, but he hadn’t a complete grip on the situation—voice an overwhelmed and weak excuse, something you easily stepped on and snuffed out like a spent cigarette bud.
“He’s my son.” You’d raised a strict pointer finger at his face in warning—like a sharpened knife aimed right between his wide eyes. A fierce scowl warped your face, huffing stiff breaths through a flared nose—lips in a prim line as you glowered at him in unfaltering disdain.
And his head was in such a state of turmoil that, for the first time in his life, no words could make it out on his tongue to refute it—remaining at a complete loss.
“You came here to apologize, right? Or whatever the fuck you call all that mumbling you just did,” you questioned in the gap of his silence, taking a step back while straightening yourself, looking down your nose at him—jaded with a voice just as cold—void of all emotion, as though you had none whatsoever to spare him. “Apology accepted if you go away and never show your face here again.”
And with that final sentiment, you turned your back and opened the door.
You didn’t slam it, but you might as well have.
The metal grid he sat on began eating into his flesh, and the bars behind would soon make his back ache—and still, he remained sitting there for a while. Thinking of all the ways he’d ruined your life…
As well as all the ways you were going to complete his.
BNHA – Bakugou, Dabi, Hawks
JJK – Sukuna, Geto, Gojo, Naoya, Toji
#yandere x reader#yandere#yandere x you#yandere imagines#yandere smut#yancore#smut#yandere my hero academia#yandere boku no hero academia#boku no hero academia smut#mha smut#yandere mha#yandere bnha#my hero smut#my hero academia smut#bnha smut#yandere jujutsu kaisen#yandere jjk#jujutsu kaisen smut#jjk smut#yandere boyfriend#boyfriend#boyfriend scenarios
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royal consort au brainrot
the royal consort au by @dcxdpdabbles makes me lose my mind so i have to share this so i can go to bed:
danny has his own wikipedia page though there is ongoing debate on whether they should use present tense (since he is alive) or past tense (seeing as he is engaged to the ghost king/high king of infinity realm)
some part of the social media romanticizes danny's situation as a hades and persephone or cinderella or both. you just know that some girls and boys out there are maddeningly jealous that danny manages to bag a king who is seemingly deeply in love with him.
unfortunately, he becomes a standard of beauty (twink, short, black-hair and blue eyes) because somehow rumors leak that phantom finds him the epitome of beauty. bruce is a bit worried since tim sort of fits the bill. in another city, billy batson/shazam is being teased by his adoptive siblings also for that precise reason
surprisingly, danny can be a charming speaker which people thinks it's part of why phantom fell in love with him.
bruce (and a portion of the world, including constantine) is concern since danny is still young (not sure how old he is in original prompt so i left it vague) and this whole thing; being the most popular public figure in the world and being haunted constantly by paparazzi, his joining with the ruler of the dead, the political between his home world and his future one, might damage his psyche sooner or later and bruce is trying to find a contingency plan for that.
and what's even is batman's contingency plans for this kind of situation, i don't know. im not that smart but clark, diane and constantine and the flash family will need to be there. to make sure bruce doesn't accidentally go too far.
also, this one comes like a hammer to my head but what if one day, danny feels an itchy sort of feeling in his throat but waves it off as a cold? he regrets it when barely a minute later he coughs out a palmful of blood. danny might be in outdoor place or in the justice league headquarter but the point is: everyone panics. especially once he loses consciousness.
this one can be branched off into two:
someone, either the leftover resentful giw or amanda waller, decides to poison him.
maddie innocently makes lunch for her son, after finding a new bag of spice for the meat. that spice contains blood blossom, which is deadlier for ghost (or half-ghost) if you eat it. of course, clockwork will ensure no one finds out danny is a halfa by making the machine detecting it as allergy, if a bit unsual one and danny will still live, if a bit disgruntle and so done with his half life already
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So High School
Inspired by the song "So High School" by Taylor Swift
Athlete Rafe Cameron x Scholarly Reader
Summary: He knows how to ball, you know Aristotle
Warnings: Jealousy, Dry-Humping, Fluff, Not Proofread
Word Count: 4,638
A/N: Re-upload because I wanted to add a bit of spice and a few more elements inspired by the song. And I wanted to clarify that the Rafe here is heavily inspired by Zach Maclaren
You’ve never considered yourself as a cliche. You did love to read, watch, and think about cliches, you would sigh longingly when you see the differing variations be reproduced in media. The kisses in the rain, the jocks getting with the nerds, the popular girls kissing the geeky boys. All of them were great in theory, but you could never see yourself taking part in one of them. Not until you met him. Rafe Cameron.
You’ve never had a high school romance, nothing that even resembled it. If you recall your high school days, nothing remote to a teenage romance was achieved. You went to balls without a date, only the company of your friends; no flings were made nor ambiguous relationships achieved and could be added to your trophy case. You were not even certain you had a crush— sure, you would find someone attractive, but not so much that you would look forward each day to seeing them in the halls or classroom. It sounds horrid and sad now that you say it out loud or when you share it with any of your uni friends, but you truly did not mind. You were just not destined to have a high school romance.
In truth, you preferred it that way. You’d rather avoid immature attachments. The shallow jealousy and petty fights you had witnessed over and over again. However, you were always curious about how they felt. How did it feel to look forward to going to school to see the one you liked or even loved? How did it feel to be a blushing mess just because they glanced back at you? What did it feel like to hold the person you wanted’s hand as you walked down the hall? What was it like to have your friends tease you for being so love-struck that it went straight to your heads? How does it feel to be down bad for someone while still being filled with the naivety of youth? But you suppose you don’t have to wonder at all anymore. The cliche things they say in the movies; your stomach filled with butterflies, your heart pounding hard on your chest, your skin tingling with electricity— you thought were just exaggerated reactions, romanticizing further the romances they produce, but they were right. Those are the exact things you felt with Rafe.
You never saw him coming. He was an exchange student from the States, admitted into your university’s football team. He was a few years older, but with his commitment to the sport, he was taken back a few years and started off in the second year. He was your seatmate on the third day of class of the term. He took a seat by your right and sheepishly asked you for a pen at the start of the lecture. You were set to mind your own business, lend him the pen, and focus on the lecture, but you could not help but notice him leaning closer to you, trying to copy down the notes you typed furiously on your laptop. You thought twice before you decided to be a good samaritan, shifting your laptop screen more clearly toward his view.
You tried not to get in between him and the professor as he was grilled to answer a question about Aristotle’s Poetics, the whole class’ eyes upon him as he stuttered and flailed to answer the lecturer’s question. You sighed and bit your lip, quickly typing up the answer as he was being shamed by your professor for not doing the readings. You tugged at the hem of his shirt, motioning for him to look at the screen and recite out loud the answer you had written. “Thank you,” Rafe whispered, leaning closer to you, who saved him from further embarrassment. You just nodded, but Rafe did not return to his place; he kept the rather close proximity of the both of you for the rest of the class. You just took his actions as his way of copying more of your notes.
When the class ended, you quickly gathered your things and tried to exit the lecture hall, but Rafe blocked your way. “I’m Rafe, by the way,” he introduced himself, letting out his hand for you to shake. You did, and he swore he felt electricity at your touch; you, too had felt it but mistook it for static. You quickly introduced yourself and tried to sidestep to get to your next class, but he was quick to block you again. “I just wanted to say thank you again,” Rafe said, trying to catch your eye, but it kept flying towards the door. You flash him a small and almost forced smile, “It’s just recitation. It’s no problem.” You said and finally looked him in the eyes. You felt your heart stutter at the smile that crossed his lips, and you once again mistook it for something else, anxiety, perhaps that you might be late to your next class that was all the way on the other side of the campus in a building without an elevator and your classroom conveniently placed on the top floor.
That was when you noticed that Rafe had still not let go of your hand, nor did he have the intention of letting you go too quickly. “I’m sorry, not to be rude or anything, but I really have to go to my next class,” you say, the tone of your voice a bit frantic so he’d buy into the guilt and finally let go of your hand. Rafe bit his tongue to prevent a grin from slipping his lips; you had the most melodious voice and the most adorable accent he heard while he stayed in your country. “Yeah, no problem… see you next week,” Rafe finally unblocked your path and let go of your hand, watching as you hastily walked out of the classroom, leaving him grinning at himself like a fool.
You were walking down the halls of your university the next day. Your headphones covered your ears and made you a tad oblivious to the surroundings around you. Rafe caught you by the side of his eye, and quickly ended the conversation he was having with his friends to get to you. He was calling your name, avoiding the sea of students who were venturing to their next class. Everyone’s head turned to him, their attention on him as he called for you, but you were oblivious to him. Rafe finally caught up behind you, grabbing the headband of your headphones to finally get your attention. You yelped in surprise at the sudden actions, turning behind you, ready to take the blow of your attacker, but you were only met with Rafe, who had an amused grin by our wide-eyed and startled state.
You breathe out a quiet sigh of relief when you realize it was not a complete stranger who had done that abrupt and rather rude action. You watch with a slight furrow in your brow as Rafe wears your headphones, momentarily listening to the song you were listening to. “What is this?” He asked with a confused look, “Patti Smith,” You answered as he returned to you your headphones. “Never heard of him,” Rafe shrugged, and you bit your tongue, “He’s a she,” You said and looked around the corridor only to realize that the two of you stood by the middle of it. Earning curious and even annoyed glances from other students because you and Rafe obstructed the pathway. You stepped to the side, and Rafe followed; you looked up at him in curiosity, “Did you need something?” You asked, wanting an explanation from him for startling you in the middle of the hallway.
“I…” Rafe trailed, not truly having a concrete reason for calling for you. “Uh… where are you going?” He asked instead, and you felt your brows twitch into a quick frown before you recomposed your expression. “The library,” you say, and he nods. “Come on, then,” He said, taking hold of the handle of your shoulder bag and carrying it for you. Your lips agape, not at all certain what is happening; you watch him walk a few steps forward, but he stops in his tracks and turns to you. “You might wanna lead the way; I’m kinda new here,” You bit your lip as you wanted to laugh. You nodded, and the two of you walked side by side on the way to the library.
“What’s your degree?” You asked him as you walked through the hallowed halls of your university. Rafe still carried your bag, and you could not help but notice the curious glances pointed at the two of you. “Finance,” you nodded but grew rather curious as to what he was doing in your literature class, so you then proceeded to ask him the question swirling in your mind. “Oh… I ran out of units; either I take that class or be underloaded,” he shrugged and opened the door of the library for you. “So you have no idea nor interest about what we were talking about the other day?” You asked and felt your stomach weirdly twist when he pulled out the chair for you and assisted you to sit. “Not really, no,” He said and took a seat across from you. “Thanks again, by the way, for giving me the answer,” Rafe said in gratitude once more. You flashed a quick smile and took your bag from him, taking out the readings for your other class. It took a few minutes of you reading your course material before you realized that Rafe was just sitting there, watching you. “Don’t you have any requirements to do?” You asked him, eyes locking with clear ocean blue ones. “Nope,” he shook his head, his lips popping the ‘p.’
“Then what are you doing here…?” You asked. Rafe refrained from letting his grin turn wider. He just shrugged and watched you furrow your brows; a cute little pout of confusion appeared on your lips. He was uncertain if you were truly oblivious or just pretending to be. What was supposed to be a productive day of reading and staying above your requirements turned into a day of laughing fits and jokes. You both tried to stifle your laughs caused by your random conversations and anecdotes, but it was proven impossible, resulting in both of you being ushered out of the library. “Oh god—“ You laughed as you recalled the stern look of the librarian as they pushed you and Rafe out. In other circumstances, you might have died in embarrassment for having to be escorted out of the library, but somehow, right now, you felt thrilled.
Rafe watched you as your laughs died down. His gaze studied the crinkle on your nose and the sides of your eyes, the way you would bite down on your lip to stifle them, but it would be to no avail because your melodious laughs still blessed his ears. “Do you want to go to grab lunch?” Rafe suddenly asked, and your laughs finally halted. You looked up at him, his expecting gaze on you, hopefulness in his ocean-blue eyes that you could not shatter. You smiled and nodded, your heart stuttering when he took the bag on your shoulder once more. His warm hand brushes with your skin, causing a jolt of electricity in you that you never thought could happen. You followed him out of campus, your mind in a hazy battlefield as to where this was leading.
You bit your lip as Rafe waved at you during their practice; you could barely make out his face through the obstruction of his helmet, but you would guess there was a boyish grin on his lips. It had been a week since the incident in the library, and quickly after that, you two found a deeper understanding between each other. You realize the cliche they insisted upon that said ‘you'll find love when you least expect it’ was quite true. You never expect to meet anyone like Rafe.
“There you are,” you hear your friend arrive, having him see you on the football field because he needed to brow your notes for a class. “What are you even doing here? I practically had to drag you here the last time I wanted to watch a game,” He asked in deep confusion, entirely uncharacteristic of you to be by the field. “Uhm…” you trailed, not having told him about Rafe yet. “I met someone,” You started, watching as his eyes grew wide in surprise. “A player?” He asked, and you nodded, “Which one?” He asked in great interest. You squinted your eyes and looked for Rafe’s number, not wanting to have to point. “The one from the States!? You’re dating a Yank?” He asked as if it was a scandal. “A Yank? Seriously? They’ve stopped calling Americans that for almost a century,” You said, trying not to laugh.
Rafe turned to you, surprised you were no longer alone on the benches. Instead, you were laughing along with some dude who sat a bit closer to you. It made him rather… curious. A good alternative feeling as he did not want to overstep with his emotions and admit to himself that he was quick to grow jealous. “Hey, good game, mate,” Rafe’s teammate complimented and clapped his back, and he returned the compliment, but he could not help but notice that his teammate’s gaze was flying over to you. “What is it?” Rafe asked as he removed his gloves, "Are you… with her?” He asked hesitantly, and Rafe turned to you, who was still enveloped in conversation with the man who was a stranger to him.
“Yes.” He said even though it was too soon and neither of you had a discussion about where the week of dates you two went on would lead. Rafe watched as his teammate’s brows shot up in surprise. “Do you know her?” Rafe asked, and his teammate nodded. “Yeah, I went to secondary school with her,” He said, and Rafe was in the midst of thinking another question to ask when his teammate spoke once more. “Good luck to you; the word is she has very high standards. A bit stuck up if you ask the other lads in our school.” His teammate and Rafe frowned in confusion. “What?” He asked, “Yeah. She was notorious in our school for being the girl no one could get. A lot of blokes fancied her rotten, but not once did she pay them mind. She was never in any relationships or flings, for that matter— and if I remember correctly, she did not even take a date to the balls.” Rafe’s teammate explained, his gaze flying to you, remembering how the boys at your school would always follow you around or try to get your attention, but you’ve always ignored them. “Anyway, congrats to you, I guess. Never knew her type were Yanks,” Rafe heard his teammate mutter and once again clapped his back before leaving.
You turn away from your friend as you hear Rafe approaching, flashing him your beaming smile that you only bestowed upon the most deserving of people. You’ve only known him a week, but you felt that your genuine smile was made to be pointed at him and as well be caused by him. “You ready to go?” Rafe asked, ignoring the presence of the guy who sat next to you because he knew himself, and if he acknowledged the guy next to you, his jealousy might shine through. “Uh… yeah, this is my friend, by the way,” You say as you see Rafe was a bit reserved at the moment. “Hey,” your friend greeted and stretched out his hand for Rafe to shake, “Hey,” he muttered and barely turned to your friend. There was a pause of steely, awkward silence that you were not certain the cause of. “I’m gonna go… thanks for the notes,” Your friend quickly excused himself, and you turned to Rafe. “Are you okay?” You asked, and you heard him let out a grieved exhale. “Uh, yeah, just tired,” he fibbed, not wanting to bring out the subject of his jealousy that was quick to stew.
“Oh, that’s a pity. My friend you’ve just met— he and his boyfriend are throwing a party tonight and I was gonna ask you if you wanted to come. But if you need to rest, that’s completely fine,” You said and watched as his lips agape slightly, “He… he has a boyfriend?” He asked slowly, realizing his jealousy was completely out of place. “Erm, yeah, why?” You asked and found it odd how the almost grumpy expression on his face quickly turned into a smile. “Nothing. Of course I’ll come with you to the party,” Rafe smiled and draped his arm around your shoulder as you two walked off the stands.
You came to the party with the thought that perhaps you could help Rafe mingle with the others in your year. He could find other friends in this foreign land, but as cliche as it was, you two were lost in each other. Everything faded, and all the two of you could focus on was each other. It was later in the night when you and Rafe’s close proximity was interrupted by your friend. “Come on, we’re going to play spin the bottle,” Your friend pulled at you, who reluctantly stood and stepped away from Rafe. “Spin the bottle? Isn’t that a bit juvenile?” You asked as you were forced to sit on the floor; Rafe was being led by your friend’s significant other to sit across from you. He flashed you his charming smile. You bit your tongue to not let the giddiness in you shine through.
“Rules first,” Your friend replied. “As always, whoever the bottle lands to, you must kiss that person, but if you do not want to, you can play for truth or dare. Your friend says, and all in the circle nod. “Okay then. Who goes first?” Rafe asked, and you turned to your friend, “Well, seeing you are the guest here in our lovely land, you get the honor to go first,” Rafe shrugged and smirked, leaning forward to spin the bottle and prayed that it would land on you, it didn’t. You turned to where the bottle pointed to a girl from your secondary school who licked her lips and looked positively excited at the prospect of kissing Rafe. You bit your lip and sat quietly in your seat, making sure that your face was rid of any reaction.
Rafe warily shifted his gaze between you and the girl, “I’ll do a truth,” he announced and saw from the corner of his eyes as the strange girl pouted and her shoulders deflated in rejection. “A truth it is,” Your friend said; there was a quick silence whilst he thought of a question. “Why did you choose truth?” They asked Rafe, and you fiddled with your fingers, raising your gaze towards the boy you had been seeing for the past week but had no label to call him. “Just… just didn’t want a kiss,” He shrugged, his gaze flying to you, who quickly avoided his. “Okay then, next,” Your friend said, and you waited for your turn, already knowing in yourself you’d skip the kiss part if it did not land on Rafe.
“Truth or dare?” You were asked and paused for a moment. Usually, you would quickly pick ‘truth’, not having the nerves to choose the other option, but somehow, right now, you were leaning towards picking ‘dare’, so that is what you had done. You hear ‘oohs’ from your friends, surprised by your boldness. “Dare, then. Okay… I dare you to kiss the person you fancy in this circle the most,” Someone cruelly said, and your eyes widened, cheeks blooming with color as you quickly regretted your choice. “No! I chose ‘dare’ to skip the kissing part! That’s unfair,” You countered, but they only shrugged and replied with “Rules are rules,”
You pursed your lips and looked around the circle. You already knew who you wanted to kiss, but you lacked the courage to do so. “Okay, everyone, close your eyes, and you pick who you want to kiss,” Your friend decided, showing you kindness, for he knew that the situation was quite too much for you. Rafe chewed on his cheeks, heart beating loudly in his chest, praying to anyone who would hear that you would choose him.
You took a deep breath and glanced as everyone had their eyes closed. You gathered whatever courage and nerve you had to stand from your seat and lean closer to Rafe. Admiring his handsome face for a moment before placing a quick, chaste kiss at the corner of his lips. You feel him twitch in surprise, and you quickly return to your seat as he opens his ocean-blue eyes. His lips were agape in shock, and he was being tugged into a wide smile that showcased his dimples. His eyes crinkled as he beamed at you, filled with romantic giddiness. The game went through a few more rounds until everyone eventually got bored, and you and Rafe were left in each other’s company once more.
The music was blaring; the chatter was loud, but not a single noise was heard by the two of you as you had been enveloped in conversation. You quickly grew entranced by how random your topics were. It could be a deep, philosophical engagement, one where you were both perplexed and engrossed by the subject, then the next, you were clutching your stomach because you were laughing so hard at one of his jokes.
“Where’d everybody go?” Rafe suddenly asked as he reluctantly rested his gaze on anything else other than you. Your lips agape as you saw the flat was cleared out, the remnants of the party and the mess it caused still present but not those who had caused it. You let out a bubbling laugh as you two were now the only ones present; not even the hosts of the party could be accounted for. “We should probably go home, huh,” You say, your eyes shifting between Rafe’s gaze and the floor that was riddled with confetti and spilled drinks. “Yeah, come on, I’ll walk you home,” He said as he stood, reaching out his hand for you to take as he assisted you to stand.
“Rafe,” You called as you two stood by the entrance of your flat. “Yes, pretty girl?” He asked with a grin, and you bit your lip to hinder yourself from grinning like a lovestruck fool. You took a deep breath before you spoke, “Not to sound so high school, but I… I really like you,” You confessed. You did not know how to relay how you felt seeing he was the first one to spur this type of giddiness in you. You gazed up at him, watching as his eyes twinkled with mirth and the smile on his lips widened. You held your breath as he leaned in and kissed your lips. It was a chaste kiss, just like the one earlier, but it was still capable of leaving you both grinning.
Your eyes alight with newfound affection as you and he stood below the pale moonlight. You sighed happily as Rafe placed his warm hand on your cheek, caressing your skin before ultimately leaning in to kiss you once more. A different, more fervent, and deeper kind of kiss than the first one shared. You feel your heart flutter and your body turn warm as his arms wrap around your waist, pulling you flush towards him. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him downwards to your height, feeling him smirk against your lips.
When you parted for air, you bit your lip as a wide, cheek-aching smile spread upon it. “I think like you more,” He said against your lips. You knew it was a line, a cheesy one at that, but your stomach flipped in violent delight, and you stood on your toes to feel his lips against yours again. “Do… do you wanna go in?” You asked him as your lips parted again, your mind spinning from the way he kissed you and pulled on your waist. “Yes,” he said a bit too eagerly, the tips of his ears growing red a he realized the slight desperation in his voice, but you simply found it endearing.
When in the privacy of your flat, you grinned against Rafe’s lips as he gently pushed you against the wall, his large frame flushed against yours. Your fingers reached to run themselves through his hair as his hands on your waist strayed hesitantly higher. “You sighed as his lips moved to place kisses on your neck, “I hope you know I didn’t offer to walk you home for this,” Rafe sighed against your neck, breathing deeply your scent as his need for you bulged painfully in his jeans. “I know,” You smiled and whimpered as you felt him nip your skin.
You were not certain if you should warn him of the truth that you’ve never done anything such as this and that you have never reached this level of intimacy with anyone. But you swallowed the words as you feared you would run him away. You gasped as Rafe effortlessly hoisted you on his waist. Your mind spun as he deeply kissed you and led you to your sofa, him sitting on the cushion and you straddling his waist. You panted as you felt his need against your core.
Rafe swallowed thickly as he gazed at you, your lips swollen and eyes filled with need for him. “I… I don’t have protection,” He sheepishly, regrettably said, and you could blink. “Oh,” Was all you could say, uncertain if you should move from the position you both were in even though your body screamed for you to stay put. “I’m sorry, I—“ He started to speak, and you shook your head, “No, don’t be,” You rested your palm on his chest and felt the erratic beating of his heart, a rhythm that matched yours. Rafe took in a deep breath and lowered his gaze as if in shame; you chewed on your lip and spoke. “Maybe uhm… maybe we could do something else?”
“Like what?” He asked hesitantly; you couldn’t really verbalize your intent, so instead, you showed it to him. Rafe’s jaw slacked as you started to grind your hips, your core rubbing against his length. You hid your face in the crook of his neck and placed small kisses on his skin as you tried to stifle your sighs of pleasure.
Rafe’s hands found home at your rear, guiding and aiding your movements. Rafe let out a hiss as he felt himself quickly be led to climax. You finally vocalized your moans as you, too, were on the precipice of your peak; your hand moved to grip Rafe’s dark blonde locks as you came, calling his name. Rafe moved to take your face into his hands and intertwine your lips as he came undone, his seed spilling out in his trousers. He never thought he could come undone so harshly with ought actually being touched by someone.
When your lips parted, and the hazy want in you subsided, you grinned widely at Rafe, who let out an amused breath. The both of you stayed silent, but Rafe’s thoughts screamed loudly in his head. Would it be cliché of him to say that he had fallen so quickly? That seeing you in the lecture hall was love at first sight, and now, even only knowing you for only a short time, he knew you were the one.
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hii dollface, would u write smtg abt hotch being jealous?
like he's trying to hide it from making the team notices when he saw some officer flirting with r?
no pressure in writing, lovey. change it however u want or ignore it if u dont feel like writing it (i completely understands u 🤍)
my love this has lived in my brain so relentlessly <3 i hope you love it!!!! thank you for requesting!! wc: 1.7k
It is incredibly easy to like her.
She’s charismatic in a way that’s almost universally appealing, and he’s memorized the shape of her wide grin. She smiles with her whole face, and Aaron hasn’t really spent too much time trying to make people smile. He’s had success in some ways, but when she smiles at him there’s something in his chest that burns in achingly lovely way.
At first, he had assumed her kindness was a way to win him over. In her first week, she had noticed there was a rip in his tie (which he’s not sure how could even happen) and she’d whipped out a pocket sewing kit, repairing it.
He tries not to think about the fact that she’s beautiful. She is, though, in spirit and in appearance. He’s an expert in controlled presentation, but to some extent she must know that’s he’s fond of her.
When they’d first met (which he can still picture in his minds’ eye- her oversized sweater tucked into her tailored pants, the purple lipstick adorning her beautiful smile) he’d tried to keep his distance. It’s easy to romanticize her, and being her friend felt a little impossible when seeing her as more felt so inevitable.
This plan did not go well, and Aaron had officially tossed it when one day, the babysitter for Jack fell through when he was halfway around the world. She’d picked him up from school and tended to him, and Aaron had come home to a blanket fort on his kitchen floor, and a happy little boy who wanted her to come over every day.
So it's a little hard to ignore how much he adores her.
She doesn’t normally want to come out to the scene and they usually don’t require it, but they’re going out to a place she spent most of her twenties, and she knew people in the local PD, so Aaron had asked her to come.
She’d done so without complaint, although he knows she doesn’t sleep well on the jet. No one knows where the nicer pillows and blankets came from, and Aaron would prefer it that way.
Anyway.
The bullpen of this department is chaotic and a certain caretaking is living at the edge of Aaron’s consciousness, a protective desire to keep her from the loudness and violence that she’s typically protected from.
He’s still thinking this, when he hears her voice over the chaotic hum of the department.
“Oh my god, Logan!”
Her voice is joyful, and when Aaron turns to see who she’s looking at, it’s an agent. He can tell that he’s not a police officer for many reasons- the fact that he’s got a long, shaggy haircut and a 5 o clock shadow and a leather jacket on his shoulders. The local police would be too strict, and he must be some kind of different authority to be allowed to be here.
He hears the stranger call her name back, and they hug.
It’s a quick thing, but imbued with deep fondness. Aaron’s not sure he’s ever hugged her for more than a second- just a congratulations when his commendation came in. She’d smelled like roses.
Now, she’s hugging Logan.
“Hotch,” she says, a smile still in her voice, “This is Logan! We went to graduate school together. He’s brilliant, I can’t believe he’s down here.”
Her voice is seeped in admiration, and Aaron feels an ugly amount of what can only be described as jealousy.
“Great to meet you. You’re the unit chief, yeah?”
“SSA Aaron Hotchner,” he offers the man a curt nod, “Have you met the team?”
He goes through the motions of introducing him to the team- he greets Reid with a warm smile and tells him that he’s read his papers. Logan compliments Emily’s shirt, and Morgan’s watch.
He’s incredibly charismatic.
Is Aaron charismatic? He doesn’t think so. His team, who probably adore him as much as anyone could, still note that he can be harsh, prickly. He never smiles, he knows. He lacks expressiveness. Logan is all fluid movement and easy conversation, and when he takes the jacket off, Aaron sees a great deal of tattoos on his forearm, his sweater sleeves slid up.
He’d smile for her.
What should be a good thing, but hurts- Logan is an excellent consultant profiler. He’s thoughtful and helpful and she has an easy rapport with him. Aaron- he’s so bad at talking to women.
She makes Aaron feel like he’s good at it though. When they drive together, the conversation is easy and feels nice. It’s like sunbathing, basking in the light of her attention and intention.
With the help of the man that Aaron has decided he hates, the case is finished up quickly.
He can’t shake the thought they’ve probably dated. It’s not his business- this crush, although this word feels inadequate for the intensity of the way she makes him feel. It’s a private thing he’s never going to act on- he’s older and her superior, and besides- 9 stab wounds and a lifetime worth of issues is a million times less appealing than someone like Logan. Young, exuberant probably not too afraid to ask for what he wants.
“Drink tonight?” Logan asks the team, and a chorus of yes’s and please’s echo through the emptying bullpen.
“Raincheck,” she says to Logan, “I’ll see you next time I’m in town, yeah?” She beams at him, hugging him in a quick-but-too-long-for-Aaron’s-taste motion, and the string in Aaron’s chest that feels like it’s been pulled all week threatens to pull him under.
After everyone files out, she offers to help him fill out paperwork in his office. It’s just like her, so kind and sweet. Spending her free time filling out reports to make his workload go easier.
About a half hour of amenable silence passes, before Aaron chooses to speak.
“So, you and Logan.”
“He’s great, right?”
Regrettably, Aaron agrees.
“He seems very kind.”
“Yeah, he and his fiancee are really fun. They travel all over, kite-board and do tons of adventure stuff, he’s pretty awesome.”
A moment passes.
It’s like a balloon losing air, the feeling of relief taking the place of panic.
“I thought you two were romantically involved.” He doesn’t know how to verbalize things casually. If he lets it up, he might do something dangerous like tell her that he wants to be someone who romances her, wants to be the person who kisses her after dates and holds an umbrella over her head when she’s caught in the rain. He wants to be what she comes homes to, and it’s a confession living in the back of his throat, threatening to escape at every moment.
She sucks in a harsh breath, and he wonders if it’s a misstep to have told her- it’s not a confession, really. It sounds like one though- why would he care? What makes it his business?
“Not that that’s relevant to me,” he stammers, “You’re free to engage with whoever you’d like-“
“I know, Hotch.” She doesn’t grace him with his first name, but her voice is fond and warm, her doe eyes meeting his. He likes it, he decides.
“I’m not seeing him,” she continues, her body shifting to face him, “I think he’s a little…casual for me.”
He thinks of Logan’s leather jacket and unshaven face, rugged appearance and compares it to how he presents himself- clean cut and sharp lines, his suits tailed to fit him like a glove.
“You prefer something a little more…dignified?” He hears himself say with more confidence then he feels- her implication is clear, but he wonders if he’s mishearing it.
She tips her head back and he hears her lovely laugh ring through the air like something sacred, and he waits to hear her response.
“I don’t know, I just know that I’ve been liking this guy for a while,” she muses, looking down at her fingernails, “But he hasn’t seemed to pick up on any of my hints.”
On one of his braver days, he’d told her that he liked that purple lipstick. He hasn’t seen her without it since. She’d always been so kind to everyone that it was hard to notice when her treatment towards him was special, but he thinks it might be. How quick she offers to help with Jack- gives away a Saturday evening to spend with him, even though she sees too much of his face at work.
Her friend from grad school offered to get drinks, and she’s here, telling him what she looks for in a guy.
He tries to be logical about the whole thing, but it’s a bit hard- she’s funny and warm and Aaron loves being around her- loves her company enough to maybe ask for more of it.
“If this ‘guy’ did like you,” he murmurs, intentionally not meeting her gaze, the precision of which is boring a hole into the side of his head, “How would he go about that?”
He’s not sure what the point of being coy is now, but he can’t seem to stop. He does look down to her and meet her eyes.
“I think I’d probably corner him,” she says breathlessly. They’re quite close together, now. He wonders if she likes his aftershave. She tugs a hundred through her hair, a nervous but incredibly attractive gesture, “Y’know, if everyone we worked with went to get drinks, and it was just us. If he was amenable to that.”
“If he was amenable to that.”
A rush of emotion licks up his spine- it’s fun, flirting with her. The creep of warmth on her cheek, how her fingers are brushing hers.
“I think he might be.”
Purple lipstick, rose perfume mixing with the scent of expensive aftershave- he thinks he might be able to kiss her, now. He’s never been good at knowing when to take the jump, but this is something he can do. He can let her know that he wants it.
She reads him well enough, it turns out, and she kisses him. It’s a surprise and he is so rusty at this and yet- his hand stand on the small of her back, pulling her in and he can feel her lovely smile against him. She’s warm and joyful and she’d kissed him, and all he could do was lean in-
“I think he might be too.” She says, significantly less color on her lips, and more on his, he imagines.
She doesn’t have to wonder, though. When Aaron kisses her again, he decides- he will make her incredibly certain of his affections.
#aaron hotchner#aaron hotchner x reader#aaron hotchner fanfiction#aaron hotchner x you#aaron hotchner x y/n#aaron hotchner fanfic#aaron hotchner one shot#aaron hotchner fic#aaron hotchner oneshot#aaron hotchner imagine#aaron hotchner imagines#aaron hotchner blurb#aaron hotchner blurbs#aaron hotch hotchner#aaron hotch x reader#aaron hotch imagine#aaron hotch fanfiction#aaron hotch x you#aaron hotch fluff#aaron hotchner fluff#aaron hotch fic#hotch#hotch x reader#hotch x you#aaron hotchner x fem!reader#ssa aaron hotchner#agent hotchner#criminal minds#criminal minds fic
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Grishaverse/Ketterdam dashboard simulator
🪙 Barrelrat1877 follow
just spilled my drink on a Fierdan's boots and now he's threatening to duel me. Should I call the stadwatch??? I'm lowkey scared.
#guys please help me
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🐦 Dregsconfessionsofficial follow
SUBMISSION: Last night I was walking around the barrel and I saw dirtyhands petting a dog. Like I'm not even joking, no gloves and all. And it was one of those crusty white ones.
#submission #omg I hope he washes his hands??? # those dogs are so crusty
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🌊 tidesofthecanals follow
Final results from 672 votes
♠️ kvasandass follow
Razorgulls stop sending anon hate to op over a poll challenge, level impossible, no glue no borax.
#i hope they get caught for tax fraud
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🐝 thislittlelife follow
A drawing my talented daughter made of Sankta Alina. We pray to her each night 🙏🙏🙏
🐾 magic-tricks follow
46.244.29.14
🍄 thekingofravkaishot follow
hello??? Omg. Why would you dox someone just like that??? This is literally putting them in danger. It's just a sweet mother with her child, who posted a drawing. What is wrong with you.
🏵️ krugebythedozen follow
Op admitted to lying like a year ago about how they don't actually have a kid, but took the post down. It's probably a dime lion trying to troll us like they did in mass when sankta alina died. Also, respectfully, shut up. You posts thirst traps and long drawn out texts on how the king of ravka is "babygirl”. Go get help.
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🤝 theholyhandofghezenofficial follow
To the citizen who spread a highly damaging rumor that we were hosting a petting zoo inside the church, please come to talk to us. You are not in danger, but words will be exchanged. Lots of trouble was caused due to careless behavior.
⚖️ ketterdamfails follow
Womp womp
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🎀 justapigeon follow
Hey guys. Sorry I haven't been able to update my Pekka Rollins x Jan van eck fanfic. I've been searching for my mom for almost a week since she ran away after hearing that you had to get a vaccine for Firepox after the last outbreak. (She believes in praying to the saints.)
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🍪 eatthemerchs follow
I hate all of you. Why is this website making Kaz Brekker a soft boy when he literally MURDERS PEOPLE. No, he won't cry if you hug him. No he doesn't want to pet your dog. He'll take your eye out.
Stop romanticizing crime, all of you are sick.
(I am TIRED of the dog memes. Brekker is a crime boss. Why would any of you think he'd even care about your dog.)
🐾 magic-tricks follow
Your border collie is nice. But your chihuahua barks too much.
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🦂 northerstaverner follow
literally just saw some tall ass guy with a huge gun, a revolver and the brightest outfit l've ever seen, trot past my window??? In broad daylight??? Like oh my god. It felt like looking at a stork who made a wish he was human. His clothes were purple and green. Who wears that. Like, iconic. But still.
🐰 jeepsteristhebestshot follow
But was he handsome
🦂 northerstaverner follow
He was built like a stork.
🐰 jeepsteristhebestshot follow
But was he handsome???
🦂 northerstaverner follow
I'm not answering that... who is this.
🧁sugarandredribbons follow
Op answer
☁️ theweststavesucksass follow
Op we all want to know
🫵 isthisbarrelbossproblematic follow
OP THIS IS AN URGENT MATTER
🫀dmitrithekerchman follow
OPPPPP
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#six of crows#dashboard simulator#fake dashboard#kaz brekker#jesper fahey#inej ghafa#kaz x inej#jan van eck#pekka rollins#ketterdam#nina zenik#matthias helvar#wylan hendriks#wylan van eck#nikolai lantsov#alina starkov#art#grishaverse#the grisha series#crooked kingdom#kaz dirtyhands brekker#the wraith#soc#rule of wolves
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gatekeeper — tsukishima kei !
— tsukishima assures that he is not embarrassed of dating you, you think otherwise
warning/s : fem! reader, misunderstanding 😁 & a small fight at the beginning, profane language, tinsy bit of angst, fluff & crack from the second half ‘til it ends
note : had this little idea while writing a kageyama drabble so they might be quite similar
“just give up already”
y/n’s tip-toeing came to a stop. seriously? this was the 4th time this week! with an annoyed groan, she turns around, fists clenched, brows furrowed, and it looks as though a tick mark was formed on her forehead. behind her stood her oh so loving boyfriend, tsukishima kei, who somehow always catches her trying to sneak in the volleyball gym.
“oh c’mon kei! why won’t you let me watch your practice?!” tsukishima sighed, “we’ve talked about this” he grumbled, why does she have to be so stubborn?
“don’t talk like those romanticized, toxic boyfriends on wattpad!” y/n hits his arm, which barely does any damage to him, “and don’t act like them as well!”
tsukishima raises a hand to fix his glasses, “are you saying i’m toxic?”
“i never said that! i just said don’t talk and act like—”
“so you’re implying it?”
“well, you’re going to be if you carry on with that bullshit!” tsukishima grows silent and stares at y/n, who had seemed to be reaching the highest point of her annoyed meter, which would then slowly escalate into anger.
after a few seconds of silence, he spoke, “take these, don’t wait for me and go home. cool your head” in each of his hands were his hoodie and an umbrella, which he brought with him on the way to the gym incase it might rain before they’re able to go back to the locker rooms. with y/n giving no sign of taking it, he placed it on her foot and carried on walking past her.
“i don’t understand you” tsukishima comes to a halt, looking back almost immediately upon noticing y/n’s change of tone. crap, was i too harsh?
“why are you acting like that if you’re embarrassed of me?” he couldn’t tell whether she’s sad or angry.
“acting? acting like what? and what do you mean embarrassed?!” his tone immediately gave away his nervousness.
“in school or when you’re with someone else, you avoid and act like you don’t know me but when we’re alone, suddenly you’re taking care of me! make it clear whether you love me or not to save both our time because i am not about to start losing myself for a boy who can’t love me the way i deserve!” it’s clear that she wanted to say more so tsukishima stayed silent. “if you’re going to love me, at least be honest with me! am i embarrassing or not?!”
“of course not!”
“then why?!” it was a miracle that y/n was not crying nor shouting at the moment.
tsukishima fully turns his body this time, “what’s embarrassing is my explanation…” and the mood suddenly lightens.
“TSUKISHIMA, YOU BASTARD!” tanaka and nishinoya’s yelling made tsukishima sigh.
“you call me selfish but keep shimizu-senpai’s sister all to yourself” kageyama grumbles
tsukishima stands still. hands clasped together behind his back and head bowed down. he looks like a child getting a scolding, or how the the freak duo looks whenever daichi catches their slip ups.
nishinoya and tanaka kneels in front of the first year. head bowed down as if they were praising him, and that they are.
“on this day, we honor you. congratulations on getting a shimizu!” they say in unison.
“you’re overreacting” tsukishima simply says.
“nope, i, too, would congratulate you tsukki. no offense, but you’re not exactly the ideal boyfriend” yamaguchi says with a finger under his chin.
“mhm! so you better treat her right tsukishima! she’s like our little sister” sugawara’s smile does not look comforting at all.
“call me if you need help in buying gifts!” daichi volunteers happily.
“and me if you need advice!” asahi adds.
“why are you guys taking my job?” shimizu comments while giggling. “but, i do think that tsukishima is just right for my little sister” she turns to look at her sister who was now playing around with kageyama and hinata, “she’s as chaotic as those two, he’ll be able to handle her. so i trust that i won’t have to worry much?”
“of course” tsukishima didn’t seem like himself at the moment. his eyes seemed to have soften at the sight of his girlfriend. he smiled, though not too obvious.
“why are you smiling like a male lead in a drama?” tanaka teased. and though tsukishima hates expressing his emotions to his teammates, he certainly loves poking their annoyance scale, “because this is what it’s like to love and be loved”
“Why are you making it seem like kiyoko does not love me back! she does love me! right? right?” tanaka gave kiyoko hopeful eyes and received no response aside from her turning around.
“I’m not talking about platonic love”
“WHY YOU—“
“KEI!” apparently, while he successfully annoyed the second year, his girlfriend heard what he said and would definitely never let it go.
“when have you been so sweet?! love and be loved? seriously?!” she bounced up and down, hands on tsukishima’s shoulder for support.
“she’s no different from the freak duo, i’m afraid” sugawara comments and laughs along with the third years.
“but am i really that beautiful that you had to gatekeep me from your entire team?” she laughed, still bouncing, and tsukishima only stood there with his smile never seeming to fade.
“if that were me i’d be receiving his train of insults by now” hinata says, joining the rest of the team as they watched how tsukishima seemed to be a lot softer around y/n.
“you’re such a gatekeeper kei!” she teased, this time, she stopped bouncing and have started poking her boyfriend’s sides.
“that he is! how dare he gatekeep kiyoko-san’s sister?!” tanaka kneeled back down on one knee with a hand on his chest.
nishinoya followed suit, “and what’s annoying is that she reciprocated his love!”
© starjaeyun on tumblr | do not steal, copy, translate or repost
#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu imagines#haikyuu oneshot#haikyuu x fem! reader#haikyuu x female reader#haikyuu fluff#haikyuu fanfic#haikyuu x f! reader#tsukishima x reader#tsukishima oneshot#tsukishima imagines#tsukishima fluff#tsukishima x fem! reader#tsukishima x f! reader#tsukishima x female! reader#tsukishima kei x reader#tsukishima kei oneshot#tsukishima kei imagines#tsukishima kei x fem! reader#tsukishima kei x female! reader#tsukishima kei x f! reader#tsukishima kei fluff#haikyuu fluff oneshot#haikyuu fluff imagines#tsukishima kei fluff oneshot#tsukishima kei fluff imagines#haikyuu crack#haikyuu x reader crack
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do you have any thirst hcs for grandpapi neuvi? if you do pls share i’m so hungry 🤲
hydro dragonussy [m.reader]
hello hello, guess who’s back to writing again? this is a warmup because i struggled hard in continuing my kaveh request wip and a buncha scenarios for sick reader w genshin men and jing yuan all at once. on second thought… i think i really shouldn’t have written everything all at once. not to mention i’m trying out quotev to publish my yandere oc/m.reader stuff for fun. + yes that is the title. it’s either that or crybaby old man dragon thirsts. you pick.
𖦹 nsfw, neuvi is a virgin old man, underlying mentions of reader being an attorney (we all know i have a bias for them anyway, have you seen my workload series? lmao), switch male reader, switch neuvi, though we’re heavily leaning on bottom neuvi for this one, honorable mentions of cockwarming and thigh fucking, brief mention of double penetration (reader receiving), gentle and rough sex, implied dacryphilia (you), breeding, fontaine rains whether or not he’s sad, his tears are the rain and i will drink them like a hungry eremite in the sumeru desert.
Let’s face it, Neuvillette has no time outside of his work as the Iudex of Fontaine, he’s constantly buried underneath those paperworks, and on top of that, when he’s not tackling mountains of cases, he’s out in the opera, presiding trial after trial when the Oratrice can already do the same thing for him.
So when you appeared in his life all of a sudden, he was new to all sorts of things. In his long life as a dragon, he has had little experience in what you can offer to him. He’s awkward for the first few moments of your relationship.
It’s the same to sex — you’d have to take initiative in every single little thing, show him the ropes like the good commander you are, and he obeys with no complaints. He sees that you enjoy it, and if you’re good at it and you’re willing to teach him, he is an obedient patient.
Old man’s heads are very clumsy at first, teeth scraping against your length while he slowly but surely bobbed his head. He’s slow, but he treats your little guy with so much care. Looking up at you with tears pricking at the ends of his eyes as he tried to please you as best as he could. Obligatory weather report — it’s a light drizzle in Fontaine.
But when you give him head, Neuvillette squirms, it doesn’t matter where he is, he could not keep himself still. It’s always obvious that even you cannot bring yourself to blow him semi-public in his office, just because you’re afraid a poor innocent little Melusine would come inside and see their beloved leader squirming around traumatize them. It would also be bad for his image if you guys get caught, so… sexy times are inside the comfort of his possibly huge home as much as possible.
Sex with him is slow and intimate, very romantic. What did you expect? He’s from Fontaine and they apparently love to romanticize things. Whether or not who’s on top when you guys are doing it, they are a lot more languid in style, like a moment of relaxation between the two of you.
A switch, though preferably a bottom. Yes, that’s right, old man Neuvillette likes to be serviced. He likes it when you’re the one filling him up so good. It’s hot and heavy, just the way he likes it.
He’s a tired man, so he’s definitely a pillow prince— no, a pillow king. He lays there and takes it like a good boy, only gazing at you with those soft eyes, hazy with love and lust while you continued to push into him. He takes your hand in his every time you enter him and he always squeezes your hand tight the deeper you go in.
Call him romantic and a basic man, but he lives for missionary. He wants to see you while he feels you stuff him full of your cock. He only writhes in the beginning while he tries to adjust around you, squeezing you tight inside him while his breath stutters, trying to take you in all at once.
If he’s the one in charge, it’s all the same, he’s gentle with his actions, though, honestly, he’d rather have you ride him instead. He likes to see you in all your glory, with you rolling your hips in such a needy manner while he kept you grounded, holding onto you as he caressed your thighs. It’s perfect for him.
Oh yeah, and this goes without saying — he’s a dragon, so he has two cocks. Fitting him in is a sport on its own, but you graduated with a major in fucking dragons, so you’re good. He’s a bit thicker on the side too, so each time you take him in, you could feel every inch of him, and every throb of his cocks is a heaven sent feeling that courses through your insides.
Please be gentle with him, he is an old tired man who hasn’t had a break. He is so vanilla that it’s boring but his cries are worth it.
He’s a very quiet man too, his moans are shy and light, a gasp here and there and a tiny whimper with every increment of speed adding into your thrusts.
Neuvillette is definitely the type to squirm and get away from you at first, but you just need to keep him still and hold him down by his thighs before you plow into him. He likes it though when you do it, it reassures him that you want to do this with him and that you’re not letting him go no matter what happens.
Another weather report: a good light rain. Not too heavy.
Now that all the sweet stuff is out of the way, rough sex is not as often as the usual vanilla one, but it’s not completely an uninvited guest between you two.
If you fucked him rough and hard, Neuvillette will cry and break. His poor pristine and unmarked body, filled to the brim with your greedy bite marks and hickeys, glowing red and bruising dark purple that leaves him embarrassed when they’re still around if you somehow managed to weasel in a rough session in the morning before he goes to work and you will be reprimanded for it once he’s home, no exceptions.
“No more of these obvious markings,” he’d say with a stern tone, only to end up face down on the pillow with his ass up while you found a loophole and devoured his entire back instead.
He hates that he can’t see you when you go rough on him, because it’s normally him ending up with his face buried into his pillow while he laid on his stomach, his hips being held up by you while you ruthlessly pounded into him without even an ounce of mercy.
He hates it, but at the same time, it does help with keeping his noise down because when you’re doing him so roughly, Neuvillette wails, he cries hard, with those pretty tears of his not letting up. He’d scream to the high heavens and were it not for the fact that your hand was forcing his head down into his soft pillow, the entirety of Fontaine would hear it.
Again, Neuvillette is a tired old man, so something so rough definitely leaves him drained, you’d constantly have to hold him up halfway through your little session.
Fucking him while he’s on his side and his one leg hooked over your shoulder is a great compromise, with how you can both still see each other Neuvillette can immediately turn his head to hide away into his pillow when he realizes he’s being a little too loud on his own good.
He’s definitely the kind to force himself to be quiet. If you fuck him without anything for him to bite into to hide his loud noises, he will cry and be embarrassed through out, barely even managing to cover his own mouth with his hand without an ounce of struggle while his body jerked up and down, following through every harsh punctuated thrust that you made into him. Weather report: Fontaine has a storm.
Neuvillette cries his heart out every time you go rough, full on sobbing and it is such a turn on. The way he makes garbled noises while he would protest into your roughness, hand gently pushing into yours while he asks for you to be gentler and go a little slower, only to cling helplessly into his pillow when his pleas fell into deaf ears.
His tears are just… divine. He cries so prettily and he does it with unwitting grace and class — somehow, he’s just innately beautiful in every thing that he does. There is no such thing as an unsightly sobbing to this man.
Neuvillette makes this soft noise in between a whimper and a gasp every time you hit his prostate spot on and he just shudders in delight, his breath shaky until he can barely think straight.
Gentle or rough, he’s definitely into breeding. Neuvillette has a breeding kink and anyone who thinks otherwise will sink deeper than Khaenri’ah. Stuff him full of your cum and he’s a happy and satisfied man.
It’s not just the feeling of your hot seed pumping him full that pleases him, but being around the Melusines, treating them like his children despite them being just his subordinates has definitely gotten this old man all too paternal. He likes the premise of being able to build a family with you, and he will nurture your children with all his being.
Thigh fucking? Thigh fucking. Though it’s rare, only when he’s really tired but still aches to please you, and even you’re too lazy to move a lot.
Bother him when he takes work at home by making him cockwarm you. He could not concentrate at all — squirming and squeezing around your cock so deliciously while you teased him about getting his work done.
Has definitely tried wall sex with you, with his back against the wall while you held him up. May or may not have happened at the opera after a heated trial when he ruled against your client and you were pissed your streak of wins on that week crumbled into dust. It’s neither your fault but the client’s, but you’re a sore loser and Neuvillette is a stoic judge.
Call him daddy while you fuck into him and he will break, he’ll go slack, his mind numbed when a rush of dopamine just infiltrated his brain every time you’d call him that.
And after all that, aftercare is a must. Treat your dragon well. He did so much for you, and you broke his old man back after fucking him into oblivion. Clean him nice and well, kiss his tears away, and wrap him tightly in a blanket while you hold him.
#I AM#somewhat alive#i honestly planned on posting more works soon if i didn’t hit the classic ‘wow i suck’ moment#i have been doing nothing but scroll though yt shorts help 😭#also play genshin and hi3 because hsr has no content until 30#jhuzen’s stupid hcs#jhuzen’s shameless filth#genshin impact x male reader#sub genshin#sub genshin impact#sub neuvillette#neuvillette x male reader#neuvillette smut
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I love all ur blog sm!! Can I ask abt something with the slashers (specially Thomas <3) with an foreigner!reader that don't quit speak english very well and normally forget words?
(Sorry if something is spelled wrong, English is not my native language lmao)
Absolutely, I can!
And because the request didn't specify, this fic will strictly be about speaking a foreign language.
Sorry if this is inaccurate! I'm a native English speaker and don't know many who aren't. Sorry in advance!!
Slashers x Foreigner!Reader
Micheal Myers:
•This man will act like he doesn't care but in reality he's so intrigued. (It might be why you're still alive)
•He’ll spend his time watching you practice your pronunciation and recognition patterns, like it's a movie.
•Is he a bit mean about it? Yes. Will he laugh? Probably.
•If you find yourself not knowing what certain words are and stumble around until you find the right word, You'd be surprised at how patient he is.
•If you are very new to the English language he'll secretly get you flash cards and stash them into a place he knows you'll find them
•Despite everything, if you ask him for help, he will help. He might be mute but he can write and use TV to aid you.
Billy loomis & Stu macher:
•Stu is already romanticizing your language, but instead of using the actual name of your language, he calls it “Talking pretty to me”
•Billy asks if you want any text books or study equipment to help you on your English speaking journey
•Both boys are a surprising help! Stuttering trying to articulate what you mean? They've already jumped in to, A) help save you some of the embarrassment, and B) give you time to think about what you're trying to say.
•Someone making fun of you? They're either dead or a social outcast by the end of the week.
•Are you struggling to remember a certain word? These boys are willing play charades until you figure it out. And they won't drop it either, Stu says ‘It’s bad to give up when you've already come so far.’
•Over all it's not so bad (Stu 100,000,000% uses Google translate to figure out how to say ‘i love you’ in your native language)
Thomas Hewitt:
•When both of you met, he had never met an actual foreigner before.
•He knew people travel around and occasionally some valley girl would end up in their small town, But someone from a whole different part of the world?
•His interest in you spiked the moment he heard your accent
•Thomas has so many questions but doesn't know how to ask you
•With him being mute and your struggles with English, It's not the easiest relationship. In the end both of you just end up pointing at things and making noises to get your point across.
•Absolutely loves to listen to you speak in your native language, Even if he'll never understand it.
•When he's first trying to court you, he leaves you slightly damaged flowers (he struggled to pick them) to communicate his affection.
•even with a language barrier, he's gonna love you like no one ever could
Bubba Sawyer:
•He had no idea people outside of America existed
•When You fell into the palm of Texas and his brothers found you failing to remember the word for your favorite snack, They knew you would be an easy target.
•When they kidnapped you and brought you to the basement so Bubba could chop you up, he was fascinated by the way you desperately tried to beg him not to kill you.
•It ended in a huge fight in the family, But he got everyone to let you live a bit longer.
•Sits Criss Cross applesauce while you speak for your life. You could babble about anything and he would listen intently.
•He pulls out his alphabet soup machine and spends hours typing with you. (You help him finally get past the clown level)
Bo Sinclair:
•absolute meanie, stinky poopy head about it >:(
•will mock your stutters and say stuff like “Oh come ON! The word is Cat! C. A. T. CAT! What's so hard about that?”
•If you speak your native language around him, He thinks you're insulting him or intentionally hiding something.
•”If you could say it to my face in your language you can say it to my face again in mine!”
•The same sentiment is not shared when it involves bedroom fun
•Will eventually apologize, But that's going to take a while
Vincent Sinclair:
•As another non-speaking fellow he takes his time to make sure you two can understand each other
•He’ll mostly use body language and and little doodles to get his point across
•Stuttering over a word? He doesn't care, he'll let you work it out without any judgment!
•Want his help? He has several books, Vincent will just pull out a book he knows as the word in it, flipped to the page, and point at the word.
•Love listening to you talk, In English or not. He'll happily let you yap his ear off.
Lester Sinclair:
•Poor boy was lovestruck when he first heard you talk!
•Full on heart eyes while you explain where you're from and how you ended up here
•If you end up fumbling on a word he'll start shouting out potential words for what you're trying to say.
•Example: “and then I had too…uh…um..” “Run? Pee? Eat? Were you hungry? Are you hungry right now?”
•So helpful, I know
•But the guy is already googling restaurants based off your native cuisine. He's got the date set up.
•”It's no biggie, I'm a native English speaker and I still can't get it right!”
Billy Lenz:
•Billy 100% understands the struggle of finding the right word to say
•He can't stop stuttering himself, so when you start stuttering you kind of reinforce us in his brain that you were meant to be together
•He feels like he can bond with you over it, and even feel safer around you knowing that you also mess up
•the thing is if you start stuttering, he'll start stuttering. If you can't get it by God he will.
•”W-we can't bo-oth be wrong.”
Brahms Heelshire:
•this man will 100% try to learn your language as soon as he finds out you're a foreigner
•That man has a huge library, there's bound to be at least one book written in your mother tongue
•He spends a lot of time practicing your native language so he can speak to you more comfortably
•You already know he has children's learning books he'll pull out if you ask.
•Can't find the word you're looking for? He's already 10 books deep, he'll find it for you.
•Brahms is a well-educated man and he intends to use His years of learning to help
•If you want to take classes to better your English skills he will 100,000% throw money your way to do so.
Hannibal Lecter:
•Now Hannibal really understands
•He's a Lithuanian who learned English as a 10 year old
•He didn't struggle as much, But for the first couple of months you bet he was stumbling.
•If you're struggling with a word, He has a process of teaching you so you don't forget it again.
1) Identify what you're trying to say
2)Slowly begin to sound out the word
3)Have you recite the word a few times
4)He'll either teaches you a little tune to remember or he'll do something so you remember the moment
•Does it feel a little condescending? Yes. But it works
•He's also willing to pour an ungodly amount of money into your English education if you ask
•He'll even teach you himself in his spare time
Will Graham:
•Doesn't really know what to do, He's a bit awkward about it
•He'll also identify the word and repeat it a few times so you can get a better handle on it.
•He thinks it's a bit funny and a bit cute when you stutter or mispronounce something
•He will gently correct you and move on like nothing happened
The Lost Boys:
•holy fucking shit this is a cluster fuck, let's do this one by one
•David
-David, having been around a while, has picked up a couple languages.
-If he does know the language you're speaking he'll speak it back to you and guide you into English better than the other boys could
-If not, he'll just read your mind and tell you what you're trying to say. It's by far the easiest way to articulate what you mean.
•Dwayne
-Dwayne being just slightly younger than David has also picked up a couple languages
-It's really the same if he does know your language But with a little more verbal teaching
-If he doesn't he'll patiently wait until you figure out what you're trying to say.
•Paul
-as soon as you start to stutter over yourself Paul starts shotgunning words off
-some slightly related to the situation and others wildly out there
-”Drink? Food? Ocean? Horse? The unforgiving eyes of God and His kingdom???”
-he'll do this to confuse you and have a nice laugh
•Marko
-Marko speaks English and Italian, so if your language isn't one of those two you're kind of shit out of luck
-”Come on babe, you'll get it”
-He finds it a bit funny but still tries to help in little ways
Thanks for reading <3
Sorry if this seems hastily written together, I haven't had the request in a while so I kind of jumped at the opportunity.
#the lost boys x reader#slashers#micheal myers#billy loomis#stu macher#thomas hewitt#bubba sawyer#bo sinclair#vincent sinclair#lester sinclair#billy lenz#brahms heelshire#nbc hannibal#hannibal lecter#will graham x reader#the lost boys#david the lost boys#dwayne the lost boys#paul the lost boys#marko the lost boys#slashers x reader#fluff#sfw#horror movies
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Omegaverse Alpha!Chuuya, Dazai, and Ranpo Headcanons
⚠️ warnings: 18+ concepts and scenarios, Minors DNI! Omegaverse, GN!reader, mentions of heats and ruts, slick, knots, and sexual/explicit scenarios.
[Fyodor and Nikolai here!]
Chuuya
ARE U READY TO BE THE WORLD’S MOST SPOILED OMEGA??? :D ‘CAUSE BABY- YOU ARE!!!
Chuuya knows that he can be very absent in your relationship, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. But that doesn’t stop him from always trying to make up for it!!! Unlike OTHER ALPHAS-
Chuuya is honestly probably the best Alpha you can have. He’s very sweet!! He worships you, he’s caring towards your needs, sympathetic to any issues you have, will absolutely spoil the shit out of you, protective in all the right ways, very stable financially — the list goes on and on. However… it is extremely hard to break down his walls and actually GET to the point where you two are in a committed relationship. Between his trust issues and being a literal executive for the MAFIA- he isn’t the type to fall in love very fast or very easily. He wants to be. He romanticizes love to an extreme; but he cannot bring himself to actually relax and let down his walls in order to experience it. Basically, you gotta fight for this boy, but it is oh so worth it.
I know most people probably think you have to manage dancing around his outbursts and anger issues but honestly? Those are for people who Are Not You™️. You do have to talk him down from crushing the Alphas who mention you in the wrong sort of light to death, however.
They end up dead anyway. Yeah you really kinda have to be morally grey to date this man. And that might be a deal breaker for some. While I see a lot of fics talking him out of the dangerous life of the Port Mafia and having him settle down, I really don’t see that as a viable option. One, I firmly believe that Chuuya sees his place in the Port Mafia as one he’s earned, all by himself, without relying on anyone and proving himself worthy. The emotional ties to his job alone make it hard for him to even consider leaving. Two, even with all the danger, Chuuya prides himself on being able to keep you safe despite all of that. You will never be taken. You will never be used. He keeps you close enough so that you are technically protected, but far enough removed that you cannot be a pawn in this sick twisted game that Mori plays. And… it’s kinda stable for him. For you. A generous income that leaves you leaves you flush and living lavishly beyond your wildest dreams. He can’t give that up. So really, you have to be ok when he ends up having to murder a few people for his job. Not that you would know about it first hand. And he’s never malicious. He has his own moral code that will never be broken.
Heats???? Ruts??? This man will shower you in whatever you want during that time. No matter what, he will always be there for you. Uninterrupted personal time with Chuuya. His Omega always comes first. He is such a generous lover too. He’ll knot you as many times as you wish. He’ll make you breakfast in bed and make sure you hydrate. Loves eating you out until you’re begging for his knot, ass up and face down. Give you all his clothes for the nest you make. He’s so in tune with his Omega that his ruts will line up with your heats very early on in the relationship, so you might want to invest in child-prevention or otherwise both you and him will be looking at parenthood. 😳 He wouldn’t mind that. Considering how long it would take for you to get to that point… but he wouldn’t let you know that.
Dazai
Honestly, I love this man ok? He was my first BSD love and he’ll always have a place in my heart because of that. But my god. He is an absolute horrible Alpha.
Dazai himself is very guarded. He loves to have an air of nonchalance, but that’s all it is. An image. He is a fortress of walls that will never truly come down, unlike Chuuya, who eventually lets you in fully. Considering his past and his experiences, being able to break through a few of those will be a victory. Dazai, on the other hand, needs a partner who is okay with never truly knowing his own desires. A partner who’s ok with always being held at an arm’s length, because Dazai feels like if he loves you too much, something bad will happen.
Not only the emotional distance, but a physical one too. Dazai loves to be touchy, but at home, he also needs time to regenerate his own physical stimulation. It might be strange to some that he seems more affectionate and physical in public, but Dazai wants to trust you. He wants to feel comfortable enough to not always be what he feels like he should be. He might come off as cold or even uncaring, but he just needs time, no matter how much he loves you. And trust me, it will pay off.
And we also have to consider his job. Unlike Chuuya, who’s rather stable in his self-image and work life, Dazai almost is like Ranpo in a sense, where he feels like something bad will happen if he’s not available to ADA at every second of the day. Unlike Ranpo, Dazai cannot shirk these feelings or his duty, even though he basically goes in and does absolutely nothing all day. Mentally, he’s there. Thinking up solutions and plans without speaking a word of it. He needs to be there to get ahead, to minimize casualties, no matter how much Kunikida helps out. There will be many times you spend a heat alone, or Dazai will have to rush out to go to work during one of them.
Buttttt that’s not to say he’s a selfish lover. He is, in fact, a very, very good one. Not only through experience, but in creating a sort of intimacy that makes you feel like he’s all there. Even if he isn’t. Which, again, is sort of shady of him. 🙄 But honestly? His dirty talk is top notch. During the heats that he goes to work, he’ll talk you through the time that he isn’t there. Much to your embarrassment.
Dazai’s favorite thing is to feel you clench around his knot. He loves making you so horny that all you can do is beg him to knot you and scream his name or his title. It’s a moment that he can just forget everything, his past, his current situation, and just be with you. He loves being your Alpha and does wish he could be a better one, but that’s just not him. 100% keeps a pair of your slick stained panties in his pocket. Disgusting man.
His ruts will take a while to line up with yours. It’s a combination of both problems — physical and emotional distance. Feeling like he can even sort of trust you will cure that. He’s super restrained during his ruts though. Even if you’re in a long relationship, the only way you can notice is by his heightened scent, which he loves to blockers to suppress, because he’s stupid like that and feels like it interferes with his investigations (yes and no. it’s not very helpful if someone can smell you a mile away, but it’s also because Dazai likes to keep an air of mystery AND distance between any sort of work and personal life, in his own strange way. Stops taking them if it helps create a connection he can use) and the fact he just randomly wants to knot you at all times of the day. He doesn’t even seem that serious about it though — just like “oh! popped a knot in you! sorry!” and does that 10 more times until you catch on.
“Dazai… are you in rut???” “…yeah.” absolutely ridiculous mind game for no reason other than it’s Dazai.
Seriously, if this man is your Alpha, I’m sorry. He makes you jealous accidentally a lot because he has Omegas fawning over him, that he gives crumbles of attention for validation, but his secretly super possessive and HATES when it happens to you. Seriously. One Alpha hits on you and suddenly you’re covered in hickies and claim marks, rubbed so hard with his scent it almost stinks and you can’t get it out with ANY SORT of laundry detergent.
Ranpo
again, if this man is your Alpha, I’m sorry. I am actually less sorry than if Dazai is your Alpha but I’m still sorry.
Ranpo is childish. He has absolutely 0 clue on how to be a proper Alpha, despite Fukuzawa trying to teach him, but unlike someone like Kunikida or Sigma, has probably little to no desire to learn. That isn’t entirely true, especially with how earnest Ranpo is to want to learn with you, but honestly, he gives up very quickly.
He can be very selfish with his pleasure, but that’s mostly to your gain, to be honest. At least you have 0 emotional hangups when it comes to Ranpo. 🤷♀️ that’s all I can say.
He also has 0 embarrassment. He will fully scent you, partially undressing you to get to what he wants, like a breastfeeding CHILD, in the middle of the office. If you smack him away, he’ll be fully confused. Like “whaaaaat? I’m your Alpha. I’m supposed to do this.” NOT HERE, IDIOT.
Mouths your neck and your scent gland whenever too. Like just leans over in meetings to do so. You, as his Omega, almost have to leash him, your Alpha. It’s a bit of an unusual dynamic, but fits perfectly to Ranpo.
He will end up growing up a bit when he enters a relationship with you; however, that will take a lot of time. Your relationship probably starts off really casually too. Ranpo will most likely just offhandedly ask you on an outing, then he’s considering you his significant other, his omega, without it ever truly being discussed. “It wasn’t obvious? Why would I ask you out if I didn’t want to be with you?” Please teach him how to properly enter a relationship. Or at least discuss with him the standards of dating. Fukuzawa will give you a bonus. Just please.
Now, it’s very widely accepted that Ranpo is autistic/asperger’s syndrome, and I headcanon him as that as well so a little on that from another Aspie!!! Ranpo doesn’t always catch on to what is and isn’t socially acceptable. He has a tendency to sometimes be sexual in times that aren’t always the best, but if you tell him nicely, he’ll understand and back down. Usually with a nod and taking mental notes. You need to be very verbal with this man because he will not catch on in any sort of way. If you want a gift, ask him for it! If you want time alone, ask him. Seriously. You need to tell him or he’ll just keep doing his little routine.
He has stimulation problems. You might need to carry around headphones or some sort of fidget toy because he sometimes gets overwhelmed in public by all the information he’s taking in. He’s used to it, but that doesn’t make it better. If you let him sit on the couch with a weighted blanket and just sit with him in silence on the other side, he will eventually jump your ass after a while and cuddle up under your arm. He will probably not leave your side for the rest of the day, refusing to talk to anyone but you.
His libido is finicky, it jumps between hyper sexuality and almost completely disappearing, even if he wants to pleasure you. His ruts show that. Unlike most Alphas, they aren’t always timely, and show up randomly. It makes it hard for your heats to line up with his ruts. They rarely line up, and sometimes when you’re in heat Ranpo is completely disinterested and would rather be working on a case. Early on, he most likely will ignore you and them, not out of animosity or a lack of care, but just because he’s really not used to being in a relationship. If you give it time and practice, certainly after expressing your need, Ranpo will take care of you through them. Whether it’s eating you out or knotting you properly. He can finger you with one hand while working on his phone or laptop with the other, a skill he didn’t even know he had.
His ruts on the other hand… he’s very needy. You will have to call out of work for a week or two. He wants to be touching you at all times. Don’t expect to leave the bed at all. Actually, just plan on being on his knot the whole time. If you have to get up, even for a drink of water, expect him to be right there behind you, arms clasped around your waist, begging for you to come back to bed. His scent gets so heavy. He just wants to be comfortable and the only way he feels comfortable is with you. You might need additional call out days for how weak your legs will be afterwards.
Ranpo is apologetic though and will bring you painkillers or a heating pad. You probably could talk him into a massage every now and then. He knows how much you give to him, and struggles with sometimes feeling like your relationship is one sided. It is, in a way, but Ranpo gives back tenfold with how absolutely pure his love is for you. He’s loyal and will never entertain any sort of attention from any other Omega. He shares all his snacks and candy with you and tries to show you his love in little ways, like remembering your favorite flavors or something you mentioned you liked.
Ranpo isn’t the best Alpha, but he is a good soul. He tries and though he has his struggles, he really is there for his (and your!) best interests at heart.
Praise him. Praise him during his rut and you will be there for another week. It drives it crazy and ends up lengthening it for an extended amount of time.
#bsd#bungo stray dogs#bungou stray dogs#bsd dazai#bsd dazai osamu#bsd chuuya#bsd chuuya nakahara#bsd ranpo#bsd ranpo edogawa#bsd nsft#dazai x you#chuuya x you#ranpo x you#🍩 of bsd#dazai x reader#chuuya x reader#ranpo x reader#angelic songs#omegaverse!bsd
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Alright, even though I haven't yet read a full translation of "Bad Boy, I just want to talk about some things from the pages we do have translated and what we see happen in the story itself.
I don't t think the level of psychological trauma Levi's experiences in this story can be overstated.
We see Levi cry when his mother's cup breaks on the floor. I think what's important to note about this, is that it takes place directly following Levi violently and brutally killing a group of men who had been threatening and beating him.
The first man Levi kills very nearly beats Levi to death. He's using a hammer fist to beat him, meaning his balled fist, and using the edge of his fist, not his knuckles, to beat Levi over and over, with Levi's head against the stone ground. He would have eventually beaten Levi to death if Levi's power hadn't awoken when it did. We also realize that Kenny has abandoned Levi before this happens. Looking through the panels again, I noticed Levi is wearing different clothes when Kenny leaves him than what he's wearing here, in the present. That means Kenny left Levi before his powers even awakened. He left him to fend for himself, a 9 year old child, on the streets of a place that had men like these prowling around, waiting and looking to prey on children, men who felt no hesitation in beating a child to death, or selling that child into sexual slavery. Clearly, Kenny couldn't be bothered to even wait for Levi to develop his actual powers before throwing him to the wolves. And once Kenny walks away, after years of drilling into him that strength is the only thing that matters, Levi is left not understanding what any of it was even for. His power finally awakens, and he brutally kills these men, and he doesn't understand any of it. He was taught violence, but for what purpose? He even asks "What's it for?" to the sole remaining assailant. He's talking about his strength. He doesn't understand why he's so strong, when it's gained him seemingly nothing, and resulted in nothing good. He's still alone, he's still in the dark, he's still existing in a world and in a life that offers him nothing but despair and hopelessness.
And this last man, in my view, is truly the most vile of the group. A truly cruel and hateful coward. We see this man begin to try and manipulate Levi, threatening him and lying to him about his own intentions, trying to claim he meant to "save" Levi, and perhaps most disgusting of all, using Levi's love for his mother against him in some twisted attempt to save his own life, by telling Levi that he would be sullying the memory of her by killing him. I can't begin to imagine the psychological toll this man's words had on Levi following this entire experience. I don't know what the entirety of the dialog between them is, yet, and I'll give a better analysis once that's revealed. But I think it's safe to assume, given what happens with Levi after, that this man's words to Levi likely solidified in Levi himself a belief in his own monstrosity.
Because we see Levi crying, after. When his mother's cup breaks in his hand, and shatters against the floor.
This is a trauma response.
Levi was clearly in shock leading up to that moment. We see him return to the place he and his mother presumably once lived, and we see Levi prepare a cup of tea, afterward staring vacantly into the liquid of the cup, remembering a clearly romanticized image of he and his mother drinking tea in that same spot. I say it's clearly romanticized, because we see a shaft of light in Levi's memory, coming down on the two of them, when in reality, in the present, there is no light at all. It's complete darkness. It's complete despair. I don't think Levi remembers his mother well. He clearly only has an impression of her, and it's an impression he's clearly idealized. An image of elegance and beauty in a world of filth and ruin.
When he picks the cups up to drink from it, the handle snaps, and the cup falls, shattering on the floor. The cup breaking is what finally snaps Levi out of his shock, and finally all the emotion of what's just happened to him comes crashing down, and he begins to cry. Again, this is very obviously a trauma response. It's not the cup itself breaking, but what it represents, I think, that reduces Levi to tears.
Because, really, that cup shattering represents the shattering of Levi's own innocence.
We can assume this is the first time he kills, and we see the devastating effect of it on Levi in the aftermath.
He's alone, abandoned by Kenny without explanation, after Kenny's approval of him had seemed predicated on Levi becoming strong. And so Levi is left here with nothing but confusion, the fading memory of his mother, the blood on his hands, something forced on him both by Kenny and the men who were attacking him, and with that horrible man's words no doubt echoing in his ears about how killing him would sully his mother's memory, that idealized image he has of his mother. One has to think Levi's own self-image was warped into that of a monster.
Levi killed those men with his bare hands, and in doing so, he displayed a truly shocking amount of strength. I'm talking something equivalent to or even greater than a brown bear or a tiger. We have to remember here that Levi is only 9 years old. He's a child. And he's able to do this.
And yet, it didn't come naturally to him at all.
Levi wanted these men to give back his mothers tea set. He asked them to give it back to him, because it didn't belong to them. He still asks, even after they beat him badly.
It's only after the brutality of their attack increases, that we see Levi try to actually fight back. He lands a punch on the man holding him down, and then that man begins to beat Levi to within an inch of his life, bringing his fist down on him over and over again, until Levi's power awakens and explodes out of him.
Levi resorted to violence in response to their increasing violence against him, but it wasn't his initial response. I know I go on and on about how I don't believe Levi is naturally inclined toward violence at all, but I think this story, for all its intense violence, demonstrates that beyond doubt.
Because Levi finally loses it, and he kills these men, and he does it in truly terrifying fashion. He tears them apart the way an animal would tear a person apart. He shows no mercy to the final man, who tries to squirm his way out of paying for his actions by lying to Levi and guilt-tripping him. It doesn't work, though. Levi kills him, too, and he does all this with seemingly no remorse and no feeling.
But, again, I come back to the immediate aftermath, when Kuchel's cup shatters on the floor, and we're reminded in stark, naked fashion that Levi is just a child. He was an innocent child. And that innocence was stolen from him by this incident. By Kenny teaching him how to kill, teaching him that strength was the only thing that mattered, but not explaining to him why before leaving him. By these men nearly killing him, by their brutality and cruelty and ugliness. By Levi having to kill them to save himself. And by his grieving fury and confusion over the point of any of it, when he kills the final man, even when he didn't have to. Levi breaking down into tears has nothing to do with the cup itself, but with what's just happened. He's horrified. I think he's horrified with himself, and he's alone, and the last, good memory he has, the one point of light in his life, this single, vague memory of his mother, has been shattered to pieces, literally and figuratively, with the shattering of Levi's own innocence.
I think that point of contrast, his memory of his mother's elegance and grace, with the brutality and violence of himself, in that moment, devastates Levi. I think he feels ashamed. I think he believes in that horrible man's words to him, about how he's disgraced his mother's memory by doing what he's done. Can there be any doubt that Levi begins to think of himself from this point on as an animal? As a monster? As "abnormal"?
We know from "No Regrets" and Isayama's own words, that Levi didn't have any friends until he met Furlan and Isabel, two people he didn't know until he himself was full grown. And so we know that from the age of 9, or even younger, since we see Kenny leave Levi before his powers even awaken, he's been on his own. He's been on his own all this time, while harboring the belief that he's some sort of savage and violent killer. That he's some kind of monster, possessing an immense strength that seems meant for nothing but death and destruction. As though he were an engine for pointless death and destruction.
And yet, all on his own, he comes to realize that his strength can be used for something else. That it can be used to help people. He saves Furlan's life, and he saves Isabel's life. And from that point on, with this realization of what his strength can be used for, Levi dedicates himself to that end. To using this immense and frightening strength to help people.
That Levi could come out of this experience still with the ability to love, to still have in him the ability to be loved, despite how all he'd ever known from love was suffering, and that he could come out of this still with the deep desire to help others, to do good, is honestly nothing short of a miracle, and I think it demonstrates more powerfully than anything the innate goodness in Levi.
Because there's so much negativity wrapped up in the concept of love for Levi. He watched his mother die, succumbing to disease, and there's little doubt in my mind that Levi blamed himself for that, her ability to care for herself compromised by his presence in her life, by being another mouth to feed, another back to clothe, when she could scarce afford to feed herself, could scarce afford to put clothes on her own back. And for his own love for her to end in an eruption of blood and violence, and the loss of his innocence, for Levi to come out of that with the ability to still connect with people, to form connections, to love and care for them, and allow himself to be loved and cared for in turn, it can only come from a deep well of genuine and innate goodness. From a heart that longs for kindness and compassion, even in the face of utter cruelty and despair.
Levi's tears demonstrate his despair and grief at his own violence. They demonstrate his bereavement and regret. They demonstrate his horror and loneliness. And they demonstrate, at his core, the persistence of a pure and loving heart that wishes to do and be good.
All of this horror wasn't enough to stamp out the goodness in Levi.
Despite it all, he became a genuine hero.
Despite it all, the goodness in him remains.
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𝟏𝟗𝐓𝐇 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖
summary: you’re not a believer in airport crushes. you think the theory that people look better when you’re bound to never see them again is delusional. that is, until fushiguro megumi comes and proves you wrong.
tags: 1.1k wc | f!reader | narration heavy | open ending | nobara and yuuji are the best wing men | strangers to potential lovers | very romanticized | megumi has green eyes here, as stated in the manga | for plot's sake, pretend it isn't weird to call him 'gumi' right off the bat
notes: megumi finally debuts on saekkas (clap clap). also, this may or may not be inspired by real life events hehe
early mornings have never been your forte. the wind bites your cheeks, prickling your skin with goosebumps that range all the way from your arms down to your legs. even the hoodie you’re wearing– the thickest, comfiest one you own, doesn’t help shield you from the elements.
it doesn't help that the air conditioner is on full blast.
“i swear to god,” you mumble, expression souring as strong winds crash against the airport’s ceiling high windows. in the distance, trees sway around erratically, crashing against each other as the sky turns a bleak gray. “if a hurricane comes, at least let it hit after my flight takes off.”
the line to check in is unnaturally long and it takes almost half an hour until you’re seated at the gate, an hour early before your flight departs. better safe than sorry, your mother always said.
the seating area is nothing but crowded, and as pregnant mother tries to calm her baby’s wails by swaddling him in blankets, you curse yourself for booking economy. a private longue with wifi and food sounds good right now.
tucking yourself into the furthest seat from the wailing baby, you breath out a sigh. your legs have been killing you for the past hour and you have no one to blame but yourself for not choosing more comfortable shoes.
there’s minimal noise in the area, being that it is far more secluded from the others. the only sounds you can hear are of footsteps and bickering from the trio sitting right across from you. one of the boys, the one with pink hair and a red hood over his head, is in what looks to be the deadliest game of rock-paper-scissors you’ve ever seen with a girl that has short brown hair.
your eyes flicker towards the last of the bunch– a boy who looks like he’s around your age with an unruly mess of hair on top of his head. he’s calm, minding his own business with a book in his lap, and legs crossed elegantly. the sweater he wears is black, oversized, and the fabric looks to be so soft.
you’re not a believer in airport crushes. you think the theory that people look better when you’re bound to never see them again is delusional.
you might just eat your own words because he’s actually cute.
you don’t know how many times your eyes have gravitated towards him in the past hour, but you know it’s probably enough to tip his friends off. from the corner of your eye, you see the girl nudge him repeatedly before very obviously pointing your way.
at first, he ignores her– goes back to reading his book like she’s a fly buzzing around his head. he’s probably used to it, you muse to yourself, chuckling in your head.
and then you feel it. the pinpricks of his stare. so pointed and sharp now that it’s directed at you.
the notes app is your only friend as you type against the screen of your phone. you feel stupid– like a schoolgirl who’s just been noticed by her crush, trying to seem busy as if you haven’t been staring at him for god knows how long.
when he looks away from your general direction, you lift your head– trying to get a glimpse of his side profile for, what you promise yourself to be, the last time.
only to meet his gaze straight on.
you hear his friends snicker, nudge their elbows against him as you look to the side, too embarrassed to even think of looking in his direction again. you hear his voice, low and smooth as he snaps, trying to make them stop. they only tease him more.
you hear the name megumi, picture the shy smile that spread on his lips before stiffening, quickly getting up from your seat when the intercom calls your flight number.
the staff are quick to usher the crowds of people into a neat line, herding passengers to their respective gates. your feet move on autopilot, making your way towards the double doors that lead to your plane.
you only stop when someone calls your name, waving frantically as they push through the people to get to you.
megumi stands in front of you, hair even more tousled than before. there’s a bead of sweat on his forehead that slides down the side of his neck and into his sweater. his eyes are green, reminding you of the forest, a piece of jade, and the color of your passport holder in his hand.
“you forgot this.” he holds the official document against his chest before handing it over to you. his fingers brush against yours, delicate and neatly trimmed, before they clench into a fist by his side. “you left it on your seat.”
“right,” you mumble, the sound wispy as if your own breath had been sucked out from your lungs. you bow your head in gratitude while simultaneously trying to shake away the daze clouding your thoughts. “thank you. i owe you one.”
the silence that stretches after is nothing if not awkward. you’re looking anywhere but him, and he’s doing the same. the staff guarding the gate watch– clearly gossiping about your little interaction with the male in front of you.
after a while, megumi nods once before turning back towards his seat, a muffled safe flight leaving his lips.
that's it?
you watch as he strides away, some parts confused and disappointed. his friends wear the same expression as you do, the girl practically screeching into his ear while the boy tries to push him back towards your direction.
megumi doesn’t budge, stone faced as he sits in between them. returning to his book as if nothing significant has happened.
maybe some things just aren’t meant to be.
you send the duo a wave, smiling when they do the same, before showing the staff your ticket and passport, heading straight down the gate, and boarding the plane.
you won't see him again anyway.
it’s only when you’re seated on a train, a thousand miles away from where you were, gazing out of the window as it speeds across Tokyo that you finally see a note slipped into your passport, one containing his full name and number.
i think you’re pretty. my friends think you’re cool. would you like to get dinner some time? – megumi fushiguro.
your pointer finger traces his handwriting, neat and cursive, and you let out a giggle because for whatever reason, it feels exactly like him.
to: cute sea urchin
[13:57] hey. it's the girl from the airport.
[13:58] is sushi okay? it's my treat! i owe you one after all.
from: cute sea urchin
[14:23] yeah, anything's fine with me. see you.
to: cute sea urchin
[14:37] cool! can't wait to see you again, gumi!
#he practically melts after reading that message. bet.#a pretty girl calling him gumi right off the bat? yuji and nobara had to hold onto him bcz he looked like he was about to faint#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen imagines#jujutsu kaisen fluff#megumi fushiguro x reader#fushiguro megumi x reader#megumi x reader#fushiguro x reader#megumi imagine#megumi fushiguro fluff#fushiguro megumi fluff#megumi fushiguro x you#fushiguro megumi x you#jujutsu kaisen x you#jjk x reader#jjk x you#jjk x y/n#jujutsu kaisen x y/n#megumi fluff#jujutsu kaisen imagine
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Okay but what about reader giving Xavier a necklace with her initial on it…
Wednesday twin!Reader
I've done this scenario a few times for other characters/fandoms, but only the situation reversed (where reader is the one wearing the necklace)
—
After seeing him, you didn't want to look at anything else.
Enid was giving you and Wednesday a quick tour of the school after your arrival. She showed you the library, the dining area, where to go to class and, lastly, the quad — which was a pentagon, as your sister had flatly pointed out. Enid had not been amused by Wednesday's humor and chose to ignore her and continuing her tour, insisted on giving you a wikia on Nevermore's social seats.
As the blonde was expanding about the clics and Bianca Barclay, your eyes fell on the tall boy on the other side of the quad and they wouldn't leave him. The world around you turned into a white noise, a mere echo, as you gave your whole attention to the stranger. You were completely entranced by him. His hair was tied back as he effortlessly painted a raven on a school wall.
''—used to date our resident tortured artist, Xavier Thorpe,'' Enid explained, and, as if on cue, the boy — Xavier — looked over his shoulder, finally giving you a good picture of his face.
A sharp jawline sliding into a pointed chin, Cheshire cat green eyes and the beautiful and full pink lips. You felt like throwing up as the words crossed your mind, but he had the face of an angel.
He raised his hand over the painting, making you very confused. Until now, you didn't know Nevermore's outcasts had powers. The artwork followed his hand movement, the wings of the raven coming to life and sending your heart in a twirl, in complete awe at everything this boy was.
At that moment, you wondered if that's how your parents felt when they first saw each other. The tight feeling in the chest and the inability to look away. You wanted to cross the quad and compliment Xavier on his artwork and talent or simply introduce yourself — get any kind of interaction with him —, but another boy pulled you out of your bubble. This one had a whole den of snakes hidden underneath his beanie.
Before coming to Nevermore, you had never batted a lash at any boys, but for some reason Wednesday couldn't fathom or indulge, you had a special interest for Xavier.
''What do you find in him?'' she asked from her bed, reading her copy of Frankenstein. She had read it so many times that the spine was cracked and duck-taped.
A smile curled on your face, your mind drifting to Xavier.
Although he was very handsome, your attraction didn't stop there. It was more than his look. It was the way he carried himself, his posture and effortlessly elegant demeanor, the way he spoke about things he was passionate about, the shy dimpled smile he always reserved for you, the way he gave you his undivided attention when he's talking to someone, the subtle acts of romanticism like that one time he got you that specific shade of rose that's really hard to find and expensive just because it was your favorite.
''I'm afraid the list would exceed the level of disgust you can handle in one day, dear sister,'' you replied.
''Do test me. I might enjoy myself.''
You loved him in a way you couldn't explain. He made you see life in colors, painting a golden light over your natural darkness.
The hour was late as you wandered to the boys’ dormitory, ducking into alcoves and being as quiet as the dead on your way to Xavier’s dorm. He didn’t know you were coming, but Thing had seen him returning from his nightly run through Wednesday's window so you knew he was there.
You did your special knock and when the door opened, Xavier grabbed your shoulder and pulled you inside, quickly closing behind you. You couldn't be on the boys' floors. The rules were very strict concerning the dormitories and the consequences would be severe if caught.
‘’What are you doing here? I thought you were spending the night celebrating your birthday with Wednesday.’’ Xavier reached for your hand, pulling you close to him. His hair was released from its usual hair-tie and damp from the shower he must’ve had after his run.
‘’It appears she has blown me off,’’ you explained with a tinge of bitterness. ‘’Only Thing was in her dorm when I let myself in and refused to tell me where she had gone. My suspicions are, she is raising dark forces and does not want mom and dad to know of her hellish doings.’’
Xavier frowned. ‘’Hellish doings?’’
''Séances. We have an altar in our living room at home.’’
You spoke so casually of dark magic that Xavier didn’t wish to know what else you and your parents did in your free time. It might be a little too spooky and kooky for him.
‘’I have something for you.’’ You pulled out a black velvet pouch from your jacket pocket. ‘’Open it.’’
Xavier took the pouch with a veil of confusion on his face. ‘’You got me a gift on your birthday?’’
‘’Open it, mon amour,’’ you pressed, equally excited and terrified to see his reaction.
Delicately, Xavier untied the loose knot and pulled the pouch open. He reached inside and took out a silver necklace. It wasn’t delicate and dainty like a woman's. The chain was thicker and the pendant was in the shape of a wax stamp with your initial on it.
‘’I found the pendant in a shop in town. I was looking for a present for Wednesday and it caught my eye through one of the glass shelves among other trinkets.’’
He observed the jewelry closely, then smiled at it. ‘’Like Y/N?’’
‘’Not because I own you,’’ you felt the need to add, ‘’but because I’m the only one who really knows you.’’
Xavier’s smile deepened, soft dimples poking. The smile he kept just for you. He unclasped the back of the necklace and you grabbed it from him, putting it on for him. A smile bloomed on your lips, seeing the pendant resting over his shirt as a mark of your love.
—
Wednesday taglist: @sofiaadler @partyfly @hoodforcalum @thelilacmourning @ellessecretobsession @su-alteza-emia @achoo---uu @not-leaprvt @xaviersgf @peterparkerdilf @roadworkaheadisurehopeitdoes @dragon-chica @coldtacozinepanda @wrldofsage @eddiemunsonsluvrrr @capriaura @officialsaturn @babyfiva @maevaomizzolo @kelloggs-world @whosljt @ajpanda181 @belovedrey @emerycrt @elizabitchsshit @heaven-hiding @lilithlikestoread @est-liber @moonisu @dessxoxsworld @parker-nite @bellblake121890 @vesperazhier @kaldurahms-lover @beeebo234 @nephilimsss @mayuphoenix @sweetheartlizzie07 @watermelon-18 @snixx2088 @555stargirl555 @robinscardigan @chumchum19 @lilttblog @aphex2winn @heizenka @mystargirl-interlude @hwrtsiren @babygirljay20 @wildflowerlyss @strangersomeone @openfandoms @charlottelaffin @iheartmaddyperez @starless-starkov @ali-r3n @poppet05 @ell0ra-br3kk3r @rhaenyraswife @teaganthemorningstar @aphex2winn @moompie @ifevilwhyhot
#xavier thorpe#xavier thorpe x reader#xavier thorpe imagine#xavier thorpe x you#wednesday imagine#wednesday netflix#wednesday#percy hynes white
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hii can i request you weite zuko x chubby/plus sized reader? specifically just general dating headcanons (and possibly some smut hcs if you feel like writing that). id prefer a gender neutral reader but im not very picky about that type of thing. i love ur writing btw!!
ONG TY FOR THAT! Exposing myself here but I'm actually a chubby person (lore drop im not a girl) so this is very heartwarming for me :33
...
Zuko Headcannons - Dating a Chubby/Plus-Sized Reader
this is not meant to romanticize eating disorders
meeting you ִֶָ 𓂃⊹ ִֶָ
-when you walked into the tea shop, he thought you were the most beautiful person hes ever seen
-'hey uncle, i can serve them'
-immediately wanted to talk to you
-he was extremely nervous, acting like a lost turtleduck
-'what? jas..jasmine tea! oh yeah.'
-gave you an extra cookie
-always waves to you when you come in
-was excited when iroh told him that you asked where Zuko was when he was sick at home
-you're his favorite customer
-'Lee. My name's Lee.'
knowing you ִֶָ 𓂃⊹ ִֶָ
-after a while, Iroh hired you at the Jasmine Dragon when he got the shop
-you and zuko became very close
-you two had sleepovers at his and iroh's shared apartment
-iroh would make you guys sleep in the livingroom
-loved the way your waiter uniform hugged your curves
-would make you food all the time, even when you insisted you werent hungry
-protective whenever you served boys your age
-you came with him and iroh to serve tea at the palace to the king
-'zuko? you're the prince of the fire nation?'
-you werent as angry as he thought you would be
-you were locked up with him and katara in the catacombs
-came with him when he chose to fight alongside azula
dating him (royalty) ִֶָ 𓂃⊹ ִֶָ
-when zuko started living in the palace again, he immediately offered for you to live with him
-a week later, he confessed
-he told you how you were the most gorgeous person he's ever seen
-how you looked like a painting from the renaissance
-held you close at night when you two slept
-assigned a special place in the palace for your special interests
-noticed when you stopped eating much
-tried to offer you as much food as possible
-was confused when he saw you throwing up after dinner
-'(y/n)? did you get food poisoning?'
-consoled you when you started crying about your body
-'it's the one i imagined in my dreams.'
-🔞kissed your arms, your neck, your stomach and your thighs
-he loved seeing your stretch marks
-🔞seeing you naked for the first time was a dream come true
dating him (redemption) ִֶָ 𓂃⊹ ִֶָ
-you refused to let him go work with the avatar without you
-was there when he told ozai about wanting to be better
-comforted him when he learned the truth about his mom
-helped him create his introduction to the gaang
-'hello, zuko here!' *you laugh*
-fully defended him when nobody trusted him
-got angry when katara called you a traitor too
-cooked you lots of food while camping out
-always worshipping your body whenever alone
dating him (firelord) ִֶָ 𓂃⊹ ִֶָ
-immediately proposed to you after his coronation
-🔞got busy as soon as you guys got in your room on your wedding night
-loved getting clothes that hugged your body
-you were always there with him
-'what do mean they shouldn't be in this meeting?
-did anything to make you happy
-got you an extra cookie whenever you wanted a meal to remind you of when you guys first met
-very possesive of you
-beat the shit out of a soldier that made a rude comment about your body
#avatar the last airbender#fandom#fanfic#fluff#sokka#katara#aang#smut#zuko x reader#prince zuko#atla zuko#zuko#chubby
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Boy, It's You I Desire | Fernando Alonso x Reader
part 1 | part 2
fem!reader x dbf! fernando
word count: 1.7k
minors dni please!
warnings: age gap, mentions of drinking, sexual innuendos, mentions of masturbation, delusion since i pretend fernando won the 2023 spanish gp
It was wrong. The deep, stirring feelings you had for Fernando. He was twenty years your senior, and had been friends with your dad for a decade and a half. You had pictures of him from his Renault days covering your bedroom when you were little, and he came to as many of your youth karting races as possible. These feelings? They had been there, transforming from a silly little crush when you were five to a tingling in your stomach when you turned sixteen. This summer was the first time you believed he felt the same.
Fernando had thought of you as a child. You were so much more than that to him, but the idea of loving you? That was wrong. Foreign. Somehow, the desire for you developed deep within him. Part of him loved the idea of having you as his secret.
Your father had met Fernando Alonso while your family was on vacation in Spain. There's a picture of you and your brothers as chubby elementary schoolers.You sitting in the sand in Oviedo with a twenty-something Fernando kneeling behind you. It is your mother’s favorite picture of her little family. Since Fernando was family to you and your two younger brothers. It sits in a wooden frame on the kitchen counter, in your family’s vacation home in Spain, where you now spend every summer. It used to feel like a happy memory, but now it seems to haunt you with what you can never have.
This summer in Oviedo felt no different than the many previous. You sat by the pool, spent time with some of your friends there, went out to eat, and occasionally went to the club. Dancing in a dark, sweaty room after a few drinks helped to ease the fact that you had not seen the older man in close to a year. It still mystified you at how you were practically in love with him. Whether it was actually him, or the figment of him your imagination romanticized, you were unsure.
Regardless, numerous boyfriends, and flings could not erase the crush that ate at the pit of your stomach. A flash of messy brown hair when you were walking downtown had your heart squeezing in your chest. Even worse, these feelings had recently crept back into play, at the dawn of the new Formula 1 season. He was your childhood crush. You reasoned that everyone had a goofy love for one of their distant relatives or parent’s friends when they were small, but at the age of twenty-three, you were unable to just write what you felt off.
Your parents had gone to see Fernando at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend, and it was just you and your brothers flitting in and out of the house. They were eighteen, and sixteen, so you figured you would just stay out of each other’s way. You wished that you were able to travel with your parents to the Grand Prix, but you had never been deeply interested in autosport, and suddenly feigning interest would raise questions you felt no desire to answer. Your parents would tease you, saying you only wanted to go for Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, or Fernando’s teammate, Lance Stroll. Standing in the Aston Martin garage would have sent you over the edge. You would have embarrassed yourself trying to hide the feelings you felt to be very obvious. Interacting with Fernando in his natural environment practically would have had you purring, and pressing your thighs together. Which is obviously not something you were into happening in front of your fucking family.
You watched the race, and wished even more that you went. Max Verstappen's Red Bull had qualified ahead of the Aston Martin, but he had suffered a very convenient engine failure in the closing laps. Fernando moved into first with ease. It was his thirty-third win, coming over ten years after his last. You knew he had to feel on top of the world, winning at his home Grand Prix. The crackly radio message yells and celebrations heard on your television were nowhere near the extent of it all. You pretended to be excited to your parents on the phone, about them telling you all about the paddock, but in reality, there was only one person you really cared about.
You desired nothing more than to be the woman he finds after being the highest on the podium. The one waiting on the bed in his hotel room, ready to feel his illicit touch. The thrill you know you would feel from having him buried deep inside you, without your parents having any idea. It made you want to rush to him. You played these filthy scenarios in your head while you touched yourself, and before you fell asleep every night. And tonight would be no exception. Trying to pretend your fingers were his, after you had a few drinks to numb the intensity of what you were feeling. Desperately hoping he was lying awake, wishing he could roughly pull your hair, and capture your lips with a searing kiss. In summation: you wanted Fernando Alonso to ruin you.
You woke up the Tuesday following the race to your parents’ voices downstairs. Laughter, clinking dishes, and suitcases rolling across the tile floor awoke you earlier than expected. You laid in bed, a warm breeze flowing in from your room’s open windows. You listened, despite a grueling headache from the previous two nights’ crosses between self-care and self-pity. What you did not expect to hear was that Spanish accent dancing among your parents’ casual conversation. A sensation of overwhelming excitement and a pinch of fear mixed in your stomach. Maybe something would happen…
You knew you should have probably put something more appropriate on before you went downstairs. But Fernando seeing you in your threadbare, oversized Renault shirt and barely visible pajama shorts was worth any potential consequences. Your little ploy worked. As much as you paid attention to him, you missed the way his eyes flicked downward, roaming your chest, stopping at the top of your exposed thighs. He started to really look at you. Like you were some beautiful young woman he met at a track or club. He felt himself split, one half wanted to take you on your kitchen island, making you cry out from him. From him only, not the little boyfriend you probably had. The other half remembered who you were to him. You were one of his closest friends’ children. That truth he was unable to escape. What if he was able to bend this rule? He pushed any thought of you from his mind, and easily reentered the conversation after falling into his aforementioned daze.
You practically ran to Tío Fernando, greeting him with an overzealous hug. As you always had, you lovingly buried your face deep in his shoulder, inhaling his expensive cologne. You could have been mistaken, but it felt as if he pressed himself to you more eagerly than was technically appropriate. You were going insane, this man should be a father-figure to you. Not an older man you were objectifying to filth, though many other women would leap at the chance to.
“Hola, cariño. My favorite girl is doing well, yes?” You practically melted at the way he smiled down at you. He rubbed a small circle on your back, as he had not seen you in awhile. You had always known you were his favorite. It had been obvious since you were small. You were both fierce, stubborn, and proud. Yet you desperately held onto the possibility of something beyond the base relationship you already had. You wanted to clash with him. Fight him, and fuck him.
“Thank god you’re here! I missed my favorite tío.” You reluctantly left his warm embrace, and greeted your parents. He let out his signature laugh at your response. You felt your face burning underneath your skin, praying that a flush was not spreading across your cheeks. The conversation passing between the three other adults continued while you slowly ate breakfast. Your brothers eventually filed into the kitchen and were greeted by Fernando with quick claps on the back. Fernando was practically unable to turn his gaze away from you when there were lulls in the conversation.
In the year that you had not seen each other, a lot had changed. Fernando looked more youthful, and less worn down after his departure from Alpine. You had seen the physical transformation on television and the internet, as every fan had. He had always been fine, but now, goddamn, you needed to watch out. Green was his color. It complemented his tanned, caramel skin, and his brown, almost hazel, eyes.
You spent the rest of the morning, and into the early afternoon, laying by the pool as you usually did. You donned one of your prettiest, and coincidentally, smallest string bikinis to lay out and enjoy the warm Spanish sun. The sky was clear, and the air was miraculously less humid than usual. Both of your brothers and your parents had left to do something, but you had not listened when they told you their plans. Fernando was still home, but you figured he was probably busy in a meeting or debrief with his team, and you did not want to bother him any more than you already had. Now, the only noises to disturb you were a lawn mower a couple of houses away, or a car passing by the facade of your house.
The warmth of the ground radiated from underneath the towel you were laying on, and you began to fade into a light sleep. You must have dozed off for a few minutes, as you were awoken by someone ghosting their hand across your back, having gently brushed your hair from where it had laid. You jolted upright, raising a hand to cover your eyes. They finally adjusted to the harsh afternoon sunlight once more, and you realized it was Fernando who had woken you up. He was crouching only inches away from where you had been laying. You could practically feel his breath on the side of your neck before you turned to look at him properly.
“You are going to burn if you keep laying out here like that,” He smiled, crinkles forming around his tan face. You shifted your arms to cover one another to disguise the goosebumps the small caress had given you. His focus shifted to your arms, and you were sure that he noticed exactly what you were trying to hide.
“Well, thank you for saving me from a nice tan.” You playfully rolled your eyes at him, and started to get up. Fernando quickly grabbed your arm, pulling you back down.
He sucked his tongue against his teeth to scold you. “Since you are already dressed for it,” His gaze dropped to your microscopic bikini top, where it settled for longer than it should have, “I think we should go for a swim.” Saying that you were surprised was an understatement.
“Alright.” you had not expected yourself to be so compliant, as you were not in a big swimming mood. Fuck, Fernando could make you do anything.
—
author’s note: thank you so much for reading my first work! i don’t think this was very good, since writing fiction isn’t really my forte. but, this is my silly little hobby before i start college so whatever. the next part is coming soon and feel free to message me with ideas, if you want to be tagged, or anything like that. you are the goat for reading this :)
#fernando alonso x reader#fernando alonso#fernando alonso smut#f1 fic#f1#aston martin formula one#aston martin f1#dbf!#fernando alonso fic#fernando alonso x you
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HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc! as enemies to star-crossed lovers
CHAPTER EIGHT — SEWN UP
PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT
summary: you'd need a hacksaw to cut the tension between you and eddie, but that's not your weapon of choice this time around. a newspaper pitch, a patchwork girl and a tasteless prank all work together to make things ever more awkward between you and the boy you keep senselessly calling your friend.
content warnings: MINORS DNI, THIS IS NOT SAFE FOR YOUR PURITAN EYES - reader is an ex-bitch on a journey of self-discovery through being an even more specific kind of bitch, angst in the form of an elizabeth munson mention, miscommunication, lacy engaging non-platonically with someone other than eddie, mention of lacy's surname and dad's name, REEFER RICK CAMEO, billy hargrove slander as per, violence, a humiliating prank, smut in the form of public hand stuff (f!receiving), me feeling insane about this chapter
word count: 14.3k
Dear Mom,
She hasn’t got warm hands. She hasn’t got the kind of smile that draws people to her. She hasn’t got a kind word for everyone, no matter where they come from. She hasn’t got a lot of patience. She hasn’t got a fixed sense of herself–well, she does kinda. But, not totally. Not yet.
She’s not like you.
Other cheerleaders wore ponytails and they’d bounce. But when she wore a ponytail, it swung like a sword. She used to be cruel and exacting, but now she’s just exacting. She’s honest and observant to a degree that’s, like, almost psycho. She’s a cold front, but she laughs like a lightning strike. I feel like thunder, powerless to do anything but roll after her. Can’t help myself.
She knows what she wants, she thinks. Other days she doesn’t. I keep trying to tell her that’s okay, in ways where I don’t actually have to use the words. My words wouldn’t be as good as her words. Her words burn clean through me like a lit tip of a cigarette.
But she does have your book.
Y’know, I always thought it was kind of creepy the way some guys would try and look for their mom in other girls.
So this might be a good thing. Less Oedipus-y, more ea–…
Shit. I was gonna say something I’m so sure you’d smack me around the head for. But you’re not here to do that. I might be in better shape with this girl if you were.
Anyway. I miss you.
Eddie Munson stands in the midst of an incredibly awkward aftermath.
See, for two people so purportedly self-assured, he in his freakshow roguishness and you in your prim-perfect knife-edge sharpness, you’re both entirely dogshit at acknowledging… well… anything.
You both tried to snap back to normal so quickly, with Wheeler and her science experiment pregnancy scare smashing through the ice. But the water underneath that ice is still freezing cold– and you’re both pretending you’re not gasping for air, pretending like you don’t remember gasping for each other’s lips.
This is totally cool. This is totally fine.
And then Eddie comes to see you at The Bookstore, which has become just as routine as nearly never brushing his hair, and sees you fixing your seller’s tag to your pick of the week. Your face in that arresting, self-conscious smile that he wants to melt off with the blowtorch of his mouth.
It’s The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Now, he noticed that you would habitually drop writers’ names into conversation like they were your lit professors– Didion said this, Bukowski said that, Bronte yadda, Burroughs yadda. Always some genius-adjacent, formative-thinking, socio-politico-boffo brainwad, more often than not with a substance abuse kick that you romanticized from a safe distance.
But then you unearth this book, a green clothback cover yellowing with age and roughness, red and yellow inlaid titling blasting out a name he ought to know. It makes his visual memory brrrrrrring! like a bright red tomato shaped kitchen timer.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz was with Elizabeth Munson wherever she went. Her records were her plane tickets, her escape to another world, but you couldn’t take your records with you to the hospital. Escaping to Oz was a decent substitute. She must have read it a bajillion times; she even took to calling Wayne Unc Nunkie after the elderly munchkin who only ever had one word for anybody. And whenever Eddie would drop an egg when they were baking or come running through the house with his knees all cut up, she’d coo, “Oh, my li’l Ojo the Unlucky!”
The book lingered everywhere– on the kitchen counter of the house on Pennsylvania,on the vinyl seat of the booth at the now-shuttered Benny’s when she could afford to take Eddie for a treat, on her bedside table.
Up until the end.
It knocks the wind out of Eddie when he sees it on the display shelf. He does a bad job of hiding that.
“What, too shocked to make fun of me?” you say, perching yourself on the rickety stool behind the counter, and your voice betrays a little embarrassment. “That’s a first.”
“I–... huh?” He tears his eyes away from the book long enough to catch the specks of blush high on your cheeks.
“It’s not my usual flavor, I know, but I’m capable of whimsy too.”
“Why that one?” His limbs feel stony like Unc Nunkie’s, as much as he wants to languidly lean over the counter and bother you like he always does.
You shrug, but you tilt the opposite shoulder. A reverse, a peek behind the looking glass. He notices that about you, which goddamn shoulder is your shrugging preference.
“I think it was one of the first books I kept checking out of the library when I was little,” you say, glancing back at the display, “It’s about this poor little kid who has to find a way to reverse a spell on his uncle who’s been turned to stone, and the eponymous patchwork girl is–”
“I know the story.” It comes out a little blunter than Eddie was intending it to. So much so that it knocks you back a beat.
“Oh,” you say shortly, eyes flaring down at the counter. “No need to cut me off mid-stream about it.”
Eddie winces, knowing he’s coming across as weird and stilted but with no idea how to safely climb down. “No, just– I know the story, yeah. My mom…” That is not a safe dismount, dummy! “...she… liked it a lot.”
“Yeah?” your tone stays even, yanked back from him a little. He wants to be like, sorrysorrysorry. “She ever read it to you?”
“A bunch, actually.”
“No shit.” The corners of your mouth tick up. “Wanna hear something super dorky?”
Just the mere invitation of your little smile loosens him up a bit. Eddie twists a ring around his finger, head kicking to his shoulder as his foot kicks to the counter. “Always,” he says, squinting.
You straighten your spine up on your stool and clear your throat. Hand goes over your heart, like you’re about to recite the damn declaration. Your eyes shutter closed.
“Here’s a job for a boy of brains– a drop of oil from a live man’s veins; a six-leaved clover; three nice hairs, from a Woozy’s tail, the book declares; are needed for a magic spell, and water from a pitch-dark well– the yellow wing from a butterfly to find must Ojo also try; and if he gets them without harm, Doc Pipt will make the magic charm; but if he doesn’t get ‘em, Unc…” your crack one eye open. “...will always stand a marble chunk.”
Eddie is silent for… for a while. For a good handful of heartbeats, for a beat so long that makes you knit your brow up, your eyes needling into him. Eddie’s looking at you with rose-colored soft focus. His elbows are eagerly pitched on the counter now, chin in his hands. The last person to recite those words to him was his mom, her voice raspy and tired but still willing to read to him. She hadn’t smelled like herself. It was sad.
And now, your voice, with all its snippy chainmail thrown off, gone all soft and lyrical and dedicated.
He thinks about a littler you, one he could vaguely pick out of a lineup if he really, really tried, criss-cross applesauce and pouring over that book so often that that little spell jams itself into your brain.
The mage before she donned the mink coat.
Eddie is looking at you and can’t force his heart out of his throat.
Well, until he can.
“Ew,” he cringes.
“What?!” you exclaim, your eyes getting all incredulous and kind of mad.
“And they call me a fuckin’ nerd, what the hell was that?” Eddie’s laughing, mocking, not with his whole heart. But it’s enough to make you scoff, irritated with him again.
See, you thought you were being cute and he knows you thought you were being cute. He needs to put you back in a place where you’re marginally unlikeable enough to just be a friend.
Restore the natural order. Don’t think about how he wants to recite that same verse back to you in front of an ordained Elvis in Vegas. Because he would, in a heartbeat. If he wasn’t committed to not being stupid.
Christ, you’re pretty. Christ, he’s gonna do something stupid.
“You are… completely undateable, you know that?” he nods ferociously, eyes trailing you as you cross out from behind the counter and head for a box of books that need to be shelved. All uh-huhs and sure, Eddies. The bell on the front door jangles and a customer passes behind him.
He yells after you, voice traveling down whatever winding path you’ve taken through the stacks. “You with your black and white movies and your twat rock and your Wizard of Oz… baby, what crowd are you even playing to?”
“What crowd am I playing to? What crowd are you playing to?!” you seethe, shuffling the ten-tonne box of books down the aisle with your feet. “Fucking baggie-pushing, guitar-brutalizing, board-game-...maker-...upper!”
“Woah. Wit’s unmatched as usual, Lace.”
This fucking guy. This fucking guy. You try and do one darling little thing, you just recite a little piece of a book his dead mom used to read to him or whatever, and you get verbally bashed! God forbid, god forbid you let the fucking drawbridge down for half a second! This blows!
You’re trying to be less of a bitch, in case you idiots didn’t notice!
It’s kind of inexplicable, how sensitive you’re feeling about this. Could be that since you kissed and since you pinkie-swore with Nancy Wheeler in the bombed-out boys bathroom, you kind of felt as if you were standing on a blade’s edge with Eddie. Not knowing where to put your hands, not knowing how much or how little to joke around. Not entirely happy with your moment of madness at the Ecker trailer. Not entirely happy that it hadn’t happened again.
But you’re not about to apologize. Not to him. Don Rickles in a battle vest over there. Must he always just poke you like that?!
“You’re undateable!” You shove a bunch of books aside on the shelf. “Me, I’m cu–...”
Right through the shelf, a customer stares at you. Your voice dies in your throat because, unfortunately, he’s looking right at you in your flurry of annoyance toward Eddie. And unfortunately, this stranger, he’s a little…
“What were you gonna say?” he asks, closing Gravity’s Rainbow.
“Cute.”
Guy smiles, doesn’t break eye contact with you for a second. He’s wearing a sweater. He looks fresh out of somewhere stone walled with crawling ivy. “I’d attest to that.”
You forget about Eddie– just for a second. Gesturing to Gravity’s Rainbow, you say, “Gonna attempt to finish that?”
“What’s that mean?” His grin is infectious, or maybe you’re just starved for this kind of attention.
“Nothing,” you say, with a little more tongue than you need to, “Just, I don’t know of anyone that’s ever finished that behemoth.”
Well, you don’t know of a lot of people that read the way you do either. But, digression. He raps a knuckle against the cover of the book and for some reason, you feel it in your belly.
“I always finish,” he tells you.
“Do you now?”
That’s the longest you’ve been quiet in a hot minute, and that’s the kind of thing that gets under Eddie’s skin. Chain on his jeans jangling, he starts off into the creaking labyrinth of lined-up bookcases.
“What, did you expire back here or something…” he mutters, a little whine in his tone– play with me, play with me, even though I’m being kind of a dick to you–
He sees you, a book lying lax in your arms, your body swaying to and fro and you’re–
“--talkin’ to yourself, Lacy? Great look. Real honeytrap, if you’re lookin’ to catch some imaginary di–”
“Eddie,” you grit at him, and he spots the whole other human male you’re talking to through the stacks. Well, not just talking to. Not with that body language.
This dude tilts his chin to Eddie. “Hey, man. I remember you. Didn’t you used to sell dimebags in the woods outside school?”
Fire flares in Eddie’s gut. He vaguely recognizes this guy– class of ‘83 or ‘82, not remarkable enough to be hateable but now, he’s certainly collegiate looking enough to be… distracting to you. So, annoying to him.
“Why, man? You lookin’ to buy? Or just cruise some high schooler tail?”
“Eddie!” you hiss again and he scoffs like, really?! You turn back to this… whoever the fuck. “C’mon, I’ll check you out.”
“You’ll check him out, huh?” Eddie sneers, bearing over you as you pass him in the aisle. Body heat breezing right by, face a mask of sheer disgust. Impulse talks; it totally wants to just grab you and throw you behind him and– well, he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. But he’s creative. Who the fuck even is this guy? Where did he come from?
“That you?” this guy says, jerking his head toward the staff display, toward The Patchwork Girl of Oz. “Lacy?”
“To my friends and co-conspirators,” you say, ringing up that godawful Pynchon book.
“Which one was that guy?” he asks, watching you jot out his receipt on the carbon copy pad because for whatever reason, Ivana’s cash register is from the fucking 1800s and she refuses to upgrade to anything with a thermal printer. “Friend? Co-conspirator? … boyfriend?”
You wrinkle your nose. And don’t exactly answer, but it’s enough confirmation for him.
“Good. Say, why don’t you jot down your number on this thing?” He pushes the receipt back to you. “I can keep you updated on my Pynchon progress. You can… see if I’m good enough to co-conspire with.”
You like this approach. In fact, you love this approach, because you hadn’t been earnestly picked up in… forever. And he has this certain je ne sais quoi about him, something that screams moved out of state for college. You stay grinning, biting your lip for a good breath or two after he leaves the store.
Then Eddie appears in your peripheral, like some terrible harbinger of embarrassment.
“Undateable, huh?” you say, fully aware that he was earwigging on that whole exchange because he’s a nosy bitch and he can’t help himself. Glutton for gossip.
“You don’t have to throw yourself at the first person who walks in the store just to prove a point, baby,” Eddie tells you, this big face of condescension. You want to smack it off him so bad your palms are itching.
You huff and backtrack to where that box of unshelved books sits. “Maybe I’m tired of waiting around.”
—
Ronnie Ecker and Robin Buckley are looking each other in the eye, wolf-whistling furtively when you elbow open the door of the gym.
“You’re flat. I’m telling you you’re flat,” Ronnie’s insisting, an adorable three inches away from Robin’s face.
“I can’t be flat! A mouth whistle cannot be flat!”
It’s marching band practice. You don’t know what the hell goes on in here and you know better than to ask.
“Would you two get a room already?” you call, heels clicking across the glossed wood of the gym. These dorks have all got their feathered hats and bibs on, a kind of half-assed dress rehearsal for some pep rally they’re having on Friday. You missed the bulletin– kind of stopped paying attention, actually. Extracurricular distraction is a hell of a drug.
“Excuse me, this is a closed–” that’s the voice of Miss Genovese, the band teacher, stomping down from the bleachers in these tragic little loafers with the pleather peeling off. She makes it about halfway toward you, then this exasperated look washes right over her. The teacher dashes for the double doors and you point after her with a freshly painted red index finger. New lease on looking good.
“And that is?”
“Like, the third time in the last hour,” Ronnie shakes her head, taking her flamboyant little hat off. “Biggest running theory is morning sickness.”
What, is pregnancy like, catching or something? you’re about to muse.
“It’s almost contagious, right?” Robin says, tugging at her clip-on collar, “I mean, first your whole thing and now–”
Ronnie doesn't even have a chance to gesture for her to ixnay! before she slams pause on herself, eyes wide and all shit, did I say that out loud?! Your eyes narrow in return. That’s suspicious.
“What whole thing? My whole what?”
Ever and eternally knowing when to call it, Ronnie holds a hand up before Robin can even start to scramble an apology and serve it to you. Panther versus a precious little puppy dog– the fight ain’t even fair.
“Nothing. Scuttlebutt bullshit, the usual,” she rolls her eyes, throws a sympathetic glance to Robin who winces and retreats. Huh.
“What’s going on with you two?” you ask, crossing your legs over the bottom rung of the bleachers.
This actually makes Ronnie’s expression soften a little– her eyes race back in Robin’s direction and you swear you catch a blush. “Also nothing! Compound nothing. Why, does it look like…”
Lips purse into a little satisfied grin. Knew it. Toldja. Point to Lacy. “Looks like whatever you want it to look like.”
Ronnie reaches forward and waves her feathered hat in your face– stop being so observant! You cough in protest– ew, I don’t know where that thing has been!
“Whatever! What brings you to geek church?”
“That’s what they’re calling it now?”
“Stick around, we’ll start speaking in tongues.”
“Satanic Panic bringing about a fun new turn for the pep rally! Put some God back into that wind instrument,” you croon. “No, I actually wanted your thoughts on something.”
Ronnie raises her eyebrows and you feel like you oughta mirror her. You’re not usually one to seek out a second opinion, but the more you’ve gotten to know Ronnie, the more you see that she’ll tell you how it is. Especially now that you’ve dispersed with the whole intimidating it-girl cloud and she’s stopped pretending to be shy.
“I know. I’m shocked too.”
“I’m honored,” she swings her shoulders in girlish delight, “Dish it up, Doevski.”
“Okay, so,” you clap, hiking forward on your creaking bleacher, “I’ve been seeing this guy–”
“--this is the bookstore guy?”
A blink and a beat. “How’d you know about that?”
A face that has Eddie told me with footnotes of and he was kind of jealous scrawled all over it stares back at you. “I ‘unno, maybe I overheard…”
“Doesn’t matter.” You slice a hand through the air, no time for this right now. “Facts are facts, I’ve been hanging out with this guy,” interesting change of phraseology, considering, “and he’s a college guy–”
“If they could see you now.” The royal court of Hawkins, obviously. Older guys are generally an accomplishment. But Ronnie’s half-jesting.
“--I know, shut up. But, he mentioned something that would absolutely rock my college applications is a really, really great–”
“--feature in the Streak?” you’d gasped out in the back of his Ford Cortina (how very European!). College guy’s mouth was on your neck and his hand was inching into your shirt, playing at a faux placket of pearl buttons. Boys can never tell a real button from a fake one, apparently, even if they go to an East Coast school. I mean, shit! You’d gleaned enough information from him over a shake at the diner; relatively well-to-do family that lived near the Wheelers on Maple and kind of underwhelming taste in lit for an English major.
But he maintained eye contact and listened to your witty little bon mots, even if he didn’t… laugh at them. One thing led to another and thus, the backseat college advisory-slash-makeout session.
“Yeah, yeah, they love that shit…” he’d said, moving to your mouth in order to swallow any forthcoming words. But his words had piqued your interest more than his fingers had.
“What about an underdog story?” you said, eyes kind of hazing over in the middle distance.
“Sure, underdog, great…” college guy grabbed ahold of your leg and tugged you into him, “We can talk more about it later, okay?”
“Okay–”
“–okay?”
Ronnie grimaces. “I didn’t need that much detail.”
“Yes, you did.” You stare at her. “I’m a storyteller.”
Ronnie chews the proposal over a little, cheeks kind of bunched up in confusion. Behind her, band geeks badly hide their hickeys and exhibit too-gangly, too-obvious body language. No inspiration to be tapped from there.
“An underdog story… on the society pages? Like, who could you possibly–”
You smile that awful, conniving smile, because you came in here armed. “Ye of little faith.”
“Oh, no,” Ronnie says, and honestly, you’re a little taken aback by that reaction, “Hellfire?”
A shrug pulls your shoulders right up, rapidly on the defense. “Why not, right?”
“Why not– Lacy, you almost guillotined Jeff that one time he asked you.”
True that you hadn’t had the inches of article to spare for Hellfire Club in not-too-ancient history, but, “That was then, this is now! World’s changing– and it’s topical!”
The whole Satanic panic thing really did tickle your funny bone; and you saw yourself having a little fun with that by turning the focus on Hellfire. Subverting Eddie’s cult-leader mythos to show that he is just a kid who might have a propensity for telling a good story, surrounded by other kids who want to get a word in. You’re not looking to turn the tide on his reputation or anything but maybe… y’know. You could do the admirable journalistic thing and scratch the surface a bit. Show what you’ve learned.
It’s a challenge. You love a challenge.
“And it’s a good excuse to get in Eddie’s face,” Ronnie’s voice breaks through.
There is a lonnng beat, one you hold like the last shoes in your size at a sample sale. Your mouth keeps going to make the words yeah, right or it’s not about him! or y’know, something to exonerate you from the notion.
“I know he isn’t…” Ronnie trails off, coming to sit next to you. “that he’s kind of being weird to you right now.”
Go ahead and feign that ignoramus, girl. Shoulders quirking and all.
“Oh. Is he?”
And then Ronnie says maybe the dumbest thing on the planet, regarding the abominable sitch between you and Eddie Munson.
“You should just talk to him.”
“Ecker, there’s fruitless efforts and then there’s barren wasteland,” you scoff, “Guess which category proposing this to Eddie falls into.”
“That’s not what I–”
J’excuse, Ronnie, but you don’t care! Because this isn’t actually about anything other than getting all of those dice-throwing dorks, including Miss Ecker herself, into your damn paper. Okay?
“We have to ambush him! Element of surprise, that’s it,” you smile primly and hop off the bleachers. “I’m just going to show up at Hellfire, photographer in hand and– he won’t have a choice, will he?”
Ronnie’s expression is a mask of reproachfulness. You don’t let it shake you. You’re a cat playing with a now-endless ball of yarn, and you’re unshakeable.
“He’s such a sucker for attention,” you say, tossing your hair, and it sounds a lot more like you’re convincing yourself than anyone else in this echoey gym, “He won’t be able to resist.”
—
Reefer Rick doesn’t call, unless it’s an emergency. All of his communication is inbound, or passed through a shoulder check and a goofy smile at Melvald’s, or a nod of the head across the pool table at The Hideout. He doesn’t frequent there so much, because Bev knows he’s a pool shark and ever since ‘Nam, his ears are a little too sensitive to all that metal racket, man! By all means, rock on, but by then I gotta go rock-a-bye myself to sleep, alright? Anyway, that’s how Eddie knows to ride over to his place, if it’s not through a call he’s placed himself.
You need me, kid, you come and find me.
So when Eddie gets a call that says, “We gotta pow-wow, ese,” his nerves are set on edge. Not that he wasn’t feeling bad enough, what with the fact that some douchebag in a Cortina had picked you up and dropped you off to school the last couple of days. What with the fact he had actively dogged the car down a little bit of the road from the trailer park with his van, resisting every temptation to just run it all the way off into a ditch. And what with the fact he didn’t know what to say to you about that without it coming out in an anti-missive of jealousy! jealousy! jealousy! so what he did say to you was… nothing.
You two can’t maintain a consistent line of communication to save your lives, he realizes. There’s too much left unsaid, and the both of you are too stubborn or too scared to say any of it. Or even think it, in his case! The amount of times he’d had to slap himself sober, his brain going into overdrive thinking, if I had just told her… It’s a ‘friendship’, if you can even call it that, based on barbs and bad behavior and doing things because you know you shouldn’t. For the thrill. Right?
Like. Whatever. It’s not like he’d made tapes of a half dozen Black Sabbath albums because you mentioned you wanted to ‘study up’ on that ‘monster music’ he’s making. It’s not like you’d given him an annotated copy of Still Life with Woodpecker because he wanted to throw some ‘nonsensical curveball shit’ into a later Hellfire campaign.
It’s not like Eddie missed you– he just… should have seen this coming, is all. He’s used to getting left in the dust while people move onto better things, or whatever.
God, Munson, your voice taunts him from somewhere in his hippocampus, need some help nailing yourself to that crucifix?
Anyway, fuck, Rick called him.
Rick had gotten out of lockup about a month ago– some truncated charge or another that Eddie didn’t bother asking too much about, mostly because… well, Rick hadn’t really been himself. Larger and brighter than the sun itself, the great and powerful lion of a man that oozed life ain’t shit if you ain’t havin’ fun energy, Rick had kind of dimmed. Lost a lot of weight while he was inside. Came back a little bit twitchy and fluent in Spanglish, for some reason.
Eddie was worried, because of all the adult figures in his life, Rick was meant to be the one with levity. He’d lost out on a fun uncle when Wayne stepped into his father-figure role. Al was nothing but a dangerous bit player. Rick, he could rely on.
Thinking back to that infamous day when he had gotten loaded at Lipton Landing, before he picked up you and Ronnie, before he… well, you know the rest but, Eddie had sensed that Rick could use the company. He kind of tried to poke it out of him, whatever was wrong. Didn’t work. They had just watched The Godfather in a tense-ish silence and doofed a lot of joints. Sorta freaked him out.
Eddie’s crushing gravel on the descent to the infamously slanted Lipton Landing for his summons. There’s a hum that seems to traverse the window panes, a fond plucking work that could only belong to Link Wray. He puts the van in park and jogs up the steps to the front door, bracing himself for the pungent plume of skunk smoke that always greets him.
“Eduardo,” Rick’s voice curls around the greeting like smoke curls out of his mouth and he yanks Eddie over the threshold. Door slams, arm tightens around his shoulders. “You’re here.”
Rick’s always a handsy sorta guy–not like that!–but this grab makes him seize a little.
“You rang,” Eddie says, voice lilting, “Everything okay?”
Rick clutches him by the shoulders and looks at him for a long, long time. Uncomfortably long. How has he managed to puff on that joint for this long without choking long.
“No.”
And Rick begins a shuffle toward the kitchen. Eddie follows in an awkward half-step, headache threatening to bloom someplace in the back of his skull because he does not know how much more of this vagueness he can take!
“Does it have anything to do with why you called me down here? Because, shit, I would love to get a straight answer out of someone for once!” A mirthless chuckle follows, trying to soften his desperation.
A flick of the refrigerator door and Rick places two beers on his kitchen counter, hands bracing against the surface. “Then let’s sit crooked and talk straight. It’s about your…”
Hss. Eddie takes a notoriously mis-timed sip.
“...neighbor girl.”
Ffflp– Eddie wishes, just one day of his goddamned life, he could act cool at the mention of you. Even the suggestion of the mention of you. But no, he’s got PBR streaming from his nose like a moron and a look on his face that says uh-oh, spaghettio!
“That’s what I was afraid of,” says Rick, taking a knowingly smooth drink from his beer.
With the heel of his hand, Eddie wipes away his spluttering mess and fumbles around for a crumb of nonchalance.
“I don’t know–”
“Eddie,” Rick levels. God, Eddie hates it when adults are adults, and Rick hates having to act the adult even more.
His shoulders drop. “What about her?”
“Well, when I was in the pen–local, I’ll have you know–I got approached by a very interesting man with a proposition I was powerless to refuse.”
With some trepidation, Eddie mumbles, “Oh, yeah?”
“Someone– well, let’s say me and this someone have a friend in common…”
“Rick–” Eddie’s attempting the leveling thing, but he’s not as good at it as Rick is. Or as you are, for that matter. And you’re who he’s attempting to imitate here, even if he won’t admit it.
“--a certain mutual business partner, if you will–”
“Rick.” Eddie tries to punch through the tension with the big man’s name. “It was Lacy’s dad. Right? You can just say it was her dad.”
Rick’s brow sinks into a wrinkle. “...Lacy? The fuck kind of a dumb name is that?”
“It’s a nickname.” Why does Eddie feel defensive.
“The fuck kind of a dumb nickname is that?”
“They call you Reefer Rick.”
“That is a calculated business decision, a calling card if you w–”
“Rick. Can we close in on the point, here?” Ooh! Seems to actually work this time, much to Eddie’s relief. “I only got so many if you wills left in me.”
“Si, pronto,” Rick nods with apologetic understanding; he’s such an empath, this guy, “Long and short of it is, her pops offered me a little bit of cash and some assistance, iffin’ I promised to keep an eye on her.”
“Assistance…?” Eddie murmured out of the side of his mouth. It’s all in the way Rick says it! “Like…” Hand a loose fist. Jerky-jerk.
“Eddie,” Rick chides, “Assistance gettin’ out. In prison, that is just called bein’ sociable. –anyway, I have this conflict of interest, with the whole surveillance thing.”
“And what is that?”
“You.” The way Rick drops it is obviously meant to cause some kinda ripple effect of realization, but Eddie’s still confused.
“So you… didn’t take the money?”
“Huh?” Now Rick’s all confused. “Of course I took the fuckin’ money! What kind of a chump do I look like, man? What I’m getting at is, I knew that rattin’ on her also meant rattin’ on you.”
“Wh– why would it…”
“I got eyes everywhere, man. Dig? I’ve seen what’s been happening.”
Eddie’s heart leaps into his larynx. Eyes everywhere. And the truth was, you two had been stupid enough to be a lot of everywhere, thinking your respective trailers were the only hot zones. The Bookstore, the Hawk, Main Street Vinyl, Family Video, the diner, you name a Hawkins establishment and it has probably seen Eddie Munson and Lacy Doevski good-naturedly bickering in its aisles.
He wonders if Rick even had eyes in the Ecker trailer. Ronnie could be a Lipton informant. That girl can hold a secret about as well as Wayne Munson can hold his liquor, which is gracefully.
“Nothing’s been happening, we’re just–”
“Eddie.” Like a bulldozer, this guy. “I know Ivana pretty well. You ain’t hangin’ around that bookstore for the good of your health.”
“So what, you’re gonna–,” Eddie can feel himself starting to scramble, starting to sweat, backed into a corner like a hunted animal, “...tell her dad that we went to the movies a couple of times? That I go to her job, that I– that we’re–”
“What are you?” The way Rick puts it to him– rock, meet hard place. Should this really feel like such a tough question to answer?
“Friends.”
Rick draws up to his full height (tall, mountain man) and looks at him like he just shoved a cream pie into his face.
“It doesn’t matter, okay!” Eddie froths over, like a snapping dog, “We’re barely hanging out– anymore– so you can… you’re not gonna tell him anything, are you?”
Rick’s hands slowly, slowly rise, urging him to calm the yapping. No need to get into such a tizzy. Which Eddie wishes he could believe.
“‘course not, man,” he shakes his head, “Ray Doevski only needs to know what Ray Doevski absolutely needs to know.” Eddie can feel a little more weight behind that sentence than he’d like. “No reason you need to figure into this story.”
“That– that’s it? You’re not gonna tell him about u– about me?”
“You’re in enough of a shitheap as it is, is how I see it.” A beat. Rick takes him in; really takes him in. Feels like an embrace, his stare. Concern uncrinkles the ever-present smile in Rick’s eyes.
“Eddie, you care about this girl?”
Eddie’s mouth attempts to form around an answer, but he’s just blinking into nothing. Does he care about you? Does he care about you? He wants, needs to say no, to pfft you off, but every molecule is screaming otherwise. And Rick can sense it, operating on the extraterrestrial level that he does.
“Then I’m real sorry.”
“For what?”
As if on cue, car wheels on gravel shuck Rick’s attention away from him. His eyeballs jitter in his head, heading for the door– Eddie close behind him. “Sorry for what, Rick–?!”
“Little bit for that, little bit for… this.”
Standing in the window of Rick’s living room, these two watch an offensively red muscle car skew into the driveway, making a mockery of Eddie’s beat up van. The driver’s door pops open and the first thing Eddie clocks is a blinding glint off some brand new aviator sunglasses.
The second is that trademark Munson smile.
—
“This is exciting!” Nancy Wheeler says, kind of flatly but with a conviction buried deep under her curled bangs.
On the table sits two piles of playing cards, one steadily growing and one steadily decreasing.
You two had taken to playing gin rummy when staring at paper layouts became a little too much. Technically, she actually had a say in layout and you were just nosy, but it’s a decent excuse to hang out. Though, both you and Nancy had this incredible tendency to hyperfocus on detail so hard that neither of you could pull the other out far enough to look at the big picture, so one day she tossed a deck of cards your way and said, “Deal!”
“I know,” you say, trying to focus on these melds of suits you’re making– that discard pile is looking poor, “Fresh turn for me, y’know? Less fluffy, more Didion.”
Nancy snorts softly, swapping out a card from her hand. “Who does that make Eddie? Charlie? Or Linda Kasabian?”
A smile dances across your lips and you shrug, reaching for a cigarette before you go for another card. Usually, smoking in the newsroom was prohibited, as it was prohibited on most of Hawkins High grounds, but whenever that deck came out, you felt it was appropriate for at least one of you to be smoking. Gave a kind of Torchy Blane feel to the whole scenario which fit you and Wheeler pret-ty keenly, if you did say so yourself.
“That’s not what I was talking about, though,” Nancy says, poking Fred Benson’s empty mug toward you to use as an ashtray.
Your eyes narrow; this could be a play to distract you from a winning hand.
“It’s not?”
“No…” she puffs out another soft scoff, meeting your eyes over her fan of cards, “I mean the college guy.”
“Why is it exciting?” and you do want to know why Nancy thinks so. She’s a mile wiser beyond her years, even precocious enough to keep in step with you most of the time. You’d like her take.
“Well, it’s what you wanted, right?” she tells you, watching you puff your cigarette and dig into the stock pile. “Somebody older, decidedly not a grabby high school boy– but someone with more experience, both with girls and with being outside of Hawkins. And the fact he goes to Vassar means–”
“He probably eats kitty like a maniac.”
Nancy lets out this full-bodied Merlot of a laugh, only a little color dashing over her cheeks. She’s gotten used to you being provocative on purpose because it gets a laugh out of her. So far grown out of the prude shoes you were sure she was still sporting. You’re proud of her.
“Not exactly what I was getting at but– more sensitive to the female perspective, sure.” But then she registers what you forgot you’d even dropped. “Hold on, probably? You mean you haven’t–...”
You shrug. It’s a little withdrawn on your part.
“Oh,” Nancy says, and seems to be leaning a degree or two towards unsurprised. That ruffles your feathers a little bit. Again, with the frigid thing. You couldn’t shake it.
“No,” you emphasize, shucking your pitiful melds back again. “It's not as if we haven't–done things. I've copped a handful. Time is of the essence, and I take, y'know, a little more time to get there.”
“So no return on investment...?”
"Not... yet."
Nancy almost tosses her cards at you, the way she jabs them through the air. “You? You, the one who’s been preaching Betty Friedman to me, you haven't been getting–”
“Yes, me! Did you not hear me about time and the essence?”
“I know, it’s just– a little surprising.”
There have been exactly three instances of almost you tying your panties to the rearview mirror of college boy’s Ford Cortina, so to speak, and you’ve come out of each one with this desperate echo of oh well! Maybe next time! careening around your skull. Like you’re trying to convince yourself that by virtue of him not being in your grade, this has been a worthwhile way to spend your time. And listen, no misunderstandings here, it has! At least, part of it. It usually starts like this– the two of you grab some shitty diner coffee or some shitty diner food and then he takes you around in his car for a turn or two, admiring that famous Hawkins scenery (see: shuttered businesses and if you’re really lucky, that one mangy fox that feasts on the overflowing trash can near the Big Buy). You talk (you mostly talk) books and movies and say something that should be a hook of conversation but usually ends up with him screwing his face up in amusement and saying something along the lines of, “God, you’re so beyond this place.”
Which, duh. You’ve been saying this. This is the raft upon which your whole identity floats.
The exchange dies in the air and he puts his hand on your leg and that is just… wonderful. He’s a solid B on the kissing GPA, and he’s cute and sort of funny, even if he doesn’t rally back jokes the way you’d… sort of gotten used to. Sometimes he makes a halfway-interesting observation about like, Philip Roth or somebody. But when it comes down to the minute of it, it still feels like going through the motions. Fumble bra strap, catch nail on his zipper, crank back passenger seat to climb in the back. Hey presto, you’ve distractedly jerked off a boy once again.
You are not entirely sold on the fit of his hands on your body, even if he doesn’t look at you like he’s just solved a Rubik’s cube.
In fact, he kind of looks at you like you’re precious. Virginal precious. Innocent precious. Which you’re not totally sold on either.
Nothing about him that makes you fantasize about what his mouth might feel like on you. What your fingers might feel like wound around his curls. His hair doesn’t even curl. There’s just nothing about him that calls for your full attention.
“Think there might be a reason for that?” Nancy, your annoyingly perceptive Nancy, presses. Goddamn intrepid girl reporter. She hasn’t stopped staring at you with that smug little look. You haven’t answered the question. “And it might be… living across the way from you?”
“Tch. What?” you snip. “I’m… having fun. What?”
“Nothing,” she smiles. “Just… gin.”
She lays out her dazzling melds, complete with a measly goddamned three in deadwood cards and you toss your own bullshit hand to the side. A dumb amount of spades that add up to nothing scatter across the desk. An accusatory finger jams in her direction.
“You are a fucking card shark.”
“Nope!” Nancy says, popping her ‘p’, “I just know a really great set when I see one.”
Reaching into Fred’s mug, you crush your cigarette with a little too much force. Now, how would Nancy have a read on that? you think, oblivious to your own obviousness. (Like a neon sign. Like a circus tent.)
You hadn’t even reminded her of the catastrophic events of her thirteenth birthday which led to a whole lot of this awkwardness, which, now that you thought about it, actually implicated her in the crime of you kissing Eddie Munson ‘til you were breathless in Granny Ecker’s closet.
If you hadn’t been born and had a birthday, I wouldn’t be in a spiral over some boy with a curl pattern like a fucking backwoods libertine.
“You’re not clever,” you tell her, but she’s looking at you all cleverly, “Like. You’re clever, but I need you to know that you’re not clever.”
With flicking fingernails, Nancy picks up your discarded cards and folds them neatly back in the deck.
“I’m just saying,” and the tone she takes is a little gentler now, “don’t… let yourself miss out on something just because, I don’t know, the thing you’re currently having fun with is what you think you want. What you feel you want and what you think you want are two very different–”
“This isn’t entirely about me, is it?” you realize, defenses peeling down a little bit. The Nancy and Steve of it all had been looming since your (admittedly triumphant!) visit to the war memorial that was the boy’s bathroom. Still no sign of that place getting fixed, by the by. And ever still, Nancy hadn’t told Steve about their little mission. Many a reason for that, you were led to believe. Not a lot she wanted to dissect, though.
Nancy’s face scrunches up and she stops packing the cards.
“No. But let’s pretend like it is.”
A groan escapes you as you sink back into your chair, a twinge of pain running along your shoulders.
“Nance. This is all so much more complicated than you realize.”
“Try me.”
You toss a hand through your hair, slapping your palm down on the desk.
“Fine. But if I tell you this–”
A hand rises out between the two of you– yours, pinkie extended.
“Not a word,” you press.
Nancy clamps her finger around yours in a way that enforces how super-serious she is about this. The reason your usual reserve doesn’t hold up under that x-ray stare of hers is because you can tell she actually gives a shit. She’s not looking for gossip. She cares. Which is still an entirely alien feeling to you.
So the whole thing spills out. Steve’s party, the record store, getting locked up in Eddie’s trailer and getting locked up in feelings, Roane County Quarry’s incredible acoustics, the friendship that made you fold all the neatly arranged origami parts of yourself out toward him only to realize you had no idea how to fold them back. The kiss. The subsequent awkwardness of said kiss. The college guy. The relative radio silence. The fact that…
“...I don’t feel like myself when he’s not around,” you say, lighting a fourth cigarette off your third. “Isn’t that silly? I spent all this time painting this like, fabulous eggshell of myself then this wild-eyed, smart-mouthed, catastrophic ass smashes it clean open and now–”
“All the college boys couldn’t put you together again,” Nancy nods. “You’re a very beautiful Humpty Dumpty.”
“... does Humpty Dumpty die in the end?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be teaching it to kids.”
“No. They should know. The fall comes for us all.”
There’s a suspended silence. You get this feeling like you’ve emptied your purse on the table and you still can’t find that thing you’re looking for, despite sifting through everything.
“How does that even happen?” you question, biting at the skin on your little finger. Not Humpty Dumpty, the Eddie thing. It comes out idle, but you pray that Nancy, with her feelings scalpel and surgical precision, doesn't decide to answer it.
Instead, she says, “You need a photographer for that piece.”
Thatta girl. Your dimmer switch turns up. “Fred hasn’t even okayed it yet.”
“I’ll deal with William Randolph Hearst, okay?” Nancy says derisively and tosses her eyes to heaven. She pushes her chair back. “Ask Jonathan Byers.”
“He hasn’t taken photos for us in a while,” you remark, eyes searching Nancy. She’s readying herself to leave, so totally dodging this line of questioning before you can even cast it. Clever.
“No, he has not,” she sighs, winding her scarf around her neck, “But he’d be good for this. He knows how to capture action. And his kid brother plays DnD with mine, so this’d be, like… nice for them.”
And this is just as much me making amends with Jonathan Byers as it is you, backwards as it may seem, you nearly hear her say. Or you’re making that up.
Shame Nancy is so dead set on becoming the next Nellie Bly. Under the right circumstances, she’d make a hell of a normal person.
Good thing you prefer freaks.
—
Jonathan Byers is a notoriously hard boy to get a hold of, it turns out. Nancy passed along his number (which, you actually already had but you didn’t bring that little detail up) and when you finally punched it in on the yellowing phone nailed to the wall of your trailer, it rang and rang and rang.
Which, after the fourth time, was just rude. Do the Byers have a thing about not answering the phone, or something?
“Jonathan!” you holler across the parking lot, emerging from the passenger side of Nancy’s car this time.
College guy was decidedly busy and despite the hanging tension, you’d toyed with the idea of asking Eddie for a ride. Alas, the boy in the Dio patched battle vest was nowhere to be seen. His van hadn’t been there since the weekend and he had been MIA from school the last couple of days, actually, which was itching at you.
It also made you miss when you had a goddamn set of wheels at your disposal.
Anyway, Jonathan looks at you with flaring eyes, kind of like you’ve just stuck a shotgun to his snout and there’s no hope of him making a getaway. “Um…”
Now, keep in mind that these are the first words you’ve spoken to him in a measurable high school forever, so his surprise is entirely justified. It’s just not within the beam of your patience right now.
“Hi. Can we chat?” you say, falling in step with him as you head towards the front door. You don’t bother asking for permission, and forgiveness won’t be necessary. “I was hoping you could help me out with a piece for the Streak.”
Blink, blink. Jonathan’s grasping for words– seems to be a lot of that going around lately.
You strike your hand through the air. “Let me put it to you like this– you are going to help me out with a piece for the Streak.”
“Why?” he asks, and it’s prickly.
“Becauuuse,” you draw out, “I need a photographer. And god knows whenever Nicole attempted to work a lens, those snapshots were so out-of-focus they looked like an optical illusion.”
“And, you’re not talking to Nicole right now,” Jonathan nails you, but not totally. In your mind, you revisit flashes of Nicole recounting, in gloriously erroneous detail, those photos Jonathan had taken of Nancy. You had pretended to be scandalized and rolled your eyes, thinking what’s a little peep show among losers.
“Even if I was,” you say, dogging Jonathan all the way to his locker, “I still wouldn’t ask her. This is important to me.”
That avoidant Byers reserve stands strong, with Jonathan grabbing books in hurried succession. He is trying to get away from you, but that’s not happening without an emphatic yes!
“I don’t even really–”
“Take pictures anymore?” you pfft, pointing to his messenger bag, “Twenty bucks says your camera is in there and the film’s half shot.”
“I don’t have twenty bucks.”
“Me neither,” you shrug, “Spent it on that new Echo & the Bunnymen.”
Jonathan hesitates a bit, fingers strumming against his biology textbook. A thread of something long forgotten by the listening booths of Main Street Vinyl tugs between you both, but it’s not weighed down by the prospect of will we kiss about it. He kind of smiles.
“What did you think? I haven’t gotten down to hear it yet.”
You thought it made you want a flowing dress and a place to prance. Like if the more whimsical end of Fleetwood Mac didn’t exhaust you. Those last four tracks snapped your heartstrings like suspenders, with comical aplomb.
“Grandiose! That ‘Killing Moon’ song? It’s got Jonathan Byers written all over it,” you chirp, and mean it. “I’ll make you a copy if you put that camera to work for me.”
He shrugs, but you can see you’re wearing him down. “I’m not much for shooting pep rallies.”
“Liar. Wheeler says you’re top banana in the action shots department,” you counter, “But how about players? I think I want some portraits, too. Non-corny ones.”
“What team?” Jonathan screws up his nose. The distaste for jockery runs deep, and rightfully so.
But you shake your head, face curving into an expression of near excitement.
“No team. Better, and worse, depending on what side of the cafeteria you’re sitting,” your hands splay out, and for god’s sake, you feel like Munson himself, “Hellfire Club.”
Jonathan looks like his record’s skipped. Eyeballs sort of jiggle in his skull and he mouths, oh, like the association of you between Hellfire should mean something. Suspiciously like Nancy, and just suspicious period. Your eyebrows start to inch towards one another.
“What’s that look? Does that mean you’ll do it?”
“Um,” he dillies, then dallies, “Sure. Yeah. You know, my kid brother loves DnD.”
Ah, yes. The other Byers boy, the one who’d gone missing all that time ago. You remembered. Actually, you remembered not being able to figure out how you should feel about it– how you should act, other than falling in line with the majority of people who were giving Jonathan shit at the time. You regret that now, with a chill that runs right down to your toes.
“Could be cool for him to see, no?” you try, corner of your mouth lifting, “A little niche in the midst the high school horrors. To look forward to, y’know.”
The look on Jonathan’s face is more than a little bit screaming, that’s rich, coming from you, you were the high school horror. But he shakes it off, because he’s nicer than you are, even though he doesn’t need to be.
“Yeah… whatever you say, Lacy. When do you need me?”
You tell him Friday and he agrees, much to your satisfaction. You’re just about to punch him on the shoulder like teamwork, buddy! before he saves you such a wildly out-of-character display by dodging toward his homeroom.
You sail toward your locker like the bastard that’s risen alongside the cream, only to be greeted by something… strange. Scratches, all around the maudlin gray paintwork of your combination lock. Like it’d been tampered with, or something. A blaze of paranoia burns at the base of your skull, and you instinctively try to recount where your journal is… in your bag. Phew. Fine. This could be… anything.
Fingers reach forward to twist your lock, and with the slightest touch, the door is forced open by a push from the other side. A flash of bright red, then SPLAT. Yellow, SPLAT, blue, SPLAT, SPLAT, SPLAT! You shriek a real ear-piercing shriek as at least a dozen water balloons spill out of your locker, hitting the floor with an obscene smack. Water dashes everywhere, and you’re barely able to move out of the splash zone in time.
“What the fuck!’
Within seconds, there’s a hubbub and a crowd’s gathering, trading sickening snickers with one another as you peer into the dark of your locker. You gingerly step through the puddle, suede boots irreparably spattered, and yank the door the whole way open. There, sat atop your schoolbooks and a stray water balloon that hadn’t made the fall, is a horribly familiar set of test tubes.
In one of them sits a squirt of blue liquid and that offensive strip of plastic. And scrawled across it in clumsy black marker?
IT’S A FREAK!
Realization hits you like Carol did, making your head swim among all the murmurs of oh my god… and gross! and told you–trailer trash and unconcealed cackles. A voice sparks up like a sizzling ember in a swathe of darkness.
“Where’s your baby daddy at, Lacy? Get tossed in the slammer with your old man?”
The languid tones of none other than Billy All-Balls-No-Brains Hargrove drift by you, sailing right past the back of your head as you stare a hole through the innards of your locker. Then, your stupid hippocampus gears up– Robin, mentioning ‘your whole thing’ while Genovese baby-barfed her guts up, Ronnie urging her to shut the fuck up, even Jonathan Byers was privy to this hot little piece of gossip.
This theory that you were up the spout with Munson Junior Junior.
How many people had seen you, stupid little you, coming out of that drugstore hiking that Advance box over your head like the championship cup? Seen you hopping into Eddie’s van– and out of it, and back in again on what now seemed like countless occasions?
Nobody could have suspected it was Nancy’s test, because nobody saw her. They saw you. That was the whole idea. You just didn’t consider the blowback.
“What’s going on out here?” the softly-coated concern of Ms Kelley rings out in the hallway, doing absolutely nothing to disperse the peanut gallery that’s set up around your locker.
“Lacy?” her voice points to you. Even the goddamn guidance counselor uses your beloved nickname.
You don’t react. You don’t even know what you’re doing until you come to a couple of paces down the hallway, feeling the thin, straining rubber in the palm of your hand. Your footsteps make heavy, wet, slapping noises against the linoleum as you follow the half-slouched shouldered swagger of Billy Hargrove down the hall.
Down, and down, and down towards the boy’s locker room and he doesn’t even register it, and you don’t even register that Ms Kelley is still calling your name–your full name, now–until she’s two dozen paces behind you, losing you in the throng of students making their way to class and you shove past half-dressed seniors in the locker room who guffaw at you in a way that feels like a knife in your gut and you yell, voice shaking–
“Hey Billy!”
And launch the water balloon, making square contact with his smug face.
“Cute fucking prank!”
His reaction, predictably, is way too slowww moooootion for your fucking liking, so you don’t even give him a shot to fully wipe his face off and mumble, “What the fuuuuck is yourrrr probbbblemmm, ssssllluuuutttt…”
You just go for him with the ferocity of a jumping jackal. Hands ball in his stupid sleeveless flannel (it’s winter in Indiana, you West Coast jackass!) and you shove him against the lockers with– well, with the strength only an ex-cheerleader brimming with suffocated rage would have.
Metal clatters and one empty unit even careens over like a big tin domino and you say, “Come up with that idea all by yourself, you fucking nimrod?”
Billy just smirks at you in half-speed, mullet sopping, as if this is a come-on. “I had a little help.”
It occurs to you that right here, right now, you could sell Nancy Wheeler down the river. You could be the you you once were, and you could say, well, primo observation skills, that pregnancy test wasn’t even for me!
But you don’t, because a pinky promise is a fucking pinky promise.
You let go of Billy’s shirt. Step off. “You’re pathetic,” you spit, but it feels more pathetic coming from you. All that molten blood in your veins makes you want to eviscerate him and whoever else was involved in orchestrating this stupid, stupid, stupid prank. But you come up lacking. Fuck!
Tears prickle at the corners of your eyes and you start to rush out of the locker room– but you’ve given Billy a reason now, and he’s gonna follow you.
“Shit, are you crying? Those hormones must have you really messed up, huh?” he faux-croons, the thunk-thunk of his poseur motorcycle boots following you to the back entrance, by the sports equipment. Your eyes are streaming freely now, lashes frantically blinking a path to vision.
But Billy isn’t letting up. And like the Pied Piper of slimeballs, he’s drawing followers– not least of which include Tommy Hagan.
“What about that college dropout you’re banging, Lacy?” his nasally tone slices through Billy’s tarry taunting. “He know you’re knocked up yet?”
“Jesus Christ, Doevski! I’m impressed,” Billy laughs, “Just how many loads are you taking?”
An abandoned baseball bat lies on the ground, having rolled out of the sports closet; instinct behind the wheel of your personal van, you stoop to pick it up and shove through the doors. You can nearly feel the breath of Hargrove and Hagan and all of these horrific, horrific boys with nothing better to do than to torture you hot on the back of your neck.
“Not yours, that’s for fucking sure,” you manage, your voice thick. The bat, at least, feels solid in your hand.
“It’s fun not being frigid, ain’t it, Lacy?” Billy goes on, and you squint against the sunlight as you round the building. “Tell me this, Munson teach you how to suck cock yet? ‘cause if not, I got a little time on my hands.”
Forging ahead, you cross the tarmac of the parking lot. The soft frost hasn’t even totally thawed out yet, sparkling atop the paintwork of Billy’s blue Camaro.
“That a fact, Billy?” you say, tears drying in quick streaks in that brisk morning air, leaving rivets in your made-up face.
You use your momentum to launch one foot onto the hood of Billy’s car, then the other. You nearly slip against the icy exterior, but steady yourself fast. Bat dangling at your side. Stomp. Stomp. You stand on the roof, and turn to face this congregation of assholes. You do not let sense set in, despite it threatening to inch through the white hot flame of your rage.
“What the fuck are you doing,” Billy outright cackles and Hagan and company guffaw along with him.
“Billy,” you sigh, a little breathless from the speed at which you’d booked it from the locker room to the parking lot, and the sheer vigor of your shock, awe and rancor, and everything else, “What the hell am I supposed to do with your limp dick in my mouth? Chew on the fuckin’ thing?”
Billy repeats himself, a touch darker now. “What the fuck are you doing.”
“I’m serious!” you say, a little shrill, a little stomp to punctuate that last word, “One thing you can say for Eddie Munson, is at least the motherfucker can get hard!”
Motorcycle boots advance towards you, and you point the bat at him like a broadsword.
“Do not. Come any closer. Or I’m gonna start doing some serious damage to this ugly piece of overcompensation.”
“She’s bluffing,” Hagan crows, and you turn your flaming glare on him. You wish you had a mirror– you wonder if crazy becomes you. Billy takes a pointed step forward and you raise the bat above your, head bracing for action– that’s enough movement for him.
“Gimme that bat, you stupid fucking cunt–!” But Billy’s cut short by a body barrelling into the side of him, knocking him askew. A jangle of denim and leather. The bat slips a little in your grasp.
“Get the fuck off of me Munson–”
“No way to talk to a lady, Billy!” Eddie gasps, tossing Billy back and letting his limbs hang. “You kiss Karen Wheeler with that mouth?”
Billy rounds on him like a triggered animal, spittle flying.
“Some fucking lady!” he snarls, “Got downgraded to that trailer park and now her snooty ass is spreading it for half of Hawkins! Desperate! Stringin’ you along like the dumb piece of shortbus shit you a–”
Activated, you throw that bat to the fucking wayside and scramble off the fucking car– nobody talks to him like that!
But you’re not fast enough, nobody’s fast enough, nobody can compete with how huge and booming and definite Eddie’s voice sounds when he says, smile glimmering, sun breaking through the bleak midwinter…
“You know what I like about you, Hargrove?”
THKUNCK. Bone to bone, fist meet fucking flesh–
“Nothin’.”
A scuffle goes up, and Eddie can’t even feel the hits of Hargrove’s hands connecting with his face, chest, ribs, wherever– all he can feel are your arms locking in vice around his waist, putting yourself in the eye of the storm in order to yank him back.
—
You got an elbow to the crown of the head, which isn’t too bad, even if you feel like a cartoonish lump should be rising there. But look at these other guys.
Billy with a black eye that’s bulging up rapidly, Eddie with a split lip and more than a couple of scratches on his knuckles. In that fray, he hadn’t exactly considered the implications of punching a guy with all his goddamned rings on. The implications being that shit hurt like hell. There is this radiating pain in his hand, not letting him unfurl his fingers completely.
There’s also this radiating feeling of dread cloaking his entire upper half as you sit three-to-the-wall outside Higgins’ office. You had, in Eddie’s estimation, incredibly bad timing.
See, considering the events of his past week, he was slowly making peace with the fact that he should probably be avoiding you entirely, even if that meant he died a little inside. He should have been doing that from the jump– but you, unbuttoned and reckless now apparently, kept requiring interventions so you didn’t get killed, or worse.
And Eddie couldn’t help himself when it came to you. Especially not when you were standing on top of Billy Hargrove’s sick Camaro, swinging a baseball bat and getting called some shit that no one should ever be calling you.
You’re out of control. Totally unsheathed. End of your rope. Unlaced.
And he’d do just about anything to keep you safe.
Even fuck up his guitar-playing hand. Which is also his…
“I can’t believe you fucking suckerpunched me,” Hargrove mumbles from your left. “With those ugly fucking rings on.”
Eddie can’t help himself, the last shred of propriety knocked out round about the time a knee to the ribs had winded him. “Aw. Billy. Don’t be so hard on yourself–”
“Eddie…,” you start, tone warning in a way that makes him want to pinch you, kind of. He leans towards Hargrove, meaning he’s leaning over you. Hair brushing across your shoulder. You notice that it smells distinctively skunkier than usual. Camping out at Lipton Landing?
“--honestly! You’re no sucker!” he implores, eyes shining in jest, “You totally had that coming!”
You hear Billy seething from his end, Eddie snickering from his and launch a well-timed arm in front of both of them before they can snap at it again.
“Cut it out, assholes! This is becoming increasingly more pigheaded.”
“And you’re the voice of perfect reason now, huh?” Eddie sneers, not giving you much breathing room. “Where’s the bat at, Babe Ruth?”
“In the parking lot, waiting to finish you off,” you grit back, nearly nose-to-nose with him, because you don’t know how to digest the guilt of his aching fingers.
“What are you mad at me for?” Eddie hisses, a smirk threatening to break his scowl, because he doesn’t know how not to provoke you.
“Knocking her up, probably,” Billy mumbles from the side.
“Shut up, Hargrove!” you both snap, eyes never leaving one another.
Higgins’ door creaks open and a quietly livid Ms Kelley says, “Lacy.” She jerks her head, motioning for you to up and at ‘em. You do, but not without one last look at Eddie, cradling his hand. Round, bottomless irises meet yours for a moment, then dart away with an impact that thickens your throat.
His poor hand, you find yourself thinking.
“He needs an ice pack…” you find yourself mumbling, Kelley shuffling you into Higgins’ office. The principal sits behind his beat-up desk, fingers steepled. You absently wonder if he’s been campaigning for a new, shinier, possibly more oaken desk because this doesn’t paint the picture of threatening figurehead that he so clearly wants you to tremble under.
You accidentally kick the thing, crossing your legs as you sit. “Sorry.”
“You should be,” Higgins declares. Here we fucking go.
“Permission to state my case?” you attempt. This hadn’t been your first time in the principal’s office; minor classroom infractions, a saccharine we’ll do everything to help that we can after your dad’s arraignment, but this time was certainly the worst.
“Denied,” he shoots you down.
“Permission to submit a plea of temporary insanity, then,” you try, patting at the sore spot on the crown of your head. “You know this doesn’t bode with my track record. You think I climbed on top of Billy Hargrove’s car completely compos mentis? Please.”
A tense silence from Higgins’ and Kelley’s end.
“You saw what Hargrove did, didn’t you? That disgusting prank?”
Again, nada.
“I’m a honor student, for Chrissake!” you exclaim, and Kelley plucks herself from the windowsill behind Higgins’ desk.
“Were an honor student, Ms Doevski,” she corrects. “Your grades have been slipping since– the events of the last couple of months. You’ve dropped cheerleading, you’ve made really puzzling false claims about peer tutoring, you…”
“Yes! Yes, the events of the last couple of months, if by which you mean familial imprisonment, then yes, I’ve been a little distracted!”
Higgins kicks back in his seat just as you hitch forward in yours, too angry to be pleading but too desperate to defy. His turn to mutter here we fucking go.
“I can turn this around,” redirected to Ms Kelley and her ever-sympathetic expression, “I can turn this around.”
“College applications deadlines are within touching distance, Lacy.” She of little faith.
“I know that!” As if your hands aren’t itching every time college guy mentions Ithaca or… wherever the fuck it is he goes. As if that isn’t a crack in the assuredness that you were going to take flight out of this town in a spectacular fashion.
“Ladies– can we dispense with the hysteria and deal with the here and now?” Higgins insists and you and Kelley, despite your opposition, share a look.
World class, this guy. Top of his field, asshole-wise.
“Two week suspension should do it,” he says, jotting something down.
You open your mouth in protest and Kelley quells you– you’re in no position to start bargaining down.
“Technically, she didn’t do anything,” and for good measure, but pressed, “Sir.”
“She climbed on top of that boy’s car with a baseball bat!” Higgins barks; now who’s hysteric?! “She had intent to do harm!”
“It was justified.” You can’t help yourself.
Kelley stares him down, and that woman’s charm is something that should be studied in a fucking lab, because he relents right away.
“Two weeks of Saturday detention, then. Christ. Am I going soft?”
You shake your head, all the knots in your body releasing just a little bit. You try to dig out what’s left of your once-famously refined charm, while simultaneously dashing towards the door before he can change his mind.
“Au contraire. You’re a paragon of masculinity, sir. Regan could take a hint. Door open or closed?”
Higgins grimaces. “Send in Hargrove. Tell Munson he’s suspended. I don’t have time for both of those pricks today.”
Eddie’s voice travels through the crack in the door. “I heard that, sir.” A beat. “I miss you, sir.”
You bite back a deeply reluctant laugh and jerk your head toward Billy. You’re up, champ.
Then, it’s the two of you. You and Eddie, Eddie and you. Alone, save for the ever watchful jam jar eyes of Janice the secretary. Eddie is still nestling one hand in the other like it’s a baby bird with a broken wing. Shit, you really hope it isn’t broken.
“You’re suspended. They told me to tell you.” It’s a statement made to turkey-stuff the silence more than anything.
The way Eddie lolls his head back makes you want to reach out and push it in the opposite direction. You don’t know why.
“You’re a regular town crier, ain’t ya.”
“Hear ye, hear ye.”
A leaden pause. Your hearts might have thumped both in time just now.
“Wanna get out of here?” he asks.
“No leaving school grounds,” Janice unhelpfully squawks.
Eddie gets up, drawing himself to his full height. Your eyelids flutter. There’s a little purple around that cut on his lip, which you bet is starting to throb something awful. You feel dwarfed beside him, and he uses his good hand to turn you by the shoulder and shuffle you past the nosy secretary’s post.
“I meant the sick bay, Janice,” Eddie pelts, giving each vowel sound a hard flick. “I’m wounded. And she’s apparently pregnant. Or didn’t you hear?”
—
The nurse’s office is tiny and cramped, smelling of bleach with a glaring fluorescent overhead. Eddie has a hard time figuring out why anyone would come here to feel better. Especially given that Nurse Lydia is barely ever present.
Eddie carpes the opportunity to slam himself down on her rolling saddle chair, gliding into your path as you try and snoop around for first aid materials.
“I don’t think you should be driving that thing,” you remark, “You could be concussed. You’re acting concussed.”
“It’s keeping me awake!”
Eddie watches you, digging through drawers and pulling out tongue depressors, your teeth making an indent into your bottom lip. Your eyes are doing that darty thing, quietly frantic in place of an apology. You don’t know how to say sorry you got wailed on by Hargrove for me. Instead, you’re acting like he’s bleeding out.
“Lace, just wait for the professional.”
The clip of your nickname makes you toss your stare over your shoulder, hardness framing your eyes like mascaraed lashes. Eddie stops rolling around at once.
“I am the goddamn professional, as far as you’re concerned.” Your little chin jerks towards the exam table that’s beat into the corner of the room. “Get on the bed.”
Whack-a-mole. Woodpecker. Other euphemisms for his cock developing a pulse. Eddie has to physically restrain his jaw from dropping.
“Yes, Nurse Ratched.”
Scoffing out a little fuck you!, you go about scrambling together supplies and Eddie obediently launches himself onto the bed, the ancient thing creaking beneath him. When you finally approach him, you seem to be holding a lot of alcohol pads.
The look before you admit to a shortcoming is one he wants framed. You always flick your eyes around like a guilty cartoon character, like Betty Boop on her way to gaining a doctorate in the pretentiousness of the English language, and pout. Lean your neck in, like you’re swearing him to secrecy.
“I actually don’t know anything about first aid. Beyond the rudimentaries.”
Eddie chuckles. “You were a cheerleader. You were getting thrown in the air a whole bunch, if I recall. Feels like you should know how to like, resuscitate.”
“Rudimentaries, I said!” and you grab his injured hand a little roughly, alcohol pad torn out and ready, “Like, I obviously know alcohol disinfects a wound, ice for a bruise… I don’t know how to, like, reset a bone. Besides…”
You inch closer to him now, wiping at his torn and tender knuckles a little too carefully. They’re just stupid cuts, Eddie thinks, his breath beginning to shallow.
“...that Cat People remake was premiering at the Hawk the day we had first aid training. Like I was going to miss that.”
He can feel heat radiating off your body, a core change for cold little you. Feel the fabric of your skirt brush the rip in his jeans. A little choked, he mumbles, “Cat People is a remake?”
“Based on the 1942 original,” you nod, flicking the tiny used pad in the nearby trash can. “I like it. But I like that David Bowie song more.”
“That song sucks.”
“You’re injured and wrong. What a shame.” Your fingers close around Eddie’s wrist and slowly, slowly press his forearm to his chest. “Keep that elevated.”
“It’s not broken,” and he’s staring at the quiet tremble in your bottom lip.
“Could be sprained,” head cast down again, tearing open another pad, and he can smell your hair, “Does it hurt?”
Eddie doesn’t answer right away, because he’s waiting for you to look back up. Because he thinks he’s going to carpe something else.
You fall for it, and your eyes sucker him in. He feels weak in the joints. You repeat yourself. “Does it hurt, Eddie?”
He just nods, boyishly. Nearly passes out when your fingertips tilt his face towards the light. Skin buzzing underneath them, you peering at his mouth like you know what you’re doing. The slit in his lip feels raw and strained.
“This’ll hurt, too,” you murmur, and he feels your breath against his jaw. A sharp prick from the alcohol against his cut doesn’t make him wince– worse. As you swipe the cotton against his bottom lip, he whimpers. Unh.
Oxygen stops short in your throat, hearing that. That noise. It sends a wave of motion through your lower body. You’re leaning awfully close to him, closer than you need to be. In fact, his knees are settled either side of your hips. How did that happen. When did that happen. How did you allow this.
How are you allowing your fingertip to trace against his lip, alcohol evaporating without a hope or a prayer. How are you allowing yourself to look at him through the fan of your lashes, his injured hand still obediently propped against his chest. His good hand pressing into your lower back.
You taste the vagueness of the disinfectant on his lips as he presses them into yours.
Jerking back, you’re not far enough away from him to create a distance that matters. All you see are Eddie’s eyes, flickering open, apologetic in themselves. About to tell you he’s sorry.
No.
Hands fly, one woven in the curls at the base of his skull as you kiss up into him, tongue an impolite peak. This is not the closet; this is arguably far more dangerous, with the nurse’s door still open a courteous gap. This is the harsh light of day. This is Eddie’s hand moving your skirt further up the curve of your ass.
He’s grabbing onto you as best a one-armed man can, and your hand travels in turn. A jagged, fevered path drawing up his thigh until, under your palm, is the hard outline of him. The pressure of your hand over the denim-bound curvature of his cock makes him groan sharply, the sound pressed against your cheek.
Face angles back for a look at him. Because this is bad, mindless, reckless, stupid. And he’s always worth a look.
You spot a tiny speck of blood on the pink of his lip from where his cut had split.
And your curious tongue flicks at it.
Eddie’s eyes flare. You, unable to unglue your stare from his, suck his lightly bleeding lip between yours. Fragile. Crushable.
He did this for you.
No one’s ever cared, or known you enough, to do something like that for you.
Desire moves you like a shockwave and your hand leaves his crotch to help you clamber onto the exam table, clamber into Eddie’s lap.
Downright idiotic.
You cast a glance to the door, Eddie’s fraught breath puffing against your neck.
Thought you were a smart girl.
You look right into his face, the poster boy for sheer distraction, pre-occupation, skin-searing annoyance, nervous charm, surprising wit, magnetism, oh my… and feel his fingers edging far past the hem of your skirt, past the binding top of the thigh-highs you’re wearing because it’s fucking laundry day and stopping at the gusset of your panties.
He can feel how wet you are.
Lips a breath away from each other, one set bleeding, one set housing a gasp. Eddie nudges his forehead against yours, the both of you blind to consequence.
“Just friends, right?” His breath is jagged and unconvinced, and your hips kick toward his hand.
You do not answer.
Unbruised fingers push the fabric covering your radiating heat aside and you have to tighten your grip around the back of his neck so as not to tumble over. Eddie is not deft, because this isn’t the moment to be deft. He plunges two fingers into the plush of your pussy and looks to you with pleading eyes. Eyes that say, is this good, eyes that say, don’t make a sound.
You nod in the affirmative to both and he drags his digits out slowly. Rhythm picks up and you’re clenching around Eddie’s hand in a matter of minutes, lower muscles seizing and het-up moans being gratefully swallowed by him. Pad of his thumb moves to create rough, clumsy friction against your clit that elicits a sharp, high, wanton ah! from you, grinding against him in an unquenchable search for more.
“Does he do this? Does anyone do this for you, Lacy?”
Eddie’s eyes keep searching you for approval and you’ve lost the ability to appease or deny him– all you know is the blind, nonsensical want that’s pouring out of you is being lapped up. Lapped up. His tongue, you want his tongue everywhere, but it’s working at your earlobe, your neck, sucking, whispering, “Just friends? Lacy?”
And when you cum, it’s fast and hard and suffocating, an achievement you’re close to angry at him for– because no one has ever been able to break you apart that fast.
Or at all.
He can never know. He’d be so insufferable about it… some bare fragment of a thought passes through your brain, synapses busy firing elsewhere.
You’re rocking against him through the crest, pressing your forehead to his with such a force that you’re frightened it’ll splinter, you’re murmuring, “Eddie… Eddie, d–hmn, fuck…”
And you can tell by the way he’s attempting to press his body against you that he wishes he hadn’t bust that stupid fucking hand of his, so he could hold you properly– and you’re right. You’re right, you’re always fucking right, but you told him to keep it elevated and he’s going to do what you say.
He’s got no choice when it comes to you.
He needs you safe. Needs you happy. No matter what.
Which is why he’s got to pull this bullshit move.
Eddie is patient and watches you regain a little consciousness, faster than he’s sure you’d like. He extracts his hand and, sticky with you still, wipes it on the thigh of his jeans. Heart thundering in his ears, he tugs you into one more breathless kiss and wonders if you can still taste the rust sharpness of his cut in between your lips. He’s strangled himself against cumming up till this point, and this doesn’t help matters. An imperceptible spot of pre-fun lies in his lap but the thing is, the really fucked thing is–
Eddie gently shoves you away, mind silently babbling for the right thing to say. I’m sorry is something you’d see right through, get off is too harsh, oopsie is too fucking whimsical–
But you, ever-perceptive you, you realize your place. Knock yourself back into reality so fiercely that he’s afraid it’ll bruise you, lovely, awe-inspiring you that just softened into his hands like that. You clumsily clamber off the exam table in a hot flash of rejection, which– no, god, no, he doesn’t mean that…
“I–”
“No, I know,” you grit, prickly all over. Thumbing at the edge of your blurred lipstick. “I know. I certainly know.”
Eddie dares to look at you and you dare to look back at him. His lips looking worse off from you, but at the very least kissed. At the very least kissed, but you could cry with the empty feeling inside you. A cavern of a girl. You nod curtly, like this is the conclusion of a particularly charged run-in of acquaintances, not like you wanted him to swallow you whole moments ago.
Slipping out of the nurse’s office, you run right into the myth that is Nurse Lydia.
She looks tan.
“He’s,” you struggle, “He’s waiting for you.”
—
Cheating out sick from school and taking a shift at The Bookstore following the latest in a series of apparently neverending aftershocks was probably not the smartest call– but hell, you’re fresh out of smart calls.
Ivana smells a rat, and she doesn’t take to rats lightly, so she gives you your space.
The morning ticks on at a pace that feels supernatural; like you’re witnessing outside of your body, like you can’t orient yourself in the right direction. You attempt to arrange and rearrange poets from alcoholic to puritan. You sell someone a copy of The Fountainhead without giving them their free blistering evisceration of Ayn Rand.
You’re at a loss. A shameful, dangling loss that almost makes you feel pious. Like you should go to confession.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… I let my one-time best friend, current-cloudy object of my affection get beat up for me then bring me to climax in the nurses’ office.
You retread the same sentence in your over-thumbed copy of Save Me the Waltz like a table corner you keep stubbing your toe on.
We couldn’t go on indefinitely being swept off our feet.
You said it, Alabama. Something’s got to land.
And, because someone down there wants you dead, land it does.
The bell of the store’s door clashes upon opening, and all of the energy draws toward one magnetic point. A shock of silver hair, standing on end catches the lamplight, glowing almost eerily.
You feel a zzzzip of static. The air feels charged.
He doesn’t face you right away. Kind of slinks into the place, edging along the shelves.
“Say, Lacy. Ballpark me somethin’,” his Southern drawl is barely contained within the Midwestern flatlands of his accent, bursting through the baseline like a corpse that hasn’t been buried deep enough. “How long… do you think…” His fingers tap along the worn spines of the display, creeping closer to the counter, “...it would take… to read all these books?”
The lilt of his voice is so familiar that you recognize it instantly. Even the way your name falls out of his mouth. Like a funhouse mirror, a distortion of a voice you’d come to…
Well. Let’s not get into that. Let’s get into this.
A roguish smile with a couple decades of road wear on it and a tacky Hawkins High class ring on his finger. You could’ve sworn Eddie told you he dropped out.
“How many years in the big house with nothin’ better to do?” He finally stops and pivots on his heel. The way he looks you over makes you nauseous and lightheaded, like he took a long, long sip out of you. Jammed a straw in your jugular and sucked.
Lot of blood play happening ‘round these parts.
“Hello, Al.”
“Hello, sweetheart. You filled out.”
author's notes: christ alive. i mean WELCOME BACK! i really missed you guys. happy new year, thank you for keeping me on the level with writing this chapter, it was so much FUCKING harder than i anticipated! was it too much warped angst? are the feelings complicated? does the pope shit in the woods?!!!!! you betcha. anyway, be seated for today's lesson
- "less oedipus-y, more ea--..." there is an ending to that joke that i felt was too crass for the moment but if you can guess it you win a prize
- the patchwork girl of oz is the seventh book in the wizard of oz series by l. frank baum! obviously. it's actually a laugh riot, you should check it out. scraps, the eponymous patchwork girl, is a full tilt lunatic who's kind of a bit of me. but theoretically, the patchwork girl made out of a thousand different scraps of everything else... bit of lacy innit
- the mage in the mink coat is self referential lmao we've gotten to THAT point in the story
- gravity's rainbow is a book that guys i dated used to recommend to me constantly which is like infinite jest for people who are ran through
- i'm really fucking with college guy at this point, making him drive a ford cortina. because i think it is ugly
- the plot of the annotated book that lacy gives eddie, still life with woodpecker by tom robbins, is... interesting eye emoji eye emoji. tom robbins also wrote even cowgirls get the blues which was adapted into a feature film starring, say it with me, robin's mom
- the link wray song that soundtracked the lipton landing visit in question
- "charlie? or linda kasabian?" go ahead and read the white album by joan didion for me wouldja buddyroo, just like lacy and nancy already have
- fun fact, i played a two person game of gin rummy with myself to get into the mindset for this chapter. i suck at it
- torchy blane is another one of my pre-code wonders-- glenda farrell plays an intrepid newspaperwoman, and this character actually went on to inspire lois lane from superman
- and I KNOW some of you are going to be mad at lacy for fucking college guy, but... shit happens when you're a booksmart lovedumb eighteen year old that can't face up to her feelings! i don't wanna hear it!
- fred benson i love you baby! i'm almost sorry i called you william randolph hearst, newspaper magnate and all around lunatic and the inspo behind the diss track citizen kane, but i'm not!
- nancy wheeler has a photo of nellie bly in her locker where a photo of her beau should be
- so echo & the bunnymen's 1984 album ocean rain is obviously most famous for the killing moon (jonathan byers you ARE my donnie darko) but may i point your attention to motherfucking seven seas
- OH YOU KNOW I (EDDIE) HAD TO DO IT TO 'EM. this was shameless but i've had this in my heart for over ten years babe
- for the purposes of this timeline, you know eddie is keeping higgins in pills. which is why he hasn't been kicked out of hawkins high so fast his lunchbox would combust
- nurse ratched, obviously from one flew over the cuckoo's nest and that ill-fated ryan murphy series....tf was that...but also from this fucking sick tune!
- save me the waltz is by zelda fitzgerald!
my loves, thanks for hanging in for this chapter. i know it was a wait, but i hope you enjoyed! i also know it was a little more angsty pants than my usual fare-- but look baby. we need grist for the mill, okay? as always, reblogs, comments and likes are FIERCELY appreciated! love u all so much. my little hellcats. to die by your side etc
#e. munson by powder#published by powder#in progress#hellfire & ice#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson x f!reader#eddie munson x you#eddie munson x oc#rmr when i used to write 4k chapters.... god be with the days#anyway i love these fuckheads
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