thranduilsperkybutt - Tumblr blog

thranduilsperkybutt · 3 months

Text

requirements.txt=unsatisfied

Pic source: 1

Pairings: Johnny Silverhand/V!Reader; Exceedingly minor Goro Takemura/V!Reader alluded to Warnings: Endgame spoilers; Arasaka!ending; I take liberties with the ending (everyone lives AU); yearning; fighting; nsfw banter (no actual explicit behaviors); angst with a happy ending; mentions of canon-typical drug use and violence Word Count: 9,936 words Reader Gender: Female Author: Meg Summary: Johnny always wants a lot of things--- a smoke, a good fuck, for you to turn the radio to 107.3 instead of that new age crap you like. In a perfect world, he'd like to have his own body back, too, but this isn't a perfect world. This is Night City, and he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to forgive you for going and doing this. Turns out that being in love requires being unsatisfied. A/N: Look. I finally finished playing the game as corpo!V and I will not live with these endings, alright? I'm gonna make my own.

“Think they make shitty motels like this just for screw-ups like us?”

You make a point to continue staring at the ceiling of the ‘shitty motel’ room, deep breathing the mildew and age-old cigarettes. He isn’t wrong, but you don’t want to hear it right now. He always has a way with words. Wiping your hands down your face, you do your best to ignore him, but Johnny wasn’t the most dismissible parasite you’ve ever had.

“’Parasite’s’ talkin’ to you, fuck-up,” he flicks his cigarette butt at you in retaliation for the thoughts in your head and it glitches through your thigh with a fuzzy tickle in your neurons. “Do ya’ really think Arasaka is gonna’ just let you waltz away after grabbin’ that stuck-up bitch princess of theirs? You’re fucked.”

“Was fucked before that, Johnny--- royally, if you’ll remember,” you groan, and turn away from him. He appears on the other side of the bed, leaning over it to glare at you. “Got you to show for it, after all.”

“Why are you so chill about this? Takemura fucked you both by deciding to take a life-sized souvenir from your trip to Cherry Town---"

“Cherry Blossom Market---” he barely acknowledges your interruption; you doubt he cares about the situation past hearing himself talk either way.

“--- and you’re just gonna’ do what? Sit here like a ditched date, waitin’ by the phone for that ‘Saka scum to call?”

“Johnny,” you push yourself up into a sitting position, headache threatening a presence at the back of your skull. The edges of his shoulders have that glitchy quality you’ve come to know follows his movements at times when he crosses his arms, but his glare is clear as ever.

“What? Don’t like me callin’ him that?” he rolls his eyes as he certainly feels your annoyance spike, “Jeez, didn’t think you could ride ‘Saka’s dick any harder, but if you literally want to---”

“What crawled up your holographic ass and died tonight?” you bark back, and the glint behind his eyes tells you that this is what he wanted all along. A fight, interaction, anything other than you just melting into the stained mattress of this motel room while the fan drones overhead in excruciating monotony. Johnny’s at his worst when he’s bored or cornered, you’ve found.

“I don’t know, V, maybe the fact that while I’m livin’ in your head, I’ve gotta’ listen to all your disgusting little thoughts about that Grade-A asshole? I’ve never had a dry spell that’d make me wanna’ sleep with a corpo drone, but maybe old habits die hard for you, huh?” You try to ignore his jab at your corporate background, but you know he just can’t help himself, “At this rate, alert a joytoy pronto, because I think I’ll throw up if I gotta’ watch you eyefuck your ronin anym---"

“You’re so fucking annoying sometimes, Johnny, you know that?” you rub your temples, trying to bite back the heat in your cheeks. No telling if it was from embarrassment at his inevitable acknowledgement of your major-league crush on Goro, or an oncoming stroke. At this point you are wishing for the stroke.

“You say that, but you’re not havin’ to watch how pathetic you look waitin’ on Takemura to call. Shit, even that cop you turned down would be better than this guy.”

Rising to your knees, you point a finger directly against his chest, feeling the fuzzy presence of your fried synapses mistaking him for something real at your fingertips, “Know what? Maybe I will fuck Goro the next time I see him, just to screw with you. Maybe I’ll finally get some peace and quiet when you slink back to God-knows-where to hide in my head while I lay back and take it from the big, bad, ‘Saka scum.’”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he growls down at you, the fire in his eyes flickering from your own to your lips and back again. “If you wanted me gone, you’d’ve taken those omega blockers by now.”

“Don’t tempt me. I’d take a half-dose of pseudoendotrizine just so I could kick your ass, if it wouldn’t mean kicking mine, too.”

“Now, there’s a thought,” he reaches out, pushing you back by a phantom grip on your shoulder. Your body flings itself onto the mattress without a thought, “But I don’t need a pill to kick your ass, remember?”

“Asshole,” you grumble defeatedly, but his anger seems to dissipate, if only a little.

“Bitch,” he chuckles, and it’s a short sound of disbelief. “Don’t pout like a damn kid.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re kind of mean, Silverhand?” you look down to where he still stood beside--- no, knelt onto, now--- the bed. His lips are quirked into a slight smile, one brow raised like he doesn’t quite understand just why all your annoyance has seemed to sink away into the dingy carpet and rotting walls of this place. Maybe it’s the exhaustion settling into your bones?

Or perhaps it’s the uneasy feeling in your gut when he looks at you. Despite the mountain of resentment your soul screams that you have every right to have at him for stealing your life away from you with every waking second, you can’t seem to bring yourself to hate him.

He clicks his teeth thoughtfully, dipping his weight onto the knee he has on the bed, but it doesn’t creak under his weight or acknowledge his presence, “It may have come up, once or twice.”

He isn’t really here, the soft static framing his hard edges reminds you.

“Why, then?” Why does he keep falling into the same pattern? Why does he treat you like this? Why does he look at you like that afterwards?

You don’t ask any of those questions, but you don’t have to. He’s in your head, after all--- but you think he’d be able to figure them out even if he didn’t have a front-row seat to your every thought. You still aren’t sure how much of your consciousness he is privy to, but you know it’s enough for him to know more about you than any other person ever has.

At this point, he might know your mind better than you do.

You wish you could read his half as well.

“Maybe I just don’t like watchin’ you run head-first into what’s bound to be another shit-show’s all, choom,” he deflects, but his eyes don’t turn from your gaze. There’s something guarded in them, sure, but they soften all the same.

You sit on his bullshit explanation for a few seconds, tasting the thought on your tongue, “Is that what we are, Johnny? Chooms?” It’s an unsatisfactory descriptor, but you don’t know if there’s a word in the English language that can accurately describe what you are to each other.

“I don’t know, V. Are we?”

Before you can even think of an answer, the sound of your holo ringing breaks through your ears and Goro’s image appears in your optics.

Johnny huffs and just like that, any softness in his gaze disintegrates with a roll of his eyes, “Go on--- know you’re giddy as a schoolgirl to answer that.”

“Fuck you, Johnny,” you grumble, before picking up the line and watching him straighten up off the bed before disappearing from your gaze in a static glitch. “Goro---”

“V, meet me, quickly as you can. I’m sending the coordinates.”

---

Your fingers run over the markings of Johnny’s initials you’d just carved against the metal. It’s jagged, raw, and as good a headstone as he was ever going to get, given you’d probably never find where his body had been truly laid to rest. In a city like Night City, after so many years? He’s lucky enough that Arasaka had dumped his body at all, instead of incinerating it like most folks these days.

“There, how’s that for a marker?”

Johnny leans back from where he’d been moping and gestures to your makeshift headstone, “Say this was my real grave, what would you write? ‘Here lies Johnny Silverhand…’”

The words roll around your head in tandem with the pit of dread in your stomach. It didn’t feel right talking to him like he was dead, even though the rational part of your mind knew it was true. The real Johnny Silverhand died more than fifty years ago, and you were left talking to a ghost--- a copy that seemed close enough to the real deal, but you never would be able to know if he was a good one. More recently, though, he’s started to seem just as real as the ground you walk on and, while you know that’s something to be deeply worried about, you can’t help but have come to enjoy his company.

When he’s not being an asshole, that is.

For better or worse, he was, “The guy who saved my life.” You’d been through so much--- everything--- together. It hadn’t been intentional on his part; he’s only a piece of broken prototype tech going haywire in your head, but it was still true. He’s saved you in more ways than one, lately.

The words sink into him, dragging his shoulders down like the same ache you feel in your soul. His eyes meet yours beneath his sunglasses, holding you in a regret so deep that you think it will swallow you both with the knowledge that he’ll be the death of you.

Johnny reaches up, metal fingertips clicking on his shades in a way that’s so honest in your ears that it’s difficult to remember it’s just another one of your disconnected mind’s lies anymore, “You don’t know how much I want that to be true.” He pulls the barrier from his face to dangle between his knees as his free hand wipes at the perpetual dirt on his skin, “Listen, I realize I’ve fucked up a lot of things. Either let down or used every last person who gave me their trust--- blind, selfish bastard that I was--- but I’ve managed one thing, for now. Not to fuck this up. What we have.”

Johnny’s always wanted a lot of things--- a smoke, a good fuck, for you to turn the radio to 107.3 instead of that new age crap you like. He's rather demanding, day in, day out.

You've been privy to his every request as it flits through your shared head for long enough that he’s come to annoy you nearly as much as he's grown on you. He’s like moss overtaking a stone, so slow that you don’t realize it until he’s covered all of you. He’s changing you into something neither of you can quite recognize anymore, and as the days pass, you worry you’ll never be able to wash him away and return to the person you were before him.

Worse, you don’t know if you will want to.

“What do we have, Johnny?” you sigh, looking up at the light-polluted sky. You weren’t far enough out of town to see stars, just the dim void and flickering city lights reflected on the clouds above. Maybe if you were at camp with the Aldecados, you’d spot a star among the dusky sky. Maybe life would seem simpler, easier, “I don’t know what you want from me.” All you know for sure is that you were growing so tired of the fight. There’s this hurt in your chest; you can’t tell if it’s yours or his. Maybe it’s something you share. Maybe this is what he means.

Or something close to it, “Most of who I thought were my friends, well, it turns out they couldn’t hardly stand to be in the same room with me. But you?” You hear him pause, but you don’t dare to look at him. There’s a stammer in your chest, and you’re terrified at what it means, “You’re forced to be right fuckin’ here, twenty-four-seven, and you don’t seem to hate my living guts.”

This silence is something you can only achieve on the outskirts of the city, but you know it would be worse if you were further away. It’s almost excruciating, being alone with your thoughts--- being alone with his.

“There a point in there?” your heart aches for him, and you know he can feel it. It’s more than pity, more than friendship, but you try your hardest not to think of what it could possibly mean--- let alone, say it.

He knows, though. Of course he does. He has to.

“Just that… I think you’re my first real choom, even though you’re a real bitch sometimes.”

Your head lulls forward, and it takes all your strength to muster a glare at the pained smile dancing at his lips. There’s more to it than that, you both know it, but you’re grateful that he’s feeling somewhat merciful tonight--- it was something you didn’t know he had in him.

Maybe it’s only something he has in him when it comes to you.

“Chooms, huh?” tilting your head, you pretend to mull it over like it’s a proposition of eddies from a fixer. Playing it off with a shrug, you concede, “I could get used to being Johnny Silverhand’s choom, I guess, even though he was a total dick at first.”

“As if you didn’t deserve it,” Johnny smirks.

“Uh, remind me again, who’s been whining about missing his smokes since day one?” it’s a half-hearted blow, and his widening grin shows it. “Better yet, beggin’ me to get my rocks off?”

“My own personal hell is being stuck inside a non-smoker, and it doesn’t help that you’re practically a nun,” you toss a rock at him for that, and it goes straight through his chest like he isn’t even there. He isn’t, but he grins at you anyways, “Still… who’d’ve thought we’d make it this far?”

You sit there for a beat, feeling your own smile turn at your lips, before sighing, “You know, if you really want a marker, we could get you one at the columbarium.”

“For what, an empty box?” shaking his head, he puts his shades back on to perch atop his nose.

“Please, I have more of your stuff than even your most devoted fanboys. I don’t need it all. We could, I don’t know, ‘retire’ something of yours there. You know, as a symbol,” his gaze weighs heavy on you, and you can’t for the life of you understand what’s going through his mind. It frustrates you nearly as much as his stare seems to, and you shift your gaze back to the sky in your attempt to escape his holographic scrutiny.

“Let me guess, you’ll bring me flowers every day?” it surprises you that his tone isn’t mocking, but rather curious. “Would you visit his grave?” he seems to ask.

Trying to lighten the mood, you tease, “You know me, too busy trying not to die for all that.” You look back to him with a wink, “Plus, preem flowers are expensive these days, choom. ‘Fraid you’ll have to settle for the synth ones. Besides, you seem like a cheap date to me.”

“Bitch.”

“Just say, ‘Thank you.’”

It’s as close as either of you will come to what you really want to say.

---

From the roof of Misty’s building, it’s almost as if the troubles of the city no longer exist. You think you understand why Jackie found his choice up here. It seems as good a place as any to choose between life and death.

You would have to come to yours, too, soon. Maybe you already have, and you just don’t want to admit it.

The thought dwells in your head, and it feels like the only choice that makes sense.

“You’re not considering that. Please, tell me you’re not seriously considering going to those bastards again for help,” Johnny’s voice tears you from your dreadful stare over the neon Night City advertisements staring back at you. Promising everything from NiCola to the market version of the prototype Relic crammed in your head. “You’re trying to make sense of something that makes zero damn sense!”

You think he might wind up hating you forever, for this.

“Takemura said---” you begin, but he cuts you off as he stands from his spot on the ledge overlooking the city and takes up pacing.

“Fuck that guy!” Johnny rounds on you, fiery as ever--- but there’s something more terrible in his eyes; a grief that only comes from knowing he won’t be able to change your mind. “You’re just takin’ the easy way out! Those ‘Saka bastards won’t stay true to their word, you know. All they do is lie, and they’ll keep lying to you so long as it gets them what they want from you. You can’t really believe they’ll help you or me!”

The truth is, you’re too tired and you don’t know what’s worse: the taste of blood on your tongue, or the look of disappointment in his eyes.

You should be at least used to the blood by now.

“I’m dying, Johnny. Hanako is the only person who can maybe help us. Name someone else. Anyone! They made this tech---”

“They’re only gonna’ hurt you. We can do this a different way,” he stops pacing to stand so close that you can swear his boots touch yours. It’s as if you could feel the heat radiating off him, but that may just be the fever settling deathly into your skin, “Hell, give me the keys and I’ll get us to Mikoshi. I’ll burn this whole fuckin’ city to the ground to get you there and I’ll throw the pieces of you back together myself! I’ll gladly die trying---”

“But I don’t want you to die, either,” you fight back the tears at the thought of it, and he huffs down at you in utter exasperation, “can’t you get that?”

“Think they’ll do any better by me at Arasaka?” his chuckle is humorless, coming strained from the back of his throat. “You don’t believe that.”

“I can cut us a deal…” you look down, away from him, blinking out beyond where he stands towards the city lights. You don’t want to fight with him right now. You don’t think you can.

“With what leverage? Deals are only good so long as you have the upper hand, V,” he kneels into your eyeline, reaching out to grasp your chin in two silver fingers and turning you to face him fully. It’s gotten to the point that his hands on your skin feel akin to something real, dulled synapses firing with every spark of his hands on your skin. It’s how you know you’re close to the end. “Who is gonna’ be in your corner after they get everything they want?”

“Goro’s a man of his word.”

“You’re so fuckin’ naïve. Just as dumb as you were when you took that bullet to the brain from Dex, and I had to save your ass then, too,” Johnny growls your name like he hates you for it, but who knew how much you would come to welcome the end? Because when he frustratedly drags you forward by a harsh grip at the back of your head to eclipse his lips over yours, you can feel it. Him. In the burnt neurons of your addled mind, he is there against you--- kissing you with death on the edges of his lips, in all the heavy grief and anger that your choice has brought forth in him. It’s a terrible knowledge that pours from you into him of how much you’ve come to love him, and how desperately you know he’ll hate you for this, because maybe he’s right; maybe you really are naïve for wanting to believe in some way out of this.

He gasps against your lips like it wrecks him to the core; voice hoarse with the emotion as he curses, “Damn, you’re one stubborn bitch.”

“Inherited only your best traits, Johnny,” it’s just as dry on your tongue, and you lift your hand that has been clutching the omega blockers to your lips. You want to say it--- tell him in words how much you care for him. Instead, you murmur against his lips, “Please, don’t be mad,” and swallow the pills.

“I got a feeling you’re gonna’ regret this, choom, and I won’t be there to help you,” he leans away, and you feel the drugs start to kick in when his voice becomes more distant. “Don’t do this. Miracles like the one you’re hopin’ for don’t happen for screw-ups like us, you know.”

“Trust me.”

“I wish I didn’t trust you at all,” he sounds just as tired as you do when he says your name one last time before you blink and he’s gone. The bitter aftertaste of the pills tastes like betrayal on your tongue, and you already know Johnny will haunt you for the rest of your days.

You’re quickly reminded of why you’ve always hated taking the omega blockers.

It takes everything you have left not to sob at the feeling, like you’ve lost a limb--- gone numb and tingling painfully with the ghost of where he was. It’s as if everything is muted, including the deepest parts of yourself. You’re in a bad way, and you know you don’t have much longer now.

So, you find yourself committing to the desperate choice you’ve made, but you don’t call Hanako.

Instead, you call the only corpo you trust besides yourself, and hope it isn’t stupid to do so.

Takemura.

---

He is dressed in all white when he comes to find you at Misty’s Esoterica, looking like a harbinger of death in every sense of the word, “You… look like shit.”

“Don’t look half bad yourself, Goro,” you chuckle, but it turns into a wracking cough that leaves you with a more urgent taste of blood at your lips.

“Are you in any shape to negotiate?” he wonders, but it’s not threatening--- more of a genuine concern displayed with the arch of his brow. Johnny may disagree with you, but you still dare to think him a good man.

“Not in much shape to do anything, anymore, but I know exactly what I’m useful for. My eddies are on Hanako knowing this, too,” you lean on the arm he offers when you stumble on your way to the car. “After all, she sent you. Smart woman.”

“I would have come even had she not,” Goro confesses, pausing with his metal-laced fingertips on the back door. When you shoot him a questioning look, he offers you only a simple, “We have done much work to not see this through to the end, yes?”

“Who’d’ve thought we’d make it this far?”

Goro nods in agreement, before you’re sliding into the car behind Anders Hellman and hoping the Swede knows half of what he thinks he does about your condition, “Agreed.”

---

There’s something to be said for dying. It’s not always as bad as people make it out to be.

Some people would consider you dead. You always find yourself wondering what Johnny would think, these days.

You absentmindedly turn the Rubik’s cube in your hand with no real aim at solving it, letting your mind drift in the overly sterile room Arasaka’s finest clinicians have sequestered you to.

“Barbaric,” Goro called it once, but that didn’t stop them from putting you right back here again. The news plays softly on the screen you’ve been allowed to have after they determined it wouldn’t exacerbate your oversensitivity, but not even the privilege of phoning what few friends you have left can eat away at the boredom that’s settled into your bones in this space station. What was there to say, anyway?

Hi, it’s your favorite lab rat again! How’s it going in the real world? I’m going insane up here!

You can’t help but dwell on the thought that maybe Johnny was right about it all. Maybe it isn’t worth living if life is going to be like this.

Arasaka made no guarantees past what you had signed for on the dotted line the day Hanako had again sent Goro solely to break the news that your body was dying even after Johnny’s Relic had been extracted from your mind. It would seem the soft spot you’d held for Goro was well known by the Arasaka heiress. The woman is nothing if not strategic.

Hell, you’d gotten yourself a worse deal that day than you’d gotten for Johnny at the start of this. After all, you’d had nothing left to bargain with by then.

You were technically a construct, now. A lab experiment dreamed up by Arasaka’s best bioengineers and a team of physicians lead by Anders Hellman. Your current body was a multi-billion eurodollar joint Arasaka-Biotechnica venture that had only been put at the top of Hanako’s list when implanting her father’s construct into Yorinobu had gone awry. You’re convinced she would have been content to let you rot on a biochip in Mikoshi for the rest of your existence otherwise. After all, your contract never said when they had to provide you with a body, only that they were obligated to when the technology existed to allow it.

Turns out, rewriting someone else’s psyche does more damage to the physical body than anyone in Arasaka thought it would. You don’t know why it was such a surprise to them all when Yorinobu’s body couldn’t handle it, considering what it did to you. Maybe they just didn’t care, with how desperate they’d been to get any semblance of leadership back.

All you know is that Johnny Silverhand probably rolled over laughing in his grave, wherever it is, when Saburo Arasaka died a second, painful death.

They were using you as a top-secret prototype for Saburo 2.0, as you’ve come to call what will inevitably be the body they attempt to stick him in next. Sure, Arasaka as a company is facing charges in the New United States on Yorinobu’s death--- something about human testing that everyone knows will never stick--- but that will be swept under the rug much like any bad press Arasaka has gotten over this past year, with either cash or bullets dispensed.

“Shit,” you curse as you grow frustrated with the cube, tossing it onto the thin hospital mattress they kept on your bed. Rubbing your eyes as you try to refocus, it still feels strange to not feel the metal embedded in your skin. Worse still, you had to get used to what a fully ‘ganic body felt like again.

“You even human anymore, with all that chrome?” you can almost hear Johnny’s words to you when you got a new set of mantis blades from Vik’s clinic right before heading out for the oncoming fight at Clouds with the Tiger Claws. It was so long ago, now, but it doesn’t feel like it. That’s what Mikoshi does to a person, you figure. It’s hard to fully comprehend that so much time has passed.

Sometimes, you think you do hear him in more than just a memory. Like he’s still there, in your head. The doctors say it will pass with time, but they’ve been wrong before. Safe to say, Johnny literally changed your brain chemistry.

At least some part of you hopes they’re wrong, because you don’t know how you’ll make it in this world without him if Arasaka doesn’t stay true to their word.

It’s like you’ve lost a part of yourself, and you regret it more every day that you’re forced to live in this white box of a test tube that they’ve put you in. You should have died with him at Mikoshi. Gone out in a fiery blaze of glory and torn it all down with you, if only it would’ve made you feel a little better right before the end.

His last words to you had been as you went under the knife, right before they carefully excised him from your brain like a tumor.

“If this plan doesn’t work, Johnny--- If you wind up being right about Arasaka---” you had called to him through the code, as it weaved and curled around his form. It created and destroyed him all at the same time, but Johnny’s frown was still clear as day to you.

“I’m right about Arasaka,” he sounded nearly as exhausted as you had been on that roof the last time you’d talked. Defeated was something you’d never expected to see on him, “See? You haven’t changed at all. Still think you can outsmart the whole world, when you’re really just out of your depth.”

You didn’t want to think of this as a betrayal, but that’s what it was starting to feel like as you marinate in his sadness, “Look… I just want us to part as friends, for now. Just in case I don’t get to see you again after this, I wanted to tell you goodbye as proper friends.”

“Not sure that’s possible, anymore,” cut you to your core.

You wanted to reach for him, through the flickering code, but you didn’t dare. Heartbreak tastes a lot like blood on your tongue, even here.

“That’s what we are, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know, V. I just… don’t know.”

It was all you could remember of the interaction, though you’re certain there had to be more than that. Sometimes, when you dream instead of sleep, bits and pieces of it come back to you. That’s what you think it is, at least.

It’s far too real to be any normal nightmare.

It sounded too familiar when he said things like, “I just wish you’d stayed loyal to yourself,” or, “Those ‘Saka docs are cutting out a piece of us. Something we’ll never get back. It’ll leave a hole,” in those horrible dreams where memory emerges from the subconscious.

Perhaps this is just what you deserve. Your penance. The price you’ve got to pay for your choices, and the deal you made with the devil.

After all, nothing in Night City is ever free.

Multiple lifetimes of suffering, of being forced to go on without him? It’s almost poetic, in a Shakespearean tragedy sort of way. If this body fails, Arasaka will just test your construct in a new one until they get it right.

You’re company property and the Biotechnica cloning program is only in its infancy. Anders Hellman had told you as much himself when you’d asked.

“You’re one of the first successful cases, so far,” was, specifically, what he’d told you. It wasn’t much; Arasaka clearly wanted you in the dark.

You’d already proved too much trouble when left to your own devices, historically.

Have they brought you back before? How many bodies did you live and die in before this one? They could’ve wiped your memory of it, or maybe cut your engram into a million different pieces until something fit. You would never know the truth of what’s been done to you, most likely.

The door to your room slides open with a whirring noise, breaking you from your thoughts when the same scientist who you’ve come to understand is one of your daily handlers walks in, “It’s time for your daily tests.”

You try to not let the sarcasm drip from your tongue, but you’ve been failing at a lot of things these days.

“Always a pleasure to see you, too, Suki.”

You are dead, and this is just purgatory.

---

They eventually shipped you back to earth, “in accordance with the great progress you’ve displayed over these past few months,” as Anders had told it.

Earth was exhausting. Even though the Arasaka lab they had put you in had all the comforts of home, save for the overly-clinical aesthetics, it still took weeks for your body to become accustomed to its own weight. It was only then that you realized the space station’s simulated gravity was slightly less than that on earth, to allow for less pressure on your new joints and bones as your mind settled in. It’s perhaps why you had been able to relearn walking in the first place, because on earth you were much clumsier than you remember ever having been before.

There were bruises on your legs from the amount of times you’d tripped down or stumbled into something. You’re surprised they hadn’t yet put you in a padded room, but you must’ve been making progress, because eventually they sent a familiar face to see you again.

“おはようございます,” without translators installed into your body’s cyberware, the words that fall from Goro’s lips as he offers a slight bow take a moment for you to mentally decipher.

You don’t rightly care, because you’ve not seen a familiar face other than Anders since waking up in this body. Let alone, anything close to a friend.

He stiffens and freezes when you step forward to drag him into your arms, holding him in a tight embrace that almost has you melting against him with how much of a relief it felt to feel another person. It’s too forward, and you’d never have done it under normal circumstances---

But you’re so relieved to see him.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” you murmur as you release him, catching the slight tinge of a flush at his cheeks. He straightens his shirt, donned in black from head to toe. His hair isn’t pulled back, for once; it’s a little longer than when you had seen him last, “You look great, Goro.”

He seems to relax slightly at the familiar words, as if he hadn’t been quite sure what to expect of you at first. You watch as he takes you in, optics dilating as his settings switch with the distance you put between you again. It makes you slightly self-conscious under his scrutiny.

You know you look different. Sure, the core basics of yourself are the same, but you’re slimmer than you were before in this cloned body. Your cyberware is gone, as are the scars from a lifetime of mercenary work. Any tattoos you had were no longer etched into your skin, including Johnny’s. Then, there’s that new Arasaka logo brandished behind your ear that matched his own. The only good thing about your new appearance was that your hair had finally grown long enough to cover the logo when you left it down.

“You look like shit,” he cracks a smile after a second, “but it is good to see you, too.”

“What are you doing here?” you wonder as he walks further into your designated quarters, hands clasped behind his back, “Don’t tell me you get to tell a girl she’s dying twice.” He observes the room not unlike he did when he’d visited you on the space station, though seems less displeased with your living situation this time.

He doesn’t say, “barbaric,” at least.

It’s your words that earn his chastising side-eye, this time, “You should not joke. I do not want to do that again.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” the prodding does nothing to urge an explanation from him as he moves towards the desk on the other side of the room. The metal on his fingertips glints with sunlight as he moves the papers lying there--- some of the most recent status reports you’ve been given on your performance in Arasaka’s testing. A lot of it was redacted, but you were given just enough to know you weren’t dying currently.

That, they seemed to be taking as a win.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as his optics dart back and forth on the papers, reading them quickly. Surely, he’s had a briefing before he’d been sent to see you. Maybe he just doesn’t trust it was a full picture, or he wants to know what parts of it you know.

Settling into the couch, you reach for the tin of mints you’ve been hoarding recently. Popping one into your mouth, you turn it around as the fresh flavor bursts through your skin, scent sparking in your nostrils.

“Playing doctor now, Goro?” that gets him to look up from the papers to shoot you an unamused look that said just answer the question. You sigh, nail tapping the tin as you take a moment to get his answer, “Well, I’m tired and sore all the time from the physical therapy, and hypersensitive to almost fuck all. Oh, and they still won’t let me get any chrome installed--- even the minor stuff like optics.” You sigh, and the minty feeling tingles on your tongue, “Do you know how much deliberating it took for the white-coats to finally decide I was ready for an operating system update?”

“And the nightmares?” Goro turns away from the desk to instead lean on it, crossing his arms as he looks towards you. So, he had a more thorough briefing on your status than you expected.

You avert your eyes. It was bad enough having to talk to the mandated shrink about them. You really didn’t want to get into what plagued your mind with Goro.

“They’re nothing. It’s the physical symptoms that Arasaka cares about. That’s what’ll get Saburo a new body or not, right?”

He doesn’t let you off the hook that easily, “Arasaka has underestimated the impact of the mind on the body once already, at great cost. I do not think your mental state is considered ‘minor’ to your doctors and scientists, V.” After a moment’s pause, he confirms what you are thinking, “It is not considered something to be ignored by Arasaka’s board, either.”

“Is that what you’re here for?” you can’t help the irritation that seeps into your tone, “To give a first-hand report back to Hanako Arasaka and the board on my progress? Came to see the test subject for yourself instead of just reading the memo?”

“V…” his brow furrows, frown settling onto his lips as you turn your body away from him on the couch.

“Well, you’ve seen me! I trust you’ve gotten all the spicy details you need for your report on my mental status.”

“くそ,” he swears under his breath, as if exasperated with your antics. There is a stillness that comes with the silence between you after that, and you don’t dare turn to him. Instead, you focus on the tin in your hands and the mint in your mouth. Anything other than the pit in your stomach at the remembrance of the nightmares that plague you more nights than most.

There’s a shuffling of clothing and the sound of footsteps approaching as Goro comes to stand beside you, “You are… hypersensitive to words as well, it seems. Look at me, V.” You refuse to do it, and he sighs. In your peripheral, you can see him move to sit beside you on the couch, “Hanako-sama does expect me to relay your progress upon my return, but that is not the sole purpose for my visit.”

“Why’re you here, then?” it may be childish to still refuse to look at him, but you can’t bring yourself to. You feel as if nothing will be as it was before--- like even though you’ve fought terribly to return to normal, there would never be a moment when you felt like yourself again.

“You are being released.”

Your head snaps up to look at him when he says that, utter shock undoubtedly on your face. His own expression remains level, rock steady as he always seemed to be. You can see the truth of his words in his eyes; he has no reason to lie to you. You doubt Hanako would put him in a position to knowingly do so anyway.

“Released?” you breathe the word. You can’t quite believe the truth in his eyes.

“Hellman’s team has decided you have progressed as much as can be expected in a clinical setting. They think you are ready to return to a more ‘normal’ routine. I am here to tell Hanako-sama if I believe they are correct, based on what I know of you… who you were, already,” Goro holds up a hand, quelling the excitement he undoubtedly sees blossoming in your eyes. “This does not mean a return to what your routine was before. You cannot return to mercenary work.”

“So… I’m to live as a civilian, then?” you shift your whole body to face him, legs folded beneath you.

“In a sense… you will still be under Arasaka’s supervision, expected to meet every scheduled appointment and test. If you miss even one, you will be collected and returned here. There are other requirements, but I will leave those to be explained by your care team,” Goro watches as the news sinks in. He looks away, admitting, “I am maybe not the best to answer any questions you have about this.”

“Will I be staying in Tokyo?” is all you can think to ask, mind racing at the prospect of even a little freedom from this quarantine.

“At first, but I believe the goal is to reintroduce you to Night City should you continue to progress---” his words are choked off when you quickly grasp hold of his shoulders, pulling him into another hug. Just like before, he freezes, though this time he recovers enough to loosely hug you back.

“Thank you, Goro, for everything.”

---

The Corpo Plaza apartment didn’t feel like home, but it was closest to Arasaka tower and the Biotechnica building--- both of which you have to visit frequently. Well, at least it was less frequently than when you’d first been sent back to Night City, but it still wasn’t worth the constant drive from a different district.

Your fingers trace along the metal outlining your face as you glance at yourself in the mirror, having just finished a shower. The cyberware embedded in your cheeks is similar to what you had originally, though slightly different. You like it all the same, even if it had to be approved by Arasaka first. Every day you felt more like yourself, but you doubt you’ll ever be 100% you again. Too much has changed for this sense of newness to ever leave.

Even when you had reconnected with Victor, he looked at you like something uncanny. A dead woman walking. Misty could barely manage to look at you at all. Panam and the Aldecaldos had migrated; you were still waiting for her to return your call to figure out what they were up to these days. Judy was long gone, but getting out of Night City was maybe the best thing she could’ve done after everything.

Only Johnny’s old contacts seemed to remind you of who you were, and perhaps that’s because they’d never truly gotten to know you too well. Then, there was the feeling of loss that still gripped your soul. The ghost of Johnny Silverhand haunting your every thought and plaguing your dreams at night. You doubt you’ll ever be free of him. You hope he never fully fades from your psyche.

As much as it hurts, you still love him.

In hindsight, that’s probably the real reason why it would never work out between you and Goro. You’re still holding a torch for a dead man, and you’ll never be truly satisfied with anyone else.

In the end, Johnny has truly ruined you. Maybe it’s his last laugh: your complete inability to move on.

Your deal with Arasaka at the beginning had been for them to save him. To put him away into Mikoshi for the rainy day that the technology existed for a body suited for him to be a reality. The contract required them to release him into Night City after he had been deemed healthy, but you knew as well as anyone that contracts like these had loopholes even with the best lawyers pouring over them. Arasaka could truly do whatever they wanted with him once he was out of your head, other than destroying his engram.

When you had asked them the status on them holding up that end of your bargain, you had been met with cryptic answers. Hanako refused to meet with you, and you were in no shape without your combat cyberware to hunt her down yourself.

You’re terrified, honestly, at the idea of never seeing him again, nearly as much as you fear facing him.

Sighing, you step away from the mirror to move towards your bedroom while you towel-dry your hair as best you can. Tomorrow you were to report to Arasaka for your end-of-the-year testing and physical. Hellman would probably personally chastise you for the pizza you’ve ordered tonight. It was far from the approved meal plan, but it wasn’t as easy to find food that fit the diet and still tasted good outside of Japan. Finally, you understood Takemura’s issue with Night City’s synthfood.

Still, if one slice of pizza was going to kill you, you figure it’s a good enough way to go. Anything beats being an Arasaka pencil-pusher for the rest of your days.

“Night City Legend, Felled by PieZ,” the headlines would read, and it wouldn’t even mention the billions you’d cost Arasaka if you died.

Water drips down your jaw and you wipe it away with the towel before tossing it into the hamper. Scooping up an oversized sweatshirt that screamed support for the debut album of SAMURAI, it soaks up the few water droplets you’ve missed when drying and effectively covers the dog tags against your chest. Looking down at the hamper, you wish that Arasaka would sign off on you having a pet finally. Nibbles was doing fine at Victor’s, but you missed that furless cat.

The sound of your holo ringing is accompanied by Goro’s face flashing in your caller ID, and you pick up after a few moments, “Yo?”

“こんばんは,” Goro appears with his hair pulled up into a bun, and you could’ve been fooled that it was the old days if not for the few extra gray hairs he seemed to have now. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“What? You worried I’ll disappoint?” you roll your eyes at his pointed look. “You know I’m doing great now, practically would be back to my old self if they’d ever let me get my combat cyberwear.”

“And you know that Arasaka has invested too much in you for you to involve yourself in a Night City street fight. Do not think they will approve all your requests tomorrow, V, regardless of your progress,” he speaks reasonably, and maybe that’s what grinds your gears the most. You know good and well that Arasaka has everything riding on you. If you successfully keep from pushing daisies they’ll move forward with Saburo’s resurrection. Hell, maybe they already were. For their one and only living test subject, you’ve been doing relatively well, if not a little hypersensitive at times still.

“Not every fight in Night City is one you pick. What if I need to defend myself, huh?”

“Do you feel in danger? Has something happened?” Goro’s voice has an edge to it, concern, and you shake your head.

“I’m just making a point. Most folks who die in this city are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My combat chrome would give me an edge again. Call it an investment in keeping me alive,” you snort, and Goro’s lips quirk upwards at your dry humor.

“You can plead that to the panel tomorrow after you pass all their tests. I think you should… what is the phrase? Not get your hopes up?”

“Did you call me just to bum me out, Goro?” you sigh, moving through your kitchen to rummage through your fridge and find a NiCola.

“Only to discuss reality.”

“I think you’re just scared I’ll kick your ass with all my chrome one of these days for how sassy you are,” the sarcasm drips from your tongue, and this time Takemura does sound thoroughly amused.

“I would like to watch your attempt at that, but I think you will need to remove the pizza from your diet first, V,” then, he hangs up. Never one for drawn-out goodbyes. You think you prefer it that way.

“I could’ve kicked your ass while on an only-pizza diet, once,” you grumble to the apartment around you, taking a swig of the NiCola. The ring of the doorbell breaks you from the thoughts of just how you can get back at Goro for that comment, “Speaking of pizza…”

Barefoot, you stroll towards the door, hoping the delivery guy followed your instructions to leave your food at the door. You don’t want to deal with awkward small talk with another human right now. Not bothering to check the cams to see if your instructions have been followed, you let the door slide open with a swipe of your hand against the key screen.

The door is barely halfway open when a hand catches your throat and forces you back into the apartment, a body forcing you up against the entryway wall as you choke out a startled noise under a firm grip. Terror claws at your skin as you grab at the arm attached to the hand before you manage to get a good look at him when he stills against you, breathing hard. It takes a moment for wide eyes to take in enough of his features to recognize the dark eyes staring back at you.

“J---”

“You couldn’t help yourself from being corpo scum again, could you? Selfish, that’s what this whole thing was--- what you are,” his voice--- oh, fuck, his voice, it rings in your ears in a way it never has before. Deep, familiar, and real. Strained with anger and choked with a breathless fury, but something else breaks against the fire swirling in his eyes--- some relief that settles nearly as devastatingly in your bones as his skin lays heavy and warm against yours.

You can’t believe it. You must be hallucinating. You’ve finally cracked and lost it. Something was malfunctioning in your head, certainly, because there’s no way he’s here.

Your fingertips shake as they reach out, away from the firm grip he still has on your throat, to ghost against the slope of his jaw. The scruff of a beard still remained there, but was shorter than how he had lived in your head. The scars on his face were gone, along with the tattoos on what skin of his you can see beneath the leather jacket he wears. His left hand was at your throat, and it was made of flesh and bone, not metal.

He swats at your hand when you finally touch him, a hurt in his voice that was so real that you couldn’t trick yourself into believing he was just a hallucination, “Did you ever think about what I wanted, huh, when you chose this?”

But you still can’t get past the sight of him, finally managing, “Is… it really you?”

“Fuck yes, it’s me. What’s wrong with you?”

“Johnny,” you gasp his name, nails digging into his pristine forearm, tears nearly blinding you as they well in your eyes at the overwhelming emotion that surges from your chest. You can’t hold it together, trembling against him, and only then does his grip soften at your throat.

His voice sounds devastatingly mournful as he growls in the quiet of your apartment, “You sold us both to fuckin’ Arasaka, V. Look what they did to you. You’re their property. Doesn’t it make you sick? Some things are worse than death, and I doubt ‘Saka will ever leave us to it, now.”

You hear what he’s saying. It sounds just like him, and your heart breaks at the sound. At the warmth of him, and the way his dark hair ghosts around his cheeks slightly shorter than you remember it being before. He’s really here, and he hates you.

His voice cracks, “Why are you crying?”

“I-I missed you,” you confess between the sobs, trying to swallow up the emotion. Damning yourself for not holding it together better than this at the sight of him, but it was such a shock, and only one thing could run through your mind as dreadful regret sank into your soul, “a-and now you’re going to hate me forever.”

He looks at you like he’s stunned by the words coming from your mouth, or maybe he’s shocked it’s all you’re capable of saying when you’ve betrayed him as thoroughly as he perceives.

“Shit, V,” he murmurs, reaching up to drag his thumb against your cheek and wiping away the messy tears that trailed there. He looks down at you like he’s almost annoyed at you for crying, but there’s a strange look in his eyes that you can’t fully place. “I wish it was something as easy as hating you, but I just can’t seem to catch a fuckin’ break.”

The confusion at his words nearly stuns your tears into small hiccups as you breathe, “What?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hate you,” it sounds like dread on his tongue, like fear and grief for the situation you’ve both found yourselves in. It sounds like a confession, from his lips, “I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive you for what you’ve done to me, either. I haven’t felt right without you since I woke up in this damn useless body. Feels like I should still be in yours.”

A breathless huff escapes you, almost akin to a laugh, as you realize what he’s trying to say, “You missed me, too, huh, rockerboy?”

“You’re the only thing about this damned city I missed,” he crowds you in, pressing you fully into the wall with his own body. “Not drugs, not alcohol, not music--- I came back here for you. Bein’ clean and having to put up with those ‘Saka corpo-drones has been the worst time of my life, by the way, but I did it because they said you were alive.” He looks at you, a hint of incredulousness in his eye, when he asks, “What the hell kind of a deal did you make with them?”

You’re terrified to tell him, but you can’t lie to him. Not after everything.

“I’m the reason Saburo Arasaka will live.”

Johnny curses, fury twisting his face, but the defeat is worse, “I should hate you. Fuck, why can’t I hate you?”

“I’m sorry---”

“Don’t lie to me,” he cuts you off, biting, “you’re not sorry. You don’t care if Saburo Arasaka lives or dies so long as we get to live.”

“Fine, you’re right,” anger flares in your own gut, exhausted annoyance lacing your tone, “but is that such a crime? I want to be okay again, Johnny! I want you to be okay, too!”

“And you’ll sell our souls for it?!”

“God, you’re such a dramatic asshole!” you nearly scream, slamming your eyes shut in your distress, “Go ahead and blame me for falling in love with a dead man, too, then! I should’ve known it would kill us both, but I couldn’t stop myself from loving you, Johnny! I wouldn’t have been able to go on knowing I’d left you to die, okay? That’s why I did this! Call me a selfish bitch if you want to; maybe you’re right---”

“Yeah? Well, I guess maybe I’m to blame for falling in love with a selfish bitch,” he growls, so close that his nose touches yours, and your eyes snap open just as he leans in to crash his lips against yours. It’s not wholly unlike the last kiss you shared with him, when he was just sparks on your neurons, and yet it’s entirely different.

There’s a taste to him now, but it’s not the cigarettes you had expected, but more akin to nicotine gum. Has he stopped smoking? He smells like leather and some sort of amber-scented cologne that has you weak in the knees.

But the way he kisses you is what nearly scrambles all coherent thought. He’s so warm and firm against you, the reality of his touch, tongue, and lips against yours desecrates the memory of the slight stimulation your neurons had simulated when he’d been in your head. Johnny seems to be in no better a state at the feeling of you against him, gasping into your mouth when your hands find his hair to drag him closer, and all the while all you can think is how happy you are that he is alive here and now.

It barely feels like it should be real.

He parts from you, catching his breath and staring at you with a look that sends heat rippling down your spine, flushing your skin in its wake.

You blink at him, head lulled back, and whisper through the feeling of having him back, like some piece of your soul coming home, “Fuck, I missed you, Johnny, so much.”

“You’re probably the only one, choom.”

“That’s not true. There’s Rogue, and Kerry---”

“They got their closure when I was hitchhiking in your skull. How can I just waltz back into their lives now?”

You tilt your head at him, “It can’t be that the Johnny Silverhand who was never afraid to die, is actually scared to live?”

He scoffs, leaning away from you with a roll of his eyes, “Is that the kinda’ psychobabble your ‘Saka shrink has been feeding you?”

“Could be,” you shrug, and a glint of the light at the metal around your neck catches his eye, “don’t mean it isn’t true.”

“What’s this?” he invades your space again, dragging a fingertip to loop at the chain at your neck, leading beneath your sweatshirt, and tugging it until the necklace drags into view. Dogtags clink in his hand and his eyes snap back up to yours in shock, “These--- you still have ‘em?”

Your cheeks heat with the find, and you don’t know why it’s so embarrassing even after you’ve told him that you’re in love with him. Of course you would’ve kept his dog tags. It only makes sense, but you want to defend it. The words crawl up your throat, and it takes all you have to swallow them down.

Instead, you reach up to begin to remove them, “You should probably have them back, now.”

Johnny’s hand catches yours, stilling it, “I… don’t know if I’m ready to step back into ‘em right now. ‘Sides, maybe I like the look of ‘em on you.”

You search his gaze, but he seems sure enough about the decision, “Alright. I’ll keep them, for now.”

“Good… It suits you,” a ring of the apartment door breaks you from whatever scrutiny weighed heavy in Johnny’s eyes. “The fuck is that?”

“My pizza this time, I hope,” you huff, pushing him back just enough to escape from between him and the wall. “I don’t know if I can take two of you showing up at my door tonight.”

Johnny trails after you, watching you open the door and pluck the pizza box from the ground where the delivery guy had left it as instructed, “Good news, there’s only one Johnny Silverhand.”

Turning towards him, you smirk, “Luckily.”

“Screw you.”

“You wish.”

#johnny silverhand fanfic #cyberpunk 2077 fanfic #robert john linder fanfic #cyberpunk 2077 female reader insert #female reader insert #newstuff female reader insert #author meg #fanfiction #fanfic by me #nsft #trigger warning #trigger: drugs

17 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 4 months

Note

you got this message because you make me happy *make someone smile by sending it (on Anonymous) to ten people who make you happy too. If you get some back, that's even better! Lets make someone else's day wonderful*

You're too sweet, darling! Thank you for sending me this kind message. <3

#askthranduilsperkybutt

5 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 5 months

Photo

Added an Ascended!Astarion playlist to go with the Unascended!Astarion playlist I already added because All Forms of Astarion are Rotting My Brain. I have brain worms that are worse than the ones you get in the game tbh.

🌸🏵️✨ Meg’s Playlists ✨🏵️🌸

I finally decided that I’ll share direct spotify links to my active character-themed playlists that I listen to while writing. I update them whenever I hear a new song that fits! They’re organized under the cut by fandom. Please note that literally all my playlists have explicit tracks in them. Consume media at your own discretion. Enjoy~💕

Keep reading

#reblog

83 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 5 months

Note

Hello there! Do you have any Obi-Wan fics (especialy the spicy smutty ones 👀) that you can recomend? That man has been living on my mind rent free and my period this month is making me horny af 😂

Thank you in advance and also I love your work! I think you're a great writer and a lovely person that makes this fandom better 😊

Hi! Thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot! 💖 💕 I'm not as familiar with Obi Wan fanfic, but @stardust-kenobi @princessxkenobi @laserbrains @strwrs and @wickedscribbles have all sorts of spicy Obi Wan fics 😊 Soft, kinky, sith!Obi Wan, you name it!

And if anyone knows of anyone else, please feel free to add!

#fic rec #fic recs #recommendation #recommendations #reblog

53 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 5 months

Photo

Added a Drac playlist 🧛🩸 which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one 😂😅

🌸🏵️✨ Meg’s Playlists ✨🏵️🌸

Keep reading

#reblog #vladislaus dracula #please feel free to recommend me vlad drac vibe songs #gnawing on the bars of my enclosure when i see him fr

83 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Note

Looking at you like this bc of your gale and astarion playlists

Oeusgrksoajegsk :3 ty for this amazing contribution to my blorbo playlist collection

Aww, haha! ❤️ I love Gale & Astarion so I'm happy to hear you're enjoying the playlists, hun!!

Meg's Playlists

#askthranduilsperkybutt

3 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

Last Updated: 2023-11-05

Disclaimer: I am not the author of these stories, just sharing my favourite Dr. Leonard McCoy stories. Find the authors' links below. If you want your work removed, message me privately.

❧ An Apple a Day by annathewitch▪︎〔F᜶A〕▪︎

Summary: "An unexpected encounter with Leonard McCoy at the Academy leaves you with a poor impression. Will he manage to redeem himself when you encounter him again years later?"

❧ An Apple a Day by cas-kingdom▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎

Summary: "...apparently doesn't keep the doctor away. You've come down with the flu, and only Bones can make you feel better."

❧ April Showers Bring Flowering Feelings by hobbit-historian▪︎〔F〕▪︎

Summary: "When you get caught in a sudden rainstorm, McCoy comes to your rescue."

❧ Because Why? by geminiwritten▪︎〔F᜶A〕▪︎

Summary: "After five long years of pining for the doctor and a whole month of him acting weirdly distant you finally decide to go on a date, but when you get called in for your routine medical you end up finding out exactly why bones has been acting so strange."

❧ Concentration by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎18+▪︎〔E᜶F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: When you answer a work call on your day off your husband decides to punish you by making it very hard to concentrate.

❧ Doctor of My Word [Soulmate!A.U.] ⧫ by grandtheftstarship▪︎〔F〕▪︎

Summary: "To almost everyone on the Enterprise, it was... obvious that you were pining after the one and only Doctor Leonard McCoy. Everyone also found it glaringly obvious the CMO was pining right back."

❧ Dr. Dreamy by geminiwritten▪︎〔E᜶A〕▪︎

Summary: "it's been a while since [you got] laid, and it's starting to affect your mood... Jim offers his help before quickly realising that you're still hung up on a mysterious 'Mr. Dreamy' from your academy days... but he soon finds out that the man [you're] in lovewith... is, in fact, the enterprise’s best doctor."

❧ Drunken Promises by grandtheftstarship▪︎〔F〕▪︎

Summary: Waking up with a hangover and a ring around your left hand is not how you wanted to spend your shore leave.

❧ Game Night by geminiwritten▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎

Summary: "After… injuring yourself, you refuse to go to MedBay before attending a games night with the crew and your favourite grumpy (and very jealous) doctor."

❧ Hobgoblins and Hospitality by thatfanficstuff▪︎〔M〕▪︎

Summary: {…}

❧ Joanna by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: {…}

❧ Our Choices by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: The enterprise crew has returned to earth and you and Leonard are getting married.

❧ Paper Roses by ladyideal▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: It's your birthday and your boyfriend, Leonard planned a special surprise.

❧ Pick Me Up by grandtheftstarship▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: When you're sick, your boyfriend stays home to take care of you, making sure you're comfortable and building you a pillow fort.

❧ Prank by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: {…}

❧ Roomies by geminiwritten▪︎〔E᜶F〕▪︎

Summary: "..."jim’s determination to play matchmaker leads to a very awkward roommate situation… Not to mention, there’s only one bed .

❧ Sick by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Southern Charm by high-functioning-lokipath▪︎〔F〕▪︎

Summary: "..."

❧ Things that Go Bump in the Night by annathewitch▪︎〔F〕▪︎

Summary: "[When you're] having trouble sleeping… McCoy tries to help [you] with [your] unusual problem."

❧ To Annoy a Doctor by cas-kingdom▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎

Summary: "You're a very difficult patient, and unfortunately for you, Bones has very little tolerance."

❧ Clean by pendragonfics▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Come Back to Bed by dreaming-about-fanfictions▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Dammit by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Dive by thatfanficstuff▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Favours by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Germs by thatfanficstuff▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Glasses by space-helen▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Grumpy Cuddles by thranduilsperkybutt▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ It's My Job by shenanigans-and-imagines▪︎〔F〕

❧ Just Perfect by imamotherfuckingstar-lord▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Marriage in the Rescue, the by kaitymccoy123▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Right Here, Darlin' by thesteveharringtonclub▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Sickness by marvelmymarvel▪︎▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Well Adjusted Adults by ladyideal▪︎

❧ What's on Your Mind?

❧ Being Married to Leonard McCoy… by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Dating Leonard McCoy… by im-an-octopus▪︎16+▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ First Kiss w/ Leonard… by space-helen▪︎〔F〕▪︎

See Also: Navigation | Leonard McCoy Master Index

#fic rec #fic recs #recommendation #recommendations #reblog

150 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

April Fic Recs

Here is what I’ve been reading this month. Some are new fics, some are old ones that I’ve just discovered or rediscovered, but they are all amazing! Please, check them out, and enjoy!

Keep reading

#fic rec #fic recs #recommendation #recommendations #reblog #thank you so much for reccing me

33 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

Last Updated: 2023-10-23

Disclaimer: I am not the author of these stories, just sharing my favourite James T. Kirk stories. Find the authors' links below. If you want your work removed, message me privately.

❧ 7 Minutes in Turbolift Heaven by imamotherfuckingstar-lord▪︎18+▪︎〔E᜶F〕▪︎

Summary: "You are a translator for the Enterprise and you love your job, you really do. But there is one downside, one big pain in your ass - Captain Kirk. Jim and you are constantly straddling the lines of love and hate - sometimes blurring the whole mess. The two of you are always bickering, always mocking each other, always getting under each other’s skins - everyone has noticed. In fact, you two tend to draw a curious audience. It’s a final blow up over Jim sending another translator down to a mission that erupts all the emotions - good and bad, that you have for the man free. Spock calls it intervention, Bones calls it 7 minutes in turbolift Heaven."

❧ Blankets of Fortitude by kaitymccoy123▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "…[Jim's] been working very hard for the last few weeks, so you decide to surprise him with a gift (may or may not be a blanket fort)."

❧ Bridge, the by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: You and Jim celebrate your anniversary on the bridge of the enterprise.

❧ First Sign of Trouble by kaitymccoy123▪︎〔M᜶F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "You both are badasses, and you save lives, though you need a little help to save your own."

❧ Girl Friend, the by thatfanficstuff▪︎〔A〕▪︎

Summary: "You [and Jim] did everything together from nearly getting yourselves killed joyriding in a certain car to Starfleet to the Enterprise. You were also there for every girlfriend, every broken heart and every one-night stand. Well, not actually there, that would be awkward. But you did learn from an early age not to befriend any of Jim's women. They either came crying to you when the relationship reached its inevitable end or blamed you for the break up."

❧ I'm Here by writingwithadinosaur▪︎〔F᜶A〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "You are captured with the others [by] Krall and his men. You are injured badly, but your knight in shining armor comes riding in on a… motorcycle?"

❧ Jukebox Love by ladyideal▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "You finished the last of the negotiations on a foreign planet. Ending the night, Jim promised you a day out to explore the city... Finding an antique store, you found a still working mini jukebox on sale. It didn't take long for Jim to buy it for you, and he realized that all he needed was you by his side."

❧ Like Air by annathewitch▪︎14+▪︎〔A᜶C〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "You're trying to forget about your relationship problems by drowning your sorrows, when a Starfleet Captain appears."

❧ Lonely by grandtheftstarship▪︎〔A〕▪︎

Summary: "Jim's constant playing starts to get the best of you."

❧ Losing Sleep Over You by octopodeez▪︎〔F〕▪︎

Summary: {…}

❧ Of the Expanse of Outer Space by pendragonfics▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "Laying in bed, [you think] over the times [you] spent with Jim in Starfleet."

❧ Spock's Little Sister | Prt. II by rreader▪︎〔F〕▪︎

Summary: "What were the odds of [you,] the one girl on campus [Jim] was genuinely interested in, being the sister of the [person] he despised…?"

❧ Studying by imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul▪︎16+▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: Jim helps you study for an upcoming for an upcoming exam.

❧ Trouble by thatfanficstuff▪︎〔F᜶A〕▪︎

Summary: {…}

❧ A Date by starfleetimagine ▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Break In by marvelouslytrekking▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Congestion by space-helen▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Child in the Preschool, the by kaitymccoy123▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎𑁍▪︎

❧ Dreaming on the Bridge by dreaming-about-fanfictions▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Fallin' by thatfanficstuff▪︎

❧ Family by starfleetimagine ▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎𑁍▪︎

❧ Flirting by imamotherfuckingstar-lord▪︎〔F᜶M〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Like Father, Like Son by thranduilsperkybutt▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎𑁍▪︎

❧ Mid-Day Nap by imamotherfuckingstar-lord▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Pillow Fight by marvelouslytrekking▪︎〔F᜶M〕▪︎

❧ Practice by space-helen▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Reckless by marvelouslytrekking▪︎〔F᜶M〕▪︎

❧ Rough Day by shenanigans-and-imagines▪︎〔F᜶C〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Secret's Out by writingwithadinosaur▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Study Buddy by starfleetimagine ▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Three Things by imamotherfuckingstar-lord ▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Three Things (Spin-Off) by grandtheftstarship▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Umbrella Kiss by marvelouslytrekking▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Dating James T. Kirk... by octopodeez▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Falling in Love w/ James T. Kirk... by space-helen▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

See Also: Navigation | James T. Kirk Master Index

#fic rec #fic recs #recommendation #recommendations #reblog

60 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

This fic is so great! I love Eric so much and you know I'm a sucker for plus!reader fics, darling <3

Tattoos

Shower, Rewritten

Eric Coulter x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 3361 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Reader is heavily tattooed and doesn’t want anyone to make fun of her for it in the communal shower, so Eric helps her out.

Disclaimer: This Imagine is an updated version of one of mine but it is loosely based off of this imagine by @thranduilsperkybutt who I love.

—————————————————————————————————

Keep reading

#fic rec #fic recs #recommendation #recommendations #reblog

544 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

Last Updated: 2023-10-25

Disclaimer: I am not the author of these stories, just sharing my favourite Khan Noonien Singh stories. Find the authors' links below. If you want your work removed, message me privately.

❧ Everytime by mydearalmira▪︎〔A〕▪︎

Summary: "It's been two weeks since Khan left you for good without a reasonable explanation to pay for his sudden cold behavior. You're trying to move on as you reminisce of your moments together until realization hits you."

❧ His Command by oknstark▪︎18+▪︎〔E〕▪︎

Summary: "Khan [escapes the enterprise, taking] you in after you helped him while he was a prisoner. Now, he would like to take something more from you."

❧ I am Your Captain by all-fandoms-fiction▪︎18+▪︎〔A〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: A betrayal of your trust sparks a fierce argument between you and your captain, leading to Khan reminding you who's in charge.

❧ Not So Happy Reunion by all-fandoms-fiction▪︎〔E᜶A〕▪︎♡▪︎

Summary: After spending a life-changing weekend with a man named Khan, you didn't know if you would ever see him again. Needless to say, You're more than a little shocked when Captain Kirk orders you to interrogate the prisoner, John Harrison.

❧ Remember Me by thepageofa1000worlds▪︎〔F᜶A〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "Imagine losing your memory because of Admiral Marcus' brainwashing, and then finding out you're Khan's wife."

❧ So Wicked and Divine by bakerstreethound▪︎18+▪︎〔E〕▪︎🚫▪︎

Summary: "Khan has [had] enough of your backtalking, and, as his spy, he makes sure you know just who you belong to."

❧ Submit to Me by all-fandoms-fiction▪︎18+▪︎〔E᜶A〕▪︎

Summary: "As a nurse [on the enterprise] you had countless… assignments and places to be... When you [graduated from star fleet], you thought your job would be peaceful, boring [even. Oh were you] wrong."

❧ Torpedo 22 by thatfanficstuff▪︎〔F᜶M〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

Summary: "Kahn had been operating on pure rage for far longer than was healthy. So many had fallen in his wrath, but it wasn't enough. Not yet. It would never be enough until he had you back."

❧ Back and Gone Again by rreader▪︎〔F᜶A〕▪︎♡▪︎𑁍▪︎

❧ Behind the Façades by thranduilsperkybutt▪︎18+▪︎〔F〕▪︎♡▪︎

❧ Classic by arkytiorwrites▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Definitely by justauthoring▪︎〔F᜶A〕▪︎

❧ Final Goodbye by rreader▪︎〔A〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Jealousy by thranduilsperkybutt▪︎18+▪︎〔E〕▪︎

❧ Just Us by justauthoring▪︎〔A〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Monster You Hate to Love to F*ck by bakerstreethound▪︎18+▪︎〔A〕▪︎♡▪︎

❧ Snuggle Bear by the--blackdahlia▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ So Very Smooth by rreader▪︎〔F〕▪︎

❧ Stories of Your Life by the--blackdahlia▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Suprise by thranduilsperkybutt▪︎〔F〕▪︎𑁍▪︎

❧ Ticklish by writingsfromstarfleet▪︎〔F〕▪︎♥︎▪︎

❧ Khan's N.S.F.W. Alphabet by mykinkyyandere▪︎18+▪︎〔E〕▪︎♥︎▪︎🚫▪︎

See Also: Navigation | Khan Noonien Singh Master Index

#fic rec #fic recs #recommendation #recommendations #reblog #thank you so much for the support hun

37 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

I have returned to this fic to settle in with a cup of coffee and enjoy the adorableness that is this fic!!! I love it so much and the idea of the Byers-Newby family dynamic we SO DESPERATELY DESERVED TO CONTINUE ((BOB DESERVED BETTER 2023))!!

In my brain Bob lives and this is the family that they have. It's so sweet and adorable and I will ship Joyce and Bob until I die.

And Bob WOULDDD install home security cameras I 100% believe this wholeheartedly!! Bob is #1 Worlds Greatest (Step)Dad!!!

"The only burglary that’s happened here was from the drunk guy who nabbed the electric mixer during the garage sale, and your mom chased him down the driveway with Jonathan’s old baseball bat." THIS KILLED ME THE VISUALS!!

And you KNOW how much of a sucker I am for a good secret-relationship fic, girl. It was only inevitable that I'd be returning to read this again because??? Eddie Munson and Secret Relationship? You might as well have just pulled outside my house with a van that said free candy on the side of it because I am JUMPING IN!!!

BOB FLATTERING JOYCE IS JUST THE ICING ON THE CAKE. This is such a feel-good fic and has me grinnning from ear to ear as I read it every time. It's so cute and fluffy !! And Eddie wanting to go public??? sobbing into my fruit loops rn because I'm CRAZY FOR HIMMMMM!!!

"To think, her child, regular at last." THIS SENT ME OFF MY ROCKER BESTIE I AM DYING WITH LAUGHTER JOYCE IS DESPERATE FOR NORMAL KIDS WITH NORMAL KID PROBLEMS LMFAOOO and her hoping "he's not some kind of delinquent" 😂😂😂

And im SOBBBINGGG at Eddie wanting to get all fixed up to meet the parents!! 😭😭😭❤️❤️ Absolutely the love of my life light of my world.

AND WILL WOULD LOVE PLAYING DND WITH EDDIE NEVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN I ACCEPT NO OTHER OUTCOMES OR ALTERNATIVESSSSSSS!!! I love their sibling dynamic with the reader in this fic. It's literally so well written!!

"He drives a van,” Jonathan says, looking at you over his shoulder. “Strike one.” THIS MADE ME CACKLE

And Joyce panicking lolol!!! She's so funny! I'm just picturing her like Michael from The Office when Eddie pulls up like "ITS HAPPENING!"

AND BOB WOULD PUT HIS FOOT IN IT !! AND SPILL THE BEANS THAT HIM AND JOYCE KNEW ALL ALONG!!

I CANNOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I ADORE THIS FIC!!!

Smile for the Cameras.

Summary: you’ve been dating Eddie Munson for a while now, happily in secret so that the two of you can have some privacy, but now you want him to meet the family and it turns out they have a secret of their own.

A/N: this one goes out to my enabler @megmeg-chan but this time I have wrapped it up in a nice bow and delicately place it on your doorstep before knocking and running down the driveway like a madman.

Word Count: 7k

CW/TW: Byers!Reader/fem!Reader; Bob lives AU; multiple POV; mentions of drugs; season four, volume two didn’t happen.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Here’s the thing—plain and simple—there aren’t a lot of good guys in Hawkins. Sure, there are your brothers, Will and Jonathan, but they’re family. There are also Will’s friends who, admittedly, are a lot of fun. Oh, and Steve... he’s a good guy, too...

Well. All right. There are a few nice guys in Hawkins, but they aren’t the majority. You’re happy to know that your mother has herself a good guy who really cares about her but, as your brothers will agree, you knew he was the best of the best from the moment you first met him.

Bob immediately hit it off with Will, which you’ve always been grateful for. After so many bad things have happened in Hawkins, it’s about time your brother gets some normality back in his life. Wholesome normality, too. Jonathan was a little more standoffish but he caved in pretty quickly when Bob mentioned how much he likes The Clash.

You, being the eldest, and also the closest with your mom, were ready to tear him to shreds if he so much as belittled her, but he was making you laugh within five minutes and offering a ride out to Scoops for ice cream so, yeah, you liked him from the start.

Now, you get to call him your dad.

Not all children get to see their parents get married, and you’re happy to be one of the few. Jonathan bought a new camera for the day and all of the pictures were either put into a scrapbook or framed around the house, which Will helped out with glee.

There’s a big one in the living room of the five of you, all wide smiles and arms around each other. Looking at that picture makes this place feel like home.

It’s as much of a benefit to your mother as it is to your brothers. You as well. Lonnie was a real jerk. It didn’t take a scientist to figure that out. He was hardly around and that was always bad for the boys, seeing as they grew up without a positive father figure. You’ve inherited some of your mom’s rage, so you never played the role of respectful daughter to Lonnie.

When he left, you thought ‘good riddance.’ When you saw how much it hurt your mom and your brothers, you thought of how easy it might be to get away with murder.

With Bob, you only think about how happy he makes everyone. It’s a big contrast and something your family had to warm up to, but he’s so naturally caring that it didn’t take too long.

The only thing that you’re still struggling to adapt to is Bob’s tech-savvy side. He works at Radio Shack and, you’ll admit, at first you didn’t think he’d be as good of a technician as he is, but every now and then he’ll bring work home and you get to see him tinker away at things with your own eyes.

All of that stuff goes over your head. About the only thing you know when it comes to electronics is the switch for the television set and what button to press to delete the footage Jonathan sneakily records with his video camera when you’re a groggy mess in the morning just trying to brush your teeth.

The day Bob put cameras up at the house, you knew you were screwed.

“It’s so we can catch the burglars,” he said, halfway up a ladder and screwing a dome into the side of the house.

The only burglary that’s happened here was from the drunk guy who nabbed the electric mixer during the garage sale, and your mom chased him down the driveway with Jonathan’s old baseball bat.

“We’ve got locks,” you said.

He had chuckled and went off on a tech spiel about how ‘we’re diving into a new age,’ and what exactly the cameras could do but, if you’re honest, you weren’t paying attention much to the specifics of it all. The minute Bob talks shop, you hear white noise.

Granted, he always tries to explain things in simple terms for you and for that you’re thankful. He simply continues to prove how much of a good guy he is.

But you’ve got a good guy, too, and you think he’s pretty fantastic. Not that many people will agree with you but, to each of them, you think that they’ll never know just how fantastic Eddie Munson is. They’re missing out big time.

Your family is missing out, too, since you’ve been keeping your relationship with him a secret. The thing is, you like having something for yourself. Growing up with two younger brothers in a small town doesn’t give you a lot of privacy.

You’ve shared one bathroom your whole life. You take the smaller portion for dinner (when your mom’s not looking.) You cancel plans to look after Will on late nights. So, yeah, you’re going to have something for yourself for a change and you’re going to enjoy it.

In so many words...

The first time Eddie tapped on your bedroom window, you opened it with an infernal glare that would put the name ‘Hellfire’ to shame, berating him for waking you up and for being at your house in the first place. Does he not understand the meaning of a secret relationship?

But he flashed you a toothy grin, said he missed you, and when he gave you those damn dark brown puppy dog eyes, you had begrudgingly let him in. For. One. Night. Only. Which turned into two, then three, then five, then... well, you’ve lost count at this point.

The thing you hadn’t realized at the start is how clingy Eddie is. He’s got to be around you three times a day like he’s your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When he laid his head in your lap on the third night he snuck in through your bedroom window and practically sobbed when you carded your fingers through his hair, you knew that the sweet Eddie Munson is touch-starved.

So—with the backbone of a chocolate éclair—you let Eddie stay the night pretty often. He rocks up at the same time, so, after a while, you don’t wait for the tap on the window, you just keep it open and hug him tight when he’s got his footing. Then you talk with each other until one of you falls asleep, waking up the next morning with tangled limbs and that gorgeous, messy bed hair that he’s never understood why you like so much.

It baffles you that he doesn’t realize just how pretty he is. Anytime you tell him, he jokingly asks if you’re only with him because of his looks, and you tell him every time that you’re with him because of who he is. But, also, because he’s too handsome to resist.

If you didn’t want to hold onto this secrecy for a little bit longer, you’d be parading him throughout the streets. ‘Look at my boyfriend. Look at how well my boyfriend plays the guitar. Look at how my boyfriend looks at me.’ He’s so not ready for that.

But the two of you can’t hide forever and you know it, even more, when he’s resting against the headboard of your bed, finger twirling a strand of his hair as he thinks in silence. He always scrunches his nose up when he’s deep in thought and it’s the cutest thing.

Seriously, how is it fair that he can be both adorable and attractive?

“Stop that,” you say, reaching over to tap the finger in his hair. “You’ll grow bald.”

He smiles, bringing his hand down to instead rest on your arm which is wrapped around him.

“What are you thinking about?”

“What?” He chuckles.

“You get this adorable crease right here—” you poke between his eyebrows, “when you think too hard.”

Eddie smiles. “You stare at me that much?”

“With a face like yours, yeah,”

Quiet moments like these have always been your favorite, whether or not that’s in your bedroom. When you can be with Eddie, just the two of you, everything else stands still.

You’ve been to his trailer plenty of times and you’ve met Wayne on many occasions as well. He’s been very supportive of your relationship with Eddie, having once said that he’s glad Eddie has someone who can ‘deal with his quirks.’ Truthfully, you admire those quirks of his.

When Eddie’s smile turns mischievous, you already know what he’s going to do before he does it. Yet, you’re still not quick enough to stop him from tickling you and burying his face in your neck, blowing raspberries on your skin.

You let out a short squeak, slapping his arm and pushing him off of you when you feel his lips curl against your neck.

“Stop!” You try to whisper but can’t help from laughing. “We’ve got to be—”

“Quiet, I know,” he nods, his smile an inch smaller.

It’s not the ideal relationship, you know that, having to hide all the time. The veil will lift sooner or later. It just turns out that he’s wanted it sooner since that fault in his smile can only mean one thing.

“I’m going to tell them soon,” you say. “I’m just figuring out how.”

“Well,” he absentmindedly traces circles on your skin. “I was actually wondering if you could ask your dad something for me,”

“Oh?”

“I only get paid so much for my gigs and I’m kinda running on empty right now, so I was hoping your dad would have a spot free at his job?”

“You wanna work with my dad?” You ask, sitting up.

He nods his head, a crease again at his forehead. “I know a thing or two about fixing things and, I mean, Radio Shack ain’t that bad a place to work in. At least, until I can find something stable.”

“Like he wouldn’t offer you full-time right off the bat,” you chuckle, playfully hitting his arm.

“Well, I don’t know,” he beams.

You tap your finger against your chin, feigning consideration, then dip forward to press a quick kiss to his lips.

“I think that’s a great idea,” you say.

“Yeah?” He smiles.

“Yeah, and maybe you could...” you shrug your shoulders, “come for dinner. Get to know him a bit.”

Eddie lights up, his smile warm and soft. “I’d love that,”

Truly, there’s nothing you’d love more than for your parents to finally meet your boyfriend and, hopefully, approve of him. You don’t have any worries that they’ll kick him out, but you can’t help but feel like something will go wrong.

Everything will be okay as long as you don’t mention that you’ve been sneaking Eddie in through the window almost every night. After all, how would they ever know unless you say something?

─────── ⋯ ───────

Sometimes, this house feels like chaos.

It’s one thing to be late for school—and work—but it’s another thing for the power to be out, so no one is ready to leave. Joyce had woken up to the neighbor’s car backfiring and when she saw the alarm clock on her bedside table flashing at her, she had hit a sleepy Bob on the chest and scrambled out of bed.

After grabbing whatever is closest to dress herself with, she’s barrelling down the hallway, slapping a hand onto each door she passes, swinging it open, and calling inside for her kids to wake up. But when she reaches your door, she finds that it’s locked.

“Hey,” she hits the door once, “come on, we’re late.”

She’s happy to hear a ‘be right there!’ from inside the room, so she spins around and tucks in Jonathan’s shirt when he practically trips through his doorway and then gives Will a kiss on the cheek when he steps out of his room.

Bob’s struggling to get his tie on straight when Joyce walks into the living room and she gives him a sympathetic smile, reaching out to tighten it for him.

“How do you still manage to look so beautiful when you’ve just woken up?” He asks, grinning ear to ear.

“Oh, Bob,” Joyce smiles, flattening his shirt collar.

“I can drive the kids to school,”

“No, that’s okay. I can do it.”

“I can drive them on my way to work. It’ll be easier. Plus, I get to spend some time with them.”

It never amazes Joyce how after three years, Bob still wants to be as close to her kids as possible. The truly beautiful thing about that is how they want to be just as close to him as well.

“It’ll be great,” he smiles, giving her a quick kiss and scooping the car keys off of the coffee table.

He jingles them in his hand as he calls out to the family that he’ll be their driver for the morning, patting Will on the back who’s been scooping papers and books into his backpack.

“Here, mom,” Jonathan says beside Joyce, handing her an overspilling mug of coffee.

“Oh, Jonathan, thank you,” she smiles, pulling him to her to plant a big kiss on his cheek.

He chuckles, craning his face away from her with a loud ‘mom!’ which she laughs at. When he’s jogging over to the front door, another one of Joyce’s kids creeps up beside her and she tries not to spill even more coffee onto the floor.

“Hey, Jonathan!” You call and he spins around. “I’m taking the car this morning, okay?”

“No, I’m driving,” Bob smiles, jingling the car keys again. “I’ll finish an hour early and pick you up from work.”

Jonathan snickers. “You can’t always be the driver,”

“Hey,” you put your hands on your hips. “I bought that car, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just go,”

Being a big family of five, there are only three cars shared between you all. Joyce has her car, Bob has his, and you had bought a car in your senior year of high school which was passed down onto Jonathan after you graduated, now that he’s in his senior year.

Every so often, driving arrangements change. Sometimes Joyce will drive everyone, sometimes you would take the boys to school, and sometimes Bob will drive the whole lot. Exactly what he’s doing this morning. Good timing, too, as Joyce has plans in the afternoon.

The great thing, which is as much of a relief as it is appreciated, is how no one complains. The only time Joyce has ever heard an argument about who gets the car you bought is when Jonathan has a date with Nancy and you have other plans. But fights never get out of hand around here, thankfully.

“Look at you,” Joyce tsks, placing a hand on your cheek. “Did you not get any sleep last night?”

“Oh, yeah,” you say, rubbing your eye with the back of your hand. “I guess work is just wearing me out.”

“Maybe you should call in sick?”

“Next time,” you smile.

She rubs your back, giving you that motherly smile she knows she’s adopted over the years.

When Will finally has his backpack sorted, he calls out a goodbye and races over to Jonathan who gives him a one-armed hug, walking out of the door together. Another relief, knowing that everyone is so close with each other. Even more so because of all of the strange things going on in Hawkins.

“Hey, mom, I want to ask you something,” you say, stepping in front of her.

“Okay,” she looks down at her watch. “Just don’t be too late.”

“I won’t. The thing is... I’ve been seeing this guy and I was wondering if maybe he could come over for dinner so that everyone can meet him?”

The mug almost slips from Joyce’s hands when you say that and she reminds herself to act calm.

“Huh?” She speaks, shrugging a shoulder and putting on a casual face. “Oh, yeah. That’s fine. Whatever you want, sweetie.”

“You sure?”

The look you give her makes Joyce thinks she’s caught but she keeps playing it cool, hoping that you won’t poke around. You’ve never been one to let things go easily. She supposes you get that from her.

“Of course. I’d love to meet him.”

“Great, me too,” you smile, giving her a quick hug.

With a goodbye, you’re out the door where Bob is still waiting, sending Joyce a wink which she nods to and then he’s gone.

Honestly, Joyce already knows you have a boyfriend. There isn’t a lot that hides under her nose, especially in her home, but she’s got to give credit where credit is due and thank Bob for installing all those cameras around the house.

It’s how they found out in the first place. Bob was in his study, pouring over all the security footage like he does every night after work. The kids were either watching TV or in bed—which you were, seeing as you were so eager to go to sleep.

He waved her in with a ‘Joyce, honeybun, I think you need to see this,’ when she came to ask if he wanted anything, and she stood beside him as he rewinded the footage and pointed at the figure creeping along the back of the house.

“Is that a burglar?” She gasped, leaning forward to squint at the screen as if she could make out who it was.

“I don’t think so,”

“Why is he climbing in our window?”

“Honey, that is our daughter’s window,”

It only took her three seconds of scrunching up her eyes at Bob who gave her a knowing look for her to understand what was going on, all the dots connecting in her head.

“She has a boyfriend!?” She practically screamed, quickly lowering her voice when she remembered the study door was wide open. “And she didn’t tell me?”

“It’s okay,”

“Bob, she’s got a boyfriend—” and then within another breath, she smiled excitedly. “This is so great!”

After all the horrible things Hawkins has to offer had happened, really throwing hands at her family, Joyce was over the moon with joy when she found out about your secret relationship.

It’s hard to go back to a routine when you’ve faced demogorgons on the weekend, especially when they were so close to hurting them—her boy, Will, and Bob as well. So, to know that you were acting like a regular teenager made her the happiest she’s been since she said ‘I do.’

To think, her child, regular at last.

She and Bob had both agreed to not say a word. If you were keeping the relationship a secret, it had to be for a good reason, and they knew that, in time, you’d eventually tell them.

But it would get a little hard to keep a poker face when she’d hear your bedroom window slide open, or that time he had tripped on his way in and landed on the floor loudly, or when she had caught you on your way back to bed with a glass of water, shutting the door when she approached and noticing the leather jacket that was caught in between it.

There isn’t anything wrong with leather jackets and, truly, she’s had a thing for guys in leather before, but she just hopes that whoever this guy is—as all she’s ever seen of him is from the security footage, so she’s only made out long hair and dirty shoes—that he’s not some kind of delinquent.

Now, she’s going to find out just who your mystery boyfriend is and she hopes he likes chicken because that’s all she’s got in the fridge.

─────── ⋯ ───────

When you tell Eddie that your mom is more than happy to have him over for dinner, he smiles wider than the day you told him that you had listened to Iron Maiden. But when you say that she is happy for it to happen the same night, his face drops like a ton of bricks.

“Tonight?” He asks, fiddling with his rings. “Like in... five hours?”

“Yeah,” you chuckle, pulling him in by the vest to wrap your arms around him. “Is that too fast?”

“No, I just...”

“What?”

“I was going to buy some nice clothes...”

You feel your heart do the running man in your chest with how he wants to make a good first impression on your parents, but you know it’s not needed.

“Eddie, if you just be yourself, they’ll love you.”

He grins at that, pulling you in close to kiss you. His lips taste like the strawberries you both shared for lunch, though you had wanted him to eat an actual meal. When it’s not particularly busy at work, you eat lunch with him in the staff room, even though he stops by almost every day to say hello.

There were a few times when you had to hide him behind the counter when your dad gave you a surprise visit, offering a bag full of lunch he had bought on his way over. The little stinker Munson would pinch your thighs for fun and once you had kneed him directly in the chest, slamming him back against the shelving and having to play off his groan as you accidentally knocked your knee.

Eddie can’t help it. He loves to have fun and by any means possible, really. You just know that after tonight when you both don’t have to sneak around anymore, he’ll be twelve times more sprightly.

“How’s your campaign?” You ask, reaching over to grab the package of Cheez Balls he had brought with him.

“Good,” he nods, diving a hand into the tin as soon as you open it. “Will’s a really smart kid.”

“Yeah, I saw him throw some character sketches into his bag before we left this morning. He loves those sessions with you.”

That’s how you first met Eddie, through your baby brother’s fixation with Dungeons and Dragons. He was so happy to know that there was a club going on at high school, having feared that everyone would have grown out of it by now, and so joining Hellfire is one of the best things that’s happened to him recently.

You’re always going to be extremely thankful to Eddie for taking in your brother like he has. You’ve always looked out for him and this year has been the first that you haven’t had anything strange happen, so he’s getting the chance to be a normal teenager.

Really, in a way, Will is the one to thank for you getting with Eddie. When you had picked up your brother from a session one night, Eddie had walked him out to the car and instantly you were in love.

All Eddie has ever done since the start is shown in many different ways how much he cares for everyone and how big a heart he has. If that isn’t attractive, you don’t know what is.

Oh, wait a minute. His rings...

He pipes up, “Do you think it’ll be weird?”

You’re thrown out of your thoughts by his question but you don’t exactly know what he means.

“What will?” You ask, popping a cheese ball into your mouth.

“The fact that Will is going to find out that his Dungeon Master is also his sister’s boyfriend.”

You shrug. “He’ll be fine with it. Might be a little surprised but I think he’s gonna love the fact that his favorite DM is with his favorite sister.”

Eddie laughs. “You’re his only sister.”

Furrowing your brows, you chew on another cheese ball. “What’s your point?”

He finds that even more fun but you just smile in victory at having made him laugh. He might love Metalica and Black Sabbath, but you’re always going to believe that his laugh is the best song in the world.

No band can beat that.

When Eddie eventually leaves with a kiss on the cheek and a wave goodbye, you count down the minutes until your shift is over. You spend the rest of it idly as it’s pretty quiet today until your dad picks you up an hour early from his job just as he promised.

When you arrive home—Jonathan and Will having been picked up by your mom—you walk into the house that smells of smoke and the sounds of frustrated murmurings.

“What’s going on?” You ask as you and your dad step into the kitchen after giving each other a look.

There’s a dark cloud hanging over in the room as your mom waves an oven mitt at the open oven. She spins around at the sound of your voice, flashing an anxious smile.

“I burnt some of the chicken,” she says, scratching her head.

“Oh, honey,” Bob coos, walking over to her and peering into the oven. “It doesn’t look too bad. There’s still more than enough for the six of us.”

“I still have to make a salad,”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” you say, shrugging your jacket off. “Let me get changed and I’ll make one.”

She breathes out a relieved ‘thank you,’ as you head to your bedroom and on the way, you bump into Jonathan who has got half of two shirts on; one sleeve on one arm and the other sleeve on the next.

“Hey,” he smiles, but quickly looks back down at the shirts. “Which one do you think is better?”

You furrow your brows, perplexed at what your brother is doing.

“Is Nancy coming over?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “No, I’m asking for you.”

Smiling, you can’t help but feel really happy about how much he cares. Despite being younger than you, he’s always acted like your big brother but, honestly, you don’t mind. He’s one of the best.

“Left,” you say, pointing at the shirt.

He nods. “I thought so too. Thanks,”

You chuckle as he dashes into his bedroom and you head into your bedroom, looking around for some clothes to wear for tonight. You’ve never been too fussed over how you look but tonight is kinda a big deal and you want to look your best.

When you’re straightening your clothes in the mirror, someone knocks at your door and you turn to see Will in one of Bob’s old button-down shirts.

“Don’t you look handsome?” You say, and he smiles wide.

“You look great,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to tonight.”

“Yeah, me too. He’s a pretty big deal to me.”

“How long have you been seeing him?”

Now, Will is a smart kid. If you tell him the truth, two things are going to happen; first, he’s going to ask you why you’ve been keeping it a secret for so long and second, he’s going to do the math and realize you’ve had a boyfriend around the time you met Eddie.

He’s going to find out soon, anyway, about who you’re dating, but until that actually happens, you’re keeping up with the routine.

“Just a little while,” you shrug. “I really like him, though, so I want you all to meet him.”

“I’m sure he’s great,”

You walk over to him and kiss his forehead. “So are you.”

Will smiles, quickly leaving the room after telling you that you should wear the new perfume you bought recently and you take him up on his offer, spraying yourself a couple times before walking into the kitchen to help your mom by preparing a salad.

Bob has cut up the chicken onto a platter while Jonathan set the table, and Will helps him with the last few items before you hand him the bowl to take with him.

The sound of an engine grows nearer outside, accompanied by blaring music from a stereo, which is quickly shut off as lights begin to pull into the driveway.

Will and Jonathan are leaping over to the couch against the window, nudging open the blinds to get a peek at who’s arrived.

“He’s here!” Will calls out, watching the headlights turn off.

“He drives a van,” Jonathan says, looking at you over his shoulder. “Strike one.”

“Stop,” you say, smacking your hand against his arm.

Both he and Will chuckle—not out of mockery but by your reaction—and then Will’s gasping as he shoves the blinds closed, eyes straight at the front door when there’s a knock against the wood.

“Okay,” your mom says, walking into the living room and waving her hands. “Nobody panic. Just calm down.”

“We’re not the ones panicking, mom,” Jonathan smiles.

Your mom lets out a breathless chuckle as Bob steps beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“It’s going to be fine,” he looks over at you. “Want me to get the door?”

“No, I’ll get it,”

With a quick prepared breath, you spin on your heel and walk over to the front door, wrapping your fingers around the handle and pulling it open and you see your beautiful boyfriend standing on the doorstep with a black shirt and one of his more stable jackets.

Even without buying any new clothes, he’s put a lot of effort into his appearance. His shoes are sturdier than the white Reeboks he usually wears, so you think he might have gotten them from his uncle. But he still has the chain attached to the loops of his jeans and it makes you smile.

“Hey,” you say.

“Hi,” he grins.

For just a few seconds, that becomes a moment just for the two of you, then you’re stepping to the side so that he can come in, and your family are almost circling him the moment he does.

“Hello,” your mom beams, approaching him with your dad still beside her.

“I’m Eddie,” he says, stretching out a hand to shake your mom’s hand, who does so a little too eagerly. “These are for you.”

He’s bought a bouquet of flowers with him, all pretty colors of pinks and yellows, and you think that’s where his money went into. Your mom takes the flowers happily, smiling up at Bob who looks just as gleeful.

“Thank you, Eddie. They’re lovely,”

“I’m Bob,” your dad says, shaking Eddie’s hand. “And that right over there is the man of the house,”

There’s a chuckle from Jonathan when Bob points a finger at him, but he seems especially stiff when giving Eddie a nod in acknowledgement. Will, on the other hand, is standing there with an agape expression, looking completely shocked.

“Hey, Will the Wise,” Eddie grins, reaching over to mess up your brother’s hair.

He’s quick to fix it and though the room goes silent for a moment, he’s breaking out into a confused but excited grin which eases your worries. For a moment, you thought he went lifeless on you.

“You’re the boyfriend,” Will says.

“Do you know each other?” Your mom inquires, looking between the two of them.

“Yeah, we play Dungeons and Dragons together,”

Your mom beams a hundred voltages brighter at that, though her eyes are about as wide as saucers.

“The Hellfire Club?” She asks.

Eddie smiles, rocking on his heels. “Yeah, every Wednesday night.”

You know your mom is already won over by Eddie the second she realizes that he’s the guy who Will’s been talking about excitedly over breakfast. Since he joined the club with his friends, he’s been wearing the Hellfire shirt around the house like it’s attached to him. You’ve even seen him sleep in it.

“Come, sit down,” your mom waves her hands. “Let’s eat.”

She’s content staring at the flowers when she walks into the kitchen and everyone begins to follow. Eddie sneaks an arm around your waist, smiling at you.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve used the door,” he mutters.

You roll your eyes, shushing him and heading over to the table. Eddie’s on the move before a hand grabs his shoulder and he’s turning around to meet the stern gaze of your brother.

“Hey, man,” he says. “Long time, no see.”

Jonathan smiles only for a moment, something extremely short-lived.

“That was a one-time thing,” he grunts. “You better not have been giving any weed to my sister—”

“No way, she doesn’t touch the stuff. Don’t worry, I’d never pressure her into anything she didn’t want.”

“You better not, and this stays between us.”

“Sure,” Eddie nods. “My lips are sealed between you, me, and purple palm tree delight,”

He lets out a humorous chuckle at Jonathan’s deadpan stare before heading over to the dining room to see all the food laid out on the table. You’re smiling at him happily, patting the chair next to you, and he almost skips over to sit beside you.

Your mom apologizes about the lack of dinner but Eddie’s shaking his head, telling her that it’s more than enough and it’s much better than the canned food he’s so used to having.

Conversation flows very smoothly when plates are filled up, and Eddie answers every question put to him by your parents and your brothers, though Will is mostly just giddily listening because here’s his hero with his big sister.

Eddie opens up about a lot of things, mainly his life with his uncle and how he got into music. It’s clearly a very interesting topic to your dad who leans into the discussion with a curious grin, nodding along to the origin of the name ‘Corroded Coffin.’

In turn, Bob talks about how he founded the Hawkins AV Club, saying that he could be a player in one of Eddie’s D&D sessions since he was nicknamed ‘Bob the Brain,’ but how Will is always telling him how embarrassing that would be.

It’s lovely when everyone at the table laughs, making the atmosphere feel really comfortable. They take a liking to Eddie right away and you feel so warm in the chest at the scene.

“So,” Bob passes the salad onto Joyce who scoops a pile into Eddie’s plate. “What kind of songs do you play?”

“We play a few covers,” Eddie replies. “But we’ve been working on some original music.”

“That’s cool,” Will smiles.

“And you play at the Hideout?” Joyce asks and when Eddie nods, she smiles. “We should come to see you play sometime.”

“Yeah!” Bob lights up. “A big family outing. We’ll be cheering for you in the crowd.”

Eddie chuckles, hiding half of his smile into the palm of his hand when he props his elbow onto the table.

“I didn’t know you listened to that kind of music, dad,” you say after taking a sip of your water.

“Yeah, of course. I was super into Led Zeppelin in my teens,”

He mimics an air guitar, smiling over at your mom who’s shaking her head with that face that both says ‘I love you’ and ‘you amaze me.’

“Nice,” Eddie says. “Do you play?”

“Oh, no. Not anymore.”

“You can jam with me one day. I have a gorgeous Warlock NJ you can use.”

You hum, turning to him. “I think that guitar gets more love than me sometimes.”

He scrunches up his nose, shaking his head as he reaches over to hold your hand, and you’re glad that he kept the rings on, too.

“You know,” Bob says, waving his fork around. “I’m actually a big Dio fan myself.”

Eddie furrows his brows for a moment, leaning in closer to the table. “How did you know I like Dio?”

“Because it’s on your vest—”

The second he says it, the room falls deadly silent. Everyone, including you, is sitting in their chairs confused, but only you, Eddie, and your dad know the reason.

Eddie isn’t wearing his Dio vest.

“Dad...?” You question, watching the way he sits frozen with a slightly open mouth.

“Hmm?” He hums, coming back to life, and shoving the piece of chicken on his fork right into his mouth.

You might have shaken the suspicion away if it weren’t for the guilty face your mom wears, who immediately starts stabbing the salad on her plate when you give her a look.

“Oh my gosh,” you breathe out. “They know.”

Somehow, your parents know that you’ve been sneaking Eddie in through your bedroom window nearly every night. But how could they have found out when you tried so hard to be careful about it?

Both you and Eddie took every precaution with the secrecy of it all. You would keep your door locked, Eddie would only come over on foot, not risking the sound of his van pulling up in the street, and he would leave only after the house was empty or while everyone was too busy at the front, usually resulting in Eddie jumping over the bushes in the backyard.

You are completely confused about where the two of you slipped up in all of this.

“All right,” your mom sighs, nodding at Bob and placing her hand on top of his. “Your father and I know about Eddie,”

“Wait, what?” Jonathan asks. “What’s going on?”

“Bob has the cameras and we—”

You groan. “Oh no,”

“We,” your mom emphasises, “just happened to stumble upon some footage of him climbing through the window and—”

“You did what?” Jonathan snaps, looking at Eddie.

He’s got that big brother look in his eye that warns Eddie to answer him very carefully and you tighten your hold of his hand, hoping that your younger brother doesn’t do anything rash like tackle Eddie over the dinner table.

Think about all the food that will be wasted.

“Okay, okay,” Bob extends his hands, gesturing for everyone to sit back in their chairs. “Clearly, there’s been some secrets in the family, but we want you to know that we aren’t mad at you.”

Joyce shakes her head with a sympathetic look on her face.

“You aren’t?” You ask, slowly relaxing after having tensed up at the bombshell that was dropped over dinner.

“No,” your mom shakes her head, face scrunched up. “I did a lot of sneaking around when I was your age.”

“We thought we’d let you tell us when you were ready,” Bob says.

As much as it is unbelievably understanding of them—though they’ve always been that way—you can’t help but feel embarrassed about it, especially of how it came out. You can’t believe you forgot all about the security cameras your dad installed. Sure, the tech side of it goes over your head but, hell, you thought you’d catch it.

Turns out, you and Eddie aren’t as sneaky as you thought you were.

“Well...” you let out a deep breath, still processing. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Thank you for telling us,” Bob says.

It falls a little quiet after that with the exception of Jonathan’s knife scraping against the plate as he stares at Eddie while cutting into his chicken. Instead, you send Will a silly look when he catches your attention and he snickers.

“So,” Eddie pipes up, looking at your dad. “Would now be a bad time for me to ask if I could get some work experience with you?”

Bob perks up, mouth curved cheerfully. “Work with me?”

“Only if that’s okay. I’m just looking for a job right now and your daughter’s told me a lot about you,”

He looks ten times more happy than before, wearing a proud dad look on his face.

“Of course. I can always do with more workers. You know how to work electronics?”

“Just the basics, you know; toaster, VHS, and guitar amps, but I’m willing to learn and I’m great at fixing things.”

Bob chuckles. “You’re a clever guy, that’s good.”

When he’s too distracted by passing the food down to Will at the end of the table, you lean into Eddie’s side and whisper, “Told you.”

There was no doubt in your mind that your dad would take Eddie on to work with him at Radio Shack and now you get to visit him at his job for lunch instead of the other way around, though your dad will most likely join in as well.

Maybe Eddie will have to wear a dress shirt and tie just like your dad does. Hmm, that could be interesting.

It’s Will’s disgusted scoff that draws you out from your thinking, giving him a strange look until you realize that you and Eddie are huddled together at the table, hand in hand, and have been staring at each other for the past twenty seconds.

“Yeah,” Jonathan nods, pointing his pinky at Will. “Ew.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re one to talk,”

There are not enough fingers on your hand to count the times you’ve caught Jonathan sucking face with Nancy and the lipstick stains she leaves on his skin afterwards. If anything is disgusting, it’s that.

“Hey, Eds,” Bob speaks, and you get all giddy at the nickname. “Can you start Monday?”

“Yeah,” he nods excitedly. “Absolutely.”

“Great, this will be great,”

Not just that, you think, but this whole thing has been great. Your parents have welcomed Eddie with open arms, Jonathan seems to be on the fence but either way, you know he can tell you’re smitten, and Will is over the moon that the head of the Hellfire Club is eating dinner at his house.

Tonight could not have gone any smoother, in fact, you’re sure you’re going to hear only good things once Eddie leaves for the night—since there’s absolutely no way that he’s staying and if he tries, you’ll kick him in the shins.

Those flowers he bought for your mom are going to be displayed in a vase for weeks, or for as long as she can keep them alive, and you’re going to smile every time you see them.

Thank goodness you’re a Byers, Bob included.

“And hey,” your dad suddenly says, “maybe I can teach you a few things about security cameras.”

Well, choking on your chicken is the only bad thing to happen tonight. Otherwise, it’s the best night you’ve had in a long time.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Taglist: @dameronology @overly-obsessed-with-you @doublesunsets @shadowhuntyi @munsonology @compassgenius @thefaeriemagic3

#fic rec #recommendation #recommendations #fic recs #reblog

236 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Note

every few months you return with the most gut wrenching fic that i know will send me into an emotional breakdown every time and the fact you gave me all the astarion when im neck deep in my astarion phase is ????????????????? how dare you !!!!!!!! 😭 im not okay! that fic was beautful

Please, darling!!

This is such a sweet thing to say! I'm sorry for the angst, but I had to drag you down into my own insanity with that fic. Astarion has truly consumed my every waking thought since I got BG3. I'm glad you liked the fic! ❤️❤️

The Gold & The Rust

#askthranduilsperkybutt

1 note · View note

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

General + Longer Fic Taglists:

@im5-tw @hanoi15 @thatbitchann @genericbrowngurl @badbitsh13 @wayward-sociopath-221b @abisexualsailormoon @thatsjustdamncrazy @breadsquash @mydelightfultigerbouquet @midnightzonzz @stylebydesignxo @otassbek @a-pigeon-is-spying-on-me @mysecondcarisa67chevyimpala + @beamingbisexual @nemos1994

☾ the gold & the rust ☼

Pic Sources: 1 | 2 | 3

Pairings: Astarion Ancunín/Tav!Reader Warnings: NSFW; angst/comfort smut; yearning; Astarion is not ascended; mentions of past canon-typical trauma/abuse; the struggle of healing; Astarion has racing thoughts and you can't tell me otherwise; canon-typical biting; it's not about the sex it's about the feelings; spoilers for the endgame Word Count: 7,168 words Reader Gender: Female Author: Meg Summary: You’ve told him you will find him some cure for his darkness; you are set on performing a feat no one in history has ever achieved, all for him, but he wonders if it is as futile as the sun laboring to join the moon. Maybe he is destined to forever look upon you with the knowledge that when your bright, beckoning light inevitably burns out, he will be left with only his darkness, alone again... A/N: Look I blame Hozier for making too many Astarion-coded songs that make me sob my eyes out while thinking about the implications of his "good" ending. Astarion has literally changed my brain chemistry.

The sun cusps over the horizon, its soft tendrils spreading over a murky sky. Beckoning the night’s fleeing retreat with a gentle violence as the day demands more territory in each passing second. Sparse hues of blue manage to cling to some lingering clouds that have yet to meet the threateningly beautiful pink and orange sky.

Astarion reaches out from behind the heavy curtain and his darkness, towards the pillar of light that breaks into the privacy of your bedchamber. Pale fingertips dip hesitantly into the light, as if he could believe everything that has occurred over this past week has been only a dream. It takes but a moment for the evidence of his reality to meet him when his skin sparks and dusts under the light of day.

He flinches back, hissing lowly from the burning pain of it. Glaring down at his flexing hand as if the disdain in his eyes could change the fates that have turned the thread of his life into this ever-knotted thing. He’d never imagined he would miss having that damned illithid parasite in his head, yet here he was. Yearning to reach for morning again. Wishing to experience a dawn that may never welcome him again.

He hears the stirring moan, soft and drenched in exhaustion, and dares a glance away from his own skin and stinging regret. Stilling entirely, Astarion hopes he has not awoken you just yet. He does not wish for you to see him like this, in this state of self-pitiful detestation. Though he knows you may yet love him despite having seen it, showing the reality of his mind beyond his comfortable performances is easier said than done. Tension drips from his shoulders, if only a little bit, as he watches your body relax into the cushions with your blissfully ignorant slumber.

The sigh at his lips is shaky. Mournful. He looks back towards the sunlight and remembers how it had felt when it had forgotten how to punish him like this. He doesn’t know which is crueler: to have never felt it at all, or for it to be ripped away from him like this. In the brief time he was granted to finally walk in the sun again after the past two centuries, Astarion can’t help the fresh anger that bubbles up in him at the taking away of it. He didn’t deserve this--- any of it.

Truthfully, he has no clear memory of how the sun had felt to him when he was simply a mortal elf and not a spawn belonging to a master. It had been so long ago; memories fade over time when drenched in horror, he’s discovered well since. Still, something tells Astarion he loved the day even then as he did now. He’s certain he had always loved the heat of it--- the color.

The way it filters through your hair when you stand in the path of daylight, kissing the edges of your skin in a way he forever wished to share with it. It had been warmer and kinder to him than he had ever expected to receive, somewhat like you. You were undeniably beautiful in the light of day.

Even standing within the finality of the sunset of your journey together--- foes vanquished, coated in sweat and victory--- he had thought the same.

But nothing good ever lasts, he’s learned. At least, nothing but you. Astarion wonders if he would still grieve this much if he were to never have known the day at all. Would he know what he was missing? Would a piece of its cosmic heat have whispered of you to him, even then?

He can’t truly comprehend a world in which his fate had not become so intimately entangled with yours. Perhaps that is the worst part, how he knows he would always brave this feeling of loss to gain what he has with you. In the end of it all, he knows he has made the right choice to have this over the temptations of that infernal ritual’s power.

Despite that knowledge, Astarion truly hadn’t expected you to run after him when the lingering illithid protections dissipated from his being and the sun began its remorseless burning again. He had scampered away from the docks in an abject desperation, attempting to flee from the light’s betrayal. Astarion was the objectively faster party, but you had found him eventually--- you always seem to find him--- after he had taken to cowering behind wooden crates that cast a meager shadow of solace. He had been shaking, cradling himself, closed off entirely from the world as that sickeningly familiar taste of how things had been before--- back when he was still Cazador’s--- came flooding back onto his palate. His mind had become drenched in a fear he had thought could never claim him again.

You’d cut through all of it with your worried call of his name. Plunging him into the magical darkness you cast upon the both of you to shield him from the sun’s assault with such a thoroughness that not even you could see through it. His call of your own name sounded far too broken on his tongue for his own liking, but you’d followed the sound towards his outstretched arms all the same.

Dragging him up into yours, only a sliver of the calamity in his soul dissipated when you promised him blindly, “Come, quickly, I’ll get you someplace safe.”

Despite his better efforts, his voice shook as he allowed you to clumsily drape your cloak over his curls in darkness, unable to bring the deflecting humor to his voice that he so achingly wished would return, “Darling, you are a sight for sore eyes; or, you would be, I’m sure, if I could see you.”

“I told you this would come in handy,” you shot back, and he had been grateful for your effort at ignoring the bittersweet grief that so clearly drenched his soul in favor of reminding him of how he had teased you for spending a good amount of your gold on this very cloak when you’d all first arrived in the city.

His breath remained shallow, but his hand tightened over yours in what he hoped you knew was gratefulness when you finished ensuring the fabric had covered any of his exposed skin, “I shall never question any of your purchases again, on my honour.”

“Of course you will, Astarion,” he heard the slight worry in your voice as much as you tried to hide it. He felt the spell waning and with it the returning disorientation that even slight sunlight left him in. You had grasped his arm firmly and spoken with a confident determination that he suspected was as much for your comfort as it was for his, “Now, get ready to move quickly and keep your head down; the dark won’t last much longer.”

You were good for your promises, he’d learned over his time travelling with you, and that had brought some small comfort as the day reemerged before he’d had a chance to respond. Then, you were maneuvering him through the city, towards the darkness of Sharess’ Caress, with such a precision that he might think it more important than any quest you’ve had thus far if he hadn’t known better. Gripping him tightly the whole way, Astarion still has not dared tell you how grateful he was for it--- for you, surprising him against his better judgement every time with how you simply are.

It has been nearly a week now of you coming to his side in the night and yet some part of him still expected the other metaphorical shoe to drop. For you to come to your senses and tell him that you simply cannot carry on like this with him.

He wanted to believe you. Gods, how he wants it. Yet, he still felt like a fool to think he’s earned some love such as yours. He wants to believe he deserves the way you look at him like he can be what you see him to be. It’s too dangerous for his heart to invest in the thought that he maybe can. That maybe he is, already.

For you to look at him and tell him, “We’ll find it together. I promise we’ll find a way for you to walk in the sun again,” with such determination--- for you to be someone who genuinely believed the both of you could achieve it---

Well, you simply must be mad. He doesn’t know how else to explain these little ideas of yours.

Astarion figures you’ll continue to be as much a surprise to him as you’ve made a habit of in the past… and then there was that persistently annoying optimism of yours to contend with.

But this?

He doesn’t think that you understand the truth of the choice you’re making, to stay with him. To love him. How could you know it and still look upon him with such eager hopefulness as you do? He barely understands it at all himself, and he’s had centuries to come to terms with what he’s become. Forgive him if it’s a bit difficult to begin to understand just what “being something better than what Cazador made him” truly means.

He understands how much he wants you, though. He wants it all. The life that was stolen from him, the opportunities, but mostly for you to be there--- here. Where you’ve not wavered an inch from his side; you’ve given him no reason to think you plan on leaving anytime soon.

Why does he still fear it so much, though?

Some part of him had thought--- hoped foolishly, rather--- that killing Cazador would somehow fix two centuries of torment. Fix him. In the brief time after, he discovered that it hadn’t. In his elongated struggle, he worries it never will.

Nightmares still plague him, he still jumps at shadows, he still has thoughtless fear dart through his mind before he remembers again that his former master is well and truly dead. That simply existing in happiness was the rebellious proof of his victory over a man who he hopes will not haunt him forever. When he is with you, Astarion almost believes that Cazador won’t. It is some charm you have bewitched over him surely. Your ability to calm this chaos in him with soft eyes and patient hands that do not seek to own him, yet he eagerly chooses to belong there all the same.

Astarion still has trouble loving you like he knows you deserve to be loved. There are times when he can barely stand physical touch, though craves to want yours. And you understand the duality of the contradiction in him, taking only ever what he is willing to give.

Sometimes he thinks you too understanding, with little concern of how this affects you. He’s always baffled by how selfless you can be sometimes, particularly when you’re taking in strays. He has come to admit, if only to himself, that he does see the irony in his complaints. Moreso, he’s terrified of what will happen when that seemingly endless well of care you hold within you for others inevitably runs out.

What will happen when you can no longer bear his eccentricities? The compromises? The sacrifice that his double-edged love requires of you? Will there come a time when all he offers as part of being in this real love becomes too overwhelming?

Astarion had fallen in love with you in the easy warmth of sunlight. Looking upon you now as the dawn creeps against your sleeping form, his heart aches as he wonders if he can truly doom you to a life in his complicated darkness.

Selfishly, one thought consumes his mind--- he knows he wants to. He would want you, no matter the cost to you both. You have told him over and over again how you want the same but, Gods, he can’t figure out what he has done for this sliver of joy and it eats away at him in the dark. It’s unreasonable what he asks you to give him, but he’ll take it all the same. Bitterly he thinks, if he were a better man--- the man you see him to be--- he might even feel guilty for it.

For now, all he feels is the monstrous need to escape these racing thoughts in his head.

When will you walk away to join the sunlight for good? Hells forbid the answer his weary heart is preparing for ever be spoken from your lips.

Astarion hopes the day never comes when you choose to go where he cannot follow. He wants to spend all his days traipsing after you, wherever you may lead, no matter how much he may complain about it for show.

Astarion wants to spend all of it, whatever it may be, whatever he’s got left, with you. He’s terrified of the day that you change your mind on him. Fearful that you may one day decide these sleepless nights with a vampire spawn who can offer you nothing more than his undying love and sarcastic quips are nothing compared to the full life you could have with someone else. This theoretical, easy life in the sun that he dares to think he is stealing from you by loving you as he does.

Well, he supposes that reclaiming Cazador’s palace is always an option, rather than his other fantasy of burning it to the ground. Spending an eternity draping you in finery and keeping you to himself within a palace feels like something he should want, but he can’t help to think that it would be no better than making his love for you into a somewhat prettier cage.

More than he wants you, he needs you to freely want him. He’d be tempted to take up praying again if he had any faith that it could solidify your love for him forever, but deep down he doesn’t want heavenly intervention. He wants you to want to be with him--- to choose him willingly and without any regret for what the inevitable sacrifice will be. That understanding is, perhaps, what makes his heart swell with this bittersweet glory over all else.

You’ve told him as much and what your lips did not confess to him willingly, your body has whispered to his with an adoration that threatened to scorch him in much the same way of your beloved daylight. You’ve told him you will find him some cure for his darkness; you are set on performing a feat no one in history has ever achieved, all for him, but he wonders if it is as futile as the sun laboring to join the moon. Maybe he is destined to forever look upon you with the knowledge that when your bright, beckoning light inevitably burns out, he will be left with only his darkness, alone again--- this being the most horrible realization of all to have come to him tonight.

Hells, how desperately he wants to believe you, but Astarion has always had difficulty getting his hopes up. He hasn’t been known to bet on losing dogs, and he certainly doesn’t bet on his own odds these days.

But he figures you have more than enough hope for the both of you.

A minute smile quirks his troubled lips at that thought, watching your fingers twitch in your slumber. He shouldn’t doubt you as he does; you’ve given him everything. His freedom, his salvation--- even from himself, when he hadn’t known how much he needed it. Things he can never repay, and yet you’ve never asked him for a repayment. He owes you everything, but you’ve been adamant in tempering his sense of obligation. You’ve reminded him that everything he's done, he’s chosen for himself.

You’ve only ever asked him to love you, and that you have had for far longer than you know--- far before you ever actually plucked up the adorable courage to ask him for it.

He has come to love you more than he’s ever loved anything for as far back as he can remember. The depths of his adoration could scare even him with the raw vulnerability he is left with when it comes to you. How beautifully all his plans and plots for self-preservation have backfired upon him, though. He would not have you destroy his peace of mind in any other way.

Maybe one day, he’ll admit to you exactly when his nice, simple plan truly began to fall apart. The idea dances in his mind, of how you’ll react to that particular information. You’d hang on his every word, he thinks--- it would be rather pathetic of you, if he weren’t in much the same state.

Gripping the curtain, Astarion finally deems it time to push the budding light out of his darkness. If it is to be the only place he may have you for all of your days, he’ll make his darkness a sacred place. He decides he shall worship you in it--- all other gods have forsaken him already. Until the day his little hero saves him once again, he will indulge in this darkness with you.

The patriars nipping at your heels for guidance, the unwashed masses of the Gate clamoring for their glimpse of his hero, even your other traveling companions--- none of them shall invade upon this sanctuary.

He moves towards the bed, returning to you. Exhausted from a late day in the city and an even later night of enjoying his company, you’ve taken to claiming sleep when you can these days. The evidence of your labor rests in the dark circles under your eyes. He doesn’t think he could stop you from your philanthropic efforts assisting the city’s reconstruction even if he tried.

Still, right now, in these hours you are only his.

He dips his weight onto the bed and lays himself alongside you, pulling you tenderly against him as his lips graze your neck. Truly, he knows it is cruel to wake you, but he doesn’t know how he can manage to miss someone like this when you are right before him. It is as if his very soul yearns for you. He melts against the rhythmic flutter of your heart, and it sounds more like his home than the palace he has spent the last two hundred years in ever could.

Teeth graze against your carotid pulse, and you stir slightly. He hums into the soft warmth of your flesh, biting without intent to draw blood--- though the thought of it does cross his mind. He has never recovered from the taste of you. Cold fingers curl into your bare hip, dragging you slightly closer at the feeling of your waking movements.

Your pulse picks up against his lips. Astarion hears the patter of your heart in your ribs as his tongue drags up your throat towards your ear. Your breath hitches when his lips graze your jaw, but your eyes remain closed.

His lips twitch with mirth at your effort to have him do as he pleases.

“Quite the show, my little love, but I know you’re awake,” Astarion murmurs, slurred from the back of his throat like a man lost in thorough indulgence. Drunk with the scent of you on his skin, he leaves another faux bite on your jaw as you squirm beneath his assault.

“Shall you feed again, is that it?” yawning, your hand rubs at your eyes before you blink them open. When his hands run up your sides, your answering shiver reminds him of that first night he’d fed from you. Lit only by the campfire, you had allowed him to take too much before stopping him, even then.

He chuckles breathlessly, shifting the covers to invade your space more completely as you come back to your consciousness piece by piece, “As tempting as it is when you offer oh so nicely to be my treat, I hunger for something more satisfying this morn.”

“Ah,” you gasp from sleep-drenched shock, reacting on a delay as he brings his knee up to strategically push your legs open. Allowing you to feel the growing length of him through the thin linens between you, he levels you with his weight in a slow grind. Blinking up at him, your eyes focus in a darkness lit only by the dim glow of dawn beyond the curtains when he languidly rolls his hips against yours, “A-Astarion---!” He is watching you peculiarly, with a glint of some unreadable darkness in his eye that you can’t quite place. The breathless whimper at your lips sends that warmth of yours straight down his spine, “What’s gotten into you?”

He hasn’t had you since that night he had been so drenched with adoration that he’d taken you on his own grave and truly confessed how he loved you. Ever since then it had been battle and struggle, one after another, in your pursuit to stop the Absolute for good--- constantly ensnared in some new concern that stole any potential moment he could’ve used to steal you away from duty. After the final battle, Astarion had been so dejected by the return of his vampiric limitations, and you had been near constantly pulled away to assist the public---

There was the part of him that enjoyed indulging in the easy-going intimacy you offered him. The lack of pressure to perform was something he had not yet fully become accustomed to; a certain comfortability that has been cultivated between the two of you over the time you’ve been together. The sense of knowing that he is well and truly safe with you. Despite this understanding, he wished to freely want you in every way he was capable of.

And, oh, how he has come to want you over these last few days.

It was so mindlessly simple and immensely complex. He can barely put into words to describe the ways he wants this. Carnally, intimately, wholly, eternally--- nothing is a sufficient descriptor. Maybe in that vast library that your wizard, Gale, insists on boasting about showing him one of these days, Astarion will find an all-encompassing word for how he wants to have you forever.

As it stands currently, he settles on the comfortable seduction that has become second nature to him, “Actually, I was quite hoping to have gotten into you by now, lover.”

He’ll never get over how you melt for him; how you fall for every word. He watches the heat he stokes behind your eyes, the flex of your fingertips where they lay beside your head on the pillow.

Then, he descends upon you.

A practiced mouth parts yours as his cool hand takes the long route from your waist to your throat, indulging in the feeling of everything in-between. He sets your skin on edge in his wake, stirring a familiar feeling that he was entirely too good at urging from you to settle low in your stomach.

Gentle fingers find his hair and he feels the scrape of your nails against his scalp when he finally rests his hand on your throat to hook his thumb beneath your jaw, kissing you deeper. Passionately. As he always does, Astarion excels at unravelling you in every way, but you have no idea how much you manage to rebuild him with your every touch.

Your body welcomes him completely, urging him closer in ways he doubts you are consciously aware of. His hips rock into yours with each passing second that your heat spreads through him, feeling himself grow harder at your soft moans that meet his eager mouth. When you tug slightly at his hair, he lets a cautioning sound fall from his tongue onto yours, but you only nip defiant teeth at him in response.

And then he’s pushing your hands down, captured at the wrists by his. Pinning you to the pillows while he draws back just enough to catch the breath that is coming, labored, from the both of you.

“I’m sorr---” you begin, remorselessly.

“Telling a pretty lie won’t save you from me,” Astarion leans close once more, dragging his skin against your cheek as he kisses a trail towards your ear, feeling you test his grip at your wrists with a half-hearted tug. “I do believe all of this ‘Hero of Baldur’s Gate’ business has kept you from the more important happenings of our bedchamber. It would be a terrible pity if you continued to neglect your baser desires when I am in such a mood to indulge you.”

“Are you sure you’re talking about me?” you tease and he feigns a mild shock at the insinuation that his own behavior is the reason you’ve yet to bed him.

“I’ll have you know I am all indulgence, unlike you, darling hero,” but when he leans away, your eyes capture his. Reading him too easily, you know something is wrong as his carefully constructed mask falters, if only for an instant. It’s all you need, and Astarion regrets losing himself for the moment as he watches your softening gaze survey him.

“Is that so…?” You’re left guessing at what troubles him, “If you missed me, you could’ve just said so. The city can survive a few days.”

“Does the city know that?” it would be so easy to leave it there, to let you think you’ve figured him out once again. The anxiety in his veins won’t allow it, however, and his mouth speaks before his mind can instruct him to shut up, “Tell me, darling, that you won’t regret it someday… Of course, you won’t--- but I would like to hear it all the same.”

He looks down on you with growing vulnerability, confidence cracking. That detestable anxiety that has plagued him all evening coming to the forefront of his mind once more. Crimson irises swirl with a reckless uncertainty and it reminds you of how he had looked upon you when confessing his initial manipulations in those early days of your relationship.

“Regret what?” the confusion on your face nearly has him losing his nerve, but he chokes back the urge to dismiss you so quickly.

“I don’t want you to regret… choosing me,” his voice is clearly pained at the thought, cold hands at your wrists tightening like he is afraid you will run from him should he let you go. “Choosing us, I mean. I am well aware of all you shall endure if you spend each painstaking night of forever with me. It is a price I was willing to pay for my freedom, but you… I--- I know you have said that I am what you want, but I don’t want this to be one of your regrets. I don’t want you to resent me for keeping you here---”

Astarion was constantly preparing himself for the ending of all things; it is a part of his nature that you wish you could soothe with simple words alone. It will be much more difficult to satisfy than that and you know it, but you intend to spend all your years working towards earning his unwavering faith in you. This trust that he has so endearingly placed upon your soul, when every piece of his own screamed at you for doing the same. You doubt he knows how, if you were to someday break him in the way he so fears, you feel it would be as if you were destroying a part of yourself.

You cut off his rambling with a firm, “Astarion!” like it hurts you to hear him talk of himself in this way. His mouth snaps shut as you search him for the cause of this doubt, “Have I done something to make you think I will have these regrets you worry of?”

“Well, no, but---”

When you pull at his grip this time, he wordlessly releases you, only for you to reach up to him to drag him down into a tight embrace, “Then, why is your heart so troubled?”

“I---” he chokes on the word and how shallowly his lungs fill with you holding him so securely in your arms. Maybe it is better that you hold him so closely that you cannot see how he crumbles against you, dissolving into your grasp as if you are the only thing holding him together when he confesses, “I know what it is to live this life of darkness. You are so---! You deserve everything I can’t give you, starting with a life surrounded by the beauties of daylight.” His head turns, misty eyes catching your worried stare. He regrets the distress he’s caused you, but moreso he needs to hear your reassurances that his mind has gotten the better of him in this. He has never hoped so pitifully that he was wrong.

“Astarion,” heart swelling at the loss in his eyes; he looks to be mourning for you. As your thumb smoothes along the lines of his jaw, you come to realize the depth of his lingering sadness, “tell me, what good is the sun? The sun cannot care for me as you do or feel my love in return. A life of pure sunlight is worthless if it means living it without you.” You watch his breath catch in his chest, a stifled sob of his relief that he does not give into so easily.

His voice comes strained and nearly sounds like he’s on the verge of arguing with you, “You so obviously will miss it! You talk of finding a way for me to ‘walk in the sun again,’ but what if it’s impossible? What if we waste our lives searching for something that was never attainable? When you realize it, I wouldn’t have you look differently upon me.”

“Is that it? You think I talk about finding you a cure for my own benefit?” you scoff, before leaning towards him to place a soft kiss against frowning lips. He lingers in the middle ground as you depart just enough to demand he listen, “I only think of you, Astarion. Since the moment I first saw you, you’ve consumed my mind, body and soul. The sun was made for you--- and you’d know it if you ever had the privilege of seeing yourself in it. I only want for you to be happy.”

The arch of his brow tells you he still doesn’t fully believe you, despite his attempt at a half-hearted joke through the tightness in his throat, “I do quite enjoy when you call me beautiful.” It’s more than that, and you both know it, but if he were to ask you right now to name one thing about the light of day that you know you will sorely miss, it would be never seeing him in it again.

Rolling your eyes, you sigh at him with a lopsided smile, “Oh, my silly vampire, I love you much more than the sun. Without you, I would not want any of it. In fact, you can take the moon and stars, too, while you’re at it---”

He cuts you off with the eclipse of his mouth on yours, hands spread along your ribs to dig eager fingertips into your skin as he pulls you in as close as he can manage. The kiss is more languidly meaningful than the last; he intends on burning the feeling of you into his mind to replace the torrid thoughts there. If your words had not been enough to convince him, you hope the way you receive his body with your own can. Every part of you calls to him, blood and sinew, breath and bone, flesh and spirit.

Maybe it’s clear to him now, that you are as intertwined as the earth and sea. Should the tide of your soul ever depart from his shores, he can rest in the knowledge that your reunion is inevitable. As far as you are concerned, you are fated in such a way that not even the gods above or the devils below can alter the course of how your body fits beneath his--- how you shall always welcome him home.

You will have him, for as long as he will have you.

When he finally withdraws, he dares not go far, eyes blinking open slowly in a melancholy acceptance, “How can I be so fortunate?”

Brushing the mess of white curls behind his pointed ear, you hum at the shiver that runs through him when your fingertips graze the skin there, “I don’t know, but it’s about time things start going our way, don’t you think?”

“That it is,” his groaned agreement softens the worry in his eyes and he melts into the stroke of your hand against his temple.

“What you should be worrying about, Astarion, is whether you’ll regret choosing me when I’m all old, wrinkled, and grey,” it’s only half of a tease, and you hope he can’t see through the smile on your lips. The thought has been on your mind for some time after realizing that the two of you were going to somehow survive everything you’ve endured these past months.

“Darling,” he scoffs, nudging his nose with yours, soothing you as much as you do him, “knowing how well trouble finds you, we’ll both be long dead before either of us need worry much about that.” His lips graze yours, when he gives you his earnest answer, “For our sake, I hope to spend every moment we have left with you, watching every sunset and sunrise we are granted until the end takes us both.”

It's more complicated than that, but most real things usually are.

What isn’t complicated is how you feel beneath him, tongue tracing his teeth as he ravishes you. There is a completeness that comes in the way of his body fitting against yours. This reassurance in your touch will never falter. Even if your mind were to eventually escape you, he will know you were always his. If the world were to fall away in this moment and leave nothing but this room, Astarion would happily float out his days with you here forevermore.

He loves you. You love him.

He can scarcely comprehend anything else. Nothing else matters, he decides.

Nothing but your little shivers and whines when his fingers delve down the soft flesh of your stomach--- nothing but the arch of your body into the exploration of his touch. Nothing is worth more than his name whispered from your lips in that scandalous tone you reserve for these moments he sets your skin ablaze with teeth and tongue. You call to him like it were a prayer, but Astarion has hardly done anything so holy to warrant the way you say his name.

His sole inkling of faith is spent on the belief that he could live his whole life, his extended eternity, and never tire of loving you.

Soft and demanding partner within the thrill of his touch, you’ve learned, and his hands part you for him with that comforting understanding. Insistent and hesitant are your finger’s answer to him, digging into the nape of his neck as your head falls back against the pillows. Throat bared, it’s a wonder he doesn’t take another bite of you where he’s done so frequently before, but his attention is too acutely focused on the aching wetness between your thighs and his slender fingers.

Your lips part in an open moan of his name with how expertly he drags pleasure through your veins with each stroke within you, and he drags his teeth against your jaw in a growl, “You sweet, generous thing, always so ready for me.” Finally, he grants you some relief from his constant teasing, pressing the heel of his palm into your most sensitive nub. He allows you to seek your own pleasure with each desperate grind of yourself against the hand that continues to stroke pleasure from within, “Do you have any idea what the sight of you does to me? How dearly I long for us to never leave this bed?” The rasp of his voice has heat rushing up your spine, muddying your thoughts with each continuance of his lascivious tongue, “Leave the Gate to fend for itself, my dear, for I should have you like this always, stripped bare with me between your thighs.”

“Have me then, Astarion,” you really did purr for him in times like these and as much as he enjoys teasing you for it, he truly does relish the tone you get when he has drenched you in lust. His reaction at your words is groaned against your throat; he’s so near, but his hand retreats from you all the same. Never to neglect you for long, your lover is soon tearing at your smallclothes with an impatience that was not wholly unexpected from him.

He pushes his weight onto his forearm beside your head, using his other hand to tug at the laces of his loose breeches while glancing down between you. His eyes, rubies in the darkness, snap to yours and it is as if he has dipped you in firewine and struck a match. You burn for him, from the inside out and in such a way that you know he has thoroughly ruined you for anyone else. You are dripping with it, onto the sheets and the new press of his length against your core. His indulgent rub of himself through your folds is punctuated by him grinding into you, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling for but a moment.

Hair disheveled, you watch the beauty of him as he swallows deeply before capturing you in that piercing gaze once again, “I think I shall have you, now--- how did you just put it?” He crowds you with his arms, and your breath hitches at the feeling of him catching at your entrance when he murmurs lowly, deliberately, “Body and soul? Isn’t that right, my love?”

The way you drag him down into your kiss as he pushes into you is a messy, desperate thing, but it only seems to urge him on. You simply cannot seem to get close enough, though not for lack of trying, as he fills you gloriously. Astarion gasps into your mouth, staggering the push of his hips against yours, devouring you until he is left seated so deeply within you that you can hardly breathe. Then, hands around your thighs push your legs up, and he fits impossibly further.

You sob a moan against sharp fangs, deliriously full of him as he begins a slow fucking that is just enough to drive you into madness. Clambering for something to ground yourself, your nails dig into his back, scraping against the scars that remain there--- his hips snapping faster into you at the feeling of it.

He smears saliva across your jaw and down your throat, understanding your breathless, “Please, please,” for what it is. Permission.

Pain is so fleetingly brief that it may as well not exist at all, because when he bites down hard enough to draw blood from your skin, you are met so suddenly with a lightheaded ecstasy that is compounded by the pleasure he pulses through your body. Only the raw stretch of his every thrust keeps you from dissipating into delirium entirely. You are left keening beneath him as he dissolves into the taste of your blood, feeling his moans against your neck and the way his thrusts begin to match the drum of your heart in your ears. Astarion’s fingers drag in the space between, stopping only when he has found the base of his seat within you.

You feel your heart skip in your chest before he ceases the meal he’s made of you, licking your throat of the sloppy blood that threatens to yet spill. The iron of it meets the smell of sex in the air and he strokes his fingers against where he continuously plunges so deep within you; the wet sounds of your coupling may have been embarrassing if you weren’t so disoriented with the raw need of it. Your every nerve has fiercer concerns than your fickle dignity when he is working to make such a wonderful mess of you as this.

“Delicious,” Astarion groans into your shoulder, nipping and groaning against whatever he may get his mouth on as he feels your increasingly erratic clenching with his harshening pace. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, feeling him reach to draw tight circles at your clit as his own pace begins to falter. Neither of you will make it much further through this. He is left stained, begging upon your skin, “Come with me--- Hells, darling--- I need you to---"

Finding a grip in his hair allows you to drag his head sharply back to force his open-mouthed gaze to cast upon you once more, desperate to see him as he falls apart with you.

The sight of him is nearly enough for you to lose what little sense you’ve held to; while his complexion has turned slightly rosy with the assistance of your fresh blood, he still looks upon you with a consuming hunger all the same, “I love you.”

“Gods---!” dark eyes slam shut as he gasps out your name before all control leaves him in the mindless oblivion that he drags you down into alongside him. Scorching pleasure burns from the inside out as he loses himself in the trembling heat of your rapture, dissolving into a wild and erratic pace that bursts sparks of euphoria behind your eyes.

You are both left in the sticky aftermath of it, heaving mingling breaths as tension melts into you from where he collapses and lingers atop you. You hold him, content to have his softening length seated within you for all eternity as you let him continue his mindless caressing of your skin.

He has said it before, but it will never be enough, so he says it again in the hoarse aftermath of your lovemaking, “I love you, darling. You have made me so… happy.” Should you ever forget it, he is prepared to remind you for the rest of your days, “Thank you.”

Your own repeated declaration is sighed with a contentment that you hope will last a moment longer as your fingers take to stroking through his hair when he lays his head against your chest. Can he hear it from there, you wonder, how your heart whispers only the sweetest of sentiments for him? You like to think he can.

“Astarion?” you finally croak after some time, and he hums soft acknowledgement without much movement. “We should watch the next one together.”

“The next what, my treasure?”

“The next sunrise.”

There is a smile in his voice when he murmurs, “Always.”

#whoops forgot i had a taglist #reblog

99 notes · View notes

thranduilsperkybutt · 6 months

Text

☾ the gold & the rust ☼

Pic Sources: 1 | 2 | 3

Even standing within the finality of the sunset of your journey together--- foes vanquished, coated in sweat and victory--- he had thought the same.

Dragging him up into yours, only a sliver of the calamity in his soul dissipated when you promised him blindly, “Come, quickly, I’ll get you someplace safe.”

Well, you simply must be mad. He doesn’t know how else to explain these little ideas of yours.

Astarion figures you’ll continue to be as much a surprise to him as you’ve made a habit of in the past… and then there was that persistently annoying optimism of yours to contend with.

But this?

Why does he still fear it so much, though?

For now, all he feels is the monstrous need to escape these racing thoughts in his head.

When will you walk away to join the sunlight for good? Hells forbid the answer his weary heart is preparing for ever be spoken from your lips.

But he figures you have more than enough hope for the both of you.

You’ve only ever asked him to love you, and that you have had for far longer than you know--- far before you ever actually plucked up the adorable courage to ask him for it.

Still, right now, in these hours you are only his.

His lips twitch with mirth at your effort to have him do as he pleases.

And, oh, how he has come to want you over these last few days.

As it stands currently, he settles on the comfortable seduction that has become second nature to him, “Actually, I was quite hoping to have gotten into you by now, lover.”

He’ll never get over how you melt for him; how you fall for every word. He watches the heat he stokes behind your eyes, the flex of your fingertips where they lay beside your head on the pillow.

Then, he descends upon you.

And then he’s pushing your hands down, captured at the wrists by his. Pinning you to the pillows while he draws back just enough to catch the breath that is coming, labored, from the both of you.

“I’m sorr---” you begin, remorselessly.

“Are you sure you’re talking about me?” you tease and he feigns a mild shock at the insinuation that his own behavior is the reason you’ve yet to bed him.

“Is that so…?” You’re left guessing at what troubles him, “If you missed me, you could’ve just said so. The city can survive a few days.”

“Regret what?” the confusion on your face nearly has him losing his nerve, but he chokes back the urge to dismiss you so quickly.

“Well, no, but---”

When you pull at his grip this time, he wordlessly releases you, only for you to reach up to him to drag him down into a tight embrace, “Then, why is your heart so troubled?”

You will have him, for as long as he will have you.

When he finally withdraws, he dares not go far, eyes blinking open slowly in a melancholy acceptance, “How can I be so fortunate?”

“That it is,” his groaned agreement softens the worry in his eyes and he melts into the stroke of your hand against his temple.

It's more complicated than that, but most real things usually are.

He loves you. You love him.

He can scarcely comprehend anything else. Nothing else matters, he decides.

His sole inkling of faith is spent on the belief that he could live his whole life, his extended eternity, and never tire of loving you.

He smears saliva across your jaw and down your throat, understanding your breathless, “Please, please,” for what it is. Permission.

Finding a grip in his hair allows you to drag his head sharply back to force his open-mouthed gaze to cast upon you once more, desperate to see him as he falls apart with you.

“Astarion?” you finally croak after some time, and he hums soft acknowledgement without much movement. “We should watch the next one together.”

“The next what, my treasure?”

“The next sunrise.”

There is a smile in his voice when he murmurs, “Always.”

#astarion fanfic #astarion ancunin fanfic #baldurs gate 3 fanfic #baldurs gate 3 female reader insert #female reader insert #newstuff female reader insert #fanfiction #gif not mine #nsft #smut #author meg #fanfic by me

99 notes · View notes